According to TechCruch, Yelp recently walked away in the last hour from nearly selling its business profile website to Google over half a billion dollars.

Nearly everyone is aware of Google, or possible Google addict such as myself. Yet, many of you may not be aware of Yelp. Yelp was founded in 2004 and is a local search and business review site. It is a local reviews website that is driven by local consumers that sign up and rate their favorite hole in the wall or businesses in their communities. Yelp uses social networking features to let people write reviews and share their reviews with friends.

SportsTails is a retailer of custom tail light covers for Arkansas Razorback fans to display their school spirit on their truck or SUV. These tail light covers have the Razorback logos and mascot cut out of the tinted brake light cover so a raging Hog appears every time you press the brake.

The new website for SportTails has an edgy look and feel that works great for a website geared towards sports fans. We used dark colors to emulate the tint of the products and to make the content pop. We hope you like it as much as we do.

Check out more web designs by 1011 Web Soluions.

Why do you need a dynamic website? Why does the number one professional athlete in the world need one? Everyone on Earth knows him. Well for Tiger Woods it gave him a venue to let the world know what is going on in his life. He did not do it on TV…he did it online.

More and more businesses are entering the online world and engaging the conversation that is already taking place. Many business owners are finding their customers are shaping their brand online through social networking sites like Yelp with reviews and star ratings.

You can actually control the conversation with the right online marketing strategy. If this sounds foriegn to you or if you simply don't have the time or expertise to engage online consumers, we can help.

This year was a first for Heisman Voting. Nissan, the corporate sponsor of the Heisman Trophy Trust, will be giving its vote via results of their online poll. What effect will this have in the 75 year tradition? Maybe the trust will consider letting its voters submit its 2010 votes online.

In years past it has always been the issue of the ballots being mailed in. This causes some writers to have to submit the ballot before the league championship games are played. So, if their vote did not live up to hype in the final week, it may have skewed the vote. This online option would allow the voters to consider the players whole body of work.

This year was one of the closets votes in the history of Heisman voting. Alabama's Mark Ingram may have slipped past Colt McCoy of Texas and Tim Tebow of Florida due to this advance in this online technology.

It is a sign of the times. Little Rock National Airport adds a online booking system to replace the old static website. In their attempt to provide options to Expedia.com and Travelocity.com, they have come out with fly-lr.com using a professional firm to build the site to provide convenience to their customers in hopes to win friends, and make more money.

As a small business owner you need to consider redesigning your site to provide the same convenience to your customers. If you feel your site is underperforming or causing frustration to your visitors, let 1011 Web Solutions remodel your site to increase usability, conversions, and sales.

Some retailers wonder what impact a website might have on their business. Take Kohls for example, they experienced so much traffic on Black Friday their site crashed repeatedly due to overwhelming traffic. What should this tell you as a small business owner trying to survive/grow/maintain your business?

"More than ever, consumers are using the Internet to save themselves time and money by pre-planning their visits to local stores," Vikram Sharma, chief executive officer of ShopLocal, said in a statement. If you do not have an interactive website with ecommerce you may consider getting one.

Let 1011 Web Solutions show you how to do it.

Google Wave is being hyped as the next incarnation of email. It is currently only available to a select group of 100,000 people, but will be available for mass use after further testing. 

This video will give you more information about Google Wave.

One word describe the new Splashwear Aquatics site...Awesome!

Several things about this website makes it stand out from typical sites. High resolution images are always great to work with. The images are full of rich colors and appealing textures.

The design of the navigation also breaks norms found on most conventional websites by experimenting with a non-linear nav bar that simulates waves and water patterns. This is a website designed for swimmers of course!

Splashwear Aquatics is a local company in Maumelle, Arkansas that sells swim team equipment and accessories. This website is built on a content management system and includes ecommerce functionality. It also has a swim team login that enables swimmers on registered swim teams to get discounts on their team gear, flash, and an integrated blog. 

We've had a lot of positive feedback on this site already, and we're happy to showcase it here. Check out the live site at www.swimmerstuff.com, and let us know what do you think?

I always recommend to my blogger clients to include rich high-resolution images to their blogs. This helps to break up the text, and adds color to your blog articles.

High resolution images don't come cheap. Some people are often compelled to borrow them from other sites, but taking images without permission is never a good thing.

Istockphoto is a great source for all kinds of images, but of course you have to pay for them. The images are great, but it's easy to burn up credits and dollars using their images.

A possible source for free images is PicApp. I just discovered this site today and it seems to have a pretty big selection of images at a great price, FREE! For all of you bloggers out there not adding vivid images to your blog, check out PicApp.