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There is only one way to answer the question: Does my company need a mobile app? And that is: It depends. It depends on a lot of things going on in your company and the type of business you’re in, so in order to answer the big question, you’re going to need to ask yourself a lot of lesser questions and keep probing until you have enough answers to get past the doubt.

Let’s start with some basic questions: Do you think that your business will benefit from having an app? Will the benefits outweigh the costs? What are your competitors doing and how will that impact your decision? These are not easy things to figure out, but perhaps using an analogy will help. Not too long ago, businesses didn’t have websites. If someone wanted to find your business they had the Yellow Pages and, if you could afford it, paid advertising in various media.

Today, you’d have a hard time finding a business that didn’t have a website. They’re just too valuable a tool for connecting with customers. Your business has a website and your competition

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of making a website rank as high as possible on a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing. SEO is considered to be one of the most important elements of any digital marketing strategy because most contemporary consumers use a search engine in order to find goods and services over the web, and the higher a website ranks, i.e., the closer it is to the top of the first page that a person sees, the greater its chances are of attracting traffic.

And Google, in particular, has been the 800 pound gorilla in the room that has set the rules that companies must follow, in order for their websites to rank as high as they can.

But over the years, Google’s rules keep changing, so business owners need to keep abreast of the constantly shifting SEO landscape in order to know how to drive as much traffic as possible from search engines. This year, new rules give businesses an opportunity to fine-tune and re-evaluate their SEO efforts, or risk losing organic traffic, or even having their websites removed from search engi

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, retail e-commerce sales for 2014 were estimated at $304.9 billion, an increase of 15.4 percent over the previous year. They accounted for 6.5 percent of all total retail sales, up from 5.8 percent in 2013.

By anyone’s reckoning, that’s a lot of money, so it’s not unusual that many businesses are wondering whether e-commerce is the right way for them to go in order to increase their sales and beat the competition, especially since e-commerce – the sale of products and services over the internet – is the fastest growing segment of the American economy.

The beauty of e-commerce is that it allows even the smallest business to reach a national, or even a global, audience with its product or service at a minimal cost. Your customers can have access to information about your company 24/7, 365 days a year, and can buy from you at any time, day or night.

But before you consider whether or not you are primed and ready to become the next Amazon.com, you need to consider what it takes to become an e-commerce retailer.

F

The obvious answer to this question is, “Yes, your business definitely needs an internet marketing platform.” Today, more than ever, every business needs to be found everywhere consumers are looking. And they are increasingly looking online. In fact, all the traditional advertising mediums – the phone book, the Yellow Pages, even newspapers, radio and television – are rapidly being eclipsed by the internet and the countless computers, tablets and smart phones that now allow consumers to find and directly connect with businesses like yours.

So the real question that you need to address is, “What kind of internet marketing platform makes the most sense for your business at a price you can afford?” But first, some explanations and definitions – What do we mean by “internet marketing platform,” anyway?

Well, an internet marketing platform is any tactic, method, or approach that uses the internet in order to connect your business with its potential, as well as its actual clients or customers. First and foremost, your business’s website is a key internet marketing platform. How you choose to optimize its effectiveness, however, depends on your overall marketing strategy.

For example, you can attempt to boost it rankings over time with well-designed SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and valuable, high quality content, or you can e

Current marketing research makes it clear that in order for a contemporary business to flourish, it must have a strong web presence in the most commonly used search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Under the general heading of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are two tools that businesses use in their internet marketing campaigns in order to get their brands in front of their target audiences.

Research also shows that, in many cases, the ultimate success of an online business will often depend on the amount of “traffic” it can generate for its web pages utilizing either, or both, of these two modern marketing methods. However, there are several differences between PPC and SEO, and under certain circumstances, one approach may be preferable to the other.

First, let’s look at SEO. SEO is considered an “organic” method of driving web traffic because it is free, and depends on its success by means of its intrinsic value. SEO employs a number of sophisticated techniques whose aim is to propel

In order for a business to survive, it must have customers. In order to have customers it must sell a product or service that people want or need. Then it must find ways to reach out to those potential customers in order to convince them that their wants and needs can be satisfied by that particular business. In a competitive marketplace, where every business is reaching out to a finite universe of consumers, getting enough customers “in the door” not only requires excellence in the product or service being offered, but most certainly in the ways in which the business promotes itself and markets it product or service to the public.

