It will give you a solid foundation into the principles of Internet marketing, and how to put them into practical use for your own website. We will also be giving out a workbook to take with you as a guide to implement the workshop recommendations.

Sign up and get more information here.

The beauty about WordPress themes is that there are thousands available, both free and for less than $100.

We often tell clients that we can develop a custom theme from scratch, which we price at between $1,500 and $2,000. We also mention that modifying an existing theme can be done at a fraction of the cost and time, and it has the further advantage of being tested across browsers.

Here are some places where you can find free (open source) themes:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
• http://www.toptut.com/category/free-wordpress-themes/

And here are some fee-based themes we like:

• http://www.revolutiontwo.com
• http://www.woothemes.com/
• http://diythemes.com/

How to choose a theme?

Think about these two aspects when you are looking at themes: functionality and design.

Functionality is more important, because it defines the type of theme which will best fit your site. Is your site a content-heavy informational portal? Then go with a magazine-style theme such as Arthemia:

Arthemia from Indonesian designer Michael Jubel

Looking for a theme to run a fully-fledged blog? Then go for blog-friendly themes with blog functionality in the side columns such as Acamas:

The Acamas WordPress Theme

How about a simple business site? An elegant theme with a few links and information boxes on the homepage such as Several3 may be perfect:

Several3 WordPress Theme: it's clean

Once you’ve chosen a few possible themes, then look at the design. In particular, the color scheme and logo placement are important as they should fit your company’s look and feel. Let’s assume you already have a logo at this point.

Keep in mind that everything within the WordPress theme is flexible and can be changed: the banner photo, the placement of the columns, the height of the banner, the size of the headline fonts etc…

Last, here are a few sites which we have developed based on free themes:

• AshtangaNews.com, a blog about yoga
• HuangConsulting.com, a 10 page business site
• ForeclosuresIntel.com, another 10 page business site

Much-awaited because it is a giant leap for the backend admin interface, which should make it easier than ever to introduce newbie clients to updating content.

Also it has a built-in upgrade function for both the WP install and the plugins, saving a lot time. Talking about plugins, you can search and install them via the interface – no more searching for download links, unzipping, FTPing…

Plugin directory from within Admin dashboard

Anyway, this should have been called 3.0, but they are against “version number inflation”.

Another intriguing  features is the integration of Google Gears with WordPress when you click on the “Turbo” link in the top right. It crashed my FireFox 3 but worked on Chrome. Supposedly it speeds up posting and admin. We will write more on this later. 

Flash file upload now works, and here's another goodie: pretty Akismet spam comment stats

I would wait a few days for the inevitable security patches and aim to roll out installations in the beginning of 2009.

Firefox Downloads

That is definitely exciting for Mozilla and family and a big congratulations to them! But what does that mean for the average user and the average busy web developer?

First off, a new browser always presents some differences in how it displays pages, and this one is no different. Many of our clients have already experienced some cross version issues and we’re making sure to stay on top of any new fixes.

1. The Good

When I first downloaded Firefox 3, I didn’t notice any new benefits and didn’t understand what the hoopla was all about. But it didn’t take me long to realize that not only did it live up to its claim of being faster and lighter, but it is one of the fastest browsing experiences I have ever had. The best way to test its speed is to open an application that was previously sluggish (in FF2) such as GMAIL, do a “before and after” test and you’ll notice a huge speed difference. It felt like I just put another 4 GB of RAM in my computer.

Aside from the obvious speed benefits and security enhancements FF3 has a lot of tools for developers to quickly add extensions and toolbar features.

2. The Bad

A) Display Problems

We have all experienced at one time or another the quirky display and layout problems between Internet Explorer and Firefox. With FF3, we now have another browser that we must check for styling, layout and positioning problems. Here’s a sample of a positioning problem with our own site (which has since been fixed):

Firefox 2 Display Snapshot for NoDiamonds

Firefox 3 Display Snapshot for NoDiamonds.com

The search bar is positioned to the right in the older version (FF2) and to the left in the newer version (FF3). These are easy and straightforward CSS fixes, but it does mean there is extra work to be done checking sites in a new browser.

We’re building a library of quirks that will help us ensure this transition is seamless for all of our users. Note that the quirks may not be due to bugs but to FF3’s better implementation of CSS and XHTML standards. The jury is still out on this one.

All of our internal testing now requires cross browser checks for 6 browsers: FF2, FF3, IE6, IE7, Safari and Opera.

B) Crashes
Not sure if it is my computer , but since installing FF3 , I’ve encountered a few crashes. Some sites that I visited crashed pretty hard within a few hours of installation.

At any rate, I’m still a believer and am sure these hiccups will be worked out soon.

