The Sixth Floor - Verndale's Web Marketing and Technology Blog

What is Behavioral Targeting?

Behavioral Targeting is a method of advertising used by online marketers to increase the effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns. Behavioral targeting allows marketers to deliver a relevant branded message to a specific target audience. The concept behind this marketing technique is to track an internet user’s behavior and then return the most relevant advertisement. If delivered properly, behavioral targeting can provide a medium for marketing online that yields a high click-through-rate and ultimately increase not only the conversion rate but also the number of conversions (sales).

Who Should Do Behavioral Targeting?
Typically behavioral targeting has been used by large companies and organizations to attempt to reach out to a greater potential audience, but more recently a fair amount of small companies are seeing great success from running behavioral targeted online campaigns. Behavioral targeting offers large and small businesses alike another avenue to reach their potential audience directly. The integration of technology with the science of understanding a user’s clickstream and search patterns has allowed publishing networks to offer advertisers the phenomenon of being able to serve an advertisement directly to a primed consumer.

What are the Benefits of Behavioral Targeting?
As with any online or offline marketing initiative, the end goal is to generate more conversions. When incorporating behavioral targeting as a marketing technique into your overall online marketing strategy a marketer can expect to experience three types of benefits: Existing Customer Retention: If behavioral targeting is integrated with an organization’s CRM (customer relationship management), the organization can expect to see conversions increase due to the direct traffic control behavioral targeting offers. Traditional methods of communicating with existing clients do not allow marketers to individualize marketing materials with the precision behavioral targeting can.

Brand Awareness: Large companies are more likely to initiate a behavioral targeted marketing campaign for reasons of brand awareness than small companies. Larger companies use this technique of marketing to get their name in front of their potential audience as much as possible. The end goal of these advertisements is not necessarily to drive the conversion that instant but yet to get the potential consumer to be aware of the company or organizations existence.

New Customer Acquisition: This benefit of behavioral targeting allows for the easiest ROI tracking. As with many marketing initiatives the objective of this approach is drive an immediate conversion from consumers who are already looking in your industry’s landscape but previously did not know your organization existed.

Who Offers Behavioral Targeting?
Throughout the past decade many companies have come and gone that claim to offer behavioral targeting marketing and only a few have survived the rigors of the online marketing industry.
We suggest checking out the following service offerings, if you are interested in starting a behavioral targeting marketing campaign:
• Adknowledge
• Tacoda
• Revenue Science

Important Tips When Behavioral Targeting
• Always be sure to have a defined objective at the beginning of the project
• Know your target audience • Understand the possible benefits from a behavioral targeting campaign
• Monitor the progress of your campaign to aid in making better decisions
• Ask yourself if this marketing technique is right for your business? If so, start slow and work your way to a more comprehensive campaign once you have proven ROI.

The Effects of Quality Score on PPC Ads

When Pay-Per-Click advertising first came about, there wasn’t much thought that went into the creation of campaigns. It took a few years for marketers to realize the capabilities of Pay-Per-Click advertising. On the same note, it took the Google Adwords and Overtures’ (now Yahoo Search Marketing) of the world a few years to fully capitalize on the applications they had created.

Over the years we have seen vast changes to these applications with some common themes:

Make a Better User Experience:
A top priority for all search engines is to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for.

Easier Advertising:
The easier the search engine companies make it for businesses to advertise online, the more attractive of an option it looks compared to traditional forms of marketing.

Make Money:
Making money is a goal of any successful business, and Google certainly is no exception. When the Pay-Per-Click advertising companies recently decided to make quality score a large part of the algorithm for when to display which ads, most search engine marketers were not surprised. In the past it was easy to come up first in the search engine result pages - all you had to do was be willing to outbid your competitors for that top spot in the sponsored results.

Pay-Per-Click programs used to be based on the traditional auction system. If you were willing to pay $1.00 for a click on a specific keyword search and I was willing to bid $1.25 per click on the same keyword search - my advertisement would show higher than yours on the search engine result page. It was a simple system that worked for a few years but as with any new service offering there were improvements that could be made.

Now both Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing have shifted their traditional auction system model to a more strategic approach; including quality score as a key factor as to which advertisement to show at top of the sponsored search results.

What is Quality Score?
“Quality Score is the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword’s clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page. We believe high quality ads attract more clicks, encourage user trust, and result in better long-term performance. To encourage relevant and successful ads within AdWords, our system defines a Quality Score to set your keyword status, minimum CPC bid, and ad rank for the ad auction.” Source

The effects of quality score on pay-per-click advertising have increased the responsibility of search engine marketers to make each and every ad as relevant as possible. The old school approach of bidding the maximum amount on every keyword in your market space and using one generic ad copy for all search results is no more. Search engine marketers still have to bid on keywords and subsequently be willing to spend a pretty penny on clicks but now the user is more likely to click a sponsored result that will convert them to a customer or help them find the information they were seeking.

The addition of quality score to pay-per-click advertising is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Users:
Get the most relevant ads served for specific search queries and in return they are more likely to convert to customers.

Search Engine Companies:
Keep brand loyalty by delivering the result the user was searching for. The addition of quality score also improves conversion rates for websites advertising online and in return business owners are willing to spend more money on online advertising.

Businesses:
Conversion rates go up! This means you make more money for every dollar you spend. Isn’t the goal of any marketing initiative to obtain a high ROI?

What is Online Community Optimization?

Online Community Optimization is a method of optimizing a website so they can be easily located on online community websites. It is crucial for your website to be located where your searchers are spending their time. As the search industry evolves and Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, and Social Media Optimization become the main focuses of the Internet marketing movement - it is important not to neglect the thousands of community sites on the web that allow users to communicate with one another which in-turn creates a peer-to-peer recommendation service for new products and services.

One might ask, what is the difference between ‘Word-of-Mouth’ marketing and Online Community Optimization? Traditionally Word-of-Mouth marketing techniques are performed offline; as peers share an experience they have had with a product or service with others in an effort to be successful in spreading a positive perception of the product or service at hand. With the emergence of niche online communities in the past few years, it has become simpler to communicate this message to others. Online communities offer a place for people to share experiences with other people that are actually interested in hearing about those experiences.

With all this discussion taking place on the internet it was inevitable that the search engines would eventually start to notice all this chatter about certain products or services and slowly integrate that into their algorithms. Whether the search engines are ranking the community site above yours in a search result page or they provide a place for your prospective customer to hear about your offering – there are many benefits from Online Community Optimization.

Keyphrase Strategies and Why They are Important

Creating and implementing a keyphrase strategy is both the most complex and important part of the search engine optimization process. An effective keyphrase strategy will elevate website traffic and conversions if applicable. However, search engine optimization techniques that ignore keyphrase strategy or implement a weak strategy can be a waste of resources and even harm a website’s popularity and brand reputation.

But what is a keyphrase strategy anyway? When using a search engine, you find what you are looking for by typing in keywords, a group of keywords makes up a keyphrase. The end goal is to “rank” for your keyphrases. The better your rank, the more visible you will be in the results for a specific keyphrase search. A successful keyphrase strategy compiles a list of several keyphrases that are used by potential consumers when searching for a specific product, service, or company.

For example, if you own a website that sells boats online, prospective keyphrases could be “boat sales,” ” buy sail boats,” “used power boats,” etc. depending on the specifics of your company’s offerings. However, it’s not as simple as it sounds; some keyphrases are better than others.

What makes a great keyphrase? Or more importantly, what makes a bad keyphrase? When creating a keyphrase strategy there are several elements to keep in mind. If a keyphrase is too broad, it will be difficult to gain an edge on competitors who are an authority on the subject already. If you own a local computer repair shop in Boston, it would be next to impossible to rank for a keyphrase such as “computers” or “computer sales.” However, it may be more realistic to choose a more specific keyphrase such as “Boston computer sales.” Still, it is important not to choose keyphrases that are too specific or too broad. Although you may rank well for a specific keyphrase such as “small Boston computer repair shop that has a red roof,” how many consumers will actually search for that?

Although there are several daunting obstacles surrounding SEO strategy, creating a keyphrase strategy that is not too broad or specific and still yields high search volumes will result in a successful SEO engagement.

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization: Indexability, Relevancy, and Authoritativeness

After many years of optimizing sites for the purpose of building visibility in the search engines, every time I sit down to create an SEO strategy it always revolves around the same three major characteristics: Indexability, Relevancy, and Authoritativeness.

What an interesting concept to think about, when you read all the search engine optimization blogs on the web and review the bulletin boards; they all say the same thing - it always talks about how Google looks at hundreds of factors when deciding how to rank a website in the search engine result pages. But I’m now telling you that you only need to focus on three major aspects. Unbelievable- I can’t believe if I do three things right I can make a website rank on search engine result pages. Once, I understood this concept, it all started to make sense. Let me explain.

Indexability
The process of getting a website indexed is typically the starting point. A website and each unique page must be indexed by the search engine if you want it to appear in a search results page. I personally like to compare this to a library. If you went into the Boston Public Library and wanted to take out “Catcher in the Rye” the book would have to physically be in the library to be able to check it out. Well, the search engines work the same way – if you want the search engines to recognize a specific page for a specific keyword and have it returned in a search results page, it needs to be in the search engines index or in essence, available in the ‘library’ to be ‘checked out’.

Relevancy
Next is relevancy, this one is easy. Relevancy is the art of having good content, code structure, and SEO best practices implemented throughout a website. This allows search engines to build a theme around specific web pages as well as providing search engines the information they need to build a theme around your site as whole.

With best practice SEO techniques implemented, relevancy can be a task that can be completed for any industry. Remember, the amount of relevancy it is going to take to rank well in the search engines, ultimately depends on the level of competition in the search landscape. Meaning if you are trying to rank for an obscure product, it may be easy to do so. Where on the other spectrum, if you are trying to rank in a competitive industry (for example: insurance quotes, mortgages, tickets, etc...) it can be a much harder task and require more unique content to successfully accomplish your goals.

Authoritativeness
The last major characteristic of a successfully optimized site is authoritativeness. The concept of authoritativeness is unique to the search engines but comparable to the way traditional businesses are viewed by the public. The theory behind authoritativeness is that search engines do not have the ability to understand who the leaders and trend setters are in every industry, so they rely on how other websites across the internet are mentioning a particular site. If a search engine notices many mentions about a particular site from other websites they deem trustworthy than your site will become an authority within the particular search landscape.

The reasoning behind this is that the search engines must trust other websites to help influence if a particular website is an authority in an industry to ensure that they are displaying the leaders in the space and not just the website that is developed best.

So, after years of optimizing websites for visibility in the search engines – I have concluded that if these three characteristics of a website: Indexability, Relevancy, and Authoritativeness are successfully executed- then a website will rank well in the search engines which in turn will drive high quality traffic to your website.

When SQL Injection Attacks

If your website has fallen victim to SQL Injection, it may not be obvious. Perhaps your homepage is a little slow to load, or a JavaScript error icon has appeared in the lower left corner of your browser. In some cases the data on your site is not loading correctly at all. When your web host explains that the issue is SQL Injection, you immediately want to know "What is SQL Injection and how has it affected my website?"

First a little background on data-driven ASP websites. In the case of most of our clients, their data is stored in SQL databases and displayed/updated on their website with a combination of ASP code and SQL queries.

Use of ASP, aka Active Server Pages, began in the late 1990's. The idea of SQL Injection did not exist. Engineers built out dynamic websites which allowed users to enter data via custom-built admin tools. The front-end of their websites would connect to the database via ASP, query the database via SQL, and display this data to the end-user. We used simple and clean code to get and display this data and did not think about how that could be manipulated for ulterior motives.

Around 2004 / 2005 developers became aware of SQL Injection but it was not widespread and rather simple preventative measures were taken to avoid it. Within the last few months, however, the strategy of those attacking has evolved with the evolution of new technologies such as Google and automated web-surfing software. Would-be attackers used Google's search engine to identify sites vulnerable to an attack and then ran automated software that attacked each page.

So what exactly is happening when a site has been SQL Injected? The simple answer is that the attacker injects their own data into the database. The attacker changes the parameter being used by the code to lookup data in the database, whether it be in a login form or more frequently in a URL. For example:

• Most ASP websites use the URL to tell a page which piece of data to display. You might recognize it as something like this: http://www.website.com/DetailPage.asp?ID=3

• What that basically means is, "get me the data out of the database for item number 3". Attackers realized they could change that number 3 to SQL code that would end the Get SQL and then insert/inject their own text into the database.

• Now that the attacker's text is in the website's database, it is displayed to the user viewing the web page. Often times it is a link to another website or a file that could be downloaded onto the user's computer.

Why would the hacker want to do this?
There are many reasons including mischief, redirecting users to another website, and pulling secure data out of the database. Many are hoping that the people visiting the website don't have good protection on their computers which would allow software to be downloaded and installed. This software could track what websites the users go to and save what they type to get into their bank accounts, or what credit cards they enter when shopping online.

Now that we know, what are we doing to prevent it?
Most importantly, as we develop our websites, we ask ourselves continuously if we are leaving ourselves vulnerable in any way.

1. We always encrypt secure data in our clients' databases. This secure data is not readable unless run through special functions in the code to decrypt it. This way if an attacker tries to enter SQL code that will display secure data, anything encrypted will not be readable. There is nothing they could do with SQL code to decrypt it.

2. We also continuously backup our databases. If somehow an attacker gets in and injects data, we can restore to the clean data that existed before the attack.

3. New development projects are not coded with ASP anymore, but rather new technologies like .NET. All interactions with the database go through objects called stored procedures, which automatically make sure if you are looking up data, the parameters are valid and not text that a hacker might be trying to inject.

4. For our current clients with ASP websites, we have spent time going through all their files, checking to see if every place the database is accessed has been secured. We make sure only valid parameter types are queried on the database and that certain SQL code keywords are not included in any text parameters that could have been modified by users. Although we may have to take some extra time and effort to put these measures in place, our clients' data and their users' experiences on the website make it an absolute necessity.

Five .Net Developer Podcasts That Are Worth Following

A developer working fifteen years ago (or earlier) who wanted to stay on top of the current trends in programming had relatively few options for doing so: a few trade magazines, a few websites, a few conferences and books. Today the situation has changed drastically. With the advent of blogs and websites covering the gamut of technical subject matter, the problem is no longer “how do I locate new information about programming”. Rather, it is “how do I filter out the signal from the noise and get the information that matters to me”.

One very efficient way to do this is to let others do it for you. For the .Net developer there are a number of blogs that sort through hundreds (if not thousands) of posts every day and provide links to the most interesting (check out Reflective Perspective and Jason Haley). However, another option that you might want to consider for getting high quality, filtered and up to date information on things going on in the .Net world is through podcasts. The big advantage here is that you can listen to them while you are doing other things (commuting, exercising, web browsing). So without further ado, here are five .Net developer webcasts that are worth a listen (don’t forget to check out the archives for each to get a sense of what they have been up to):

1. .NET Rocks – “The Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers”. Probably the oldest .Net podcast out there (they are currently up to show #387) Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell host a weekly discussion about some .Net-related subject. Shows typically feature questions from listeners, back-to-the-basics, and an interesting guest.

2. Hanselminutes – This podcast is hosted by Scott Hanselman along with Carl Franklin. “Scott discusses utilities and tools, gives practical how-to advice, and discusses ASP.NET or Windows issues and workarounds.” While it normally covers some .Net-related subject, more often than not it will feature general web-developer, software engineering or general geeky subjects.

3. Herding Code – A relatively new podcast, it is hosted by K. Scott Allen, Keven Dente, Scott Koon and Job Galloway (all active .Net bloggers) and features .Net and general developer topics (sometimes with guests).

4. StackOverflow – Podcast for the new StackOverflow website (something that every developer should have in their bookmarks), the podcast is hosted by very popular bloggers Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky and discusses issues related to their site and to general .Net programming.

5. Software Engineering Radio – While not related to .Net development any more than other platforms, this podcast is worth checking out for the breadth of topics it discusses, all of which are pertinent to developers today who seek to stay literate in the field.

White is the New Black

What are the factors that allow your website to be read quickly and effectively? How can you draw attention to that specific call-to-action that’s so vital to your web strategy?

The secret is simple. It's a powerful design tool called whitespace. And no, whitespace doesn’t mean space that’s white in color -- it simply refers to the negative space between margins, gutters and columns. It’s the space between lines of type, or between graphical elements such as photos or buttons. There are actually two types of whitespace:

Passive Whitespace: This is created within the general context of a page via elements such as margins, line height for rows of text and fonts used

Active whitespace: Active whitespace is deliberately added to better structure a page and emphasize specific areas or elements

Passive Whitespace
When both passive and active are used effectively, it can improve readability, enhance a website’s performance and make a great first impression. It’s truly the yin and yang to a well-balanced design and layout.

Let me demonstrate by using readability as an example. Check out the next two paragraphs:

"Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble for novelty. Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance. Form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form." ~ Paul Rand

This illustrates the power of passive whitespace. The first paragraph is using a leading (the space between the line of text) of 12 pixels; the second paragraph is using a leading of 20 pixels. I think you’d agree the second paragraph is much easier on the eye, allowing a user to scan information quickly. Now, I know the natural tendency is to stuff as much vital information on a page as possible, sometimes even above the fold but there must be a balance. Text -- and indeed, entire layouts -- need room to breathe. Otherwise, users feel cramped, overwhelmed and often unsure where to look first.

Active Whitespace Now, on to active whitespace: In the example below, we’re using whitespace to set priority and assign weight to certain graphical elements. This practice provides contrast, which often lets us direct where a user may look. Add greater contrast to the page, and a graphical element has a better chance of standing out among all other elements. Again, I think you’d agree that your eye is drawn to the button that has more whitespace around it.

Now I don’t mean to make this whitespace concept seem as simple as black and white (no pun intended). This has taken years for designers to master, and its power and value is undeniable. When empty space is seen as equally as important as the content it surrounds, everyone’s that much closer to a well-designed web property.

jQuery and the Future of JavaScript Frameworks in ASP.net Websites

JavaScript has long been regarded by many web developers as a necessary evil. It is essential in order to control many different types of client-side behaviors (including AJAX). However, since it is a client-based programming language with slight but very significant differences in implementation on different versions of the major browsers, it is a notoriously difficult platform to work with when working with requirements that include cross-browser compatibility. In order to make client-based programming using JavaScript easier for developers and to ensure a more consistent experience for the end-user, over the past few years different JavaScript frameworks have been released, like script.aculo.us, Prototype and jQuery (and many others). In general, these frameworks provide useful functions to web developers to simplify tasks like identifying DOM elements in a webpage, updating the UI and performing visual effects and allowing easy integration with AJAX, while at the same time ensuring consistent behavior across different browser platforms. One of the frameworks to gain a large following over the past few years is jQuery. It provides some innovative features like command chaining that can make it very easy to update different elements on a page in different ways, and includes a library of user interface widgets and is extendable through dozens of useful plugins. It is updated often and is open source.

For quite some time, ASP.net developers have been in a quandary when trying to use JavaScript frameworks like jQuery on ASP.net sites. ASP.net has its own set of built-in JavaScript functionality that are used throughout ASP.net sites. With the introduction of ASP.net AJAX (itself a JS framework), the amount of built-in JavaScript included with the average ASP.net page has increased, thus raising the likelihood that another JavaScript framework or library included in a page would introduce errors to the basic page functionality. So those who chose in the past to use non-Microsoft frameworks did so at their own peril. And as in the past Microsoft has been loath to have anything to do with third-party pieces of software (especially Open Source Software), there was little reason to think that the status quo in this area would be changing any time soon.

However, this all changed at the end of September when Scott Guthrie (MS VP who runs the ASP.net dev team, among other things) announced that moving forward jQuery will be shipping with Visual Studio. Visual Studio will be including the current production builds of jQuery (license unchanged) and will include Intellisense support. Additionally, in the future it will be “used to implement higher-level controls in the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, as well as to implement new Ajax server-side helper methods for ASP.NET MVC. New features [added to] ASP.NET AJAX…will be designed to integrate nicely with jQuery as well.” This is excellent news for ASP.net developers for a couple of different reasons: It means that jQuery will be fully usable and integrable with ASP.net websites (for some current examples of jQuery integration with ASP.net, see here, here or here). It also represents a shift in the corporate philosophy of Microsoft with regards to developer technologies, showing a new openness to using and promoting proven tools in a given technology (rather than copying the technology and attempting to compete against the original, as Microsoft has been wont to do in the past). Hopefully in the future, Microsoft will proceed with similar collaborative projects that will make ASP.net a more robust tool while helping to enrich the options for developers working on all platforms.

Designing for Your Brand

Look around and you’ll see brands everywhere. We are quite literally wading through a vast landscape of logos, advertisements and products, all vying for attention. It seems obvious, but think about it. Take Levi’s for example. It conjures up some concrete images: cowboys, the American West, independence, tradition, whatever. We all know that. Almost everyone in the world knows that. So what does it mean?

First, I’m not talking about whether or not this is a good thing. The fact is, it doesn’t matter a lick whether it’s good or bad -- it just is. Second, it’s important to realize that if you’re in business, you’ll be competing with other companies who have thought about it. Whether they’ve had the luxury of a hundred years in business and built a brand the old-fashioned way, or they hired a slick branding agency to give them the edge, companies need to set themselves apart from each other. Branding is the means to that end.

So what does all this have to do with websites? Well, first, it probably makes sense to break down what we mean when we use a term like “brand experience.” Broadly speaking, this refers a person’s end-to-end experience with a company’s image. Maybe someone saw an ad in a magazine and decided they wanted to find out more. If that’s the case, what was the magazine? What about the ad was compelling? Were they reading it at home or in a doctor’s office? Now let’s say they’re intrigued enough to check out this company on the web. Is there a consistency between the website and the print ad? Is it easy to find what they want? Has the site been designed in a way that allows the company to cross-promote? What does the confirmation page look like after someone’s taken the time to fill out a form? And about a million other things. There are books about this stuff.

I agree that it’s an assumption to say that a customers’ first point-of-contact is a website. They could just as easily walk into a store or pick up the phone. But, given the fact that I do work for a company that makes websites and it is the year 2008, let’s roll with that.

The first questions we web designers ask ourselves when starting a new project is about the online experience. How is the information on the site going to be organized so people can find what they want? How will they get there, and how can we cater the site to those expectations, that experience? How are we going to use copy, color and imagery to create an experience that will resonate for a consumer and a client? How can we create something that reinforces a company’s message every step of the way?

It can be tempting to avoid these conversations, because let’s face it, it’s much easier to make a point if you have hard data, evidence. SEO practically sells itself: numbers + strategy = profit. Design -- and by that I mean all the thought that goes into figuring out how information should be organized, presented and displayed -- is a harder sell. It requires a degree of trust. It requires that we know what we’re doing. But it’s a critical step, and not something you can necessarily do after a site’s up and running. It needs to be planned, carefully considered and skillfully implemented at the earliest stages of your project. Remember: Your website is going to communicate something about your brand whether you want it to or not: Shouldn’t it be the very best?

What is a Robots.txt File?

A Robots.txt file is simply a file that is placed on a website’s server with the intention of telling the search engine spiders not to crawl and index pages or sections of a website that would be otherwise publically viewable.

What is the Purpose of a Robots.txt File?
1. Block the search engines from indexing an entire site.
2. Prevent specific sections of a website to be blocked from being indexed.
3. Communicate specific indexing instructions to individual search engines.

Does My Site Need a Robots.txt File?
With the emergence of so many search engines over the past decade, Robots.txt file have become standard protocol for search engine spiders to attempt to locate and view when they first arrive at a website. Search engine spiders are trained to start their crawl looking for the Robots.txt file; this allows the spiders to know which pages to index and which pages should be disallowed from being indexed. Even though your site may not have any pages that you would currently want blocked from being publically viewable it is still a recommended best search engine optimization practice to include a Robots.txt file on the root folder of your site. It will act as an invitation with the search engines to successfully communicate the message to crawl all the pages on your site.

Why Would I Want to Exclude Spiders from My Site?
1. Your website is still in development and you do not want your unfinished work to be found by the public.
2. The information presented on your page only pertains to your specific audience and is of no interest to an outside viewer.
3. You want to exclude common pages such as Thank You and Privacy Policy pages from the search engine indexes because there is no benefit for a web visitor to enter the website onto them.
4. You do not believe in a specific search engine’s procedures or it is a known bot that collects data you do not want shared, such as email addresses.
5. You use doorway pages on your site (we highly recommend not using them) and you want to exclude specific search engine spiders from viewing them as they will have a negative impact on your optimization efforts with search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

How Do I Create a Robots.txt File?
A Robots.txt file is simple to create within Notepad or any text editor using the layout instructions below. Once it is created, upload the file to the root folder of your website. Each entry in a Robots.txt file only contains two lines of text.

Layout for a Robots.txt file:
User-Agent: [Spider or Bot name] Disallow: [Directory or File Name]

Examples of Robots.txt Files:
1. Exclude file or directory from a specific search engine spider: User-Agent: Googlebot Disallow: /section/examplefile.htm
2. Exclude a specific section of a website from every search engine spider and bot: User-Agent: * Disallow: /examplesection/
3. Allow spiders to index the entire site: User-agent:* Disallow:
4. Disallow spiders from indexing any part of the website: User-agent: * Disallow: /

5 Website Features that Work

There’s no single list of ingredients for creating a successful website. The design and user experience of any company website should be a unique, carefully considered blend of usability, brand identity and conversion goals. Having said that, there are common features that achieve a certain clarity of purpose, and, by extension, success. Here are five of them.

Professional Design
Your site may rank in Google's top five, but if it looks like your nephew designed it, you’re going to run into problems. Spending time engaging a professional designer with an appreciation of usability issues will pay dividends. It can help identify conversion goals and appropriate callouts, it can reinforce or establish your brand proposition, and it will bring a level of polish to your site that most people have come to expect.

Positioning Statement
This is the opportunity for your homepage to clearly explain why it exists. It is not an expression of a brand value (like a tagline), but a simple statement of fact.

Example of positioning statement: “We are a multidisciplinary web design and development agency based in Boston/focused on usability/dedicated to client service”

Example of a tagline: “Building a better web since 1998”

Positioning statements are important because they provide first-time site visitors a clear indication of the type of site they're looking at. And this is about clarity so, please... leave out the buzzwords.

Callouts and Calls-to-Action
Speaking of clarity, let’s define callouts as elements on the page (not those contained within navigation), that inform users of deeper site content that may be interesting, relevant, or otherwise important. These may appear on a homepage or on deeper pages of the site, usually within a sidebar. A call to action is a more general term, inviting a user to a direct course-of-action; online this most often takes the form of a link, but the concept can map to offline communications as well. In fact, you’ve probably seen dozens today already: every time you see a phone number or a website address, you're seeing a call to action. In marketing terms, calls-to-action provide the opportunity to transform a passive recipient into an active investigator.

Of course on the web, callouts and calls-to-action are used more or less interchangeably. Regardless of how they work, they provide the opportunity for specific conversion goals to be identified and tracked. And that makes them a powerful tool for any website.

Coherent Navigation
If a website is like a car, then the navigation is the steering wheel. It is the primary means by which users move from one site page to another — a naviagation that's difficult to use or understand can very easily lead to frustration.

Navigation needs to make conceptual sense and have visual consistency across pages. By conceptual sense, I am actually talking about the sitemap: how site information is organized, grouped, and interrelated. From a design and usability perspective, navigation needs to be easy on the eyes and easy to use. It’s entirely possible that there are better navigation schemes out there than the current conventions; but in the meantime, it’s best to make it as usable and consistent as possible, especially for business applications.

Telephone Number on the Homepage
It seems like a small thing, but including a telephone number prominently on a site can confer numerous benefits. On the usability side, it means that customers and clients don’t need to search through the site to find out how to reach you. Ensuring that the number is text (as opposed to an image) is likewise important, since many users are accustomed to copying and pasting from one application to another. Forcing a user to either write down a number longhand, or type it into another application or device, forces an unnecessary step.

Whether this number should have pride of place or be relegated to the footer is, of course, a question that different businesses will answer differently. The staff's call volume, the number of service actions that can be handled online, and the nature and business model of the company may all influence the prominence of a telephone number on the page.

SEO Best Practices for Page Titles, Meta-descriptions and Meta-keywords

Many SEO consultants will recommend that you update your website metadata as one of the first steps toward site optimization. Page titles, meta-descriptions and meta-keywords are all important metadata elements for optimizing your website content for search engines. But how important is metadata?

When search engines first started using an algorithm to rank websites for specific keywords, the most influential component that could be modified was the metadata. However, as search engines continue to add more intelligence into their algorithms, metadata becomes less vital to a website’s overall SEO score.

That said, metadata still does accomplish many positive things for your website:
• Metadata helps build the relevance of each page within your site.
• Metadata supplies a self-describing file to the search engines, allowing the search result to accurately reflect page content.
• Metadata allows you to display a marketing message to the searcher instead of random content selected by the search engine from the page being served.
• Metadata builds an SEO foundation for the site.
• Metadata communicates to search engines what the page is about.

Types of meta tags that can be included in an SEO-friendly site:
• Page titles
• Meta description tag
• Meta keywords tag
• Meta language tag
• Meta link relationship
• Meta robots tag

Meta tags are also relatively simple to develop and implement. Here is a quick cheat sheet outlining the description, length and format of page titles, meta-descriptions and meta-keywords.

I. Page Titles
What They Are: Page titles appear in the top of a user’s browser window. Page titles also appear in the link text on search engine result pages.
Maximum Length: 63 Characters (including spaces)
Format: Description with Keywords – Site Name
Example: Website Design Company – Verndale

II. Meta-descriptions:
What They Are: Meta-descriptions are displayed beneath the page title in search engine results, providing more detail about your web page. Fortunately, you can tell the search engines what content to display under the page title. Unfortunately, meta-descriptions are not taken into great account by search engine algorithms, although they are more important than meta-keywords.
Maximum Length: 156 Characters (including spaces)
Format: Provide a short summary of what that specific web page is about in a single sentence.
Example: Verndale is a leading Internet consulting firm, designing and developing custom web solutions and implementing best of breed technology.

III. Meta-keywords: What They Are: Meta-keywords are a list of descriptive words about the content on your web page. Although not weighted very heavily in modern search engine algorithms, meta-keywords do provide search engines with one more element to describe the page.
Maximum Length: 256 Characters (including spaces and commas)
Format: Each keyword or keywords should be separated by comma. Each keyword is to be used only once. Although you have a 256 character maximum to work with, all 256 characters do not have to be used.
Example: website design company, website development company, web design company, web development company, web site design company, web site development company

How to Validate a Credit Card

Within E-Commerce sites, credit card validation is an important part of the checkout process. Quickly alerting customers to a potential information error saves time for both the customer and the business. Although most online stores today have an online payment gateway that instantly validates credit card payment, it's always faster to validate locally before sending data to a payment gateway. There are three ways you can check for a valid credit card number:

1. The number of digits in a given number:
Amex: 15 digits
Discover: 16 digits
MasterCard: 16 digits
Visa: 13 or 16 digits

2. The given number prefix:
Amex: 34 or 37
Discover: 6011
MasterCard: 51-55
Visa: 4

3. The Luhn algorithm
The algorithm was designed to protect against accidental single-digit data entry error, but we can use it as a weak number validation. All credit cards use this algorithm to validate.
Given a number:
a. Multiply every odd numbered digit by 2 and subtract by 9 if the product is greater than 9.
b. Add up all the products.
c. Add the even numbered digits to the result from step B.
d. The given number is valid if the result from step C is multiple of 10.

