Author Archives: vincent

About Website Content Management Systems

Jan 19th, 2012    Web Design, Web Development

Website content management systems make it easy to update your website.

Most people understand the difference between creating a website from scratch and utilizing a content management system (CMS) but we still get questions asking us what a CMS is. Here’s a quick primer.

Not Familiar with HTML?

CMSs allows the non-technical and savvy HTML users the ability to easily make changes to the website anywhere and anytime.  Simply log-in, post your update using a rich text editor, and save your changes. Some content management systems even allow you to create new posts via email. Read More

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Facebook’s Social Graph – Insights From a Marital Klout War

Nov 23rd, 2011    Fun & Facts, Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Analytics

There is no magic button you can push to increase your influence.

Those of you that know me probably know me either through my position here at Alter Imaging as a internet marketer or through UNC Charlotte as a basic web design instructor.  I live online. I’m active on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. I write articles on internet marketing.  I’m actively working on growing my online influence.

My wife, however, is a different story.

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Optimizing for (not provided)

Nov 8th, 2011    Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Analytics

If you see "https" in your Google url, you are affected by this.

Last month Google made a significant announcement that literally shook the SEO community. To sum up, if a user is logged into Google, their default connection will now be secure. Not a big deal in itself, but search marketers now lose the ability to see which organic keywords brought traffic and led to transactions.

For example:

If someone searched for “web designers, in Charlotte NC” through a secure connection on Google, that traffic would now be lumped in to the (not provided) category.

We know they came from Google. We just don’t know what they typed into Google to get to us. Read More

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The Outdated “Home” Button

Oct 27th, 2011    Design, Internet Marketing, Web Design

Time to abandon the idea of making "Home" primary in your navigation.

When we develop a new website, one of the first steps our account managers take is to develop the site map. The purpose of the site map is to outline the hierarchy of the website pages and how they will relate to each other. Invariably, we have clients who want to put the ‘Home’ button as the first item in their main navigation. Read More

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Making the Complex Simple

Oct 13th, 2011    Internet Marketing, Marketing

There were MP3 players before the iPod but Apple made listening to music simple.

Last week, when Steve Jobs passed away, many of us weighed in on his accomplishments. As a lifetime Mac user (I started with a Mac Classic in 1990), the one characteristic that stood out to me was his innate ability to make complex processes simple. Yes, you pay a premium for Apple products but you know they will work right out of the box with an easy learning curve. Read More

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Be You, Not a Bot

Sep 28th, 2011    Social Media Marketing

The internet creates an amazing amount of potential. Communication is digitally networked and enhanced. While new channels and platforms fragment our intended audience, technology ensures each individual can choose their media format to receive the message. Done right, you can reach more people in more intimate ways.

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Correlating FB Likes with SEO Metrics

Aug 3rd, 2011    Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing

From Tripl.com's infographic.

An interesting infographic was published the other week from Tripl.com entitled “The Social Travel Solution“. Good stuff, especially if you are a stats nerd. About halfway down the infographic, they state that SouthWest Airlines is the king of social media and them proceed to rank the airlines in terms of number of Facebook likes.

While Tripl was obviously analyzing this from a social media perspective, we thought it would be interesting to look at the social metrics and see how they correlate to search engine optimization metrics. Read More

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Four Considerations for Your Internet Marketing Budget

Aug 3rd, 2011    Internet Marketing

Are you spending too much or not enough on internet marketing to have the biggest impact? Is the money you are spending well-invested, or could you put it to better use elsewhere?

Believe it or not, these are great questions be wrestling with, since they mean that you’re fully engaged in your business and looking for ways to run more efficiently. When it comes to finding answers, however, things can be murky. That’s because there is no “perfect” online marketing budget – just what works for you in your circumstances. Read More

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Post-Click Marketing’s Role in SEO

Jul 5th, 2011    Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Analytics

We regularly receive inquiries about Alter Imaging’s Charlotte SEO services and they typically start with “Can you get my site to rank for [insert keyword phrase here]. You probably wouldn’t be reading this blog if you weren’t at least somewhat interested in having your site rank on Google’s first page for one or more high-traffic keywords. So here’s a quick question: why is that important to you?

What we’re getting at here is that a lot of small business owners we meet with seem to lose track of the point somewhere during the SEO process. In fact, your web design team can even be part of the problem – we are as obsessed with hits, on page times, and other metrics as anyone else. Read More

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Google’s New Plus One Service

Jun 30th, 2011    Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing

See that little button to the left? That’s new from Google; it’s called Plus One (+1) and the world of internet marketing is buzzing. This is Google’s latest foray into social media after failing miserably with Google Wave and the privacy nightmare that was/is Google Buzz. At Alter Imaging, we took an early test drive of the new Plus One service by signing up and installing the +1 buttons across our site. We’ve only begun but here’s what we’ve discovered so far:

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