Things I Like About The Site

1. Giant phone number in the header. You can’t miss that call to action, now can you?

2. Map to the location to make it easy to find them – again right there above the fold, and in your face.

3. Menu that can be downloaded and printed out – again displayed prominently.

4. News feed, showing what’s going on, when they’re closed, what new items are available, etc. is great.

5. Reviews are great. That always makes a new potential customer feel more comfortable about ordering from you. Prominent position; good job.

Things I’d Change

1. Break up the paragraphs of text on the home page. Use headings for emphasis. For example, I’d use a big heading such as “Why People From Lancaster, Calgate and Morecambe Love Us, and then explain about their quality meat and fresh produce. A sharp photo of that high-quality food wouldn’t hurt either.

2. The ingredients list is a little weird. While I am a fan of tag clouds, it doesn’t make as much sense in this situation as it does in others. Clicking an ingredient takes you to a page showing the various meals offered that use that ingredient. It’s “kinda cool” but “kinda odd”, you know?

3. Hours of Service is preceded by a heading that says “Oriental Cuisine”. Huh? The heading should say “Hours of Service” or “When We’re Open” or something related. Sure, they do serve oriental cuisine, and that should be somewhere – but just not as the heading over the service hours. I’d also expect those hours to be a little more noticeable.

4. Subscribe for Offers list signup is a good idea, but I’d like to see a little more explanation to really convince the visitor to sign up. What kind of offers? Sell me on the really great deals I’ll get right in my email inbox, if only I’ll let you have my email address.

Summary

All in all, I really like the way this site has presented nearly everything I’d want to know right on the home page. I don’t have to work hard to find the information I need. My only real beef is that they could do a slightly better job of making a few things stand out, and really sell me on how awesome they are. But I like the site, and if I didn’t live 4,422 miles away, I’d place my order right now.

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Drupal 7, the cocoon and the butterfly by Dries Buytaert grabbed my attention immediately with the short tale of the man, the cocoon, and the butterfly. The little story was interesting. The “moral of the story” was educational. And the entire tale was the perfect lead-in to a topic that is technical in nature, and not generally one that would be all that engaging.

Sure, web geeks like to hear about upcoming versions of their favorite apps, but a quick scan is usually sufficient, and the blogger may not really connect with the reader in any significant way. Dries, however, does a great job of connecting with his readers by using the tale as a lead-in. The little story’s lesson was a great way to introduce the main topic Dries wanted to discuss.

If you’ve ever wanted to be better at engaging your blog readers, I recommend reading Dries’ post, whether you care about Drupal or not. Just as the story of the man and the cocoon had a lesson to be learned, Dries’ post also imparts a lesson in effective use of storytelling when blogging.

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Post tags: Dries Buytaert, storytelling
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Donna Fontenot’s Personalized Newspaper

Below is a screenshot of the upper part of the newspaper, but there’s TONS more awesome stuff in it.

This enables me to see interesting things from the people I’ve chosen to follow. Sure, Twitter allows me to see that, right? But Twitter streams flash by and I miss much of what floats down that stream. My personalized newspaper allows me to see what I missed, which is very cool. Even cooler is that it’s all organized in an incredibly smart way, and it includes thumbnails to help visualize what’s there.

This perfectly fits ME. It uses my own curated list to create the perfect personalized information for me. I’m blown away.

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Post tags: personalized newspaper, Twitter stream
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Social Email Marketing

Integrating email marketing and social media

Join Brian Solis and other leading marketing experts, email companies and brands in a one-day conference to discuss innovations in integrated email and social media marketing. The fully interactive session include discussion panels, Q&A, presentations and case studies. Price includes refreshments, handbook with notes, networking drinks and access to the exhibition area.

When and Where

• Friday, September 17, 2010
• 9:00am – 5:30pm
• Hotel Nikko
• San Francisco, CA

Who Is Presenting?

• Brian Solis, FutureWorks (live via video)
• Kristin Hersant, Strongmail
• Dan Martell, Flowtown
• Chase McMichael, InfiniGraph
• Jennifer Neeley Lindsay, A-List Host, BlogTalkRadio
• Murray Newlands, Influence People
• Luke Brynley-Jones, Influence People
• Marissa Louie, HeroEx

What’s Covered

• Social Email Campaigns: What Works & What Doesn’t
• Using Social Media to Grow your Customer Base
• Rewards, Loyalty and Incentives
• Integrated Email & Social Media tools
• How Email Intelligence Enhance Social Media Engagement
• Innovations in Social CRM
• Tracking & Monitoring Social Email Campaigns
• How to use social media data to improve targeting and ROI

Things To Know

• Very limited number of early bird tickets left
• Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable
• Tickets cannot be bought on the day
• Group discounts possible
• Tickets can only be booked online with a credit or debit card. You do not need a Paypal or Google Checkout account to buy a ticket.

