Prior, a Google search using a local keyword such as “Nashville” or other location would display search results that included prominent display of Google Places listings along with a Google map in the sidebar (see below).

Local Search Results with Google Places

Today, the search results for “karate lessons nashville” shows that both the individual Google Places listings and Google Maps in the sidebar are completely missing from the search results pages.

Instead, the search results display compressed listings with the address/location displayed below the page description with a link the show the map.

New local search results with location and link displayed below description

Clicking on the location link then expands the listing to show the map embedded underneath along with additional links to view the Google Places page and/or get directions.

Expanded Local Google Search Results

This is an interesting search update by Google and I’m not sure if it’s temporary or if they’re just testing a new search listings option. By using this format, however, it does open the sidebar to display search ads higher on the page.

One thing I do like is that it places the focus back on the business (listing) instead of proximity. Because, as you know, just because a business is close to you, doesn’t mean it’s the best option or provides the best products and/or services.

What are your thoughts on the new listing? Have you seen this or any other local search results changes by Google. Drop a comment below.

The TV spot, which aired during Superbowl halftime, was a perfect example of using storytelling as a vehicle (no pun intended) to promote a product. In this case, both the Chrysler brand and America.

The commercial immaculately concepted, written, and produced. I especially loved how the creative agency/team used the media placement (and timing) to tie the “halftime” concept into the football game. In fact, I was so captivated by the inspiring story of hope, I completely missed that there were actually seven Chrysler product shots inserted into the commercial (I counted them later) and the first one didn’t appear until 1:05 into the spot.

The commercial was inspiring, empowering, and right on brand. So whether you were rooting for the New York Giants or the New England Patriots, Chrysler’s TV spot came out as a clear winner.

Here’s a transcript of the commercial. A few comments from Twitter can be found below.

TV script for Chrysler’s 2012 Super Bowl ad “It’s Halftime in America”

It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half.

Yeah, it’s halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.

What did you think of Chrysler’s Super Bowl commercial? Love it? Hate it? Was it the best Super Bowl commercial?

Discount printing on Business Cards, Brochures, Posters and Stickers

Just think. You’ll be able to get your business marketing materials printed and, with the money you save, buy your special Valentine a sweet gift too!

These special promotions expire February 15, 2012.

60% Off on all Posters

60% Off on all Stickers

50% Off on all Business Cards

50% Off on all Brochures

Don’t forget. There’s also site wide coupons good until March 31, 2012.

Save 30%, up to $100, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011230

Save 25%, up to $300, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011225

Save 20%, up to $500, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011220

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uBillboard is a premium plugin for WordPress I bought from CodeCanyon for $20. It allows you to create sliders — essentially, individual banners (text, images, etc.) that transition from one to the next.

Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that the plugin is either creating virus files or has a security flaw allowing virus files to be added/created by someone else.

When WordPress Plugins Go Bad

Bryan, a user visiting my website, contacted me that his computer was hacked by my website and sent me a log file of the instance.

User email notifying me of being hacked by uBillboard plugin

Somehow, two files (b.txt and c.txt) were created within the plugin.

Location of the uBillboard plugin virus files

As you can imagine, I was completely shocked when I got the e-mail because the last thing anyone wants is for a website visitor to get hacked by your site.

Not wanting to take any chances, I immediately accessed my website via FTP, compress the files, and downloaded them to my computer. I then deleted the files off the server and removed code from web pages that were displaying sliders.

Once I knew the threat was removed, I opened the b.txt and c.txt files in my text editor to see what was going on.

First lines of code from the b.txt file

First lines of code from the c.txt file

As you can see from the above snapshots, you don’t have to be a programmer to understand there’s a whole lot of bad ju-ju going on in these files.

As you can also see in the directory snapshot there are three other cache files. Given I had only created two different Billboard instances, my assumption is at least two of the files were for those billboards.

Testing the plug-in

As a test, I wanted to see if the plug-in was creating the b.txt and c.txt files. Although I had installed and activated the plug-in on another site, luckily, I hadn’t created any billboard instances or added it’s code to any pages. When I checked the cache directory via FTP, I saw four cache files (extremely odd considering I hadn’t created a billboard yet) but no other files resembling b.txt or c.txt.

Since I have no way to contact the programmer directly, I posted a comment on the CodeCanyon product page.

Again, if you are using this plugin — immediately disable and delete it from your server! And if you were thinking about buying it, I’d recommend waiting until the programmer verifies the plugin is safe to use.

WordPress Plugin Security

One of the great WordPress security features is that whenever there’s an update to WordPress’ core files, an update notification is displayed within the WordPress admin. This helps ensure your files are up-to-date and your WordPress installation secured.

The same is true for for plugins downloaded from the WordPress plugin repository. The plugins include specific version numbers and, whenever a plugin author updates their plugin, you’re automatically notified within the admin so you can update the plugin.

Pinterest Plugin on WordPress Plugin Repository

Plugin Update Notification in WordPress Admin

This is really important to understand. It may also be one of the reasons why I experienced the issue with uBillboard plugin. Because I purchased the plug-in from CodeCanyon, there’s no built-in notification if the plug-in is updated.