3) The Tips
A) Simultaneous Firefox Versions on a Single Computer

If you’re a developer, you may need to simultaneously run both versions of Firefox for some time before ultimately switching to the new version completely. We initially tried to run the 2 versions “out-of-the-box” but every time we clicked on the new desktop shortcut it would execute the new version without trying to access the old version. Here is a helpful tutorial which shows you exactly how to run 2 FF versions simultaneously.

B) URL bar

The old URL predictor bar in the older version (FF2) was simple and useful. Sometimes as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This could well be the case for the new and “improved” URLbar. If you have downloaded the latest version and tried to type in any url address , you’ll notice a lot of new jumbled text that makes the url bar seem cluttered. It is difficult to see the actual target site and degrades the experience. Here’s a way to turn off this new and improved feature.

Re-Cap

All in all, we think that the new Firefox release will definitely help FF increase its penetration into Internet Explorer’s currently dominant browser position. Perhaps the ease of use, speed and new security enhancements will help catapult FF3 past its 20% market share mark. Just watch out though because Microsoft is close behind with its IE8 version coming soon.

Firefox vs Microsoft Market Share Stats

Source: Net Applications ( http://marketshare.hitslink.com/ )

• Getting a site to rank accurately and prominently in search engine results, and
• Getting the user to choose your website from the search engine results page (“SERP”).

What Are Page Titles?
The Page Title is the content within the Title tag on an HTML page. Each page of a website should have its own unique Title tag.

You can see what a page title is by looking at the bar in the browser window and on the tab you happen to be on. In the browser Firefox, for example, the title is “An SEO & Web Marketing Blog: Scatterings”. (The search term we used was “web marketing blog”.)

How the Title Tag Appears in a Web Browser

Another way to see the title is to select View -> Source from the menu. Towards the top of the page you will see the HTML title tags surrounding the actual title:

<title>An SEO &amp; Web Marketing Blog: Scatterings</title>

Here is how the webpage associated with this Title tag appears on Google’s search results page:

Title Tag in the Google Search Engine Results Page

Notice that the Title is in a bigger typeface in the first line of the results and that our search term, “web marketing blog”, is bolded.Because Google accounts for the majority of total Internet search traffic, we think that tailoring Title tags for Google is very important.

How to Write Page Titles
Each page should have a unique Title tag that describes its content, similar to the title of a newspaper article, i.e., something that tells people what is on the page and makes them want to click on your site’s link.

Good webpage titles incorporate the following factors:

Accurately Describe the Page’s Content
Write a title for each page on your site that accurately describes the content of that particular page. The search engines may discount a page whose title does not reflect the content on the page. Also, making a Title that is pleasant and informative for human readers will increase the likelihood that human readers will choose your site from the long list in the search engine results page.

Writing an individual Title for each page of a site is labor intensive so many sites do not do this, which means that sites that contain accurate titles for each individual page have a key advantage.

Use Keywords
Whenever practical, use keywords. Keyword research indicates which keywords are more important for a site. However, it is more important that the Title accurately describes the pages contents – with or without keywords.

Place Important Words Early in the Title
Search engines and people seem to believe that links that most directly reflect what they’ve searched for are the most relevant. So it makes sense to put what search engines and people are looking for first this makes finding easier for them. Both are trying to find specific information.

The tendency is to always have a company name, followed by the real page title. This is usually counterproductive, since the user is probably not looking for a company name. For example, think about newspaper articles. They do not typically contain the name of the publication, as in

New York Times: Wayward Humpback Pair Moves Toward Ocean

In our first example, the website actually is an SEO and web marketing blog, and that is what the website owner puts first in the Title, and the title of the site, Scatterings, appears at the end of the Title.

Formatting the Title Tag
It’s a good idea to capitalize most of the words in the title because it’s good grammar and it gives it more urgency.

Also, remember that Google only displays the first 66 characters of the Title tag. Additional characters may help for SEO, but don’t ever stuff keywords – i.e., make webpages verbose for the sake of SEO – in your Title tag or any aspect of your website.

[Thank you to Tracy Rabold for this article - Ed.]

The holiday party starts at 6pm and will include:

• 15 Minute Technology Demonstrations on Mobility, Ecommerce, Finance, VoIP
• Valuable door prizes
• FREE online subscription to Small Business Technology Magazine
• Networking with Leading Technology Consultants and Local Small Business Entrepreneurs

Register online here
Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Since the idea of placing AdWords ads is to generate an action from your website’s visitor, the landing page should help the visitor continue on the path to completing the action. She already has initiated the action by clicking on your ad. You don’t want to lose her after that – you want to “convert” her.

The best landing pages consider the visitor’s intent when she clicks on an ad. You should consider your keywords and ad’s text on that page. Ask yourself, “What information does the visitor need next in order to (fill in this blank)?” The whole point is to give the visitor what she wants and don’t make her hunt around your website for it. The best thing would be for the visitor to land on a page that gives her the most useful and accurate information about what she’s just clicked on.