Example:
Given 5578-9201-2345-6789
a. 5 x 2 = 10 - 9 = 1
7 x 2 = 14 - 9 = 5
9 x 2 = 18 - 9 = 9
0 x 2 = 0
2 x 2 = 4
4 x 2 = 8
6 x 2 = 12 -9 = 3
8 x 2 = 16 - 9 = 7
b. 1 + 5 + 9 + 0 + 4 + 8 + 3 + 7 = 37
c. 5 + 8 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 37 = 77
d. 77 is not multiple of 10, therefore the above number is not valid.

You can test out the Luhn algorithm by entering a sample 15 or 16-digit number below.

ASP.NET MVC Framework

How long have you been coding with ASP.NET web forms? Are you ready for a new challenge? Well, the ASP.NET MVC framework which uses a Model-View-Controller pattern and is built upon the ASP.NET framework can offer just that and more.

Let me tell you why you should look at the ASP.NET MVC framework as an alternative to coding using only ASP.NET web forms.

Better Flexibility and Performance. Compared to the ASP.NET web forms, the MVC framework provides far more flexibility and better performance when creating AJAX applications with either the Jquery framework or the new ASP.NET MVC Javascript. For example, there is no need to wrap the page with form tags including the attribute "runat=server" anymore. As a result, this allows you to utilize as many additional form tags as you need, something that had been problematic in the past. Also, you can utilize the Microsoft Ajax MVC framework to help you achieve what you want to do with JSON, allowing the support of object serialization and de-serialization which promotes a cleaner, more compact, and faster Ajax data pipeline.

No More ViewState. The ViewState has been known to be the evil of ASP.NET web forms. Conveniently, the latest MVC framework no longer requires the use of ViewState as you are the only one managing the communication. Basically, you will have complete control over the final HTML markup and Microsoft provides the HTML Helper to ensure quality.

Better Code Structure. You can create more loosely-coupled applications that promote test-driven development, the separation of concerns and functional encapsulation.

SEO Friendly. Why? Because the nature of both the folder and code structure allow you to create URL rules that promote better Search Engine Optimization. Eventually helping to increase site traffic.

More Information:

1. For further video examples and documentation click here.
2. See applications that were built with the ASP.NET MVC framework using the code walkthrough.

If you want to sleep better at night and enjoy your future coding then use the ASP.NET MVC framework.

The Power of Planning, Creatively Speaking

The biggest mistake during any development project is the failure to plan—and to budget appropriately for that plan.

At Verndale we're often asked to respond to RFQs and provide insight into our processes. Well, we start with a requirements gathering phase (we call it Planning & Discovery), move into a design phase, and then enter a development phase which includes HTML production and engineering, QA, etc… you know the deal. To be honest, that’s not where Verndale differentiates itself.

Our difference is in our ability to drive conversation, to get you and your internal teams to better understand your needs. Now, I don’t consider myself a salesperson by any means; I’m a creative type, so my perspective is one from the trenches. I’m also not the person to ask about implementing your CMS (see Sean or Chris for that). I focus my attention on figuring out the best way to deal with details nobody is ready—or willing—to think about yet. It’s my job to force you, the client, to begin thinking about these details (in the most loving way possible, of course). I’ve built a lot of websites over the years and I know one thing is true: the better ones have gone through a more thoughtful planning process. I’m hoping this post will better demonstrate the value of that planning and share some of the planning tools the Verndale creative staff uses.

Quick side note: I should mention that Verndale works with a fairly diverse range of budgets and project sizes—as a result, our planning pricing model varies. Our sales staff will work with you throughout the sales cycle to identify which package makes the most sense for you.

For this post, I'll outline key planning tools we feel every project should have to build the best possible foundation for a development project. These tools will inspire further conversations about your business goals and challenges, and really allow us to gain better insight to your objectives.

The Essential Tools: a competitive evaluation, personas, a sitemap, and what we call a high fidelity prototype (the most important tool, in my opinion). I should stress, these aren’t all of the tools in our wheelhouse, but they are the tools that no planning project should go without.

A Competitive Evaluation
A competitive evaluation is a document that I, or one of our creative staff members, will draft. It ranks your competitors' sites based on the following criteria: Branding, Site Organization (Information Architecture), Design, Usability, Readability, Performance, Messaging and Content. This document's value is really two-fold.

First, it allows Verndale staff to get up to speed on your company and its market space. Then, the document comes to life for your organization when we meet to review it as well as your competitors' websites. That allows us to hear, firsthand, your likes and dislikes pertaining to the web. We also find it helps foster further conversation between you and Verndale, and among members of your own team.

Verndale also leverages this meeting to demonstrate some of the web trends we’ve found during the document's creation. Since this is one of our first planning meetings, we also find that it’s a nice ice breaker, allowing us all to know one another better.

Personas One of the first questions you'll hear Verndale ask is, “Who is your target audience and why?” Personas allow us to explore your answer beyond the obvious. Wikipedia defines personas perfectly:

Personas are fictitious characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. Personas are useful in considering the goals, desires, and limitations of the users in order to help to guide decisions about a product, such as features, interactions, and visual design. Personas are most often used as part of a user-centered design process for designing software and are also considered a part of interaction design (IxD).

Defining personas allows our design staff to better address your audience needs. It also triggers conversations with you about things like conversion goals and desired calls-to-actions, and segues into our next planning stage, Information Architecture.

Sitemap
Information Architecture is the art and science of organizing and labeling—websites, intranets, online communities, software—to support usability and findability. Whether your company is taking on the redesign of an existing website, or exploring how to best create taxonomies for a new product or offering, good IA planning is essential to the overall solution.

A series of internal and external meetings help us better define and redefine your IA. I feel this is a critical, essential step in our process and, if not given proper time, can lead to serious long-term issues.

A diagram document, which we call a sitemap, is one of the first deliverables during the IA discovery process, demonstrating how we may potentially organize your site. To get to this point, we discuss content, naming conventions, hierarchy and more. This document will become the blueprint for how we'll structure the site.

High Fidelity Prototypes
As mentioned earlier, I feel this is one of our more valuable tools. Prototyping is a means of exploring ideas before you invest in them. Like an architect who creates models from paper or virtual reality tools, a web designer creates mock-ups showing how users may interact with their designs. Our prototyping method allows clients to click through and interact with a wireframe of sorts.

We've found this to be a critical path in building consensus around different aspects of a given project: strategy, content hierarchy, layout, interactive features, etc. It’s also invaluable in making sure we address any usability or design problems, allowing us to adjust easily before we invest in the final design and technologies.

I hope sharing these tools has been helpful and insightful. I encourage you to reach out to us with any additional questions, or if you’re curious to see examples of the tools I’ve discussed. Call us at 866-942-VERN (8376).

Making Your Site 508 Compliant

Here are some tips for creating content that is more understandable to people with disabilities.

508 Primer:
508 compliance is a set of rules put forth by the United States government to make the web more accessible to those with disabilities. You can view the government site here: http://www.section508.gov.

Even though Federal run and supported sites are the only sites that are required to be 508 compliant, I strongly encourage you to create content that is easily accessible to those with disabilities. Here I will lay out some simple guidelines you can use to provide all of your site visitors a better view of your site. Many of these things can be done easily. You just have to keep on top of them as your content is created.

Images:
Make sure your image has an "alt" tag. The alt tag is short for alternative. It will be read by a user’s browser and translated into audio if that user has a visual impairment. The alt tag should be descriptive about what the image is, or what it references.

Links: Several things can be done to your links. When you assign a link to an image you should think about changing the image’s alt tag, as I explained above. Be sure to change the alt tag to not only describe the image but also say what this link is going to do. So if you create a "contact us" link with an image of a mailbox, think of adding an alt tag to the image of "Contact Us" or "Click here to contact us."

When linking a text area, there are some other rules to think about. Having non-descriptive phrases like "click here" does nothing to describe what the link is used for. Try linking to the entire sentence or phrase that explains what the link does. For example; "Click here to go to my site." This will provide visually impaired users with a description for their browser reader to use.

Navigation:
The main point of navigation is to give your users a place to find information and to understand where they are within your site. If you use JavaScript or Flash animations for navigation, think of also adding a text navigation version. People with many types of disabilities will be unable to use your fancier navigation and so you should give them an alternative way to browse your site.

Media:
For any media item you post, it is a good idea to provide additional description for people with disabilities. If you post a video, then you should describe what is in the video with text. If you post an audio piece, make sure there is also a text translation of it. These text descriptions will help people with audio and visual disabilities experience otherwise invisible elements of your site.

Color blindness:
A large percentage of people are color blind in one way or another. When adding colors to your site, as backgrounds or text colors, make sure the text or links on top of those colors are well contrasted. An easy way of telling if the text has enough contrast is to "print screen" the page and paste it into a paint program. Windows comes with "Paint" in your accessories folder. Now print the image in black and white. If you can still read it, it has enough contrast.

So what does this all mean for you?
These are all easy steps to make your site more readable and easier to navigate by everyone including those with disabilities. So next time you think about adding a link or a nice image to your site, remember to think about the extra small things you can do to enrich visitor experience. Your new potential clients will thank you.

April Fools: Google Introduces us to 'CADIE'

Google continues its April Fools' - foolery - with another extensive prank that seems to have left no Google offering untouched. This year’s prank (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity - CADIE for short) takes the form of an artificial-intelligence research project that has adopted the persona of a seemingly innocent Panda 'avatar'. Shortly after being deployed, we learn that CADIE has taken it upon herself/himself/itself to unleash a series of Google feature enhancements. The modifications are all based on CADIE's analysis of how these products are used in the marketplace, allowing Google to have a little fun at the users expense. A few highlights are listed below. Let us know if you find any other worthy mentions. Kudo's to Google for another great buzz generating effort! http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/04/introducing-google-chrome-with-3d.html http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/03/introducing-google-brain-search-for.html http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=9Oth-C9DNco http://picasa.google.com/

Link Building Methods

Link Building is a strategy used to improve a website’s credibility within search engines. Successful link building can be achieved by a number of different methods. These methods are essential to increasing visibility in major search engines and driving more traffic to your website. Here are some of the more successful approaches for building links to your site:

Submit to a Directory
A web directory is a directory on the World Wide Web that categorizes links to different websites, listing sites by category or subcategory. There are both free and paid directories available, and both are very helpful in the link building process. It is usually a good idea to submit your site to a combination of niche and general directories. Niche directories are those that include listings of websites in a specific industry: research those in your industry using a search engine.
Popular Directories Include:
• Yahoo – Most respected directory
• DMOZ – Popular, public edited directory
• Business.com – B2B, highly respected directory

Relevant Information Endorsement
External links build a site’s authority among search engines, thus improving search engine rankings. From a user experience standpoint, external links connect from one website to another website, allowing visitors to move directly to a different website. Search engines treat these links as endorsements or “votes” for the receiving site. The key to link building is finding the most relevant and respected web sites to which you can link.

Social Media Links Social media is essential in a successful SEO campaign. Social media helps to create link popularity, a crucial factor in receiving high rankings. Another form of social media is the ‘no-follow’ tag attribute, which was introduced by Google in January 2005. Websites can nullify link value by adding ‘no-follow’ attributes to links in order to stop link farming and spamming on websites and forums. No Follow tags won’t directly count toward a site’s link count, but will drive traffic and potentially influence users to link to the site from their own, thus indirectly increasing link count.
Social Media Sites:
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• MySpace
• Digg

Links in Press Releases Links in online press releases get shared fast by aggregators such as Google News, Google Search, Yahoo News, MSN, Ask News, and other RSS feeds. The payback of fast distribution in press releases, and their embedded links, is that they will remain accessible in the archives of newswire services for years. Search engine ranking algorithms take into account the maturity and PageRank of pages that point to your website. Therefore, your linked web pages will rank better over time as the release obtains more visibility.
Popular Internet Press Release Distribution Services Include:
• PRWeb (Offers SEO functionality)
• PR Leap
• I-Newswire
• 24-7 Press Release
• PR.com
• PR Zoom

Next Steps One way to start on your link building is by assembling partnerships and sponsorships with organizations that will link to your site and vice versa. Currently, many companies are using this approach as it appears to be successful within their SEO campaigns. There are also various ways to track link building efforts by using some helpful tools. For example, using Google Webmaster tools will help you discover your links and examine how users are reaching your site. This is a free tool offered by Google and is a great way to track your links.

Overall, there are many ways to achieve successful link building for your website and many tools to help you in the process. Whether you do the work yourself or hire an SEO firm to do it for you, there is no easy road to success- all of these linking strategies take time and effort!

The Social Media Constitution

From Revolution to Constitution. That was the path our country took in its infancy – from the triumph of independence to the establishment of a set of values to live and govern by. It’s normal to put standards in place after the dust settles, no matter what kind of revolution has taken place.

The social media revolution that has swept the online world in the past decade or so is no different. Marketers have been leveraging social media long enough that there should be a set of standards in place that we can all abide by – a constitution if you will. Therefore, I am proposing a social media constitution for marketers.

Since we still apply the constitution our founding fathers wrote over 200 years ago, I figured I would draft the social media constitution under the same structure. Let’s begin with the preamble:

“We the People of Web 2.0, in order to form a more perfect online community, establish relevance, ensure user-friendliness, provide for fresh user-generated content, promote related web content of our peers, and secure the Blessings of inbound links to ourselves, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Social Media of the Internet.”

The following seven articles encompass the key behavioral ethics marketers should consider in their social networking efforts.

Article One: Relevance – The information supplied in your social media channel should always be relevant and useful to your target audience. In order to keep a loyal following, your audience is more likely to revisit your channel if they know it’s a reliable source for on-topic information. Keeping to one theme will help identify you as an authority in the online community.

Article Two: Collectiveness – This may be an obvious one, but it can’t be reiterated enough. The purpose of social media is the networking aspect. Allowing all voices to be heard will generate buzz and drive more traffic. Plus, search engines love fresh user-generated content. One action item - make tagging and bookmarking easy for your users by applying a social media bookmark aggregator code on your channel page.

Article Three: Accountability – Social media is an effective channel for companies to handle reputation and brand management as it allows for direct interaction with their audience. Some marketers steer away from opening up a social media channel in fear of opening up the stage for negative comments, but avoiding the negativity isn’t usually the best option. If your audience has gripe, they’re going to find somewhere to post it, so why not own the stage where they can communicate their opinions, allowing you to facilitate and manage the conversation.

Article Four: Endorsement – While generating buzz and obtaining links would naturally seem like priority number one, listing outbound links is also crucial to your success. List blogs which link back to you with permalinks, trackbacks or recent linking blogs (like the Yahoo & Google blogs do). It’s all about giving your contributors and audience the recognition they deserve. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you in the short term, it will in the long term.

Article Five: Flexibility – Like the Article five in the US Constitution: the ability to make amendments, as the authors were clearly aware that changes would be necessary from time to time if the Constitution was to endure and cope with the effects of the anticipated growth of the nation. Flexibility within social media involves keeping an open eye for new channels and adapting to the changes that are sure to evolve in this constantly changing online universe.

Article Six: Restraint – You know that email opt-in you subscribed to and then unsubscribed yourself after discovering they sent 17 emails before lunchtime? Yeah, the same goes for social media as you don’t want to annoy your audience with message blasting or any other “loud” conduct.

Article Seven: Benevolence – Finally, an attitude of goodwill will go a long way with your audience because it shows you are making a solid effort to add value to the online community. Good humor is always a good thing too, especially if it fits into your subject area, as people tend to link to clever content.

If our founding fathers read these seven articles for social media today, I think they would not only be scratching their wigs upon reading “secure the blessings of inbound links”, but also at ease with the integrity that these guiding principles for social media encourage. Social media is what we make of it, so let’s try to add the most value to Web 2.0 by practicing strong ethics that set the stage for others to follow.

The Conversation of Web Forms

A website form operates like a conversation. It can tell users about you, and allow users to tell you about themselves. Forms are the most common communication between a website and its users. This post focuses on how to build an effective form.

My name is:
A form starts with a purpose, a reason to be built, a name. These names include titles like Search, Blog, Registration and Store. Each name corresponds to a purpose. Are you allowing users to search for content? Are you asking their opinions? Do you need to sign them up? Can you sell them something? This purpose focuses on the "Who, What, Where, Why and How," and provides boundaries to work within.

Form: My name is Registration Form.

Getting to know you:
What do you want to accomplish? In a typical conversation, two people take turns communicating. Each person’s turn is broken down into giving information and then receiving information. A form works the same way, broken down into taking turns.

Form:    Do you want to register?
User:     Sure I want to register.
Form:    Please give us your information.
User:     How much information? I hardly know you.

In a registration form, you could gather all sorts of information. You could register users, sign them up for a newsletter, get a referral to their friends, add them to a social network, or gather payment information for purchases. Each element requires the collection of specific data. Common data fields include a user name, password, email address, full name, credit card number, expiration date, address, phone number, comments, and preferences. However, this amount of information may deter users from signing up.

User: I don’t know if I want to give you all of that.
Form: But we need it.

Sometimes you do need it, but most of the time you do not. Although gathering all personal information seems useful, it will not accomplish anything unless you can get the user to sign up. Get the user in the door first, and then ask for more information over time. It is like a date. Don’t rush in too quickly and take it slow.

If the main purpose is to get this person to register for our site, you only need a “User name”, “Email” and “Password.” And if you don’t mind using an email address as a user name, you can shrink your needs even further. Necessity is the key word here.

Form:   I need an email address and password.
User:    That's it?
Form:   That's it.
User:    Done!

Talk to you later:
The confirmation is the last part of the form. For the most part, simple confirmation text is fine. But you can go the extra mile and allow users to add more information to their profiles or sign up for additional features.

Form:    Thanks for Registering!
Form:    Now that you have registered, here is your Profile page. Here you can update your information and sign up for more options!

Conclusion:
So there you have it. We have three simple steps to think about communicating using forms.

1)  Define what you need.
2) Keep it as simple as possible and get customers in the door.
3)  Keep it friendly and easy, and you can get more from them later.

It is that easy.

Internal Linking Strategies

Internal links connect one page of a website to another page within the website. Unlike navigation links, internal links are natural links that occur in the copy of a web page. A strong internal linking strategy benefits both the user and search engine spiders. From a user-experience perspective, internal links allow for convenient transitions to other areas of the site a user is interested in. From a search engine standpoint, search algorithms use the internal link text to better understand the linked page’s theme and content. Here are a few tips to ensure you have a strong internal linking strategy in place.

Try to keep the number of links on any one page limited. This will allow each link to carry a realistic degree of importance. Each page on your website should have a text navigation menu which will allow the spider to easily crawl from one page to another. All pages on your website should be available from anywhere on the site with a maximum of two clicks.
Include keyword-centric text within your text links. Text links are links that can employ anchor tags and target keywords. Be sure to point the link toward the content that is most relevant to the linked text. Most likely, you will find many opportunities to link a text phrase on your site to another page, therefore passing along link juice to the respective pages.
Links placed within the footers of your pages are also a good way of implementing internal linking. This will allow visitors to quickly and accurately find the specific information they are looking for.
Google Webmaster Tools offers a good internal linking tool that can be used for verified site owners. Webmaster Tools has a feature that will help you verify your pages' internal links. This is especially useful if your site uses navigation involving JavaScript which Googlebot doesn't always execute. You'll want to make sure that Googlebot is finding internal links as expected.

Overall, Internal Linking is an important component of SEO and should be used in your online marketing strategy. Internal Links help search engines and visitors find and understand your content, which in turn will lead to increased page views, increased time spent on the site, and increased conversion rates.

Bing Raises the Bar

You probably have heard about the launch of Microsoft’s new “decision” engine, Bing, and with Microsoft spending $80 million on an ad campaign to promote it, they expect you to not only know about it, but be very grateful for it.

The advertising seems to have had a big effect on the search market. Search volume on Bing trumped Yahoo! last week, eating up 17% of the market share while Google saw an 8% dip. Whether it was pure curiosity remains to be seen.

What Bing’s Boasting

As Microsoft claims in its Bing commercials, we have all fallen victim to “search overload”, which suggests that search engine results pages (SERPs) are comprised of a clutter of links that, while credible in the eyes of the engine, are not offering us specific answers to our search queries – hence, the “decision engine”.

The goal of Bing is to allow the user to find an answer to their search query in the most efficient manner, without having to click-through a bunch of listings or manually refine the query. It aims to accomplish this by an enhanced results page, which includes more detailed listings that provide the website’s most important links, contact info, schedule, or a recent news posting when appropriate; hover-over call out boxes that provide a snippet of information from the listing related to the search term and deeper website links; and a left-hand navigation providing recommended category links to instantly refine the results.

Where Bing Shines

I think Bing’s unique value proposition is the fact that it creates an interaction between the engine and the user. I like hovering over the listings and reading some quick facts that relate to my search term. It seems that I am saving time by gathering snippets of information from various sites all at once and getting an idea of whether the site is worth visiting by simply hovering over a set of listings.

Users will reward convenience, and by amplifying the listings, Bing is positioned to gain a loyal audience. For example, a search on Bing for “red sox” will render the following:

Without clicking-through to any sites, I am presented with the Sox’s current schedule, record, standing, and streak. This was actually all the information I was curious about at the moment so no need to dig any deeper, Bing has answered my query.

You may spend more time on Bing’s SERP than other engines, but you will likely arrive at the answer faster because you will not be hitting the back button to click-through to other listings or manually refining your search as much. And the more time you spend on Bing’s results pages, the happier they are.

Bing’s Impact on SEO

For you marketers out there, I know you’re asking what this means for SEO efforts.

My first inclination is that organic CTRs will be relatively lower on Bing. By allowing users to access more information on the SERP without the need to click-through, users will be more selective. The common theme of clicking on a listing on Google or Yahoo! and navigating back to the results to find a better match seems less likely to occur on Bing.

It is well-regarded that MSN’s algorithms have placed higher priority on page content than Google and Yahoo!. Bing seems to endorse this notion as it makes use of certain parts of a website’s page content in its listing enhancements. So, MSN-focused SEO efforts should carry over to Bing-focused SEO efforts, with the intention to provide descriptive copy around the search term you are optimizing for.

Competition Benefits the Users

And what does Google think? Per usual, Google was very diplomatic. In a statement released last week:

“We welcome competition that helps deliver useful information to users and expands user choice. Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space—it makes us all work harder."

Certainly spoken like one who knows how big the chasm is between them and the competition.

Do I think Bing can close the Google chasm? No – at least for a long while. We are creatures of habit and morphing everyday Googlers into everyday Bingers overnight cannot be accomplished.

What Bing will do is raise the bar. Google has proven they can adapt with the landscape and everyone expects improvements to be made to their results over time. We should be grateful when new search engines come into the mix and shake things up. Their primary goal is to provide better, more relevant results that make searching for the right information easier.

Do's and Don'ts of Applying for Jobs Online

Almost all job applications are now sent via email. As an HR Director and Recruiter I’m often asked, “Does anyone actually read my resume when I apply online or does it just end up at the very bottom of someone’s inbox?” My answer to both questions: “Sometimes.”

Because of the very large volume of resumes companies receive, and the fact that quite often only one person is responsible for screening all of them; some resumes get read, and some get tossed.

Want to keep your resume out of the tossed pile and get it read by the right person? Then check out this simple list of do’s and don’ts for online resumes.

Do’s

Do include your place of residence on the resume. Some employers will only interview local candidates and if you are local but don’t have your address on the resume, they will often assume you are out of state and will not even read the resume. If you are out of state and they are only looking for local candidates and they call for a phone interview, it will waste both your time and theirs.
Do make sure you meet at least 3/4^th of the job requirements and that they are stated clearly on your resume. This should be an obvious one but surprisingly, hundreds of people apply for jobs for which they are not qualified.
Do keep your resume in bulleted format - it’s easier to read than narratives.
Do add dates of employment to each position listed on your resume.
Do include both an email address and a phone # where you can be reached.
If they ask for a cover letter – include a cover letter.
If they ask for salary requirements or history, include them.
Do take the time to find out to whom you should address the cover letter – yes this may actually involve a phone call or two to the main office.

Don’ts

Don’t turn your cover letter into an autobiography - keep it short and focused on how your experience meets the requirements of the job description.
Don’t be overly personal or casual.
Don’t use the exact same cover letter for different positions/companies – we can tell when you do that and it makes you look lazy.
Don’t forget to change your “objective” to match the position for which you are applying. If you are applying for a Business Analyst role – the objective should include something about being a Business Analyst (not QA Analyst). You may be applying for roles with different titles, make sure each resume matches each position for which you’re applying.
Don’t use an unprofessional email address – your application will not be taken seriously for a management role with bubblebunny@xxxx.com as your email address.
Don’t forget to modify your voice mail message when you are on the job hunt. Many managers will call you to see what kind of phone manner you have. If it’s casual, includes music, uses slang, or anything of the like – you will most likely not be invited in for an interview.
Don’t have any incriminating posts on any of your social networking pages! Hiring managers check these sites to see if they can get a sneak peek at potential candidates. If there is a picture of you doing a keg stand on your facebook page, you have probably just ruined your chance for an interview. Change your pages, pictures and posts to be minimal and professional. When you work for a company, you represent them even on your down time – managers want to know that you will be a good ambassador of their firm.

If you’ve gone at least a week without any acknowledgement regarding receipt of your resume, it’s perfectly fine to follow up on your application, provided you don’t bombard the person with nagging emails. A simple “I’m emailing to enquire about the status of my resume” will do just fine.

If after that, you still don’t hear back, it probably wasn’t the job for you. At that time it may be best to move on and set your sights on another opportunity.

Is a Facebook Fan Page Appropriate for My Company?

I often hear this question from clients. It is asked because Facebook is still perceived by many to be a social networking site where only young people gather to communicate with one another. This perception most likely exists because Facebook membership was once limited to college students before it opened it up to anyone aged 13 and over nearly two years after its launch in 2004. Today, three years after they opened the floodgates to everyone, Facebook has more than 250 million active users worldwide and they include college students, professionals, celebrities, world leaders, and you guessed it – companies.

In case you’re asking yourself what a fan page is, let me explain. On top of user profiles, Facebook offers two networking tools: groups and pages. According to Facebook, a group is meant to be created around shared topics of interest and is application-based, requiring users to add the application to their profile to become part of the group. A Facebook page is a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users – who by the click of a button can become fans, allowing them to interact and receive notifications when you update the page. Pages, unlike groups, are visible to unregistered people, which allow them to be indexed by search engines – an important feature for SEO. For the most part, pages are more practical for a brand’s marketing plan.

If your company is already engaged in social media, then a Facebook fan page most likely is a smart addition to your online marketing efforts. If you are thinking about getting involved in social media, a Facebook fan page is a great place to start. Here are three questions you can ask yourself to help understand whether or not the fan page is appropriate for your business:

Does our target audience use Facebook?
Before attempting to answer this question, reassess your “target audience” by expanding it to not only include your customers and potential customers, but also anyone who is in the industry and is present in the online space around your subject matter – think of them more as your “online audience”. The more people that can help spark conversation on the page will help enhance exposure to a broader group, which in turn can attract more customers. And with a network of over 250 million users, it’s likely a large number of your customers are on Facebook.

Do we have the content to create a resource?
Convincing users to become fans requires your page to offer valuable content that presents itself as a resource that will help keep them informed. Conduct a quick audit to identify industry news, articles, expert advice pieces, upcoming events, and current marketing assets that you will be able to leverage on the page. If you have information that will benefit your target audience and are able to share it, a fan page is an appropriate and effective spot for it.

Are we set up to manage the channel?
Retaining your fan base requires an ongoing effort to manage the page. Starting discussions, encouraging participation, and facilitating the conversion will help keep fans interested and attract new users. Be sure to have a strategic plan in place and a representative or a team designated to carry out the strategy before launch.

If you answered yes to the three questions, then hit the ground running after you have a go-to strategy in place.

Also, keep in mind that the Facebook fan page compliments SEO and brand reputation management. With Facebook’s recent announcement of their Vanity URL program, which allows you to create a unique, search-friendly URL for your page; and the Facebook Fan Box, which allows you to embed a mini-version of the fan page on your website, this channel is positioned to gain more visibility and drive more traffic.

Breaking the Content Barrier: Relevant Content for Your Sites

Relevant content generation has vital implications for search engine visibility and usefulness of your sites to your customers. And this fact is something that is now widely recognized. But for an often-talked-about area of website optimization, “relevant content creation” is surprisingly ill-defined.

Search-friendly content generation can be more involved and nebulous than other types of optimization, since it involves applying basic search principles and metrics to an otherwise freeform and creative art. But it isn’t that difficult to provide guidelines for how to generate effective content for your site.

But before we talk about some tips for how to create this content, let’s quickly discuss what we are attempting to do with it. As I see it, this sort of non-essential site content has two goals, one human-oriented and one machine-oriented.

Human: Relevant content needs to be just that: relevant to your business, your market, your technologies. It should be something that people coming to your site, through whatever means, find interesting and enticing. And ideally, it should be something they forward on to their friends, coworkers, or associates. This means it has to be attractive to humans, something well-conceived and well-written, not just a jumble of jargon and search keyphrases.

Machine: But generated content also has to be judged to be relevant by an algorithm that thinks in keywords and keyphrases. Search algorithms try to determine the meaning of text by analyzing groups of consecutive words, and determining the frequencies with which those words are used in the context of the other words in that group. Which means that while you can write the content however you want, it will be most effective if you keep keywords and keyphrases in mind while writing it. Specifically, you want to include keywords and keyphrases that people would use to look for your products, services, or related information.

So this may seem kind of daunting, writing for two vastly different audiences at the same time. But there are some easy strategies to get started, and to keep content flowing to your site.

Stay current: You know what’s going on in your product or service area right now. You have to stay on top of new developments and trends, because your business depends on it. So write about that. Comment on news items that have importance to your business. You have a particular critical opinion in your area that is of value to others, so take advantage of it. And if there is a buzz about something in a particular area, it’s more likely people will be searching for information about it.
Important for: Humans, Machines

Use your staff: Don’t leave relevant content creation simply to your marketers. Get anyone involved who has something to share about their part of the business. The more broad your base of contributors is, the more likely you are to have something that appeals to your users. And having lots of contributors from different parts of the business means a broad keyword base.
Important for: Humans, Machines

“Relevant” doesn’t mean dry: This is a common sense one, but it’s important to remember all the same. It may not matter to search engines, but making your articles at least entertaining, and even better accessible, is going to make them more popular with readers. By all means put up some highly technical content if you feel it is something that would be of great use to your users, but technical and interesting is going to do better than technical and dull. Have a hook, keep it light but serious, have fun with it.
Important for: Humans

Write with a keyphrase in mind: If you plan your article around a keyphrase from the start, it makes it easier to incorporate that phrase compared with shoehorning it in at the end. It’ll help you stay focused on your goals, and using that phrase a few times in your article will help it show up on search engines.
Important for: Machines

Check twice, publish once: Again, common sense: make sure you check over what you are writing. Mistakes can be embarrassing, and can adversely affect visitors’ opinions of your content.
Important for: Humans

With these suggestions to guide you, you should be able to produce useful content in-house. You have all of your staff’s expertise to draw on, and if you keep responding to current events, you can have a continuing supply of new content.

