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Jul 27, 2012

Everything you need to know about QR Codes

Jul 26, 2012

Planning to upgrade your mac?

Using LinkedIn? Here is an idea.

Fully explained

Take a look

What are QR Codes and how to use them

What are QR Codes (abbreviated from Quick Response Code)?

We see them every where, advertising posters, real estate signs, magazines and many more places. QR codes started being used in the automobile industry and quickly become popular outside the industry due to its fast readability and large storage capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes. In most cases you see them as black and white, but they don’t have to be like that. What it needs is high contrast so the scanner can read it, but any colour will work with it. No need to mess with the nice design work of an ad by plastering the ugly QR code on the corner.

How to use them?

Today the main purpose is to add more information or a call to action by directing the user to a website (and please let it be mobile formatted one), where more information is offered.
Best thing about sending the person to a website landing page is that you can track the scans for that particular QR Code. You can see if one QR code is working better than others.
Here is an article on how to do it: http://bit.ly/O9s6ok

Here’s a list of features that QR-code readers are generally equipped with:

Displaying text
Setting up system alerts
Adding events to calendars
Opening URLs in a browser
Collecting contact information (including vCards)
Sending email
Sending text messages (SMS)
Geolocation
Calling other phones
Connecting to Wi-Fi hotspot
Do a like on a Facebook Page

Browser have been able to launch and load email clients by just clicking on a email link for years now. With smarphones there is a whole bunch of things you can do combining QR codes with URI Schemes (Uniform Resource Identifier).

More on URI schemes: http://bit.ly/O9s53P

Here’s a list of some cool things that are possible:

Launching native Apple apps (Mail, Phone, FaceTime, Text, Map, YouTube and iTunes)
Running JavaScript bookmarklets
Opening certain IM clients (Skype, AIM, MSN, GTalk, ICQ and Yahoo)
Opening special applications (IRC tools, feed readers, FTP clients and SVN repositories)
Opening any application that registers a URI scheme when it installs on a platform

What makes this particular technique so amazing is that it doesn’t rely on the QR-code reader being very advanced; all it needs is for the app creator (be it Skype, Evernote or Angry Birds) you want to launch and interface with to use the system development API to register a URI scheme.

Who should use them?

Any business having a print ad campaign can enhance the ads by providing more meaningful information on the product or service. For example real estate sign in front of the house for sale is an excellent case for a QR Code. Now by scanning the QR Code on the for sale sign the person is able to find more about the property by landing on the property detail page the agent prepared in advance. Retailers could add the code on the product display to instructional video of the product they are looking to purchase, and the list goes on.

Are they a Fad?

There are lot of people saying they are because:

They are ugly
True but they don’t have to be. They only need high contrast on any colour.
You need a QR code app to read them
This is correct, but so does everything you want to do with your phone. It is not a big thing to ask a user to download the app to scan the QR code.
There are too many apps for sanding QR codes
When QR codes become more popular phones will come with QR code scanners in their OS. Just like Apple added the Twitter to iOS 5.
Loading the website takes too long.
It is just a matter of time when Web access for mobiles becomes faster; G4 anyone?

Summary

Just like with any other new technology there is a potential to reach out and give your audience more than just an ad. There are good cases for both B2C and B2B businesses for using QR Codes on their print material. Just make sure is something the experience is something the user expects, if it is a lading page on your website or blog make sure it is mobile optimized and track the scans.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/LOmA4X are QR Codes and how to use them

Going mobile all the way.

Check it out, our mobile website has a new look

AM900 interviews Paul and @ScottTalkCHML asks him about Tablets. Listen!