When I went to the CodeCanyon site to post my comment, I noticed uBillboard was now version 3. Because the plugin didn’t include a version number, I have no idea what version I was using. I did, however, download and compare version 3 to the files I had and noticed the files included in version 3 were different.

Although I think uBillboard is a cool plug-in, it’s just not worth it if it’s going to create security issues with my website. So, until I get some feedback and a guarantee from the plugin author, the plug-in will remain deleted.

This unfortunate situation is a perfect example of why downloading WordPress plugins from anywhere but the official WordPress plugin repository can be a bad idea.

Please let me know if you have any questions and if you’ve had any similar experiences using WordPress plugins.

Special printing discounts on Business Cards, Brochures, Posters and Stickers

The new year is just around the corner and we’re kicking it off with some new printing coupons. So if your New Year’s resolution is to save your business some money, this is a good way to start.

These special promotions Expire January 13, 2012.

60% Off on all Brochures

50% Off on all Posters

50% Off on all Stickers

40% Off on all Business Cards

These coupons expire January 31, 2012.

Printing Coupons Expire January 31, 2012

60% Off on all Postcards

60% Off on all Invitation Cards

50% Off on all Greeting Cards

20% Off on all Booklets

20% Off on all Catalogs

20% Off on all Vinyl Banners

15% Off all Newsletters

Special large discount coupons expire March 31, 2012.

Save 30%, up to $100, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011230

Save 25%, up to $300, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011225

Save 20%, up to $500, Off any product. Coupon code: AF011220

Save 15% Off any product. Coupon code: AF011215

Until Dec. 11, MacLegion is offering 10 best selling Mac apps ($480 value) for 50 bucks. Technically, it’s $49.99 but who are we kidding?

Bundled Apps Include

• MotionComposer (regular $149)
  Allows you to create engaging Web content once and run it anywhere, no coding required! Animations and interactive content created with MotionComposer for Mac runs on any computer, smartphone, and tablet, including iPhone, iPad, and Android.
• Nisus Writer Pro (regular $79)
  Fast, clean, and powerful multilingual word processor.
• PhotoStyler (regular $29.99)
  Easiest way to style your digital photos with your Mac.
• Bellhop (regular $24.99)
  Finds, books and manages your hotel bookings easily,
• BOOM (regular $12.99)
  Boosts the volume of your Mac at all levels.
• Tidy Up! (regular $33)
  Complete duplicate finder and disk tidiness utility.
• Remote Buddy (regular $27)
  Control 100+ applications, virtual keyboard, virtual mouse — and more — right from your Apple Remote, iPhone/iPod Touch or Wii Remote!
• MacGourmet Deluxe (regular $49.95)
  Think of MacGourmet Deluxe as the iTunes for recipes. Enter a recipe and you have instant access to all the information about ingredients, directions, preparations, notes, nutritional values — even a picture
• Rubbernet (regular $40)
  Provides a breakdown of per-app network usage, so you can quickly detect apps that phone home, connect to servers without your knowledge, or pinpoint the app that’s slowing down your network.
• AppDelete (regular $7.99)
  Uninstaller for Macs that will remove not only Applications but also Widgets, Preference Panes, Plugins, and Screensavers along with their associated files.

Also, the first 10,000 customers get MacScan ($29 value) for free!

Total Value: $480 Special Price: $49.99

Get the details here

Special printing discounts on Business Cards, Brochures, Posters and Stickers

November may already be in full swing but December is just around the corner. And just because weather is getting frosty doesn’t mean you can’t shave a few dollars off your next printing project.

Check out the following printing coupons for September. There’s also some nice coupons that don’t expire until the end of the year.

These special promotions Expire December 15, 2011.

70% Off Printing

70% Off on all Business Cards

60% Off Printing

60% Off on all Stickers
60% Off on all Posters

50% Off Printing

50% Off on all Brochures

These special site-wide coupon codes expire December 31, 2011.

70% Off

70% Off on all Postcards

60% Off

60% Off on all Invitation Cards

50% Off

50% Off on all Greeting Cards

20% Off

20% Off all Calendars

15% Off

15% Off on all Booklets
15% Off on all Catalogs
15% Off on all Door Hangers

Site Wide Coupons

Save 30%, up to $100, Off any product.
Use coupon code: AF041130

Save 25%, up to $300, Off any produc.
Use coupon code: AF041125

Save 20%, up to $500, Off any product.
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Save 15% Off any product.
Use coupon code: AF04115

With the announcement that branded business pages had been launched, business can now create a Google+ account specifically for their brand.

A number of pages were already available at the time of the announcement (Google allowed some brands to beta test them earlier). I’ve listed a few branded pages below and you can also get a sample list of business pages from Google’s blog post.

Here’s a quick video from Google. I specially like this line, “I don’t expect anything monetarily — that will come.” because it helps focused the message around using business pages for connecting and being social with customers as opposed to “marketing” to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ccf5GxM7vg

Google+ Business Page Samples

Pepsi, Toyota, and Angry Birds make good use of photos by posting a series of images that creates the feel of a single landscape photo. This is something many businesses try to do on their Facebook pages — but with one big difference. On Facebook, the images change position each time a page is visited or refreshed. Even if you upload images in the order you want them to display — they don’t. So I’m really happy Google noticed that flaw and keeps images in order. This will allow businesses to be more creative and dress up their pages.

