What do you see in the icon? Think about it before reading on and please offer your thoughts in the comments below.

There are at least seven answers that have been mentioned and a handful of representations are intentional.

1. A web
2. Partners - the people shoulder to shoulder
3. Navigation wheel - remember Netscape Navigator browser
4. A cross
5. Diversity
6. A site - as in cross hairs providing focus toward the center

Others have seen a show flake, jumbo jets in a circle and people.

I was thrilled to be invited as a guest, finding myself tagged as a member of the media. I felt a little bit anxious with feelings of obligation, but an honest reflection of the day is all that anyone can really expect.

This post brings a very unlikely combination of perspectives. Not only am I familiar with the subjects being presented and a few of the presenters, but I worked in hotels for years and am taking the role of speaker at my first hour long presentation to a large audience in early October.

Logistics

Parking in Cambridge is never easy. Parking at this event was very easy because it was in the same building.  The cost was $22 for the day. I never left the building for about 11 hours.

The event space was on the second floor.  The sign in desk was obvious and had ample room to register attendees.  The schwag bag contained a program for the day and two books, Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae, and David Meerman Scott’s New New Rules of Marketing & PR.  I had to chuckle because they are both books that I already own.

Attendees were required to walk through an area serving another convention which was confusing at first, but I think everybody figured it out quickly enough.  The hotel provided staff to assist in way-finding.

The first speaker was scheduled for 8:15 am.  However, the doors remained closed until 8:15 or maybe a minute or two later.  I still wonder why folks were not invited in before this time.

The reception area after the event was long and narrow with sun exposed glass walls.  The afternoon sun likely keeps this space warm even in the dead of winter.  A couple of the rooms were warm, but it could have just been me.

Presenters

It is an entirely different perspective when you are friends with hosts and presenters and even their agents.  A big benefit of attending events is meeting new people and learning new concepts.  I often struggle with the tension between seeing friends and wanting to visit with them and the hesitation most of us feel in meeting new people.  I ended up doing both, hanging with the crew and meeting some folks that were new.

Brian Halligan opened the morning with a thorough explanation of inbound marketing, including a helpful history of marketing that culminated with where things are going in the future.  This led very naturally to the opening keynote speaker.

David Meerman Scott really set the table for the entire day.  His presentation, which at one point seemed to show slide number 98 was clear and informative.  I really should read his book now.

Seth Godin was of course entirely entertaining, colorful, energetic and relatively predictable.  This is not a presentation of ground breaking discoveries.

Both presenters did a fine job of engaging the audience, clearly making their points while subtly not letting us forget the title of their current or upcoming book titles.

The five other presenters that I joined covered a range of topics, including;

1. Website re-design
2. Optimizing landing pages
3. Social media and PR
4. Social media strategy
5. Viral video

My favorite, was the subject that I deal with on a daily basis, site building and SEO.  I liked it because of the challenging ideas; namely that changing design is usually retrogressive breaking more things that it fixes.

Selling custom design for years, it was hard to embrace initially, but the case made was solid.  Site owners think of design first.  They really should think of content first.

Search engines can see the text, but not the design.  Awesome content brings visitors by way of the search engines.  And, yes, I have seen design challenged sites perform well for their owners.

There was one presentation that I wanted to leave three or four times, but felt glued to my seat.  The information density was too high, the voice was monotone and the room was warm and dim, and I was hungry.

I was surprised to meet speakers on Social Mediafolks that were “not sold” on Twitter. I offered them some food for thought after the presentation, which they seemed to welcome.

Next Year

The Inbound Marketing Summit is a well balanced mix of content and networking.  The speakers were all accessible and willing to speak with attendees.  I found the attendees eager to learn and meet new people.

This is a strong component of the summit that will be very satisfying to future attendees.

I encourage practitioners and managers in PR, marketing, ecommerce, web design and social media and those that need these kinds of services to attend the Inbound Marketing Summit.  For a one day event in packs a punch that can’t be beat.

If you want to learn more about this year’s presentations, slides are available here; http://www.inboundmarketingsummit.com/agenda/ From there you can visit the blog and vidoe streams.  These will give you a very good idea of the quality content that was available.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the primary sponsor HubSpot who not only offers an internet marketing blog, but also website grader and press release grader.

There is a lot of value that the HubSpot team is pushing out to small and medium sized businesses.  Start taking advantage of this by visiting thier website and attending next years Inbound Marketing Summit.

Today, I can confirm both customer and colleague relationships initiated through Twitter as well as many friendships and even money in the bank. Here is how that all changed, after a Twitter primer.

What is Twitter?

Twitter falls into the category of social media applications. This communication tool allows you to keep in touch through short messages that can be sent to many people instantly.

You can update three ways: to all subscribers, directed to one person, or sent privately to one person. Updates are 140 characters maximum. (As a reference, the text immediately preceding this parenthetical note is 139 characters long.)

When you first open your account you are missing the most important component of a useful Twitter account – people whom you follow and people who follow you.

How do you find people to follow?

Below are six suggestions for finding people to follow, but first a little business-focused contemplation. Think about your purpose and motive. This will help you focus on following the right kind of people. Two important business questions are:

Do you want to follow people with similar interests, in the same industry?

or

Do you prefer to develop a group of followers who will benefit from your products or services and possibly hire you?

