We’d like to start the new year off by congratulating Daniel Morris, DO on his new web site, TexasVeinDoc.com. Dr. Morris designed this specialty site to support his vein practice in the mid-cities of Dallas/Fort Worth. The site is an HTML/Flash web site, built for both aesthetic appeal and for optimization.

We’ve received several new...

If you are redesigning your web site in 2013, you need to think about the importance of using not only a content manager but the right content manager for your situation.  If you have a mobile and/or an iPad site, the number of people viewing your site is more than likely reaching a critical point where you need to be concerned with managing...

Are you ready to do some REAL social networking... the kind that connects you with new people who are interested in what you have to offer?  Dog Star Media’s new Social Media Manager allows you to monitor the Internet in your marketing range for keywords used in social media conversations, blogs, forum and other places on the web where...

I have heard it every day since Thanksgiving: “I am budgeting for 2013.”  I have two tips if you are doing this. First, don’t forget to make an investment in metrics. Second, consider monthly programs designed to give you slow and steady progress as a base on which you can build.

One of the biggest complaints I hear about...

This time of year, most people are working on their budgets for the upcoming year.  Maybe for you that includes budgeting for a new web site. Given the upward swing in mobile Internet use, a revised web site should probably be on most business owners’ minds for 2013. This ever-increasing usage trend is changing how the Internet is used,...

The first step in addressing a problem is admitting you have a problem. This goes for web sites, too. Web sites are like fingerprints (or they should be).  They should be be unique to the business. So, there is a lot of subjectivity involved in the design and content.  However, that doesn’t mean its a free-for-all where everything...

For SEO companies, there must be a full moon out this week. Each day, I have had a client forward me a solicitation from another SEO company... form emails with the client’s name pasted in... promises that no one can possibly fulfill... guarantees of placement. All of it designed to prey on their insecurity about Search Engine Optimization....

Efficiency is the fastest way to improve your bottom line. It is also the hardest thing to achieve in marketing.  Impossible?  No. Difficult? Not really. I have my theories as to the psychology of why people choose to avoid the simple steps of efficiency... but that’s a different conversation entirely.

Efficiency in marketing can be...

One of the great aspects of using our tracking technologies is how accurately it tells our clients exactly how people are using and responding to their marketing efforts. Over the past year, we have watched the more forward-thinking practices ride the wave of mobile traffic. The practices that are out in front are now gathering the following data...

There is opinion... both spoken and written on the Internet. When we talk about word of mouth, reviews or testimonials, we are not just talking about the words and phrasing, we are really talking about trust.

And, research on the effect of trust being transferred to what we read on the Internet is almost unbelievable. Check out this article on a...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my blog, User Generated content has changed how we evaluate information on the Internet.  This was the basis for my lecture to a room full of cosmetic surgeons in Tulsa, OK a few weeks ago.  And, the response was extreme.  Everyone immediately understood the impact of reviews and comments by...

This comic strip sums up most people’s frustrations with Search Engine Optimization.  As a business owner, you probably don’t have time to learn all the hows and whys that affect optimizing web sites.  So, SEO companies talk in broad concepts, which leads to the perception of vague and mysterious actions.  This is also...

On the topic of content-managed web sites, one of the most common changes clients want to make is adjusting monthly or time-sensitive specials.  The concept of the Internet-only special or “Check our web site for special deals” is fairly common.  However, if you don‘t run specials the right way you run a big risk of...

Over the weekend, I gave a marketing presentation at the AACS CME course in Tulsa hosted by Drs. Angelo Cuzalina and James Koehler.  It is always great to see my friends in Tulsa but this time there was an added jolt.  My presentation was on the impact of the social media experience on the use of the Internet and I called it Digital...

One of the more interesting features of our new Mission Control web site design is the In-Site Advertising feature.  This is a feature which allows you to specifically program areas in your web site to display advertising graphics as part of the overall page design.  Think of these like little programmable billboards through out the site...

Periodically, we like to update our standards of production for web strategies at Dog Star Media.  Today, I’m beginning a series of blogs about web site design and function and how we will now be offering a new Advanced Feature Web Site, Mission Control at Dog Star Media.

With a Mission Control web site, you easily can manage and...

There is certain overhead that goes with having a business.  Depending on what you do, the overhead is different.  However, one universal cost of doing business is a necessary effort to be visible on the Internet.  If you don’t do something to make your web site relevant to search engines, then you will not show up in...

Clearly online reviews have been the hot topic in Internet marketing this year and one of the biggest questions I have is how do I get an early warning on any negative reviews I might receive.  The answer is simple, go to Google.com/alerts and set up Google Alerts for your name and practice name.  Any time something is posted on those...

An interesting conversation boiled up in our offices this week.  It’s the age-old question of how many calls a cosmetic practice should get in proportion to how many visits their web site gets over a given period of time.  It is one of the hardest statistics to nail down for many reasons.  Chief among them is that there is no...

It happened last month.  Our first client crossed over into the 40+ percentile for mobile traffic.  And, this is a client with nearly 1000 visitors per month.   Several others are passing the 25% mark with several lodged firmly in the 30+% range.  Suddenly, the mobile game has changed from simply measuring whether or not...