The Discount Code Is iem3

I won’t be able to attend, but if you do, I hope you fill me in on the experience. Enjoy and learn!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Brian Solis, Chase McMichael, conference, Dan Martell, email marketing, event, Jennifer Neeley Lindsay, Kristin Hersant, Luke Brynley-Jones, Marissa Louie, Murray Newlands, San Francisco, social media, Social Media Marketing
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Let’s Define “Content”

Content could be an outstanding article or blog post, but it can also be any number of other types of content. Here are a few examples:

• Infographics
• Widgets
• Online Tools
• Videos
• Incredible Images
• Presentations
• Podcasts
• Mashups

What Constitutes “Exciting Content”?

Think of exciting content as equivalent to “linkbait”. Exciting content is something that people will naturally want to link to, stumble, tweet about, etc. Exciting content is a level above standard blog posts or articles. It inspires users to share.

Typical Excuses For Not Creating Exciting Content

• I can’t think of anything to create.
• I don’t have the skills to make anything really cool.
• I don’t have time.
• I can’t afford it.

No Excuses – Take The Challenge

For every excuse, I can probably come up with a counter-argument to nullify the excuse.

Can’t think of anything to create? You haven’t really devoted time to thinking about it then. Inspiration can be found everywhere. Start with something you’ve unsuccessfully tried to find on the Internet (related to your site’s niche). It doesn’t exist? Create it! It exists, but is missing something? Create a better one!

You don’t have the skills needed to create it? You have several choices here.

1. Learn the skill. It will probably be useful to you many times in the future.
2. Outsource the project. These days, there are thousands of people with the skills you need waiting for the opportunity to use them for your project.
3. Barter or trade services with someone.

You don’t have time? If someone guaranteed 100,000 interested new visitors to your site today, would you find the time? Of course, there are no guarantees for traffic, but most people are pretty good at squeezing something into their day if the effort seems worth it. Creating exciting content usually falls into that category.

You need to outsource, but you can’t afford it? You might be surprised at the number of things you can buy for just a few bucks. Fiverr.com comes to mind as a prime example, but you can also have amazing things created at freelance sites for shockingly small amounts of money. Of course, look for signs that the freelancer is honest and produces good work. All of the good outsourcing sites allow clients to rate the freelancers’ work, so it’s not hard to find someone with a good reputation.

Commit Right Now

Many website owners just sort of flounder through each day, tackling tasks on a whim, or in between Facebook and Twitter socializing. I challenge you to reverse that trend today, and make a commitment right now to start creating an exciting piece of content. Begin the process. Think about what is needed. Think about how you can share information in a new, exciting way. Decide what to create and begin the process to make it happen. Now. Yes, right now. Grab a sticky note and write it down as a task.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: linkbait
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I don’t really know what a fussypants might be, but in my mind, you could substitute “stick in the mud”, “fuddy duddy”, or just “all work and no play” if that helps define what I mean.

Sometimes, even on a serious blog, you can lighten up and have a little fun. Life, even our business lives, allows for some serious smiles and even the occasional raucous laughter. Don’t forget to let your personality shine through once in a while.

Today, I’m not going to be a fussypants. Today, I’m going to share with you my INCREDIBLE NEWS.

I’ve won an award! Woot! Here it is.

I know you’re jealous, but hey, I deserve it! After all, I begged for it, and what better way to get an award than to simply beg, right? Thanks goes to Holly Jahangiri of It’s All A Matter Of Perspective for honoring me with such an outstanding award.

If you insist on seeing me beg, you can see the conversation that took place in the 8 Ways To Get More Blog Comments post. You’ll have to scroll all the way down to the bottom because my comment was the first one (comments are shown newest to oldest). See where I say:

Oh Oh Oh! Can I be the top common tater? Puhleeze!

You really have to be old enough to remember Welcome Back, Kotter (a goofy TV series in the US in the late 70′s) to get the full impact of my begging. I was imitating Arnold Horshack. Here’s a soundbite of Horshack to help really “visualize” (audiolize?) it.