Most people tend to reciprocate followers, so keep the Golden Rule in mind. Follow the kind of people whom you want to be followed by.

1. Follow a couple of people you know, such as the person who introduced you to Twitter. Follow me @fairminder.
2. Follow their friends. Observe conversations and then choose new followers from among the people others are talking with.
3. Upload your contact list to Twitter to find people on Twitter whom you already know. Follow #2 above again.
4. Visit TwitterPacks. It lists all kinds of Twitter folks according to special interest.
5. Search on Twitter for your city or town name along with the state, and review profiles to find new people to follow.
6. Visit this TweetScan. It’s a more advanced twitter search site.

Number 2 above is a successful method because it includes some measure of social validation as you move from friend to friend of friend, rather than guessing whom to follow. You know the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together”? It really does apply here.

What should you say?

Twitter is a microcosm of life and has the potential for an equally wide range of subjects to be shared.

Feel free to jump in and send an update to someone in response to an update that you read. Or simply answer the question that Twitter poses: “What are you doing now?” Keep it interesting and related to the purpose and motive you established earlier. What you read on Twitter may inspire you to start a new conversation.

Here is a small sampling of what you may find or contribute on Twitter.

• Breaking news – News of the Chinese earthquakes hit Twitter long before traditional news outlets.
• Interesting links to a photo, audio, video, website, blog, forum post and more.
• Local meeting information – I enjoyed many meetings discovered on Twitter.
• Messages of encouragement – Tragic personal news can generate condolences from around the globe.
• Absolute rubbish – Not so interested that there are now three spiders on your wall.
• Tech help – Many have received answers to tech questions right away.
• Friendship – A listening ear, someone who will respond.
• Weather updates – Timely, accurate reports from far and near.
• Affinity groups – For example, fitness groups encouraging each other.
• Sports scores – We love those Red Sox.
• Reviews and recommendations – Comments on books, movies, products, etc.
• Directions – You are likely to get a helpful reply from a local.
• Polls – Simple polls that gather interesting information.
• Discounts and special offers – People and companies send out both.

So what happened with me?

I followed people, wrote updates, joined conversations, offered sports scores and website-related advice, asked for technology help and sought out talented people to help serve the needs of my clients. It was especially fun when I later met Twitter friends in real life. Now the Following and Followers numbers on my account are approaching 1,000.

What most people seem to be interested in is how money was made through Twitter. It began by sending a helpful update that was well received.

Shannon sent an update that said, “Hey, check out this website I just designed.” I did and then sent along a few suggestions for improvement. Shannon said he really appreciated these suggestions. Keep in mind that his update was not directed at me and I didn’t know him then. It simply went zipping by at a time when I was “on Twitter.”

In fact, he asked me to be an advisor on his next project. I agreed and he was so pleased that he paid me 50% more than he had originally offered. He subsequently went so far as to write an unsolicited blog post recommending my services. Wow, all this born out of 140 characters.

As the conversation expands, it is not out of the ordinary for it to move from Twitter to email, IM, telephone and in-person meetings.

Initially Twitter did seem like it was for the birds. I understood Twitter no more than I can understand the birds outside my window right now. Friendly folk on Twitter and in real life showed me otherwise.

I hope that you will also learn that Twitter is not for the birds, but a valuable tool for your business and social tool box. Come join the conversation! I promise to reply.

Jim Spencer
JBS Partners
“Fairminder” on Twitter

What has been your experience on Twitter?

This article first appeared in the August 13th , 2008 issue of the High Rankings Advisor newsletter. Many thanks to Jill for sharing her wide channel of distribution. Many readers opened accounts with Twitter in the following days, and nearly a hundred have followed Jill and I on Twitter.

Generally when you follow someone on Twitter they will either follow you automatically or investigate you and then decide.

Let’s look at some ways to configure your profile to encourage people to follow you, rather than scaring them off.

Here is an image of my Twitter profile for reference.

Twitter Profile Sidebar

People are looking for something in common, something specific, or something entirely different from what they are accustomed to. If you don’t fill in this information, then visitors have less information to make a good decision (which would be to follow you).

About

Name: Extra points for a real name that seems authentic. Someone that hides thier identity makes me suspicious.

Location: I have a certain affinity for certain locations. I also just feel better knowing where in the world someone is. Sometimes knowing it is well past bedtime in that part of the world is useful.

Web: Link to your website, blog, or your account on Linkedin, MySpace, FaceBook or whereever people can find out more about you.

Bio: This is an important area with 160 characters to fully utilize. Let people get to know you, find something in common, discover an interesting fact about you. Provide as many details as you can. Have a sense of humor if you like.

Stats

This is another important source of information for the potential visitor. It is best to try and keep the Following and Followers numbers relatively similar. You don’t have to follow everyone, but if the ratio gets beyond 5 to 1 or even up to 10 to 1 people will assume that you are a spammer using a robot to follow new people really fast. That’s not good.

Twitter is about the conversation. No on wants or expects a conversation with a spammer or robot.

Following: Follow as many or as few as you like. This is not a contest with prizes for the highest numbers.

Followers: Do your best to maintain some semblance of balance between Followers and Following

Favorites: Real people favorite a few updates.