As a further strategy for content-creation success, you might offer incentives for people who write in order to keep content flowing. Another option is to hire a content writer to produce content for you, particularly if no one in your business has the time free to write content. Their efforts can be invaluable, but be aware that content writers are expensive, and are unlikely to know your market, your products, and your business better than your company’s employees. Dedicated content writers can be an effective part of a content creation strategy, but employee-driven content is an efficient way to supply much of your content needs.

So break the barrier between your company and consistent, relevant content updates. Get working on your content-creation strategy.

And if you found this content relevant, well, you know the idea . . .

Code Like a Pro with ReSharper

Have you ever felt like you need someone to look after your code so you can improve your coding style? Do you strive to write code that allows other developers to work on your project without hassle? Using ReSharper by Jet Brains, will make you feel as if you have your own personal C#/VB.NET trainer sitting beside you while you’re working.

Below I’ve outlined features of ReSharper that I've used and recommend:

Code Analysis & Suggestions

Out-of-the-box you will see a new column on the right (Marker Bar) that displays the status about whether the file or the solution contains any warnings, errors, or inefficiencies without having to compile.

Errors - ReSharper instantly inspects the compiler errors without having to compile.

Warnings - ReSharper displays warnings that guard against any serious coding inefficiencies or compile errors.

Suggestions - ReSharper will always present suggestions to improve your coding skills; sometimes it may feel like its overly suggestive, but this feature can always be customized.

Code Refactoring

ReSharper provides a series of tools and methods far superior to the out-of-the-box Visual Studio features. It allows you to change the code structure without changing its external behavior. For example, if you change the filename of your class, ReSharper searches for all usage of the class and modifies every possible reference to reflect the change.

Coding Assistance

ReSharper will auto-populate the namespaces when the type name doesn't get resolved. You can pick and choose the appropriate namespace or if there is only one, all you have to do is press "Alt+Enter", and then that namespace import directive will be inserted for you.

Coding Cleanup

ReSharper allows you to optimize Namespace Import Directives, so you can easily see and remove the redundant import directives providing you cleaner and more readable code.

ReSharper also allows you to configure and share your coding style with your team members so the code will be more consistent while promoting easier site maintenance in the future.

That being said, these are just the main features that I use on a daily basis. You can check out the full feature set by downloading the 30 day free trial at JetBrains.com.

The Client’s Guide to Web Design

Are you excited about your project but anxious about how your ideas are going to be executed? Is it difficult to come to an agreement between you and your design team on what you want for your site? If your answer is yes, then you aren’t alone.

One of the greatest challenges in web design is getting the customer and the designers to understand each other. With proper communication and clear expectations, web design projects can be incredibly successful and satisfying, while also being on-budget and on-time.

Your product’s schedule isn’t totally in the hands of your vendor: it has a lot to do with what you need, how often those needs are revised, and how clear you are about those revisions. So what can you do to keep your project from running longer than originally anticipated? The key is to reduce friction, frustration, and anxiety. After all, having your hired development team pulling their hair out isn’t a recipe for a satisfactory business relationship.

But to really understand what designers are shooting for in a project relationship, you need to know what they are trying to avoid. Because designers and clients come from different backgrounds, this industry often sees clients that fit into one of two categories. Some of them don’t know what they want—these clients can be tricky to work with because the designers are left with a field that’s too open; but some good cooperative conversation and counseling can usually result in an effective and satisfactory project. Others only know what they want when they see it—or don’t see it, as the case may be: they can’t articulate what they want, but they have a complex and fully-formed notion of what their project is going to end up like.

So the key to improving your relationship with your design team is to be articulate about your wants and needs. Become part of the storied third category of client, the ones who know what they want and are able to describe it.

But you aren’t a web design professional, and so you don’t speak the same language as your design team? No problem! Here are some tips to make achieving a successful project just a little bit easier.

1. Come to the table with an idea: When you go to consult with the team developing your project, bring an idea with you. Be able to state clearly what your goals are, what needs you are trying to fill, and what functionality you expect. A competent resource-gathering team should be able to help you come up with all this information; and even though it may have to be re-evaluated at various times during the project, having an idea of what you need from the start will ease the design process and help quell misunderstandings.

2. Do your research ahead of time: If you are looking for a site design, don’t come to the table empty-handed. Look around at competitors or at sites in general, and prepare a list of sites you like, sites you don’t like, and why. This useful strategy is rarely applied, and incredibly helpful if you have difficulty explaining what you are looking for. Relevant examples of things you like and dislike, even if you can’t quite explain why, can get rid of a lot of headaches—as well as hair-loss in the design department. If you can describe in clear design-language what you want your site to look like, then you are a rare individual. For the rest of us, being able to direct the design department to liked and disliked sites can be a boon for making sure the final look and feel of the site is achieved successfully, on-budget, and on-time.

3. Understand the purpose of IA’s and functional specs: These documents are designed to keep your expectations in line with those of your project team. The information architecture outlines the pages and functionality of your site and the functional spec covers the features of your entire project. Watch these documents carefully. Correct any mistakes in your shared versions of these documents, and be thorough in your review before approving them. Always ensure your IA accurately represents the way you see your site operating. The IA is critical for the designers of your site to use in establishing page layouts and functionality. Errors can be costly to fix later down the road.

4. Avoid document misunderstandings and conflicts: Be aware that if both you and your developer have issued functional specs or IA’s, the developer’s are considered the working documents unless otherwise noted. If you have features on your spec that you want built, make sure to get them on the developer’s version as soon as possible. Do not expect the developer to build your site based on your versions of the documents.

5. Be judicious with your features: Only you can keep your project costs from spiraling out of control! Don’t blame the developer if your project specification process results in an over-budget project. Know the features that you need from the ones that you simply want. Be ready to compromise some of your functionality if you have a definite budget to stay within. Web design companies are used to working with a wide variety of clients, some with much larger budgets than others. To provide all the features you want, they can easily spec a project beyond your price point, but will also be very happy to work with you to decide which features are most important, and help get the project down to a workable figure. Keep a firm hand on your budget, and work with your developer to produce the project that’s right for you, and prioritizes the features that are most vital to the success of your venture.

Keeping these simple tips in mind, you should be able to have a better experience with web developers. And many of these tips are applicable in other areas too.

Minimizing misunderstandings will improve how you feel about your own project and the group that built it, and could save you time and money along the way.

So bring those ideas and examples to the table, using the best way that works for you. On behalf of web-developers everywhere: Our hair will thank you!

Google Apps: Email, Calendaring and Collaboration

Small businesses often find themselves at the inadvertent crossroads of implementing a new email service or upgrading their own. In the past, it was customary to have Microsoft Exchange installed on a Windows server that was hosted in house. In recent years, other options have surfaced and more affordable, hassle free alternatives are being considered by emerging and mid-sized companies.

One product that is challenging Microsoft Exchange is Google Apps. Google Apps is a suite of applications that was designed for the browser. The easy-to-use product offers access to email, calendaring, instant messaging, and video conferencing among others. Google Apps does not require any installation or maintenance and is competitively priced per user on a monthly or annual basis.

The Google Docs feature, which is included in the suite at no extra charge, allows users to work simultaneously in real-time on editing documents, spreadsheets or presentations. The feature also offers predesigned, customizable document templates which can be easily published through the web.

The Google Mobile feature, also included in the suite, offers free connectivity to your Blackberry, iPhone, Treo, Palm, or Windows Mobile device and many smart phones as well.

For some, the idea of switching email services is uncomfortable and intimidating. But, if your employees are comfortable using web applications, then a switch to Google Apps could be a seamless transition for your company.

Comparing Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange

There are multiple similarities between Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange. They both offer email services, spam filtering, multiple domains (per account), email archival and web interfaces.

They have several differences as well. Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange differ in storage space, cost, document collaboration, chat features, video features, mobile phone integration and more.

Another thing to mention is that almost all smart phones have a built-in application for Microsoft Exchange, however not Google Apps. You can bet one will be developed for the suite in the near future though.

Are You Set On Your Collaboration System?

If you find yourself caught at the crossroads of email services, consider Google Apps as an aggressive option to Microsoft Exchange. The product is affordable, reliable and browser-based. It delivers quality features to your desktop (or phone) and offers multiple applications that reflect business professionalism without the hassle of rebooting your email server several times a week.

On Cloud Nine with Salesforce CRM

Many businesses have integrated web-based applications into their day-to-day operations. Web-based applications serve many business needs and offer real-time reporting and access to anyone with an internet connection – one of the beauties of cloud computing. To no surprise, many companies are turning to the web-based Salesforce product to handle their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) needs.

Enhancing Office Efficiency

Salesforce is enhancing office efficiency and customer relations for big and small companies all around the world. The Salesforce platform has changed how sales and marketing professionals complete tasks and interact with customers. Tracking a sale back to its very first connection with your business will only positively influence the process of your next lead. What is more efficient than that?

The Salesforce automation solution, also known as the “service cloud,” is setting a higher standard for customer service and account management. With easy accessibility and customization, Salesforce simplifies analytic reporting and eliminates software implementation.

Companies are using Salesforce to manage leads and accounts, schedule contacts and deliverables, process analytic reports, and track total spend. With 44,156 custom applications, it has become a powerful decision-making tool.

Salesforce allows different departments to work off the same data and follow marketing efforts from beginning to end. It instantly becomes the driver of all customer information. According to Salesforce.com, companies have reported a 25% increase in customer satisfaction and a 52% increase in lead volume. The results have proven that Salesforce can enumerate your sales and marketing efforts.

The Salesforce Platform: No Infrastructure Necessary

Salesforce requires simple integration that entails low costs, but it cannot be leveraged unless it is properly used and backed by ongoing technical support. The web-based platform is secure and scalable. It contains development and integration tools which give businesses the ability to customize existing deployments, build entirely new applications, integrate with third-party applications and download custom software from the marketplace, all without having to maintain software. This also means the service is easily accessible, in that users can access the system anywhere with an internet connection or even on a mobile device.

Salesforce brings benefits to every department across companies of all industries. It allows administrators to monitor the activity of their sales team and helps the sales team prioritize and utilize lead information. It lets controllers in on potential sales dollars and really puts the whole team on the same page. Client information is less confusing and never overlapping.

Salesforce can offer your company a marketplace of business applications readily available. With this innovative solution you are guaranteed to generate on-demand success, surpassing competitors.

The Importance of a Functional Specification Document

Yes, functional specifications are long and often complex documents, but they are well worth the time. A great analogy often used to express the documents importance is building a house. You have two options: 1.) Hire a construction crew and let them decide how everything will be built, or 2.) hire an architect that will create a blueprint of your needs and personal preferences. It’s that simple. Because we wouldn’t build our home without a customized blueprint, we wouldn’t want to build a website without proper functional documentation.

Functional specifications give clients and development partners an overview of the functionality that is going to be built into a website. This ensures that both parties are on the same page and expectations are accurately set prior to any development work beginning. The detailed document encompasses all the attributes and functionality from an end-user point of view and explains how people will interact with each part of the website. It also allows for the detection of errors as well as overlooked functionality that was not conceived before the documentation stage.

As a business analyst who writes functional specifications, I frequently bring up questions during the writing phase that should be resolved by the project teams before ever going into development. Typically, the derived questions and functionality gaps touch on a broad range of business, design and technical issues. Without a functional specification, the discovery of these elements would be nonexistent.

In terms of project productivity, efficiency and flexibility the functional specification provides the framework for an accurate timeline. It eliminates concerns and questions about design and development which allows stakeholders to focus on what they do best. Clients know exactly what they’re going to get and developers now have a road map of functionality for development. Additionally, costly last-minute fixes and associated change orders are eliminated or minimized during the implementation phase.

Finally and most importantly, it provides a centralized view of the agreed upon functionality where each person involved in the project can measure results.

Developing the Warm Lead

The world of sales is fast-paced and results-oriented. In order to get in front of potential clients you have to be resourceful and strategic about how you interact with your leads. Going down a list of phone numbers that you found on the internet can certainly keep you busy, but these are cold leads. The key to a successful sale is getting in front of someone that is already looking for your product or service - by developing the warm lead.

A warm lead is a professional that is in the market for your service or product and has already expressed interest in doing business. It is much easier to convert a warm lead into its next stage than a cold one. Conversations run smoother, new ideas are more easily embraced, and conversions are more frequent. Knowing how to generate the warm lead is the challenge that many companies face. If you find that your warm lead volume is low, the first place you may want to take a look at is your marketing efforts.

The Warming Process

The way your company is marketing its service or product may be disabling potential leads from surfacing. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) are two great ways to develop warm leads because you can track both campaigns as well as the quality of leads they generate - Let’s face it, before anyone makes a purchase they do their research first, and the first place they turn to will likely be a search engine. By exercising SEO and PPC, it will put your product or service in front of more eyes, and open gates for them to contact your organization thus becoming a warm lead.

Warm leads are not always actionable today but will remain positive leads for the future. Keeping warm lead information well-organized is essential during the lead-to-conversion process. Every time you contact a lead you should keep detailed notes describing the conversations that take place. Who knows? They could be the perfect candidate for a product your company offers down the road, and the best part is: they already know you.

Converting Warm Leads to Hot

The goal is not to collect the most sales leads but to obtain the ones that convert. Once you have developed the warm lead it is important to follow up, you usually will not know the perfect time for the lead to convert, so follow up incrementally. An active warm lead is one that you are currently prospecting in hopes to close a sale.

Converting a warm lead into a hot one brings you one step closer to the positive result. Positioning yourself ahead of the prospect will amplify your confidence level and mirror your professionalism.

Developing a warm lead puts you in front of prospective clients that are already interested in your product or service, and then it’s your time to shine. This progressive strategy puts you in the driver’s seat with willing passengers, and allows you to do what you do best - bring in the sales.

We’re Tweeting Live From

It’s widely accepted that the most valuable aspect of Twitter is the ability to share information in real-time. If there is an event or news story that people are interested in following, they can tune in to the Twitter channel to receive the latest updates. Businesses and organizations can leverage Twitter by updating their Twitter feed from a smartphone with on-the-scene information from events they are attending or places their audience has an interest in.

Parade Detours, Sneak Peeks of the Dining Room, and Tradeshow Tweets

The Boston Police Department launched its Virtual Community earlier this year, which includes crime reports, a text-a-tip service, and a Twitter page that is actively managed. The goal of the virtual community is to provide timely information to individuals who take interest in their neighborhoods. Tweets are posted 24 hours a day and range from live updates on stolen bikes, missing persons, road closings, and daily incident summaries. The Twitter feed got its test in March during the annual St Patrick’s Day parade, which always requires a major police presence for the swelling crowd. Followers were able to get live updates on street closings and reopenings, where force was being used, and other helpful information. The BPD is one of the first police departments in the country to launch a social networking campaign of this magnitude and other city departments are sure to follow.

Restaurants take advantage of the opportunities Twitter presents to them by keeping their audience informed on what’s going on during special events or parties, what the nightly special is, or how the current scene is looking. Post 390 is a restaurant that opened in Boston’s Back Bay just a couple of weeks ago, but launched its social media campaign months ago. Nicole Barrick, Post 390’s Director of Marketing began uploading pictures of the bar and restaurant to Facebook and Twitter to give Fans and Followers a sneak peak of the anticipated restaurant’s opening. Before the doors even opened, Post 390’s Twitter account had over 200 followers and almost one thousand Facebook fans. Recent tweets have included what the scene is looking like at different points in the night and drink suggestions if you decide to make an appearance.

Twittering from tradeshows and large conferences is becoming more and more ubiquitous among attendees. At SMX (Search Marketing Expo) events, participants flood the twittersphere with updates from live sessions, panels, and conversations they’re having with industry leaders such as Google’s Matt Cutts and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. Savvy users apply “#smx” to their tweets to help SMX become a trending topic and allow Twitter users to search for SMX-related tweets in the search box. For people at the conference, Twitter can help them decide which panel to visit next, and those who are not attending can receive streaming updates on industry advice.

Putting it into Action

Whether it’s a traffic detour, a dessert special, or tweet about an interesting conversation with an industry expert, your audience will value your “breaking tweets”. It proves you are active in your field and offer a valuable source of up to date information. So the next time you see, hear or read something interesting while you’re on the go, share it with your online audience.

Google Social Search

Social networking has proven to be a valuable tool for sharing information, but what about accessing it? Whether you realize it or not your network of social media connections gives you access to an extended social circle. Why not leverage these connections for information?

Google recently launched a social search feature in Google Labs that will display publically available web content found in your social circle that is relevant to your search.

How is your social circle defined?

Your social circle includes any of your Gchat buddies, Gmail contacts and any other social networking connections like Facebook, Twitter, etc, which Google asks you to associate in your Google Profile. Once your profile is updated, social media content can be displayed in the SERP.

For example, if you are interested in traveling to Aruba and you type it in as a search term, the social search tool may display pictures of Aruba pulled from your friend’s Facebook page. The social search results are displayed at the bottom of the page and could also include blogs, Twitter status updates and more.

The Future of Search

If your search is more personalized, more pertinent information will surface. It will be interesting to see how the current state of search transforms in the future.

With Bing constantly challenging Google in every way, including their recent relationship with Twitter, we are sure to see emerging features in the near future. Stay tuned.

How to Choose the Right CMS

Consider your company website your online window display. If a client gets to your store front and turns away, you immediately lose a sale. Your website’s content should be well-managed so that it captures your audience from the moment the landing page is revealed.

Businesses and organizations of all sizes are turning to the web content management system (CMS) to help manage their online content. It has become one of the most cost-effective ways to obtain immediate access to every aspect of the company website.

While the CMS web application makes creating, editing and storing HTML content simple and easy, it can be difficult to find the right CMS that is going to be effective for your company. The goal should be to find a CMS that is going to allow you to focus more on the content and design of the website and less on the actual implementation of the functionalities.

What to look for in a CMS

First, find a system that gives you the ability to structure content. The system you select should never restrict you from creative development. The Kentico CMS has become a great player in the mid-market because it offers a wealth of out-of-box features and is affordable at the same time. It’s important to have the flexibility to respond to changing market conditions and the Kentico platform makes this easy to do.

Secondly, find a system that allows you to track traffic patterns and integrate small-scale search engine optimization (SEO) solutions. Sitecore is a CMS that has great SEO capabilities and is easy to use as well as integrate with third party applications.

Lastly, choose a CMS that is easy to use. Usability can make or break your CMS experience. Not all content management systems are built with the administrator and content author in mind and you certainly want a CMS that your employees are able to master.

CMS Best Practices

Plan ahead. It’s important to work with a professional that is an expert in the CMS field. They should provide you with the right Information Architecture (IA) and technical architecture as well. They can also help you with content types; recommending which are appropriate and where they should go on your website.

Demo first. Use the software before you purchase it. You can normally try the CMS during a trial period which will allow you to experience the program first-hand. You can read about it and hear good things about it but nothing is as valuable as using the software before committing to that particular solution.

Making the CMS Choice

Most importantly, you should find a CMS that is very good at what your website does. In other words, define the functionality of your website and choose a CMS that is very good at that particular function. Whether its blogging, videos, images, or audio that your website does best, make sure your CMS can perform that job very well.

Choosing the right CMS for your website can be challenging but it doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many options available but you have to know what to look for and your budget. After all, implementing a CMS can save you money down the road, but you want to make sure its being effective as well.

Firefox 3.5.4 Updates Security Bugs and Stability Issues

Attention all Firefox users! Mozilla recently remedied several reoccurring security issues by upgrading the browser to a new version called Firefox 3.5.4. New features were not added to the browser but security vulnerabilities were fixed and stability updates were made.

According to the Firefox 3.5 Release Notes, the updated browser will repair several problems with importing downloads, viewing browser history, and much more. For the complete list of changes visit Mozilla’s bug list.

The security upgrade is available for download and is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

On another note, Mozilla is in the process of releasing the first beta of Firefox 3.6, which will be an even newer version with added features. The new browser is expected to have a more personalized and customizable look.

International Domain Names to Impact the Internet

Non-Latin characters were recently introduced to the world of domain names by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN has said it will be “the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created.”

The ICANN oversees domains, registrations, Internet Protocol addresses, and many other features of the net. They have been trying to implement “International Domain Names” or “IDNs” for quite some time now but only recently moved forward with the execution. The implementation process will begin as early as November 16, 2009.

Domain names will now comprise of an additional 100 international character sets included in languages from all over the world such as Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. Currently, the World Wide Web uses the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and the numbers 0-9.

The idea behind the addition of the new characters is to incorporate the millions of people who don’t normally use Roman characters. Initially, the change will only apply to government domain names which consist of about 40% of websites.

Once the process begins, nations and territories can apply for internet extensions specific to their national language. When the application is accepted they can then begin to register new web addresses.

Over 100,000 characters of the world’s languages are about to transform the face of the internet. The impact of this change shall be determined.

The Methodology of Requirements Planning

Why make assumptions on the road when you can follow a road map? The methodology behind requirements planning for website and web application development is to minimize risks and variables of a project so that deliverables are executed efficiently. The optimal time to do this is at the beginning of the project.

From a consulting standpoint, there are a number of components that must be addressed before a project can transition into a design or development phase. It is important for both parties to validate the requirements that should drive the overall project so that expectations are met when the project is executed. This is where requirements planning comes into play. It is the first phase involving market research, competitive analysis, and end user requirements that ultimately defines the overall scope of the project.

The Requirements Definition Process

Every requirements engagement begins with a thorough business discovery session which ultimately outlines the main goals and focus of the project. After determining the objectives of the web project, the persona development aspect of the requirements planning process is addressed. This essentially defines the audience groups that will be visiting the website and using the web application.

Once all of the information is gathered and documented an Information Architecture (IA) is created to organize the basic functionalities for the web application. High Fidelity Prototypes are then created to demonstrate the way in which the functionality will be structured on pages throughout the web site. One of the final components of the process is the Third-Party System Audit and Review where the integration of the developed software with third-party platforms is tested. Finally, the Software Review and Selection aspect of the planning process takes a look at other software applications that could be leveraged that meet some or all of the goals outlined through the planning process.

Three Pillars of a Project

Normally, there are three elements to a project that drive it to its successful conclusion - budget, timeline and the functional scope. One element can influence the project more than another but it’s usually a combination of the three.

Defining a budget for development projects helps you allocate dollars towards different aspects of the overall deliverable as well as supplies an accurate cost projection. Developing a timeline creates a general understanding of the completion date and sets the pace of the project. Scope definition identifies project requirements and sets the baseline for performance measurement. All three elements are interchangeable. Quite often the budget restricts the scope or the scope affects the timeline. The challenge is making them all work together to create an end product that meets everyone’s expectations.

The Challenges of Requirements Planning

Budgets and timelines are usually the most frequent obstacles that are faced during the requirements planning process. The challenge of managing a limited budget and expeditious project completion is difficult because sacrificing quality is not an option.

Despite these challenges, the planning process is a critical component to web development. Without a plan set into place, you run the risk of creating a contentious working relationship between the parties involved. The requirements definition does not have to be extensive as long as you create a core foundation for your web development. You can always return as budget or timeline permits and extend the core as needed.

The requirements planning process sets the plan into motion and gets everyone on board, minimizing road bumps and maximizing dollars spent - ensuring you reach your final destination.

The Golden Rules of Supporting a Website

When time and money is spent supporting your corporate website, a proficient process should be put into place. A set process mitigates risk and ensures that all aspects of the website comply with each other. Consistency is also something to strive for when working on multiple support tasks that impact different sections of the website. Simply following a set of golden rules, while performing website maintenance, can keep your efforts process-oriented and consistent while maintaining a high level of quality.

There are six golden rules of supporting a website that can set the foundation of a methodical procedure. They are listed below:

Properly Define Requested Changes. Updates that are requested should be accurately defined and thoroughly documented. There should be no opportunity for miscommunication.

Identify Regression Issues Related to Changes Prior to Starting the Work. All requested updates should be reviewed to ensure that implementation will not affect other aspects of the site. Understanding the impact changes will have on other areas of a website or other web assets that rely on certain functionality from the supported website is critical.

Ensure Compliance with Technical and Creative Design Standards. Changes that are implemented should comply with the design and technical aspects of the site. Having a defined style guide and technical architecture greatly improves the consistency of website changes over time. As time goes by, the risk of inconsistencies greatly increases. By having formal documents in place that support teams can lean on is extremely beneficial.

Document Change. Ensure that all updates are documented where appropriate. Unless your website will always be maintained by the same development company or support staff, keeping up with documentation is critical. Updating information architecture diagrams, style guides, hosting requirements and technical architecture documents is highly recommended.

Track Code Updates. Utilize software, such as Subversion Source Control or Microsoft’s Visual Source Safe, which documents and saves the full history of code changes. Having a safety net to roll back changes and understand what changes took place to particular files is a must.

Change Log. All parties involved in the changes should be logging notes related to the update in a central repository. Anything related to the requested changes including: impact analysis, time requirements, developers involved in the change, deviations from standards and general communications associated with the change should be noted.

Website Support Best Practices

By following these best practices you are sure to execute high-quality website support and maintenance. A well-defined and executed support and maintenance program can extend the life of your website, greatly reduce cost and accurately represent your organization to the visiting audience.

Google Caffeine to Roll Out After the Holidays

Google Caffeine, the search giant’s secret project, is officially in testing mode and going live in its first datacenter very soon. The developer’s preview of the new search tool in the Google Sandbox was launched back in August but little feedback has been heard about the pre-beta release.

The new search engine is engineered so that the average user won’t notice any changes; however, power users may detect a slight difference, which is why there was a power-use preview released first.

“Fundamentally, it’s a rewrite of our indexing system,” said Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google. “If you want to have a good search engine you have to crawl really well, you have to index really well and then you have to serve it up really fast.”

Google Caffeine will set a powerful foundation for Google’s future indexing changes. To put the project into perspective, the new search tool is comparable to the Big Daddy update that happened in late 2005. Once it reaches the right level of quality it will most likely expand out to other datacenters.

The following differences were found by web developers and power searchers who tested Google Caffeine.

More results show on the results page
Sites appear to have higher page rankings
Search results save to html files in the sandbox rather than a pdf file
Search results appear faster
Search results are more relevant
Sites that link from news, media, social networks, and content-oriented links are ranking higher than sites that have directory links

The full Caffeine roll out is expected to happen in early 2010. Matt Cutts talks about Google Caffeine on his blog, if you are interested in learning more.

Total Cost of Ownership

In an economic environment where cash is tight, tolerance for risk-taking is low, and demand for payback is high, business and IT leaders alike can struggle desperately with understanding what the total cost of ownership (TCO) is for their web development initiatives….not to mention whether the returns on those technology investments are worth the use of company cash. Leaders can grow bewildered over:

Understanding the various types of costs that come with a technology investment. What are all the cost components? What sort of labor, hardware, software, and training costs are required for the IT initiative?
Knowing what benefits the technology investment will generate. What are the specific improvements that the IT initiative will bring? Are they productivity-based, revenue-based, cost savings-based, or a combination of some or all?
Estimating how long costs and benefits will be expected to last. Will costs and benefits be one time or recurring? If they’re recurring, how long will they last, and will they fluctuate over time?
Figuring out ways to account for risk. How can risk be accounted for? What is the impact of risk on the IT investment as a whole?

Undoubtedly, understanding the TCO for any type of technology project can be time-consuming and highly complex. To help unravel the intricacies of web development TCO, Verndale suggests business and IT leaders follow a six step process.

Think strategically about your IT investments before funding them. Any business initiative begins with a strategy. Before selecting or implementing a solution, define what your business goals are and how the technology will support them. Having a well-articulated, clearly defined strategy at the outset will greatly assist you and your team in defining parameters around the solution you pursue, as well as narrowing in on its TCO.
Wrangle down high-level project scope. Attack scope definition by discussing functionality requirements across business units, and identifying areas of cross-over needs. By identifying cross-over areas, leaders can begin to prioritize functionality, sketch-out project scope, and detail solution requirements.
Define a time period that measures project value. In general, IT projects tend to have a useful life of 5-7 years before a major re-investment initiative -- like an application upgrade or re-platforming effort -- is required. Valuing the project over a 5-7 year timeframe helps organizations understand costs over the long haul and reins in benefits over a shorter period so that IT initiatives aren’t underestimated or benefit expectations misjudged.
Itemize and group costs and benefits. Nearly all IT investment costs can be broken down into four major categories: labor, hardware, software, and training. Labor costs can be further broken down into multiple, activity cost sub-categories like: requirements gathering, core development, systems integration, and system configuration. Similarly, benefits can be broken down into three major categories: revenue increases, productivity gains, and cost savings. And like labor costs, the benefits categories can be broken down further by labor activities used to generate positive results: like increased deal throughput for increased revenues, or reduced activity costs for order processing.
Adjust for risk. In any project where future costs and benefits are being anticipated or forecasted, there’s always an element of future risk that can derail the project’s expected value. After identifying the benefits and costs, set aside ranges of probability for each of those benefits and costs. Measure anticipated benefits as a range (like 75- 100%) as a starting point. Conversely, costs are often underestimated in IT project TCO….sometimes drastically. To avoid this type of pitfall, consider that your initial cost estimates are actually the “best case”. Then create a “worst case” upper range that captures what’s possible…but not highly unlikely (like 150-200%).
Challenge and revise assumptions. After you’ve built your TCO model, review it with other stakeholders within your organization to validate and refine assumptions. Other reviewers’ input can help you stress-test the model and zero-in on accuracy so that you and your firm have a strong level of confidence that the TCO model depicts your IT project’s costs and benefits accurately.

Forecasting the future is always difficult and rarely precise. By strategizing business intent, scoping high-level project requirements, and vetting out assumptions amongst peers, organizations can make better IT project decisions with increased levels of certainty and comfort. Use Verndale’s six step TCO process as an initial framework to help you manage and understand the TCO of your technology investment.

The Five Hidden Benefits of Enterprise Search

In the most simplistic of terms, the functionality of enterprise search is often thought of as a basic “search and retrieval” tool. In actuality, if the technology is used properly, enterprise search integration can provide your business with unified and actionable information that is aggregated from multiple systems and displayed on a single dashboard. Enterprise search can also provide customers with access to a self-service functionality that ultimately creates an improved experience for its users.

If you’re like most emerging and mid-size businesses, you’ve got data strewn across your enterprise infrastructure, including: CRM, Email, Intranet, Finance, Operations, etc. Enterprise search solutions, like Coveo, can provide you with access to the most relevant information to your job function – when you need it – regardless of where it is stored across the enterprise. The data does not even have to be copied or moved.

Besides delivering the most current and up-to-date content, the intuitive and helpful technology offers a wide range of services that has proven to be valuable for many companies.

Here are five examples of the myriad of benefits of enterprise search:

E-Commerce – Use enterprise search to create contextual references to content and information that will improve the user experience and product sales by cross-selling. You can also utilize the technology to support complex buying processes by aggregating content from various sources. Additionally, provide improved self-service and ticket support by supplying customers and agents with an aggregate account portal that displays information from multiple systems.
Multimedia Search – Leverage enterprise search to find multimedia content stored in your enterprise infrastructure. With some solutions, like Coveo, you can even generate searchable transcripts of video content that can be leveraged for their SEO benefits in the public domain.
Mobile Access to Enterprise Content– Enterprise search offers fast and secure mobile browser access to email, documents, and system data, without the need for costly add-on applications.
Compliance and Litigation – In a corporate world of increasing regulation, enterprise search can play a critical role in the implementation and adherence to compliance policies. In the case of litigation, an enterprise search solution will provide quick access to potentially case-changing data stored in your enterprise infrastructure.
Salesforce and CRM Reporting – Consolidated data from emails, intranet, support and other enterprise systems give sales staff a complete account view. Report views can provide managers access to activities, opportunities, pipeline and more, which can be accessed from anywhere and from a single system.

