Entries Tagged as 'eMarketSouth'

The Cranes have Come to Town!

If you have been in the Savannah area for any length of time or on the east coast recently, you know that the fastest growing port is right here in our very own backyard. Savannah is rapidly becoming one of the largest ports on the southeastern seaboard. All this time I have noticed more and more container vessels coming in and lots of news about the ports but until these images came across my desk I didn’t give much thought to the process of loading and unloading container ships. They don’t look that big from here … like Lego blocks! But up close, well you have driven up next to an eighteen wheeler haven’t you? You see what I mean. How can the port grow, the containers increase and the cranes stay the same. They can’t … so just yesterday the cranes came to town. Sent from China in December, the cranes finally made it into Savannah’s port yesterday. The city even made sure the bridge connecting us to the low country of South Carolina was closed to traffic … just in case someone had measured wrong. Crazy! What a mess that would have been for that ship to hit the bridge. Luckily they had about eight feet of breathing room. The port authority and all the employees at the port were well prepared for the arrival of the cranes. They were not prepared for the crowd of onlookers. People covered Riverstreet and strained to watch as the cranes made their way to their new home. With the installation of these great big cranes, it doesn’t appear as though the growth of Savannah’s ports will slow down anytime soon. What an exciting time to be part of the blossoming of our fair city … Savannah. Join us and see what the fuss is all about!

Tags: Key to Savannah, Savannah Home Finder, eMarketSouth by Suzy Buelvas
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Social Networking Sites Are Bridging the Generation Gap

I can remember when my mom and dad and their friends would call me for computer help on a regular basis. My favorite story was my junior year of college when my mom called me to come home to Tybee because the sound was broken. I drove over an hour from my apartment in Statesboro just to turn on the speaker. But they have evolved and now each have their own laptop. Mom doesn’t call me as much for help, but I still wish I could get her to give up AOL.

My parents aren’t the only Internet users on Social Security (but let’s hope Mom’s not reading this blog today or I’m in trouble for revealing her age). This afternoon, as I sat down to check out my favorite sites, I found I had a new friend request on my MySpace page, with a message: “Hi Lisa. I know your mom and dad from the Shrine.” Yes, MySpace has managed to rake in other generations into their world. In fact, an article from late 2006 revealed that more than half of MySpace users are over 35, and about 11% were over 55.

But MySpace isn’t the only area of the net attracting Golden Agers. Photosharing websites such as Flickr and Picasa are becoming favorites, allowing travelers to share in the adventures from the road. While my parents were traveling this winter, I received a weekly email to their photo galleries to show off the fun they were having in the Florida Keys and Everglades.

So as more web-based social networking sites develop and evolve, we can expect the 55+ demographics to increase. Now, if I could just get my aunt to add Snopes.com to her favorite sites to visit, maybe I could reduce my inbox waste by 50%.

Tags: Blogging, Search Engine Optimization, eMarketSouth by Lisa Scarbrough
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Oh, the Places You’ll Go When Sitemaps are Your Guide

Growing up, many of us learned lessons from our readings of Dr. Seuss. But who knew we could take those lessons online?

“You can steer yourself
any direction you choose…
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”

A sitemap can be just as good guidance as the words of Dr. Seuss. When a site has so many pages and links, it is often hard for the visitor to find information or know exactly where to look. When we redesigned Coastal Pet Rescue last year, we threw out their navigation that had drop down menus. Instead, we created six category pages with new links and information on each of those pages to guide visitors to the links they needed.

With more than 100 pages of information, how could visitors be expected to see everything or even remember where they found information on a previous visit? So we created a special sitemap page just for Coastal Pet Rescue’s visitors. Here, we have categorized links to every page on the site we want the visitors to see. We place a link to the site map in the top of the design that is on every page of the site to give visitors an as easy way as possible to navigate our website.

As Coastal Pet Rescue is on TV and in the media quite a bit, people often hear tidbits of information and go to the website to learn more. For that reason, we implemented a search box both on their home page and on their sitemap page. The search box is customized to search all of their websites:

The idea is to make information as accessible to your visitors as possible. If there is information buried on your website that you want people to be able to see, then make sure you have a link to it from the home page.

But using a sitemap isn’t just good for your visitors, it’s also a great way to help search engines index the pages on your site. Search engines like text links, and having a page on your site that has text linking to all your other pages only helps. So even if you don’t want it for your visitors, consider creating a simple one and having it linked at the very bottom of your page. After all, bringing traffic to your site is a good thing, so the spiders will reward you for making their job easier.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, eMarketSouth by Lisa Scarbrough
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