When Twitter started, an unofficial trending tagging system started up. Known as “hash-tagging”, Twitter users could tag their tweets by using the hash symbol (#, also known as number sign or pound symbol). This was useful for following events like conferences (eg. #ces09) or for silly use, like a follow up thought (eg. #awesome). Sometime last year, trending (with or without hashtags) became an official feature of Twitter’s home page. Users could see the top ten words/hashtags/phrases being chatted about worldwide. Popular topics that came up over the past year include the Iranian election, the death of Michael Jackson and even new fads like #FollowFriday (suggestions of Twitter users to follow) and #MusicMonday (music suggestions).  Read more... (414 words, 4 images, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Ann Smart of Search Engine Journal posted a great article today about how to make sure your URLs are SEO friendly.

Given that all pieces of your URL contribute to your organic ranking, this is something that shouldn’t be overlooked.  Most people realize that the domain name is important (www.domainname.tld). Less people realize that the top level domain (www.domainname.tld) has an impact on your geo rankings. Other people realize that directory and page names are important (www.domainname.tld/directory/pagename.html) but don’t take the time to properly plan this.  Read more... (121 words, 1 image, estimated 29 secs reading time)

I find it interesting the adoption of online marketing over the years.  I have been selling online marketing solutions since 1999 and the adoption bell curve is pretty well right on and has certainly affected the ease and challenge of the selling cycle.  Back in the late 90′s websites were still in the early adoption stage.  It was not an easy sell to everyone but there were a lot of companies, especially the companies that had a product to sell online, that took the plunge and invested in a website.   At this point typical early adopter stage a lot of suppliers charged high prices as few new the true costs to build a website and some just took advantage of their customers.  Read more... (367 words, 2 images, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

About a half a year ago our company made a decision that we wanted to start to look for new office space in downtown Winnipeg.  We looked for a good 6 months before we found the right spot and we were pretty lucky to find a gem of a building like the one we are currently in.  It’s a heritage building that was built in 1901, price to build at that time was $6,000, how costs have changed.  I have to admit I was not convinced that moving downtown was the right place for our company.  I had always worked in the burbs and enjoyed the easy ride to work, easy parking and certainly not paying for parking.  However, when I talked to several companies that work downtown, they all told me that they would not work anywhere else and their employees love being downtown.  This intrigued me and I wanted to investigate further.  Finally it came to me that downtown was the place to be for our company.  Now that we have been in our new space for a month I get what the others were talking about.  The key advantages of being downtown in my observation are:  Read more... (476 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)