3cPlatform

5 Catastrophic Web Mistakes

Death of the 5-Page Website

Are you considering building a website for your small business? Before you dive in and create one, it’s important that you make sure what you create today can grow and change as your business does.

Jennifer Shaheen of Entrepreneur magazine nailed it on the head when she said - When you decide to build a website avoid this statement: "I want a basic five-page website to get me started.”

Adobe Vs. Apple: Whose Side Are You On?

Adobe: We Love Apple, But They're Taking Away Freedom

Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock ("Our thoughts on open markets") are quoted as saying “We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

Should your company be tweeting?

Here are some questions to consider:

• Can you articulate the company vision in 140 characters or less, minus PR puffery and cliché?
• Can you give credit to cool, innovative, or thought-provoking ideas, even if coined by someone else?
• Are you willing to listen to and engage others, even if "others" = employees, customers, or activists?

Microsoft, Apple & Google Agree: “The Future Of The Web Is HTML5"

2010 is shaping up to be a big year for HTML5. Apple and Google have been advocates, and now software giant Microsoft is joining in. When Internet Explorer 9 comes out, it will support HTML5 and with its overwhelming dominance help make it common across the web (thunderous applause can actually be heard in the background if you hold the internet to your ear).

How To Drive Blog Readership

If you have a blog then you know that the biggest challenge next to content is readers. How do you get your audience, who are bombarded by hundreds (thousands?) of messages per day, to focus on your messages?

Of course your first responsibility is providing content your audience will actually find relevant and useful. Your second responsibility is to tell them, often, that your content exists.

See how your site compares to the 100 most popular sites on the internet

What does it take to be popular on the internet? You don’t need to be named Google, Facebook, or Amazon but searching, social networking, and shopping do rule the top 100 most visited sites on the internet. The BBC wanted to get an idea of how people use the internet and examined the 100 largest sites.

Goals to Reach For When Designing Your Next Website

Goals are important for website design, they help designers focus on the important things and not lose sight of what you want in the end.

The Often-Overlooked Traffic Power of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is often discussed as a powerful social networking tool, particularly for business professionals, employers, and jobseekers. What is not discussed as frequently is the site's ability to simply drive traffic to your site.

Seven Reasons Small Business Fail and How To Avoid Them

I’ve never taken the time to survey small business owners to find out why they started their own business and I would venture a guess to say they would all have unique answers in their own way. If you are thinking that you want to start a business just to make more money that may not be enough of a reason to get you through the tough and lean times..

The 10 Social Media Metrics Your Company Should Monitor

While companies are starting to adopt Social Media for online marketing campaigns, and even letting employees participate, the question of ROI (Return on Investment), along with doubts about what metrics to measure. How do you know how effective your social media campaigns are if you’re not measuring any metrics, let alone an overall ROI?

HP is starting to remind us a lot of Dell

Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s Dell was our PC vendor of choice. They put together a good quality PC but equally important they had great service and support when you needed them after the sale. Well that all went away in the name of profitability and we consequently found another company we liked better, HP.

7 Tips for Effective Marketing with Twitter

With millions of people connecting through social media, advertisers and marketers are hustling to get in on the action. In the past year we’ve seen many companies and brands attempt to step into this new world only to fail miserably. After analyzing many marketing flops on Twitter, the underlying issues are very apparent.

No Flash in Windows Mobile 7

Windows Mobile 7 will be revealed by Microsoft at Mobile World Congress today. Adobe has issued a statement confirming Windows Mobile 7 will not support Flash. Are we seeing the beginning of the end of Flash?

The SEO business is no stranger to the phrase 'snake oil'.

This, of course, doesn't mean that SEO efforts aren't legitimate and that there aren't reputable SEOs; SEO is extremely important for most online businesses and there are plenty of competent practitioners.

While there have always been plenty of inexperienced and incompetent practitioners passing themselves off as experts...

Mistakes Small Businesses Shouldn’t Make Online

Internet marketing is a young, unregulated industry with a very small number of legitimate educational opportunities which makes it look like a typical market for lemons, and a breeding ground for scammers.

Although complex, Internet marketing is not rocket science. A little education can go a long way in protection from scam and wrong Internet marketing decisions.

Is Your Social Status Affecting Your Google Search Ranking?

If you are one of those people still skeptical about the business uses of social media, you may be interested to know that Google's Social Search is no longer just an experiment. Though it does have the BETA tag on it, it is now mainstream. This is something we've all known would come sooner or later, but now it's here.

Why Flash Sucks

Let’s start with the Flash apologists. Whenever I say “Flash sucks” somebody points out that it doesn’t, but that some Flash developers truly suck and don’t know how to use it properly (and I know somewhere in Oregon, or Europe or wherever in the world he is right now, my old friend Weszt probably wants to kick me for saying that).

Improve your Quality Score

Quality score was introduced by search engines looking to receive maximum yield from advertising. By understanding the search engines’ approach, you can take steps to improve your ROI, independent of your bidding strategy.

Using Twitter for Business

Businesses are getting into the Twitter game, using it as a way to provide near-instantaneous customer service, to promote their services, or to maintain brand awareness by staying engaged in ongoing conversations about their products and their competitors’.

If you’re on Twitter just to keep up with friends and find the best parties, this article isn’t for you.

Backlinks – Why they are important and how to get them

The slimy SEO snake oil salesmen put to the side for a second, getting ranked by Google is about being authoritative on subject matter and one of the ways that Google measures authoritativeness is by backlinks. Backlinks are  links to your site as a reference or source of information.