Updates: Once you start keep at it. A profile with one update is not that appealing. Keep at it over a few days and fill up a page on a variety of subjects that interest you.

Potential followers will also read a few of your updates and scan the Following avatars to see what is going on or not going on in your account.

Summary

Complete the About section with useful information so that people can get to know you and will engage you in conversation.

Don’t look like a spambot by following a thousand people on the first night you open your account. Take your time. It’s not that far from real life here. You have to open up a little to start the conversation.

See you on Twitter @fairminder

If you like this article, please see my Twitter article on High Rankings Advisor - http://www.highrankings.com/twitter-for-birds. It makes a business case for Twitter.

What suggestions do you have to improve a Twitter profile?

The Scene

A free meeting of over 600 people. The event is sponsored by the Venture Capital firm Venrock. There are a lot of VC’s on the floor as well as folks in every related Internet line of business you can think of. Most attendees are in the mobile and web communities. You could bump into a graphic designer, someone in PR, banker, entrepreneur, mobile platform programmer, social media specialist, newspaper writer and so on. A lot of early-stage company folks come to see others like themselves.

The event includes five minute presentations from three “Main Dishes”. The audience gets to ask each presenter two questions. Often the audience yells out, “How do you make money”. Some speakers are confident in their revenue models, others, not so much. Most of the time, the crowd groans at the answer.

Before and after the “Main Dishes” there are pioneering “Side Dish” presenters around the perimeter of the room. Here innovative web companies present their products and services to an eager audience one on one.

How to succeed

Be social. Reach out to meet new people from beginning to end.

I remember leaving the ballroom at the end of the event and this gal simply asked me what impressed me. I answered and she and her posse and I ended up at the dinner table. I made a few interesting friend, many of which I now see regularly. Leave a comment if you can guess any names here.

The ballroom is packed. It is hard to move around. It is very loud. But, just remember, everyone is here to meet new people. Why not be one of those people?

I met some new people that were very interesting and talked with some great friends as well. It’s these repeated small touch points that allow relationships to grow over time.

This is also a very good venue to find a job or employees.

One of the better advantages of attending is to find a group to go out with afterwards, so that you can really get acquainted.

The next Web Inno, as it is affectionately called, will be on September 15th, 2008 at 6:30pm in Cambridge. Come out and see what’s new in technology and meet someone new.

1. They know SEO really well
2. I like their style
3. My schedule was open
4. Travel distance is not an issue
5. I might learn something
6. Curious who they hoped would attend
7. Needed to find out what this is all about

Who was there?

There were definitely some interesting characters in the room. In fact we discovered that one fellow diner and I have a mutual friend and colleague. Hi Jeff.

Three of us work for ourselves, two with clients. Another guest recently was hired. All live within an hour’s drive of the High Rankings office. A relevant crowd, but I will leave it to Jill and Pauline to say how relevant.

What was discussed?

The current and past careers of each guest, speaking at conferences, Twitter, increase in local clients, domaining and some helpful advice on an upcoming project for my business. Nope, no great secrets. A lot of understanding SEO has to do with actually dispelling false information.

Would I go again?

Yes. And I would be more prepared with challenging questions, even if I had to solicit questions from my friends on Twitter.

True or False High Rankings SEO Quiz?

The High Rankings SEO Quiz

1. Need to submit your URL to the search engines
2. Frequent spidering helps rankings
3. PPC ads will help organic rankings
4. Sites are banned if they buy links
5. Must use a specific keyword density
6. Should have 250 words on each page
7. Duplicate content will get your site penalized
8. Validated code will rank better
9. #1 Rankings always lead to increased traffic and sales
10. Rankings will drop if you stop paying your SEO company

Answer if you get the first one right, you get them all right.

What if you have eight downloadable files and you want to know which of the eight is downloaded the most?

The easy option is to use the Site Overlay feature. However, I found, on a low traffic site, that it did not record clicks on file download links. Please let me know if you find otherwise.

Google provides another option, adding a javascript tracking code to each file download link. This bit of javascript assigns a pageview to the clicks on your file links which Google easily tracks.

Adding the Google Analytics code to your links

a href=”folder-name/file-name.pdf”
onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/file-name.pdf’);”>
This is a complete code sample

a href=”folder-name/file-name.pdf”
This line is the path to your pdf. I didn’t need to change anything here.

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/file-name.pdf’);”>
This line is the tracker code. This is the new Google code that was added.

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/fn.pdf’
The file-name.pdf in this line can be any text that you choose. Here it is shortened to fn.pdf.

Bonus: Try a shorter link name

I shortened the file name text compared to the acutal file name so that it would fit nicely in the Google Analytics display.

• Simple cut and paste
• Consider shortening the file name
• Works with any kind of downloadable file, pdf, avi, doc and so on.

Give it a try

Don’t expect to see the results immediately. Google suggests waiting one or two days. I saw results within 30 minutes.

Here is a link to the Google Analytics Help page. http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55529&topic=11006

You are invited to share your comments below. Thanks for visiting.

What will you find inside Search Marketing Standard?

My latest issue includes articles on:

Google, Social Media, Linking, Analytics, WordPress optimization, AdWords, Flash, Social Media Marketing and an SEO event calendar. There is even a crossword puzzle.