YWD has both Desktop and Mobile XML sitemaps

On revamping our mobile website

www.yourwebdepartment.com as seen on mobile

The vast majority of people visit our public website using a computer or tablet, that’s true. But we’ve noticed that more are starting to come to us straight from their mobile. At Your Web Department we’re a small business ourselves, so we decided to make our mobile website work for us. How? Here’s what we just did:

We figured out the main objectives of our mobile website

Like in every website, when it comes to our mobile website the first thing we did was examine what we hope to achieve with it. Basically, we believe it is:

Get people to find us
No point in al this exercise if people can’t find us when they google us. So our Home page has some very concise copy describing what we do, which helps Google find us. And we’ve used YWD’s new feature that lets you submit a separate Google XML Sitemap for Mobile.
Show them our offering
We placed a useful YouTube video explaining how it works, which they can watch from their phones.
Help them get started
We included a form - which we easily customized for the mobile’s small viewport - so people can signup to get a website (for which they don’t pay anything until they go live) right from there.
Make it easy for them to reach us
Frequently, all people want is to be able to call us directly from the phone or reach us by email. So we’ve included a page with our contact info, tool-free number, etc.

Sounds like common sense, no?

We reduced the content on mobile to a minimum

Have you tried navigating through lots of pages of content on your iPhone or Android-based phone? Not fun. No matter how legible you can make text appear using the mobile-optimized version of your website that’s supplied for free with Your Web Department, it’s still kind of hard to read tons of material at small font sizes.

Although our ‘regular’ website has dozens of pages, its handheld version has now literally just a handful (no pun intended). YWD makes it very easy to target content for different devices on the same domain - great for Search Engine Optimization - which gives you virtually two websites in one. All we had to do was set most pages for computer/tablet display only, and just a few for mobile. You can do that without the need to do any programming.

We adopted a minimalist design approach

Your mobile website design and navigation should be simple. By restricting content and images to a minimum, the pages download extremely fast. The buttons on the Home page are huge - you can’t really miss them now, can you? - and tapping on the banner (also enlarged) takes you back to Home.

We assume that the mobile website to change

A CMS like Your Web Department makes it extremely easy to try new things, gauge their success, adjust again, etc. A YWD website is not static brochureware. It’s not set either in stone or bytes. We expect to add some (but not too much) content over the next few days and keep tweaking the design.

In the meantime, please tell us what you think!

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/NRfu1p revamping our mobile website

Jul 23, 2012

How to submit a Google XML Sitemap file for your website and get more traffic

A Google XML Sitemap can be a very useful tool in your overall SEO strategy. It’s a file listing all the pages in your website that you can submit to Google, helping it index your website faster and more efficiently, and ultimately bring in more traffic.

Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.

You can now submit an XML Sitemap for Mobile too

Your Web Department’s ‘Google XML Sitemap’ tool automatically generates the XML Sitemap file for you, so you can then submit it to Google. And if your website has a mobile-optimized version you can submit a Google XML Sitemap for Mobile as well.

YWD lets the same domain serve websites with distinct page structures, so submitting a separate XML for the mobile version of a website can be very helpful. It’s a unique feature of the YWD platform, as Google has just recently implemented support for a separate Sitemap for Mobile.

The steps

Pasting the XML Sitemap into Google

Your website must be live and have at least one published page. YWD will only generate the XML Sitemap file about 24 hours after your website goes live.
In YWD, go to Tools / Google XML Sitemap and can copy the path(s) to the Sitemap file(s) and then submit it(them) to Google. Notice that YWD lets you submit a separate XML SItemap for Mobile. If you have a mobile-optimized website, you should use that option.
Login to your Google Webmaster Account (if your website has Google Analytics, Google Adsense or Google Search, you can use the same Google account). If you don’t have one, you can create one for free on www.google.com/accounts.
Click the name of your website, navigate to Optimization / Sitemaps and click the ADD/TEST SITEMAP button. Paste the path to the XML file that you copied from YWD. Repeat the process for the XML Sitemap for Mobile file if you have a mobile-optimized website.

That’s it.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/P4rpez to submit a Google XML Sitemap file for your website and get more traffic

Jul 23, 2012

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Are tablets going to take over from desktop computers - the interview

Scott Thompson of AM900 gave me a call the other day to talk about the future of desktop computers versus iPad-style tablets and the future of RIM. Of course, like every digital-age pundit I’m qualified to talk about anything I want to even topics I don’t understand. That’s what makes the Interent so wonderful, but I did once talk with a father whose son was also on the same soccer team as my son, and he worked for RIM, so that makes me an expert.

