Welcome to Andy Lopata, our contributing writer and friend from England. Described as “one of Europe’s leading business networking strategists” by The Financial Times, Andy Lopata FPSA works internationally with global brands to help them make the most of their networks. He is the author of three books on networking and a Fellow of The… read more

You may have been hearing news about SOPA and the Stop SOPA movement.  You may also think as Canadians, it’s not an issue for us.  In fact it is. Michael Geist’s recent post explains why you should care.  Read the key points from his post below. By Michael Geist While there is little that Canadians… read more

OK, maybe it’s not 99%, but after watching a very short  2:39 minute Ted Talk, where most of these very bright people in the room were doing it wrong, chances are you too might be. It’s one of those videos that not only sticks in your brain, it opens up your mind. It reminded me that there… read more

I received this question in my inbox. I get this question a lot. For those of you who are wondering how I answered it here you go:  Asking “how much is a website?” is like asking ”how much is a house?”  We offer “free” do-it-yourself websites to ones that are thousands of dollars and everything in between. If it’s… read more

Every prospective client lately seems to ask me the same question “should we do social media?” When businesses speak of social media, they typically mean Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  Social media for business is fairly new, so I can only speak of our personal and client experience gained over the last few years of building business and social media websites. Early… read more

Recently I was answering questions about various web design topics and the subject of writing for blogs came up. One participant mentioned how, as a writer, she no longer takes criticism personally and is able to write more freely. That’s an important skill to have especially in this online world. People can smell BS. They… read more

Want to capture new markets, but don’t know exactly how or which direction to move? With the emergence of Internet research tools, a company can capture business they didn’t even know existed. For example, did you know that tools exist that report what volumes of people are searching on certain search strings? (e.g. “portable sawmills… read more

An important heads up. In a recent post Google Product Manager Christian Oestlien asked for businesses to hold off using regular profiles to connect with Google+. He asks for our patience while they build a business experience that should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. As a web design company living… read more

Google recently purchased PostRank. Their technology analyzes blog posts to see if people are engaging. Based on a recent Google post and industry commentators, the thinking is that Google will start to place even more emphasis on quality content. Up to this point Google rankings could be manipulated by buying back links and other inbound… read more

It’s simple. Put measurement tools like Google Analytics on your website. Test an ad’s effectiveness by directing people to visit a specific page on your website, for example www.mycompany.ca/specials. Then, review the data to see how many people actually visit that page over the ad’s life. Wonder if Yellow Pages is driving business to your… read more