5 SEO Tips for Search Engine Dominance

Mar.05, 2010 in Search Engines, Tips Leave a Comment

The idea behind online marketing and search engine optimization is to rank well with the search engines for your targeted keyphrases.  There are many tips and techniques out there and today we will share our top 5 on page SEO techniques to rank well with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

#1: Name your pages strategically! The filename of your page tells the search engine a lot about what you are displaying to the user!  Break down pages into “specific” product and/or service pages rather than creating a single page that lists all products and services.  Be sure to name the page based on the keyphrases you are targeting for that page (the product or service offered).

#2:  Title your page strategically!! Use the keyphrase(s) you are targeting in your URL (see #1) in the title element in the <head> section.

#3:  Write good meta description tags! Search engines take into consideration the abstract you create to describe what the page is representing.  The abstract is placed in the <head> section as well inside of a <meta name=”description” content=”<<<your abstract>>>” />  Keep your descriptions specific to the keyphrases you are targeting for each page.

#4:  Create links with keyphrases as the anchor content! Anytime you are creating links within your site or to your site from other websites, be sure to include the keyphrase you are targeting for that page inside the link.  An example is: <a href=”www.yoursite.com/the-seo-friendly-page”>[keyphrase included link]</a>  Search engines are more likely to rank you higher for a particular keyphrase  if they see links with the keyphrase pointing to your seo friendly page for the service or product.

#5:  Write good, relevant, key phrase related content… content is king! Contrary to what you may think or believe, having too much content is rarely ever a bad thing in the SEO world.  Although, balancing design and text on a page becomes a more delicate issue.  We don’t want to confuse or lose visitors because the page feels too congested, but we want to give more than one paragraph describing the product or service.  Don’t take the easy way out with content; make sure you create strong, keyphrase-rich content talking about your products and/or services.  If you can find a way to add dynamic, changing content to each page, it will give the search engines a reason to return to your page(s) frequently, thus giving them a reason to believe your site is more useful/relevant site than those that never change!

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Top 5 Things You Can Do To Make Your Next Web Development Project Successful

Mar.03, 2010 in Tips, Web Development 1 Comment

At Blind Acre Media, we have been putting a lot of thought and time into our methodology for developing web applications.  Each project lends some form of revelation regarding how we can improve the planning and development processes.  While each of these 5 steps can be talked about in its own blog post, we have found (especially in a client/contractor relationship) that these 5 steps of the development process are the most critical.  If you’re blessed with smart developers then the brunt of the mistakes will fall within the project planning.  That’s why these steps are critical for a successful web development project.

1.) Create a Clear and Convincing Business Case:
Before starting your next development project make sure you do a thorough analysis of what business problem your new technology will be solving.  Get the ideas out to real customers to gauge their feedback prior to starting development.  Proper planning will allow you to set priorities once you start writing code.

2.) Create an Approval Process For Deliverables:
By establishing a consistent approval process for all proposed work (wireframes, user stories, and other functional requirements), you will save a vast amount of time and frustration.  You wont find yourself rolling huge iterations back because something was not considered in the planning process.

3.) Properly Define Scope Objectives:
You will also benefit from clear definition of scope and objectives, even though details are allowed to emerge throughout the development process.

4.) Create Realistic and Aggressive Expectations:
If the relationship between the web project owner and the web developer is a client/contractor relationship, both sides have to come to an agreement on budget and time constraints.  While it’s hard to avoid long nights at the end of any enterprise development project, it is possible to improve your ability to hedge against large setbacks.  Encourage short and regular iterations, developing the software and delivering a working product in small chunks.

5.) Establish an Accountability Plan and Product Owners:
Each project will most likely have several key product owners that need to be in place as key stake holders in the project from the client’s side.  This accountability team will act as Subject Matter Experts, lending their opinions and knowledge in the planning and building phases to ensure that all of the business dependencies have been thought through.  In most cases these key stake holders will also be in charge of signing off and approving on the deliverable scope items.  Their active participation in the project is vital.