The landing page may or may not be the same as your homepage. There are a few different ways to think about this:

• If you’ve advertised about a specific product or service, the landing page should prominently feature that product or service. Maybe that product or service is the only one on the page. For example, if you’re a shoe store advertising yellow boots, take the visitor to the yellow boots page, not the homepage.
• If you’re have a special offer, your landing page should make the special offer very obvious. The special offer might be the only topic on that page.
• If your ad references a section of your business, such as “cat boarding” in a veterinary hospital, you would want the user to land on the cat boarding services page of your website (not the homepage).
• If your ad advertises your whole business, for example “cat boarding”, your landing page would probably be your home page.

Another reason to provide quality landing pages is that it could end up costing you less. According to Google:

“As a component of your keywords’ overall Quality Scores, a high landing page quality score can affect your AdWords account in three ways: Decrease your keywords’ cost-per-clicks (CPCs), Increase your keyword-targeted ads’ position on the content network, Improve the chances that your placement-targeted ads will win a position on your targeted placements.”

Over the past few years, Google has made changes to its algorithms for landing page quality in AdWords and Google’s guidelines have changed as well. We recommend reviewing Google’s current guidelines on Quality Score. What’s useful to know here is that Google is looking at your website the same way a potential visitor would.

Real Examples

I googled “acupuncture for headaches”. Here are the Google search results:

"Acupuncture for Headaches" on the Google Search Results Page

Here’s what happened when I clicked each of the four Sponsored Search links on the right side of the screen:

Moss Acupuncture took me to this San Francisco clinic’s homepage. The list of commonly treated conditions on the homepage includes “headaches” and contact information. The website also includes a web page with a longer list of commonly treated conditions.

Acupressure took me to the home page of the National Holistic Institute with 5 locations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Migraine Relief lets me sign up for a clinical study in California about migraine headache relief run by PRI Research.

Acupuncture Walnut Creek is an acupuncturist in Walnut Creek. Notice that the clinic’s actual address is listed (and the advertiser lists its phone number right in the ad text). The landing page is the “Services” page, which gives the acupuncturist’s biography, a list of commonly treated conditions and contact information.

If you were an SF Bay Area acupuncturist specializing in headaches and used local AdWords search, you’d be one of three advertisers for this keyword that accurately matched the keyword used, and you could do a much better job with your landing page just by reading this article.

Landing Page Content
Figuring out and answering the questions your visitors will have is the key to an effective landing page which results in conversions.

Taking the above example, some of the things I might want to know if I were to land on an Acupuncture clinic page include:

• Is the acupuncturist licensed or accredited? Is this the industry standard?
• Is the acupuncturist experienced? How many years has he been practicing? Did he go to a good school?
• Does he specialize in particular conditions?
• How long does treatment last? How will I know that this treatment is going to be effective?
• Can I use my medical insurance?
• I want to feel comfortable about the acupuncturist, the facility and the acupuncture process.
• Does he have referrals from Western doctors or other clients?
• Does he give well-thought out and useful information on his website?
• Does he know a little about a lot of alternative therapies or a lot about acupuncture?
• Can I get sense of what sort of person the acupuncturist is? Are there photos?
• How do I make an appointment or ask questions?
• If I had a specific condition that I had typed into Google, I would want to know if he treated it and about his experience and knowledge of treatment of that condition.

When setting up or refining your AdWords, ask yourself what the intent of a visitor typing those keywords into Google might be and how well does your landing page serve her needs. This will increase your Quality Score, and more importantly, increase the likelihood of your visitor “converting” when she reaches your website.

References
Wikipedia entry on landing pages
Seth Godin on Landing Pages
Google AdWords Landing Page & Site Quality Guidelines
Inside AdWords, the Google AdWords blog
Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies, Peter Kent, 2006.

[Thank you to Tracy Rabold for this article - Ed.]

It's about how different Palo Alto residents use blogs, and includes Jeff Clavier's Software Only, David Hornik's VentureBlog,
Pamela Hornik’s Silicon Valley Moms Blog and Enoch Choi’s MedMusings. Enoch has been a friend for many years and he is a prolific Palo Alto dad blogger. He also pointed the author of the article, Cyrus Hedayati, to my blog – thank you Enoch, and thank you Cyrus!

Here are the couple of mentions of Hidden Gems:

Philippe Alexis, an online marketing specialist, writes a blog called “Hidden Gems,” in which he gives advice on topics such as bringing more traffic to your Web site.

“That post is basically a way for me to say to them (clients), 'There it is. Go read it and then you know how to do it,'” he said. “Plus, it gets a lot of publicity for me, so it kills two birds with one stone.”

Also at the end of the article:

Another important ethic of blogging, Choi said, is the encouragement of open debate on issues.