Articles are authored by long time experts and up and comers alike, including:

Eric Ward, Kim Krause Berg, Chris Boggs, Joost de Valk, Bryan Todd, Grant Crowell, Gord Hotchkiss and Cameron Olthuis.

The magazine publishes four issues per year, which is nice flow of information that will not overwhelm you. With this discount you have a great opportunity to develop and affirm your own Search Marketing skills and pocket some change as well.

Take the first step in subscribing to Search Marketing Standard magazine.
And remember to enter this coupon code at checkout: “FRIEND15“.

There is good reading here.

What’s your take on the Search Marketing Standard magazine?

Here is a story of business engagement. Engaging the audience and developing a conversation.

I asked a simple question of the presenter, which was asked and answered by the speaker during the webinar. Nothing spectacular here yet.

Then the speaker offered to look over my blog and offer suggestions after the webinar. I took him up on it and he followed through. Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing over at HubSpot provided substantial suggestions. Many are on my to-do list.

Mike also referenced a few articles on the HubSpot blog so I spent a bit of time reading and found many useful articles. This exceeded my expectations of the benefit of joining the webinar, as did Mike’s email that included eight suggestions for my blog.

So, as a way of showing my appreciation, I would like to offer a few suggestions on how to improve the usability of the HubSpot blog. I willingly admit that I do not yet practice all of these suggestions here at www.jbspartners.com .

Let’s Start the Overhaul Recommendations for HubSpot’s blog

One of the important factors of good usability is predictability or accurately indicating what is ahead. This dictates a common-sense order of events. Order and relative position are themes you will find illustrated as you read on.

Click the thumbnail below to see a full size screen shot of the HubSpot blog page that is being reviewed. Opens a new page.

Promotion

Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us and reddit are valuable tools to help spread the word about quality articles. Below is a snap shot of a HubSpot blog title with social bookmarking links.

How can this be improved?

Could the social media text links be shifted down and placed on the same row as the Digg flag, instead of on top of the Digg flag? Stacking them leaves a large amount of blank white space to the right of the Digg flag, which is often restful, but not needed here. The post title is quite lost because it is placed so close to these links and graphics.

And for the posts that have not been Dugg, still move the social bookmarking links away from the title.

In fact…

Could you move these links to the bottom of the article? I might feel more genuine about voting for you after I have read the article. Why make me scroll back up to the top of the page to click the link? Move the social media links to the bottom of the article.

Byline

Who is the author? Introductions generally come before conversation. Place the byline at the top of the post instead of the bottom of the post. If the blog post is low on graphics, add an avatar or a photograph of the author as well. This kind of personalization is helpful when you meet the author in person or see the same photo elsewhere on the web, even in the comments below.

Date

When was the post written? Please don’t make me scroll down to the bottom to search for a date that is presented in tiny, faded font. Readers care. Information does expire. Don’t be afraid. Trust your readers. Include the date at the top . Many subjects on the Internet are date/time sensitive. Get this information out in front of the article.

Comments

Same as above. Honor your commenters by placing the comment author’s name and the date above the comment. Those that comment are often a part of a community. They will be looking to see if others that they know have commented. Books and newspapers place the author name before the text.

Place the commenters name first and date (and time information if needed) after the name.

A long column of comment text is boring. Instead, modify your comment styling to alternate the background color of every comment. This adds a bit of visual interest, breaks up the column into readable chunks, and aids the reader that is scanning the page. We know that readers scan, this change will make that easier.

This is a sample of alternating comment colors taken from www.cameronolthuis.com

Displaying the number of comments at the start of the comments section further enhances usability by providing the user with information about what is ahead. Nine comments is very different from 256 comments.

This is a sample taken from www.copyblogger.com

The HubSpot blog authors are very proactive about commenting on the blog comments. :loud applause: This encourages the sense of community that results in more comments.

Readers are interested in what the author has to say and who the author is. They also want to see if the author is reading and responding to posts. Uniquely style the comments of the author. Choose another background color, add a one pixel boarder, or what ever works with your style.

This example is taken from www.pearsonified.com Chris is the author. Here he uses bright red next to his comment.

Day of the Week

Providing the day of the week, month, date, year and time of the post might be too much information. I vote to remove the “Wednesday” portion of the date. Do not eliminate the year.

Spacing

Evenly spacing everything gives equal importance to everything. This does not provide the visual queues to aid the reader and provide good usability. Add extra blank lines before new areas of the post. At the end of the article add a blank line. An orange colored “Comments” title is very helpful. Give it some room by adding a blank line above it.

After the comments section, add a blank line before the comment form.

Remember to place related things near each other. Even in this blog post that you are reading, the bolded title “Spacing” that begins this section is nearer to the text about spacing than the text above which is about the Day of the Week or even the text below which is about the Comment Form.

Comment Forms

The button says “Post Comment”. “Post” is a technical term. Let’s be more welcoming and friendly. Try; Leave a comment, Leave a reply, add a comment.

The captchka is regrettably necessary. The explanatory text could be placed next to the text box and the word “code” could be replaced with the word “text”. Nothing wrong with adding a please here either, since this requires an extra effort of the visitor.

Required Fields

There are asterisks by the required fields. Many visitors are new to blogs as well as commenting. The form should make it as clear and easy as possible for them to participate. Add required field explanation text so that visitors can see what is expected of them before they see an error message and leave.