Pepsi

Pepsi Business Page on Google Plus

Toyota

Toyota Business Page on Google Plus

Angry Birds

Who doesn’t love Angry Birds? I specially love how they kept the brand fun with adding a most compelling business description: “Ca-caw!”.

Angry Birds Business Page on Google Plus

Android

Android Business Page on Google Plus

Macy’s

Macy’s wasted no time jumping into the holiday spirit by adding some festive photos to their gallery. A nice, non-salesy, way to start their page but I can see how they can use the photo gallery to present sales and coupons to customers circling them.

Macy's Business Page on Google Plus

WWE

This WWE page (and like a few others here) added photos of some colorful wrestling characters. Unfortunately, they didn’t know that the images aren’t limited to the 150x 150 pixel thumbnail size. The images can be larger and will display perfectly as long as the images are proportional. I recommend using images no larger than 720 x 720 pixels.

WWE Business Page on Google Plus

Coldplay

For musicians and bands, Google Plus business pages could be a great marketing tool. Coldplay uses the photo gallery to display album covers. As a band, this is a nice use but it could be such more if Google could drop in a couple more features.

I’d love it if Google would allow users to choose which photos to display (no matter what album they’re in) on the home page as opposed to displaying five photos from the most recent uploads. In this way, Bands could create separate photo albums for each their music albums — Album cover art, band member photos, concert images, etc. Then the user could choose one image from each photo album t feature on the home page.

As long as I’m shooting for the stars, imagine how useful it could be for businesses to upload audio files. Bands could drop preview tracks of their songs and even offer special songs for free download.

Coldplay Business Page on Google Plus

Dallas Cowboys

Seeing videos in their stream reminds to to request Google to upgrade the image gallery to also include videos. Perhaps with an option to let the business choose between showing five photos or 2-3 video boxes. This would be a great tool for businesses to promote their products and promotional videos.

Dallas Cowboys Business Page on Google Plus

Google Plus and Search Results

As Google launched business pages yesterday, they’ve wasted no time in displaying posts from Google Plus business pages into their search results pages. A quick search for “WWE” came back with the displaying posts from WWE’s Google Business Page directly under their main website site links.

Considering Google can no longer display real-time results from Twitter, this is a big plus.

Post from Google Plus Business Pages Already Added to Search Results

Additional Google Plus Articles

• Google Plus Pages: 5 things you should know before you register
• The Power Potential Of Google+ Pages For Businesses
• Google+ Brand Pages vs. Facebook Fan Pages
• Google+ Brand Pages Are the “Wild West” — for Now
• How to Set Up a Google+ Brand Page
• 5 Cool Tips You Should Know About Google+ Pages

What do you think of the new business pages? Have you create your own business page yet? If you have, please drop a link to your page in the comments.

Special printing discounts on Business Cards, Brochures, Posters and Stickers

Halloween is just around the corner but there’s nothing scary about saving some cash on your next printing project. Just click on the text to take advantage of the new printing coupons for November.

There’s also limited time left to save money on printing postcards, invitations, greeting cards, banners, and calendars. The October discounts (up to 70% off) expire Oct. 31.

These special promotions Expire November 15, 2011.

70% Off Printing

70% Off on all Business Cards

60% Off Printing

60% Off on all Brochures

50% Off Printing

50% Off on all Stickers
50% Off on all Posters

These promotions Expire November 30, 2011.

70% Off Printing

70% Off on all Postcards

60% Off Printing

60% Off on all Greeting Cards

50% Off Printing

50% Off on all Invitation Cards

20% Off Printing

20% Off on all Booklets
20% Off on all Catalogs

15% Off Printing

15% Off on all Pocket Folders
15% Off all Calendars

The Ultimate Collection of Storyboard Templates for Video, Film, and TV

If you want to create a professional storyboard for your next film, video, or television commercial, you need to start with a great template.

You Can Create Professional Storyboards

Let’s face it, presentation is everything.

A crappy looking storyboard can kill all hope of selling your idea to a client or convincing investor’s to give you money.

So if you want to be successful, use tools that help your ideas look great!

And Save Time

If there’s one thing I’ve learned working as a professional Art Director for the last 20 years, it’s that speed is of the essence.

The less time you spend creating your storyboard, the more time you have to create award winning ideas. Which is why these templates give you the most common industry specific storyboard layouts and sizes — so you can finish your storyboards fast!

You no longer have to worry about creating storyboard templates form scratch — all of the tedious work is done for you.

Whether you need to quickly sketch story ideas and key script dialogue using a PDF template, or use an editable Adobe InDesign template to create a high-quality storyboard for a presentation, you’ll have everything you need to start creating professional TV and film storyboards!

Don’t waste time and energy in pre-production creating your storyboard templates by hand when you can get this ultimate collection of templates right now!

Showcase Your Creativity

These pre-designed templates were created to help showcase your talent.

