Layer Cake Marketing

Remove WordPress Header META Junk

Eric Larson — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 03:26:16 +0000

Place the following code in your functions.php file of your WordPress theme to remove some useless things from the head of your site.

There are a lot of things that WordPress adds to the head of your site. These can all be removed using the remove_action function that WordPress provides in your functions.php file.

remove_action('wp_head', 'feed_links_extra', 3); // Display the links to the extra feeds such as category feeds
remove_action('wp_head', 'feed_links', 2); // Display the links to the general feeds: Post and Comment Feed
remove_action('wp_head', 'rsd_link'); // Display the link to the Really Simple Discovery service endpoint, EditURI link
remove_action('wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link'); // Display the link to the Windows Live Writer manifest file.
remove_action('wp_head', 'index_rel_link'); // Index link
remove_action('wp_head', 'parent_post_rel_link', 10, 0); // Prev link
remove_action('wp_head', 'start_post_rel_link', 10, 0); // Start link
remove_action('wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link', 10, 0); // Display relational links for the posts adjacent to the current post.
remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator'); // Display the XHTML generator that is generated on the wp_head hook, WP version
remove_action('wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link_wp_head', 10, 0);
remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');
remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_shortlink_wp_head', 10, 0);
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 ); 
remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' ); 
remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' ); 
remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );

For more information on the remove_action and cleaning up your WordPress head, check out the official docs.

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6 Big Myths About SEO

Eric Larson — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 07:49:38 +0000

Your understanding of the way Google works is probably three or four years out of date–and that’s an eternity in Web time.

In the world of online marketing, misinformation abounds–and it gets compounded exponentially by an incredibly dynamic and rapidly evolving world. Most of the things you think you know (but don’t) about search-engine optimization, or SEO, may have been true a few years ago but have changed; one of the following was always a myth.

Here are some of the myths you need to move beyond to get smarter about SEO.

Myth 1: Metatag Descriptions Help Your Rankings

Not anymore; in fact, metatags are no longer even indexed by Google and Bing. But don’t ignore them altogether: Your metatags form the text that is displayed along with your link in the search results–and a more compelling description will compel more users to click on your listing instead of on others.

Here’s example of ours; the metatag is everything below the URL.

Myth 2: The More Inbound Links, the Better

False. In all the recent updates to Google’s algorithm, the search giant has made it a core priority to have quality trump quantity. Gone are the days of having thousands of superlow-quality links driving up rankings; in fact, creating those links can look spammy and get your site penalized.

Focus on obtaining links from sites that are relevant to your products, services, or industry–and on having those links be surrounded by relevant text. A blog review about your “blue widget” that links to your site is far more valuable than a rogue link for “blue widget” stuck in the footer or sidebar of some site–even a highly ranked one.

Myth 3: PageRank Still Matters

Google’s infamous PageRank (named after Google co-founder and now-CEO Larry Page, mind you) is a 1-to-10 ranking of the overall authority of every website; the bigger the number, the higher the rank. In years past, this seemingly all-powerful number dominated the attention of SEO experts.

But today, Google’s algorithm has evolved well beyond any single indicator. The PageRank still exists, and if all things are equal, a higher PageRank trumps a lower one–but factors such as relevance and context matter, too.

As with inbound links: If you run a dental practice in Los Angeles, it’s better to have a link from a site that reviews doctors and dentists in L.A., even if it has a PageRank of 4, than to have a paid link with no context in a huge site with a higher PageRank of 7.

Myth 4: Google Prefers Keyword-Rich Domains

In years past, Google seemed to put a disproportionate amount of emphasis on keywords in the domain name (what you may think of as the URL). For example, vinylhousesiding.com would almost certainly be ranked first in a search for vinyl house siding.

Not anymore, says Google. If vinylhousesiding.com is in fact the more relevant, authoritative site on the topic, it will probably still rank first–but not because of its domain name alone.

Myth 5: Websites Must Be ‘Submitted’ to Search Engines

In 2001, yes, this was the case–indeed, this was the first service that my company, Wpromote, ever provided. But in 2012? Not at all. At this point, if there is anyconnection from any site to yours, your site will be quickly discovered by Google.

Note that being indexed is a far cry from achieving high rankings–but that initial step of submission is no longer needed or helpful.

