One of the most common questions about website development comes from business owners asking whether their business should be online. The short and sweet answer is YES, if you have a business and you provide a product or service than you should have a business website. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Period.

In today’s market there’s simply not much that can’t be presented online. Whether your business sells products or services your business partners, potential employees, customers and perhaps even investors should be able to quickly locate you and the products and services you sell, and the most effective way for them to do that is by accessing the world wide web’s database. The truth is that NOT having a business website these days can be more costly to your business than investing in having an online presence. In our immediate economy consumers of all ages and types virtually see the World Wide Web as a credibility factor. When they can’t find you online, then you might as well not exist.

That being said, it is also not enough to just have a website. Because your image and the value of your product or service will be determined by the presentation of your website, you want to strongly evaluate what type of presence you want to create and then invest in your project accordingly in order to make a good impression.

Last note—don’t forget that the World Wide Web levels the playing field for all products and services. Now you’re not just competing for traffic and business locally but you’ve entered a pool that is literally boundless. This shouldn’t scare you, it should excite you and entice you too think all the more about how you can make your online presence unique, professional, enticing and trust worthy.

Your website will be an extension of your business, so treat it as the important “X” factor that it can be!

Today I’d like to talk to you about the importance of breadcrumbs.  Not the kind that linger around the toaster when you make your breakfast but the kind that reside on your website!  :)  Meaning, breadcrumbs – a set of backlinks that show your visitor their current location in your Store.  It’s really helpful because it leaves a trail of links, to that exact page.  Take a look at the screenshot and you’ll see what I mean.  Breadcrumbs are also helpful for SEO reasons.

If you don’t have breadcrumbs on your site but would see the necessity and want to add them, purchase our Breadcrumbs Enhancement.

Tumblr is easy to set up – follow the wizard and get started. Create either a public or private or even limit certain readers Tumblr account. Once you’re set up, you can customize your site with themes, include your avatar, and link to your other social media accounts.

• Tumblr offers a bookmarklet you can drag to your browser’s toolbar and use to add links and media to your Tumblr site.
• There’s also a Facebook application that allows you to cross-post your Tumblr items to your Facebook account.
• You can download the iPhone application so you can take photos or record video while you’re out and about and post those directly to your Tumblr page.
• If you have a Mac, you can download a dashboard widget so you can share things directly from your desktop without going to your browser.
• You can choose to automatically or selectively share your Tumblr posts on Twitter.
• You can even post to Tumblr via text or e-mail from your phone.

There are so many third-party applications for Tumblr it would be a shame to not take advantage of this great service!

Yahoo! Store is a very SEO friendly platform.  One of the things that you can do for your Store to clean up the code for Google is to remove the alt tag “pad” from the spacer images.  If you’re noticing that some of your organic listings have the word “pad” in them – this is item that you’ll need to fix that! :)

This is specifically for Stores that are still using Store Editor v2. v3 stores won’t need this.

via Remove PAD Alt Tag.

Social Media is no longer something ‘new’ or ‘cool’ it is now a necessity for businesses worldwide. If you think it isn’t, just read about the Google Caffeine update and then tell me you still think Social Media is not important for businesses.

Social Media alone will probably not be the deciding factor in saving your business, but your business can no longer be a market leader without an effective presence in Social Media. You have to invest resources in Social Media – no longer can you say it’s not worth the time or money. If you cannot invest resources, time and faith in Social Media, your business will get left behind by those who can and do.

Take Social Media seriously and use it to build your online presence.