Just add scripted text, video descriptions, and your drawings, photos, or illustrations directly into the template and you’ll have an amazing storyboard that’s ready to share.

99 Templates: 1 Amazingly Low Price

A “huge selection” is an understatement. You’ll have 99 storyboard templates to use with your film or television projects so you can quickly visualize and fine-tune key frames in your video before filming or editing.

Editable Storyboard Templates

Each of the below listed files were created with Adobe InDesign CS3 and includes 2 Template Options. Choose a template with a White background with black text or, for a dramatic style, choose a Black background template with white text. These files are completely editable so you can modify them to match your exact needs!

Print-Ready PDF Storyboard Templates

33 storyboard template PDFs were designed with speed and ease-of-use in mind. They feature production correct aspect ratios and include space to draw individual frames and add dialogue, video and screen directions, or other notes. Their white backgrounds with text placeholders are ready to be printed and used!

A Few Storyboard Template Examples

Here are just a few samples of the 99 Storyboard templates you’ll receive.

Embedly is a very cool service that allows you to easily embed videos, images, and rich media from “any” source — using just the URL — into your website.

Until now, it was only available as a WordPress plugin. In fact, I use on this site.

But now Embedly has released Embedly Anywhere. So even websites not running on WordPress can take full advantage of their service.

How it Works.
Embedly made a smart move by making the barrier to entry almost non-existent. To use their Anywhere service, just add a simple line of JavaScript to your site and you’re ready to go!

Even better, you can configure the embeds to better match your site including setting width and colors. Unfortunately, the WordPress plugin doesn’t have all those options — at least not yet.

For more information, check out their website and video demo.

Zipcast is the new (to me) web conferencing and video presentation tool from SlideShare.

Although it launched in February, I just got the email about the service. Wish I had known about it when it first launched, but at least I (and now you) know now.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how it can help you. For more info, make sure to go through the slides below.

Service Benefits

• Works in any browser.
• No software download required (this is HUGE benefit)
• Personalized meeting rooms
• Schedule meetings in advance
• Send email invitations to prospective attendees.
• No limit on number of participants
• Guests are not required to log in for private Zipcasts.
• Attendees can RSVP to your event and add it to their calendars. A reminder email will be sent to each attendee.

Best of all — it’s a free service!

Ways Zipcast can help your business

• Help launch a new product.
• Share ideas with colleagues.
• Deliver a conference talk remotely.
• Make sales presentations to clients.
• Support customers.
• Give free webinars.
• Teach students in a classroom — even when you can’t be there in person.

Introducing Zipcast

Quick Tour

I’m excited about this service and looking forward to using it to expand my Creative Thinking Workshops.

Here are just seven options that might benefit your small business.

7 Free Ways to Advertise Your Small Business

1. Email Marketing

Have your customers sign up for free email newsletters, and you’ll be able to garner repeat business without spending any money. The key to an email marketing campaign is to offer good deals through email that aren’t accessible elsewhere. You’ll also want to be consistent with your marketing campaign. You don’t want customers to forget you between emails, but you also don’t want them to feel that you’re constantly flooding their inboxes. Sending out an email about once a month is a good option. You can include information about new developments in your business, tips for using your products and services, and, of course, access to good deals and discounts!

2. Social Networking

This is the primary way that many small businesses are advertising these days. Start a blog, a Twitter feed, and a Facebook page. You’ll be able to use these tools to connect with hundreds of potential local customers and to stay connected to those who already like your products and services. The key here is to simply stay connected with your customers – to make them feel that they’re dealing with a company made up of real people and not a faceless entity. Again, offering good deals — even giveaways — through these media will boost your business’s social networking standings and help you connect with even more customers.

3. Customer Incentives

Getting repeat business is as easy as offering repeat customers’ discounts. Getting new business is as simple as offering old customers referral bonuses for bringing in new customers. While this will end up costing you because you’ll have to discount your products or services, in the long run it’s a virtually free way to advertise. Customers who feel they can get something in return for talking up your business are sure to spread the word about your products and services!

4. Press Releases for Events

You can’t always get free newspaper advertising for your business, but if you’re hosting an event or experiencing major changes, you might be able to get local papers to publish a press release for free. One great way to get a press release published for your business is to host an open house around the holidays and to do a charity raffle during that time. Newspapers love to advertise charity-related local efforts during the holiday season, so this can land you a press release fairly easily!

5. Local Online Listings in Directories

There are tons of websites that offer local directories where you can list your business for free. Many times, these directories are industry-specific. For instance, if your business deals with the wedding industry, popular wedding websites may offer an online directory where engaged people can check out the services of caterers, florists, DJs, and other wedding-related businesses in their area. Finding these local listings is easy, and basic listings are usually free.

6. Google Local and Google Maps

Google is currently offering another type of local directory listing that is great for small businesses. Because they want to improve their maps and local search functions, you can fill out information about your local business for free, and it will be added to Google Maps and Google Local.

7. Sell on eBay

If you sell a product, putting some of your inventory up on eBay is a good way to get some cross-selling for free. Setting up a full-blown vendor site on eBay has minimal costs, but simply listing a few items that can then link back to your company’s actual website is free, and this is a great way to get new online traffic for your business.

