August 2014

  • Great Product Pages for Fourth Quarter

    Great Product Pages for Fourth Quarter

    Google’s Holiday Shopping Intentions Survey last year found that 4 out of 5 holiday shoppers considered the internet the most useful source of information for their shopping plans, and that more window shopping took place online than on TV or in catalogs. Smartphone owners are using their phones when they shop in brick and mortar…

  • Ads for Asian-American Consumers?

    Ads for Asian-American Consumers?

    Here in Northwest Arkansas we’re very conscious of Hispanic consumers, who are becoming an increasingly important segment of our population here, as well as across the nation. We don’t always think about Asian American consumers, though. We’re not the only ones who could say that. Watch the conversations about marketing around the web and count…

  • Optimal Use of Google Translation

    Optimal Use of Google Translation

    We’ve built a few bilingual websites lately, and in the course of those builds we tried out several different options for translation, ranging from simply building two pages (one in each language) for each page and creating separate menus for each to installing auto translation plugins and even using a ready-made bilingual WordPress theme. While…

  • The Smartphone and the Teddy

    The Smartphone and the Teddy

    In 1992, linguist Donald Norman wrote a book called Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles. In this book he described something that he called “The Teddy.” Let’s assume we’ve reached the time when the power of information technology has increased enormously, with the whole country — nay, the whole world — wired so…

  • 3 Truths for Talking about Your Brand

    3 Truths for Talking about Your Brand

    We’ve talked with a couple of clients about controlling the conversation about their brands recently, and it’s got me thinking about the subject. I think we all need to recognize three important truths about this. 1. You can’t control the conversation about your brand. You can cut off comments at your website, ban people from…

  • Scientific Controversy on the Web

    Scientific Controversy on the Web

    Of course, there are plenty of websites and web pages discussing and debating scientific controversy. But two groups of scientists have recently created websites taking sides on one specific question: should scientists have free rein to study dangerous diseases? The question arises as several events show up in the news nearly simultaneously. A deadlier strain…