Branding has often been associated with ridiculous attempts by companies like Coke to make you think about their product constantly. Coke is known to have actually paid shows like American Idol to incorporate “Coke red” into their set and attempt to use subliminal advertising in the hopes these over-the-top schemes will make you go out and buy Coke right this instant. The truth is none of these schemes has accomplished anything except making normal people laugh. However, branding is not all a silly waste of money, almost everything you buy has branding associated with it that convinced you it was the better product for you. Maybe you bought a double cheeseburger from McDonalds because you’re broke, hungry and have that “dollar-menu-aires” song stuck in head that reminded you that McDonalds is the place people like you buy their fast food. Or, maybe you got your heating and cooling fixed by the local repair man with that catchy tag line. My point is, everyone should utilize branding in their business, and since I like you guys I’m going to share some free ways to help you do that on the web today.

You know it’s gotta be good because they call it Beta [*wink GMail beta]. But really, I jabbed it’s use of a very trendy naming convention because that is literally the only bad thing I have to say about this service. FreeConferencing.com is a sister service of FreeConferenceCall.com which is in itself a wonderful product. [...]

Last week I had encouraged our readers to submit screenshots of their websites that they had done some small thing to improve them either by adding a call to action, contact information, or their logos. One of our best customers. In my opinion, our model public events business customer, submitted his site www.toppersandtats.com and the [...]

Sadly, I have no pictures or links to share with you this week from your websites. Maybe I’ll come up with something else to cover where I can review your internet offerings. But this week I thought I’d do I bit of a “duh” piece. On thing that is good to be reminded of is [...]

So, as I hope you know. One of the most important elements for any marketing opportunity is the call to action. When you get right down to it, in most cases, the marketing message without action amounts to a shameful waste of resources: money, time and energy. That’s where an obtrusive, unapologetic, unambiguous call to [...]

A while back, I featured an amazing opportunity that the fine folks at Ekwa.com have offered our customers who are looking for their own websites.  And before that, our great tech authors Alex and Brad, did a wonderful and highly acclaimed series which outlines a few choices that individuals have at their disposal when creating [...]

I’m sorry that I missed last week.  Anyone who took a look here expecting to find an entry from me.  Sorry that I missed you.  I am currently vacationing with my family at their home in Texas.  I hear that you Northerners are buried in snow.  Hope you are enjoying your white, white holiday season. [...]

I am so pleased to announce the completion of a project that has been in the works for quite some time. Not only am I happy to have finished it, but I am so very proud of the result. In the time since I have arrived here at TatStore, nearly a year ago, I have [...]

A while ago Jennifer Kyrnin, from About.com, did a short research project to survey the color palettes of the some major players in the web world. I feel like her analysis is very interesting, and since reading her article I have been noticing this same patterning toward a neutral (usually gray) palette with one distinctive [...]

I just finished a book that Mark, our eCommerce expert, loaned to me a while. The book, entitled Prioritizing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger was a great read. I would call it a must-read who anyone who owns a website, whether you do the design work yourself or not. It covers everything [...]