Email Notification

I always appreciate the ability to subscribe or to be emailed when there are comments made to a post that I have commented on. Great idea. This develops the feeling of engagement and starting a conversation. However, using the term “someone” is less supportive of this objective. What is being offered here is the ability to “Notify me of follow up comments via e-mail” So, we could just say that.

Quick Summary

2. Social Book Marking tags belong at the bottom of a post
3. Bylines belong at the top of a post, along with the date
4. The comment author name and date of the comment should appear before the comment
5. Alternate the styling of comments
6. Provide unique styling of the blog author’s comments
7. Display the number of comments at the top of the comments section
8. Keep day/date/time information simple
9. Space related content near each other
10. Space unrelated things apart from each other
11. Explain required fields
12. Email notification is awesome

Two questions?

1) What did I miss?

2) Why would you do something different?

I look forward to reading your comments.

If you would like to learn more about styling your comments in WordPress specifically one place to read is here - http://www.pearsonified.com/2007/11/professional_stylish_comments_for_blogs.php

If you like this article, click on the little green “Share This” icon below. It will help you share the article in the manner of your choosing. There are two tabs and lots of Social Bookmarking choices for you as well as “email a friend”.

Chris Hass, chapter President and Usability Consultant at Bentley College presided over the meeting and quickly introduced Steve Krug, author of the best seller Don’t Make Me Think .

The two magical points;

1. Effective “You are here” indicators
2. Prominent Page Titles

That my friends is the core message. You can go home now, as long as you are not disappointed. If you are, then stick around for a little more detail. Steve anticipated the same disappointment, and we all stuck around.

You are Here

Ways to highlight the current location in the primary navigation are numerous. You can make the text

• Bolder
• Larger
• Change the color
• Reverse the background
• Indent
• Italicize
• Underline - and there are many more options to fit your needs

However, designers love “design subtleties”. This is what they are most proud of. And the users, well they miss them every time. Steve was clear that designers “have to be louder than you like to be, because the visitors move so fast.”

We need to help visitors navigate. “You are here” helps people navigate. Steve mentioned that visitors who give up on the navigation and instead click in the content area to find what they need are disappointed 99% of the time and leave the site. Much better odds with the navigation.

Tabs are a recommended interface for primary navigation and StumbleUpon was offered as a very good example. Pretty clear that we are on the home page in this image.

Notice that the tab is the same color as the page.
There is no line between the tab and the page content.
The Home tab is also the most visually prominent tab.

This makes a compelling case for making your “at state” tab the same color as your primary background.

It was also suggested to be sure to include a Home page button with the primary navigation. Kind of surprised me, but ok. It does make it clear that here is the navigation scheme and similar looking links are primary navigation. Relying on logo clicking to get Home is not good enough.

Including a Home button also draws the visitor’s eye to the navigation at the start.

Another suggestion, make the active tab a little taller than the rest, a little bigger or consider bolding the font.

Consistency does not trump Clarity. Consistency is not always best. Shocking but true. Be flexible and be clear.

Text Links

There is an implied social contract with text links. The visitor sees the link and figures where it will take them. If it does not, you have broken the contract.

Steve implored that, “the text link has to deliver what you promised, they have to be what they say they are.” Otherwise you violate the social contract with the user. The most likely outcome is their immediate departure.

Page Titles

Prominent, well placed page titles is the second point.

They should always be at the top of the content space.
The text of the primary navigation should closely match the page title.
Page titles should be bigger, bolder and prominently located, though they need not be biggest.

Useful Tips

Feel free to break the navigation into two sections simply by adding 10 pixels or so of space.

The type face of your navigation should resize along with the body text.

Contrast is more important than type size for legibility. Good to know.

Steve recommends using the three differen sized A’s icon for visitors to resize the type themselves. This will become more accepted and valued over time.

Bread crumb navigation should include the current page, but the current page should not be clickable.
For example, In the following navigation scheme,

Mens > Boots > Walking > Brown

if you are on the Brown page, Brown should not be clickable.
This is similar to the Home page link not being active when you are on the Home page.

The best pointer for “at state” navigation is the sideways triangle pointing at the text.

A couple of sites that do all of this quite well,

www.harlem.org - continue clicking on the photo for more information

www.scottmccloud.com - very clear where you are

In addition to great information, I met some wonderful folks and am encouraged to visit again after my first UPA meeting. An impressive group of people. Thanks all. Oh, and Steve has a certain fascination with boxfish. A yellow rectilinear form found under water.

Chris Hass, Jim Spencer and Steve Krug at UPA Boston meeting
Three more photos here; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbspartners/

Please click on the green button below to share this article.

Please leave a question or comment about this article and include a favorite usability tip.

He began by establishing the benefit of a news release and provided some facts based on heat maps and comparing organic with pay-per-click (PPC) traffic from search engine result pages and on and off page search engine optimization (SEO).

• 75% of clicks come from organic results
• 25% of clicks come from pay-per-click ads

Apparently more highly educated folks use the organic listings more, while those with less education use PPC comparatively more.

• A Phd uses PPC only 1% of the time
• A high school educated visitor will use PPC 50% of the time

The next battery of stats were about on page and off page search engine optimization.