Ultimately, enterprise search is critical for any knowledge-based business or industry. The solution not only improves internal and external access to data, but if implemented correctly, it will improve the value of that information as well.

According to Coveo, the average employee spends more than 20 percent of their time searching or recreating enterprise information - time that could be spent advancing broader company initiatives. Experience the true benefits of enterprise search and see how this user-friendly solution can enhance your company’s daily productivity.

Introducing the New Collaboration Cloud

Salesforce has introduced the world to the Salesforce Chatter platform, which combines real-time social networking and enterprise applications. The enterprise cloud computing company has gone social - and these days, “going social” means advancing office productivity and efficiency.

Salesforce Chatter utilizes the social networking models so that companies can collaborate in real-time while working within the enterprise. The Chatter platform, a secure, private network, encloses the gap between content, apps and people within an organization by leveraging the following features:

Profiles – Create a profile with contact information and personal work history
Status Updates – Inform employees what you are currently working on
Feeds – Real-time status updates are displayed in the Salesforce Chatter feed
Groups – Create groups for employees working on the same project
Social Apps – Relevant updates, such as a lead or alert, will be displayed on the feed
Social Content – Updates to business documents will be shared with employees
Social Sharing Model – Give access to certain employees for specific information
AppExchage – Make any native app social
Mobile – Utilize Salesforce Chatter on any Blackberry, Windows Mobile device or iPhone.
Facebook – Pull information from Facebook to the Chatter platform
Twitter – Filter the most pertinent information found on Twitter

“Twitter is based on the idea that the open exchange of information has a positive global impact; we see a lot of the same inspiration behind Chatter,” said Jason Goldman, Director of Products, Twitter. “We think it will enable employees to find more information, more quickly, from the people and content that matters most to them.”

The product will not be available until 2010 and the release date has yet to be revealed. Salesforce Chatter will be included in all paid editions of Salesforce CRM and Force.com but there will also be an additional $50 per user per month charge for the new Chatter Edition, which will include Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Content and Force.com.

You can read more in the Salesforce Chatter press release.

A Lesson on Aftermarket Domains

A few weeks ago a client asked me if purchasing an aftermarket/secondary market domain name would be valuable. In almost every case the answer is, yes - and informed buyers will pay less and enjoy better results.

Secondary market domains are domains that have already been registered, but may be available for sale by the current owner. There is also a niche within the secondary market that focuses on premium “category domains” or domains that represent a specific product or service category (i.e. flowers.com).

In recent years, the aftermarket domain space has taken off exponentially, but don’t expect to pay $10 for an aftermarket domain. Bookmarks.com was bought for $300,000, according to DomainAppraisal.org, which is minimal compared to the high cost of Business.com, which was sold for $8 million ten years ago. Costs of aftermarket domains are based on specific brand terms, age of a domain’s registration, and the incorporation of high search volume keywords.

While each case is unique, a secondary market domain may provide some of the following benefits:

Brand Control – Secure domains that include the name of your company and/or are shorter or easier to remember than your current domain. You may also choose to defensively secure longer variations and/or variants so that they cannot be acquired by another party.

Category Control – Securing a domain that represents the category of the product/service has proven to be a successful marketing technique. For example, HowStuffWorks.com is a go-to website for those seeking to understand complex terminology and mechanisms in easy-to-understand language. The intuitiveness of the domain name created a loyal audience and aided in strong search engine visibility on “how to” searches. HowStuffWorks was acquired by Discovery Communication in 2007 for $250 million.

Search Engine Ranking – Whether the focus is on brand, category, customer segment, or geo-targeting, a good domain name will monetize itself here. Search engines place algorithmic value on the keywords in a domain name as well as the domain age or “maturity.” A domain that is valued highly by the major search engines and has high-volume keywords will aid in ranking well for a specific search category. Both the latest incarnations of Google and Bing seem to place increased value on the domain name when returning results for industry or brand specific search terms.

Asset Value – A category domain and/or collection of branded domains are considered important acquisition asset’s for many small and mid-size businesses if they ever pursue an acquisition.

If you’re exploring an opportunity to purchase a brand or category domain, here are a few tips that should help guide the way:

Research – Use services like, www.domaintools.com and www.compete.com (also two great examples of category domains) to understand domain history and domain use or even to monitor domains you may be interested in acquiring. For category domains, use a tool like Google Adwords Keyword Tool to gauge search volume for a particular term.

Consider a Domain Appraisal/Acquisition Service – You may look to a group like www.sedo.com for their domain appraisal and acquisition services. For a reasonable fee, reputable groups like Sedo will conduct the complete negotiation on your behalf and even serve as a financial intermediary between buyer and seller.

Prepare to Pay More – Domains that are uniquely valuable to you will be more expensive. For instance, Verndale paid a premium over the standard appraisal value to secure the domain www.verndale.com from its previous owner. If we hadn’t, you would still be looking for us at www.verndalecorp.com

Know When to Hold 'em, Know When to Fold 'em – Like all informed business decisions, you can’t let emotion take control. Protracted negotiations and unreasonable sellers cloud the space and may keep good domains out of reach for anyone. So, when all else fails, go out and buy a previously nonsensical term like ‘Google’ or ‘Yahoo’ or’ Amazon’ and go build yourself a multi-billion dollar brand the hard way.

Experience Sitecore’s Online Marketing Suite (OMS)

The new Sitecore Online Marketing Suite (OMS) is accelerating sales and marketing initiatives for companies that are leveraging the Sitecore CMS. Released in June, 2009, the Sitecore product has been called a “breakthrough solution for organizations,” providing measurable results without the complexity of third-party integration. The suite is a solution package that extends the Sitecore CMS to provide advanced online marketing capabilities such as campaign management, web analytics, visitor profiling, multivariate testing and more.

The suite is an invaluable tool for marketers, which has combined easy administrative controls and robust tools in order to understand, measure and communicate a website’s success. Many of our current Sitecore clients are now learning the potential of the suite and are making plans to customize the OMS to best fit their needs.

We thought it would be helpful to pose some frequently asked questions in order to outline some information on the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite.

How do I get the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite?

Sitecore’s Online Marketing Suite is available to any owner of Sitecore CMS 6.0 or greater and is included within the purchase of the Sitecore CMS Professional and Enterprise Editions. For those of you who have, or are considering a Primary Edition license, you can obtain the OMS module at a competitive ad-on cost. However, make sure you check with your Sitecore rep because depending on the date (Jan/2009 through Jan/2010) of purchase you may have been grandfathered-in. Upgrades are available for older versions and it is recommended that you contact your Sitecore representative for the best path. The OMS was created to replace the StatCenter module that had been made available for older versions.

How can the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite improve my business?

The Online Marketing Suite can help in several different areas. First, it gives you the ability to manage a better web experience for your users by identifying user challenges. This will ensure that when people visit your site they get the information they need and if they aren’t, then the OMS will help you determine why. It evaluates the user experience at different segment levels through the site and offers constant testing capabilities such as messaging through ads or other campaigns, including email.

Secondly, the OMS helps you understand and improve your online advertising performance and reporting. Sitecore’s built-in analytics and reporting can measure multiple campaigns, goals and actual conversions throughout your entire enterprise of web properties. Having everything in one place has become a tremendous asset to organizations - saving time and money.

Additionally, the Sitecore OMS is making it easy to close the loop between on and offline marketing initiatives. For many marketers, the fight to understand the value of campaigns is challenging, especially when they are offline. The OMS is allowing users the ability to track campaigns and revenue generation, understand customer touches through email, web and direct channels as well as determine the overall conversion efficiency.

Lastly, the OMS is advancing sales efforts by allowing users to customize a lead scoring system, which helps with understanding the quality of leads. The Online Marketing Suite can tie into your CRM and help reinforce the tracking of leads throughout the sales cycle. Measuring a campaign’s true return on investment.

Who can help us implement and customize the Online Marketing Suite?

Verndale of course...A Sitecore certified partner is your best option, making sure that best practice implementation standards are followed. Strategy, as well as basic business and system requirements, should be outlined prior to customizing the OMS. Once the basic foundation is in place the system is easily maintained and modified by administrators.

Is training available?

Sitecore now offers an OMS Certified Marketer course for administrators. Additionally, an organization can leverage Sitecore-specific administrative training or work with a certified development partner on the specific implementation.

Sitecore is keeping customers happy and ahead of the curve with their continued product development and game-changing solutions like the Online Marketing Suite. For more information contact your friendly integration partner at Verndale or visit Sitecore.

Recruiting via Social Networks

As the popularity of social networking sites continues to grow, more and more hiring managers are looking to them for recruiting. There was a time when job seekers viewed social networking sites as barriers to getting jobs. These cautionary views surfaced after a story was released that an employer found inappropriate content on an applicant’s Facebook page.

Now, social networking technology has become the ultimate source of applicants for recruiters. Searching for candidates on social and professional networks has resulted in the finding of proficient candidates who are innovative and more technically savvy.

From a recruitment standpoint, social networking profiles offer companies the opportunity to display their employer brand while also proving they are a leading-edge company.

Social networking sites also provide access to an extensive network of skilled professionals. A job opening can be broadcasted across multiple networks instantaneously. The ability to target different age groups and network locations can be helpful as well.

As a professional in the field, I have found that there are some online recruitment techniques as well as sites that work better than others.

Job Boards vs. Social Networking Sites

My experience with social and professional networks has been both positive and negative. I have applied multiple techniques to a couple of websites including; LinkedIn and Facebook. I have also tried a job board that is geared towards “technical jobs” and have found the following results:

LinkedIn

I had a positive experience with this professional network because it allowed me, as the recruiter, to view individuals’ work history and recommendations before even reaching out to them. Since the LinkedIn members utilize the site for professional networking they were more receptive to my inquiries than other social networking sites. Searching for keywords on LinkedIn was also useful and the ability to see how people were connected proved to be beneficial.

Facebook

Recruiting through Facebook was not as advantageous as LinkedIn. The job was posted on my Facebook status as well as three other coworkers’ during a 3-day timeframe. Although the job post was good exposure, it did not generate any traction. I estimated that at least 1,000 Facebook members, between the ages of 20-40 years, viewed the post within those three days. Besides the poor performance of the job post, I found that Facebook pages contain too much information about a potential job candidate and keyword searches are more difficult.

Job Board

After posting the job on this particular job board, I received an abundance of resumes, none of which fit the job criteria. While filtering through around 300 resumes, it became apparent that many job seekers were applying for multiple jobs at once, without researching the company or job requirements.

The Right Approach Yields Quality Candidates

The recruiter’s approach to messaging a potential candidate through a social networking site must be professional and stimulating. The communication sent by the recruiter must distinguish the company in some way to confirm that it is not a recruiting agency. This will hopefully entice the candidate to look for more information about your company as well.

Candidates that are currently employed and have updated social networking profiles tend to be applicants that are highly sought-after. These employees have held onto their jobs and have likely taken on additional tasks during this challenging time.

The idea of making personal information public is unsettling for some, but having a detailed profile can increase one’s visibility online. The professionalism of an online profile may also distinguish one candidate from another. It is personal advertising for the candidate and it should be well-branded.

As with anything there are positives and negatives, but ultimately, recruiting through social networking does require technique and location, in order for it to be successful. It does offer a low-cost solution, high job visibility rates and demographic targeting capabilities; however, if you don’t take the right approach, you may be left unsatisfied.

Microsoft Announces the Outlook Social Connector

Do you ever wish you had photos of people in your Outlook meeting invitations? Well, you’re in luck. The new Outlook Social Connector (OSC) is making that possible. The OSC is integrating social networking features into Microsoft Outlook 2010. The new features carry social information from your colleagues’ online profiles directly to your Outlook Inbox.

The idea behind it is that you can read your emails and view a “sender profile” at the same time. The profile could include a photo or title of the individual, communication history between you and this person, and possibly additional information that the sender has chosen to include. The information will appear in the “People Pane” towards the bottom of your Inbox.

How can it help me with meetings?

Use the OSC’s photo gallery to view pictures of the people you may be interacting with in your upcoming meetings. Leverage the photo gallery to prepare for your appointment and ensure that you get your contacts’ names right at the first greeting.

How can I build my network?

By utilizing the OSC you can request your colleagues to join your network. This is easily done by clicking on the “+” symbol below the person’s photo. The OSC also synchronizes your colleagues from other connected networks so that they are saved in your Outlook as contacts. This makes every member of your ever-growing network readily accessible.

Can I integrate my CRM solution?

Yes. Microsoft’s public “provider” extensibility platform makes connectivity to any network possible. This means that any company can build a provider to connect the OSC to a business application, like a CRM solution. Once again, you will be able to view the linked information in the People Pan at the bottom of your Inbox.

What are customers saying?

Currently, OSC is only available as part of the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta. There has been mixed feedback regarding the new features. Some developers feel that many companies may block the connector from accessing Facebook or Twitter. Others feel they can use it to replace Xobni, an Outlook ad-in that was founded in 2006 and creates profiles for email contacts.

To read more feedback and learn more about the capabilities of the Outlook Social Connector, visit the Microsoft Developers Network blog.

5 Website Features to Avoid

As a follow up to my previous blog post “5 Website Features That Work,” I thought I would take a look at the dark side of web design and list a few website features that do not work. Believe me: this list could go on and on. For the sake of brevity; however, here are five website features that I’m hoping to see less of on the web.

Resizing the browser window

We’ve all been to sites like these, where you click the link and before you know it, POW! Your entire screen is taken up by what is quite clearly the most important website of all time. Often the controls on your browser window are summarily eliminated, leaving you stranded in what someone obviously intended to be an “immersive experience”. Here’s what’s wrong: this is 2009 and we’re more than capable of making up our own minds about how we experience websites. If we want the screen to be that big, we’ll resize it ourselves. And if the site only works when the window is that big, then that’s a flaw in the design. There really is no excuse for this.

Overdone flash/splash screens

Splash screens gave the web users of yesteryear something to marvel at - a big flashy introduction to Company X and its Awesome Value Proposition. So basically, a commercial; and it’s easy to see why. Back when the idea of having a website was a bit of a heady concept, the only frame of reference that designers and developers had to work with was television. The splash page gave designers the opportunity to make an unfamiliar place a little more familiar. It was also a chance to show off and introduce the brand in a controlled (read: linear, non-interactive) environment. The problem is that we’ve moved on from there. Having a website isn’t a luxury anymore, it’s a business necessity. Users have become more sophisticated and less impressed by a page spinning and sparkling and flying around than they once were—so save the flash for where you really need it and concentrate on getting users to where they need to go.

Music (unless the site is about your band)

As mentioned above, bandwidth can mean the difference between a user becoming a client or clicking the back button to find someone a bit more competent. And one of the best ways to increase the load time is to make sure that your site plays music. Consider your audience: people coming to your site may be at work themselves and aren’t necessarily interested in broadcasting their current activities to the office. They may not share your musical tastes. They may already be listening to their own music. Finding the volume controls on your site could be the last straw.

Lack of clear calls to action

Life is hard enough already. Every site needs to have a coherent navigation structure; but more than that, each site, and each page, needs to have a purpose. If you want people to know where you are, or what you do, make those entry points into your site larger, more attractive, more inviting. The only way to judge the success of a website is to know what goals you’re trying to achieve. So once you’ve identified what you want people to do, make it easy for them. A prominent and appropriate call to action can cut through the frustration that a lot of users experience on their first visit to a new site.

Bad Typography & Bad Copy

These are two different points, but I’m lumping them together. When I say bad typography, I mean type that is too small to read comfortably, paragraphs that are full or center-justified, and various other crimes and misdemeanors of the graphic design world.

When I say bad copy, I think you know what I mean: insipid corporate-speak, lack of bulleted text and general verbosity. It’s no secret that people read differently on the web than they do in printed publications, but there’s really no excuse for cutting and pasting the annual report onto the website, even if its littered with keywords.

If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating a website, then it’s worth making sure that people can use it. Avoiding some of these mistakes on your website can enhance the user’s experience by cutting down the overall level of frustration. Your clients, and potential clients, will thank you.

Augmented Reality

As I sat down to watch TV the other night, I saw a Home Depot commercial that caught my attention. Aside from pulling at my DIY heartstrings this commercial introduced the Home Depot 3D Interactive Gift Card, that includes an augmented reality feature.

For those of you unfamiliar with Augmented Reality (AR for short), it is a term that describes the merging of the physical real-world environment with elements of virtual computer-generated imagery. The combined effect is intended to improve your interaction with both “worlds.”

For Home Depot, the AR program does just that. Simply visit their website, hold up the 3D interactive gift card to any web cam and watch as the site displays a virtual 3D crate that loads up product recommendations based on the amount you have to spend on the gift card.

The environment provides both a unique, brand-building experience, while also providing the added functionality of sifting through and serving up product content that matches the price constraint of the card. The end result is a somewhat novel use of AR that allows Home Depot to differentiate an otherwise commoditized offering; however, it does fall short of fully leveraging the potential of the technology.

As the Home Depot example proves, AR has moved from the fringe - where it has been enjoyed mostly as a novelty concept - to one with mass appeal and practical application; however, as with all new technologies, brands and companies seem to be struggling with finding a balance between gimmick and utility.

Some of the best examples of AR do more than just repurpose the user experience, they improve upon it. A few examples include:

Samsung has developed an AR solution that allows you to measure out how a Samsung TV would fit into your room –

RTP offers its “REALSKI” AR iPhone Application that displays weather, trail markers, a compass and more –

Zugara produced an AR & Motion Capture Shopping Application that may change the way we buy clothes online –

Clearly the opportunities for the technology are boundless, but enabling them in such a way, that pays careful attention to usability and human factors, will prove to be the difference between novelty and real utility.

Imagine the possibilities for your company. If you are in the construction business, you could use AR markers to position support beams. Museums and other tourist sites could use AR markers to replace actual tour guides.

As an emerging and mid-size business, I’m interested to hear how you would adopt the technology? What opportunities do you see in your world(s)?

A Short Post on Usability

Usability on the web, or user-centered design as it’s sometimes called, is important for the same reasons why usability is important in the real world. That is to say, it is best when it doesn’t call attention to itself and instead creates the conditions for successful interactions. By interactions I’m not necessarily referring to the point and click variety, but I’ll get to that.

Usability has been an issue within industrial design and architecture community for far longer than the web has even existed. This aspect of usability is concerned mainly with the organization of three-dimensional space and how humans interact with their physical environment. It could be as basic as the position of a light switch or the height of a cabinet. Or it could be somewhat more ambiguous.

Think of a time when you’ve pushed a door that’s meant to be pulled, or vice versa. You felt like an idiot, didn’t you? That feeling probably only lasted a moment, but it was real. An interaction that you’ve performed hundreds of times suddenly presented an unwelcome challenge. It called attention to itself, snapping you out of whatever reverie, conversation, or pursuit you may have otherwise been engaged in at the time.

So what happened? In a sense, your trust was violated. Your understanding was that the door was there to walk through and that assumption was challenged. This was not a contemporary art installation where you might have ruminated on that particular metaphysical question, this was a building. Your tacit understanding was that it should allow you relatively unfettered access or egress and it violated this understanding. Somehow the design failed to communicate how it worked.

In the real world you may not have a choice about whether or not to enter that building through the tricky door, but online even the smallest usability challenge can cause devastating results. Once the usability fails the smell test, it’s not a stretch to imagine how a site could botch the credit card transaction, the shipping, the internal inventory, or something else.

In short, if the user’s experience on the site is clearly not a priority, it’s difficult to imagine what would be. With that erosion of trust, a competitor’s site can start to look much more attractive.

The web is no longer a novelty, it is the medium through which we transmit and consume information on a daily basis. As such, we need to be able to perform the specific tasks to those ends as quickly, naturally, and efficiently as possible. Usability is just the word that we use to describe how to make that experience as painless, as easy, and as enjoyable as possible.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Design Review

The design review process is a critical step in any web project. We welcome you to review some of these helpful tips, so you can make the most of this step—and get the most from your design.

Tip 1: Hold Nothing Back

During the review process it’s important to be honest with your designer. Open lines of communication and collaboration make any project that much better in the end. Don't be concerned about hurting feelings; a professional designer knows not to take feedback personally. It is better to be direct.

It is the designer's job to hear what you’re saying and interpret it as constructive feedback.

Tip 2: Familiarize Yourself With The Agency’s Review Process:

The design review process here at Verndale typically has four stages. It’s important to be familiar with the goals for each particular stage of the review process.

1. Concept Review

The Goal: Make sure we’re on the right path

Items discussed should really center on the overall look and feel of the concept. The focus of the meeting includes open discussions about the proposed layout, the priority of items on the page, and the design of the navigation structure. Try to avoid getting bogged down by little details such as placeholder copy and imagery.

2. Changes and Additional Design Templates

The Goal: Evaluate the changes from the concept review and discuss additional design templates

At this stage we confirm the first round of changes, making sure they were successfully made, and resolve any pressing issues. In addition, we usually demonstrate a few more design templates so we can begin diving a little deeper into discussions around copy and imagery.

3. Finalize the Design Templates

The Goal: Review all design templates

During this time we finalize the unique design template and touch on the page details. Often we discuss items such as imagery, icons, and the important attributes to include within the pages themselves.

4. Approval

The Goal: Approve any tweaks that are made and then move forward

Here we focus on the details. We need to make sure that all t’s are crossed and i’s dotted. If they are, great — we’ll get your sign off and move into the HTML phase of the project.

Tip 3: Know the Project Goals and Your Users

It’s important to keep in mind that you are not designing a site for you or your colleagues. Your site is for your users; therefore, you should know them and what they are looking for. It’s amazing how many companies lose sight of this and drive the design toward an organizational agenda that the end user doesn’t understand.

In addition, it’s imperative that you identify the measurable goals for the project up front and always have them in mind when making project decisions. Measurable goals could include generating leads, making sales, improving PageRank, creating opt-ins for newsletters or subscribers, or attaining a number of phone calls. These goals should be known to anyone participating in the design review process. Design is a subjective process, but it’s the designer’s job to speak up when goals are being compromised by the suggested changes.

Tip 4: Listen to Your Designer Reasoning

It’s important to listen to your designer when he or she is discussing work and why certain decisions were made. Web designers have a lot of experience about the web and how users interact with it. Obviously they understand design techniques — how to best use white space, leverage grid systems, color, etc. — and are very familiar with the technical limitations of the web.

Web designers are more than "pixel pushers." If you direct them to push pixels, then you may be reducing their role to that of production artist, a choice which won't allow you to get the best value out of your designers' experience.

Tip 5: Try to Avoid Designing by Committee

If your organization has several layers of approvals, that’s ok. It’s important to identify key stakeholders for your agency up front. Then you can strategize how and when to bring them into the fold of the review process.

We recommend working with a smaller group throughout the web project and then presenting later as a broader group. This helps minimize the risk of "designing by committee," which involves more participants with different opinions about the design. Large groups of decision-makers often look for ways to find common ground in order to accommodate all members -- a practice that often compromises the design.

Hope this helps. We’re looking forward to our next design review with you.

Page Ranking Tips for 2010

Write your pages for your users, not for PageRank − have you ever heard this? Have you ever thought that while your pages were acclimating to search engine spiders, your message was being compromised?

In order to make sure your website is found, you need to understand why some sites are being penalized and why others are always ranking on top.

It’s the same in sports. If you are racing against ten other competitors of similar size and strength, but one is continuously on top, then chances are it’s the technique and mentality that is separating him/her from the others.

Make writing for your users your SEO method for 2010. Here are some page ranking tips for 2010:

How to Achieve High Rankings

If earning a high PageRank is one of your goals for 2010, then here are some simple techniques you can use to improve your results.

Focus on Long-term Success – While technical SEO methods, such as keywords and Meta tags, influence your page ranking, informative content contributes to your site’s relevancy score and long-term success. The more relevant your content is to the search term, the higher your site will appear in the results.

Write Professional Tags – While the Meta keywords tag is ignored by Google, Meta titles and descriptions and H1 tags can improve your page’s relevancy. These tags should be well-written and accurately represent the page.

Maintain Smart Copywriting - We all know that website copywriting is important, but smart copywriting is targeted and well-written, enhancing page rankings and magnetizing users. Your copy should include targeted keywords that are repeated throughout the page. Avoid distracting users with too much repetition and make sure your SEO copywriting reads well for the user.

Enhance Website Popularity – One way to improve PageRank is to ensure your website is popular by using a strategic method called link building. Search engines judge the credibility of a website by determining the quality and number of external websites that are linking to your page. Promote your content by linking to relevant websites, issuing press releases, and engaging in social networking channels.

Monitor Your Page Ranking – There are many different “rank checking” tools you can download and use to check your page’s visibility. You can view your Google PageRank score by downloading the Google Toolbar. It is important to monitor this as often as you can to ensure your website is reaching users and attracting quality traffic to your site.

If your site is not appearing high in the search results, then you may want to consider a pay-per-click campaign to gain exposure. Make 2010 the year for high PageRank that sets the foundation for long-term success.

Get ahead of the SEO curve and be the competitor that continuously dominates your field.

Four Tactics to Streamline the Project Process

In a perfect world, my train would come on time and my coffee would be freshly brewed and on my desk in the morning. But, it’s not a perfect world and things don’t always go as smooth as you plan.

As a Project Manager, I am frequently asked, “how do you stay so organized?” I explain that it’s an essential skill to have for my job and has become a natural instinct. When I tackle a new job, I immediately look ahead in order to predict any upcoming challenges. Here are four tactics I have found that help streamline the project process:

Status Calls Are Key

Status calls can be very beneficial if they are productive. It is time set aside to strictly focus on the project and the task at hand. All parties should be focused and well-prepared. If possible, requests should be grouped together and/or bulleted so that nothing is forgotten. It is also important to have the right people at the meeting in order to accomplish necessary goals.

Ensure Successful Communication

There should be clear communication amongst all parties involved with the project. Meetings should be scheduled when everyone is available and expectations and goals should be well understood. It also helps if there is one point of contact for each party.

Keep Track of Status Reports

Status reports are important because they track the progress of the project. As a project manager, I try to keep my status reports detailed and very thorough. It can be especially crucial, for a fast-paced project, to follow up on things more frequently.

Follow Up, Follow Through

A project is normally broken up into multiple tasks. The tasks all lead to the ending result. When requests are made and tasks are assigned or scheduled, anyone involved should either follow through with the task or follow up on the individual performing the task. It should never be put off until the last minute. Even the slightest delay could affect the progression of the project.

In Conclusion…

When I manage a project from start to finish I want to ensure it is executed efficiently and promptly. These best practices help streamline the process so that the project is not only executed, but the project team thrives while doing it.

Being prepared for every contingency is one way I’ve found to effectively manage projects. When the process goes smoothly, I find that my relationships with people become stronger, which is what I find to be very rewarding.

The Apple Tablet: Date is Set

They set the date! On January 27, 2010 Apple will host an event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco to likely show off their new product known as the Apple Tablet. The product is speculated to launch in March. Rumors have surfaced that the new product will eventually be called the Apple iSlate.

The specs and features of the product are unknown, but are likely to involve multi-touch capabilities, which is not a big surprise. The Wall Street Journal reported that the new device will have a 10 or 11-inch screen and will cost around $1,000.

Invitations were sent out to media outlets yesterday morning, requesting that they arrive at the event around 9AM Pacific Time to see Apple’s “latest creation.”

Comments are circulating the internet already. Some feel the iSlate name won’t stick, but who knows? iPhone seemed to work. Others are reporting on Twitter that the Apple Tablet will “sport a Webcam and offer 3G connectivity.”

As usual, rumors continue to surface and have yet to be confirmed, which makes it hard to wait until next Wednesday.

What do you do for a living?

I build websites. Well… I work for a company that builds websites, but when I meet people who ask me what I do for a living I tell them − “I build websites.”

But I don’t really anymore.

I used to build websites. And I mean really build them. I would take the designs from the designers and use HTML and CSS to build out web pages using those designs. Usually, I would add a little JavaScript for rollovers, dropdown navigation, modal windows, slideshows, etc. I would then build out pages of content, review, test, post them to a web server and…

A new website was born.

Making a website was a complex process that required expertise and knowledge of web technology. Maintaining a site demands the same set of skills which not all site owners have. Even simple changes would require them to rely on a third party, which is why Verndale uses Content Management Systems (CMS).

CMS implementation allows site owners, without HTML expertise and knowledge, to update their own content, change their own dates, create their own events, rearrange home page content, and more. All of these things are easily done if they are configured properly − but implementing a CMS means I’m not actually building the website anymore.

When a CMS is implemented, I still take the designs and convert them into HTML templates, but instead of building out every page, I build out only pages that have unique designs or functions − like the Home page, Contact page, News listing page, FAQ page, etc. I don’t enter in any content and instead use placeholder text called Lorem Ipsum. Then the engineers take the HTML templates and implement the CMS. The client or site owner then uploads their own content and…

A new CMS website is born.

But now… my role in the process has changed. I’m an Information Architect and I don’t build websites. As an Information Architect, it’s my responsibility to organize the content and functionality of a website into an Information Architecture (IA) or Site Map. The IA is essentially the skeleton of the new site. It’s up to me to decide how the new site will be organized, how many legs or arms it will have, how it will function and move, and even how it could evolve in the future.

The organization of the skeleton depends on the purpose or goal of the site. Is it to sell or promote products, demonstrate expertise, disseminate information, build community, build a reputation, or generate sales leads? Most likely it’s a combination of a few things. Rarely is it a simple single goal.

Then there is content that is created or repurposed. How should that content best be organized? Does the budget and timeline allow for robust, interlinked relationships between content types? Will there be a constant stream of new content?

It’s not all about the content, the audience is also important. How do I make the visitor happy and not feel lost or frustrated? How best do I guide the visitor toward the funnel point without scaring them away? How do I make their experience enjoyable?

After the IA is created the designers make the site captivating and the buttons shiny, HTMLers layout the templates and engineers make the site and CMS function. It is then tested, posted to a web server and…

A new well-architected intuitive CMS website is born.

I guess I’ve been wrong when I say, “I build websites.” I propose ideas, organize information and content, and develop interfaces. I plan websites, others actually build them.

I think what I’ll tell people from now on is, “I plan websites.” That’s a bit more accurate. And frankly, a bit more interesting.

I’ve used them, studied them, tested them, evaluated them, deconstructed them, discussed them, built them, and now I plan them − and I like it.

2010: The Year of the Publisher - Part 1

Part 1: Converging Forces Make 2010 a Game-Changer for Publishers

It’s no secret that the last 10 years have been tumultuous for publishers. It could be argued that no segment of the publishing industry has been harder hit than newspapers or magazines. In a recent blog post, our friend Paul Gillen perfectly summarizes the media transformation of the last ten years:

“As we head into the second decade of the new millennium (okay, it technically doesn’t begin for another year, but stick with me), it’s worth remembering where media stood just 10 years ago.”

