We have recently rolled out a small improvement that enables your touch device to access the element drop-down menus in admin view. On a laptop or desktop computer, these menus are accessed by hovering over the menu bar, which isn't possible on a touch device. So, we've changed the behavior on touch devices so that touching the element name will open the drop down menu.

This new feature will allow touch devices to:

• Access the "manage posts" page on blog elements
• Access the "manage entries" page on form elements
• Access the "settings" pages for all elements
• Use the "move up" and "move down" buttons to move elements within a region
• Use the "delete" button to delete an element

This update is just a small step in our continued work toward improving the experience on mobile devices. We hope you enjoy it!

So what, you might ask? Watch this 4 minute video and see for yourself.

A few key highlights:

• Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years, but unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million in the past 5 years.
• In 2009, traditional advertising is in steep decline
  • Newspaper down 18.7%
  • T.V. down 10.1%
  • Radio down 11.7%
  • Magazine readership down 14.8%
• Digital advertising however is growing rapidly.

• 10,000,000 - The number of unique visitors ABC, NBC, and CBS get every month, collectively.
  • These businesses have been around for a combined 200 years.
• 250,000,000 - The number of unique visitors Myspace, YouTube, and Facebook get every month, collectively.
  • None of these properties existed 6 years ago.

• 93% of American adults have a cell phone.

• In February 2008, John McCain raised $11 Million via traditional methods (fundraisers, etc).
• That same month, Barack Obama attended NO campaign fundraisers... and raised $55 Million through leveraging online social networks in 29 days.

• The mobile device will be the world's primary connection tool to the Internet by 2020.

Webmasters, organization leaders and business should focus on optimizing their local listings for the products and services that they offer to their regional customers.  For more information on how to do that, contact an Immerseme representative. 

Good SEO strategy should also include social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Having a strong presence in social networking gives your business or organization website more doorways to the web community and more opportunities to be found and indexed by search engines. 

The benefit to searcher is that they can find content relevant to theirsearch query without having to scroll down the page. The benefit to thewebsite publisher is that searchers will be more likely to click to apage if the link appears to be more relevant.

Branding refers to the emotional feeling as a result in the complete experience and interaction with that organization. It encompasses everything from how your receptionist answers your phone, the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of your facilities, the professionalism and excellence of your work product and on and on and on.

branding refers to the visual representation through your communication with your audience. Your logo, design style, photographic styling, font choice, tagline, et al.

branding is all about how you represent your Branding.

Once your Branding is defined and you define your branding the next step is to extend that brand and build equity through remaining consistently consistent in how you represent your brand identity.

A Case Study - Karen McConaughey Photography

Karen McConaughey Photography (KMP) is an Immerseme client who we helped define both the Brand and brand. KMP is all about capturing authentic memories through photography. You can read how Karen presents her intangible Brand at KarenMPhotos.com.

One of the recent projects we did for Karen was to extend her brand across multiple communication platforms. First we obviously began with her brand where we extended it to her primary website. Our recent addition was integrating social networking via her facebook pages as well as integrating her twitter feed. This is also the primary location where Karen utilizes solid Search Engine Optimization practices.

As a photographer, Karen wants to illustrate what she's doing along with large format client photographs. While ImmerseEdit CMS incorporates blogging tools, RSS feeds and more in to the CMS, it is not a blogging platform like Blogger, Typepad, or Wordpress.

Karen chose to use Wordpress as her blogging platform of choice where we extended her brand by customizing it to match her main website.

Finally, Karen utilizes Twitter and Facebook as social networking tools to communicate and build her online community. So her Twitter page got a facelift to match her brand as well. 

All of these small details serve to create a consistent brand experience for Karen McConaughey Photography that helps reinforce her Brand.

How can we help you?

You see, We believe each organization has a brand, whether it's been defined visually or not. As such, each of our designs are unique to ourclients. Your business or organization isn't cookie cutter, and neither are our designs.

This was so visually evident as I was celebrating a few recent client launches here on our blog.

Mission Church in Helotes, TX is a new (and very successful) church plant in the San Antonio area. The church and leadership tend to be more rough around the edges (and I mean that in a positive way!), gritty and generally true to life... and their design and brand tell that story.  

First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, SC is a church with 170 years of tradition and history. The DNA of FBS is unique to their local context and much different from Mission Church, as reflected in their design.

Now, truth be told, we want all of our clients to represent their brands and uniqueness in their design to truly build a brand identity (and then market the fire of that brand through social media, SEO, et al!), but we also realize that in today's economy, not everyone is ready to take the proverbial plunge of a professionally designed website. 

