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Amazon Kindle vs. Apple iPad

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Amazon’s Kindle has been on the market for consumers to purchase since late 2007; just before the holiday season had begun. The Kindle is a neat device. It comes in two versions: a 6” display and 9.7” display. The 6” display stores 1,500 books, has manual rotation of the display and is priced at $259.00. The 9.7” display holds 3,500 books; auto rotates its display and is priced at $489.00.

The Kindle store has more than 400,000 books for consumers to choose from and is accessible from the Kindle itself. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so you won’t see a monthly wireless bill. GSM technology is the most popular mobile wireless standard; allowing coverage in over 100 countries.

Weighing only 10.2 ounces, the Kindle weighs almost as much as an average paper back book. It also comes with automatic library back up: “books you purchase from the Kindle store are backed up online in your Kindle book library at Amazon.com. You can wirelessly re-download books available in your library. This allows you to make room for new titles on your Kindle. We even back up your last page read and annotations.”

Sick of seeing a glare while working outdoors? The Kindle’s screen is designed to let you sit anywhere you want in the sun without a glare. The pages actually look like a real book too, without the evident grain pieces. Text on the pages can be adjusted to your comfort level, there are 16 shades of gray for pictures, and images can be zoomed to the full size of the screen.

There is also an option for you to listen to the text. With text to speech, the Kindle reads to you in a male or female voice at a fast or slow rate. It won’t ever lose your place on a page either.

The battery life is also impressive. You could go one week without recharging your device while having the wireless option turned on. On the previous Kindle, the battery lasted on average four days with the wireless turned on and one week with it off.

Need to browse the web? The Kindle comes with an internet web browser that is basic, and can be used to read simple text-centric sites like Google and Wikipedia. This is great for looking up movie times or a sports score.

Recently, the Kindle has been a popular topic. With Amazon stock on the rise, people think that maybe Amazon is feeling threatened by Apple’s latest creation: the iPad. Kindle owners need to know that they’re not alone in supporting a platform that won’t come undone against the colorful, touch screen iPad.

Information provided by: Amazon.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan

Mobile App Usage on the Rise in 2010

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The number of mobile applications is growing daily pretty soon we won’t even need computers! Marketers are quickly jumping on this trend in 2010- the world of applications will soon grow to an all-time high. Although the spending on social apps will stagnate this year, most marketers have already produced them. “Less than one-half of marketers created either a mobile or social app in 2009, but most plan to invest in a mobile app this year. The iPhone is the platform of choice, followed by Android.” And among those marketers with apps in 09, Facebook was the leading platform.

Social apps were perceived as the top goal for achieving engagement, audience targeting, reach, sharing and branding potential. “The top one-third of advertisers and agencies using mobile apps planned to up their investments by 75% or more. Marketers who used apps reported a growing market, client demand and increased standardization in the app world as reasons to spend more in the coming months.”

Mobile applications by marketers and publishers are the next goal for distribution and discover ability.

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15% of advertisers and agencies spent more than 60% of their budgets on promotion in 2009, but more than one-third spent less than 5%. Times are changing, and today consumers want easy access to their favorite sites quickly. Mobile apps are the newest trend for 2010 when it comes to reaching your target audience.

Information Provided by: eMarketer.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan

Does Your Website Make Sense?

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It is surprising that even today website owners haven’t discovered how to make their sites user friendly. People like aesthetically pleasing sites that cater to them: the customer.

Here is a short checklist of dos and don’ts for anyone working on the internet to sell their product or service.