“In January, 2000, few people had heard of Google. Online advertising was banners and e-mails. Big media brands dominated the Web. U.S. newspaper ad revenue would hit record high levels in 2000. Newsroom employment would peak in 2001 as newsstand sales of the top 100 magazines approached 30 million. No one had heard of blogs. People used mobile phones to talk.”

Fast forward to 2009. Last year, people spent six billion minutes on Facebook, downloaded one billion YouTube videos and logged over 1.4 million blog entries every day. The iPhone became the first mobile phone to be used more for data than for voice. The Internet became the second most popular news medium behind television. Wikipedia posted its three millionth article.

“Meanwhile, U.S. newsroom employment fell to a 25-year low and magazine news stand sales dropped to 63% of their 2001 peaks. Reader’s Digest declared bankruptcy. Comcast said it would buy NBC.”

These most recent declines echo and accelerate a long-term trend of declining readership and relevance for newspapers and magazines. Many argue the first significant blow to the industry came with the introduction and prevailing popularity of 24-hour news channels. For the first time, consumers were exposed to news as it happened, and quickly developed a habit and appetite for such access to information.

The Internet Makes a Dynamic Change

In the mid 1990’s the Internet started to gain mass appeal and usership. As more people gained access and bandwidth speeds increased, the number of users and average time spent online increased exponentially.

A September 2009 report by The Nielsen Company demonstrated that the average user spends over 68 hours of time online each month. Equally interesting, a significant portion of time spent online is focused on social networking and community activities compared to entertainment, as was the case in years past.

In the midst of this dynamic change in the last 10 years, publishers simply could not keep up with the ever-evolving consumer tastes for information consumption. The problem was further compounded by burdensome management, distribution and advertising models that no longer reflected the world around it.

Most importantly, the Internet presented two fundamental paradigm shifts that newspapers, magazines and traditional media at large were slow to recognize and capitalize on.

Time and Content Standards - The Internet shifted both the standard for what consumers consider “current” and the way in which we consume content. Unique to all other media, the Internet user has full control over what, when and how they view content. They may choose to watch TV shows, search and retrieve news, or engage in social media without the presence of any natural barriers (i.e. cost, distribution). Equally important, the “always-on” Internet is an ideal medium for accessing content in a real-time environment. More recently, mobile phones and other Internet enabled devices have further extended connectivity, reach, and access to online information.

Targeted Advertising – The Internet creates an unprecedented environment for both targeting and displaying advertisements. In recent years, ad targeting has become increasingly sophisticated, allowing advertisers to segment and display ads based on the category of content, geography, user behavior and more. Further, the circulation is unbound from any of the natural distribution barriers or costs that limit the reach of traditional media.

Is it the Beginning of the End?

With all of these factors in play, it’s easy to conclude that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of these publishing entities. But, I would suggest that for all of the competitive threats the Internet has exposed, it too can be leveraged to create competitive differentiation moving forward.

Over the last few years, newspapers have begun to turn the tide on the declining value of the media. The best of the industry have begun to leverage their assets including strong regional brands, journalists, journalistic integrity, and print and online distribution channels, to create hybrid media offerings that compliment one another. When implemented correctly, these hybrid media outlets produce in-depth pieces that are published in print, expanded upon online, and contributed to by their community of readers. Readers communicate through various channels including reader comments, blog postings, twitter posts, and more.

More recently, many of the larger regional publications have also created a Social Media Director position to recapture the coveted breaking news position. Social Media Directors have been tasked with building a significant presence online through Twitter, blogs and social media channels. They are primarily responsible for unbundling the traditional media in an effort to better respond to the wants and needs of consumers and advertisers alike. An example of this awareness and willingness to move beyond the traditional channels of print and online newspaper site is evidenced when a Social Media Director breaks news on Twitter before it appears on their website or in print.

Leading Social Media Directors are those that are conversational marketing experts, and individuals that understand how to build communities around products.

While newspapers haven’t directly achieved a monetization strategy for this offering, they have come to understand that if you control the conversation, you build a brand presence that warrants advertising in both online and offline channels.

More importantly, they’ve come to adopt and embrace the technology in a way that strengthens the best and most critical differentiators of the industry – local content, and journalistic integrity.

In fact, the journalistic standard is one of the most valued assets of all. For all of the information available on the web, so little of it can survive the test of journalistic integrity. Most bloggers write with bias. Many posts are opinion pieces and some are even quietly sponsored by underwriters with their own agendas. For the casual web user, it can be challenging to find informative and trusted news sources. For this reason, journalism and the role of the newspaper have a place both in print and online.

While newspapers may have arrived late to the web, many recent indicators are trending in the right direction. In the last few years, regional newspapers have consolidated under major corporations and have corrected inefficiencies that have gone unchecked and unmanaged for years. While circulation and advertising revenue may be dipping, more successful publications are turning the corner on profit, the most important metric of all.

Finding a New Role in Media

And with a newfound confidence and understanding of their value and role in media, some are breaking new ground all together. In the last year, the Christian Science Monitor, broke with tradition and shifted from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated throughout the day. They continue to offer a weekly print and daily e-mail edition, but have eliminated the current daily print format. The break from the daily printed edition is proof that the paper understands that the method of delivery and format are secondary to the quality of the news and the market it serves.

Along these same lines, a recent effort by Ruport Murdoch’s News Corp. aims to block Google from indexing pages that will live behind a “paywall.” News Corp., and more recently The New York Times, announced a few months ago that it intends to move most of its content behind a subscription offering and at least in the case of News Corp., subsequently block these pages from search engine indexing.

While many are quick to point out the high failure rate of subscription content, other forces may be at work. Murdoch may be asserting that Google and other engines may need to pay for the privilege to index this “high-value” content so that they can continue to enjoy the revenue they generate from ads published on subsequent search results pages. If successful, Murdoch may grab a piece of the ad revenue slice back for the newspaper industry, and in the same stroke, give Google, and the Internet at large, a taste of its own medicine.

Lastly, and probably most significantly, new platforms are being introduced that will fundamentally change the way in which we subscribe to and read these publications. Electronic Readers, the soon to be released Apple Tablet and accompanying iTunes store have the potential to reinvigorate those print publications that leverage the best of their old school strengths in a decidedly new school environment.

Part 2 of this post will explore how e-readers and the Apple Tablet will revolutionize this industry. Stay tuned.

Optimizing for Questions in SEO

People have always gone to search engines with the intent to seek specific information, which makes it no surprise that more and more people are using search terms that are in the form of a question. Recent search trends show that as we turn the corner to a new year, the number of question-related search queries is increasing, but why?

Below you can see the United States percent increase for each question-related search term (“?”, “how”, “why”, “what”, “who”, “where”, and “when”), according to Google Trends. The search volume data below represents the amount of searches that have been conducted with each question-specific term, related to the total number of searches conducted on Google over a period of time. The numbers are calculated with a fixed mode of scaling, meaning “the data is scaled to the average traffic for your term during a fixed point in time.” (Google Trends)

	2006	2007	2008	2009	% Change
?	0.95	1.04	1.42	1.79	84%
how	1.09	1.21	1.52	1.88	73%
why	1.06	1.15	1.45	1.89	77%
what	1.08	1.11	1.41	1.84	72%
who	1.05	1.10	1.33	1.54	46%
where	1.01	1.10	1.47	1.87	84%
when	1.24	1.33	1.73	2.16	74%

Searches that included a question mark (“?”) recorded the largest increase (shared with “where”), which most accurately substantiates the claim that question-related searches are on the rise.

Why the increase?

One reason Google has experienced an increase in question-related queries is the shift in market share from niche websites such as Ask.com (formally AskJeeves.com). Once a popular site that encouraged users to ask questions, the search audience has since flocked to one of the big three search properties (mainly Google), where almost 95% of searches are done on Google, Yahoo!, or Bing, according to comScore December 2009 data, which is up from 85% in 2006.

More importantly, search engines today are returning more relevant results with websites that answer your questions. With the help of user-generated content and the social media revolution, sites such as Answers.com and Yahoo! Answers are loaded with vast amounts of question and answer content, which is indexed by search engines. The authority these sites hold with the engines and the contextual match to your search queries is why they rank so often.

Bing (and recently Google) has been advocating in recent advertising campaigns that their search results provide answers. Microsoft labeled Bing a “decision engine” that allows you to make “smarter, faster decisions”. Google’s recent television ad, “Parisian Love” showed a searcher using question-like queries like “how to impress a french girl,” “what are truffles?”, “who is a trufaut?”, and “how to assemble a crib."

So, the engines are certainly confident that their results can satisfy the intent of the millions of different questions that can be asked.

Can this trend be leveraged for SEO purposes?

Yes. Here are four ways marketers can leverage this current trend:

Add questions and answers to your website content: Write blog posts that ask and answer a question. Title the post with the question and provide a detailed answer in the post. Incorporate your question into the meta title and URL string.
Create a FAQ section: Don’t ask and answer questions just about your business. Instead, ask and answer around more general topics that people are talking about in your field.
Implement a discussion forum on the site to get users involved and interacting: User-generated content, if properly managed, can do wonders for your site by adding content and aiding in increasing search engine rankings.
Answer questions on other sites and link back to yours: By providing answers to users’ questions on other websites, you create exposure and can help drive more traffic to your site by including a useful link.

As data suggests that users are progressively more apt to enter a question into the search box when seeking information, now is the time to leverage this current trend by utilizing the tips above and measuring the results. New enhancements to the SERP are sure to take place in an effort to better answer our questions in the future, so stay tuned for updates.

2010: The Year of the Publisher - Part 2

Part 1 of 2010: The Year of the Publisher discussed how print publications are struggling to find a new role on the Internet. As the Internet evolves and new platforms are introduced, products such as e-readers and the iPhone are being leveraged by innovative publishers.

It’s been a few weeks since Apple’s overly hyped iPad announcement. The first reviews have been mixed and Apple has generally received widespread criticism (even amongst its loyal “fan boy” population) for the iPad’s lack of camera and multi-tasking ability.

But for all the naysayers, I’m reminded of a quote from the campy 2001 thriller, Antitrust: “It’s not in the box, it’s in the band.” That is to say, it’s not about the hardware, it is, and always has been, about the media.

Like the iPod and iPhone, the iPad proposes a paradigm shift for how we interact with and consume media. For the iPod it’s music, for the iPhone it’s the beloved App Store, and for the iPad, Apple is betting its reputation on books, magazines and content. Make no mistake about it, that sleek and shiny piece of hardware sitting in your lap with its ubiquitous once-bitten apple logo is a brilliantly crafted diversion for selling loads and loads of media in a closed ecosystem where Apple takes a bite of revenue from each download.

In order for publishers to succeed in this domain, and eventually win back their eroding readership, they’ll have to engage in a paradigm shift of their own. Newspaper and magazine publishers pay close attention – winning back your readership will require more inventive strategies than posting volume/issue copies of your publication to the Apple store at scheduled intervals.

In order for you to be successful, you’ll need to consider a revolutionary approach that leverages the best of your assets (brand, niche, content, marketing database) with those of the platform (social networking, multimedia, content taxonomy, personalization, search).

And while you’re at it, you’ll need to break free from the barriers that constrained your traditional media. Gone are the limitations of distribution, print deadlines, content depth, page count, etc.

The best and most inventive reintroduction of the publication is one that conceives of itself as an ever-evolving conversation or community. Imagine feature stories that expand over time, based on the flow of new information, multimedia, and community feedback. In this way, the notion of volumes and issues becomes archaic. Subscribers benefit from being part of a perpetually evolving conversation regarding sports, politics, health, home, auto, dog grooming, or whatever niche you may capture.

Perhaps the best proof of that concept to date has come from Time Magazine and The Wonderfactory. Their recent collaboration on the reinterpretation of Sports Illustrated for the tablet platform is a rich, intuitive and immersive achievement and may set the standard for the new wave of publications to come:

Make no mistake; traditional publishers will have a very small window of time to get this right. While Apple’s ecosystem will award visibility to those publishers with brand power, it will also offer a low barrier of entry to self-made publishers, who in their ability to move nimbly, may offer up better applications and more intuitive access to content then their larger counterparts. Apple’s ecosystem may be closed, but the competition inside it will likely spur the innovation that sets the standard for newspaper and magazine consumption in the years to come. And for those of you longing for the smell and feel of a printed publication…give it time…I’m sure they’ll be an “app for that” as well.

5 Ways Companies Can Benefit from a SaaS Application

As many of you already know, a SaaS (Software as a service) application is a cloud computing term that describes software that customers use for on-demand service that is provided through a subscription and is accessed anywhere there is an internet connection. In other words, vendors make a SaaS application available where businesses essentially “rent” the software and pay for this service based on actual usage. Successful SaaS applications like Salesforce.com and Google Apps have become increasingly popular as companies are experiencing lower front-end costs and no longer need to struggle with the time associated with implementing and managing licensed software.

We’ve compiled a small list below to help further illustrate the benefits of implementing a SaaS application:

Lower Costs: Choosing a SaaS model for your business eliminates system licensing fees and a “pay-as-you-go” subscription allows users to pay for this service based on actual usage. This greatly reduces overall operational costs associated with maintenance charges and licensing fees.
Quick Deployment: Since implementation does not involve any software installation, the system can be used almost immediately with minimal involvement from IT. The software is available wherever there is access to the internet.
Automatic Upgrades: Because SaaS vendors manage the upgrade process, they are responsible for administering any new releases and future enhancements. This ensures users are always using the latest versions of the software that is being provided.
Built-In Support: Time spent on managing the system is greatly reduced because the network already comes with support services and disaster recovery. Not only will saving time be a factor, the fees associated with support will be reduced as well.
Scalability Made Easy: A SaaS model is easily scalable as it offers the flexibility to easily change the amount of users on demand. A growing company has the freedom to increase the amount of users at any time since the software is being delivered as a service.

As companies continue to look for cost-effective ways to remain competitive in the marketplace, SaaS applications have shown to improve overall efficiencies associated with traditional software installation and maintenance. Just like Salesforce has become a leader in Customer Relationship Management and Google Apps’ web-based messaging and collaboration apps are being offered as alternatives to Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, the SaaS model is becoming a very valuable component for today’s businesses, both large and small.

The 5 Conversion Killers of Copywriting

Whether you’re looking to sell a product or a service, promote an idea, or market your brand, copywriting is the key to effective online marketing. Website copy is what you use to connect with readers and get them to respond the way that you want. You have a matter of seconds to capture a user’s attention and if you don’t, then the conversion is lost.

What happens when a user closes your page before taking some form of action?

The reality is so many of us have been betrayed by sales and marketing copy. Every time we were hooked by some gravitating, attractive deal that ended up far different from what we were originally promised, we built up a sort of hardiness towards what we read and actually believe. There are five common conversion killers below that should be avoided when writing website copy.

Fake or Faulty Information

Everything about your copywriting should be authentic and trustworthy. Prospects will notice its reliability right away. Contact information and photos should be updated and accurate.

Freshness

Viewers notice how frequently content is updated and how recent the information is on the site. Keep content fresh and blogs active. Don’t give a prospect any reason to turn away.

Lack of Details

Every detail counts. If you have an FAQ section, make sure the responses answer the questions accurately. Make sure the content is clear, but concise as well. You don’t want to overwhelm readers with content that is repetitive or lackluster.

Domineering Headlines

Your headlines should not be used to sell anything. They should simply be used to grab a reader’s attention. Let your copy do the rest.

Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb

Any content that is published on your blog represents your business. It should always be reviewed for grammatical errors. Even the smallest mistake could discredit your copy. Some common mistakes to look for are:

Your vs. You're
Its vs. It's
Affect vs. Effect
Their vs. There
Than vs. Then
Loose vs. Lose

These types of mistakes can easily be overlooked because they are words we read and use every day. Keep these words in mind when reviewing content.

It Doesn’t Stop There

Now with social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and most recently, Google Buzz, your copywriting doesn’t stop at your company website. Your message is what carries your image across the cyber world of tweets and instant messaging. Don’t let these five conversion killers damage your credibility or scare away a prospective customer. Polish up your website copy and let your content shine.

5 Reasons Why Email Marketing Works

Whoever said spam folders were going to wipe out email marketing?

Email marketing is here to stay and many businesses are finding that it works very well. Today’s internet is forever evolving and these days consumers are using all different kinds of media outlets to communicate online, not to mention multiple email accounts. Popular email marketing platforms like Exact Target, Vertical Response and Constant Contact are providing the tools necessary for businesses to successfully launch their own email marketing campaigns.

After releasing a 2009 study on online marketing, Forbes Media affirmed that email and e-newsletter marketing proved to be the second-most effective tool for generating business, following search engine optimization (SEO).

But, why is it so successful? How do we know its working?

You Can See the Results

There are several benefits to email marketing that are directly related to generating results. You can send thousands of emails with targeted messages in less than a minute. Then you can track them to see how many were opened and how many "click-throughs" were generated. Not only are these messages personalized, they are sent to targeted audiences as well; increasing your odds for a successful campaign.

Here are five reasons WHY email marketing is working:

Builds a loyal brand: If your customers trust your brand, they’re going to trust your message. Sending an email to customers and prospects builds a rapport with them, strengthening their trust and loyalty in your brand.
Drives Measurable Results: Email marketing can bring in a flow of actionable information, which you can use to improve your marketing ROI. Web analytics can show you the details of how your users interact with your message.
Timing is Everything: You can choose an optimal time to send your marketing email. Studies have shown that 34% of internet users check email throughout the day, where others check it first thing in the morning or at night. How many times have you heard the expression, “the right place at the right time?”
Generates Direct Sales: Email marketing produces immediate sales, downloads, requests, etc., sending customers to events, stores, meetings, and more. All of which are direct sales or opportunities.
A Cost-effective Option: The time and cost to design and execute an email marketing campaign can be significantly less than other marketing solutions.

Make Sure Its Effective

Email marketing works, but it has to be done right. There are many different tactics a business can use to deliver an email marketing campaign. The overall goal is to make sure the message is targeted and professional. An effective campaign can increase sales at a fraction of the cost of a regular web project. In 2009, email marketing produced an ROI of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it, according to studies done by the Direct Marketing Association. Repetition is also important in order to remain visible to your targeted audience, as visitors may be apt to click through the email if they are seeing it for the second time.

Content Types Series - Part 1

Part 1: Intro to Content Types

What are content types?

In a previous post, Dan talked about Information Architecture (IA) and how the site is organized. Content types play a major role in this process. In fact, content types are what make up the Information Architecture. They are different types of data that are displayed on the site, as well as all of the attributes and Meta information associated with them.

It can be a hard concept to grasp so let me explain content types in more detail. Verndale breaks content types down into two major categories − Structured and Unstructured.

Structured or Unstructured?

Unstructured content types are free form HTML content blocks, meaning content authors have more freedom when positioning content. Essentially, anything can be applied to unstructured content types. For example, it can be an open area on a page where the content author can put anything they want including text, images, or video, using a WYS/WYG Text editor, similar to Microsoft Word.

Structured content types are more defined. For example, there may be a “bio” section that will always appear with a consistent look and feel. Authors just have to fill out the required information in the appropriate field, which may include the first name, last name, or a photo. Then the content will be published in its proper location.

Structured content types are basically set up as user-friendly data sheets. It’s as easy as filling out a form!

Content Types & Meta Data

Once the content is entered into the CMS, there is additional information that should be inputted called the “Meta data.” The Meta data is the information about the content item or webpage including Meta tags, simple search tags and related content items. This information is primarily for search engine optimization and indexing purposes. The Meta data includes keywords, page descriptions, and other information that will give the site a higher page ranking. The keywords will also help provide accurate site search results as well.

Conclusion

Content types allow content authors to manage and organize content in a structured way. During the IA process it’s important to identify specific content attributes and parts of the site that should be structured. There should always be a balance; the site should never be 100% structured or 100% unstructured.

Basically, content types facilitate content standardization. There is always the possibility that content types may need to be added in the future so try to keep an open mind during the process.

Check back soon for Part 2 of the Content Types Series, which will highlight the costs and benefits of content types.

Resume Tips for 2010

Crafting a resume that is appealing and competitive is not always easy. As an HR Director, I have read my fair share of resumes and know exactly what to look for when I sift through a stack of them. Throughout my years of experience, I have learned what a recruiter looks for during the first stage of the interview process.

The first thing to note is that the first screening is rarely performed by the hiring manager. It is often done by someone early in their career, such as an HR Assistant. It’s important to identify what it is he/she is looking for so that your resume gets passed on and not thrown away.

Below you can find a few tips that will help you optimize your resume and ensure it gets through the first screening.

Would someone out of your industry understand what you do?

Chances are the recruiter does not do what you do and never has before; therefore, it’s important that someone who’s not in your industry can look at your resume and understand what you do. Some roles have very industry-specific responsibilities which are hard to explain to those outside of the industry. If the recruiter doesn’t understand, then how are they supposed to explain it to the hiring manager?

Does your resume match the job description?

It’s essential to have keywords in your resume that match the job description. You should tailor your resume to the specific job you are applying for so that the recruiter can see that you are a potential fit for the job. The recruiter will then pass your resume on to the person who will later confirm if you are a good fit or not. Don’t leave it up to the recruiter to determine whether your skills are applicable. Try to match your bulleted skills to those of the specific job description to eliminate the guess work.

Do you include the “who, what, where, why & when?”
Your previous work experience should be specific but simplified. The key points that the recruiter needs to know is where you worked, what you did, who you were (your title), and when you worked there. If your dates are jumpy, then you may want to include your reasons for leaving.

Is your resume appealing to the eye?

The format of your resume should be clean and functional. As much as you want it to look pretty and concise, it has to have the right information for the screener. Some things you can do to make it more appealing is bullet out your information, delete any unnecessary information (more info below), and prioritize the page, putting the most important information on top.

Do you have unnecessary information on your resume?

There is some information on a resume that is unnecessary. You don’t really need to state your objective because it is usually very obvious. If you do choose to include it, make sure it matches the job description. You can leave out extracurricular activities, unless it is something very interesting and may hook the reader. For example, you should mention if you were on a TV show or competed in the National Fencing Championships. Those details are great conversation starters. Your GPA can be advantageous to include, but only if it is over a 3.0.

Does your resume show off your expertise?

In other words, if you are applying for a creative position, have you included a link to an online portfolio? If you are applying for a sales position, does your phone message sound confident and professional? Recruiters may call and check to see if you mumble. If you are a younger candidate with less work experience, then list some projects you have done in the past.

One Step Closer

Getting through the first screening can be difficult, especially when you’re up against hundreds of other applicants with competitive resumes. How are you going to stand out?

It’s only a piece of paper that portrays you as a person and as a professional. Anything you can do to make your resume more enticing could bring you one step closer to meeting the hiring manager and getting that job.

Once your resume is accepted into the next round, you will get the chance to discuss your skills and qualities highlighted on your resume with the direct report for that position. This is the time to demonstrate your expertise to someone who is familiar with the details that are specific to your industry.

Top 10 Best Practices of Ecommerce Development

Despite uncertainties with the economy, the Department of Commerce recently reported that online stores’sales were up in January compared to last year. With the internet becoming more and more accessible, it is almost easier to complete errands online than to drive downtown, sit in traffic, and spend money on gas.

Statistics show that 94% of people who make more than $75k use the internet, according to the Pew Research Center, an organization dedicated to providing information on the issues, attitudes and trends that shape America and the world.

The working class can now use the internet to shop for groceries, clothes, and even pets. What’s the point of leaving the office or home, if you can save time and money in most cases by ordering it online? Now, more than ever, it is critical to have an effective and professional Ecommerce website that can help maximize your online revenues. Want to boost your company’s Ecommerce results?

Follow these 10 best practices:

Use Common Names for Products, Cart & Checkout

Make sure your customers can recognize the different forms on your website. Creativity is not always good if the customer can’t understand how to complete the transaction. You could quickly lose a sale this way. The Ecommerce process should be smooth and simple, for example:

Browse/search for products (quotes, product availability, etc.)
Add products to the cart/shopping bag
Checkout

Have Adequate Fields

If you’re selling products internationally, does your site have appropriate fields for their contact information? For example, a Canadian may have to input a postal code that includes letters instead of a zip code with only numbers. Look beyond serving domestic customers, but remember to consider things such as language translations, support, and currency/exchange rates. If your site only ships to the US, then make this clear from the onset in order to avoid any potential confusion.

Evaluate Multiple Payment Options

Don’t just assume PayPal is the only method of payment. Many companies use other payment gateways such as Google Checkout, Authorize.net, 2checkout, and more. Look into different options and weigh their pros and cons before deciding on a payment gateway solution. Other payment options include:

Credit Cards
PO (B2B)

Make It Easy

The customer shouldn’t be confused when trying to make a purchase. Make your site as simple as possible and always provide customer service information, whether it be a live chat or 1-800 number.

Include a Site Search

Incorporating a site search is always a good idea, but it has to work well. Make sure it searches for more than just product names. It should be able to search for SKUs, model numbers and other related information.

Inform the Customer

Display information to the customer such as your shipping and return policies or the status of an order. This will promote confidence in your buyer and keep them well informed. Then they won’t have to seek this information, which will make their shopping experience more enjoyable.

Install Analytics

Everyone needs feedback in order to improve. By installing a tracking system, you will be able to review what customers are looking at and where your purchasers exit the site if they don’t make a purchase. You can use this feedback to retain customers and improve conversion rates.

Integrate CRM to Boost Your Ecommerce

By using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system like Salesforce, MS CRM, SalesLogix, etc, you can keep track of your customers’ past orders and actions, as well as their contact information. If it is stored in a CRM, then multiple employees can access this customer information as well.

Make It Search-friendly

Compliment your Ecommerce site with a search-friendly URL that relates to a product or service you sell. Implementing a successful search strategy is sure to generate more traffic and make it easier for your customers to find you.

Incorporate E-marketing

E-marketing makes it easy to link your customers directly to a product or service. It is a cost-effective way to reach your customers and offer them special packages or deals. Send out e-newsletters or marketing emails, purchase pay-per-click advertisements or customized banners. A CRM or Ecommerce system can store lead information, which allows you to build customer profiles and manage customers through multiple stages of the customer lifecycle.

IN CONCLUSION…

… Recognizing the opportunity to bring their businesses online, many business owners have taken the frightful leap of managing an Ecommerce site. Despite this daunting challenge for some, it could be the “make or break” moment for many. The number of consumers online shows no sign of decreasing any time soon. I mean the BBC recently reported that four out of five people in the world believe that access to the internet should be a fundamental right.

The online competition will stay fierce and as we begin to see more subtle signs of the economy improving, it is more and more important to maintain a well developed Ecommerce site that appeals to consumers.

SES New York - Live Updates

Verndale will be tweeting and blogging live from Search Engine Strategies (SES NYC) this week.

Updates from the conference will be posted on this page and also on our Twitter page. For a list of panelists and conference sessions, click here.

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3/23/2010 - 2:00pm

Big turnout at SES NY!

This morning's session, “Search: Where to Next?” discussed where search was going and what marketers should be focused on moving forward.

Heavy emphasis on personalized search and live search.

I believe it was Brett Tabke, CEO, WebmasterWorld.com who said research has shown that 95% retweets have URLs in them. He said this should be a “signal” for search engines, as they can place priority on links that are tweeted most often. Interesting concept, I thought.

Google, for example is already taking into account how many followers a Twitter user has when choosing which tweets to display in its live search feed.

The “Successful Information Architecture” seemed to be the most packed session of the day. Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive gave an awesome presentation on how to marry SEO and information architecture. The key takeway from her speech was to NEVER build an IA without consulting web analytics.

More to come...

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3/23/2010 - 3pm

Keynote Pannel, “Analyze This”. Discussion was mainly around mobile and how it is Apple vs. Google for years and how Android will dominate.” Google already has 1 billion android devices out there and is growing rapidly”.

BAn audience member asked the panel why companies are turning toward social media when they are not maximizing their search potential (specifically paid search), which means money is left on the table. Interesting question.

The panel answered by saying social media sites have people talking about you and it is there that you have to manage your reputation. Managing your reputation in search engines is almost impossible, so you need to go to where your audience is talking about you.

I can add to that and say that while Google is the #1 (Facebook is #2) most visited site in the world, users go there to conduct a search and leave within seconds. Time is spent on social media sites much more than it is on search engines, which is why marketers need to engage in social media efforts.

Erika Brown also said “Google is an advertising platform, not a search engine”. I could not disagree more, and judging by other responses heard in the room, I was not alone. Google is a search engine first, an advertiser second. Users go to Google for the answers, not the ads.

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3/23/2010 - 5pm

During Google’s Sponsored Session, “Getting the Most Out of AdWords Features & Tools”, we learned before any announcement to the public, a major AdWords update that will now support search funnels. The update will begin to roll out today and all advertisers should see functionality within a week.

Previously, AdWords associated the “last click” with the recorded conversion. In simplified language, if a user searches “hawaii hotels”, clicks on a Hilton PPC ad without booking the hotel, but then searches “hilton” the next day, clicks on the ad and books; AdWords will associate “hilton” with the conversion. For a while, advertisers have been asking Google for keywords that have “assisted” in the conversion process, so this is a big step.

For more info, the AdWords team released this post here: http://conversionroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-adwords-reports-adwords-search.html

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3/24/2010 9am

Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, and Analytics Evangelist at Google. Author of “Web Analytics 2.0”

Preaching “Smarter Search and Analytics”.

Look beyond the top 10 keywords

How do you understand 20,000+ keywords when you can only visualize 10-20? You group only keywords that perform well for you (i.e., conversion rate, % of new visits, time on site, etc.).

Juice Analytics – data visualization though what they call “keyword trees”. Analyzes query data and displays the group of keywords color coded and sized based on the traffic and relationships they share with each other.

Outcomes, baby!

Talk to people in language and numbers that are meaningful to them. Tie dollars to the analytics data. You will never achieve success by looking at the macro number of conversion, you have to (first define) and look at the micro number of conversions.

He also preached the Search Based Keyword Tool, which I believe is a underutilized tool

He ended his speech talking about a buzz word topic here at SES, “Attribution”. Attribution modeling helps marketers understand which channels are influencing each other aims to identify the true ROI for all of your integrated marketing efforts. Since there are so many different channels users are accessing your content today, it’s difficult to craft an attribution model that melds all of this cross-channel data. It centers around the question: “What happened before the click and/or before the conversion?”.

His look at the near future:

Media mix modeling – Run experiments for all of your different channels to justify what’s working
Marginal attribution modeling – If the first if too difficult, Identifies incremental conversions

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3/24/10 - 1:30pm

The keynote panel this afternoon is “Video: The Next Digital Marketing Frontier”

Terrence Kelleman, President/Designer of Dynomighty Design is talking about how he used YouTube for direct marketing and branding. In December 2006, his company became famous on YouTube after the Original Magnetic Plaything, the Bandoleer Bracelet, was featured for 10 days on their main page. Today, the video has over 2,600,000 views and has changed the future of Dynomighty.

Baljeet Singh, Senior Product Manager, YouTube & Google Content Network says CPCs for YouTube video ads are around 10 to 15 cents and there are millions of clicks every week. He cites a big correlation between paid views and organic views – how paid influences organic.

He mentioned there are two types of marketing initiatives for YouTube currently:

Video promotion – promoted videos, sponsored results
Video sponsorship – ads in, around videos

Neither of these initiatives are limited to either small or large business – it’s a mix of both.

