University website designers, do you get the message?

First, let’s discuss style. I think we can all agree that the Android is sort of a geeky man phone and the iPhone belongs in the pockets of the hipsteriest hipsters you know.

Let’s talk about accessibility — by which I mean: how open is it?

You know what, I don’t [...]]]>

First, let’s discuss style. I think we can all agree that the Android is sort of a geeky man phone and the iPhone belongs in the pockets of the hipsteriest hipsters you know.

Round One: …Um…. Draw. I guess…

Let’s talk about accessibility — by which I mean: how open is it?

You know what, I don’t really know which is the winner in that situation either. On the one hand, you have the Android system and app market being upheld as more “open” (though you still have to root and ROM your phone in order to install your own systems on it, but whatever). On the other hand, you (theoretically) have the iPhone’s “we won’t put crap on our market” policy, which is good (in theory).

So I guess that’s like, half a point each? Let’s call it half a point each.

ROUND TWO: .5 vs .5

And now it’s… networks. Verizon & AT&T. Sprint vs. AT&T. ANYONE REALLY. Vs. A. T. And T.

I don’t want this to become a network showdown, since it’s the ANDROID AND iPHONE SMACKDOWN, but we have to say it:

Verizon (and whatever) is flat out better than AT&T.

Android is also on other providers, so if you hate Verizon? THAT’S OKAY.

Round Three: Android. Sort of. It’s more a win for Verizon though.

(Um. Uh.)

You know what?

You know what, guys?

They’re SMARTPHONES. They’re NOT ALL THAT different. You can get your e-mail on them and send texts and make phone calls — and at the end of the day, they essentially do the same shit.

So let’s just hug it out, okay?

Okay.

[Kate is the author of the blog Arguing with a Doughnut, which provides just as much silliness as the title implies.]

On August 25, 2010, Social Media Informer launched.

Social Media Infomer is a new hub and aggregator for social media content makes it easier to cut through the noise and find a signal. You can use the site as a daily digest, or search articles based on topics or dates.

SMI was [...]]]>

On August 25, 2010, Social Media Informer launched.

Social Media Infomer is a new hub and aggregator for social media content makes it easier to cut through the noise and find a signal. You can use the site as a daily digest, or search articles based on topics or dates.

SMI was developed by some of the same people as the popular B2B Marketing Zone b2b marketing portal. It also uses the same underlying Browse My Stuff technology, which enables publishers, PR agencies, corporations and other enterprises to efficiently SEO-friendly build branded content aggregation hubs.

idaconcpts is one of the featured sites through Social Media Informer.

Here is a list of other featured authors:

• Alex Blom
• Buzz Marketing for Technology
• Conversionation
• ConverStations
• Direct Marketing Observations
• FreshNetworks
• Janet Fouts
• Kyle Lacy
• My Creative Team Thinking
• One Social Media
• Scott Gould
• Simon Mainwaring
• Socialized
• The Relationship Economy
• Webbiquity SMM
• WindMill Networking

If you want to learn more about how you can engage or involved, here’s more on how to Participate with Social Media Informer.

This is not really an easy topic and before you make such a radical move there is a lot to take into [...]]]>

Many website owners as their businesses expand they come to the dilemma of splitting their sites into a few microsites so they can rank better for their targeted terms.

This is not really an easy topic and before you make such a radical move there is a lot to take into consideration.

The first thing you need to ask yourselves is why would you want do something like that?

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Reasons to split a site into Microsites

1. Your brand name is not doing very well and you would like a part of the business to be re-branded and market it separately.
2. Your businesses are expanding into a few different niches, thus the one site you have can’t really serve all those different businesses.
3. You think that by splitting your site into some smaller ones you will manage to engage the visitors as they all microsites will be dedicated to one particular service or product. Conversion may increase as users will think that they are at a specialist’s website rather than a generic one offering all sorts of services or products.

Risks and Dangers

There are certain risks you will be taking by making such a big change and you need to think carefully before you make any decision.

Log Tail and Link Juice Loss

By splitting your site into microsites you will have to remove a great deal of content. That is going to affect two key elements:

1. Your long tail will be reduced, so will long tail traffic because there will be much less content on the (main) site compared to what used to be there.
2. The power of the whole site will be diminished as certain deep pages with a number of backlinks will cease to exist. Usually webmasters redirect those removed pages to the new microsite, thus the link juice will be permanently gone.

