Igniting Business Blog

Social media's biggest player, Facebook, frequently changes their algorithm. This algorithm determines the content users see in their news feed, and the order in which it appears. For the best chance of success on the platform, your company's social media strategy needs to change with the algorithm.

Design in today's digital age is increasingly important since every medium of content needs to attract more eyes more quickly. Our attention zips from one appealing thing to another, and we only stick around if what we're consuming is aesthetically pleasing and relevant.

Recently, a website visitor reached out to us with a very common issue. They are a small business with an e-commerce website, and their product pages included mostly duplicate content. This is not uncommon, as many manufacturers and suppliers will provide businesses with product descriptions and images. Inevitably, this means there are potentially hundreds of websites with the exact same content. The question is, "Will Google penalize my e-commerce website for having duplicate content?"

You may have seen this software advertised one way or another on the Internet, but do you know what it is and what amazing things it can do for your business? Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform released in February 2010 that has taken the world by storm with its capabilities in flexible hardware platforms and data storage.

As a small business owner, it’s extremely important to maintain a relationship with your clients. A great way to reach a wider audience is through email marketing. Email marketing lets you send a more personal message and sales pitch directly to clients' or potential customers inboxes. The best part? You have complete control of your email lists, meaning you can customize and target your lists to specific types of groups or segments so your subscribers are only seeing relevant content.

Business owners are experts in doing what they do best, which is running their own industry-specific organization. Most recognize the evolution of the internet and online marketing has expanded their customer base and streamlined many business processes. Still, it can be difficult to know which online efforts are worth pursuing.

Before social media, hashtags (#) were simply known as the "pound” symbol. Hashtags are now commonly known to us as a way to display keywords or phrases such as #Marketing or #SmallBusiness. When including these hashtags in social media posts, people can actually click that keyword or phrase and they’ll be led to a page that features all other posts that utilized that same keyword or phrase. While conducting business engagements, hashtags are a typical categorization tool, especially if you utilize common hashtags.

If it seems as if in recent months there has been a notable rise in website hacks, you are not alone in your analysis. In 2016 alone, there were data breaches in major organizations such as LinkedIn, Snapchat, UC Berkley, Wendy's and Dropbox. Even tech organizations such as Oracle and Cisco, along with federal government departments such as the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Dept. of Justice succumbed to attacks from hackers in 2016. Just this month, Google reported in its State of Website Security report that there was a 32% increase in the number of hacked sites in 2016.

A Google AdWords campaign is a powerful tool to bring your business right into the search results of people who are actively looking for the products or services you provide, or who are searching for something relevant to your business. For many small businesses, setting up and maintaining a successful AdWords campaign - one that earns you valuable clicks and leads to conversions - is overwhelming. The process can be complicated and time-consuming, but don't let that stop you.

One of the latest trends seen in web design is being pushed by one of the major browser players today: Google. If your website design is still using Adobe Flash Player, then Google is about to make it a little more difficult for visitors to use your site. In December 2016, Google provided the roll-out plan for the gradual phase out of Adobe Flash Player with the goal of replacing it completely with HTML5 on the Chrome browser.