• 25% of SEO is on page - title, copy, H1,2,3 and meta data
• 75% of SEO is off page - links

Links to your web site were described as having three importance factors, from good to best.

• a link
• a link with the specific anchor text of your choice
• a link with the specific anchor text of your choice on a trusted web site

News Releases include links and are a great way to distribute them to trusted sites.

The overall goals for news releases are:

1. Build improved ranking for your site in the search engines
2. Increase your site’s find ability through distributed content
3. Gain press coverage

Content suggestions

• Make it interesting, about your industry
• Trends, survey data, case studies
• 300 to 1,000 words in length

Style tips

• Spell out abbreviations, it’s better for the search engines
• Type out full names more than once in a release, same reason

Key Word notes

• 1-2 key words per release is sufficient

Love Links

Text of the link, Anchor text of the link, Page title of web site linked to, and the the on page text should all use the same keywords. This shows relevance.

• Place your link in the first 250 words. Some services will truncate the article at that point.
• Include one link that is the full URL.
• Link to your properties, not to others so much
• Link to interior pages of your site that focus on the same subject.

Your Boiler Plate

This is the text about your company at the bottom of the release. It should be key word rich and include a few links.

Post the news release

• Post the release on your blog or site
• Submit it to your RSS feed
• Tag your release on social tag sites

Distribution of your press release

Choose a wire service that allows links with anchor text. If you need multimedia support, look for one that supports that.

Send your release to only one service, not many. Remember that you get what you pay for. Some agencies are free and others are expensive.

Distribution is offered by these services, among many more;

www.marketwire.com
www.prweb.com
www.prnewswire.com - Steve did not recommend using their regular service at all.

Frequency

Remember that the release is intended to reach prospects and not the media. Some may choose to send them out as often as four times per month. Consider your audience and competition before deciding when not send out a release. A bad time to send a release may be a time when there is also less competition, like at Christmas time.

Measure

Before and after review your and track your

• Google page rank
• key word ranking in the search engine results
• the number of links to your domain name
• review the quality of those that are linking to you
• review the anchor text of the inbound links to your site
• the number of visitors
• the number of leads you get or conversions (downloads, signups etc.)

Focus future PR efforts on the media that brings the best results.

Social Media News Release

www.shiftcomm.com has a template for social media news releases. Consider embracing social media and multimedia press releases.

www.pr-squared.com has further resources.

Add your press release to your Facebook news feed

Write a Press / News Release Today about

• A story around the founder
• Staff you are proud of
• Customer utilizing your produce service in a unique way
• Results of a survey or poll
• Awards
• Unique story angle on something familiar

Visit this link to see the entire presentation on in-bound marketing press releases. Mike remained on topic and provided a lot of value in this webinar. Since we are both in the Boston area, I look forward to thanking him in person one day.

What tips might you add to this? What have you found successful? Please leave a comment below and click the green button to share this post.

Technorati Profile

And MyBlogLog
Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

And Bloglines
ckey=”4ED64CEB”

Here is a quick summary.

1. Define your purpose and target audience
2. Domain Name
3. Hosting
4. Web Site design
   1. images
   2. text
   3. functionality
5. Key Word Research
6. Link Building
7. Internet Marketing
8. Regular updates and maintenance

The domain name is your unique address (or URL, Unique/Universal Resource Locator) on the Internet super highway. Without a domain name, the average Internet surfer will not find your web site.

The URL for this web site is www.jbspartners.com. See the name up in the browser address bar?

Like a car registration, Domain Names are registered and need to be renewed each year, or else they expire, which is not good.

Registering your domain name for as long as makes sense of your situation is recommend. Ten years often.

Please read the article on choosing domain names.

You may also like to read about various uses for a domain name. You can register a new domain name at www.jbspartnersdomains.com Privacy Protection, available when registering a domain name, hides your personal contact information, which is otherwise publicly available.

The is the special computer that holds all of the text, images and other assets of your web site. It is connected to the Internet and accepts requests to present your web site to visitors.

These computers are called web servers and generally run on Unix, Linux or Windows operating systems and use Apache or IIS or other web serving software.

The web hosting server may also support databases, content management systems, e-commerce functionality, audio and video content, private client areas that require logins and so on.

After a domain name is configured to “point” to your web server hosting account, there may be a delay of minutes up to 36 hours for the updated information to propagate across the Domain Name Servers (DNS) across the Internet. Only then will the web site be visible.

Web sites may appear to be simply comprised of text and images, and those are primary components. However let’s start by reviewing the question of why a web site?

Purpose and Motive - Why a web site?

1. It’s the thing to do
2. My competitor has one
3. My daughter, Uncle, Grandmother told me to
4. People keep calling to ask for hours and directions
5. Need an easy way for people to contact us
6. Show off our latest work
7. Attract new employees
8. Parking and driving directions are better in pictures
9. Want to sell beyond our local area
10. Preparing to sell the business
11. Required to meet our future growth forecast
12. Reduce walk in traffic
13. Improve customer service
14. Offer a wider range of products
15. My business coach told me to

Who is your target audience?

