It isn’t that your website wasn’t awesome five years ago. It was. But look how far we’ve come since then. The very first original iPhone was released 5 years ago this June. The iPad itself was only a glimmer in Steve Jobs’s eye. Smartphones and tablets have completely reshaped the way we interact online, so much so that we can barely imagine our lives without them. And now it’s time for your website to catch up with the trends, starting with responsive design.

Web Design Ledger wrote a fantastic article with keen insight into web design trends this year. Rather than reinvent the metaphorical wheel, I thought I’d share their article “10 WEB DESIGN TRENDS IN 2012″.

So what’s the good news? HootSuite offers a free service that will automatically publish your new website content via RSS feed to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Give it a try!

1. SOPA and PIPA would censor the Web

The U.S. government could order the blocking of sites using methods similar to those employed by China. Among other things, search engines could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results. That’s why 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law professors have expressed grave concerns about the bills.

2. SOPA and PIPA would be job-killers because they would create a new era of uncertainty for American business

Law-abiding U.S. internet companies would have to monitor everything users link to or upload or face the risk of time-consuming litigation. That’s why AOL, EBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga wrote a letter to Congress saying these bills “pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation.” It’s also why 55 of America’s most successful venture capitalists expressed concern that PIPA “would stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness”. More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress that PIPA and SOPA would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation”.

3. SOPA and PIPA wouldn’t stop piracy

To make matters worse, SOPA and PIPA won’t even work. The censorship regulations written into these bills won’t shut down pirate sites. These sites will just change their addresses and continue their criminal activities, while law-abiding companies will suffer high penalties for breaches they can’t possibly control.

There are effective ways to combat foreign “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that have made the Internet such an important driver of American economic growth and job creation. Congress should consider alternatives like the OPEN Act, which takes targeted and focused steps to cut off the money supply from foreign pirate sites without making US companies censor the Web.

Members of Congress are trying to do the right thing by going after pirates and counterfeiters but SOPA and PIPA are the wrong way to do it.

via Google

Chipotle Restaurant came up with a thoughtful and creative way to illustrate their use of organic ingredients in their restaurants. Quoted from Adweek:

“Chipotle served up the most stirring and thought-provoking environmental spot of 2011 with this stop-motion gem from CAA and Nexus director Johnny Kelly, with a major assist from Willie Nelson. Having pioneered the use of organic, locally grown ingredients in fast food (and launched a foundation to support sustainable farming), Chipotle wanted to communicate its green philosophy in an artful and poignant way. The resulting spot tells the story of a farmer who builds his small operation into a giant industrial machine—penning in his animals, fattening them with chemicals, chopping them up in slaughter machines, and polluting nearby rivers in the process. Eventually he has a crisis of conscience, and reverts to his old way of doing things”

Creating a Facebook page for your business is relatively painless if you know where to start.  Follow these steps below and you’ll be up and running in less than 10 minutes!

1. To get started, head over to the “Create A Page” section of Facebook.
2. Click on the tile that corresponds to your business;  ”Local Business or Place” or “Company, Organization or Institution”.
3. Choose a category, enter your business name, address and phone.  When you’ve completed the form, click the ”Get Started” button.
4. Enter an email account and password.  If you already have a Facebook account you can use your existing email but we recommend using a separate email account for your business page.  When finished, click the “Sign up Now!” button. That’s it, you’ve created a Facebook page for your business.

Now that you’ve got your Facebook page up, try a few of these tips & tricks!

You may have noticed over the last year that searching for something on Google would occasionally lead you to spam based websites. When I refer to a spam based website, I mean a website in which it’s sole reason to exist is to show up on search results in an attempt to make money off the ads displayed on their website. Most spam websites carry no real value to you, the googler.

As you might imagine, the credibility of Google can quickly come to attention if the search results yielded aren’t quality links. In an attempt to rid their search results of spam, Google has recently implemented a new search algorithm that rewards high-quality sites rich in original content.

The good news with this new algorithm is that if you regularly update your website you’ll immediately gain an edge over your competition that isn’t doing the same.

So what can you do?

• Write on your blog! Writing a quality article on your blog once a day would would is ideal, but most of us don’t have the time for it. Set a realistic goal of writing once a week. If it helps, set a recurring calendar reminder to encourage yourself to stay on top of it. If you don’t have a blog or news page in which you can publish articles it may be time to get one.
• Share your blog posts. When you’re done posting your new blog article share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and any other social avenues you’re part of.
• Get quality inbound links. Inbound links occur when websites create a hyperlink to your website. Write quality articles with relevant content and you should get quality links. By sharing/publishing your blog posts on social outlets, like Twitter or Facebook, you immediately create the opportunity for your followers to share your link and generate inbound links to your website.
• Make sure your website is built correctly. Along with crawling your website content, Google checks your website’s code and sites with poor code and/or errors won’t show up in search results. If you’re unsure of how to check your site for errors, consult your web firm or hosting company.

Evian water has rolled out a new marketing campaign called the “evian babies”. “The evian babies are a reminder to make every day an adventure and to live young in all that you do.” Clever campaign and cute video.

We’ll be at the La Crosse Business Expo today, Thursday November 3rd, from 1pm-7pm at the La Crosse Center. Free website consultations all day long. Say hi, get feedback on your website or engage us on ideas for a new website.

Business Expo Brochure