Every business should consider taking advantage of these seven options simply because they don’t cost you a dime! They may not be the most effective forms of advertising for getting you new business, but the return on investment is great since there are no out-of-pocket expenses!

And while you can use many of these seven free advertising techniques to help your business, there comes a day when free advertising alone is not enough. To help manage cash flow and to earn rewards for advertising, consider business credit cards with rewards. When managed responsibly, they can be a great way to get capital immediately to bring in more business and to boost your bottom line.

Here’s the short review: Dragon Dictate is awesome. It saves me a ton of time. It can save you time and help you be more productive. By it now. Thank me later.

Okay, onto the full review.

Dragon Dictate is translation software that converts your spoken words into text by simply speaking into a compatible microphone, headset such as the Koss CS95 Computer Headset, or even a BlueTooth.

I first heard about Dragon Dictate from a friend who saw a demonstration in a local computer/electronics store. He raved about how cool it was and, since he wasn’t very good at typing or spelling, how much time it could save him at work.

Based on his recommendation, I decided to give it a try. And, after some quick online price shopping, I found a bundled deal — software plus the noise canceling headset at Amazon.com

When the package arrived, I glanced at the QuickStart guide, inserted the DVD, and began the setup process to use the software and headset.

Setup is a Breeze

Setting up Dragon Dictate was a breeze.

Put the DVD into the computer, plug in the USB headset and follow a few prompts.

Done. Like I said, it was really easy.

Training was Fast

Training took five or six minutes at most. Which was a really nice surprise.

MacSpeech takes you through a short training session so the software can create a user profile in order to more accurately recognize your voice, cadence, and inflections.

What I found especially intriguing about the voice training session was the story they have you read. It’s an explanation about the software, its evolution, and how it works.

Essentially, Dragon learns how you speak while you learn how speech recognition software works and how to speak more clearly. That’s pretty smart thinking.

With the training session done, I immediately started using it and I was immediately impressed by its accuracy.

Improves Your Speaking Skills

After my first round of dictating, I was shockingly amazed at the lack of elegance there was in my speaking versus my writing. Which is something to think about — dictating is a learned skill.

In the days of yore, it was common practice for businessmen to dictate letters to their secretaries. So the more they dictated, the better they became at articulating what they wanted to say without much forethought.

When I’m writing using the keyboard, I tend to write slower because I’m thinking through what I want to say. In essence, I’m composing and editing in my head as I write — which makes my writing more fluid.

With dictation, I initially found myself dictating in a train-of-thought mode. Speaking as the words came to me without giving much thought about the exact structure of what I wanted to say — or how I wanted to say it.

Once I realized the difference, I simply slowed down and thought more about what I was going to say before I said it.

Tripled My Productivity

Even with slowing down my dictation speed, I still tripled to quadrupled my productivity. Everything from short e-mails to long articles, Dragon Dictate has been an amazing piece of software.

But there’s more to Dragon Dictate than just dictation.

Voice Control Your Computer

Another great feature is that it allows you to control your computer through voice commands. Like opening just about any application, copy and paste, open window, close window, restarting the computer, saving documents, etc.

Now that’s a real time saver.

The only drawback I can think of — if you can even call it that — is that it took me longer to learn the voice commands so I can edit text after the fact.

Because Dragon is accurate at dictating exactly what I say, I find myself not always liking how I phrased a sentence. In which case, I want to edit specific words or replace entire sentences or paragraphs.

I initially found myself making quite a mess of things because I didn’t quite have the commands down. But once I learned them, it was a much faster and smoother process.

Stellar Productivity Tool

Overall, I give Dragon Dictate 4.9 out of 5 stars.

The only reason I don’t give it a full five stars is because I wish it had more commands. Meaning, I want to do everything in my life by voice now. Turn on the TV, make dinner, take out the trash, mow the yard… Okay, I’m being sarcastic. But that’s how much I’ve learned to really enjoy and rely on using Dragon Dictate.

Because even with editing, my productivity has significantly increased. It has also done incredible job of reducing procrastination.

Reduces Procrastination

Prior to using Dragon for Mac (also available for PC) I would have piles of research on my desk. Research for articles I wanted to write but just didn’t have the time to write them. Now, with MacSpeech Dictate, when I’m inspired to write an article, I simply put on the headset and start talking.

Within 10 minutes I’m done.

A Godsend for Bloggers

For those of us who write a lot — specially bloggers who write every day — Dragon Dictate is a must-have. Even if you’re a hunt and peck key blaster that only types 20-30 words per minute, it’s no match for Dragon because it can dictate words as fast as you can talk.

Where To Get It

You can get more information about Dragon Dictate on their website at Nuance.com

As I mentioned above, along with the software you’ll need a compatible headset or microphone — which you can get through their website. I got the same software plus the headset from Amazon for less (plus free shipping).

And, if you were wondering, this entire software review was created using Dragon Dictate.

Compare prices at MacSpeech and Amazon.com.

Other products from Nuance include MacSpeech Scribe, MacSpeech Dictate Legal, and MacSpeech Dictate Medical which you can find here.

