As Google continues to make market buzz with their integration of Google+ into the organic search results and organic rankings, the SEO world tries to keep up with these ongoing and unknown changes.

Google being Google, only makes algorithm changes that are in the best interest of Google, and despite their guarantees, everyday users don’t always end up with the search results that are the most relevant and useful to them.

At Logic Media, we always strive to generate traffic to our clients’ websites from all the major search engines. Search engine market share can change with the user’s preferences and with the increase of the marketing efforts of the search engines. Based on the global online search engine reports by seoMoz, Compete, Nielson-Net and Alexa, Google as usual once again has increased it’s market share staring January 2012 with over 83% of the online search engine market in the United States.

As online user surfing patterns change over months and years, so does their selection and preference for their Internet browser. Based on the latest Internet browser market share reports by StatCounter, the previously most popular IE (Internet Explorer) has lost a significant percentage of market share over 2011 and by the end of the year dropped below 40% to have 38.7% of browser share.

Over the last several years, online marketing has experienced significant growth across its array of channels. More and more businesses are trying to promote themselves online. In the last couple of years alone, the struggling automotive industry has made a significant shift the distribution of their marketing dollars. From spending 95% of their marketing dollars on traditional marketing channels such as television, radio and billboards, and the remaining 5% on online marketing, to a dramatic shift of 55% traditional and 45% online. As the public spends more and more of their time engaged online with their laptops, iPads and smart phones either browsing or on social media, companies are deciding to shift their marketing dollars toward the attention of their target market.

Earlier this morning, while checking the morning emails (mostly deleting spam), I came across a daily deal email from Living Social that actually caught my interest and caused me to make a purchase. Out of the past 6 month or so, while subscribing to these types of emails from various “daily deal” sites, I’ve only made 2 purchases (including today’s buy), but being in marketing my curiosity always has me checking deal companies of the day.

If over the last several days you’ve been confused when you noticed your friends profile pictures popping up as recommendations under Google's organic searches, it’s thanks to Google’s new service called +1 - the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool". As described by Google themselves, this is their new effort “to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible” to Google searchers.

Recently, Microsoft released IE9, the latest version of what remains the most popular web browser in the world. More than anyone else, web designers are rejoicing at this announcement. I'll explain why, but first, a bit of history.

With over 32 million views in 3 weeks and still counting, Volkswagen’s adorable “The Force” commercial is dominating YouTube. It has officially gone Viral, and has even surpassed the famous Old Spice Man commercial that has been out for over a year.

Online Strategies for 2011: The Basics

After taking some well needed R and R time over the New Year’s holiday, my personal and work routine is finally starting to come back to “normal.” And as I slowly catch up on my long list of RSS feeds, I’m noticing all the typical articles titled “Strategies for 2011.” It seems like the online community is trying to reinvent itself with some new, fresh and revolutionary strategy upon the launch of the new year and new marketing budgets. In essence though, no drastic changes have happened from the end of December in 2010 to January 1st of 2011. The Internet is still the same, social media is still going strong and so are the SEO and SEM strategies.

One of our recent website projects called for the design and development of a very different type of website. And when I say different, I am referring to the type of the client we worked with, their target market and overall website functionality. While working on this project, our company was involved in number of developmental aspects including photography, video production, graphic design, custom software development and, of course, website design. But unlike other projects, these business owners seemed to be very involved with the overall concept of their business development, business growth and branding. At the end of the day, they realized that a professionally designed website with interactive features was essential to their business growth and client retention.

To no surprise over the last several years, the PC’s role as the primary computing device has been declining, and by all signs, will eventually drop down to nothing. More and more individuals are switching their primary Internet surfing time to mobile and portable devices, and, based on the latest analysis, most of that market is currently captured by Apple devices. Surprise!

In many of my blog articles I emphasize the importance of having a professionally designed website. A website that captures its visitors attention and persuades them to take the necessary action, whether it’s purchasing a product, scheduling a service appointment or requesting a quote from your business.

Continuing on my set of articles regarding the website selection process, the third factor to consider is your financial investment. After deciding whether a custom website or template layout, with or without content management system will best fit your needs, the next question business owners should ask when selecting a web firm is, “should I own or lease my website?”

In my previous article, I introduced two website design options available to business owners that are first starting to shop for web design, and identified how the features and compromises of each fit with their unique business needs.

Recently, one of my clients asked me a question regarding a web design service company that was attempting to sell him a $90/month website package that allowed him to make unlimited changes to the website himself at “no additional” cost.

If you’re an online-savvy individual, you have probably heard of the term “the fold”, and about the overall idea of keeping all the important information regarding your business “above the fold” of your website. Over the years, I have had a number of customers bring their concerns regarding “the fold” to my attention both before and during the developmental process of their home/landing page.