Even with these 5 steps in place, it’s still possible to have mistakes along the way.  A common way of how things can still get off track is that there is not enough collaboration between project owner and the development team.  Even when you have an accountability plan in place, key stakeholders may be a reason for confusion and mistakes within a project.  One of the reasons product owners are unclear in traditional projects is because they are asked, often times too early into the project, for far more details than they can handle which results in them not being able to visualize an adequate solution.  You can help alleviate this by encouraging ideas from key stake holders.  Discussing each deliverable in depth will feel redundant but can uncover critical oversights sooner rather than later.

As you implement these 5 steps you will be able to continually refine your processes, and the efficiency within each project will continue to increase.

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Engaging fans on Facebook: A Case Study

Mar.02, 2010 in Social Networking Leave a Comment

Social media is here to stay and Web 2.0 is the future of the internet experts say.  That being said, we as marketers are still struggling to grasp the best strategy to expose our client’s brands and engage their customers through this young and developing communication median.

Facebook in particular has drawn a lot of attention recently from the marketing community with the burning question of how to market your business/product/cause to the Facebook community.  While there is no perfect strategy yet, some people have created “Fan Pages” for their particular business/product/cause that have been much more successful than others.

One good example is the Facebook fan page titled “No Microsoft Word, I didn’t spell my last name wrong”, which at the time of this writing has more than 1.5 million fans.  This is compared to the official “Microsoft Student” fan page which has only garnered a mere 100,000 fans.  But, my favorite example has to be a fan page titled “Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?” (note that the creator intentionally spelled Nickelback incorrectly to avoid copyright violations).  Admittedly, this is one of the more humorous/ridiculous Facebook fan pages out there.  But, this goofy idea that pokes fun at a popular rock band achieved its goal and gained more fans than Nickelback (1.5+ million!!) in just over two weeks time.

The moderator of the pickle fan page now has the eyes of over 1.5 million people to which she can advertise to, and she achieved this in just a little over two weeks.  Just think of the advertising reach your business could potentially have if your business’s fan page was even remotely as successful as the stupid pickle page.  The moderator of the pickle fan page now has transformed this goofy idea into a revenue stream by selling T-shirts with the infamous pickle on them.

So, it doesn’t necessarily hold true that if you produce good content on your social media pages (even if it’s original) that you will automatically gain more fans.  Successful social media pages do have one thing in common that should be observed by all web marketers.  The common theme among successful (in terms of number of fans) Facebook fan pages is that they have content that is provocative and that people can get passionate about.  Although bigger corporations need to be careful not to take a particular stance on such things as political issues, provocative content is still what gets people (Facebook fans) actively engaged with your fan page which translates directly into more brand exposure for your business.

Although you may think it impossible to create provocative content for your business; just remember, if a pickle can do it, you can too!

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Tips for Efficiently Managing Social Media Networks

Feb.22, 2010 in Social Networking Leave a Comment

Social Media can sometimes seem like a chore when trying to balance your daily tasks, work and family time!  An average of five and a half hours a month is spent on social networking sites, with Facebook leading the way. That’s 82% more time on social networking sites than just a year ago, according to Read Write Web. So, how are you expected to stay connected to the world whether it is for business purposes, with friends, or family and still have time for everything else?

The first rule of social media is that there are no rules. But, in order to keep a healthy media diet, maybe it’s time to put some rules into place. I have created a list of rules of my own to help efficiently manage social networking for BlindAcre. My rules and tips are as follows;

TIMING: Find a time of the day that works best for you to network. Try to set aside at least an hour or two at the same time everyday. This will become a nice daily habit and can help eliminate wondering onto posts, tweets and sites that may be off topic.

ORGANIZATION: If you are into a few social media sites, it may be time for you to use a platform that helps you organize your different networks and allows you to work from a single interface. My preference is HootSuite, see Top 10 Favorite Features of HootSuite. This platform will help you swiftly update posts, tweets and even blogs by allowing you to switch between your different accounts. This is a great way to save time!