Myth 6: Good SEO Is Basically About Trickery

False, false, false. Although there are still some SEO experts out there who go about their business trying to “trick Google,” this is absolutely not the way to provide good, lasting SEO.

The post 6 Big Myths About SEO appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Landing Page – Psychology of Conversion

Eric Larson — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 03:23:54 +0000

Social Proof
Try before you Buy
Urgency and Scarcity

Social Proof

Social proof is often communicated with the statistics and actions of a particular crowd and it can greatly enhance the “me too” factor.

A great demonstration of social proof can be seen in a real-world experiment called the “Man looking skyward”.

In 1969, a study by S. Milgram, L. Bickman and L. Berkowitz, was performed on the streets of New York City in which a man was standing looking up in the air. The goal of the experiment was to see if social proof played a part in the reactions of passersby.

One man looking up	A crowd of people looking up

For the single man standing in the street, the study showed most people would walk past him and not pay any attention to what he was looking at.	When the group of staring people increased to five, people started reacting by joining in and looking up to see what was going on. Finally, increasing the participants to 18 people resulted in a 400 per cent lift of people stopping to join the crowd.

Add compelling testimonials

One of the best ways of building social proof on a landing page is to show some powerful testimonials from your clients or experts that are using your product or service. These should be short and to the point, and should ideally include a photo of the person giving the testimonial to make it more authentic. To take this a step further, try adding video testimonials – these are highly engaging and very convincing.

The best testimonials tend to describe the resolution of a specific pain, describing how your offering solved it for them.

UserTesting.com uses favorable tweets to build credibility. Tweets are a smart way of showing social proof as the person giving the testimonial can easily be confirmed as legitimate with a quick search on Twitter.

Text vs. video testimonials

An example of the power of video, Unbounce ran an A/B test on their homepage to determine whether a video testimonial performed better than text testimonials. The video testimonial produced a 25% increase in the number of people starting a free trial.

Page A – Text testimonials

Page B – Video testimonial – 25% conversion lift

Add logos of your clients

Prove that you have many good clients already and prominently show the logos of them on your landing page. This works particularly well if you have clients that your target market admires.
Take a look through your existing clients and find ones that are the most well-known. When adding them to your landing page don’t forget to include a compelling headline for the section.

KissMetrics do this well, using the phrase “Trusted by some of the godfathers of the modern internet” to introduce the logos. This is a very attention grabbing statement. As with many page elements, it’s important to test this against different phrases to see which resonates most with your visitors.

Show great usage numbers

If you have relevant numbers that prove your credibility, use them. Consider how the message on McDonalds ’99 billion served’ sign is. You could display the number of clients you’ve served, downloads of your product, or years in operation. Don’t be shy about proving that people love using your services or products!

To uncover some original ways of stating usage, have a brainstorm with different functional groups in your company. You never know who will have that all important stat.

99designs.com does a great job of showing compelling usage numbers at the top of their landing page. They highlight how many people have used their services, how many designers they have, and how much money has been awarded.

Add awards/media mentions

If you’ve had great coverage in the press about your product or service, or you have won awards (things like “Editor’s Top Pick”), you can boast about this on your landing page. Again, you should include a descriptive headline for the section to capture the eyes of scanning readers.

Try Before You Buy

One of the most common real-world examples of ‘Try Before You Buy’, is when people sneak a quick taste from a bunch of grapes in the supermarket. We’ve all done it. It seems to have become an internationally recognized form of acceptable thievery.

As a conversion centered marketer, you can learn from this by allowing your visitors to see a preview of your offering before committing to a purchase/download.

In the example shown, the grape stall owner has gone the extra mile to provide a section devoted specifically to grape samples (the preview), which demonstrates that the seller is providing a quality product – which you can verify by consuming the preview.

TAKE AWAY
Let people sample your offering before they have to commit to a decision. For content like an ebook, copy Amazon with their “Look Inside” concept – perhaps with the first chapter. You can also use a Slideshare presentation to provide a preview and also to have a second channel of content on Slideshare.net.

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Ink Dots Art

Eric Larson — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:29:39 +0000

Stippling is a common art technique used to create shading and texture in their drawings, particularly line drawings. Stippling can be done with a wide variety of mediums, works well with printing techniques and can create optical illusions when done be a skilled artist. This information will help you understand the method of stippling and its uses.