Have a listen.

Listen to this episode

If the player doesn’t work, click on this link to hear it at podbean.

Small Business learning: While you can upload and link audio in Your Web Department, go out and post them on YouTube (with a branded slate-still image) or create a library of audio events on sites like podbean.com as we have done here. The other benefit is that PodBean will publish your podcast to iTunes and other places.

And finally, anytime you can get content for a post, use it!

Related Posts:
How to publish podcasts using Podbean
How to record and edit a podcast using Audicity (cross platform audio editor-free)

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/MWiZ4Z tablets going to take over from desktop computers - the interview

Jul 23, 2012

Good analysis by Mark Huges

Jul 21, 2012

Latest tweet collection: all about the business website

Jul 21, 2012

My latest roundup: all about the business website

Jul 20, 2012

Week 67 @ywd tweets weekly roundup

This past week: Your Web Department is the best tool out there for your business website. In today’s world the brochure style website does not work anymore, expectations are that any business website has to have up to date information, be mobile friendly and easily found information that the audience wants. The business website should also have SEO capabilities, the ability to track traffic and integrate social media widgets for your audience to share the pages they find interesting. Your business website needs to be the hub for your marketing strategy, the one place were you can own the message for your business and YWD can do all that for you. This week’s tweet collection is all about the business website of the 21st century.

RT @ywdtips: How to get statistics for your business website for free: http://ht.ly/cgZw6
Google is the king of search, and they want to keep that position for years to come. This is why they provides this type of tool for free. With YWD it is very easy to integrate Google Analytics tracking code into your website, we also provide a XML site map for both desktop and mobile websites. The XML site map helps Google to better index your website.

The Carlton Club just launched their new redesign check it out -> http://ow.ly/ch58x
The Carlton Club is in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Chicago, a Four Seasons Hotel. This long time YWD client went through a successful redesign, with all previous links remaining the same - so the redesign didn’t negatively impact search.

FreinMeister Air Brake Education & Teaching resources just launched their new website on YWD Take a look-> http://ow.ly/ch5OA
Another great case study of how quickly a business can launch a great looking website on our platform.

YWD has a Mobile only XML sitemap for your website, target mobile search on your website-> http://ow.ly/chbjp
All experts (and really you don’t need to be an expert to agree with this) are saying that mobile web is the future. Since the content for your mobile audience needs to be different form your desktop website, why not index it separately from your main website. Google has added the Mobile XML site map to their ‘Webmaster tools’, and we just took advantage of this opportunity. Now when doing a web search on a smartphone links for your mobile website will appear in the search results. One more way to not disappoint the mobile user.

You have a choice! -> RT @techvibes: Firefox Sets Sights on the Next Frontier
Just like on you PC, you don’t have to stick to the browser that comes as default on your phone or tablet. Firefox raised the bar for user experience on the desktop computer, now they trying to do the same on mobile.

Is #strategy still worth a business owner’s time? http://ow.ly/c9jxx
More than ever, read why.

Here, even Herbert thinks is a good idea-> Advantages of a Mobile-ready Website
70% of businesses still do not have a mobile version of their website. Don’t you want to be ahead of your competition by being the first to have a mobile ready website?

YWD team member Sam Heron shares forms best practices with YWD-> Forms are a window to (the website’s) soul
At YWD we put a lot of effort in developing (development is always ongoing at YWD) the forms manager. Read why forms can be a powerful tool for your business.

Do you use Flipboard? best way to browse trough your social feed-> How Flipboard is changing everything
I have to admit I am big fan of Flipboard and I do recommend it to everyone I know. It is the best way to read all your social media feeds, they are all presented in magazine style format. I believe that it will change the way we consume news and educational material.

Next Friday I’ll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Sign up now or try it for free at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/O33JY2 67 @ywd tweets weekly roundup

Jul 20, 2012

This is not good

Today!

YWD team member Sam Heron shares forms best practices with YWD

Forms are a window to (the website's) soul

Self-serve answers

Everyone’s searching for the answer (I know I am) so for today’s article let’s say we found it. One step further, let’s say it’s a form. A form on your website might seem like a little thing, but it says so much about your company, your outlook, and your business practices that you might not even realize you are saying.

