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There’s a joke Will Ferrell makes: “Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are.” It’s funny because it’s true. Ever think back to life just 15 years ago and think, “How did I ever deal with dialup internet?” The world has changed so much, so fast. We as a society have become used to having information available at the snap (or swipe!) of our fingers. We expect entertainment to be instantly available on demand. Surveys by Akamai and Gomez.com found that 47 percent of users expect a page to load in two seconds or less, and 40 percent will abandon a site that takes more than three. Additionally, KISSmetrics reports that 79 percent of online shoppers won’t return to a site with which they had trouble, and 44 percent will tell friends about a negative experience. Time

Have you heard of Arthur Chu? I hadn’t until recently. However, if you’re an avid fan of the gameshow Jeopardy, you probably have. He is, quite simply, perhaps the most polarizing champion of that show’s long history, and when his 11-show winning streak ended on March 12th, his winnings of around $298,000 stood at the third-highest total ever. You may be thinking, “Fine, so he won a lot of money. That’s great, but how does that mean he has a superpower, and why does that make him so polarizing?” The answer may surprise you.
Arthur Chu is so controversial because he used his superpower to win, and here’s the kicker: his superpower is nothing more than math. Yes, math. As in, that subject you always knew your teachers in school were lying about when they promised it would come in handy one day, and time has, up til now, probably done nothing to disabuse you of that feeling. But if it can help you make some big money, that may make it interesting indeed. So how did Arthur Chu use math to be so successful

A new video is taking off on the internet, particularly among Facebook page admins. Made by the YouTube channel Veritasium, which primarily makes and posts popular science-related videos, this video takes on a slightly different subject: advertising on Facebook. In the video, Veritasium host and Creative Director Derek Muller talks about Facebook likes and the various ways to obtain them, and then several experiments that led him to conclude that paying for Facebook likes in any way may be counterproductive and cost admins even more money in the long run.

To understand why Facebook likes and other measures of engagement such as likes, comments, and shares on posts are important, it is important to understand the concept of EdgeRank. EdgeRank is a proprietary gradation system developed by Facebook to tell it how popular some pages are when compared to others, and to a lesser extent which posts of a particular page are better than others. At its heart, Facebook is a popularity contest, and EdgeRan

The New Year is upon us. It’s a time for fresh starts and to make new decisions. Chances are you have made some resolutions along these lines. If you are a business owner, one of those resolutions may be to finally get your company that website it needs, or to finally get your existing website into optimal shape. Businesses without an adequate and professional online presence are increasingly being pushed out of the market in today’s business client, and the path to business success these days often leads straight through the Web.

If you have ever considered getting a website for your business, you know that it is a complicated prospect. There are lots of choices when it comes to domains and hosting, and myriad choices for the platform on which to run the site. On top of that, designing and building a website is a complicated process that is time-consuming. Some companies offer “free” websites and “all-in-one” services, but when you read the fine print, you find that the monthly fees are much higher with these companies and �

Google has a problem. A big, big problem. It turns out that search engines aren’t actually  inherently worth any money. Since Google lists any page on its search results for free, and since Google’s search engine is available to use for free, the largest search engine company on the planet (and its shareholders) are slowly discovering an unalienable fact: it’s hard to make money off a search engine. So what do you do if you run a company whose net worth of billions is largely based on the success of its largely-worthless search engine?

The answer is easy: relentlessly monetize anything and everything possible about the search engine experience, and constantly change your policies to force people to utilize those monetized services.

We’ve seen Google do this repeatedly, most recently with this new Hummingbird update, and a few months ago with their Penguin update, which was ostensibly aimed at making life difficult on black hat SEO types but really ended up penalizing small businesses who engage in any SEO to compete with the big boys

The business world is changing. You may have heard about the online shopping revolution before, but written it off as a future trend. The truth is, however, that it has come, and it appears here to stay. In today’s market, the power of having an online presence cannot be overstated. Any business that desires to succeed must maintain a web site. In fact, almost 100 percent of customers now say they use online media to shop locally. An e-commerce site is a great way to use your business’ online presence to drive sales. . Online shopping now accounts for more sales than brick-and-mortar stores, and customers have come to expect the ease and comfort of online shopping. This means your business has a great opportunity for growth, but faces the danger of falling behind if it doesn’t q

For any business wanting a serious online presence, PPC is a must. Google is putting the squeeze on traditional SEO tactics in an effort to force firms to PPC, and here’s the alarming truth: it’s working. Businesses that do not already have a significant online presence will find it increasingly difficult to enter the market without paying to play. There is good news, however.

A well-managed PPC campaign can hardly fail to be an asset to a business.

That’s fine, you may say, but what does well-managed really mean, and how do I get there? The key to managing a PPC campaign correctly lies in knowing your numbers. When PPC campaigns are conducted according to the numbers, they will generally succeed in generating revenue, and at least have little chance actually costing the business more than they take in. To understand why, it is important to understand a little about what PPC is and how PPC campaigns work.

PPC campaigns are a form of advertising wherein the advertiser pays a company, usually a search engine, to advert

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Every business owner has probably heard this. Most, especially those who really care about their businesses, have done their best to live this motto. It held true for many years, but unfortunately the times, they are a-changin’. The modern truth is, that those with the better mousetrap don’t have the world beating a path to their door. The ones with the world beating a path to their doors are the ones who have convinced the world they have built a better mousetrap, whether or not their mousetrap is in fact better or not. In these modern times, how you market your product is as important as the product you are offering. This is sad, but true, and those that fail to adapt are going to quickly find themselves falling behind the wayside. A better mousetrap matters, but if no one knows it won’t mean anything. There are many ways to market your business, but the most cost-effective for many small business owners is using the internet.

There are many ways to utilize the internet to market your small business, but the primary one being used is call