QR codes, a barcode that can be scanned by a smartphone, have been installed in the city of Long Beach, Washington. The installation is the first in a series targeting visitors and tourists.

These QR codes are present throughout the city, and provide visitors with instant information at 29 points of interest. These include popular spots which are often frequented even by passers-by. The codes are incorporated in small signs.

The “Quick Response” code is a square barcode that helps in accessing location coordinate, text or contact information and even URL’s onto a phone very quickly. If the phone is equipped with a barcode scanner app, then the camera just needs to be point at the code to read its contents.

These two-dimensional barcodes offer a novel way of exploring the area without being rushed. As cell phones are used to read the codes, catching up with interesting details or curious facts, which can be accessed easily, is fun.

When a smart phone is used to scan the code, it quickly links the visitor to information about the point of interest. With these codes strewn about liberally, in parks and other frequented places, sight-seeing and exploring becomes a pleasure. No need to rely on those unreliable guides or a ‘Boring Guide book’!

A tour of Discovery Trail, which winds through the dunes and offers ocean vistas as well as historic sites, proffering endless excitement can be had by unearthing the information in the 19 codes which are present.

To begin the Discovery Trail tour, the QR code at the World’s Longest Beach Arch on Bolstad Avenue needs to be located. Additional QR codes can be spotted throughout the downtown area as well as at the City parks and playfields.

Read the full article at tmcnet.com.

Google Alerts is a great way for business owners to keep on top of what’s being said about their brand.  So what are they, and how do you use them to your advantage?

What are Google alerts?

Google.com/alerts are automated email messages sent from Google.  You register at Google alerts and tell them to send you messages about a particular term or subject, and you’ll receive an alert email every time there is a mention of the word
in any site appearing in the Google search results. These are likely to be new web pages appearing on the web, like a news alert or a new story.  Whatever it is, whenever there is a mention of the keyword you requested, you get an email.

Even better, there are quite a few customizations possible such as sending you an alert as and when your term is indexed or sending you an alert on a daily basis.  You’re in control of how often you’re notified.

Why should I care and how do I use this to my advantage?

Let us count the ways… 

• Manage your online image & company brand
• Stay on top of reviews written about your business
• Learn what bloggers are saying about you
• Find media mentions of your company
• Be the first to learn of new information releases on a topic
• Track a news story relevant to your industry
• See how popular a particular search term
• Follow niche markets
• Track incoming links to your site (In the “Search terms” field enter – link:www.yoursite.com where ‘yoursite’ is literally your website address and in the “type” option, select “web”)
• Increase traffic and search engine rankings!  This one is a little time-consuming, but cash-FREE.  What you do is set the alert for a particular keyword phrase/term with “type” blog articles.  You’ll get alerts about sites who use that term in their blog.  Go there and make a useful comment about what they’ve written.  If the blogger likes your comment, they’ll approve it and you will likely get a link from their site to yours.  This is REALLY GOOD link strategy.  If it sounds interesting but you need more info, you know how to find us!  webmaster@beachdog.com

Is your site mobile-friendly?

Drop in next week and we’ll be happy to show you your site on a mobile phone – no charge and no commitment.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/56-Public-Wi-Fi-Connections-Made-via-Mobile-Phones-136010.shtml

Did you know we do Ad Specialty items? Ad Specialty is the industry term for all the things that get imprinted on “stuff” instead of the more common substrates like papers.  These are things people buy for advertising their business, thus the printers who specialize in this type of work are “Ad Specialty” printers.

Here is a button that came in this week for the Pacific County Economic Development Council, who wants you to “Get Your Smile On!”

This magnet showcases the logo of the Friends of Willapa National Wildlife Refuge:

And these double-sided window decals are fresh off the presses for members of the Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau:

New to our community is an increasingly full-service Ad Specialty Printing lab at Ilwaco High School under the business name Ilwaco Industries.  Students are creating banners, posters and signage, as well as items that are digitally embroidered, silk screened, use dye sublimation printing (think that photo coffee mug you got at the mall) and more.  Future plans include laser etching and 3-D printing, which will allow them to create a vast array of custom products.

We’re so impressed with our local high school for taking on this lab as part of their vocational program and want to support them however we can.  At this point, design isn’t part of the curriculum so businesses should use a shop like ours to create the image they want printed.  Anyone can create an image and get it printed.  For your business’ presentation a professional designer knows how to prepare art for the specific print medium (the devil is the details).  Once you have your design, having Ilwaco Industries do the production will save you money while helping them learn.  We can work with them on your behalf, or you can save a few bucks and work with them directly.  Expect a few less-than-perfect pieces, but take those back and they’ll re-do them for you!

You’re not alone.  The rules are changing quickly;  social networking and mobile-friendliness are as, if not more, important to most businesses than the mighty search engine rank.

QwikCall.com is an example of a site that did the deed, and with a high degree of professionalism, I might add.  The site owner, Patricia, had two clear goals; she wanted to make the site easy to edit and also optimized for search engines.  I thought the static site’s design needed a bit of professional polish and Patricia wasn’t afraid to update her look.  We were able to make a plan with quick turnaround because Patricia had already gathered all the information needed to complete the project.

I re-created their static website using WordPress, using a pre-designed theme that just needed a little customizing to make it uniquely ‘QwikCall’.  Approaching a site build in this way is efficient, which translates to less expensive, and is a perfect match for clients who aren’t already heavily invested in a visual brand.

Using keywords within the text of the page, our team reworded much of the content to make it ‘search-engine friendly’ and created a meta tag set using the same carefully chosen and researched key words.   Since QwikCall.com was an aged domain, we then just had to sit back and wait for Google and friends to re-index it so we could see the results of our efforts, which pleased us and, more importantly, Patricia.  Great project!  ~Karl