So, there you have it. You too can stop being a fussypants. You can let go a little on your oh-so-serious blog now and then. Maybe, if you beg, you can even get your own Top Common Tater award. Unfortunately, you’ll never ever get to be the VERY FIRST RECIPIENT of the Top Common Tater award – because that honor belongs to me! Booyah!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arnold Horshack, Holly Jahangiri
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DOH! (Can you see my forehead hitting my desk right about now?)

Luckily, it’s only been a week or two (who remembers) since I uploaded the new site, so I quickly looked through the checklist once I remembered I had it. Want to know what I noticed? The same 5 things I almost *always* forget to include were the ones I forgot to include this time as well. Oy.

Ok, so, just in case there’s some kind of weird synergy between you and I, and you always forget the same 5 things when you create a site, here’s my abbreviated checklist (which of course is nowhere near as comprehensive as the one I listed in the first sentence of this post).

Robots.txt file

A default robots.txt file that allows search engines to index every page should look like this:

User-Agent: *
Disallow:

Actually, if you just want everything indexed, there’s really no need for a robots.txt file, since “Index Everything” is the default if robots.txt doesn’t exist. I usually include one anyway, just to cover all my bases. I often follow the “just in case” method of site building.

Don’t get confused and accidentally add a / after Disallow: If your robots.txt says Disallow: / (note the /), then you will be preventing the search bots from indexing your entire site. Very very bad.

There are lots of different things you might want to exclude with a robots.txt file, but here’s the most common (sample directories, substitute yours as needed):

Exclude certain directories

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /junk/

You can generate a custom robots.txt file with a tool like http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/generator/ (Note that this tool will automatically default to Allow Everything, as soon as you load the tool).

TIP: Your robots.txt file MUST be in your top-level web (root) directory, not in a subdirectory.

For more info about what a robots.txt file is all about, go to http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html.

XML sitemap

In some ways, an XML sitemap is exactly the opposite of a robots.txt, in the sense that it is designed to make sure the search engines know which pages on your site you want them to index. It provides more information than just a list of URLs, however, such as giving search engines hints as to which pages are more important to you than others.

It’s not stricly necessary to have an XML sitemap. In most cases, the search engines will get around to indexing all (or most) of the pages you list at some point. However, any time you can exert some bit of control (or at least give strong hints) over your site’s inclusion in search engines, you should take advantage of it.

To read more about sitemaps, check out the site that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft collaborated on at http://www.sitemaps.org/

If your site is powered by WordPress then just go download this plugin, and the job of adding a sitemap will be greatly simplified.

If your site isn’t WordPress-based, then one of the XML sitemap generator tools should work for you.

Custom 404 page

Don’t trust your visitors to stick around if they land on the generic 404 – Not Found page. Give them a custom error page and gently lead them to other areas of your site that might be useful to them.

To create a custom 404 page for WordPress blogs, simply edit your theme’s 404.php page template. The default WordPress theme has a 404.php file, but not all themes have their own custom 404 error template file. If your template has one, it will be named 404.php. WordPress will automatically use that page if a Page Not Found error occurs. Just edit it in your admin (Appearance / Editor) and include links back to your home page, your archives, your search box, etc. For more details, go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_an_Error_404_Page.

To create a custom 404 page for non-WordPress site that has a hosting account that uses Cpanel, login to cPanel and click Error Pages, under the Advanced block. Select the domain you want to create a custom 404 page for, and click the type of error page to edit – in this case, 404 (not found). Insert your own custom HTML code. The changes will be applied after you click Save. Here’s a screenshot of what my cPanel shows for the Error Pages section in my hosting account.

Favicon

It’s really easy to create a favicon for your site (the tiny little graphic that shows up when you bookmark a site). Just take any square image (like a square portion of your logo, for example) and run it through a favicon generator like this one. Then add the following code to the head section of your pages.

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico>

Analytics code

I think just about *everyone* forgets to add their analytics or stats code to their new site at least once. I forget every time! Anyway, whether you are using Google Analytics, Clicky Web Analytics or any other stats application, don’t forget to find the directions for your analytics code, and place it where it belongs (usually in the head section or just before the end of the page).

Now, if I *still* forget those 5 things next time I create a new site, just hit me over the head with either this post or the Web Design Checklist, ok?