Part of being a blogger, he said, is “making yourself open to letting people comment on your blog, and you don't delete opposing comments.”

Alexis echoes the sentiment, saying the most addictive part of blogs is the often-heated discussions on controversial topics.

Alexis remembers “not just reading a blog, but being involved in an online discussion of global warming. … It forced me to check the facts, because I didn't want to say something that wasn't true. So I think the most rewarding part of blogs is that they challenge you to learn.”

Here are the upcoming dates and locations for my course for the Third Quarter of 2006:

Sep 14 5:00-8:00 PM
San Jose – San Jose Entrepreneur Center, 84 W. Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Sep 26 5:30-8:30 PM
Oakland – Cal State East Bay SBDC Training Center – 1000 Broadway, Suite 109, Oakland, CA 94607

You can register online too.

UPDATE – THESE COURSES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED AND WILL BE MOVED TO THE FALL

Hope to see some of you there!

Here's a real life example to illustrate this point. A client of mine had a product which he called an electronic scarecrow, which was searched for approximately zero times per day. We changed how the product was described to electronic bird control and now that is the keyword his site is most often found under. Also, a visitor to his site will take less time to understand what he is selling – product recognition will be improved.

There are three parts to a keyword analysis:

A. Discovering the keywords
B. Evaluating the keywords
C. Using the keywords

By the way, when I say keywords I really mean key phrases, as in what a searcher would type into a search box. Even though they are usually phrases of two or more words, they are usually referred to as keywords.

A. DISCOVERING KEYWORDS

1. Draw up an initial list
There will be quite a few “obvious” keywords you and your colleagues can simply come up with

2. Look at your referral logs
If you've already have had your site up for some time, looking at how people find you already is an invaluable resource. If you don't know how to see your traffic logs, ask your web hosting company. If they don't know either, switch web hosting companies! Also check out Google Analytics for a powerful and free way to access this information.

A real life keyword referral log snippet from a yoga blog

3. Look at competitors' metatags
Go to your competitors' sites look at the source code of some of their pages (select View-> Source from the browser's menu bar). The tag should be near the top of the page, and see if you can find useful keyword ideas (thanks Peter Kent for the tip).
Also don't stop at the metatags, look at the pages themselves, and observe which words and phrases are used in the titles, headings and text.

4. Use Overture.com's tool
Overture.com (bought by Yahoo!) has an invaluable free Keyword Selector Tool which gives you alternate suggestions for searches. For example, a search for homeopathy will list homeopathy medicine, homeopathy remedy, abc homeopathy and homeopathy training as the most popular searches.

UPDATE 2/19/07: Overture's tool has become increasingly unreliable. Google has introduced a Keyword Tool which used to be available only to AdWord accounts, but it is now free for all to use and has become an essential part of our own keyword analysis here at no diamonds:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

5. Refine list
There are several ways to add to your list, especially for your top ten keywords:
- spelling mistakes (calender)
- synonyms (home – house)
- singulars and plurals (shoe vs shoes)
- hyphenation (ecommerce vs e-commerce)
- geographic add-ons (palo alto doctor)

Now you should have a list of at least 10 keywords and maybe more than 100. Try to order them by importance to your site.

B. EVALUATING KEYWORDS

1. Search Popularity
WordTracker is the most popular fee-based online keyword research tool (about $8 per day or $250 per year). It will give you estimates of the number of searches performed for each keyword across all Search Engines, and will tell you how many sites appear in the search results giving you an idea of the competition. The site DigitalPoint.com allows you to use Wordtracker and Overture for free, but only for one keyword at a time.

Another good tool is SEObookwhich aggregates results from Overture, Wordtracker and more.

These will help you determine the relative popularity of search terms.

Here is a useful list of free online resources for keyword analysis from WebSiteTips.com.

2. Historical Trends
Google Trends shows you how up to five keywords rate against each other over time. This tool will give you an insight over the relative popularity of terms and highlight seasonality. Valentine's Day searches peak in February for example.

Google Trends can highlight seasonality in searches, as well as relative popularity

3. Focusing
Now that you know more about your keywords, eliminate the ones that are too general and the ones that are too specific. That is difficult to define exactly, but an example would be that solar is too general, solar power home installation is too specific, and solar power installation may be just right.

C. USING KEYWORDS

Now you should have a list of at least 10 keywords you have selected as most likely to provide targeted leads.

1. Place the keywords in your website (or if the terms below sound like foreign terms to you, get your webmaster to do it):
– Title Tag of every page
– MetaTags (not so important anymore)
– Headlines and Sub-headings
– Body Text
– Alt tags
– Title Attributes of hyperlinks
– File names and URLs

2. Start an AdWord Campaign
Having done this keyword analysis, you can use it as a basis for a Pay Per Click Google AdWord campaign. The finer details of that will be for another post!