Tips and Tricks

Before You Open Up Shop: 5 Guidelines for a Functioning E-commerce Business

By now you’ve likely heard about how the Internet is transforming business, and at least a few e-commerce success stories. Whether you’re hoping to put your existing business on the Web or start a new online store, making the plunge into e-commerce can be rewarding. But it’s best to get your business started online properly. In this post, we’ll look at some things to consider before opening an online store. 1. Let them help themselves One of the major differences…

6 ways to become unlikable: Is your Facebook Page alienating your friends?

Facebook Pages are great for keeping your company’s fans updated on the latest developments, promotions, and information about your company and industry. Visitors who click the “Like” button on your Page will be able to see posts from your Facebook Page when they access their Facebook timeline. “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t necessarily apply to a Facebook Page. Even if it does, your fans will grow tired of your Facebook Page if being a friend doesn’t benefit them.…

Five reasons why your business should make a Facebook Page

Since Facebook introduced “Facebook Pages” in 2007, a wide array of organizations, businesses, celebrities, and brands have been using them to broadcast information to those “followers” or “fans” who choose to connect with them. Having a Facebook Page has garnered considerable buzz in the marketing world, but it does require some effort to have a successful Page. One of the cornerstones of our online marketing philosophy is that your reputation is built through all interactions you have with customers and potential clients.…

The 13 Real Rules of Social Media Engagement

This guest post by our friends at Toronto social media marketing company Spark Boutik lays down the rules to follow in order to truly engage your audience through social media. One of the biggest reasons brands struggle with social media is because they do not understand the need for engagement. Engagement means going beyond output and actually stimulating conversation. So, instead of blasting twenty tweets a day, you should be reaching out to your followers. Instead of asking for Facebook ‘Likes’,…

Don’t lose your domain: Tips to keep your domain safe

Losing your domain is a big deal for any site owner. A client of ours recently had their domain expire because they didn’t renew their domain, leaving them without email or a working website. As anyone can imagine, this can have a devastating effect on your business and productivity. Usually, someone will notice that their website is down and figure out that they have to renew their domain name contract, and after it expires there’s usually a period when you can…

Carousels: Rotating your featured webpages to help turn heads

You cannot count on website visitors to scroll to find your content, so why not scroll your content for them? You can do this using what are known as “sliders” or “carousels”. Like their fairground counterparts, website carousels rotate — but rather than moving model horses and unicorns — they move images and links. Bell Canada is one of many major businesses that uses changing images to draw attention to its various initiatives. A carousel is actually a standard application…

The Path to Accessibility: Six AODA Questions to Ask Your Web Developer

With about 15 per cent of the world’s population living with some form of disability (pdf), accessibility is increasingly becoming an issue that cannot be ignored when, for instance, hosting an event or planning a building, yet it’s still often an afterthought for websites. (Updated January 2018) In an effort to simplify the process of making a website accessible, the W3 Consortium (W3C) set out to provide a set of recommendations to make Web content more usable by everyone in…

Online Friendly Fonts: Six Web Typography Services

It used to be that Web designers were limited to a handful of “Web-safe” fonts, which made for predictable, if not boring, websites. Now, high-end typography is within reach of all website owners, making it possible to use nearly any font imaginable. Still, there are limits to how you can use fonts on your website. Fonts typically take hundreds of hours of work by skilled designers, and they can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to buy. Luckily, there…

Search Engine Optimized: the importance of meaningful internal links

Search engines use various methods for creating titles and descriptions (or snippits), and determining if your page is relevant to each search. They crawl for content contained within a web page’s meta tags including the “title” and “description” tags, but also page content that seems most relevant or useful. This means that various page elements are evaluated, including links from other pages on your website, known as internal links. Internal links, in fact, can play a large role in how…

Creating Website Content for Better User Experiences

Modeling and designing your website’s user experience means attempting to understand all aspects of the user’s online and offline interaction with your company, and how the site is perceived, learned, and used in order to make informed decisions that will improve your users’ experiences. Designing a great user experience or “UX” sounds like a tall order, but this post will provide you with some of the resources you’ll need to create content that will meet visitors’ expectations. Web writing, Web…