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Robots exclusion standard, Sitemaps, Web analytics, web design, Web Design Checklist
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Finding Ones That Consistently Work

In the past, I’ve had hit-and-miss luck with coupon codes. Sometimes, they’d already expired, and sometimes, they just didn’t work for no apparent reason. In the last few months, however, I’ve noticed some coupon codes that Andy of Comluv has been sharing from his friend Brian, and they always seem to work great. So when I noticed that his friend is a sponsor of the Famous Bloggers Comluv contest, I decided it was time to share this little money-saving gem with everyone.

Good for Renewals Too!

The really cool thing about these Godaddy coupon codes is that they work for both new domain registrations AND renewals. That’s hard to find, and it’s great to be able to get discounts on my domains when they come up for renewal. You can also get coupon codes for other Godaddy services there too, although I generally don’t recommend Godaddy for hosting. Besides the fact that their hosting isn’t the best, it’s really not a good idea to be completely dependent upon one company for both your domain name and your website. If that one company goes bellyup, or just decides they don’t like your site anymore, you’ve lost everything. If you get your domain name from Godaddy, and your hosting from someone else (I recommend Hostgator), then you’re unlikely to lose both the name and the site all at once.

Bookmark While You’re There

So, bookmark the Godaddy coupon codes page now while it’s on your mind. You don’t want to wonder where those coupon codes are the next time you have a “brilliant” idea for a new site!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Coupon, domain name, FBCLcontest, Go Daddy
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Gettin’ Happy With The Happy Guy Marketing Service

I’ve been online friends with David Leonhardt (the seo consultant and all around Happy Guy himself) for a few years now, and I’m always pleased to see the smiling face (both David’s real face and the virtual smiley) on my ‘net travels. Both happy faces pop up in many of my virtual streams, from stumbleupon to twitter, and on many of the blogs we both frequently visit. (David is also known as amabaie on social networks).

Social, Content and SEO

So what does David have to offer? First of all, he is an active participant in social networks and happily shares links from his friends. If that’s not enough of a reason to get to know him, then perhaps you’d like to add to your repetoire of SEO education. The happy guy’s seo blog is one you should add to your feed reader for just that purpose. And if SEO isn’t your thing, then you should be aware that David’s company also offers freelance writing and translating services. Both of those services can be extremely useful as a marketing tool.

Pick any one of those reasons, or choose them all, but do take a little time to get to know David. I think you’ll find yourself smiling back at the Happy Guy smiley face whenever you run across it on your Internet travels just like I do all the time.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: David Leonhardt, FBCLcontest, Happy Guy, seo consultant
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Nope, I don’t give a rat’s patooty about getting SEO value out of a comment. I do, however, care about learning more about the people who take the time to make interesting comments. And THAT’S the total awesomeness about the CommentLuv plugin, in my opinion. Being able to see the title of the latest post written by someone who made a comment on my blog (or any other blog), and then being able to easily click through to read that commenter’s post – well, that’s just genius.

Let’s take a specific example, shall we?

My contest entry is 5 Steps To Impressing A Longtime Jaded Blogger With Your Comments. The first 10 people who made a comment and who had their latest blog post listed via the CommentLuv plugin enabled me to check out their blog posts, and get to know those people a little better. These are the blog posts I read, and I would possibly have never known about these posts if I hadn’t seen them listed in the comments they wrote. How cool is that?

Deleting HTML tags in Dreamweaver CS4 — dwcourse.com

Social Influence- If No One is Listening, It’s Time to Expand Your Circle — Big Girl Branding

If Somebody, Anybody, Donates $5 to My Cause I Promise I Won’t Shave My Head « Tony’s Mill

Covering Your Local Search Assets | SearchRank Blog

You And Your Horse: Connections In Langley, BC | The Other Blokes Blog

Rat Roulette: Best Carnival Game EVER | Skitzzo.com

Broken links, how to find and fix them, and why it’s so important | Marketing Tips

ComLuv/Famous Bloggers Contest Summary | Information Central

BloggerLuv Link Roundup

An Interesting Guest Post Analysis on FamousBloggers

Look, the people who made the comments didn’t have to spam. They didn’t have to do any work at all in order to get their latest post listed within the comment. The CommentLuv plugin automatically grabbed it and listed it. As long as you’ve registered your blog’s URL sometime in the past, it’ll always get recognized when commenting on a blog that uses the plugin.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the ultimate CONNECTION between bloggers and users. Getting to know one another by reading each other’s posts and sharing thoughts about each. That’s priceless stuff, folks.

CommentLuv plugin makes these connections work better. I <3 it.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogging, commenting, comments, connections, FBCLcontest, social networking
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