Forms are everywhere. A website without a form is a canoe without a paddle. We convert leads with forms. We grow user lists with forms. They help us be personal without being personally there. For everything they do they CANNOT be an afterthought.

How do I structure a good form?

What are you going to do with it? Now answering a question with a question is generally bad manners but it gives us a place to start. If your form is going to be feeding some kind of database (and it should be - See YWD’s Mailchimp integration) then you want to separate first and last names. Contact information is also (obviously) important. After that you can decide to get as much information out of folks as you want. Various studies have shown that a shorter form is not more readily filled out, so feel free to get industry specific information from your visitors.

One thing to think about, there’s an entire science devoted to the structuring of questions. Your use of wording, tone, and clarity all play into how your visitor will see the form experience, and your company, and your brand by extension. Take the time to think about what informaiton you need, and how you’re going to ask for it.

And now, everything else

Now that you have something that looks like a form, with fields - properly formatted, you need to build everything around the form, the behavior and then get people TO the form. The ubiquitious ‘Contact’ form is the most common form out there, but forms can do so much more. Campaigns with hidden landing pages (and unique forms) can be created to track specific initiatives. In a system like YWD there is no limit to the number of forms you can create. Take advantage of it.

The payoff

If someone fills out the form, trusts you with their personal information, now you need to deal with this responsibly, and give something back. Immediately when someone fills out a form they are typically shown a ‘thank you’ message or are redirected to a page with similar messaging. I have filled out lots of forms that promised 48 hour response time only to hear for the company a week later. Be responsible with your follow-ups. If someone puts themselves forward as a lead for your business, do what you promised and follow-up promptly.

A great way to get people to fill out your form in the first place (to get this whole process started) is to offer them something upon completion. The best ‘value-add’ is a document of some kind related to your business, or whitepaper. These days it costs nothing to create a 3-5 page document, brand it with your company’s logo/header and save and upload it to your site as a PDF. Companies like Hubspot have made a gigantic business of using this method to drive traffic to websites.

Creating froms in YWD is SO easy. Everything is laid out step-by-step. You can even clone forms on your site to create unique forms for different pages or campaigns.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Sign up now or try it for free at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/NTx1o9 are a window to (the website’s) soul

The Carlton Club in the Ritz-Calton Hotel in Chicago

GO iPad, GO!

Great photography from our clients websites - Part IV

The Carlton Club in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Chicago is a destination club that offers the ambiance of an urban spa, and an executive fitness center, along with the luxury of private dining and meeting facilities, all located in Chicago’s smartest neighborhood. With their magnificent location and luxurious body treatments and services, The Spa at The Carlton Club is the perfect place to unwind, relax and rejuvenate yourself.

A client of Your Web Department since 2008, the Carlton Club website recently went through a complete redesign process. Making use of stunning photography, the new website just went live to rave reviews. The sophistication of the brand is reinforced in every page and every photo, with the elegant use of colours and the serene composition. The human element permeates most of the shots, making the content more approachable.

The website is easy to navigate, very fast and search engine-optimized, as are all Your Web Department websites which include the AT&T Performing Arts Center, The Toronto Design Exchange, PricewaterhouseCoopers and thousands of other business websites of all sizes throughout the world.

The website was created using YWD’s website building platform and its powerful Content Management System (CMS) without the need to hire a programmer or write a single line of code. Content sliders and other interactive elements were seamlessly integrated into the design, and the content can be easily updated directly by the client.

Here are a few examples of the great photographic work you can find throughout The Carlton Club website.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/MI4iTO photography from our clients websites - Part IV

Great potography from our clients websites - Part IV

The Carlton Club in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Chicago is a destination club that offers the ambiance of an urban spa, and an executive fitness center, along with the luxury of private dining and meeting facilities, all located in Chicago’s smartest neighborhood. With their magnificent location and facilities and luxurious body treatments and services, The Spa at The Carlton Club is the perfect place to unwind, relax and rejuvenate yourself.