For those we've created a few Templates (that are easily customizable) in the hopes that this is a step in the right direction and that ultimately we'll get to help each organization we partner with realize their uniqueness! Now, you won't find our Templates in our menu structure here at Immerseme.com, but if you're looking for a low cost option to use ImmerseEdit CMS, this may be an option for you (but hopefully a short term option!). 

Part of Immerseme's Search Engine Optimization services includes creating and managing Facebook advertising campaigns. The MET Church in Houston, TX, one of our current clients has generated tremendous success with Facebook Advertising:

From period 02/09/2009 to 04/16/2009

Impressions: 3,509,617
Cost: 745.03
Clicks: 1,522
Average Cost Per Click: 0.49
Average Cost Per Thousand Impressions: 0.21

Contact us to discuss your traffic needs!

• Wow. Everyone likes the Wow Factor. We are highly motivated by the Wow of God’s character, nature, and work, and so is He. Attention on Him benefits everyone and is the catalyst to life with Jesus.

• Access. We enjoy ultimate Access. We take advantage of the ultimate access God provides to Himself and to His people. You can begin enjoying ultimate Access by connecting to God directly through our Growth Groups, building a wise mind through prayer and the study of God's Word.

• Change. Change is growth. Jesus is inviting you to choose a journey that will change your heart, your mind, and your actions for life. Life with Jesus changes people. And this church reproduces and changes with them.

•  Journey. It's all about the Journey. We are thrilled by the process of coming to Jesus and being sent out by Him.  Responding to His invitation begins a journey of life with Jesus that gives you bold feet that go. You will be invited to begin your own Journey to Jesus through our Invitational Culture, see others’ Journeys through our Celebration of Stories, and start your Journey into the lives of others through F.U.N. Teams.

Immerseme has worked with Mission Church for over a year helping MC launch a "hold over website" while they completed their branding process. At that point, Immerseme took their new look and incorporated it in to their website that certainly communicates the Wow factor present at Mission Church.

MC was looking for something a little more rough around the edges that communicates their "come as you are" or ultimate access environment.

We also added some custom development adding AJAX animations to the site to create four different content areas, all without having the user leave the homepage or have to wait to reload a new page, plus incorporated simple but effective links to social networking tools key for any church.

How can we help you communicate your vision better?

FBS has been going through a vision clarity process with Auxano Consulting, a strategic partner with Immerseme. Auxano founder, Will Mancini most recently published Church Unique published by Leadership Network. With Auxano's guidance to first define what makes First Baptist Church unique they then provide marketing and branding services helping to create a new identity for the historic church.

Immerseme then translated that new brand identity to a new web presence for FBS.

FBS began with a flash based landing page that presents three key entry points for its site visitors, Guests, Regular Attenders, and a section to share life Stories that reinforce the FBS tagline that In Christ more is possible than you can ever imagine.

The Guest section of the new FBS site incorporates specific AJAX development to present relevant information to those not connected with the church, all without reloading the page creating a more seamless user experience.

The Regular Attender section reinforces the FBS Vision Path, specifically the FBS strategy of Worship, Prepare, Serve, Engage.

The Stories page incorporates an interactive flash movie that shares real stroies of life change from those connected with First Baptist Church.

All of this development works in tandem to present the FBS mission and vision to both those who are already connected with the church and targeted information to those who have yet to experience that more is possible!

States Witt, "Replenish exists because there is a crisis in the church.  It is notthe crisis of innovation or resources or leadership skill.  It is acrisis of the soul.  Many of us who lead have lost our way.

Pastors are leaving the ministry in record numbers.  Discouragement anddisillusionment are epidemic among those who lead churches. The storyof too many Christian leaders is the story of a neglected soul andmismanaged character.  It is the story of a slow drift into relationalisolation.  It is the story of the seduction of ambition."  

Immerseme was contracted to create the Replenish brand, website, strategy icon system, and flash development.

"We loved our experience with Immerseme.  Their approach was both professional and personal... which is a difficult combination to find these days. We found Immerseme to be skillful, thorough, reliable and timely in hitting deadlines.  We had an idea, but immerseme brought that idea to life visually and technically.  We couldn't be happier with the result." - Lance Witt, Founder of Replenish

Traditional forms of interactive advertising such as banner ads are quickly falling out of favor and site publishers should begin looking at expanding their ad arsenal with other offerings. BorrellA Associates, Inc.

Matt Cutts from Google gives a recap of Google advancements in 2008 and a look into what's coming later this year.  This is a long video, but it is worth watching to the end.

The Contemporary School of Fine Arts is a ministry that trains both youth up through adults in instruments primarily for the purpose of facilitating a growing worship ministry.
KIDConnect is the before and after school program for grade school children.
The Lamb School is The MET's daycare and kindergarten program where the goal is to lay biblical foundations in the lives of children.