Subdomain vs Separate Domain

There are two different ways to embrace the Microsite approach:

1. Generate them as subdomains of your main domain so if your main site is www.mainsite.com a subdomain microsite would look like microsite.mainsite.com
2. Generate microsites in a new separate domain, something like www.microsite.com

However, since Google stopped treating subdomains independently and is attaching some association between them, the first approach does not sound like a very good idea. That means that there isn’t much opportunity anymore to rank for both, your main site and the subdomain site so you should choose the separate domain approach.

Links Farms Issue

This is a quite controversial issue but in theory, a great benefit of splitting your site into microsites is to interlink between them so each one passes link juice to another. Because this is a technique that in several cases have been abused by web site owners who deliberately buy tens of websites just to easily get links back to their main sites, your site(s) may end up being banned from Google’s indexes. This practice is called ‘link farms’ and although not all web sites do not end up being penalized, you should probably link between some of your sites and not all of them! And definitely avoid reciprocal links as that is an obvious indication of potential link farms.

Slow growth

Each microsite would be looked at by search engines as a new site, which means you will need to do everything you would normally do for a new site such as creating back-links and all other problems associated with domain development. Unless you have a massive budget you will probably struggle for the first few months as you really need to optimise all those different sites. The more competitive your site’s niche is, the more time and money you would need to spend so your microsite will be in a position to compete with other long established power websites. If your niche is not that competitive that shouldn’t be much of an issue.

The Key Questions

The questions to ask yourselves before making such a big step are:

1. How long could you afford waiting and spending money until you see your new site(s) ranking in Google’s 1^st page?
2. Is the situation with your current site really that bad? What if you spend all those money linkbuilding in order to gain more positions in the SERPs?
3. Is it really because of your brand name that you don’t get the traffic you are expecting? Have you looked carefully at your SEO campaign and how your traffic coverts? Is there anything you can do to increase conversion (i.e. enhance usability, fresh web design) ?

The Big Benefits of Microsites

The post doesn’t suggest that Microsites are a bad idea. There are several benefits if done correctly with the main ones being:

1. You can have various keyword-rich domain names that are highly valued by Google. With a consolidated site you would never manage to fit more than 1-2 keywords in your domain name.
2. Your backlinks will mainly target the homepage as there isn’t any great need to link build for deeper pages. Many directories only allow links to homepages so there is a big advantage here.
3. Your brand name will be very close to your product or service, thus some visitors will think they are at the right place. Specialists’ sites convert better in general.

Modi is an SEO and web designer who works an a consultant for a team building company. You can connect with him on Twitter at @Macmodi.

Designing and managing a website need not be an expensive affair.

There are several useful free and open source applications available for download that allow you to do everything from designing the graphics for your site to editing blog posts.

This list is not comprehensive, but [...]]]>

Everything a web designer needs for free:

Designing and managing a website need not be an expensive affair.

There are several useful free and open source applications available for download that allow you to do everything from designing the graphics for your site to editing blog posts.

This list is not comprehensive, but rather provides the categories for each step of website management, as well as open source examples of tools you can use.

Special thanks to 34sp.com dedicated web hosting for their insight.

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HTML Editors

When choosing an HTML editor, you need to decide what you actually need.  Those who gained their first web design experience using a text editor, like Notepad, might prefer to continue using a text editor.  Beyond the basic plain-text support of simple editors, these powerhouses offer syntax highlighting for numerous languages and many other features that take some of the pain out of web development.  Some popular open source text editors are:

Bluefish – Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows

Notepad++ – For Windows

If, however, you need a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, something similar to Adobe Dreamweaver, there are a couple of options:

Kompozer (formerly NVU) – Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X

Amaya – Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X

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Image Editing Software

Few websites these days are text-only.  Creating quality web images is very important, and the standard for high-end graphic design is Adobe Photoshop.  For most web designers, however, Photoshop may have a lot of features they do not need, and therefore, it may not be worth the exuberant price.  Here are a couple of great free and open source image editing programs.

Gimp – Raster image editing software with support for most Photoshop-like features.  - Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and other operating systems.

Inkscape – Vector image editing (similar to Adobe Illustrator) with support for SVG (a W3C standard for images).