Rachel Scotto, Metrics Strategy Consultant, Sony Pictures & Ann Taylor says to move beyond metric of video stream (video start). Move to a more engagement-type metric. Set milestones (i.e., video completion). Advanced video behavior is part of the engagement effort (fast forward, pause, rewind, etc.). She noted it can be taxing on server calls.

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3/24/2010 2:52pm

Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist, from comScore, Inc. gave a bunch of stats on search and social. Search is still the largest and fastest growing online vehicle. Search is not just limited to the engines, it now includes searches on social media sites, YouTube, Facebook, etc.

“heavy searchers” (340 searches per month) who account for 20% of the population account for 60% of all searches.

Influenced paid + social has a major effect on stronger organic clicks

Cool Content analysis tool: seoworkers.com/tools/report.html

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3/24/2010 - 6pm

Jim Boykin, CEO and Link Building Ninja of We Build Pages Internet Marketing Services gave a nice session on link building tactics. He started out with how the practice of buying links was ubiquitous in link building up until mid-2008. Now, buying paid links puts you at risk of omission from the major search engines’ indexes as they have developed automated tools and have dedicated spam teams to detect paid links.

He now builds content and links for clients organically. He introduced two types of link building, Link Bait and Trust Bait. Trust Bait is king.

Link Bait for links (tend to be flashy)

Content built for bloggers and social audience
Almost all links form blogs
Link value often fades with old news

Trust Bait (resourceful) – think NASA, universities, top researchers…

Content built for educators and research audience
Links from non-blogs
Link value constant and permanent

Take audit of search results on a key term, looks for # of backlinks of top ranking sites, then assess the quality of those sites, .govs, .edus. Once you’ve targeted the sites that present an opportunity to obtain a link from, reach out to the webmaster and request a link by praising her content and how a link to your page can benefit users

To me, and I am sure many experienced SEOs, this exercise is nothing new – this is link building 101. Where experts have an edge in this game is the internal tools they use to assess which sites to go after for links. I use a tool that automates this process. You feed the tool 10-20 of your priority keywords and it gathers all of the top ranking sites and then assesses all of the banklinks to those sites. You would end up with a weighted list of sites based off of PageRank, .edus vs. .govs vs. .coms, Alexa rank, etc.

While these tools can help speed up the process, it’s totally feasible to do this data gathering and analysis manually – and sometimes better for qualitative purposes.

Internal linking helpful tools mentioned by Jim Boykin:

Spyfu.com

Keywordspy.com

Image Search: No Keywords Involved

What do you think the most recognizable logo is in 2010? Is it McDonald’s golden arches or Apple’s apple? An identifiable logo of this magnitude is almost impossible to overlook, but what if your logo isn’t as familiar? What if someone recognizes your logo, but can’t remember the name of your company?

This new image recognition technology, also known as, a “reverse image search engine,” is identifying images and locating their URL addresses on the web. Don’t be mistaken – there are no keywords involved – only images. Locate a company on the internet by simply uploading their logo. Doing a logo search is only one way to use the reverse image search engines.

What if you want to find a company that is a Microsoft Certified Partner? You could upload the Microsoft Certified image and then do a search to generate a list of related companies. What if you’re looking for images of a certain color? Upload the color of your choice and then images of a similar color will be generated. Imagine the branding opportunities there, BUT make sure you own the copyright to these images if you use them because the reverse image search engine can also be a great way to find stolen images.

Curious of this new technology, I took a look at several reverse image search engine solutions and made some comparisons using the following three images:

Tineye

Tineye is a reverse image search engine that can search either by image or URL. Registration is not required but optional if you want to try new features and receive special account benefits. I found the following results on Tineye:

Found 0 results for the Verndale logo in 0.907 seconds.
Generated 2 URLs that matched the Nike swoosh, neither of them being Nike.com.
Produced 3,455 URLs that matched the Microsoft Certified Partner image in 0.198 seconds.
Image URL searches produced 0 results for Verndale and Nike logos, but generated the same 3,455 results for the Microsoft Certified Partner image.

BYO Image Search Lab

BYO is a reverse image search engine that is part of Idée Labs and allows you to upload images and search similar images in the Alamy Photo Collection. Alamy is a stock photography company that is privately-owned and based in the U.K. You can search by “image” or “image url.” I found the following results on BYO:

Displayed 50 images of a similar color to the Verndale logo, but included images of people, fruit, shapes and flowers, to name a few.
Generated 50 images of a similar color to the Nike swoosh, but included images of symbols, people and other objects.
Produced 50 images of a similar color to the Microsoft image, but included images of symbols, words and other objects.
Searches done using the image URL produced similar results with slightly different images but similar colors.

RevIMG

RevIMG is a reverse image search engine that you can use to upload an image and search for URLs that contain that image. RevIMG strives to generate “exact” results, matching images by shape, color and the dimensions of the image. You can also search for a particular section of an image. I found the following results on RevIMG:

RevIMG generated URLs of similar logos to the Verndale image; however, not Verndale.com.
Multiple images were found, similar to the Nike swoosh, but the search engine did not match Nike.com to the image.
Again, multiple logos were found, but the results were not similar and did not list Microsoft Certified Partners. It listed a variety of company logos including Hallmark, Corona, and Sodexho.

GazoPa

GazoPa is a reverse image search engine that searches for images of similar colors and shapes. Searches can be performed using URLs, image uploads, keywords or you can even draw an image yourself. Results can be narrowed down by organizing the images into categories such as news, Flickr and sports.

Produced 1,000 images of similar color and shape. The results were almost identical to the color and shape of the Verndale logo.
Generated 1,000 images identical to the Nike swoosh. Due to the high volume of images, I was unable to find Nike.com.
GazoPa found 1,000 images identical to the Microsoft logo and listed the URLs to multiple Microsoft Certified partners.
Search results did take a little longer to generate, around 30 seconds per search

Reverse Image Search Comparison

The results have proven that reverse image search engines have a long way to go, but I can definitely see its popularity growing in the near future. Depending on your goal for using the technology, it could be very effective or not useful at all.

If you saw an image on someone’s social media profile and wanted to purchase the rights to that image, then I believe GazoPa could provide you with the most accurate results, although it is limited to Alamy images only. If you were a designer looking for inspiration or images of a similar color to your company’s brand, then the BYO Image Search Lab may perform best for this purpose.

At this point in time, there is not one reverse image search engine that stands out in my mind as being better than the other. Tineye, one of the oldest reverse image search engines, has gotten many good reviews online, but did not generate the most accurate results for the images I had uploaded. Although there is still room for improvement, reverse image search engines are sure to be more reliable in time. It is truly a remarkable technological advancement.

9 Steps of the SQA Process

We live in a time where we rely more greatly on technology than ever before as a society. With this reliance comes the need for better written code so that personal information is secure and protected. Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is not just about testing and bug finding. There is a lot more involved behind the scenes. The process ensures that during the lifecycle of each project, the software products and processes comply with their specified requirements and follow their established plans.

An effective SQA process is comprised of the following steps:

Initiation: A quality assurance process is conformed to the specific project. The process should include quality standards, tools, resources and identification procedures.
Planning: This phase is where the SQA Manager will develop the documentation needed on the projects of Test Plans, Test Cases, Process Improvement Plans, etc.
Tracking: This is a sub process that helps to monitor progress and track deviations against the plans. This will update timelines and the re-assignment of tasks. This is especially true for areas of the project where there might be requirements that are not as defined.
Training: The SQA Manager, along with other groups in the company, is trained in defining effective structures so that work can be done efficiently.
Reviews: This is the period where reviews are done against test plans and test cases to make sure the appropriate test approach and test coverage are taken.
Issue Resolution: This is a sub process that is usually defined to resolve issues that come up between the QA team and the affected party. Normally, this is caused by questions in either the test approach or the test coverage.
Testing: Tests are performed to review and evaluate the operation of a system or application under controlled conditions. The conditions that are set should be both abnormal and normal conditions.
Audit: These can come up in a few different froms. Some of these are project-based while others may be organizational-based. The purpose of the audit process is to improve a project and the organization’s efficiency.
Process Improvement: The QA Manager will review the processes that are in place for the project, review recommendations put forward by the project team, and will implement recommended changes for projects going forward.

The SQA of the product should be considered before the design, coding, and integration work are performed. The questions of how the product is supposed to work should be remedied first, along with the usability, security, and reliability details as well.

Quality is not only a process, but an approach to business. Effective SQA implementation at a company does not always mean that the SQA Manager is the only one thinking about quality assurance (QA). It means that QA activities are regularly scheduled and executed by other departments as well. Quality assurance reduces errors and minimizes cycle time and costs; therefore, enhancing customer satisfaction.

How to Select The Best Content Management System

With a growing supply of Content Management Systems (CMS) in the market, selecting the best content management system for your organization can be a costly and highly time-consuming effort. How can you sort through the products? How can you know which product best suits your organization’s unique needs? How can you validate that your organization makes the right decision for the long term?

The keys to answering these questions and selecting the best content management system lie within your approach – inventorying and gaining consensus on CMS requirements, prioritizing requirements, ranking solutions against common criteria, and comparing CMS application strengths and weaknesses against your organization’s requirements.

The Increased Supply of CMS Applications Has Made Buyers’ Lives More Complicated…

As technology has improved over recent years, the CMS application market has grown increasingly crowded, and as a result product differentiation has grown more opaque. Technology improvements and increased availability of technology and technology tools have lowered barriers for solution suppliers. Once dominated by on-premise and custom, home-grown solutions, the web content management landscape has matured.

Software as a service (SaaS) and open source CMS solutions have emerged, offering lower upfront costs than traditional systems and creating incentives for buyers to consider alternative solutions other than traditional packaged and custom developed, home-grown apps. Although buyers have a greater set of choices (now), their jobs for selecting the best CMS solution for their organization have grown exponentially more challenging.

Buyers find themselves overwhelmed with:

Spotlighting the solutions that are good fits from those that aren’t. Due to market maturation, many CMS solutions in the market possess highly similar features and functionality. With an increased supply, greater product homogenization, and increased competition in the CMS application market, how can you tell what the key differences are between different CMS apps that are suited for your type of business?

Selecting the right product, without wasting time. Businesses can spend inordinate amounts of time researching, investigating, and determining which vendor solutions should be on their vendor shortlist. Simultaneously, not knowing how or where to begin inventorying requirements can elongate the selection process. Knowing that time is money, how can you avoid spending months on CMS selection?

Protecting their organization against choosing the wrong solution. CMS buyers always face intense pressures from their leadership to make the right purchasing decisions for their technology investments. Add an unfavorable economic environment to the equation, and buyer trepidation amplifies. This can, in turn, lead buyers towards making CMS purchasing decisions based solely on short-term costs, rather than long-term value. How can you ensure the solution you select matches your requirements and budget now, and in the future?

…But Those Complications Can Be Eliminated By Using a Four Step Approach for CMS Comparisons

With the broadening CMS application landscape and added pressures that come from a poor economic environment, buyers can feel beleaguered over choosing the best content management system for their organization.

Despite the many pitfalls that exist with CMS procurement, buyers can bypass those hazards and navigate the seas of chaos by following a four-step approach.

Step 1: Inventory and gain consensus on your CMS requirements. The first step in any technology solution selection initiative is defining, inventorying, and agreeing upon what the technology should do and what business processes it should support.

Interview business stakeholders from disparate units to understand what and how the web can support their business.

Generally, CMS solutions are used by and impact Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service businesses the most, with some requirements also coming from IT and Operations.

Building requirements from Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service serve as a strong foundation and baseline for what the CMS should do and how it should support the organization from a holistic business standpoint.

Step 2: Determine requirements priority. Arguably the toughest job in CMS selection is separating requirements that are “critical,” versus those that are “less essential.” Too often buyers approach CMS requirements gathering initiatives as an exercise to develop an exhaustive requirements list.

While developing an exhaustive list of requirements is good from a due diligence standpoint, it can lead to negative downstream effects like increased costs or technology over-payments.

Triaging requirements can help you identify “Must-Haves” versus “Nice-to-Haves.” It can also help you zero in on CMS solutions that are good fits for your organization, aid you in averting the risks of paying too much for a CMS, and prevent you from having a CMS with rich capabilities that are rarely used and are essentially “shelfware.”

Step 3: Rank solutions against the same criteria. Once requirements have been inventoried and prioritized, you’re well-equipped with a common set of criteria to measure different CMS solutions against one another. Develop and use product scorecards to highlight CMS requirements that you need met. Scoring scales, such as 1 = poor, 5 = Avg, 10 = strong, can measure your requirements criteria against those scales for each CMS.

With a list of vendor solutions, evaluate and score product capabilities against the scorecard. Tally up the scores and see which solutions come out on top.

Step 4: Compare apps’ strengths and weaknesses versus your requirements. Once you’ve completed scorecards for the solutions you’re evaluating, review the solutions’ strengths (i.e. where they scored highly) and the solutions’ weaknesses (i.e. where they scored poorly). Compare the strengths and weaknesses against what’s critical for your CMS. Through comparing how the solutions stack up to your most important and critical requirements, you can separate the solutions that are strong fits, versus those that don’t make the grade.

Set Your Content Strategy, Do Your Homework, Research the Market, and Build the ROI

Selecting the best content management system is one part art and another part science. It requires a mixture of qualitative and quantitative analysis. In addition to following the steps outlined above and before getting too involved in the CMS selection process, be sure to:

Build and set a Content Management (CM) strategy. Because CMS solutions have an average lifespan of 5-7 years, ongoing refinement and adjustments are most likely required after year one to support changing business needs. To address changing needs down the line, organizations must develop, set, and settle on a content strategy. Then manage that strategy through metrics like time to create content, approve content, and publish content. Through metrics you can witness the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of your strategy.

Finally, make adjustments incrementally. Making large-scale adjustments, rather than incremental ones, can derail the effectiveness of your CMS, simply because of the impact that change can have on your organization, culturally.

Do your homework upfront. Being prepared before involving vendors can save you time and money. Not having a firm grasp on your requirements before you begin speaking with CMS vendors can lead to vendors defining requirements for you, which can then lead them to proposing a solution that may not fit your needs or be more expensive.

Separately, not knowing which requirements are critical versus less essential can steer you away from what the CMS solution should really focus on supporting. This lack of focus can increase the risk of selecting the wrong content management system.

Brush up on where the industry is going. Although industry trends are not always systemic, it’s important to understand how external industry factors can affect your approach to CMS selection.

For instance, more organizations are integrating their CMS solutions with other technology assets within their organization in an effort to generate more value out of their CMS and other technology investments. By keeping an eye on industry trends, you can weave in external factors and data points into your long-term CMS strategy and determine whether those data points are priorities in your CMS selection process.

Justify your CMS project before you take the plunge. Most business applications and technology solutions have a useful life of 5 to 7 years. CMS solutions are no different. After defining requirements, understand what parts of the business (Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, or other) are ailing and need fixing. Size those problems in terms of money. Then, build a return on investment (ROI) model that not only outlines CMS costs and labor to implement and support the app, but also forecasts tangible and likely benefits over time.

Technology projects are uses of cash. They should also generate sources of cash through their implementation for things like revenue boosts, cost savings, or productivity gains – things that justify “uses of cash.”

Static vs. Dynamic Websites

A static website is a collection of standalone HTML pages hosted on a server. In other words, unless you have access to the server files, you have very little control in managing the content. Similar to a print advertisement, once the content is published, what you see is not bound to change much.

Dynamic website pages are usually tied to a content management system (CMS), allowing the average website owner to easily manage and post new content. Based on the level of effort of the site owners, the content can be constantly changing, giving customers a reason to return to the website.

Advantages of a Static Website

There are a few advantages of having a static website. One advantage is it serves the purpose of a website for businesses that only need it to display consistent and standard information for an extended period of time. Static website pages may include an “About Us" section, products & services and contact information. This may be beneficial for small businesses that don’t have the resources to maintain a dynamic website. Skilled professionals in HTML coding may also find static websites beneficial because they have the knowledge to easily make page updates.

Because of social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, companies can still maintain a static website and utilize other online platforms to connect with their audience to showcase timely pieces of content. Even though online marketing has proven to be very beneficial, you cannot deny the advantages of having a dynamic website.

Advantages of a Dynamic Website

One advantage of a dynamic website is it can operate more effectively with a content management system implemented. Dynamic websites are also built to offer you more efficiency for loading and managing content. Rather than loading content into hundreds of individual, static HTML web pages, global templates will exist that allow you to load and manage content seamlessly.

There is also a major SEO value to hosting dynamic content as search engines value “fresh content” because they want to provide their audience with timely results. SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are becoming more of a media channel than a list of sites, with the integration of universal search that blends news, blogs, videos, and most recently – “real-time search” updates from Twitter and Facebook.

Not to mention, the ability to post news, events and announcements immediately can be very influential for marketing purposes and helps create a loyal audience as well.

What is the purpose behind the website?

Before trying to decide between a static or dynamic website, determine the reason behind it. Is it to provide pricing to your customers? Is it to generate high search results so prospective clients can find your business? Is it to become more interactive with your customers?

Once you have established the purpose of the website, you will then have an easier time choosing between a static or dynamic site.

Small businesses must be smart about where they spend their money. When looking for a solution to your web design needs, make sure to look into different options. Read through our recent post on “How to Choose the Best Content Management System,” if you are interested in implementing a CMS. Whether you decide on a static or a dynamic site, make sure your content is rich and your website exudes professionalism.

The Perils of Selecting the Wrong Content Management System

With an increased frequency of reports citing that the US economy is on the mend, businesses large and small are dusting off their checkbooks. Greater confidence in the economy and recent demand increases for goods and services have many organizations ready to tackle their IT projects that had once been shelved due to funding freezes; however, many remain anxious in spending on their website initiatives because of failed content management system (CMS) implementation horrors in recent years. Unmet requirements, wasted spending, increased costs, lackluster user adoption, and uninvolved executives are all perils that buyers face with selecting the wrong CMS. So how can you sidestep these hazards? Develop a sound CMS selection methodology that includes: defining a content strategy, knowing and prioritizing requirements, valuing CMS ROI, and obtaining executive sponsorship.

Business and IT benefits spark CMS project investments

For many emerging and mid-sized organizations, the recession forced them to focus resources and energies on keeping existing customers through customer service. Serving existing customers was the priority. Attracting new customers fell to a lesser priority, as sales demand and buyer interest all but evaporated. Now the concentration of resources has shifted from customer service-focused initiatives to marketing and lead generation-focused initiatives as the economy awakens. The result? Investment in website initiatives -- and more specifically CMS projects -- is once again gaining traction. Organizations are gearing up their CMS projects to:

Improve lead generation, customer experiences, and market awareness. More businesses and consumers are using the web channel to find, research, and interact with organizations. Web properties are quickly becoming key sources for building awareness about organizations, generating qualified leads, establishing customer experiences, and engaging with customers. CMS apps provide the means by which organizations can present themselves online and collect or manage information from website visitors.

Empower marketing personnel and streamline information time to market. CMS apps empower marketing resources with the ability to manage and publish content themselves. By enabling marketing personnel to update web content themselves, content can be updated directly from the creators of content and the time to publish content on the site can be reduced. What this means is faster time to market product and service information, which can, in turn, lead to enhanced and more effective marketing and sales capabilities.

Minimize costs and maximize operational effectiveness. With quicker time to market product and service information, CMS apps can increase marketing’s utility and effectiveness, as well as increase IT capacity. Since business resources can update site content themselves, IT resources aren’t burdened with remedial content updates. They can focus their time on coding and tackling other IT projects, as well as handle other IT demands.

Selecting the wrong CMS can paralyze your organization…..and possibly cripple your career

Although CMS project activity has gained steam, organizations are still nervous and skeptical. Horror stories abound over CMS projects that failed to produce benefits and live up to expectations. Many times, failed projects are due to poor choices made in CMS selection.

The perils of selecting the wrong CMS center on:

Increased costs. A critical issue with choosing the wrong CMS is the increased costs that result from it. These include costs like additional customization to support growing user requirements, limited application integration flexibility, and restricted scalability to support large user bases. The result? Wasted IT investments that force organizations into paying for a CMS project multiple times over a short timeframe.

Unsupported needs and lackluster user adoption. When apps fail to support business needs, line of business personnel avoid using the CMS because there’s no incentive or benefit from using it. The result? Users utilize alternative tools, like spreadsheets, to support their daily activities and the CMS app becomes shelf-ware because users don’t utilize the CMS.

Lack of executive support. Leadership is a critical component in any IT project. Executive leadership helps in gaining buy-in from the organization, making a project a priority, and giving a project visibility. Failing to involve senior leadership can be devastating, both from an operational and political standpoint. The result? Without senior leadership support project importance is lessened and in some cases it can mean losses in political capital, tarnishing your reputation, and possibly your career and position in the organization.

Follow a seven step checklist to avert pitfalls and ensure optimal CMS selection

Pressures to act swiftly and get IT projects done rapidly are always Omni-present, but those pressures shouldn’t drive hasty or uninformed decisions. If you’re one of the many decision makers currently engaged in a CMS project, follow the checklist below to ensure you select the best content management system for your organization.

Define and solidify your content strategy. Any initiative begins with strategy. In the CMS arena, organizations need to have a firm grasp on what sort of information and content they want to put online before implementing a solution. This begins with making decisions like: determining what goals and objectives need to be met from the CMS and content perspectives, identifying what product/company/service information needs to be available online, and knowing how social media tools and applications will be used as well as how they’ll impact your online brand, presence, and image.
Inventory and gain consensus on your CMS requirements. CMS apps are built to support business processes. Yet not all business processes can be supported by a CMS. It’s key to develop an understanding of the requirements that need to be fulfilled by the CMS and highlight those that are not “content” related. For example, some organizations may have website needs for Ecommerce, Contact Management, or Inventory Management. While some CMS solutions can support rudimentary capabilities in these areas, their core purpose is for managing content. As a result, through inventorying requirements you may discover that your needs are highly cross-functional and may not be supported by a CMS alone.
Determine requirements priority. Not all requirements are the same. Some requirements are more impactful to a business’s capabilities than others. For example, being able to manage content efficiently may be more of a priority than being able to poll and survey users online. The key is to highlight which requirements are critical, which ones are important, and which ones are less essential so that when you arrive at a shortlist of solutions you can stress test those products against what’s meaningful to your organization.
Compare solutions against common criteria. Once you’ve gotten your requirements inventoried and prioritized, you have a baseline of common criteria to compare solutions against one another. An added measure you can take is to develop a scorecard based on the criteria. For each criterion you can develop a scoring scale that measures the application’s strength (or weakness) to support your requirement.
Evaluate apps strengths and weaknesses versus your requirements. Not all CMS apps have the same functionality. CMS apps have varying functionality strengths and weaknesses. Some are built on a SOA architecture, while others are built on proprietary frameworks. It’s important to know the differences so that you can tell how the apps stack up against what your requirement needs are. By building an application scorecard against the criteria that’s important to you, you can illuminate where the application(s) support your needs well and where they fall short.
Know the value of a CMS before you select one. The value of a CMS is measured by the cash flows it generates. Build a business case through an ROI model that measures the cash flows for CMS costs and CMS benefits. Costs can be measured by software costs, hardware costs, and labor costs. Similarly, benefits can be measured by cost savings, productivity gains, and revenue boosts. By building the business case and ROI model, you can determine if the CMS project should be undertaken or if its costs are too excessive over the expected life of the application and exceed acceptable thresholds.
Gain executive sponsorship. Obtaining executive buy-in and sponsorship is critical to achieving success for a CMS project. Executive sponsorship provides credibility for the project and serves as a decision maker to resolve issues that may surface during the life of the CMS project. Executive sponsorship can also help in setting project direction, pushing the project along, expediting decision quandaries and project impediments, and providing leadership in times of disarray.

Social Media Optimization (SMO): The New SEO

Although the latest buzzwords may sound exciting, do you really know what it means to “Digg,” “Stumble,” “Tweet,” or “Twackle?” Does the fact that you not only know these words, but are using them around the office seem a bit strange to you? As a site owner, you should be aware of Social Media Optimization (SMO), even if you are not a big fan.

Yes, that’s right − add another acronym to the long list. While SMO is not as advanced as SEO, it has proven to be influential for the success of a website. SMO is a form of online marketing that drives traffic from sources other than search engines, which can improve search engine ranking as well. It was originated when marketers realized there was a need to invest time and money into developing a strong social media strategy. Now several full-service agencies are offering SMO services to enhance brand reputation through social media.

Social media optimization (SMO) is an extension of SEO, Bian Solis explained, during his recent webinar, “Social Media Optimization Is the New SEO.” Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning new media marketing and branding agency in Silicon Valley. It allows companies to be a part of the decision-making process, which we can sometimes steer in our favor, he added.

The Impact of Social Media

Recently, McDonalds named Rick Wion Director of Social Media, according to Ad Age. As one of the founders of the McDonald’s Digital Task Force, Wion had been handling all of the social media projects for the fast-food chain since 2006. The news of the strategic move sparked conversations around the PR and marketing world. What does this mean for the future of marketing? Will other companies follow suit?

Google and Bing recently adjusted to the impact of social media by forming a relationship with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter so that real-time results could be integrated into the search engine results page (SERP), making the SERP more relevant to consumers. The scope of Google and Bing real-time results includes blogs, tweets, public Facebook pages and news sites. It has even been suspected that the future of SERPs will display breaking news faster than regular news outlets.

Google’s real-time search results, which launched four months ago, has been the most dramatic evolution in search since “Personalized Search,” which uses previous search history to generate relevant search results and “Universal Search,”, which blended news listings, images and video in the search results. Google plans to keep real-time search results relevant by judging “author quality,” “probability of relevance,” and “query hotness,” according to Google Fellow Amit Singhal.

The Presence of Social Objects

Companies should not only have a presence on active social media sites, but should also be optimizing the content that they are distributing.

“Everything begins with search,” Solis said. “SMO improves the ‘findability’ of social objects.” He later went on to explain that social objects can be anything that sparks a conversation. A social object could be a blog post, a tweet or simply an image or a YouTube video. “It is anything that is introduced into a stream that causes a reaction,” Solis added.

The attention of desired audiences must be earned by companies publishing content. Before you can optimize your social media you must create content that is timely, relevant and shareable. The “discoverability” of your tweets, blogs, newsletters, etc. is directly related to – you’ve got it – keywords.

The keywords incorporated into your social media content should be strategic and findable. The abundance of content circulating social networks can be overwhelming at times. Search functionalities and page ranking are ways that Google and Twitter have adjusted to that and have improved the experience for the user. For example, hashtags are used on Twitter to add metadata to your tweets so they can be found when keywords are searched.

In order for companies to have their own influential voice on the web, they need to ensure that their social media content is optimized. In order to gain a competitive advantage using social media, marketers should really be getting a true ROI of their marketing efforts.

Measuring the ROI

Measuring the ROI is important in order to ensure that your social media efforts are working. You should carefully evaluate both the positive and negative effects it is having on your brand. A lot of companies find that measuring the social media ROI is challenging because many aspects are hard to track and the wide variety of tracking tools are overwhelming.

The benefits of new tools have allowed marketers to look beyond the “last click” and evaluate unexplored areas of opportunity. This gives them the advantage to gain a true ROI of their marketing initiatives. Putting some scale of attribution modeling into place will help companies understand which channels are generating the most traffic.

A new tool was recently released by PeopleBrowsr called Analytic.ly, which will help companies measure their Twitter conversations, according to Mashable. Users will have to pay a subscription fee of $20 per month in order to use a custom dashboard to analyze Twitter data.

Although the task of implementing an attribution model may sound daunting, it should be a key element of your social media strategy.

Social Media as a Social Strategy

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog, written by Umair Haque, he discusses the idea behind social media becoming a social strategy.

“Social strategies are about rewriting the logic of the industrial era entirely, shifting gears in how we think, envisioning a broader, more powerful, more challenging use of social tools,” Haque said. Consumers rely on these social tools for real-time feeds so they can determine what is worthwhile to read. If a coworker or friend promotes an article or newsletter, then that is a more reliable source than a salesman or company promoting the content.

Facebook’s recent announcement of the new “Open Graph” authenticates this point even more. The “open graph” will connect social media sites and partnering sites to Facebook, which currently has over 400 million users, according to Mashable.

"Yelp is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to small businesses. Pandora is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to music," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "If we can take these separate maps of the graph and pull them all together, then we can create a Web that's smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware."

It is a critical turn in the road for the internet. Social media is changing the Web, leaving the permanence of industrial media in the dust. Just as easily as social media can be altered; it can now reach a global audience of “friends” in less than a second. There is no excuse anymore to produce poor content and no way will it survive the social networks of online critics. Despite how humorous it may sound, it’s important that your distributed content receives enough “diggs,” “retweets” and is “stumbledupon.”

How to: Optimize Your Email List

Before you can share your expertise through an online marketing campaign, you have to secure a wide network of high-quality contacts. There is no real value behind a large email list of uninterested readers. The big question is always - how do you build such lists?

Most professionals these days get their information on-the-run through their Blackberries, iPhones or laptops while commuting to client meetings, the office and corporate events. Massive amounts of emails filter through their inboxes daily and the uninteresting ones are automatically deleted. Catchy headlines and interesting topics are always good, but the real focus should be creating a list of readers that are interested in your company or cause and not just the information you are distributing.

Use the following tips to secure a quality email list of interested readers:

Get in Front

Make sure it is easy for your audience to join your email list. For example, include a link in your email signature or post a “Sign up for our newsletter” link on your company’s homepage or Facebook fan page. This way it is optional and always visible.

Don’t Overdo It

Your emails shouldn’t be viewed as spam; therefore, try not to bombard your audience with emails for eternity. You should first ask their permission to join the email list and then give them the option to opt out and don’t overdo it by sending too many emails.

Promote Your Emails

Use social media networks and your corporate blog to promote your emails. If people don’t know it’s available, then how are readers going to become interested? Get your employees involved and offer them an incentive to recruit quality readers as well, online and offline.

Acknowledge New Subscribers

When a new reader joins your email list send them a welcome email or offer them a coupon or special deal for signing up. This will encourage more readers to join who want to use your services.

Offer Multiple Sign Ups

If you are an expert in your field than offer a “tip of the week” email as well as a newsletter or blog. Having different sign ups could interest a wide variety of people that are eager to read your emails; therefore, expanding your network of readers.

A high-quality email list is crucial when trying to maintain existing relationships and build new ones. Finding active subscribers is more effective than distributing information to a wide network of uninterested readers. Use the tips above to optimize your email list and build trust with your audience.

Optimizing Email Marketing

Once you have built your email list, your objective should be to secure the success of your email marketing campaign. Careful planning and execution of strategies will lead to conversions if proper metrics are put into place. Using the marketing analytics, you will be able to evaluate the behavior profiles of your contacts.

In other words, if you want results, you have to strategically place metrics behind interactive messaging in order to produce data. Some companies use banner ads, images, conversion forms and links to interact with customers. As visitors interact with your email message by clicking on the advertisements, analytical data is produced, which can later be leveraged to optimize your subsequent email marketing campaigns.

Take the analytics report that is generated and evaluate the more dominant purchasing trends. With this information you can personalize messages to cater to different behavior profiles and customize your next offer to meet their needs. By leveraging your email and web analytics data you can optimize your email marketing campaign and improve conversion rates.