That’s why, when writing your page descriptions, you want to sell the reader the sizzle, not the steak.

Juicy Page Description Entice People To Click Your LInk

Before getting into more details, let’s cover some of the basics.

What is the Page Description?

The web page description is the text that, under normal circumstances, is displayed directly under the page title in the search engine results pages.

The web page HTML code looks like this:

<meta name="description" content="Your Description Goes Here" />

The description on a search engine results page may look like this:

Page Description Length

The description displayed in Google search results shows up to 149 characters (including spaces). This equates to about 20-30 words (your mileage may vary). Your description can be longer, but Google will cut it short (see below example).

On the other hand, Yahoo! will display up to 224 characters. So which one should you optimize for?

The answer is both.

Personally, I start by writing a page description that’s about 200 characters in length. I then go through a rewriting process where I place the most important and intriguing information within the first 149 characters. It takes a bit of extra work, but I feel it’s worth the effort. This way, when Google cuts a long description short, you still end up with a description that optimizes the space allowed by Google.

On the other hand, if don’t want to go through a lengthy writing process, you can simply write a description that fits within 149 characters and leave it at that.

Page descriptions longer than 149 charters are cut short by Google.

What It Should Include

Page Description Content

The page description should play off your page title and elaborate on the primary topic of your page. In that regard, I like to start the description with a variation of the main keyword followed by more descriptive text for what the reader will learn.

For example, if the main keyword phrase in your title tag is “Website Page Descriptions”, your page description could include “Web Page Description – What you need to know…”

The description also provides an opportunity for you to include secondary keywords or phrases that weren’t included in the page title but are included in the page content.

Sell The Sizzle

The page description is your opportunity to entice web users to click your link and visit your page. But to do that, you have to sell them the sizzle — the juicy benefit the reader will get form visiting your page.

For example, in the above image, the page description for my last post in this Learn Basic SEO series, “How To Optimize Website Page Titles“, I entice users ti click through by using “Here’s how to fix it” as a call to action. More on that below.

Call-to-Action Descriptions

The above information is a starting point — the basics of writing a page description. The main goal is to write a compelling description that will intrigue someone to take action. You need them to CLICK the link and visit your site.

A couple techniques you can use to do this are;

1. Ask an open-ended question.
   Example: “Natural plant remedies. Do you know what plants can heal you and which ones can actually kill you?”
2. Hint at what the reader will learn — but don’t give it away.
   Example: “A great page description can compel searchers to CLICK your link and visit your website. Here’s why… “
3. Tell them to click your link.
   Example: “Best Boston Cream Pie. An amazingly easy and delicious recipe. CLICK NOW to get it for free!”

Additional tip: Include a contact phone number in the description — generally at the end. As popular as the Internet is for finding products and services, you’ll be surprised how many people prefer to talk with a LIVE person. Adding a phone number (with area code) will also help getting your pages listed in local search results.

Write Like a Human

When writing page descriptions, please keep in mind that search engine robots don’t bring you traffic. People clicking your links in the search engine results do. So make sure you write like a Human, for Humans.

Although you want to include relevant keywords in your page descriptions, it’s too easy to get too caught up in the SEO part that it ends up reading like it was written by a robot. Don’t do that. No one wants to learn from a robot.

Google the Controller

It’s important to note that no matter what you write, there’s no guarantee Google will display your description in the search results. In fact, Google will display whatever they feel is the best text based on a search query. Google even specifically states this in their Rich Snippets Testing Tool.

The excerpt from the page will show up here. The reason we can’t show text from your webpage is because the text depends on the query the user types

Google ultimately decides what text to use as a page description

What We’ve Learned

• The page description is displayed under the title on search engine results pages.
• A page description can be between 149 and 224 characters in length.
• Include a variation of the main keyword in your description.
• Sell the benefit. Entice readers to click your link by writing a compelling description.
• Add a strong call to action.
• Write like a human.

In part five of this Learn Basic SEO series, I’ll be talking about how to choose keywords.

Special discounts on Business Cards, Brochures, Posters and Stickers

If you’re like me, you’re counting down the days to the second weekend in October. That’s generally the last weekend I have to mow the yard! And I look forward to using the extra time for other things — like printing business cards (just kidding). But 50% off business cards is a sweet deal so make sure to stock up.

These Mid-Month promotions Expire October 15, 2011.

50% Off Printing

50% Off on all Business Cards
50% Off on all Brochures

60% Off Printing

60% Off on all Stickers
60% Off on all Posters

These promotions Expire October 31, 2011.

15% Off Printing

15% Off on all Booklets
15% Off on all Catalogs
New Coupons
15% Off Door Hangers
  Coupon code: OCTDOORHANGERS (up to $500 max discount)
15% Off all Club Card Flyers
  Coupon code: OCTFLYERS (up to $500 max discount)

20% Off Printing

20% Off on Banners
20% Off all Calendars
New Coupons
20% Off Magnet Printing.
  Coupon code: OCTMAGNETS (up to $500 max discount)
20% Off Booklets & Catalogs.
  Coupon code: OCTBOOKLETS(up to $500 max discount)
20% Off all Letterheads.
  Coupon code: OCTLETTERHEAD (up to $500 max discount)

50% Off Printing

50% Off on all Greeting Cards

60% Off Printing

60% Off on all Postcards
60% Off on all Invitation Cards

MacUpdate has a special offer like this about once a year and it’s always great. Right now, they’re offering a bundle of 11 award winning apps for $49.