A client of Your Web Department since 2008, the Carlton Club website recently went through a complete redesign process. Making use of stunning photography, the new website just went live to rave reviews. The sophistication of the brand is reinforced in every page and every photo, with the elegant use of colours and the serene composition. The human element permeates most of the shots, making the layouts more approachable. The website is easy to navigate, very fast and search engine-optimized, as are all Your Web Department websites which include the AT&T Performing Arts Center, The Toronto Design Exchange, PricewaterhouseCoopers/Debt Solutions and thousands of other business websites throughout the world.

The website was created using YWD’s website building platform and its powerful Content Management System (CMS) without the need to hire a programmer or write a single line of code. Content sliders and other interactive elements were seamlessly integrated into the design, achieving outstanding results.

Here are a few examples of the great photographic work you can find throughout The Carlton Club website.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/MI4iTO potography from our clients websites - Part IV

www.anymeeting.com/ywdwebinar1

Paul’s gets interviewed on Scott Thompson show!

Jul 17, 2012

Our first FREE webinar is today at 2pm EST. Join in!

The Your Web Department people will show
how you can design, build and update
a website for your business in minutes.

Open to all: no registration required

Simply click the link below
on Tuesday 2pm EST and join in

More info? Contact Your Web Department otherwise, see you then!

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/MgAQHD first FREE webinar is today at 2pm EST. Join in!

Jul 17, 2012

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Want to help?

Jul 17, 2012

When is it too late to add a recorded interview to your blog?

This interview with Scott Thompson of AM900 took place June 19th. Just like not wearing white pants in October, what is the etiquette for how quickly one must make available radio or TV interviews online? Is there a freshness factor in social media spheres? Should I have posted the interview when it was HOT and FRESH? Perhaps.

The discussion was about tablets and Microsoft’s Space tablet in particular. We also talked about how computer sales have plummeted due to the iPad. Is it a fad? Is it a new category of computer? I think so. Listen to the interview.

Listen to this episode

Everything seems to be moving at such a fast pace. Everything is a rush. Social media has only exacerbated it. ‘OMG I’ve only got two blog posts up today and 37 Tweets. I’m short my quota!!!’

I asked around the Twitterverse and the consensus was that, I’m okay. I should post it but don’t make it look like I did it now. Apparently there is social media etiquette at work.

Small Business learning: While you can upload and link audio in Your Web Department, go out and post them on YouTube (with a branded slate-still image) or create a library of audio events on sites like podbean.com as we have done here. The other benefit is that PodBean will publish your podcast to iTunes and other places.

And finally, anytime you can get content for a post, use it!

Related Posts:
How to publish podcasts using Podbean

How to record and edit a podcast using Audicity (cross platform audio editor-free)

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/LmetMQ is it too late to add a recorded interview to your blog?

FreinMeister Air Brake Education & Teaching resources just launched their new website on YWD Take a look

On YWD setting up Google Analytics is a breeze.

The Carlton Club just launched their new redesign. Take a look

How to get statistics for your business website for free

I’m sure you’d like to know how many people are visiting your website, where they’re coming from, which pages attract more people, etc. I bet you’d like to be able to track its evolution over time, see which content changes work and which doesn’t, and so on. Wouldn’t you? Probably the easiest way to achieve that is to use Google Analytics.

According to Google itself:

‘Google Analytics is a free product that tracks your website and gives detailed statistics about visitors to your website. For example, Analytics can show you how people found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their visitor experience. With this information, you can improve your website return on investment, increase conversions, and make more money on the web.’

With a Content Management System (CMS) like Your Web Department you have all the tools you need at your disposal to benefit from what Google Analytics can offer you, for free (don’t feel guilty, I hear Google is doing just fine).

Google has come up with some convoluted interfaces for Analytics, so I thought you would appreciate a little help with that.

Note: your website needs to be live so Google Analytics can start tracking it. In the case of YWD you can get started building your website for free and only start paying when you’re ready to go live, of course. So you may postpone implementing Analytics as described below until you’re ready to go live.