Contact our team if you have any questions regarding the variety of email marketing platforms that exist and their integration with content management and customer relationship management platforms.

The Rise of Location-based Advertising

I drove past a billboard this morning advertising Verizon Wireless on Twitter. Sitting in traffic my eyes immediately fell upon it as the lowercase “t” jumped out at me like a social media monster that had escaped the solitary confinement of my computer. Despite my advertising background, my eyes glanced down at my phone to check my Twitter account like an adolescent consumer.

Advertising is everywhere. We consume media whether we are sitting at our computers or driving down the highway in the refuge of our own cars. As social media continues to cascade out of our computers, into our 3-dimensinal world - just as movies have begun to as well – it will find you. The “Go-Go-Gadget” arms of advertising are getting longer, following you throughout the day and hoping to catch you at that very moment when you submit to a subliminal advertisement.

The odds are pretty good these days that throughout the day you are carrying your phone or using your computer. Marketers have clearly picked up on this and are leveraging location-based advertising in order to conform to these consumer habits.

Location-based advertising (LBA) is a marketing technique that uses controlled information to target users at the location they are accessing the advertising medium. While leveraging location-tracking technology in mobile networks to locate consumers, LBA can offer users geographically based offers and incentives.

There are three elements to consider when it comes to LBA – large search engines (Bing, Yahoo!, Google), social networking sites and mobiles services. The chances of finding your ideal customer are greater when you can utilize the demographic information of social networking sites in conjunction with geographical targeting.

In September 2003, Google filed a patent for location-based advertising, which wasn’t granted until February, 2010, according to Mashable. The patent allows businesses to utilize location information in order to better target consumers.

Where is LBA today?

On May 6, Advertising Age announced that Facebook is planning to launch a new feature that allows users to post their location in their status updates. They also mentioned that this feature will not only be offered to Facebook members, but marketers as well.

McDonald’s is first up at the plate with a Facebook application that will feature products in users’ posts as they check-in at McDonald’s locations. Users should expect to see more Facebook location features being rolled out in the next few weeks.

On May 10, Mashable reported that Foursquare, a location-based social network, had reached its 40 millionth check-in, doubling its number in five weeks. It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s new location services influence this number.

On May 11, Search Engine Land released an article on “The DealMap,” launched by a local search site, Center’d. “The DealMap” is a comprehensive engine that displays local deals and coupons on a map. Consumers can interact with the site by uploading deals and coupons that normally wouldn’t make it onto the internet. It also incorporates deals found on Facebook and Twitter.

Where is location-based advertising going?

Location-based services are expected to show extreme growth in the next few years. Foursquare has already proven itself by gaining 1,000,000 users in just over a year. It took Twitter two years to reach that number, according to TechCrunch. Revenues from mobile location-based services are expected to reach more than $12.7 billion by 2014, according to a new Juniper Research report. The value behind location-based networks like Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla is more accurately targeted advertising.

Facebook and Twitter are jumping on the bandwagon as well, adding new location-based features, but will consumers buy into it? Many users feel that revealing their location may open the door to overwhelming advertisements; however, special promotions and deals could change their minds.

With location-based advertising on a rise, businesses are encouraged to “think globally and act locally,” meaning adapt global business techniques, while still catering to individuals, groups and organizations in the local community. While there are multiple mobile marketing platforms to reach consumers, location-based advertising may or may not be the most effective, depending on your industry.

What is News Today?

We all know the past couple of years have been rough for newspapers as their circulation numbers drastically declined and print advertising seemed to take a backseat to online banners and pay-per-click ads.

“It could be argued that no segment of the publishing industry has been harder hit than newspapers or magazines,” said Joe Zarrett, President of Verndale in his January blog post, “2010: The Year of the Publisher - Part 1.”

I used to tell my clients that SEM was the new classified ad, as they contemplated purchasing a black and white 3x5 recruitment ad, costing well over $1,000 and running in one Sunday newspaper.

$1,000 of SEM could easily get them two weeks of online exposure, be more targeted and “trackable.” The inevitable shift in advertising from print to online was triggered by the altering ways readers were consuming media. Curious to see how news websites were doing today, I checked Alexa this morning for the list of top visited sites on the web and found the following rankings:

Facebook #2
Youtube #3
Yahoo #4
MSN #9
Twitter #11
BBC #41

The BBC, one of the oldest, largest and most respected media organizations in the world, solely focused on delivering the news was ranked #41! This brings me to my original question – what is news today? Where are people getting their news these days? Is it too obvious?

Granted MSN and Yahoo! do provide users with the news, but on their homepages this morning you will see that the top stories are: “And the Winner of ‘Dancing’ Is…,” “Best and Worst ‘Healthy’ Drinks,” and “10 Essential Style Rules for Dads.”

Has news changed? Is it now a more personalized update on what’s happening in the world that we have created? It appears to me that our news has become what we choose to click on or what shows up in our social media newsfeeds.

The recent “Social Media Revolution 2” video released by Socialnomics stated that 50% of the world’s population is under the age of 30 − is this an age group that reads the news on a daily basis?

The video also stated that we no longer search for the news, the news finds us – what does this mean exactly? What kind of news do we now consider to be important?

The Motorola BACKFLIP commercials poke fun at the way we consume media, but it is dauntingly true. Many people do get their news from these social media sites, whether they are following a news source or reading updates from their friends.

I can’t say I’m not guilty. Some days I can tell you exciting stuff like how an 18-year-old kid took $500 and built a guerilla marketing agency with $4.5 million in revenue or how a 12-year-old Oklahoma boy changed his life by posting a Youtube video of himself playing the piano and ended up on the Ellen Show 15 days later. I’m sorry to admit that I can’t tell you much about the Korea Crisis or recent drug trafficking battles in Jamaica, but maybe that’s because I choose to read the news that is more uplifting and less dismal. Perhaps society has chosen to do the same.

As newspapers continue to find new ways to stay in front of readers, our concept of news may be altered and many readers will be oblivious to this change. If this is the case, then what will news be in 5-10 years?

Design is not art.

I have a tendency to cringe when I hear what I do for a living described as “artistic.” For me, that word evokes tortured souls subsisting on crusts of bread in stifling garrets, bead-wearing earth mothers weaving kaftans, and aimless liberal arts undergrads without much aptitude or discipline. This isn’t to say that I’m some sort of Philistine that can’t appreciate the difference between a masterpiece by Picasso and schlock by Thomas Kinkade. I think that art − real art − is vital, important and powerful. It is, however, not what I do.

What I do is a lot more pragmatic than that. One popular definition describes design as problem solving and I think that’s largely true. It’s important to make sure that all of the required page elements and functionality appear on the site, but that is the easy part. The tricky part is incorporating all the elements in such a way that it reinforces the brand.

That’s what I see as the biggest departure between art and design. Both are in the business of creating things, but the artist is using all of the means available to uncover and declare some greater truth. Designers may have an idea of what they consider a greater truth, but it’s irrelevant to their day jobs -that’s because their day job is to solve the creative brief, not to make art.

So what is the creative brief?

The creative brief is an outline of all the visual challenges that need to be addressed. This may relate to functionality issues, but more often than not, it attempts to communicate the tone and overall message that the final deliverable must achieve. Many people will assume that they can’t describe to a designer exactly what they want to be created. They come to the kickoff meeting with a lot of technical questions that need to be satisfactorily answered, but the design? Well, they know what they like and they’ll know it when they see it.

The risk here is that if design questions don’t get asked, answered, or are answered inadequately, there is a real possibility of delivering something that doesn’t meet expectations. If those expectations are recorded in a document however, both the designer and the client can refer back to it as a guidepost. At the end of the day, the question is whether the execution addresses the brief, not just a subjective measure of aesthetics.

So how do we get people talking about design?

For many, design is meant to be expressed and appreciated and that makes them reluctant to get involved in the conversation. I happen to believe that they’re confusing it with art. By introducing the term usability, we can finally look past the color palette and typefaces and get to the core of the experience.

Using those terms-- experience and usability, rather than design, is likewise an effective way to draw people into the conversation. It may be a cheap trick of semantics, but you could argue that design is what you do to solve usability and user-experience problems. It’s a lot easier to draw someone into a conversation by discussing their frustrations and pain points with similar experiences and then work your way back from there. The issues raised in that conversation are what will comprise the creative brief, along with information about target audience, business goals, messaging, and calls to action.

In the end

Different designers will approach creative briefs differently, but all designers need to be good at listening to their clients. The best designers are the ones who are able to draw out the information that they need, even from reluctant clients in order to create elegant solutions to complex problems.

That communication, between client and designer, is what separates art from design. Obviously there is territory where design strays into the realm of art and vice-versa. But at its heart, design is all about identifying and solving the creative brief.

How to Create a Twitter List

Launched towards the end of 2009, Twitter Lists offer people a way to organize users they are following on Twitter. It is also a way to find new people to follow as well. Similar to “grouping” Twitter connections, lists can simply give people an overview of what each group is Tweeting.

Creating a Twitter List is easy – it just involves a few simple steps:

    1. Log into Twitter
    2. Click on “new list” underneath the search box
    3. Name the list and add a description (the name will also be the URL)
    4. Choose to keep the list public or private
    5. Click “create list”
    6. Add tweeps to your lists by clicking the lists button on any “following” page

Using Twitter Lists for Business

There are several ways businesses can take advantage of using Twitter Lists. First of all, the purpose behind them, as mentioned before, is to “group” tweeps together. By creating groups, businesses can keep an eye on particular groups without spending a lot of time searching through their main Twitter feed.

Example #1: Monitor Your Clients

You are using Twitter to follow one of your clients. You follow several employees that work for this particular client and you have placed them all on one Twitter List. One day you take a quick look at this list and you notice one employee tweets about a blog post that was written on their corporate blog. You take the time to read the blog post and then mention it at your next meeting, which ends up sparking conversation for a new project. With just a quick glance over a Twitter List, you have created an opportunity for your business.

You can also create a group for your own employees, co-workers or friends. Another way businesses can utilize Twitter Lists is to use them to recommend other users to follow.

Example #2: Promote Your Business

You decide to create a list of users that you want to recommend to others, which includes some of your partners and employees, as well as some of your industry thought leaders. After creating a public list, others can choose to follow the people on it or simply follow the list all together. This is another way to acquire more followers and expand your network as well.

You can also choose to add users to your lists that you don’t want to actually follow. These tweets would not appear on your main Twitter feed so you will only see them if you visit the list and view its separate tweet stream.

Example #3: Track, but Don’t Follow

There is a publication that you want to follow, but are afraid they tweet too much throughout the day and you don’t want them in your main Twitter feed. You can put them on a separate list so that you can visit their latest tweets when you are interested.

Twitter List Management

Your lists will appear underneath the search box on the right-hand side of your Twitter account. If you click on “view all” you will find the list is divided up between the lists you are following and the lists that are following you. This is where you can edit or delete users from your lists, change the private/public status of each list or remove specific lists all together.

You can remove yourself from any lists that you don’t want to be on by blocking the list creator as well. If you want to find lists to follow, then there is a third-party site called, Listorious, which you can use to search for Twitter lists.

How is your business using Twitter lists? Let us know @verndaletweets.

Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics

On May 25, Sean Rusinko, Director of Search Engine Marketing delivered an information-packed webinar on Google Analytics that was widely attended. The webinar covered many different key functionalities of Google Analytics including how to set up a profile, how to utilize some of the key metrics and how to address and identify filters as well. We have a recorded version of the presentation if you prefer to watch (Getting the Most out of Google Analytics), but if you would rather read through the information, you can find a summary of the presentation below.

As many of you already know, Google analytics is a free, enterprise-class web analytics service, originally developed by Urchin, which was later acquired by Google in 2005. The service is limited to sites with fewer than 5 million pageviews per month and used by 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites in the world.

“It’s very powerful if you know how to leverage some of the custom functionalities that they’re offering users today,” Rusinko said. He then went on to explain some of the statistics that were gathered in a 2009 Forrester Research study, which you can find below:

A staggering 53% of enterprises use a free technology solution as their primary web analytics tool
66% who use a paid web analytics solution would consider a free alternative
60% more likely to consider a free tool now because of recent improvements in free solutions
52% fail to effectively use more than half of the capabilities offered by their tools

During the presentation Rusinko discussed the following Google Analytics functionalities:

Profile

A Google Analytics profile is fairly easy to set up and one account can hold up to 50 website profiles. You can use one account to track multiple profiles if you have multiple domains or are tracking several subdomains. (i.e. verndale.com/blog)

Filters

Filters are most commonly used to exclude traffic from a specific IP address or subdirectory. An example would be to exclude the traffic coming from users that are within the company. The point of this would be to measure external traffic only.

Rusinko also called out a lot of valuable key metrics during the presentation. He spoke specifically about the following:

Timeframe

The timeframe is always going to default to the last 30 days. You can click on the “compare to past” box to change the range in order to view previous statistics, as well as percent change (compare year-over-year, month-over-month).

Annotations

If you click on the down arrow below the graph on the dashboard, then it will list new annotations, which will identify different initiatives that were implemented and might have affected traffic patterns (ex. Press release = spike in traffic). An annotation may be a preliminary indicator for why traffic jumped.

Intelligence

In the intelligence section of a profile the user can create alerts. (i.e. alerts for traffic spikes) Users can set up custom alerts and automatic alerts as well.

Visitors

In this section Rusinko noted that there is an “advanced segments” tab in the upper right-hand corner which can be used to identify and segment different types of data, whether its pay-per-click traffic vs. organic traffic or new traffic vs. returning traffic. One thing to remember is that the settings will remain locked until you uncheck the boxes.

Traffic sources

Using the same tab at the top (“advanced segments”) you can segment out different keyword performance data. (i.e. branded keywords vs. non branded keywords). It’s also beneficial to export the data into excel so that you can easily separate the branded and non branded terms in order to make comparisons.

Branded – Keyword phrases from search engines that pertain to the business’ brand name. (i.e. Verndale)
Non Branded – Keyword phrases from search engines that are more generic and not solely related to the business’ brand name. (i.e. web consulting)

Site Overlay

The site overlay can be found in the content section and allows you to look at the click-through rates based on the actual website profile. The different click-through rates are based on the specific links placed on the page.

Goal Section

The goal section should be used if you have actions that you want your users to take on the page (Checkouts, subscribers, donations) Goals can be set up within the analytics settings, just click edit and add goal.

After Rusinko’s overview of basic key metrics he went on to discuss generating key performance indicators (KPIs).

Generating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The KPIs that you want to be looking at are “bounce rate” and “average time on site.” You can find this information in the content section as well. You can export this data into excel to compare over and under-performing pages, meaning look at the pages on your site that are performing the best and look at those internal pages, then generate learnings from those pages to optimize underperforming pages. Take a look at top ranking pages in search engines, under key search terms and see what those pages are doing in terms of content. During the presentation Rusinko discussed the following KPIs:

Optimize Content Types by Most Bounced Pages in Aggregate- In order to download the highest-bounced URLs, look at the top landing pages report within content. Then categorize those URLs into content types and finally optimize around those content types. You will then get an idea of how different sections of the site might have to be looked at in terms of strategy in the way they are being presented.
Attributing Engine Visibility to Search Referrals- Take a look at referral traffic and compare current data with baseline traffic. This will help you get an idea of which optimization efforts have worked soundly and which need some improvement.
Social Media Optimization- More than ever it’s important to analyze key performance metrics coming from specifically social media sites. You can download this information from the traffic sources section within Google Analytics. This will show you where you need to focus your social media efforts moving forward.
Optimizing by Keyword- Take a look at key performance metrics and optimize around top-performing keywords. The best way to do this is to look at the average time on site, the bounce rate, etc.
Custom Reports- There are thousands of custom reports that you can develop. They deliver a specific, more drilled-down view than the standard metrics that are offered by Google Analytics (i.e. referring keyword performance with conversions report, traffic performance by geographic region report, search referrals by network location).

Conversion Optimization Techniques

Funnel Visualization is one conversion optimization technique that looks at the path to conversion so you can analyze where users are abandoning the conversion course. This is a very useful technique, but even more critical for ecommerce sites.
Form Optimization is another technique that is used to understand which fields of the form users don’t like to fill out. Then you can optimize or remove fields with the greatest drop-off rates.There are two implementation methods that you could use including Virtual Page Views or Jquery plug-ins. Both implementations are fairly simple.
Conversion Link Performance is one technique that measures the performance of two different links going to the same conversion form. Use these techniques to optimize content and improve performance metrics. There are two methods you can use to track individual link performance that goes to the same page including event tracking and campaign tracking.

Advanced Tracking Possibilities

Use advanced tracking techniques if you need to track a link that is not normally tracked by Google Analytics. For example, non HTML pages (i.e. PDFs). There are a few different implementation options you can use to track non-html documents and external links including:

Add the onClick PageTracker after each link
Download a Javascript file and paste it onto any of the pages that have external links, then they will automatically be tracked within the content section of Google Analytics.

Tracking Adobe Flash has also become important. There are two different methods that you can use to track different content pieces within the flash file including:

Event tracking method, which treats the link as if it was an actual page
Google Analytics for Adobe Flash

Campaign tracking is a way to identify traffic coming from any link to your site (i.e. newsletter). Use this tracking method to tag your external marketing efforts so that you can measure the performance of your efforts. Use the URL Builder to define the Google Analytics campaign.

Wrapping Up

As the presentation came to an end Rusinko addressed questions from listeners and provided some helpful resources as well. You can find all of this information in the recorded webinar along with a special offer only available from now until July 1, 2010.

Introducing Sitecore’s Email Campaign Manager

Sitecore recently launched a new email management tool, designed to help marketers engage more with prospective clients and enhance email marketing campaigns. As an extension of the Sitecore CMS and Online Marketing Suite (OMS), Sitecore’s Email Campaign Manager offers advanced customer tracking and targeting, personalization, testing, integrated email management and reporting.

With the Sitecore Email Campaign Manager, marketers will finally be able to understand the actions of anonymous visitors that are driven to corporate websites by email marketing campaigns. This product will help streamline the email marketing process and give marketers the advantage to create content that is more targeted and relevant to prospective clients.

Our Sitecore consultants have outlined a few ways that companies can leverage the Email Campaign Manager below.

How can businesses utilize the Email Campaign Manager to enhance email marketing campaigns?

With other email marketing technologies, businesses could track click and open rates of an email campaign; however, they would not provide the analytics after they had left the page. Sitecore’s Email Campaign Manager follows the user to the landing page or corporate website that they visit after leaving the actual email. This gives marketers more information on the anonymous visitors, which they can use to help with sales and to alter and enhance other email marketing campaigns.

How can businesses leverage the Email Campaign Manager with a CRM system?

The Email Campaign Manager has the ability to map visitors that are opening the emails to customers in the CRM systems. This gives marketers a more actionable analysis and a better understanding of the ROI. Leverage the Email Campaign Manager by tracking CRM users through email and website activity. The integration between the two products has transformed webpage properties into customer education tools.

What are some of the other unique features of this new product?

With the customer data obtained using the Email Campaign Manager, marketers have the ability to build and display customized form fields based on progressive profiling and detailed reporting. The email management tool also provides behavioral tracking, which marketers can use to create marketing lists in the CRM in order to alter their campaign messaging for each list. Other features include GeoIP lookup for some demographics data, integrated analytics and content editing tools to create emails, build landing pages and administer content.

For more information on Sitecore’s Email Campaign Manager please contact one of our Sitecore consultants.

What’s in a logo?

Logos date back to Greece during ancient times and were used on coins, stationery and signs. They later became more popular during the thirteenth century when merchants used them as trademarks. The industrial revolution catapulted the boom of the advertising industry, which later sparked the current methodology of logo design. Since then there have been many logo design trends that have developed over time.

While it is counterproductive to redesign a logo on a regular basis, it is still important to keep the logo updated, even if it means changing its shape or color. One of the best examples of this is the Apple Computer Co. logo, which has been altered over the years in order to stay current.

The very first Apple logo, which was used for only one year, consisted of an image of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree with an apple hanging above his head. The colorful apple was designed by Rob Janoff in 1976, which lasted 22 years before it was changed to its current design which is used today. As the Apple products became sleek and more cutting edge, so did its logo.

Compare this with one of Apple’s main competitors from a decade or two ago:

This logo hasn’t changed since Paul Rand designed it in the early seventies. It may seem staid and boring to some, but it’s maintained its place in the pantheon of the world’s most recognized brands. It hasn’t evolved, or got a glossy sheen like apple’s logo, because it hasn’t needed to. Does that suggest that, as a company, IBM is less responsive than Apple to needs and trends in the global marketplace? Or have they been strategic in taking a “if it’s not broken…” position? Be careful, because a lot of our ideas about these brands are indivisible from their marks and logos.

Designing Logos for the Web

Logo development is one of the most challenging areas of graphic design. A company’s logo must embody trust, power, and modern sociability, not to mention− it must standout and be visually pleasing. A logo must have both a color palette and typeface that reinforce the company’s brand throughout the company’s marketing collateral and website.

With a lot of online companies being launched today, designers are faced with the challenge of creating logos specifically for the Web. When designing a logo for the Web there are a few things to remember in order to ensure the logo is not compromised when displayed in other media, like print. Using today’s hottest brands on the internet, let’s take a look at designing logos specifically for the Web.

Take the following logos for example:

These logos are comprised of bright colors and large block lettering. They are not made up of images –only letters in 2-3 colors, including black and white (with the exception of Google).

Most of them appear to have a gradient or shadow effect, giving the logo an approachable character and a modern identity. For example, the gradation of colors of the Twitter font, as well as its rounded edges create an inviting look that somewhat resembles a cartoon. Does this imply a younger audience?

Logo Trends vs Timelessness

Not only are products changing, but the way companies market their products is changing. Businesses are now entering the world of social media and it is even more important for companies to understand the message their logo is sending to the public. Does the logo relate to the industry? Does it speak to the targeted audience? Is it distinct and memorable?

Logo trends will continue to evolve in the future, which is a good thing. Designing logos for the Web is just an added step in the logo design process. Keeping a logo on the Web current, relevant, and scalable, but just as powerful in print, is a challenge that many graphic designers are facing today.

How to Create a Video Blog

YouTube announced in June that it would be working with the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism to track breaking news videos uploaded to YouTube every minute. According to the YouTube blog, the video channel will be tested over the next few months and will consist of videos uploaded by amateur videographers as well as professional journalists. The newsfeed can be found on CitizenTube, which has previously been YouTube’s news and political blog prior to this experiment.

With YouTube being the #2 search engine on the web and Google TV bringing the innovation of the internet to the television, it is no surprise that video blogging has recently become more and more popular. Video blogs, or vlogs, defined as a video form of blogging, started to become popular in 2005 right around the same time YouTube was founded. Since then, many bloggers and companies have recognized the benefits of video content and are incorporating video into their corporate blogs as well.

Online videos that are posted properly are 53 times more likely to get a first page ranking on Google than conventionally optimized webpages. That’s the finding of a recent study by Forrester Research, as reported by Benjamin Wayne in a Search Engine Watch article.

Creating a Video Blog

Creating a video blog can be time-consuming, but not as challenging as you might think. You will need a digital camcorder, editing software, and a high-speed internet connection. Here are a few types of video editing software that we recommend:

Final Cut Pro 7 - This program requires a Mac Computer and is a high quality video editing solution that contains a full range of customization options and editing tools.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 – This program can be used with a Mac or PC computer and offers real-time editing and other powerful management tools. There is a free trial you can download if you want to try the software prior to purchasing it.
Camtasia Studio – This program is primarily used as screen capture software, meaning it records what you are doing on the computer screen. This is a basic program that should be used for simple video blogs. There is a free trial you can download as well.
YouTube Video Editor – This is a new tool that allows users to combine and edit videos, add audio and publish content all without installing software. Now available in YouTube’s ideas incubator, TestTube.

Once you are prepared to create your vlog, come up with your own topic. Some bloggers discuss educational topics or current events; others use their blog to express personal feelings on a specific issue. Once you have recorded your video, upload it to your video editing tool and create your vlog. If you don’t have a blog, then you can create your own blog using a free blogging website such as blogger.com.

Optimizing a Video Blog

Many would agree that users today would prefer to watch a 2-minute video rather than read a 100-word essay, but how do you get readers to find your video blog?

Video optimization should be a part of your video blogging process. It is best to use video optimization techniques that search engines recommend such as building a video sitemap to ensure all video content is indexed or providing alternative text content on the video page using SWFObject.

Enhancing the quality of your videos will attract more viewers and help build your online reputation. You should also promote your video blog on social networks and talk to your search engine optimization team to ensure that your video content is getting as much exposure as possible.

Using Javascript (jQuery) over Flash

Many websites today use engaging animations to hold the attention of their visitors. Web designers and developers have typically used Adobe Flash to create animation and interactive features for websites in the past, but now many have found that Javascript libraries, like jQuery, offer several features that make the creation of interactive features easier and faster than Flash.

jQuery was introduced in 2006 and is currently the most popular Javascript library used today. The open source software is free to use and contains the following features and functionalities:

Rapid Web Development
Cross-browser Compatibility
Ajax Functionality
Small Size
Easy to Use

Flash was introduced by Adobe in 1996 and is used by designers and developers to add animation and video to webpages. While this multimedia platform is still used for video playing, games, infographics, animations and many online advertisements, it requires more time and is a lot harder to use when making edits.

jQuery is becoming more popular for several reasons. Let’s compare the pros and cons of each solution, now that there are viable alternatives to some of the Flash capabilities.

Flash Pros	jQuery Pros
Support for video and 3D More extensive features Can embed special fonts Vector Drawing and Animation Graphical User Interface (GUI)	Free (many free plug-ins) Compatible with most current browsers that are Javascript enabled Works on iPad & iPhone Easy to Implement Small file size (normally) Faster load time (better for SEO) Adds interactivity to standard HTML elements Can degrade nicely if Javascript is turned off Large development community Great documentation One of the most lightweight Javascript frameworks Microsoft recently shipped it with their code development template for Visual Studio 2008/2010
Flash Cons	jQuery Cons
High cost of purchasing Flash software Large file size (potentially) Not SEO friendly (file size and spider crawling) Harder to use & make edits Requires browser plug-ins Not available on mobile devices, including iPad, iPhone	Source code is not protected Less extensive features Limited features for 3D animation

With the growing popularity in mobile technologies such as the iPhone, Android or Blackberry, three systems that do not support Flash, many Flash based sites have had to turn to jQuery as a solution to this problem. Most (if not all) web browsers support Javascript, and therefore support jQuery as well, which is one of the main reasons jQuery is being used more often.

While compatibility is definitely important, load speed is just as essential. Pages that have Flash animations tend to load slower, which is bad for Google search positioning.

There are many Flash-like effects that developers can implement using jQuery including image menus, banners, animated cross-fades and more. For example, the animations on the Verndale homepage are JavaScript and they work on any device with a browser. They are also visible to search engine spiders as well. You can find many references online that can explain how to create Flash-like animations using Javascript instead of Flash.

Ultimately, Flash will still be commonly used in the future and will thrive in more advanced, custom animations, but when all browsers support the latest CSS and HTML5, there will be an alternative for playing videos.

We want to know your thoughts on using jQuery and Flash. Do you prefer one over the other?

Google and Bing - One Year Later

It's been about a year since I briefly analyzed the quality of results on the newly launched Bing "decision engine" and it's fair to say that Bing has raised the bar in the search market. Since its launch in June 2009, Bing has been steadily gaining marketshare – mainly at the expense of Google – up from 8.0% in June 2009 to 12.7% in June 2010, while Google has decreased from 65.0% to 62.6% during the same period, according to comScore. Remember, before Bing's launch, Microsoft's MSN and Live search engines' marketshare had been steadily declining. And with Bing to be powering all of Yahoo!'s search queries by the end of the year, it will leave just two engines (major powerhouses) to battle it out.

This steady shift in marketshare has not gone unnoticed at Google by any means. In fact, many would argue that Google has made more UI and algorithm/indexing updates within the last 12 months than it has in any other year's span. Many of these updates mimic the new features that Bing has brought to the table. And for updates that don't mimic Bing's new features – Google has made sure to let you know each one of them.

Let's take a look at some of Google's major updates within the last year:

Search Options
First announced in May 2009, which allowed users to refine searches through options in a left hand panel, more functionality was announced in October 2009.
Google May 2009:

After conducting a search, users had the option select "Show Options" under the Google logo, which would open a left panel that allows users to refine the search by content type and time of index.
Google October 2009:
In October, functionality was added to refine by: past hour, specific date range, more shopping sites, fewer shopping sites, visited pages, not yet visited, books, blogs and news.
The Search Options aren't necessarily a response to Bing since many of them were in place before Bing actually launched. But, the effort Google had been making to enhance its UI following the launch of Bing is probably not a coincidence. Google's addition of a left hand panel to refine search is very similar to the various options Bing has sported all along in its left hand panel.
Image Search Options
Announced in July 2009, Google began allowing users to access existing tools in a new left hand panel to filter images by type, size, and color. Bing has offered similar functionality since its launch.
Google Images, July 2009:
Bing:
Google Caffeine
First announced in August 2009 and live last month, Caffeine is a new indexing system that is "50 percent fresher" than its original index and is the "largest collection of web content" in Google's history. Essentially, Caffeine allows Google to make content that it crawls searchable within seconds, therefore augmenting its real-time search efforts.
The chatter around Caffeine was rampant in the blogging community following the announcement a year ago and was largely due to Google's heavy communication on the matter. They issued blog posts, had Matt Cutts talking about it and provided a developer preview. The messaging around Caffeine was aimed to reassure you that Google is on the forefront of creating the best search experience for its users.
New UI
The most noticeable update within the last year was the new user interface launched in May 2010. The metamorphosis of the results page according to Google was "in response to the increasing richness of the web and the increasing power of search — revealing search tools on the left and updating the visual look and feel throughout." While that all may be true, the new layout seems like a step towards Bing's SERP.
Google's reskinned and present-day SERP:
Google is using the three-column layout (search options, main results, and ads) that other engines have been using for a while, including Ask, Bing, and Yahoo!. Almost all of the left hand panel functionality existed before (hidden under options), now it appears on the left automatically. They renamed "Web" to "Everything" and it was all essentially a "re-skin" without any algorithm updates that affect rankings.
Bing's SERP:
Bing's left hand panel doesn't have as many options as Google and mainly focuses on related search queries for refinement and your search history, which is based on a cookie.
Homepage Background (Fail)
When Google forced an image background on its homepage last month (just like Bing has been doing since launch), it didn't go over well with users. In fact, it only lasted 14 hours and prompted the search term; "remove google background" as the seventh most popular search that day. Google is now back to the basic white background and offers the option to change the background through an icon at the bottom of the page. They said it was only an [failed] experiment.
Google Homepage with Default Image Background:
Bing Homepage (Image changes daily):
Flight Search (announced)
Earlier this month, Google announced an agreement to acquire ITA, a Boston-based airline flight data company. Google plans to use the data to allow users to search airfares within their UI, much like, (guess who?) Bing.
Bing's Flight Search:
Google Image Search

Announced last week, Google Images relaunched with a new and improved way to search for images. Instead of showing ten or so images on a page, you can now scroll through 1,000+ images within the same page. There’s also some extra functionality like being able to hover over the image, which gives you a larger preview and some more info about the image.