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File Transfer Clients

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is your primary method of uploading your creations to your website, at least for the first time.  There are a plethora of free and open source clients available.

FileZilla – Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

Cyberduck – Mac OS X

WinSCP – Windows

FireFTP – Runs in Firefox on all operating systems

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Content Management Systems

Most modern websites utilize some form of content management system (CMS).  It allows the user to update and maintain the site, without having to edit HTML files and upload them every time a small change is made.  There are undoubtedly hundreds of free and open source content management systems.  These are a few of the most popular.

Joomla – PHP/SQL, runs on Linux and Windows servers.

Drupal – PHP/SQL

eZ Publish – PHP/SQL

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Blogging Software

Web-based blogging software is basically a CMS that is designed with blogging in mind.  Many of them actually started as primarily blogging-only systems and later expanded to include more website features.  Rather than hosting your blog with a service that uses their domain for your blog, you can use your own.

WordPress – The same company that offers the popular free blogging service, also distributes their software for free.  PHP/SQL.

Moveable Type – Previously commercial, Moveable Type is now free and open source. Perl/PHP/MySQL.

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E-Commerce Software

If your website is a business, there is a good chance you will want to sell products online.  While you could easily empty your bank account on a commercial or custom-built e-commerce solution, there are a few good free and open source solutions that work very well, at no cost.

OS Commerce – PHP/SQL

Magento – PHP/SQL

PrestaShop -PHP/MySQL

Spree – Ruby on Rails/SQL

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Languages/Databases for Development

If you prefer to build your own web applications, there is no shortage of free and open web development languages and database software/servers.  Some of the most popular include:

Languages

Perl

PHP

Ruby

Python

Database software

MySQL

PostgreSQL

SQLite

Cassandra

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Conclusion

As you can see, creating your own website can be a free and painless experience.  If you search for any of the above-mentioned categories, you will find a myriad of software applications in those areas, all free for use and development.  The Web itself is free and open, and there is no reason why publishing on the web needs to be closed and expensive.

Tavis J. Hampton is a librarian and writer with a decade of experience in information technology, web hosting, and Linux system administration.  He currently works for LanternTorch.Net, which offers writing, editing, tech training, and information architecture services.

For several years radio has been the form of transferring news and marketing. When TV didn’t exist radio was the only resource used to listen to latest news and also was the only marketing technique which could reach the market within seconds.

And now Internet and TV have become a strong [...]]]>

For several years radio has been the form of transferring news and marketing. When TV didn’t exist radio was the only resource used to listen to latest news and also was the only marketing technique which could reach the market within seconds.

And now Internet and TV have become a strong marketing technique for many years but are taking over the market? I don’t think so.

The figures below shows what the popular radio stations are in the UK and how many people listen to them:

• BBC Radio 2 receives 14.6 million listeners
• BBC Radio 1 receives 11.7 million listeners
• BBC Radio 4 receives 10.0 million listeners
• Heart FM gets 7.4 million listeners
• BBC Radio 5 live receives 6.5 million listeners
• Classic FM gets 5.5 million listeners
• Galaxy FM receives 4.0 million listeners
• Magic FM gets 3.8 million listeners
• Kiss FM receives 3.4 millions listeners
• 2.6 million people listen to Smooth Radio

From the above figures you must have realized that Radio marketing is still a very strong option if you want to reach those millions of people. This would surprise a lot of people who think Internet and TV are the way forward. I don’t disagree with it but I would also use radio marketing. If you want to invest in marketing then invest on all types and see which one works for you and which one doesn’t. From that you will be able to decide which marketing technique to continue with to market your products and services.

So as far as we know Radio marketing is not dead just yet. Obviously it will be have to be a relevant product if you are meant to target.

Bare in mind that BBC does not advertise but don’t be disheartened by this because you still have 26.7 million people to reach via other radio stations.

Daniel Footwear [...]]]>

At the end of last year all organisations were struggling to beat the credit crisis and keep consumers engaged with their brand. For e-commerce stores the challenge was harder as everything was taking place amongst a competitive World Wide Web platform, plus budgets for promotional and marketing activity became much tighter.

Daniel Footwear decided to invite SEO company, Blueclaw to re- style and improve their online retail store, with hope to gain an edge over their competitors and provide excellent consumer usability. The brief from Daniel Footwear covered the following issues.