Special MacUpdate Promo. 11 Mac Apps for $49

Bundled Apps Include

• Toast 11 Titanium (regular $99)
  Burn CD/DVD media and convert to iPhone/iPod
• Data Rescue 3 (regular $99)
  Recover lost or corrupt data on drives
• FX Photo Studio Pro (regular $39)
  Powerful post-processing photo editor.
• Fantastical (regular $19)
  Create calendar events using natural language
• iStat Menus (regular $16)
  Monitor your system right from the menubar
• Phoneview (regular $19)
  Use your phone for file storage, export/sync data and more
• Concealer (regular $19)
  Store information in a secure card format
• EarthDesk (regular $24)
  Enjoy a dynamic earth desktop picture with live sun and cluds
• Mellel (regular $29)
  Powerful word processor for writers, scholars; multilingual
• Bookends (regular $99)
  Reference management app

The first 10,000 bundle buyers also get Printopia for free!

• Printopia (regular $19)
  Share Mac printers with iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices

Total Value: $487 Bundle Discount: -$437

More Info

UPDATE
@MacUpdate is now offering 2,000 free fonts — no purchase necessary — just for sharing the news via Twitter of Facebook. Here’s the link.

iPhone App Usability Review

The importance of a well-designed user interface and keeping functions consistent throughout a smartphone app can’t be emphasized enough. When users encounter inconsistencies, it creates confusing and frustration. Even to the point where they will stop using your iPhone application.

In the above demonstration video, I use the LinkedIn iPhone app as an example of how their sharing options — specifically the icons — could be improved to provide a better user experience.

For clarity, the page title is not the content title on your page. The website page title is the information displayed in the browser title bar.

The Page Title is shown in the top bar of the browser window.

Whatever text you place between the title tags <title></title> within the <head> section of your web page will be your page title. Think of it as a condensed summation reflecting the content presented on your page.

<title>Your Page Title Goes Here</title>

Why Page Titles Are Important

The number one reason page titles are so important is because whatever text you place between the title tags is the same text search engines display in their search results.

For example. Here’s the Google search results listing for our last SEO article, “The Truth About SEO Guarantees”

Google search results listing showing Truth SEO Guarantees page title

Page Title Length

Google and Yahoo! are considered to be the top two search engines. Both display different title lengths in their search result pages.

• Google currently displays 66 characters (including punctuation and spaces)
• Yahoo! displays 116 characters (including spaces)

Given the difference between Google and Yahoo!, I recommend your title length should be no more than 66 characters (including spaces) plus the name of your business or location (City) — I’ll discuss this in more detail shortly. Here’s why.

1. Google is the top search engine and titles longer than 66 characters are truncated (any characters over 66 aren’t displayed) and searchers won’t be able to read the entire title in the search results listings.
2. If your primary title is longer than 66 characters, you’re either trying to stuff your title tag with keywords or your content isn’t focused enough. Either way, go back and slim it down. You should be able to easily include 2-3 keyword phrases without exceeding 66 characters.
3. Page titles of 70 characters or less are optimal for social sharing. You can read more about that here

Be Unique

I’ll keep this simple. Every page on your website needs to have a unique page title. Google frowns upon duplicate page titles — as they should. The page title tells users what your page is about. If two (or more) web pages have the same page title, it’s difficult for users to know which page they want to read.

So if you want a better optimized web page, make sure every page has a unique page title.

If you’re not using Google webmaster tools, I highly recommend it. It will help identify many issues with your site — including duplicate title tags.

Using City and Business Names

As part of your page title, I recommend including your City Name or Business Name.

City Name Keyword

Although websites can have a global reach, prospects that have the greatest chance of becoming a customer live within a 50 mile radius of your business.

Since people are more comfortable using local businesses, they tend to search locally. So for pages promoting products and services, including your city name in the title tag increases your chances for being found in local searches.

For example; if your business sold horse tack and supplies in Nashville, your page title might look like this.

<title>Horse Tack, Horse & Equine Supplies, Nashville</title>

To help signify the importance of local, geo targeting, look at these local search statistics;

• Local search now accounts for 13% of total core search. Up 16% from last year.
• 68% of Local Customers Search Online.
• 41% of those conducting a local search were searching for something in their home area.
• Among those searching in their home area, 59% were searching for a restaurant or something entertainment-related, such as a theater, theme park or an attraction for sightseeing.
• 41% were looking for information on local services including car rentals, dry cleaners and lawyers.
• 52% said they searched specifically for a business phone number or address.
• 77.1 million Americans accessing local content on mobile devices — up 34% from last year.

Here’s a real-life example.

The following screenshot shows search results for company slogan nashville with 5.66 million results. Not only did my website get a coveted, first position listing, it also occupied the number two and three positions. As an added bonus, there isn’t one competitive company listed on the first page.

