Whether you have an existing business or you’re building one from the ground up (literally or, in the case of an ecommerce site, figuratively), you have to construct your brand. In this week’s blog, we’re going to take a look at the pieces of branding that, when fully formed and assembled, result in a solid brand. Let’s start the blueprint for your brand with the foundation: your logo. This is going to be your symbol. This one insignia is meant to represent your entire company. … Continue reading →

When it comes to the design of a website, the ultimate goal for any business is to have a website that is successful at persuading visitors to perform specific, desired actions. These actions, often called conversions, can include tangible behaviors such as ecommerce purchases, newsletter signups, or quote requests. In other cases these actions are less tangible, and therefore require the assistance of web metrics to determine when a goal has been reached, such as a longer average time on site or a lower bounce … Continue reading →

We at DBS>Interactive are very excited and honored to announce that our Founder and CEO Cyndi Masters has been selected as one of sixty local business leaders to comprise the 34th class of The Leadership Louisville Center’s flagship program Leadership Louisville.  With its mission to grow and connect a diverse network of leaders The Leadership Louisville Center has been an invaluable resource for leadership development and civic engagement within the community for more than 30 years. Over the next 10 months Cyndi will join a … Continue reading →

Better WP Security is a WordPress plugin that claims to apply the “best WordPress security features and techniques” with one-click activation.  The plugin has gained a lot of praise from the WordPress community, but what does it offer it’s users? Security-related plugins should always be inspected thoroughly because they often require extensive access to your site in order to be effective.  Security plugins are also notorious for being a weak facade for paranoia-based marketing ploys.  Put simply, be skeptical. Usability and Functionality (B+) The usability … Continue reading →

Today, DBS>Interactive announces its expansion to the West Coast, with new offices located in Burbank, California to serve the Los Angeles region. DBS is spreading excellence in innovative design, quality programming, and proven online marketing strategies by expanding our territory. DBS>Interactive’s CEO, Cyndi Masters is enthusiastic about the potential of the new Los Angeles office. “From our Louisville base, we’ve helped major brands and multinational corporations distinguish themselves within a crowded online marketplace. Our new Los Angeles office enables us to provide more personal contact … Continue reading →

On the first of the month, Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan alerted the SEO community to apparent accusations from Google that Bing was copying its search results. Although the accusations caused many to question the credibility of Bing, the explanation the public received for the similarities in results may be even more frightening for online privacy advocates. The copying allegations surfaced after a successful sting operation, in which Google artificially altered their algorithm to display irrelevant results for a select number of extremely obscure search … Continue reading →

Last January, Google introduced new features that add usefulness and purpose to search advertisements. The new features, named Adwords Extensions, expand the functionality of ads on Google’s search network by allowing advertisers to include additional information on products, locations, sitelinks, video, and click to call for mobile users. This update seems to be a win-win-win, helping not only Google, but advertisers and users as well. It helps Google because it strengthens their promise to provide the most relevant and quality information to their users. I … Continue reading →

Being just 25 and graduating at the ripe age of 23 (I’m a strong proponent that college isn’t college without a victory lap), I’ve nearly just begun my working career. Having worked with and for a variety of companies and clients in my short career, I have come to the conclusion that there is and always will be one, over-arching certainty in business. Regardless of industry, company size, company culture, or any other differentiating characteristic, acronyms and jargon will always dominate the office place. Nowhere … Continue reading →

Having failed to acquire Groupon late last year, the “Big G” (aka Google) made headlines earlier this week by announcing their plans to develop a copycat service that will compete head-on with the daily-deal giant. Groupon made quite the splash in the business world when it launched in November 2008. Originally concepted as a website to facilitate change through social media, Groupon founder, Andrew Mason, soon realized the potential that collective groups had as a promotional platform for local businesses. After just 16 months in … Continue reading →

With over 500 million users and growing daily, Facebook surpassed Google in 2010 as the most popular site on the Internet. Americans spent an average of 23% of their time online on social networking sites in 2010, compared to 16% in 2009. As usage of these social networks increased, businesses quickly realized how profitable Facebook Ads can be and begun incorporating them into their online marketing strategies. In one year’s time, Facebook Ads are predicted to have doubled from $665 million to $1.28 billion, and … Continue reading →

QR codes, otherwise known as quick response codes, are two-dimensional barcodes that when scanned by dedicated QR barcode readers or camera phones, instruct a user’s device to perform a dedicated action.  These actions can range from the simple task of opening a webpage to more difficult behaviors such as tracking inventory through a supply chain. First appearing in Japan in the mid-1990’s, QR codes have since been widely adopted by the majority of Asian and European markets.  Sadly, an inferior mobile infrastructure prevented the same … Continue reading →

I recently came across an article written by Ethan Marcotte on A List apart, which raised some interesting points about the future of web design.  One of the more difficult aspects of working with web design is that web pages, unlike print pages are not static.  Significant programming time has to be dedicated to writing code that is optimized for viewing on the entire range of resolutions, user preferences, and devices that Internet users utilize when viewing the web. While considered a nuisance to some, … Continue reading →

For those who are regular readers of the DBS blog, you have probably come to the realization that DBS strongly encourages businesses to consider utilizing search engine optimization and to a lesser degree, pay-per-click, when developing any online marketing campaign. On closer inspection of our blog however, we realized that we have not given one particular tactic the credit it rightfully deserves. Which tactic could we be speaking of? We are of course speaking of the wonderful world of Email. When developed using best practices, … Continue reading →