Portraits and general subject drawings made out of many ink dots laid carefully side by side are often called pointillism or stipple. Pointillism is the color version of a stipple portrait. As colored dots are placed adjacent to each other, when the viewer moves further away, the colors seem to blend to the eye, creating a new color.

Though stippling is used by artist world-wide, the technique is particularly useful to artists that need to reproduce their illustrations in black and white print because it can be reproduced with only black ink. It is also superior to the shading technique called hatching because it doesn’t use lines, making illustrations and drawings clearer.

Types
Stippling can be done with a brush, pen or pencil. Ink pens and pencil is the most common tools used for stippling because they are easier to control. Paint often drips and runs, making the dots less precise. Stippling can also be done with crayons, conte crayons, charcoal and pastel.

Function
The closer the dots, the darker the subject will be. This is handy for shading. To create a look of gradual shading, the artist only has to make the dots closer and closer as the lighting fades to get a shaded look.
Stippling can also create the look of texture. If the dots are irregular in shape, this can make the object look rough.

Effects
This form of shading creates an optical illusion when don correctly. To the viewer, the shading will almost look like one smooth application of medium and the dots will only be obvious when viewed very closely. From far away no dots will be apparent.

The post Ink Dots Art appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Special Characters in HTML

Eric Larson — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:13:27 +0000

HTML Entities and/or ISO Latin-1 codes can be placed in source code like any other alphanumeric characters to produce special characters and symbols that cannot be generated in HTML with normal keyboard commands.

For example, to render Düsseldorf the HTML source should read

Düsseldorf or Düsseldorf

While many similar lists are available on the Web (run your favorite search engine using “ISO Latin” or “HTML Entities”), none I’ve seen account for the standard character sets of different operating systems (e.g. Windows vs. DOS vs. Macintosh, etc.); this list should produce the same results on all platforms.

