In the meantime, some industry observers hope that newspaper companies will use their independence to focus more of their time and cash on growing revenues organically through better digital advertising offerings. That is certainly what Ken Wisnefski, CEO of the Internet marketing company WebiMax, has been pushing for as he has worked with various local papers.

Google announced late Wednesday afternoon that some formulaic changes are looming. In an attempt to better protect Internet users, Google will begin to include secure, encrypted HTTPS connections in their list of factors which determine search engine results. The news comes as little surprise as the Internet’s most powerful search engine has a history of altering their algorithms in efforts to stay current.

“This is another death knell for newspapers,” Ken Wisnefski, founder of the Internet marketing firm WebiMax, told International Business Times. “The drop in newspaper print editions has obviously been well-documented, but I think this move -- when you’re talking about a publication like USA Today -- it really shows the focus, and the need to build upon digital assets as opposed to traditional media.”

“Google has begun to favor sites that expand and contract to the varying and ever-growing screen sizes of mobile devices,” explains Ken Wisnefski, founder and CEO, WebiMax. “If your site is responsive and engages users, they’ll stay on the site more, which can lower your bounce rate.”

"Over time people have begun to abandon their laptops, and now use their phones for everything." - Ken Wisnefski, WebiMax CEO

"Phones have migrated largely away from 'talking' at this point and are much more utilized for apps, searching and making purchases," said Ken Wisnefski, founder and CEO of online marketing agency WebiMax. "Talking is secondary. Who talks on a phone anymore?"

As online marketing has steadily moved from being an afterthought to the forefront, we here at WebiMax have noticed a gap developing in business owner’s understanding of how to successfully manage the ever-evolving world of online marketing and their ability to support that with more traditional advertising or offline techniques.   We see companies struggling to figure out where they should focus their efforts as well as their budget and time.   We decided to do something about it, which is why last Wednesday, we launched Marketing.com.

The internet along with search engines like Google have made finding great businesses, products and services  as simple as typing in a few keywords into a search bar.  But when users type those keywords in, how do you make sure it’s your business they find and your website they visit? The answer to driving more traffic to your website and ultimately generating more leads, more conversions and more sales for your company is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. In the infographic below are some key facts and ideas to help you better understand the power of SEO and how you can develop a winning strategy to move your online business to the fore of its industry.

For years, Amazon has been viewed as the cream of the crop when it comes to fast, dependable delivery. With their pristine reputation, more and more larger brands integrated their products into the Amazon shopping feed and innovations like Amazon Prime made online shopping more and more common.  However, Amazon’s reign at the top has a formidable challenger as Google now has their own plans to dominate the online shopping space with Google’s Shopping Express.

Yesterday, a live Twitter session that the National Football League hosted directly with their commissioner, Roger Goodell, certainly created a lot of interest. With the NFL draft only days away, the notion of stirring up some buzz likely motivated the NFL to “expose” Goodell to the millions of fans waiting with questions.

With the outpouring of new Top Level Domains hitting the market, the question everyone is asking is how Google will treat these new extensions. While Matt Cutts has come out and directly stated that the new TLDs won’t be given preference over existing .com’s, I do feel strongly that over time these TLDs will begin to have increased value in areas related to very specific and targeted keywords.

While social media has dominated discussions related to marketing, the question that often arises is how to effectively leverage social media for a strong return on investment. The ability to see value has been harnessed and realized through Facebook, Twitter, and to some degree LinkedIn and Instagram, but the platform that has Internet marketing experts currently buzzing is Snapchat.

One of the most important shifts in recent SEO history is the way that important metrics are captured and analyzed.

Email marketing is a great strategy to educate others about your business and nurture leads. Email marketing allows you to keep in touch with potential and existing customers by letting them know about news within your industry, business promotions and sales, and more. So why invest in an email marketing campaign? We'll let the statistics in the infographic below do the talking.

On St. Patrick's Day, we randomly selected one person who ran their domain through our Website Analyzer tool to win a free press release.

Many SEOs will recommend that your business have a blog for the many benefits that it will provide, such as improving SEO and helping you to connect with your audience.

You know what they say: Time flies when you're trying to keep up with SEO best practices and Google's tricky, ever-changing algorithms…or something like that. When you've been in the SEO game for several years, you grow accustomed to certain strategies going as quickly as they came, and you're probably always keeping your eye out for the latest and greatest practices. Wanting to stay on top of the game is a good thing, especially when it comes to content creation. That being said, just because new opportunities are always breaking into the scene, it doesn't mean that oldies can't be goodies.

Last weekend, I was on my way home from the "polar bear plunge" in Wildwood, NJ when I stopped at a local convenience store for a bottle of water for the 2-hour drive home.