In the advertising world, there are two broad categories of marketing, sometimes known as the shotgun approach and the rifle approach. The shotgun approach just puts the word out there to be seen or not be seen by a broad swath of potential buyers. Examples are billboards, newspapers, radio and TV. In contrast, the rifle approach concentrates a business’ marketing efforts on a more narrowly defined audience. Direct mail marketing and ads in niche publications are two examples.

In today’s advertising environment, online marketing – marketing that uses websites, emails, and social media platforms to communicate – manages to marry the best of both strategies. With a robust and compelling website, a business ca

The Apple iPhone 6 and 6+ have launched, and demand is so high users who order are facing order fulfillment delays reaching into October. The delays don’t seem to dampening sales, however. “Response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible, with a record number of preorders overnight,” Apple told the Financial Times.

To avoid these delays, users are waiting in long lines at the brick-and-mortar stores of major retailers and wireless carriers who sell the phone. “There are going to be ridiculously huge lines,” Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, tells USA Today. “Demand for iPhone 6 is so high.”

Reports indicate many of those waiting in line may be app developers or their proxies. This is because developers are anxious to immediately update their apps to run on the new phone and new operating system. Apps for both Apple and Android products have skyrocketed, after all, following the general trend toward greater smartphone use.

What does this mean for businesses? To put it simply, increased. Just as the surge in internet use a decade ago drove companies online, forcing them to build an online presen

For this month’s blog here at The Click Experts, we would like to take a break from our usual articles discussing business or technical matters. Instead, we’d like to take a few minutes to remember the life and mourn the passing of Robin Williams.

Mr. Williams was not only one of the world’s funniest comedians and greatest actors; he was also one of its kindest, most compassionate, generous, and greatest citizens. He had a special brand of manic humor and an incredible passion for things, people, and causes he cared about and thought were important.

From his first television appearance in 1974 on Happy Days as an alien named Mork and his later starring role as Mork in the spin off series Mork and Mindy, through his successful transition into movies and subsequent brilliant career on the big screen, Mr. Williams entertained and inspired generations of fans worldwide. He had an incredible gift to make people laugh, and he also had an uncanny ability to bare his soul in a dramatic and deeply personal way. While many comedians who got their start doing stand up are also talented actors, few have ever exhibited the depth and breadth of ability in the way that Robin Williams did.

His body of work is reflective of that broad range of talent. Mr Williams examined the human condition in introspective dramas l

Bitcoin is gaining popularity very quickly in the online world. A number of large businesses have begun accepting it for online transactions, including Virgin Galactic, Lord & Taylor, Overstock, Newegg and Tiger Direct. Now Dish Network is getting into the Bitcoin game. Even companies like Amazon, PayPal, Ebay, and Apple are making moves that lead those in the know to think they are leaning towards adoption of the currency as well.

With all this positive publicity, Bitcoin proponents seem to be beating back the waves of negative press from early this year, including the collapse of Bitcoin giant Mt. Gox and the arrest of pioneer Charlie Shrem for money laundering. Issues remain, however, and it seems clear that many cheerleaders of Bitcoin, along with businesses considering early adoption, do not often truly underst

Pinterest, long considered an irrelevant-to-business haunt of women who have delusions of Martha Stewart-hood, has been waging a battle against that perception for the last year or so. Now it has made its most aggressive move yet in its bid to oust Facebook as the king of social media- or more realistically, carve out a niche for itself as a respectable competitor.

While Facebook and Google+ have both been offering place search for some time, Pinterest is a late-comer to the game, only having begun offering the service, which it calls “Place Pins“, six months ago. In that time, however, the company has managed impressive growth, now boasting over a billion (yes, billion with a “b”) Place Pins, on over 250 million boards, in locations representing over 300 countries or territories.

Not content to rest on their laurels, however,