RATIO: If you help your business on networking sites, make sure you have a nice ratio of personal to business posts/tweets/topics. I like to follow a 4:1 ratio on twitter and a 3:1 ratio on Facebook. This allows you to stay up to date on industry news while also keeping your postings personal and allowing customers, followers and friends to stay connected. This also helps to weed out information that may not need to be posted and can help you decide which posts are the most important for your readers.

MEASURE: See what posts and topics are most popular by the feedback and comments. Check the stats and click rate through HootSuite’s Summary Statistics. Noticing a trend on your posts? Maybe it’s time to post more about a certain topic or area.

BLOG: Because Blog postings can sometimes take a lot of time, I have a designated folder on my desktop where I like to keep a list of topics I feel may be relevant to write about. From here, I can begin to grow a database of information and articles as I stumble upon them. This makes the writing process smoother with resources readily available for my next post.

The BlindAcre team has also created a blog schedule to follow. This allows for a variety of information to be posted to our blog per division and takes the stress of blog writing off of one person. Having a schedule to abide by allows each division to communicate to our readers and followers, allowing for very dynamic content and information.

Next time you find yourself beginning to feel the stress of balancing work, life and your family, assess your situation and make a schedule that works for you. If you are looking for a more in-depth plan, don’t be scared to make your own rules to follow. Wired provides a great pyramid on Balancing Your Media Diet by breaking up the time you should spend on different media outlets.

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ROI, Not Always the Determining Metric for Social Media Success

Feb.18, 2010 in Social Networking Leave a Comment

Many businesses are still wondering whether an investment in social media really offers a worthwhile return. Is all of the blogging, tweeting and Facebooking really working? Brian Morissey’s article in Adweek suggests that social media can play a huge part in indirect marketing by building a firm’s reputation, instead of generating direct sales.

For all the excitement about social media, there is still a hesitation over its use by companies.  Budget-strapped CMO’S who, while eager to find new ways to reach consumers, are under more pressure to push their business efforts forward.  Trying to measure social-media still remains a challenge to companies.

While online interactions offer a plethora of data points, they don’t contain a set playbook for assigning value. Marketers have grown comfortable with formulas for building brands in traditional media. With social media, what’s a Facebook friend worth?

“The value of social media is that it’s the richest data set that has ever existed,” says Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights, a Wisconsin-based analytics company that uses social media to help clients make marketing decisions. “You can use this data for many things.”

The two sides of the social-media measurement debate are a top concern for marketers, as many plan to ramp up their social-media budgets in 2010. According to an ExactTarget survey of 1,000 marketers, 70 percent said they plan to increase spending in social media, but less than 20 percent said they could effectively measure ROI. The chaos is because marketers using social media tend to blend “art and science” in their measurements, according to Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of strategy and research.

“ROI isn’t the thing that’s pushing people to social media,” says Stewart. “Companies using reputation as a measure of success are more likely to be shifting budget there.  This says that companies are shifting their mind-set about how to measure success”.

For the first time in a decade, Pepsi did not advertise during the Super Bowl.  Where did they go?  They put their money in a social-media campaign that benefits charities.  They have undertaken one of the largest commitments to social-media that has ever been seen.  To combat this, Coke started a Facebook campaign that donates to a Boys and Girls club every time a virtual gift is sent.  Large corporations are using their marketing money towards social-media which shows where the market is shifting.

After years of avoiding social media, Dell Computers made a huge splash.  Their push into social-media left them with a conundrum: how could they monitor social-media efforts that were taking place all throughout the company while determining if they were worth those investments?  Dell’s social-media team mapped out a well defined framework to guide those efforts. It identified a set of value drivers for the customer and for the business, looking for programs that overlapped the two sets. For consumers, Dell identified drivers like connections, recognition and advice. For its business, its drivers are things such as revenue, brand health, share of voice and customer sentiment.