left single quote		‘	‘
right single quote		’	’
single low-9 quote		‚	‚
left double quote		“	“
right double quote		”	”
double low-9 quote		„	„
dagger		†	†
double dagger		‡	‡
per mill sign		‰	‰
single left-pointing angle quote		‹	‹
single right-pointing angle quote		›	›
black spade suit		♠
black club suit		♣
black heart suit		♥
black diamond suit		♦
overline, = spacing overscore		‾	‾
leftward arrow		←	←
upward arrow		↑	↑
rightward arrow		→	→
downward arrow		↓	↓
trademark sign	™	™
unused	�-
horizontal tab
line feed
unused
space
exclamation mark	!		!
double quotation mark	"	"	“
number sign	#		#
dollar sign	$		$
percent sign	%		%
ampersand	&	&	&
apostrophe	'		‘
left parenthesis	(		(
right parenthesis	)		)
asterisk	*		*
plus sign	+		+
comma	,		,
hyphen	-		–
period	.		.
slash	/	⁄	/
digits 0-9	0- 9
colon	:		:
semicolon	;		;
less-than sign	<	<	<
equals sign	=		=
greater-than sign	>	>	>
question mark	?		?
at sign	@		@
uppercase letters A-Z	A- Z
left square bracket	[		[
backslash	\
right square bracket	]		]
caret	^		^
horizontal bar (underscore)	_		_
grave accent	`		`
lowercase letters a-z	a- z
left curly brace	{		{
vertical bar	\|		\|
right curly brace	}		}
tilde	~		~
ellipses	…	…	…
en dash	–	–	–
em dash	—	—	—
unused	˜- Ÿ
nonbreaking space
inverted exclamation	¡	¡	¡
cent sign	¢	¢	¢
pound sterling	£	£	£
general currency sign	¤	¤	¤
yen sign	¥	¥	¥
broken vertical bar	¦	¦ or &brkbar;	¦
section sign	§	§	§
umlaut	¨	¨ or ¨	¨
copyright	©	©	©
feminine ordinal	ª	ª	ª
left angle quote	«	«	«
not sign	¬	¬	¬
soft hyphen
registered trademark	®	®	®
macron accent	¯	¯ or &hibar;	¯
degree sign	°	°	°
plus or minus	±	±	±
superscript two	²	²	²
superscript three	³	³	³
acute accent	´	´	´
micro sign	µ	µ	µ
paragraph sign	¶	¶	¶
middle dot	·	·	·
cedilla	¸	¸	¸
superscript one	¹	¹	¹
masculine ordinal	º	º	º
right angle quote	»	»	»
one-fourth	¼	¼	¼
one-half	½	½	½
three-fourths	¾	¾	¾
inverted question mark	¿	¿	¿
uppercase A, grave accent	À	À	À
uppercase A, acute accent	Á	Á	Á
uppercase A, circumflex accent	Â	Â	Â
uppercase A, tilde	Ã	Ã	Ã
uppercase A, umlaut	Ä	Ä	Ä
uppercase A, ring	Å	Å	Å
uppercase AE	Æ	Æ	Æ
uppercase C, cedilla	Ç	Ç	Ç
uppercase E, grave accent	È	È	È
uppercase E, acute accent	É	É	É
uppercase E, circumflex accent	Ê	Ê	Ê
uppercase E, umlaut	Ë	Ë	Ë
uppercase I, grave accent	Ì	Ì	Ì
uppercase I, acute accent	Í	Í	Í
uppercase I, circumflex accent	Î	Î	Î
uppercase I, umlaut	Ï	Ï	Ï
uppercase Eth, Icelandic	Ð	Ð	Ð
uppercase N, tilde	Ñ	Ñ	Ñ
uppercase O, grave accent	Ò	Ò	Ò
uppercase O, acute accent	Ó	Ó	Ó
uppercase O, circumflex accent	Ô	Ô	Ô
uppercase O, tilde	Õ	Õ	Õ
uppercase O, umlaut	Ö	Ö	Ö
multiplication sign	×	×	×
uppercase O, slash	Ø	Ø	Ø
uppercase U, grave accent	Ù	Ù	Ù
uppercase U, acute accent	Ú	Ú	Ú
uppercase U, circumflex accent	Û	Û	Û
uppercase U, umlaut	Ü	Ü	Ü
uppercase Y, acute accent	Ý	Ý	Ý
uppercase THORN, Icelandic	Þ	Þ	Þ
lowercase sharps, German	ß	ß	ß
lowercase a, grave accent	à	à	à
lowercase a, acute accent	á	á	á
lowercase a, circumflex accent	â	â	â
lowercase a, tilde	ã	ã	ã
lowercase a, umlaut	ä	ä	ä
lowercase a, ring	å	å	å
lowercase ae	æ	æ	æ
lowercase c, cedilla	ç	ç	ç
lowercase e, grave accent	è	è	è
lowercase e, acute accent	é	é	é
lowercase e, circumflex accent	ê	ê	ê
lowercase e, umlaut	ë	ë	ë
lowercase i, grave accent	ì	ì	ì
lowercase i, acute accent	í	í	í
lowercase i, circumflex accent	î	î	î
lowercase i, umlaut	ï	ï	ï
lowercase eth, Icelandic	ð	ð	ð
lowercase n, tilde	ñ	ñ	ñ
lowercase o, grave accent	ò	ò	ò
lowercase o, acute accent	ó	ó	ó
lowercase o, circumflex accent	ô	ô	ô
lowercase o, tilde	õ	õ	õ
lowercase o, umlaut	ö	ö	ö
division sign	÷	÷	÷
lowercase o, slash	ø	ø	ø
lowercase u, grave accent	ù	ù	ù
lowercase u, acute accent	ú	ú	ú
lowercase u, circumflex accent	û	û	û
lowercase u, umlaut	ü	ü	ü
lowercase y, acute accent	ý	ý	ý
lowercase thorn, Icelandic	þ	þ	þ
lowercase y, umlaut	ÿ	ÿ	ÿ
Alpha	Α		Α
alpha	α		α
Beta	Β		Β
beta	β		β
Gamma	Γ		Γ
gamma	γ		γ
Delta	Δ		Δ
delta	δ		δ
Epsilon	Ε		Ε
epsilon	ε		ε
Zeta	Ζ		Ζ
zeta	ζ		ζ
Eta	Η		Η
eta	η		η
Theta	Θ		Θ
theta	θ		θ
Iota	Ι		Ι
iota	ι		ι
Kappa	Κ		Κ
kappa	κ		κ
Lambda	Λ		Λ
lambda	λ		λ
Mu	Μ		Μ
mu	μ		μ
Nu	Ν		Ν
nu	ν		ν
Xi	Ξ		Ξ
xi	ξ		ξ
Omicron	Ο		Ο
omicron	ο		ο
Pi	Π		Π
pi	π		π
Rho	Ρ		Ρ
rho	ρ		ρ
Sigma	Σ		Σ
sigma	σ		σ
Tau	Τ		Τ
tau	τ		τ
Upsilon	Υ		Υ
upsilon	υ		υ
Phi	Φ		Φ
phi	φ		φ
Chi	Χ		Χ
chi	χ		χ
Psi	Ψ		Ψ
psi	ψ		ψ
Omega	Ω		Ω
omega	ω		ω
password dot	●		●
bullet	•		•