Flexible web design is a concept that has emerged in recent years that addresses many of the problems web designers encounter when designing for the seemingly endless range of devices, resolutions, and user preferences that individuals may use to view the web. Unlike print, where the layout is static, web design needs to be able to adapt to the object that is being viewed in – very much similar to how water effortlessly fills any shaped container that it is poured into. With alternate forms … Continue reading →

As an online marketer, I am constantly searching for new and innovative tools that I can use to gain more information about our clients and their target audiences. You can then imagine my delight earlier this week when Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Clues, a new demographic keyword research tool. In premise, it is very similar to Google Trends, however Yahoo! Clues gains a leg up on the competition by including additional demographic information. Yahoo Clues! will help marketers gain unique insight into the search behavior and … Continue reading →

How will we define success? It is one of the first questions a marketer should ask when starting a new project, and is arguably the most difficult to answer. An easier question to answer, but of no lesser importance, is how will we TRACK success? Identifying successes (and failures, for that matter) is absolutely impossible without the ability to track the performance of marketing initiatives over their lifetime. One of the major advantages that online marketing has over traditional marketing channels is the relative ease … Continue reading →

With the job of promoting websites for a living, online marketers tend to think we have it all figured out. We think we have a pretty good idea as to how your site’s visitors will experience your site. We think we know the calls to action that will inspire your visitors to click. We think we know the most logical way to organize information on your site. But the truth of the matter is we don’t know *Insert a four letter word of your choice … Continue reading →

Yesterday was a good day!  I think everyone enjoys ducking out of work for a day, but when you get to spend that time listening to some of the greatest online marketing thought-leaders drop knowledge bombs at the Content Marketing Summit in Louisville, KY, it takes the day to a whole other level. The first presenter of the day was Joe Pulizzi.  Joe is essentially the founder and fore-father of content marketing.  His website, Junta42, is described by Joe as the “E-harmony of content marketing”, … Continue reading →

We just wanted to take a moment to say congratulations to Cyndi Masters, DBS>Interactive’s Founder and President, for receiving the Mary Varga Award from the Brain Injury Alliance of Kentucky; on Friday, November 13. The Mary Varga Award is given to a brain injury survivor who has exemplified perseverance and courage, and who uses their experience and gifts to inspire and help others.

As the designer of the website for the 53rd Annual St. James Court Art Show, DBS Interactive will occupy one of 750 artist booths at the event to be held October 2-4 in Old Louisville.  Please stop by and learn about our design, programming, and internet-marketing capabilities OR simply enter our free contest for great prizes, including two tickets to the Actor’s Theater production of Dracula. Booth Number:  SJ-139 ((( stjames website )))

No doubt about it, the Internet is not kind to the innocent. There’s mischief lurking at every fork in the road.

Many of the common online dangers have a physical presence. They wind up as something on our systems that we can find and remove to regain a warm and fuzzy sense of safety—like a virus or spyware.

But there are stealthier threats out there that can sneak past even the best preventatives. It is highly likely that we have all been victimized without ever knowing it. Continue reading →

Social Media gets a lot of buzz both in and out of the internet marketing world. The news media seemingly makes constant reference to the use of Facebook or Twitter in connecting to large audiences, but most people don’t have a clear idea of how to get a return on investment (or ROI) from Social Media Marketing. So before we get into a sweeping, in-depth conversation about Social Media, we want to give you some perspective on how to initially approach the subject. The best … Continue reading →

Choosing the right colors for your web design is a decision that should not be taken lightly. Color is the first thing viewers notice on a webpage. It can evoke a variety of strong emotional reactions and each color can contain a different association. Although everyone’s experience and taste can vary greatly, there are still some basic tenants one can follow when working with color: Continue reading →

From Search Engine Results to the Social Media Sphere, your website will be the primary way you identify yourself online and should always be your first focus in any successful online marketing campaign. It is the easiest thing for you to manage or change and a “good” website makes you a more attractive target for link acquisition as well as internet partnerships. A refined website will help improve your Search Engine Rank, increase your sales and give you opportunities to engage your target online community. Continue reading →

Come check out our 2D animation “Who’s Running Your SEO.” It is a play on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” and is a great example of how DBS works together as a team, utilizing the resources of our design and marketing teams to build a engaging video. Continue reading →

Attempting to build your company’s online presence can be a daunting task, but we have good news for you: Just the fact you are visiting this blog is a good sign for your business. The internet is constantly evolving and if you are not actively looking for the best means to serve your company online, your results… Continue reading →

Modern technology is moving forward at an incredible rate. We all know someone who finally bought that new computer or video game system, only to despair when it was outdated just six months later. The internet seems to be developing even faster, building upon itself and always raising the standards of… Continue reading →

Open Source is one of those buzzwords that probably does not matter much to most people, but it is our bread and butter. Here at DBS, we use Open Source products to run our servers. We use it to build and manage websites. We use it for hosting, marketing campaigns and internal business applications… Continue reading →

As web designers, we’ve learned one very valuable lesson: creating a design that pleases everyone is impossible and in attempting to do so, we lose sight of the project’s original intentions.

Design is naturally subjective, eliciting different emotions based on the… Continue reading →