This year, H&R Block changed course, abandoning one-on-one Twitter contact in favor of building a Q&A community site, which replaced a more standard blog that the company did last year. The site required H&R Block’s social-media team to recruit and train 1,000 tax pros to answer questions. It looked to local managers to nominate tax preparers to participate. Early results are promising: get it right has signed up 65,000 members and answered 50,000 questions, with the big tax push still to come.

The challenge will be tracking these queries back to sales. H&R Block, after all, makes most of its money by getting people into its offices. With few internal resources, the company has needed to pare back its social programs, with less emphasis on Twitter and Facebook, for instance. H&R Block can’t promise to answer tax questions posed on Facebook. Instead, they are using Twitter and Facebook mostly as broadcast vehicles, hoping customers who have come back then tell their networks they were helped.

Online social outlets are creating positive brand awareness, which translates into more word of mouth recommendations from customers.  Creating online communities like H&R Block has enhanced their one-to-one relationships with consumers.  More companies are using these methods instead of the “traditional” social media methods because, on Twitter for instance, you cannot have continuous dialogue.  Many companies realize that if people contact them online instead of by phone, they do not need to expend nearly the same amount of internal resources.

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Make Your Slideshows POP With Animoto

Feb.16, 2010 in Resource Leave a Comment

Animoto is a wonderful way to auto-generate your pictures, videos and music together to create a sleek slideshow for free! Videos can be up to 200MB in size, including portions that are in high definition. All you have to do is add your pictures from your hard drive or sites like Flickr and Facebook, as well as your videos, then choose your music. Animoto has a built-in clip editor so editing any video footage is simple. Animoto also has hundreds of sample music tracks to select from, or you can upload your own tunes. The best part about this site is that it takes the work out of creating awesome dynamic displays by completing all of the rendering processes automatically. No more hours spent adding transitions in iMovie… let Animoto do the work for you! Animoto is free to create as many 30 second projects as you would like. They also offer unlimited access to create full-length projects for $30 a year. In addition, they even have a corporate subscription that will allow you to create “white label” products free of Animoto branding! View my video project I made in fewer than ten minutes;

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Today’s Technological Toolboxes

Feb.12, 2010 in Resource Leave a Comment

Throughout the evolution of computers, software and technology, the web browser is one of the many applications that has seen tremendous change.  During the days of dial-up, web browsers were relatively weak, discouraging web programmers from implementing too many advanced features that may slow down or crash the browser, and possibly the entire system.

Today, companies such as Google and Mozilla are creating new browsers that explicitly target many of the advanced techniques and languages; they can render pages and scripts quicker and more efficiently.  Google Chrome is leap-frogging the other browsers by almost becoming its own operating system, capable of very quickly running full applications, games and videos without the need of extra plugins.  This near-OS goal is quite evident when you open the embedded task manager.

All of this new power and capabilities is allowing web sites to become more then just plain text/informative sites; full applications are springing up all over the web.  This trend to create more dynamic and event-oriented site has been coined as the term ‘web 2.0′.

As a web developer, I often get requests from clients to convert their old informative sites to new web 2.0 -enabled sites.  One powerful tool in this conversion is what’s known as a javascript toolkit; the name is quite fitting.  A javascript toolkit is basically a toolkit with a set amount of tools provided to the programmer.  Just like with real toolkits, the contents and usefulness is quite diverse.  Some toolkits contain only simple scripts, allowing easy handling of currency or time, while others will provide an entire desktop experience, (literally).

One of the most simple toolkits is prototype.  This framework provides convenient access to the elements on a page for manipulation, such as hiding something, or changing some text.  This toolkit is rather limited in what it can do, but it is small and loads quickly into nearly any web application for immediate use; it can be considered a small but convenient toolbelt, something you can carry with you nearly anywhere.

ExtJS is another toolkit, but is on the opposite spectrum from prototype.  It has the capabilities to do almost anything, from simple number formatting to creating an entire desktop in your browser, literally!  RSS feeds, desktops, forums, moveable resizable windows, image galleries, there’s almost nothing this library can’t do; it can be considered an entire tool shed.  The drawback to all this functionality is its size.  The full compressed size is nearly 1MB, (excluding all the CSS and images required also), while the “debug” version is 2.5MB!  A staggering size given that most websites rarely exceed 300kB, images included.

