Your palms are sweaty. You’re nervous. Now that you’ve got the first date with the lovely, bespectacled Jane, what will you say? As a business, you are acutely aware that a customer’s initial impression is the most important one. Like any first date, the last thing you want is an awkward and uncomfortable experience. Thank goodness you invested in Sitecore’s Experience Marketing Platform and can move strategically forward in your courtship with Jane.

With all of the devices available now, it may seem that developing and testing is a nightmare for your web project. The amount of screen sizes to think about is a lot more diverse than the older days of mostly 1024px monitors. But what complicates things further is that these devices have different pixel densities. There ends up being more vocabulary and marketing that complicate the subject.

In 2010, e-commerce sales in the United States were nearly $170 billion. In 2015, online shopping is expected to generate $350 billion — and by 2018, that number could rise to $500 billion.

Data caching is a feature that Sitefinity conveniently enables by default. There are numerous settings aimed at providing admins the ability to cache their individual page content, which are labeled as Output Cache Profiles in Sitefinity’s advanced settings.

You've probably come across several landing pages online in which you were greeted with a video. According to studies, websites with introductory videos are able to attract more visitors. However, it doesn't follow that having a video will actually increase your conversion rate.

What do Hospitals, Barbershops, Hotels, Retail Stores, Supermarkets, Nail Salons, Car Dealerships, and Stadiums, all have in common? They are all starting to utilize Google Business View to drive foot traffic to their business by optimizing their Google + Pages with virtual tours and still photography. Once uploaded the content is directly accessible through the See Inside window on Google and Google Map Searches.

We’re big data nerds here at Americaneagle.com. Data gives us insights to answer the who, what, where, when, and why of website interactions. It tells a story of a site’s successes and failures. Data guides our decisions that we hope ultimately lead to favorable outcomes, and it also helps us turn around and start again when we’ve faltered. Data is everywhere, but only truly reveals its value once it’s evaluated, consumed, and ultimately applied.

Marketing has come a long way. It used to be so simple; engage your audience by having a great website with content sprinkled in. Now, with 70% of the buyer’s journey self directed the power has shifted to the consumer. Many organizations are hyper aware of this shift and are taking a ‘content is king’ mentality. As marketers, how do we align our efforts to our consumers needs?

With more than half of all small business in the U.S. conducting business over the web, the need to keep your ecommerce website secure and performing optimally is more important than ever. Users expect safe online shopping environments while at the same time being increasingly intolerant of any delays. Ecommerce providers thus have the seemingly contradictory task of ensuring their websites are fast and always available, while being fully secure.

Remember those popular coupons you often get for grocery items, the ones which drive you to choose particular brands over others and which encourage you to buy stuff that you were not planning to get in the first place?

Back when Sitefinity 7 released, one of the biggest enhancements was the addition of related data fields to all content modules. This had a huge impact on our existing Sitefinity websites and we rarely build a site anymore that doesn’t use related data to some degree. Custom slideshows, banners, news, staff directories, and many dynamic modules on our sites use custom data to relate to media and other content types. Related data is a cornerstone for our Sitefinity websites.

Advertising with images has the potential to communicate complex messages in the quickest and most efficient way possible. I’m sure you’ve heard the common phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. But are they the right words? Imagery and colors trigger a plethora of emotions in each person, and if used incorrectly, may yield negative results. However, if used properly, they can be very beneficial.

What if you had the ability to predict the actions of your customers, so much so that you felt like a fortune teller? You could finely hone your marketing campaigns and bring more sales leads to fruition so often that it would seem like magic. In this age of the customer, many companies are wondering how they can make the most of the data that is available to them to do just that.

In the digital world we live in today, the average shopper uses at least three devices to access the Internet. Across those devices, they’re faced with a myriad of retailer engagements ranging from email offers, product ads, promotional texts, to sponsored tweets and more. The growing number of interactions before purchases has complicated the retailer’s ability to clearly track the path to purchase, let alone properly assign credit to each interaction.

Part of our role as a leading website design and development company is to be proactive and keep up to date on the latest online developments, especially if they impact our customers. One item that recently became a hot topic in the online world is the Google algorithm changes that were implemented today.

As we enter the second quarter of 2015, it is essential that we continue to evolve as digital marketers and actively seek new opportunities that will enable our digital experiences to be more successful.

You may or may not be aware that we have over 130 technology partners that we work with regularly. In my role as an account manager, I frequently work side-by-side with our partnerships team offering the latest and greatest resources and services available. This allows us to provide a well-rounded business solution to our clients in one centralized location.

The Director of Experience Marketing at Americaneagle.com, Tim Ahlenius, recently wrote a Sitecore blog post on the “age of the customer.” With the rise of the internet and easy search options, it has become a battle for companies to distinguish who their customer really is and how to directly market to each individual customer needs and wants.

You’ve heard it before – “Content is King”. A cliché for sure, but it is for a good reason. It’s true. In a previous post we talked about how content IS king, BUT…it is nothing without a strategic plan! You can blast content across the web until you’re blue in the face, but no one will care to listen if it’s not what they’re looking for. The strategic plan is the foundation to success, and in reality, can be an extensive process. But to help get some quick insights on how you should be thinking

Keywords have been around since the beginning of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and they’re still being highly utilized today by Internet marketers. If you have even the slightest inkling about SEO, you know that it's essential to incorporate relevant keywords in your website, blog, social media posts, and other online promotional materials. Of course, there are particular tactics you will need to apply in order to get your desired results.