The post Special Characters in HTML appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Fix for Youtube iframe z-index ignored or is above a fixed div

Eric Larson — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 06:44:49 +0000

If you have a youtube video embedded within your web page that ignores the z-index of fixed or absolutely positioned DIV elements then here is both the html and the JavaScript (jquery) fix.

Instead of embedding the youtube iframe like this

iframe width="889" height="500" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PsE_4Ll04NA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

add ?wmode=transparent to the embedded link like this:
Add wmode to fix youtube iframe zindex

iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PsE_4Ll04NA?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" wmode="Opaque"

Or, add the following Jquery javascript youtube iframe z-index fix:
Add wmode to fix youtube iframe zindex

$(document).ready(function()
$('iframe').each(function()
var url = $(this).attr("src");
var char = "?";
if(url.indexOf("?") != -1)
var char = "&";

$(this).attr("src",url+char+"wmode=transparent");
);
);

Voilla, your youtube video will now acknowledge it’s z-index and will appear below your other div elements that have a higher z-index.

The post Fix for Youtube iframe z-index ignored or is above a fixed div appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Do you have a Gold Card

Eric Larson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:01:48 +0000

Smart marketing from Starbucks that cuts straight to the psychology of consumerism.

Starbucks knows a thing or two about loyalty. Gold Card members enjoy free refills as well as a periodic free drink. (Green Card members get the refill benefit, but not the free beverage after every 15 purchases. In addition, Gold Card members get a personalized card in that color and, theoretically, are addressed by name by the baristas.

Many other coffee shops offer complimentary in-store refills to all customers, but Starbucks has converted refills into a loyalty benefit. The Gold Card is a symbol of prestige, privilege and when in the presence of friends and colleagues the card is dropped like it’s hot. It’s a smart strategy because in a unique way it encourages people to buy more coffee.

The post Do you have a Gold Card appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Web Application Development

Eric Larson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:46:38 +0000

Enterprises and organizations are always looking for solutions to better manage their various business activities and processes. Usually they find solutions from the IT industry that is evolving on a regular basis and has something for everyone. There are various softwares that can be bought “off the shelf” and applied directly to the various aspects of a business. However, these solutions are not always completely satisfying as they are built for a common business base. Usually, organizations have requirements that are unique to them and are not shared by any other organization. These specific requirements can only be fulfilled by custom web application development. Organizations can take help of any web application development company and get their custom solutions and enhance their business processes.Custom web application development is highly regarded as it offers a unique solution that is built around the specific requirements of the client and can be applied to those needs that are most critical and unique for a business.

There are many reasons for the popularity of custom web application development but the most prominent ones are mentioned below:

The Solution is Built After Much Research: Any reputed web application development company would first conduct extensive research and analysis of any project before actually getting started with it. The business analysts and project managers conduct an extensive fact finding expedition in which all the requirements of the client, their business, requirements of the personal using the software etc are found and clearly documented for future reference while developing application.

These findings are then applied to create a well formulated solution that actualizes client’s requirements into an applicable solution.

Flexible Solutions: The whole development procedure is required to be flexible in order to create a solution according to clients needs. Custom development offers a highly flexible development platform where developers can work and create the solution as envisioned by the client. The flexible development strategy allows the developers to apply their creativity and knowledge without much restrains and come up with innovative solutions for clients.

User Friendly Applications: The most critical thing to remember while developing custom web applications for organizations is that they should be user friendly. The qualifications and computer knowledge of those who would be finally using the application on a regular basis is essential to remember while developing applications. The regular users of the application would most probably be non IT enthusiasts who are more concerned with business activities rather than the technological aspects of how applications work. This requires the web application development company to come up with solutions that are highly user friendly and can be easily operated by general users. Not much technical knowledge must be required for operating the software. Custom applications can be easily formulated in such a manner.