Pages including city name dominating local search results

If you want to capture local prospects, include the name of your city/location in the title tag of pages promoting products or services.

And although adding the City keyword may exceed 66 characters and, most likely, won’t be displayed in Google, it can still help drive traffic to your site.

In the time since I incorporated this technique into my SEO marketing, leads from my local market have more than tripled!

Branding Page Titles With Your Business Name

Branding is an important part in growing a business. As such, adding your business name to your blog article page titles can help increase brand awareness.

Notice I said, “blog articles”.

As I mentioned earlier, when people search locally they’re looking to buy products and services. So adding your city name to your page title can help you be found through local search.

But when people are just looking for information, they don’t really care if it was written in Dallas or in Seattle. They simply want quality information from a trusted source. And that’s the main purpose of any site publishing articles — to share information.

And as you write more articles that are indexed by search engines, linked to by other websites, and shared through social networks, your site will build more brand awareness and trust.

As an example, the page title for every article posted by the New York Times includes their website address; NYTimes.com.

Business Name v. Website Address

I see many sites using their formal business name in their page titles instead of their websites URL. The biggest problem I have with this approach is that although it identifies the business, it does nothing else.

On the other hand, using a website URL has many advantages.

1. A URL is unique and can’t be confused with another similarly named business.
2. Using a URL acts as a call to action — giving the reader a specific place to go. Since the reader is already online, it’s easier to get them to go to your website.
3. In many cases, a URL in the page titles are automatically converted into a link when shared on social media sites like Twitter. That gives you more inbound links to your website.

Whether you decide to use your brand name or website URL, make sure you don’t add it as the first part of your page title. That’s a big SEO mistake because more emphasis is placed on keywords appearing at the beginning of a page title.

The best practice is to place your brand name/URL at the end of your page title. It will give you the most benefit without taking away from your SEO efforts.

Important Tip

Unless everyone already knows who you are — and I mean everyone — don’t use your business name as the only text in your page titles. Doing so tells search engines that the main subject of every page is your company name. This will drastically hinder your rankings and ability for people to find your pages using any other search term. Remember, there are basically two types of people on the Internet; those who know you and those who don’t. The people who know you will know how to find your website, it’s the second group you’re trying to reach.

What We’ve Learned

• Page title is the text displayed in the browser title bar.
• The main content of your page title should 66 characters or less.
• Every page title on your website should be unique.
• Take advantage of local search by adding your location (City name) to page title promoting products and services.
• You can increase brand awareness and links to your website by adding your website URL to the end of your page title on article pages.
• Don’t use your business name as the primary title tag on every page.

In the next article in this Learn SEO series, I’ll be showing you how to optimize your webpage descriptions.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

But before going any further, I know some will disagree and will want to use this new feature. So, for all of you, here’s a quick video on how you can connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

How To Send Twitter Updates to Facebook

If you don’t feel like watching the video, You can connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts buy logging into your Twitter account, clicking on the Profile tab, and then clicking on the “Post your Tweets to Facebook” button.

Click the Post your Tweets to Facebook button to connect accounts

Duplicating Twitter Updates to Facebook is a Bad Idea

Twitter is not Facebook

First and foremost, it’s important to understand that Twitter is not Facebook (and visa-versa). They’re different networks with different feature sets. One is not better than the other, they just serve their social communities differently.

Which is why I believe cross-posting all Twitter updates to Facebook is self-defeating and creates a disconnect with the people you’re trying to share with.

From my experience, Twitter is more business focused whereas Facebook is more personal. And people who predominantly use Facebook as their main social network don’t like Twitter. I can understand the rationale.

Twitter’s 140 character limit means words have to be shortened in order to save space. Words like “about” become “abt”, “with” becomes “w/”, “have” becomes “hv” etc. And hashtags like #socialmedia — used on Twitter to make it easier for people to follow specific topics — don’t serve a function on Facebook.

So when Tweets are replicated on Facebook, it’s clearly apparent the message came from Twitter. So message comes across as sharing, but not caring enough to fully write it out or expand on what’s being said.

It’s Always ON

Another problem with the feature is that you can’t selectively choose which updates get posted to your Facebook account. It’s either ON or it’s OFF — nothing in between.

As an example, shortly after I made the above video, I was engaged in #blogchat (a Twitter chat about blogging). Unfortunately, I forgot to turn off the automatic Facebook update setting so every single one of my #blogchat tweets (and there were a lot) were sent to my Facebook account. All of my Facebook friends timeline were then filled with half conversations and replies to other Twitter users without any context of what I was talking about. Ouch!

Know Thy Networks

In this article, “Twitter adds a ‘Post Tweets to Facebook’ button in user profiles” Alain-Marie makes a good point.

Alain-Marie Carron thoughts about Twitter's new Facebook update feature

It’s important to understand the nuances of each social network you use and, more importantly, how people are using them. If you can identify why people are using them and why they’re following and/or friending you, you’ll have a greater opportunity to have more meaningful engagement and growing your networks.

I’m sure this is a nice feature some people may like. I’m just not one of them.

What do you think about posting Twitter updates to Facebook?