1. Current clients
2. Prospective clients
3. Government
4. Competitors
5. Current employees
6. Prospective employees

Describe the following about your target audience

1. Geographic range - town, state, national, international
2. Age group - 10 yr brackets
3. Gender - two choices
4. Position in the buying process timeline - research vs. ready to buy now
5. What other web sites do they visit?
6. Who are your most profitable clients?
7. Which clients will take your business in your chosen direction?
8. What do your clients have in common?
9. What are their education levels and income ranges?
10. Are your most frequent customers your best customer?

Conversion definition or What is the desired out-come?

1. Phone call
2. Email
3. Fax
4. Instant Message
5. Engage through social media - Facebook Twitter, Linkedin
6. Download
7. Sign up for newsletter or other
8. Drive to your location
9. Login
10. Purchase, complete e-commerce transaction
11. Click on an ad
12. Complete the Contact or Request form
13. Attend an event
14. Listen to a Podcast
15. Watch a video
16. Leave a comment
17. Donate

The information above really drives the remaining decisions.

Additional context questions

1. Is there an existing logo?
2. Is there a tag line or slogan?
3. Is there an existing color palette?
4. Does the web site need to coordinate with existing collateral?
5. For how many years will the web site exist?

What pages will contain the information presented on the web site?

1. Home
2. About Us
3. Services
4. Employment
5. Testimonials
6. News and Events
7. FAQ
8. Resources
9. Map / Driving Directions
10. Contact Us
11. Privacy Policy
12. Terms of Service
13. Site Map
14. Thank You page, custom 404 page
15. and many others

What graphics or images will enhance the web site?

Providing three to five web site addresses with a description of the aspects or components that could be applicable to the project can point the designers in the right direction.

The Copy, Content, Body Text, Words, Messaging
A professional writer brings tremendous benefit to every project.

1. Will interview the business owner
2. Will maintain the “voice” of the business consistently
3. Can interview satisfied customers to obtain unique testimonials
4. Can incorporate completed key word research into the text
5. Will use a style and format appropriate for the web
6. Will write copy that is compelling
7. Will write copy that is free of grammar, spelling or punctuation errors
8. Let you focus on running your business
9. A professional writer always saves time
10. The business owner reviews and approves all text

Web Design

The designer will assimilate the information provided and produce a “mock up”. This is a graphic image of the new web site design which we will review together. This is the time to make suggestions. Three reviews is the maximum.

Photo Research

Photography can be a vital component of the project. There are a number of options to obtain legal images.

1. Hire a photographer for all images
2. Purchase images. www.gettyimages.com or www.comstock.com have a vast choice of professional quality images
3. There are lower budget image web sites but copyright infringement becomes a trickier issue.

Finding the image that comfortably fits with the color scheme and the design can be a very time consuming process. Obtaining approvals from the client can extend this portion of the project.

Writing

The copy for each page will be produced and reviewed with the client. We will review body copy, as well as headlines, callouts, testimonial snippets, tag lines, button names and any other text on the page.

Production

Once the design mock up is approved, it goes into production and is converted to HTML or xHTML. At this point the design is set. A possible next step would be to install the web site into a Content Management System. This is software that makes many web site editing tasks very simple to complete by the owner.

What are the key terms, related to the project, that the public is entering into the search engines? Rarely does the client know all of them. We need to generate a list

These terms have a couple of factors.

1. Competition - How many other web sites are “competing” for that term?
2. Relevance - How relevant is that term to the project?
3. Quality - How often is the term searched for on the Internet?

Terms are selected by balancing these factors.

The selected terms are then incorporated into the pages of the web site. This aligns the active searchers on the Internet with your new web site.

Links to your web site are very important for the popularity of your web site in the search engines. There are many ways to build links.

1. Press Releases
2. Articles
3. Gaining listings in directories
4. Local Search Marketing
   1. Registering with local search web sites
5. Registering with relevant social media sites
6. Submit to DMOZ and Yahoo directories
7. Request links from other web sites
8. Newsletters and Discussions
9. Write reviews
10. Interview other business owner’s that also have a web site
11. Offer an ebook or something of value free in exchange for a link
12. The list is endless

We can tailor a program with a one time or monthly link building program, or both.

1. Pay-Per-Click advertising
2. Print Newsletter
3. Electronic Newsletter
4. Social Media Marketing
5. Brochure design and printing
6. Video marketing
7. e-cards
8. e-books
9. Corporate Identity packages - logo, stationary and business cards
10. Blogging
11. Podcasting
12. Speaking
13. and on and on

The web site needs to be kept up to date. It should be monitored and the information about visitors should be tracked and analyzed.

Please read more about web site statistics and analytics here

I encourage you to leave a comment or question below. Thanks you.

Ever want to compare who is following and who is not?

Twitter Toolbox is the answer

A nifty Firefox (and Flock) plugin that adds a sidebar with three tabs.

Compare Twitter followers and following in three ways

1. Who are you following, that is not following you?
2. Who is following you and you are following them?
3. Who is following you, but you are not following them?

Install Twitter Toolbox and compare the following and followed.

::Update:: This tool has not been updated for Firefox 3. ::Update::

Here are two alternative web solutions for comparing Twitter followers and following that are awesome. Listed in order of preference.

Twitter Karma has a nice interface that lets you see who you are following, who is following you and the combination of both. It will also show you Friends in the same way. Easy to understand.

My Tweeple takes it a step further and also allows you to ding Twitter accounts that you feel are spammers. It keeps a vote count allowing you to use this information in deciding to follow someone or not. My friend Shannon wrote this and he is open to suggestions for more features. The guy has talent.