Setting up Google Analytics
1. Signing up for Google Analytics

You will need a free Google Account. If you have GMail or Google+ for instance you already have one. If you don’t have any Google Accounts, you you can create one here.

2. Adding your website to your Analytics account

You then need to add your website to your Analytics account. Within this context, Google calls websites ‘Web Properties’ (don’t we all love those geeks?).?There’s help from Google on how to add your website to your account here.

3. Getting the tracking code for your website

The tracking code is what collects data from your website each time a page loads, so Google Analytics can well, keep track of it for you. In order to get your tracking code, click on the Admin button of the Analytics interface…

…then click on the Tracking Code tab and copy the whole code you see there:

4. Adding the tracking code to your website

That’s the part that’s really simple, because it’s in Your Web Department. Go to Tools / Google Analytics and paste the code there. That’s it!

Checking your stats

You can get your reports directly by logging into to your Google Analytics account, and there are plenty of good tutorials on how to interpret your Analytics stats. Now, if all you want to do is check some basic metrics - the number of visitors, for instance - straight from your phone at any time, then you can download one of several free apps available out there.

For example, this app is called Dashboard for Google Analytics and provides some basic but very useful information - also known as key performance indicators (KPI) - about your website traffic, which it retrieves from your Analytics account, straight into your iPhone:

It’s totally free; you can get more info on this app here.

There are of course many other apps and services, which either for free or through a ‘pro’ version will give you more sophisticated reports and analysis, so you can choose the one that best fits your needs and your budget.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/Nd3hYY to get statistics for your business website for free

My Friday Roundup!

The latest news from YWD

It’s Friday and my tweets roundup is out Lots about social marketing and mobile!

Jul 13, 2012

Week 66 @ywd tweets weekly roundup

This past week: As usual I looked at posts and articles about social media (or should it be called social marketing?) for SMBs. It is still the best way to promote your business online, this doesn’t mean that it should replace your traditional marketing strategy or that you should do one or the other for that matter. Social Marketing should be aligned and part of your overall marketing plan. The other topic I looked at is Mobile - 70% of small businesses still don’t have a mobile version of their websites. Hard to believe when the incredible rate of smartphone adoption has been so well publicized. Today there is no doubt that your customers are looking for your business on their smartphones. If your website does not display correctly on their phone, they will move to the next business that does. YWD provides one of the best mobile solutions out there. There are many mobile solution offerings on the web with different functionality and price points, including free; the point is that you have choices and should get your mobile version of your website up and running.

Pinterest and retailers a good match!-> Why a Lot of Businesses are Pushing Campaigns on Pinterest
Pinterest popularity is still growing and it is proving to be a fantastic traffic generator. This post shows interesting ideas on how to stand out from the crowd.

Really, why? -> Why are mobile ads not linking to mobile sites?
This is something you see not only in mobile ads, but with QR Codes as well. It is pretty simple if I’m using my phone to tap on an ad or scan a QR code - my expectation is that I will be taken to the mobile version of the related website. There isn’t a bigger turn off than to land on a full website and try to navigate it in the tiny screen of a smart phone.

Real simple -> How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business
Basic points that give you a solid base to build your business presence on Facebook.

So true! -> It’s never been easier (and important) to have a mobile website for your business
Great post from Flavio Mester, YWD team member. It proves my point about mobile that I made in the introduction.

Speaking engagements ideas -> Nothing Brings You Clients Like Speaking
As I mentioned above, traditional marketing ideas are valid even during this surge of social media networks. Speaking to groups of people is a powerful way to influence your potential customers. This post has very good ideas on how to go about getting those speaking gigs.

I believe YWD beats all systems mentioned on this post-> 5 Reasons Why You Need a Content Managed Website
Having your website on a CMS (content management system) is a must for any business. The idea of having to rely on a programer to make changes to the content of your website is just a thing of the past. You have to have the ability to change the content of your website when you need to, and you should be able to do this without any knowledge of programming. This is the web of the new millennium, and as I mentioned on my tweet you are not going to find a better system than Your Web Department for managing your website. You don’t have to take my word for it, take a look for yourself.