  • In the space “above the fold,” state what the site is aiming to achieve. The area above the fold is the section that is seen without scrolling down. This space should be used to tell the consumer what you do exactly. Why does your site exist? This should be clear to the audience in one quick glance. “You can’t solve someone’s problem if they can’t even figure out what it is that you do.”
  • Use large fonts and plenty of white space. “This is a no brainer. You want your website to be read by as many people as possible so don’t use tiny fonts, don’t use clever fonts, just keep it simple, double spaced and big. You wouldn’t whisper your sales pitch to a potential customer in real life, so don’t do it online.”
  • Keep it simple- not too fancy. Text comes first to graphics; the words on the page are primary. “Graphics should only be used to enhance the presentation of text and never hinder or distract the visitor from what they are supposed to do at your website – read it!”
  • Use headings, bolds, and lists. Unfortunately, people today are getting lazier and lazier. People don’t want to read your five paragraph essay on your product or service. They want to see bullet points, lists of benefits and get information as quickly and painlessly as possible.
  • If you aren’t as technologically advances graphic wise as you’d like to be, just use one nice text-based page. “You can have tremendous success online by using a webpage that is just a simple letter format. Follow the rules above and tell your story using just words. If you can’t do website design yourself or can’t afford it, you can keep things simple and still have a very effective message. It won’t be pretty, but like I said, pretty doesn’t sell – the words do.”

Information provided by: entrepreneurs-journey.com

Written by: Samantha J Stephan

Top SEO Trends for 2010

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Out with the old and in with the new! A new year has begun and keeping up with SEO trends should be at the top of your to-do list. So for 2010 here is a list of trends to keep an eye out for:

  • Site Speed – Site speed may be used as a new ranking factor in 2010. Make sure your pages load quickly by decreasing load time. “The order of things on your page will affect its load time, so make sure you’re using proper HTML, and cleaning up your CSS and JavaScript so that users aren’t left waiting when they try to access your site.”
  • Mobile – Research done by Neilson shows that there are now 56.9 million people looking for information on mobile web sites, which is up 34% from last year. First you should find out how your site performs on small devices. There are paid services which provide feedback for this. Then, once it is functional, take advantage of Google’s new mobile services and free online coupons.
  • Online Video – YouTube was made the second largest search engine last year. With larger companies dropping out, more space is available for small to medium sized companies which could use the attention. So make a video and post it soon!
  • Reputation Management Meets Real-Time Search – “When Google put real-time search updates into the SERPs they unleashed a potential online reputation problem of epic proportions. They essentially opened the floodgates to give angry customers immediate power in the search results. You no longer have a window to reach out to an angry tweeter to ask them to amend their update or tone down that Blog post. Google is pulling from tweets, from Blogs, from news, from articles and other Web content and throwing it immediately into your search results, often right above your own site. All of this means that you need to be even more vigilant about monitoring the conversation in an attempt to protect your brand. For a small business owner, your best line of defense is to build a listening station that will help keep you abreast of conversations as they happen.”
  • Increased Awareness of Local – “If you haven’t tied up all your local listings and profiles, it is beyond time to do that. The search engines, especially Google, are looking at the consistency and completeness of your local listings in order to rank you for relevant queries. That’s a huge ranking factor that is 100 percent in your control. Take advantage of it!”

Information Provided by: Smallbiztrends.com

Written by: Samantha J Stephan

What is PageRank?

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Curiosity about getting your page to the top of the Google search is not rocket science; in fact, Google even offers a PageRank tool that can be downloaded for free. If you are running a website or Internet business then PageRank is a vital tool to measure how much traffic you are really getting.

Google is known for providing the best results on internet searches. This is because of PageRank’s ability to determine the value of a website for any given search term or keyword phrase. “This value is determined by how websites link together with the more popular (and theoretically better) sites receiving more links. It’s these incoming links that help the site have a high PageRank value and thus display higher up in search results.”

Here is a brief description of PageRank, written by the Google team:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.”

An important key note to understand is that it is a combination of variables that determine how well your site performs on Google. These are the most important variables to worry about:

  • Incoming links to your site.
  • The relevancy (to your site’s theme) of the pages linking to your site and the PageRank of these pages.
  • The keywords that other sites use to link to your site.
  • The keywords on your website in particular in places like page titles and headlines.

Not all of the above points are controllable, but some are, like keywords in headlines. The bottom line to PageRank is that all these variables listed determine how high your site shows up in the search engine results. Therefore it is important to utilize this information for your competitive advantage- no matter how tech-savvy you are.