The main problems with their original site consisted of:

• Weak checkout system that struggled to provide customers with functions they needed to purchase and make payments sufficiently. The process was very long and drawn out leading to consumers losing interest quickly and clicking off the site.
• The site did not allow downloads and cross promotional activity which prevented problems when trying to promote products in a wider field.  Lacked useful information such as customer, product reviews which usually persuade customers to buy through recommendation.
• Restricted visibility which made it difficult for consumers to view products clearly and find products of interest.

Within six months Blueclaw had come up with a brand new site that screamed clean, attractive and proficient. The content management system gave Daniel Footwear the chance to export and import data easily, meaning that new promotions could now be made live promptly. With a refine search tool and the option to zoom in on specific products, shoppers were now provided with clarity and detailed images along with visible information. The product category descriptions appeared unique and give an in depth description to aid with the purchasing decision, improving consumer usability.

As well as designing a more modern and manageable site, Blueclaw provided an extensive PPC and SEO package that lifted the organisation and put them ahead of the game. The extra help from social media and online PR aided the drive of traffic to their site and increasingly boosted their conversions.  Along with email activity and online promotions the strategy behind Daniel became stronger and positive results started to become obvious. With the integration of social media, Daniel footwear customers are now able to rate and blog about specific products which adds to the process of their viral marketing.

Within the first week of going live with the new site Daniel Footwear doubled their sales and reached page one for their competitive key words. The conversion rate increased by over 100 % within the first two weeks after the site went live.  Daniel has seen a dramatic change in the dynamics of the site and has been extremely busy over the last few months.

Web manager for Daniel Footwear, Laura Craven said;

“We’ve definitely got more control over the back end of the site. Our previous CMS didn’t allow us to do a simple thing such as adding a new postage option and our previous provider will charge us £30.00 just to add that. Our traffic has been a lot busier since the new site launch and in terms of SEO- I am extremely happy”

Blueclaw are very pleased with the end result of Daniel Footwear’s new website and are working on many cutting edge projects to develop the brand further.

Note to the Editor

Tel: 0113 234 3300

Email: jessica:@blueclaw.co.uk

Blueclaw

Blueclaw are a UK based SEO company based in Leeds.

Providing, award winning search engine marketing and PPC and Conversion rate optimisation services for a range of national and international clients. Blueclaw are loyal to their clients and believe in providing excellent results.

Daniel Footwear

Established in 1993, Daniel Footwear are based in Leeds and have branches in 17 different cities across the country. It houses an extensive collection of designer shoes and accessories. Daniel’s own-brand products come from factories that supply the leading fashion houses of the world such as Christian Dior and Christian Louboutin.

Email blasts- the right (and not annoying) way to [...]]]>

[Elysabeth Teeko likes to dabble in all kinds of blogging. She especially loves to stalk new tech and internet marketing news, as well as study interior decorating and other home-esque subjects. You can find her on twitter; @Elysateek.]

Email blasts- the right (and not annoying) way to do them

Email blasts, the epicenter of the direct electronic marketing world, are a popular tool that many businesses use. Because of the misuse of this tactic by a large number of companies, the approach has gained an unseemly reputation. Most people will simply discard emails that look like they originated from an email blast, and even the ones that are opened only rarely prompt the reader to act. So, how can you use the email blast technique correctly and effectively?

Make it Pretty (with HTML)

Even basic HTML can make your emails more attractive. The use of unique fonts, your company logo for branding, and attractive pictures will increase your chances of success. It doesn’t require a coding genius to put these together, either. If you want to learn basic HTML, you can visit W3 Schools, the primary self-teaching resource for HTML code and web design. If you aren’t comfortable with that, it’s a good idea to hire someone to do the code for you.

Target Your Recipients Carefully

There are many blast software packages that will target a large group of people who aren’t likely to buy your product. Others allow you to customize your recipients. Be sure that you’re able to target your blast group with as much precision as possible. Don’t just throw in broad demographics, and don’t use any of the “spam tactics” that send emails to people who almost certainly don’t want them. This will ensure that the people who get your email are likely to be interested and will prevent your email server from being declared a “spam server” by major email services.

Give Them a Prize

Make sure that your email recipients feel that they were wise to open the email. The best way to do this is by offering them some form of incentive. This can be a special offer or deal, a free prize, entry into a competition, or one of various other creative rewards; just be sure that it’s something that will appeal to your target demographic! This positive reinforcement will also make your recipients more likely to open future emails from you.