A happy medium between a toolbelt and the entire tool shed would be the basic toolbox, big enough for most tasks, enough room to add more specialized tools if needed, and small enough to not be a burden.  A library that fits this bill is jQuery, (which is my personal favorite).

This library is actually split in two, the core and the UI part.  This allows you to choose if you want just easy manipulation of elements, or the additional goodies the UI provides.  In addition, the UI component is further customizable; you can build your own custom version of the toolkit, adding in only features and effects you want.  This helps keeps the size to a minimum, saving bandwidth and allowing your customers to see your content quicker.  The minified core weighs in at under 60kB, and the core UI ranges between 40kB up to about 200kB, depending on how many extras you add in.

One part of any good toolbox is the ability to add more specialty tools if they’re needed.  JQuery has a plethora of plugins and widgets that can be easily installed and used.  These allow you to quickly add rich and interactive content to virtually any website.

BlindAcre’s homepage provides a glimpse at some of the effects you can do with this library, including the scrolling content and rounded corners.  Calendars, dragable and sortable content, image zooming, fade in/out, and painless ajax calls are a few of the many things you can add to make your static site into a fully featured web 2.0 site. Most of this is done in as little as one line of code!

So if you have a website to build or maintain and haven’t experimented with the various  javascript toolboxes available, go ahead and check out a few.  If downloading and including them is too much work, Google has a solution for even that with their Ajax libraries API.  With 2 lines of code, you can tap into the speed and reliability of Google’s cloud by having the libraries loaded directly from it.  This saves you the bandwidth of serving the libraries yourself, and the trouble of downloading/uploading them to your server.

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Knowledge is Power. Timely Knowledge is Even More Powerful. Thank You, Google.

Feb.10, 2010 in Search Engines Leave a Comment

When was the last time that you had an argument with a friend, family member, or colleague over something that had an objective answer?   Did the argument intensify to the point where you wanted to punch your adversary in the face?  If you answered yes to the previous questions, I have good news for you.  Google is doing everything in their power to prevent those types of arguments from happening in the future.

The creation of the internet is arguably the most important advancement for humanity that we have seen or will see in our lifetime.  While the previous statement is debatable, there is no argument that the internet is hands down man’s crowning achievement in regards to mass information dispersion.  The only thing that even comes close is Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440.  While the printing press did allow for mass information dispersion, it doesn’t hold a candle to the internet in terms of timely information dispersion.

While the internet itself is a great median for storing information, it couldn’t have staked claim to the title “man’s crowning achievement in regard to mass information dispersion” without the help of Google.  Google was not the first company to jump into the web indexing and search industry by any means.  But, since its inception in 1998, Google has been exponentially improving its search platform and has become, overwhelmingly, the search industry leader.  So much so, that the term “Google” has transformed into being not only a proper noun, but a verb as well!

Google’s search engine algorithm has become so efficient that it now takes less than a second to search the entire internet for a search query:

Not only is it fast but, more importantly, its search results are extremely relevant to the term being searched for.  This is in part because Google is often a main influencer on how websites are designed.  Web masters try to create sites that adhere to the strict rules of Google’s search algorithm (more on this in another post).  What this results in, thankfully in my opinion, is that the (very, very, very) smart people at Google force the general masses to create websites that are technically efficient with relevant content.

So, next time you’re in a heated argument – instead of trying to physically beat your point of view into your ignorant antagonist, find the closest computer and “Google” the answer.  Thank you, Google, for providing the world with timely information and for helping to prevent violence at the same time!

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Doppelganger Week on Facebook creating violations of Terms of Service?

Feb.04, 2010 in Social Networking Leave a Comment

If you’re one of Facebook’s 350-million-plus members, you’ve probably noticed a handful of people on your friends list changing their profile photos to pictures of celebrities, cartoon characters, Muppets, and other notable figures recently.