Miscellaneous

www.CORONASINGLES.COM 26-Nov-2004
www.CUSTOMPIZZABOX.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.DRYCLOTHES.COM 22-Sep-2006
www.ALLAMERICANHOMEIMPROVEMENT.COM 6-Apr-2005
www.LOSANGELESFITNESSTRAINER.COM 27-May-2005

Mattresses

www.MATTRESSINABOX.COM 2-Jun-2004
www.DANNASMATTRESS.COM 20-Jan-2005

Golf Cart / Exotic Car

www.EMERALDCARCLUB.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.GOLFCLUBCAR.COM 19-Sep-2006
www.PRESTIGEGOLFCARTS.COM 20-Jun-2005

Short Company Names

www.ATWCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.HANGCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.LDDZ.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.RDFCO.COM 22-Sep-2006
www.RTRCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.SSKCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.UMERCO.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.ZYRCO.COM 19-Sep-2006

Design Industry

www.COWGIRLCREATIONS.COM 21-Nov-2000
www.VALDESIGNS.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALDEZIGNS.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALSTENNISWEAR.NET 7-Nov-2003
www.VALSTENNISWEAR.COM 22-Sep-2006

Bridal industry

www.VICTORIANBRIDALHATS.COM 25-Oct-2003
www.WESTERNBRIDAL.COM 25-Oct-2003
www.WESTERNBRIDALHATS.COM 25-Oct-2003

Web Site Design

www.1800BUSINESSWEBSITES.COM 27-May-2003
www.BUSINESSWEBDESIGNPROS.COM 18-Sep-2003
www.BUSINESS-WEBSITE-DESIGNS.COM 23-Oct-2004
www.GRAPHICWEBDESIGNER.COM 6-Feb-2002
www.JOHNSWEBDESIGNS.COM 7-Feb-2002

Web Site Sales

www.HOWTOSELLWEBSITES.COM 18-Jun-2004
www.WEBSITESALESPRO.COM 20-Apr-2004
www.WHYINEEDAWEBSITE.COM 20-Apr-2004
www.BUILDYOUROWNDOTCOM.COM 13-Feb-2003

E-Commerce
www.SHOPPINGCARTWEBDESIGN.COM 18-Sep-2003
www.MERCHANT-ACCOUNT-ACCEPT-CREDIT-CARDS.COM 23-Oct-2004

Auto Responder
www.ADVANCEDAUTORESPONDER.COM 10-Jun-2004
www.AUTORESPONDERDOWNLOAD.COM 10-Jun-2004
www.AUTORESPONDERUNLIMITED2.COM 10-Jun-2004

Web Site Miscellaneous

www.DSNAMES.COM 26-Sep-2006
www.AUTOMATEDLINKPRO.COM 1-Jul-2005
www.BUSINESS-WEBSITE-HOST.COM 23-Oct-2004
www.OFFICIALKEYWORDREPORT.COM 24-Jun-2005
www.ONEADMINSUITE.COM 29-Jun-2005

1. FTP (I prefer FileZilla) to your hosting account.
2. Download the header.php file.
3. Navigate to the file location: You path may look like this /public_html/wp-content/themes/<your theme’s name>/
4. Find the </head> tag and paste your code above it. See the specific instructions for your code.

Tracking codes you might be using:

• Google Analytics - Analytics
• Crazy Egg - Heat Map
• Hit Tail - Long Tail Key Words

What tracking codes are you using?

Goals:

1. Canonicalize the URLs. I chose www.jbspartners.com over http://jbspartners.com because it is what people expect, it is easier to type and I like it. Others may choose to drop the www before the domain name.
2. Apply the above consistently throughout the site.
3. Force the Home page to resolve to www.jbspartners.com, rather than to www.jbspartners.com/index.php, which is the default for WordPress

Here is what the regular expressions look like.

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.jbspartners\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.jbspartners.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.jbspartners.com/ [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

How it works:

The first RewriteCondition deals with resolving the URL to www.jbspartners.com

The second RewriteCondition deals with resolving index.php to www.jbspartners.com

The last two RewriteCond come with WordPress

The # (number sign) is used for comments, which the parser ignores.

The % is the variable symbol

The ! means Not for pattern matching. As in when the URL is not www.

The ^ means start of string.

The L stands for Last and tells Apache to terminate the rewrite rule and rewrite condition. Notice the L is used at the end of each paragraph.

The R stands for Redirect. 302 is temporary and 301 is permanent. This redirections is visible in the URL window of the browser.

-f matches an existing file name

-d matches an existing directory name

To Read more visit http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

1. TwitDir - allows you to search for Twitterers.
2. TwitterMap - shows a Google Map of Twitterers and their Tweets.
3. TwitterVision - shows a Google Map live view of Tweets around the earth.
4. TwitThis is a plugin to allow blog visitors to send a Tweet about your blog.
5. OutTwit - allows you to use Twitter via Outlook
6. Snitter - an Adobe AIR powered Twitter tool w/ additional features
7. TerraMinds - search Twitter for your friends or specific Tweets

To see more interesting uses of Twitter see this article at Read / WriteWeb

What is your favorite Twitter Mashup? Really?