Information Provided By: Entrepreneurs-journey.com

Written By: Samantha J. Stephan

Ten Tips to a Successful Landing Page

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Essentially the goal of a landing page is for visitors to take action, such as filling out a lead form or making a purchase. Often times a landing page will be your company’s first impression to your online audience and you only have a few seconds to make it a lasting one. If done correctly, customers will get the information they need to make their purchasing decisions. Below is a short and easy checklist to ensure your landing page functioning properly:

1. Are there any obstacles to scanning the page?
2. How hard is it to leave the page or get sidetracked?
3. Does the page have a fold?
4. Are you gathering unnecessary data?
5. Is there enough white space on the page?
6. Are there testimonials on the page? Is there a link to Privacy Policy?
7. Is it obvious which button to click on?
8. Does it take too long for the page to load?
9. Do the images on your page compliment your messages?
10. Are your landing pages available for indexing by search engines?

Written By: Sam Kim
Information Provided By: www.visibilitymagazine.com

Gen X Women vs. Gen Y Women

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Generation Y women are younger, trendier, and more technologically advanced than Generation X women. Studies have shown that Gen Y women have “redefined” their social networks to include their friends or buddies on various online social media pages, anonymous reviewers and bloggers.

Gen Y is therefore more likely than Gen X to share new products/ideas online to their larger networks which is the beginning of a new trend for Gen X. Women across the world can now research products they’ve never heard of and the products they love and use daily via blogs, status updates, and other posts.

When it comes to products that Gen Y women love, they are still more likely to distribute information about them via original mediums such as: telephone or in person. “But they post about products and brands on social networking sites or online forums nearly twice as much as older women. Gen X women, on the other hand, are more likely than younger females to share information via e-mail.”

The potential pop culture influence of social marketing is consequently increasing dramatically due to so many trendsetting Gen Y women using those types of sites.

Mothers are also a strong target of women for this type of research because mothers usually ask other mothers for advice on decisions they face with their families; this is especially true with “millennial moms,” or mothers who were born in Gen Y.

“With moms it is even a stronger source, as moms have always found it important to ask other moms before making important decisions that affect their families and kids,” Brandon Evans, managing partner and chief strategy officer at Mr Youth, told Media Life magazine. “With social media, it became much easier for them to seek out advice on a variety of topics from a wider net of people, so it quickly gained in influence.”

Information provided by: www.emarketer.com
Written by: Samantha J. Stephan

WebitMD has moved offices!

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August 31st 2009 – SAN DIEGO, CA

NEWS UPDATE – WebitMD Web Presence Management & Internet Marketing Agency has moved offices from our Hillcrest location to the Rio Vista Tower in Mission Valley, San Diego, CA

Here is the new address:

8880 Rio San Diego Drive
Suite 800
San Diego, CA 92108

Fax – (800) 601-2409
Tel – (800) 601-2990

Expanding office space was vital due to the overwhelming number to prospects and clientele in recent months. Our new location will allow the team to keep up with the work load of our expanding business.

Contact one of our consultants for a FREE Internet Presence analysis of your business and get started with WebitMD today!

Cheers.

Online Social Media Platforms continue to skyrocket!

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Here are a few stats on the Social Media arena out there. If you company is not engaging actively within the social media realm you are missing out on a “boom” within Internet Marketing. Social media audience totals 122 million people. That is 64% of the total Internet audience! The time spent on social networking and blogging sites is growing at over 3x overall Internet growth. Blogs readership estimate 96.6 million users at least once per month. By 2013, that number is expected to reach 128.2 million – which accounts for 58 percent of all U.S. Internet users.

The top social networks have stats that astonished me….here they are:

Facebook
• Average user time spent on Facebook grew 566% (2008)
• Over 1/3 of all content sharing on the web is done through Facebook and Twitter

Twitter
• 62% of Twitter users are ages 25 to 54
• 90% are moderate to heavy Internet users

YouTube
• 89.7 unique visitors in April 2009
• 6 billion videos viewed each month