Ideas on how to make the most out of them-> How To Use Facebook Offers To Promote Your Business
You must have heard of Facebook Offers or at least seen them on your Facebook feed. This post has great tips on how to maximize them.

Running an client email list? @HubSpot guide-> Which Links in Your Email Marketing Get the Most Clicks?
Great guide from HubSpot for email marketing.

Very well explained-> How SEO and Social Work Together for Link Building
At one point Link Building was the thing you needed to do to enhance your website’s SEO. With the introduction of social media link building is done with each share of your content. This article explains how the two work together, nothing better than understanding how it works so you can take better advantage of the opportunity.

Great starting point for any SMB-> A free website building webinar open to all
In this roundup I have mentioned how great YWD is for any business, to prove it, we have made our weekly webinar open to the public. All you need to do is show up and after the show ask all the questions you might have. I’m confident you will agree how good Your Web Department is.

Next Friday I’ll have another round up, in the meantime you can follow me and YWD on the networks below:

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Sign up now or try it for free at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/NgLiQJ 66 @ywd tweets weekly roundup

Jul 13, 2012

Wow! That’s it?

Jul 12, 2012

Great starting point for any SMB

Jul 12, 2012

Running an client email list? HubSpot guide.

How to make the most out of them

www.anymeeting.com/ywdwebinar1

A free website building webinar open to all

The Your Web Department people will show
how you can design, build and update
a website for your business in minutes.

Open to all: no registration required

Simply click the link below
on Tuesday 2pm EST and join in

More info? Contact Your Web Department otherwise, see you then!

You should attend this FREE webinar if any of the following statements are true:

I can’t control my own website. I have to request changes, wait and pay for them.
I got one of those free websites but they are too simple, not enough features, no technical support and I really want something that matches my brand.
I have an old website. It doesn’t work any more. In fact, it’s probably hurting my business. I need to change it asap.
I want someone to take care of the entire website design and transfer, but I want to manage it myself. I want a one-stop-shop.

What you’ll learn:

How easy it is to manage content using Your Web Department.
How we approach building a fool-proof website.
The secret of making a great website.
How to treat your website like an employee so it actually gets results.
How to measure the performance of your website.
How to set up the mobile version of your website.

Yes, we’ll take questions!

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/LfFWUY free website building webinar open to all

Every Tuesday 2pm EST FREE Webminar-> Kickstart your business using YWD

Good news for Dropbox users

Video: how to create a mobile website

It?s never been easier (and more important) to have a mobile website for your business

In Paul’s yesterday’s post he demonstrated how important it is to have a mobile-optimized version of your website. And he provided some very useful links related to that. Here they are again just in case:

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The bottom line is that there’s a growing chance your customers will be using a smartphone (Android, iPhone and yes, even a BlackBerry) to access your website. So it needs to be a pleasant and useful exprience for them. Simply serving the same website that’s displayed on computers won’t cut anymore: all the text will appear tiny, people will have to zoom in/out with their fingers all the time, etc. Not to mention that sometimes all they want to do is find out your phone number so they can call you!

Can you afford to miss that call?

A picture - even if it’s coming from a tiny phone screen - is worth a thousand words (oops, should have avoided the clich) and in fact I can give you several of them (both pictures and clichs).

Here are a few examples of websites of YWD clients that have been specifically optimized for mobile so you can see for yourself.

Some of these mobile websites were created entirely by the clients; others by their designers, and some were created by YWD for their clients, by a very reasonable fee.

What they all have in common is the fact that they were built and and managed using the Your Web Department website building platform and that no programming was involved in any way.

The cost? A mobile version is already included with all YWD packages so you don’t have to pay anything else to have your company’s website available on people’s phones all over the world in all its glory.

Don’t have a Your Web Department website? Get yours at www.yourwebdepartment.com

from YWD Blog - YWD Blog http://bit.ly/PMlNc9 never been easier (and more important) to have a mobile website for your business

See how easy it is to create a #mobile website now: http://ht.ly/c8Ltd

So true! -> It’s never been easier (and important) to have a mobile website for your business