That’s because an unofficial viral craze called “Doppelganger Week” has arisen on the social network. To participate, you change your profile picture to a celebrity or otherwise notable figure whom you resemble (or like to think you resemble).

Nobody’s really sure where Doppelganger Week came from or who started it. It’s particularly funny considering the recent emergence of more photos from the set of “The Social Network,” a movie based on the origins of Facebook in which the company’s early executives are portrayed by, yes, celebrity doppelgangers.

The catch is, putting up a celebrity photo on your Facebook profile may not actually be kosher. In the company’s terms of service, it says: “You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law…We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement.” So unless you took that celebrity photo yourself or bought the rights to it, it may be in violation.

Thankfully, for those Facebook users who want to let the world know that they think they look like George Clooney, it sounds like there hasn’t been any impetus to pull Doppelganger Week photos.

“Users are responsible for the content they post, but as always, Facebook will respond to requests for removal that it receives from copyright holders,” spokeswoman Brandee Barker said in an e-mail to CNET. “In this case, we have received no such requests.”

Tips to Helping You Plan Your Next Website

Feb.03, 2010 in Website Design Leave a Comment

Helping our clients build successful web applications is extremely gratifying. Being able to listen and understand their business/technological problems and then help create a solution through intelligent software development and design can be extremely challenging. Our goal is to always build and design smart software fast. It helps that we have extremely talented web developers and an incredibly talented web design team. But most of the time, the real secret ingredient behind a project’s success boils down to the client. Clients that know their industry and business the best generally come to the table with more ideas, an outlined strategy, and desired goals.

If you’re thinking about hiring a web development team to help you design a website or software application there’s some fundamental things that you’ll want to think through prior to engaging developers.

Define the problem you’re trying to solve: What will your application ultimately do? How will it be better then a competitors site? How will it improve the lives of your customers, employees, and other users? Be specific and think BIG. The answers to these questions will ultimately work like a GPS throughout the planning and building stages. Anytime you’re unsure of whether or not you want to build certain features you can refer back to these initial questions. If certain features do not solve your stated problems then it will be much easier to table ideas that might take you off course of your initial road map.

Create an initial list of desired features: Once you have your vision detailed out by defining your goals for a project you can start deciding what features will help you achieve those goals. It’s always smart to create a full list of features that you think need to be implemented. This will work as a loose set of requirements, which is extremely helpful when you’re gathering quotes from design teams. Having a list of desired features will allow potential developers to properly estimate the time needed to build each feature. You can then set a budget and timelines. If certain features don’t fit into your budget you can decide which ones are critical for your success now and which ones can be implemented in later phases of development.

Pick your competition: Having a couple sites in mind that are in your industry but fail at delivering on some or all of their promises will not only help spur thoughts, but it can also give you some motivation. Don’t be afraid to take on the big guys. Just because a site may be dominant in your industry doesn’t mean you can’t carve out your own niche. If you feel a particular site fails at something, even if it’s a popular site, chances are much of their audience will agree with you. Knowing the competition also helps your development team stay on track with your stated goals and can help avoid making similar poor choices while developing your site.

Plan for phases: Facebook was around for several years before they completely changed their news feeds interface. Having an agile mindset will help keep momentum in the project. Perfectionism usually leads to a lot of imperfections. Planning for iterations allows you to decide on the few critical things that will help you achieve success now instead of trying to build the perfect application from day one. Be extremely biased on which features get built now. Every feature you add to scope adds time and money. Having a bloated list of unnecessary features is the quickest way to run a project into the ground.

Once you’re armed with defined goals, desired features, knowledge about your competition, and realistic expectations, your chances for success increase exponentially. Keeping a lean mindset throughout the entire life of your application will ensure that you don’t end up with a massive software application that no one uses. Google has developed hundreds of products, but their most used and most successful product is a white page with one text box and their logo.  Knowing what you want to accomplish and keeping it simple is the surest path to creating successful web applications.

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