Custom web application development is highly favorable for organizations requiring specific solutions for unique requirements, but care must be taken while choosing the development partner for a project. Clients should do thorough research and enquiries before offering their project to any web application development company.

The post Web Application Development appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Styling Inputs with css and a little Javascript

Eric Larson — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:03:22 +0000

Although there is no easy way to style input elements in a graceful and manageable way, with a little use of a JavaScript function we can ease this process. We’ll build it keeping in mind users who don’t have JavaScript – they will experience fall backs that work.

The problem when styling input’s

Addressing the problem is fairly obvious. In HTML, there are several tag names that differentiate from each other and are easy to style uniquely from each other. However input elements can vary from a text box, radio button, and checkbox…which doesn’t make for easily styling. If we wanted to style input, we’d have to style all three types!

Styling with Attribute Selectors

If all browsers supported attribute selectors, we could easily do the following:

Styling inputs with attribute selectors

input[type='text'] { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input[type='radio'] { margin:0 20px; } input[type='checkbox'] { border:2px solid red; }

Appending className’s to our input’s

Since not all browsers support attribute selectors, we can simply use className’s instead. Although clever and smart, it can get tedious real fast. Thus, the CSS would then become this:

styling inputs with attribute selectors

input.text { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input.radio { margin:0 20px; } input.checkbox { border:2px solid red; }

And then we would have to manually add all those className’s to our html documents.

Use JavaScript to automate the process

In a situation of Thanks but no thanks, we can opt out of manually adding a className to every input element and do it with JavaScript. This function is fairly straight-forward and simple.

Function appendInputTypeClasses

function appendInputTypeClasses() { if ( !document.getElementsByTagName ) return; var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input'); var inputLen = inputs.length; for ( i=0;i<inputLen;i++ ) { if ( inputs[i].getAttribute('type') ) inputs[i].className += ' '+inputs[i].getAttribute('type'); } }

What this function does is basically adds a className of whatever type of input it is. So if it’s type is ‘text’, then it’s className will also have ‘text’! Neat eh?

And just to be safe…

We can keep our attribute selectors as a “progressive enhancement” and our final CSS will look like this:

Enhanced CSS for styling inputs

input[type='text'],input.text { font:bold 0.8em 'courier new',courier,monospace; } input[type='radio'],input.radio { margin:0 20px; } input[type='checkbox'],input.checkbox { border:2px solid red; }

The post Styling Inputs with css and a little Javascript appeared first on Layer Cake Marketing.

Google+

Eric Larson — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:02:13 +0000

Google has finally unveiled their latest answer to Facebook… Google+, the company’s top secret social layer that turns all of the search engine into one giant social network.

At its core, Google+ is a social network. The Stream is the first thing users are introduced to. It’s much like the Facebook News Feed, allowing users to share photos, videos, links or their location with friends. Google+ categories/sections, are as follows:

Home: The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on its products, thanks to a complete redesign of the navigation bar. The familiar gray strip at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing content. The notification system is similar to how Facebook handles notifications, complete with a red number that increases with each additional notice.

Circles: Most social media services (Facebook, Twitter) haven’t been successful with friend lists because they’ve been designed as a “tack-on” product rather than being integrated at every level. Circles is an attempt to address that challenge. The HTML5 system allows users to drag-and-drop their friends into different social circles for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups. Users can drag groups of friends in and out of these circles.

Hangouts: Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click “start a hangout” and they’re instantly in a video chatroom alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is “hanging out.” The result, Google has found in internal testing, is that friends quickly join. Unlike Facebook, Hangouts lets you chat with a group of friends simultaneously instead of just one.

Sparks: To spur sharing, Google has added a recommendation engine for finding interesting content. The feature, Google+ Sparks, is a collection of articles, videos, photos and other content grouped by interest. For example, the “Movies” spark will have a listing of recent and relevant content for that topic.

Photos: The photo tab takes a user to all of the photos he or she has shared, as well as the ones he or she is tagged in. It’s not just photo tagging, though: Google+ includes an image editor (complete with Instagram-like photo effects), privacy options and sharing features.

In the end, I will not be surprised if Google+ fades away faster then Google Buzz, or if it surpasses Facebook as the ultimate social network forum. Either way, I’m still waiting for my invite to Google+ to decide for myself.

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