We got confirmation yesterday that Google has completed a PageRank update for the Google toolbar.  The update does not affect your listing on Google search engine result pages, but you may want to check to see how you are doing.  Every 3 or 4 months, Google exports data to the visible PageRank tool on Google toolbar.  So, if you see a change, it may be reflective of something that happened a few months ago.

PageRank is a measure of website importance (based on the number and quality of links to your website) as determined by Google. This determination is based on over 500 million variables.  The Google PageRank tool is a visual representation of a website's importance on a scale of 0-10.  Page ranking that affects search result pages is constantly updated but the graph that you see on the Google toolbar  is only updated quarterly at best. 

Too many webmasters and SEO's obsess with PageRank as if it were the number 1 determining factor of a website's search results.  It is only one of 200 factors that determine search results.  I am not saying that PageRank is not important, but it is not as important as some people would have you believe.  Achieving high page rank is like receiving a award for having a well developed website with fresh, relevant content. It is better to win by outperforming your competition than by trying to lobby the judges.

PageRank develops organically as visitors and happy customers spread the word to others by linking to you.  So, instead of spending your time on link building - just write some quality text that describes who you are, what you offer, and how it is going to change the world.  Then, find the most appropriate ways to let the people who know you to know about your website so that they can tell others who tell others.

A little customer training can go a long way. Happy customers will become loyal evangelists who are like unpaid marketers- spreading the message about your products and services.  All you have to do is to ask them to join your fan club on Facebook, blog about you and post positive reviews on ratings websites. Consider sending a follow-up email to each of your happy clients with a little nudge on how to share the love with others. ImmerseMail is an excellent tool for connecting with your customers and building your brand through viral messageing that has the potential for exponential growth.

View the featured videos for ImmerseEdit web CMS.

Allure Photography is a crack team of professional photographers in Houston TX specializing in Houston Wedding Photography. Immerseme was hired to develop a website specifically for their Wedding Photography portion of their business. 

According to the article, "About 38 percent of rural households have broadband. In urban and suburban areas, where competition for customers can be fierce, the numbers are a lot higher, 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says free broadband can help bridge the gap. 'This initiative brings with it the promise of a free basic broadband service to hundreds of thousands of Americans who currently have limited or no access to the high-speed Internet.'"

Assuming this initiative is passed, consumers will have unprecedented access to broadband speed internet service, that obviously means a significant number of increased people accessing the net, which makes ensuring your site can be found when people are searching for your content.

Proper search engine optimization and search engine marketing is key to make sure your website is properly optimized. Each Immerseme website includes optimization. Contact us today to discuss your website needs.

Just like we freshen up our homes, our websites deserve some tender loving care too. An outdated or static website does not communicate the health, progress, or stability site owners are striving to achieve. A logical and often asked question by clients and friends is how often a site should be updated?

How often should my website content be updated?

A general rule of thumb is that your site content should be updated as frequently as you want your site visitors to visit your website. The best analogy I've come up with is that of a morning newspaper. If you read the paper each day, you want fresh content each day.  If you get a paper each day and the headline and articles are the same day after day you will certainly stop reading that paper.

How often should my website design be updated? 

This one's a little trickier, as there are a few factors at play. While there's no hard and fast rule about updating your site, your website design should probably be updated about every other year. While this is more of an art than a science, changing your design too fast can communicate instability (sooner than 12 months) but wait too long and not only does your site look outdated but is most likely not taking advantage of browser advances and design styles as well.

So, content should be updated as often as you want your site visitors to return and a rule of thumb on design is around every 18 - 24 months.

Certain to practice what we preach, you'll notice that the Immerseme site just got a new coat of paint as well. We hope you like it!

Baskin has some good points about the way that online search has changed the way people function offline.  Search engines have added an interesting factor to the concept of branding, because the algorithms are brand neutral. While a strong brand for your organization is key, don't stop there. Strategies exist to establish your online identity and help create customer evangelists who hopefully (if your brand matches your DNA) reinforce your message. The best way is simply focus on providing quality products and services and training your happy customers to say nice things about you. 

Use descriptive anchor text

Writing descriptive anchor text, the clickable words in a link, is a useful signal to help search engines and users alike to better understand your content. The more Google knows about your site—through your content, page titles, anchor text, etc.—the more relevant results we can return for users (and your potential search visitors). For example, if you run a basketball site and you have videos to accompany the textual content, a not-very-optimal way of linking would be:

To see all our basketball videos, click here for the entire listing.

However, instead of the generic "click here," you could rewrite the anchor text more descriptively as:

Feel free to browse all of our basketball videos.

Blog tagging or categories

Photo gallery slideshows

Improved photo gallery captions

Launch and downtime