Use Official Business Email

While some of the blast software will allow you to customize these features, one of the best ways that you can go about the entire process in a professional way is by using your own email server. By investing in email hosting, you can customize the features of your email, target your demographics, and use an email address that looks professional. Be certain to look into email hosting that will allow you to handle the large volume of incoming and outgoing messages.

If you follow these steps and use a professionally written and constructed email, you may well make friends instead of enemies in the course of your email blast campaigns. Certainly, this often abused marketing modality shouldn’t be overlooked, as it can give you a “per contact” price of less than a penny.

The author, Michael Copeland, makes several valid points in his article, which was primarily written to explain why Google’s stock has significantly trailed the Nasdaq and Apple.  Although Google’s stock has [...]]]>

[This is a guest post by Zachary Zawarski, a Google Apps Consultant, in response to Fortune Magazine’s article Google: The search party is over.]

The author, Michael Copeland, makes several valid points in his article, which was primarily written to explain why Google’s stock has significantly trailed the Nasdaq and Apple.  Although Google’s stock has been an underperformer, I strongly believe that the market has gotten this one wrong and that Google’s stock has its best days ahead of it.  The topic of Google’s business model is something that is near and dear to my heart since I am both a Google shareholder and I started a business on the premise that Google Apps was going to be an extraordinary success.

Copeland states that investors are nervous as to where Google’s revenue growth will come from.  Google is no longer a growth stock, which means it’s soaring stock price, which was firmly in place from the market lows of March 2009 through December 2009 will no longer be the norm.  Google is still growing its revenue at 15-20%, which any shareholder of CEO would be extremely happy with, but this is Google — they’re supposed to be better than great — they’re supposed to be the best.  Once Microsoft grew into a mature company, its stock has been fairly flat for the last decade after experiencing outstanding growth in the 1990’s and many feel that Google’s stock will fall into this trap.

What are Google’s problems you ask?

The fact that 90% of their revenue is still based on the AdWords and AdSense business model and the web is becoming increasingly social, which Google has not been a player in.  However, Copeland’s argument that Google is on the decline is premised on the idea that the significance of search in our daily lives will decline while search loses market share to Facebook.

Has Google missed out entirely on the trend in social media? Absolutely. Google Buzz was a complete failure and there’s a slim chance that Google even has a shot at competing with Facebook with the rumored Google Me. Does that make their company less relevant than they were five years ago? I don’t think so. Social media is not going to make search irrelevant as Copeland alludes to in his article.  Facebook is not the DVD to Google’s VHS so to speak. There is always going to be place for search along with social media.

Mike McCue, an early pioneer of Netscape and founder of tablet software company Flipboard, states that social media is replacing the need for search. Although we receive a lot of our content from friend suggestions, I don’t believe social media will be the end of search. Search gives you the ability to get instantaneous information based on what you want, not based on what a friend shares with you.  Although more people are turning to social media, the notion that this will somehow be the end of search is an outlandish thought.

That brings us to the topic of appeal to advertisers.

As a website developer, I use both Google and Facebook ads.  The great thing about these platforms is that they serve very different purposes. If I have a website tailored to publishing content for people to merely read, Facebook is the winner here since the visitors I attract on Facebook that like my website’s Facebook page will continually be presented with my articles in their news feed.  On the other hand, if I have am selling a product or service, Google is the clear winner. For example, if I’m a printer who makes business cards, Facebook has very little value since there’s no way to target people looking for business cards.  There’s nobody who fills in “business cards” in their interests or enters their status as “I’m looking for business cards.”  People who want business cards Google it, which make Google to dominant player for businesses seeking advertising exposure.  Although the article states that Google has just a 64% market share in the U.S., I am willing to bet that Google’s market share is closer to 85% — ask any website owner.

Conclusion

Search isn’t close to being dead, it’s just awaiting its next revolution. As this article points out, it’s going to be better search with a wider array of searchable items.  For example, a person searching Australia will be given news, blog articles, Twitter updates, and information on hotels, shopping, and restaurants on a single page in the new era of search.  That’s just something that cannot be provided by Facebook.  With Google’s latest acquisition of Metaweb, search will become smarter and more relevant.