Google Images, July 2010:

The new layout is starkly similar to Bing’s Image search, which has been live since their launch.

Competition's a Good Thing

When Bing launched, Google released a statement:

We welcome competition that helps deliver useful information to users and expands user choice. Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space—it makes us all work harder.

Homepage background images aside, I think it's fair to say Google has lived up to that statement within the last year by making themselves aware of their competition and working hard to improve the search experience. Let's hope both engines keep raising the bar so the search experience continues to evolve for the better.

CMS Upgrades

How to Determine if a CMS Upgrade Is Right For You

Every few years, organizations with on-premise content management systems (CMS) confront a recurring quagmire: upgrade their CMS to the vendor’s latest release or stay on their current version. While an upgrade does indeed come with benefits, such as increased flexibility, improved functionality, enhanced business intelligence, and potential long-term cost reductions, an upgrade can also bring with it key drawbacks, like impact to IT infrastructure, business disruption, upgrade costs, and vendor lock-in. So how can you reach the right decision over doing an upgrade? To reach the right decision, Verndale suggests employing a decision framework that includes: laying out your options, understanding your organization’s fit against each option, and measuring the values for the options that are the best fit.

CMS Upgrades Stir Up Mixed Emotions

For nearly a decade, packaged CMS apps have aided businesses with improving line of business capabilities -- like marketing, sales, and customer service – as well as enhanced business and IT operations. As time passes, however, owners of on-premise CMS apps have had to face the recurring dilemma of upgrading their CMS apps at one time or another. And each time they’ve mulled over an upgrade, they’ve had to consider the benefits and drawbacks that are inherent with upgrades.

CMS Upgrades Yield Four Types of Benefits

CMS upgrades bring forth a set of key benefits that help businesses be more efficient, reach target markets quickly, and increase effectiveness of business and IT employees. Primarily, the benefits of upgrading CMS apps center on:

Increased flexibility. Improvements in technology standards, such as web services oriented architecture (SOA) and web 2.0 technologies like Ajax and Flash, have enabled organizations to be more agile and flexible in addressing application integration requirements and supporting new business requirements. The faster technology can adapt to better support changing business needs, the more successful businesses can be in responding to customer and prospect demands.
Improved business support. New CMS releases usually mean improved application functionality to support new and changing business requirements. Social web application integration, digital asset management, and improved admin consoles enable business and IT users to provide richer website experiences and reach their online business goals, whether marketing, sales, customer service, or operations related.
Enhanced business decision-making. Enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities are common areas of application improvements in new CMS releases. With enhanced reporting and analytics, businesses can utilize the CMS to collect online data, digest the information, understand what that information means, and make more intelligent decisions based on the data.
Reduced costs. Staying current with CMS upgrades can reduce long-term costs, most notably in cases of customization, application integration, and perpetual support. With new releases having greater ease and flexibility for integration, costs can ratchet lower for API development and custom integration of 3^rd party applications. Additionally, as CMS apps mature, CMS vendors often sunset prior application versions because older app versions become more expensive for vendors to support over time. In these circumstances, the burden of support falls onto the app owners, and as such, greater support costs can incur for maintaining the app going forward. For those who upgrade, they avert the increased support costs.

…But Beware That Benefits Can Be Disguised As a Trojan Horse

Although there are many benefits to upgrading, there are also several hazards that warrant consideration. The challenges that come with CMS app upgrades can cause organizations to seriously rethink their upgrade plans and possibly their IT and IT management strategies. Key hazards that CMS upgrades typically introduce include:

IT infrastructure impact. In organizations where there’s a high degree of integration between CMS and other back office applications, an upgrade to the next release of a CMS can threaten or even destabilize existing website integration and customization work. Sometimes, if you upgrade one application, you may need to update other integrated applications too. If you upgrade your CMS to the most current release, how will the upgrade affect your current CMS environment and related application ecosystem?
Business disruption. IT projects, in any form, bring change to the organization. And change, no matter what its form, can lead to confusion and disarray. A CMS app upgrade can disrupt business operations in the form of application outages and usability challenges. If users suddenly lack a technology tool to support their daily activities, or the new technology requires users to perform tasks in a different way or method, operational effectiveness can be compromised. To this end, if you upgrade your CMS to the most current release, how will the business be disrupted by the upgrade?
Upgrade costs. Typically, vendors don’t charge software fees to upgrade their CMS to the most recent release. However, organizations performing an upgrade have to absorb the labor costs for upgrade implementation. In environments where application integration is high and technology complex, organizations can incur a sizable labor bill for upgrade planning, risk mitigation, and implementation. In addition, beyond the implementation costs, upgrades lock-in a new cycle of annual maintenance fees that organizations must pay on an annual basis to the CMS vendor. If you upgrade your CMS to the most current release, how can you determine what the total cost of ownership will be for the short and long terms?
Vendor lock-in. Organizations that upgrade their CMS apps to the most recent version inevitably tie their fate to their CMS vendor and, as a result, have restricted ability to switch to an alternative CMS option in the near and (possibly) far terms. If you upgrade your CMS to the most current release, how can you minimize vendor lock-in and ensure you have flexibility for the future?

Utilize a Three Pillar Framework to Guide Your CMS Upgrade Decision

Reaching a decision over upgrading your CMS is no simple task. The benefits and drawbacks of upgrades can make even the most astute decision-maker crawl into the fetal position. To unravel the complexities of the CMS upgrade issue and reach the right decision for your organization, follow a three pillar decision framework.

Lay out your options

Knowing your options is the first critical step in reaching a CMS app upgrade decision. Beyond the high level “upgrade” or “don’t upgrade” options, you can:

Do Nothing (stay on current release)
Upgrade (to vendor’s most current release)
Migrate to another on-premise product
Migrate to a SaaS product
Migrate to an Open Source product
Outsource your existing app to a 3^rd party service provider

Understand your organization’s fit against each option

Once it’s clear what the primary options are, assess and rate your organization’s fit for each option. Not every option is a strong fit for your organization to seriously consider. Your organization may have certain requirements or preferences for: business process support, application integration and flexibility, cost tolerance, software vendor viability, data security and control, and in-house resource availability. To assist in this step, utilize an options matrix that helps you determine when you should pursue an option and when you should not pursue an option. Utilize the sample matrices below (see figures 1-6) to profile yourself against each option and qualitatively assess whether an option is worth pursuing. Rate your scores for each criterion with a “High” or “Low” rating, and compare your ratings to each matrix to illuminate which options are strong fits for your organization to seriously consider.

Measure the value of each option through an ROI analysis

Finally, once you’ve profiled your organization against each of the options, take the 2 or 3 options that best match your organization’s profile and quantitatively measure the values through an ROI analysis. Build an ROI model based on three components:

Assumptions
Costs and benefits
Risk

Knowing the Total Cost of Ownership for each option can not only help determine the option’s value, but it can also assist with measuring the option’s risk and justifying (or refuting) the option.

On-page Optimization Checklist

Are you looking to achieve higher rankings in search engines for 2010 and beyond? In order to improve your current rankings, you should have the proper on-page optimization tactics in place to help spiders associate the right keywords with your content. On-page optimization helps reinforce a page’s content theme through incorporating the target keyword phrase throughout various areas of the page. Here is a basic checklist for utilizing the areas of on-page optimization:

Target Keyword Phrase Selection

Use Google’s Keyword Tool to find the most relevant keyword phrase that encompasses the overall content theme of the page. Be sure to select one that is a strong balance of relevance and search volume. For example, a website for a college in Boston, MA might not rank well for the search term “colleges,” as it is too broad. It would have a better chance at ranking higher under a more specific term such as “colleges in boston.”

Keywords with high search volume are great, but the strategy is to select highly targeted keyword phrases with the right balance of relevancy and volume.

Copy Optimization

Search engines will consider a page more relevant to a particular keyword phrase if it appears frequently throughout the copy. Once you have chosen your targeted keyword phrase, use it several times throughout the page (while it still reads normally), maintaining an appropriate ratio between the keywords and the rest of the content on the page. If the keyword is used too much (also known as keyword stuffing), then search engines will consider the page to be “spammy.” 15%-20% is usually ideal repetition.

Optimize the Meta Title Tag

The meta title tag is one of the first elements of a page that a search engine will index so it is very important to leverage your target keyword phrase here. It will also be displayed in the search results listing as the title as well. The title tag should be short but descriptive so that the search engine can easily identify the focus of the page. Remember to frontload the title tag with your targeted keyword phrase.

URL Optimization

Use the targeted keyword phrase in-tact within the URL. Again, this will help explain to search engines exactly what your page is all about, making it easier for users to find it. Limit the overall length of the URL and make sure they are “clean,” avoiding any unnecessary words or dynamic characters.

Appealing Meta Descriptions

The meta description is not weighed as much as other optimization components in the search engine algorithm, but your website could lose traffic without it. An enticing meta description is a great way to increase your click-through rate (CTR). The description should be appealing to users, contain the targeted keyword phrase, and consist of 16 words or less, as it will appear in the search engine results listing.

Please note: Check out our blog on SEO best practices for writing metadata.

Page Titles

Including your target keyword phrase in your page title is another significant factor in getting higher rankings. The target keyword phrase should be located as close to the beginning of the title as possible. It is also recommended to have the page title built in an <H1> tag within the HTML. The page title will be very similar, if not identical, to the meta title.

Internal Linking

Link to relevant internal pages and other resources that are significant to the copy on your webpage strategically using keywords within the anchor text. This will help attract inbound links naturally by drawing attention to your content. Linking to relevant blogs may help attract links as well if bloggers decide to offer them in return.

Please Note: Read our blog on internal linking strategies for more information.

Optimize Images

If you have images on your page, then you need to optimize them as well. Use specific keywords to create important image optimization elements such as the ALT text, image file name, and image title.

ALT Text – ALT text is used to describe the image if it is not displayed on the screen because the user has disabled images in their browser. It is also displayed when the mouse is hovering over the image.
File Name – Use keywords in the file name when you save the image file. For example, save the image as Facebook-logo.jpg instead of FBK0045.jpg.

Write Attractive Copy, then Optimize

Many people are so focused on creating optimized copy that they forget the value of providing unique, quality content that attracts attention and links first. The more (quality) sources you have linking to your page, the higher your webpage will rank. Start with writing engaging copy and then optimize it afterwards. The content body length should be at least 300 words in order to compete with similar pages that have more extensive content.

These on-page optimization tips are a great start to better rankings; however, it is just a start. Search engines are getting smarter and much of what affects page ranking has to do with off-page optimization techniques as well as on-page optimization. Return to the 6^th Floor Blog next week for a post on “Off-page Optimization Techniques.”

Verndale Summer Outing @ Thompson Island

On August 27, Verndale employees traveled to Thompson Island for our 1^st annual summer outing. Thompson Island, located in the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, is just a 25-minute ferry ride from downtown Boston. With clear skies and 75 degree weather, the Verndale group of 50+ gathered at the EDIC Dock to catch the ferry. The team had high energy, anticipating the day of non-stop activities and fun.

As our energized crowd disembarked the ferry, we were delighted to find a field of activities to partake in and a clambake lunch to enjoy. Immediately upon our arrival, lunch and cold beverages were served. Employees dined on delicious lobsters, salad, corn on the cob, clam chowder and more.

Once our stomachs were satisfied, we ventured off to play action-packed games of volleyball, horseshoes, Bags, Frisbee and soccer. Laughter could be heard as Verndale employees scored points and sank shots under the hot summer sun.

Towards the end of the day the group posed for a picture before boarding the ferry and to head back to the city. The Thompson Island Summer Outing had certainly been quite a success. A special thanks to Laura Ragno for planning the company outing and to the exceptional Verndale photographers who documented the event. The laid-back and relaxed atmosphere provided a truly unique experience and the perfect outlet for members of the Verndale team to build camaraderie outside of the office.

Be sure to check out Verndale’s Flickr page for a full recap of the day’s events along with other photo sets that highlight news and capture the Verndale community. We look forward to next year!

Off-page Optimization Techniques

If you read our “On-page Optimization Checklist” last week, then you know several ways to improve the SEO performance of your website by optimizing the content on your site, but on-page (or on-site) optimization is only half of the battle; off-site optimization is critical for achieving strong visibility within the major search engines.

Off-page optimization techniques focus on improving a site’s online credibility against the major engines. External link credibility is the primary algorithm factor that influences major search engine rankings. The more quality links you have pointing to your site, the higher your site will rank on the SERP (search engine results page). The following off-page optimization techniques will help you increase the number of backlinks to your site; therefore, improving the overall performance of your website.

What is Link Building?

Link building is a broad term used to describe the different things you can do to increase the number of links back to your website. It is an important optimization technique because a high number of quality external links pointing to your site will boost your rankings. One way to increase the number of links pointing to your site is to exchange links with other websites. This is called reciprocal linking and is not as high-quality as one-way linking, but can still be effective. The best way to link build is to create valuable, unique website content that naturally attracts links. You want to create resourceful, relevant content that readers will want to link to.

Link Building through Competitive Backlink Analysis

Spend some time researching your top-ranking competitors’ backlinks. By gaining this competitive insight, you can reach out to these potential link targets and request that they link to your site as well. Backlink analysis can also provide you with additional information about your competitors such as links that they are getting from trade shows or events they are sponsoring or colleges that they may be recruiting at for potential employees. You may want to consider these options in the future to be a part of your link building campaign. There are several tools available that you can use to perform backlink analysis including Link Insight and Open Site Explorer.

Link Refinement

The anchor text of external links should be relevant to your targeted keyword phrase. For example, if another website is linking back to your blog on social media optimization, make sure the anchor text is “social media optimization.” (Example below)

WRONG: “For more information on social media optimization, click here.

RIGHT: “For more information, read our blog post on social media optimization.

This will tell search engines what your page is about according to other sources and not just you. Use Google webmaster tools to determine what sites are linking to yours. You can also type “link:(your URL)” into the Google search box to get a sample-sized list of these sites as well. Reach out to other websites that are linking to your site and ask them to hyperlink your targeted keyword if they are not already.

Social Media

Posting on social networks is one of the fastest ways to build backlinks to your site. In the past, social networking links have not affected PageRank because of their nofolllow attribute; however, they will still increase site traffic and may indirectly build inbound links in the long run. Recently, there have been several discussions in the SEO community around Google adding social networking links to the algorithm, which would affect rankings, but this has not been confirmed yet by Google.

Web Directory Submissions

You can submit your site to several free or paid web directories. Use your best judgment to choose which ones are better quality than others because some of them have been devalued by search engines. If you need help finding a directory, then contact our team and ask for information on Verndale’s directory research services.

Paid Links

You should be aware of paid links as it is not a recommended off-page optimization technique. Google will penalize your site if you pay for inbound links that pass PageRank and will place a penalty on your site, limiting or even omitting it from their index if their spam team detects it. Business Owner, Ryan Abood learned this the hard way when his website was banished from the Google search results page because of paid links his company had purchased.

Blogs

Blogs are beneficial if they are actively managed because search engines love fresh content. If a search engine identifies that you post fresh content regularly, then they are going to crawl it more often. It’s also important to keep fresh content on the blog so that visitors can comment on and link to it from their own active sites.

External blog commenting can also be a great way to send traffic to your website. If you comment on a blog with relevant content to your site and provide a useful link to your website, this can help drive qualified traffic, which increases exposure and the likelihood of garnering more external links. Guest writing on already established blogs has recently become popular as well.

Press Releases

Distribute your press releases through a news distribution service such as PRWeb to extend your reach. PRWeb also offers an SEO product that lets you utilize anchor text on links within the press release, which is a huge SEO value-add because they become keyword-centric links from an external source. Make sure to link back to your site in your press releases. If your clients are releasing press releases that may relate to your company, then request that they link back to your site as well. Make sure to also post press releases on your website as timely fresh content can rank in search engine news results.

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers is a great way to drive traffic to your site. You can create a free account and then use it to answer questions that are related to your website content. Yahoo Answers offers the ability to provide a link in your response, which you can use to reference your site. It is a perfect way to drive quality traffic to your website that is more than likely going to be interested in your content and subscribing to your RSS feeds.

Integrating Offline with Online Marketing

Anything your company participates in offline (meetings, events, sponsorships) is an opportunity to promote online through your own website or asking your partners to link to your site. Also, offline marketing is known to influence search behavior so integrating the offline efforts with your Search and Online Marketing Strategy is essential to ensuring your audience finds you when they search for you online. Make sure to include links on any business cards, marketing collateral, etc. so that other businesses can link back to your site.

In Conclusion

Off-page optimization techniques will help increase keyword relevancy for your site, which will improve your rankings. Don’t expect immediate results – SEO takes time so it may take 1-3 months before you see your rankings improve. And of course, remember to stay away from black hat spamming techniques such as hidden inbound links, paid links or link farms, which are sites with 100+ links per page. These tactics may cause your site to be penalized. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our SEO professionals.

So, what’s your development process?

Ask anyone at a company the same question and you’re almost guaranteed to get widely different responses across the board. The gap grows even wider when you cross discipline groups from say − Business to Development. It’s a relatively simple question, which (depending on your role) can be difficult to answer and has a huge impact on a company’s ability to release their product.

What is a development process and why do I care?

In this case, the term “development” refers to more than just an engineer who sits in a dimly-lit room, staring at a computer monitor for 8 hours a day writing code and listening to Pandora (ah, good times). A development process is a game plan for planning, designing, implementing, validating, releasing and maintaining your product. Likely, each area of your plan covers different departments or resource groups inside your company that work on different portions of a project.

Key points in a development process:

Idea!
Some form of planning and requirements gathering takes place
Design
Implementation
Verification
Release
Maintenance

Just to make things confusing, you can then apply different development models inside your development process. Different development models (e.g. Waterfall & Agile) change the overall execution of your development process while the main points still exist to varying degrees. Each development model introduces different pros and cons.

The problem with Waterfall

Projects created using a Waterfall development model are typically executed in series. The project moves from one department or resource group to another with little or no overlap between the two. In this model (especially if the project is timeline-driven), the last department or resource group to receive the project has the least amount of time to do their work.

An example project process might look something like:

Client wants a sailboat
Requirements for a sailboat are captured and documented

A few key pieces are missing, but there were so many requirements that they were easily overlooked

3. Design reviews requirements and an innovative sailboat is designed

Requirements may or may not be updated based on new designs

4. Developers take specs plus designs and begin building

Factory doors close to outsiders, crews begin work

5. Sailboat is complete, inspector moves in for verification:

Yes, it is a sailboat
It does indeed float
It hasn't been painted

6. Sailboat moves to production for a paint job...

"We weren't included in the planning and had no idea this was coming." Followed by a scramble to apply a paint job.

7. Sailboat is presented to client

Where's the mast?
Are there anchors?

8. Repeat process

The problem with Agile

Projects created using an Agile development model are typically executed in parallel with a focus on lightweight planning and incremental development. The project is typically built via a collaborative effort between all project or resource groups working on pieces of the project at the same time. In this model, it’s easy to get caught up in “discovered” work as you make iterative improvements and lose sight of the big picture.

An example project process might look something like:

Client wants a sailboat
High level requirements and concepts for a sailboat are doodled on a series of napkins
Engineers think about a how to build a sailboat and begin
Design adds ongoing feedback during build
Inspector adds ongoing feedback during build
Client adds ongoing feedback at each phase of the build process
Production works on each section of the sailboat as engineering finishes
Sailboat is presented to the client

Caveat* - We added many great features during the build process but are now at budget, so the ability to float will be available in V2

Conclusion

Each approach has different benefits and drawbacks and the reality is many businesses actually do a hybrid of both models even if they claim to follow one development method over another. What really matters is that your company defines a process that takes into account all groups that actually work on a project and provide some smooth method of transition and ongoing checks and balances for the project as it moves between different departments or resource groups.

One might…

Assign a key stakeholder to each project. That stakeholder will follow the project from conception to launch, constantly reviewing the project during the project lifecycle.
Leverage recurring project syncs between the groups actively working on the project that focus on status updates, reviewing the next chunk of work to be done and identifying any open questions and issues
Constantly update the requirements document as gaps are identified
Evaluate the overall timeline and budget as the project progresses to make sure the project is not only on track for work completed, but any “discovered” tasks and change requests are tracked appropriately
Allow the client to review the project at key development points and provide an appropriate level of feedback

Regardless of what your development process is, everyone needs to know what your standards are and when they will be involved in each project. Posting public project timelines, milestones and contacts can help alleviate lots of confusion.

5 Best Practices of Website Navigation

We have all landed on a website with poor navigation. Whether we realized it or not, it made us think – and sometimes hard. Chances are you spent a matter of seconds on that page before you decided to leave and look for a site that was easier to navigate.

Every website should provide a comfortable user experience for the visitor − one that doesn’t require much thinking at all. Use these best practices to ensure that your website is well-organized and provides an enjoyable experience for your visitors.

Be Consistent

The main website navigation should be consistent throughout the website. There should always be a link to the homepage. Most websites use the logo as the homepage link and others include a home link in the navigation bar.

Keep Link Text Clear

The link text in the navigation should always be clear in order to meet the users’ expectations. When they click on that link, do they get what they expected? Make sure the meaning of each link text is unique as well.

Divide Menu into Key Content Areas

Divide the menu into key content areas. For example, the Symmons website, one of our most recent designs, groups products into key content areas based on the room in which the products are used. (image below) This makes it easier for users to navigate through an abundance of products.

Remind Users Where They Are

As visitors click on your navigation menu and travel to a new page, differentiate the section the visitor is in by changing the color or appearance. For example, the Symmons website uses a darker color and green bullet to distinguish which section the visitor is in. (image below)

Arrange Links Appropriately

Links should be organized based on the order of importance. Try to keep the number of links to a minimum on each page and reduce the amount of links that go to the same page as much as possible.

Creating a website navigation that is comfortable for the user and compliant with the content should really be done by a professional Information Architect. The Information Architect will organize the content and functionality of a website into an Information Architecture (IA) or Site Map based on the purpose or goal of the site. If you are interested in speaking to one of our information architects about your website navigation, sign up for a free consultation.

Mitigating the Risks of Social Media

The impact of social media has affected brand recognition and enterprise revenue for many organizations, according to a 2009 study by ENGAGEMENTdb. Gone are the days of resistance towards Twitter and Facebook in fear of damaging a professional image. Enterprises have not only seen the return on investment (ROI) in social media engagement, but have found to be more financially successful when using social media as a part of their strategy, reported the ENGAGEMENTdb study.

It is no surprise that 65 percent of the Fortune Global 100 companies have active Twitter accounts, 54 percent have Facebook fan pages, 50 percent have YouTube video channels and 33 percent have corporate blogs, according to Burson-Marsteller's "The Global Social Media Check-up" report.

While this is encouraging, enterprises still have to be cautious when it comes to using social media channels. The negative impacts of social media are not always talked about –such as liability for libel, privacy violations and damage to brand reputation. If your company is involved in social networks, then take the time to learn about their negative effects just as much as the positives.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Examining the risks is not always done by enterprises until it’s too late. As with any new project, businesses should compare the risks vs. benefits before joining social media networks to reach, attract and engage customers, employees and future prospects.

Enterprises world-wide are finding that social media channels increase web traffic, engagement, and ultimately conversions. One of the biggest benefits of social media is its ability to be tracked and measured. Enterprises can easily allocate time and resources based on the metrics they receive from social media networks as well as external social media analytics tools. Businesses have also found that social media channels provide the ability to monitor competitors, customers and prospective clients. The result? Marketers are more informed about their customers and prospects, and they know which messaging campaigns work and which ones don’t.

Many organizations have begun to use tools to keep up with competitors and to avoid being left behind, but often organizations rush into utilizing social media outlets without knowing all of the risks. Typically, risks include tools being implemented without IT involvement, poor project planning or lack of social media outlet controls. The result? Marketers are left without a risk mitigation plan to tackle any problems that may arise from utilizing social media technologies.

The best way to address these risks is to first have a social media strategy in place. This involves knowing what tools your customers utilize, which technologies your organization can support, and what messages you want to send to your customer base through these tools. Additionally, when creating a social media strategy, businesses should consider the risks of communicating with customers, employees, and prospects through social media tools, as well as the data and reputation risks associated with public facing applications that may exist on employees’ personal social media pages. The risks that social media tools impose could expose the corporate network to malevolent outside sources. As a result, it’s important to have resources available that can manage any issues that may occur.

Developing a Strategy

Creating and documenting a solid strategy will help mitigate the risks of social media. Since the use of social media networks and tools do not require the implementation of new technology, many businesses are involved without making any risk assessments. Documenting a social media strategy should involve all stakeholders in the organization including IT professionals, human resources and business leadership to ensure that the strategy is in line with all business policies and broader company objectives. Use this information to get your company thinking about the risks of social media. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the Verndale Team. We will discuss risk mitigation techniques in a later post.

Top 6 Sitecore On-Site Optimization Techniques

You’ve spent a lot of resources designing and building your website so that it offers your visitors an exceptional online experience that provides unique and valuable content. Now, how do you maximize the reach of that content through SEO? Are you doing everything you can to optimize your content?

The answer lies within your search engine optimization (SEO) approach. The Sitecore CMS offers functionality that helps make your site content more visible to search engines if employed correctly. While many of these features must be customized and implemented by a professional engineer, they can significantly improve the overall performance of your website. Here are six ways to optimize your content using Sitecore:

Don’t Bury Important Content within Your Hierarchy

As search engine spiders crawl your website, they crawl your content hierarchy (or Information Architecture), which is outlined in Sitecore’s content tree. The deeper content lies from your homepage means more clicks for your users and the more difficult it is for search engine bots to find, both of which most often enter through the homepage. Bring priority content front and center by linking it from the homepage or top-level sections through call-outs or other editable areas within the main areas of the site. If you need to keep important content in a deeper level, consider using the “URL Aliasing” functionality in Sitecore to shorten the URL. For example, you can alias the URL as www.domain.com/deepercontent.aspx while still keeping your content item in the deeper level. Limiting the directory paths in the URL strong help maintain a clean, keyword-targeted URL for SEO.

Implement an XML Sitemap

An XML Sitemap allows you to prioritize the pages of your website and ensure they are spidered. Sitecore can automatically create an updated version of your Sitemap, which will allow search engine robots to find the new content on your website.

Use Custom Redirect Modules

If you make changes to your website (e.g. delete, alias, or move a page), then 301/302 redirects should be implemented in order to prevent users and search engines from reaching a broken page and instead point them to the correct location. Also, the 301 permanent redirect prompts search engine algorithms to pass all external link credibility, so nine out of ten times, a 301 should be used. Redirect pages right from Sitecore using a custom redirect module.

Enable Search Engine Robots

Use the “Robots” field typically found in the “Tagging” section of Sitecore to enable the search engine robots if you want them to find relevant content on your website. When you want search engines to index a page and follow the links, then simply choose “INDEX-FOLLOW.” If you don’t want search engines to index or follow the links, then choose “NOINDEX-NOFOLLOW.”

Choose Specific Meta Tags

In the “Tagging” section of Sitecore, you will also find the Meta Keywords and Meta description fields. Include the page’s target keyword phrase in your Meta Description and list out relevant keyword phrases in the Meta Keywords field. Typically, the page title will be inserted as the Meta Title, so it’s important to incorporate the page’s primary keyword phrase a the beginning of the title. You can use the Google Keyword Tool to research target keyword phrases. Keep the keywords consistent throughout the Meta tags, content, titles and headings for the best results.

Leverage the OMS

The Sitecore Online Marketing Suite (OMS) provides users with advanced online marketing capabilities such as web analytics that can measure content performance. Marketers are able to send personalized content to users through the OMS based on their browsing behavior, which will add to their user experience and increase the likelihood that they link to the site in the end. Having all of this functionality in one place is an incredible asset to many organizations – saving time and money.

Maximizing Visibility

Staying competitive online is crucial if you want prospective customers to find your website. Leveraging Sitecore’s features and functionality for your on-site SEO efforts puts you ahead of most of the competition right away. If you have any questions regarding these SEO tactics, don’t hesitate to contact one of our SEO consultants.

Ray Ozzie’s “Dawn of a New Day” Marks an Industry Shift to a Cloud-centric World

Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie has his head in the clouds…and that’s a good thing.

Looking through his rearview mirror, Ozzie reflects on his past five years with Microsoft in an internal memo sent to executive staff in late October. The memo, titled “Dawn of a New Day,” encourages Microsoft to continue with its forward momentum and let go of a past that is largely defined by Microsoft’s software for the PC.

Ozzie paints the picture of a “post-PC” world of global Web devices that are hosted by the cloud and always available. This world that he so profoundly illustrates predicts “… decades to come of incredible innovation from which will emerge all sorts of 'connected companions' that we'll wear, we'll carry, we'll use on our desks and walls and the environment all around us."

As so many industry-leading companies today struggle to adapt to a cloud-centric world of apps and devices, we can’t help but wonder what’s around the corner for our industry. How will this affect business processes?

“…cloud computing will become pervasive for developers and IT – a shift that’ll catalyze the transformation of infrastructure, systems & business processes across all major organizations worldwide,” Ozzie writes.

The phones and pads of today are only the beginning of a “post-PC” world that will detect your voice and touch, while sensing your location. Businesses will need to ensure their interfaces are consistent across all platforms.

“…fielding a truly continuous service is incredibly difficult and is only achieved by the most sophisticated high-scale consumer websites.”

These highly sophisticated websites will be accessed and managed from the cloud by web owners and content editors using software-as-a-service (SaaS) models to update content and provide fresh copy on a daily basis. It is a futuristic shift to a cloud-centric world.

Is your business prepared for this future?

Looking Ahead

Ozzie’s vision threatens the software giant, as 50% of the company’s profits are generated by the Windows operating system for PCs and its Office suite of programs such as Word, according to the Guardian.

Google continues to convert businesses and organizations from Microsoft Office products to its Google Apps for Business, which is currently used by 3 million businesses. Ozzie admits that Microsoft has come up short in some areas, although it has done great things.

“Certain of our competitors’ products and their rapid advancement & refinement of new usage scenarios have been quite noteworthy. Our early and clear vision notwithstanding, their execution has surpassed our own in mobile experiences, in the seamless fusion of hardware & software & services, and in social networking & myriad new forms of internet-centric social interaction,” Ozzie writes.

Stating that he couldn’t be more proud of what’s emerged as Windows Azure and SQL Azure, Ozzie notes that Microsoft is fully committed to services and believes that this will create opportunities for years to come. As Ozzie looks ahead, he states that he senses hope and optimism for the future of Microsoft and the IT industry as a whole.

“It’s the dawn of a new day – the sun having now arisen on a world of continuous services and connected devices,” he writes.

While Ozzie’s memo marks a five-year milestone for Microsoft and stimulates a lot of discussions for many organizations, it encourages businesses to look ahead at the future of technology and what it means for our industries. It will change the way we do business and interact with customers online. It will create an abundance of opportunities, as well as challenges as we shift our efforts to the cloud.

For more insight on what Ozzie sees for the future of technology, read the whole memo, “Dawn of a New Day.”

5 Simple Steps to a Successful CMS Implementation

So you want to implement a CMS? It can be a challenging task and you want to ensure a perfect implementation for your organization. The key to a successful CMS implementation is process. As with anything, solid planning sets the foundation for a successful project. Web design is no exception.

Everything about the implementation should be well planned and well presented to your content authors. If your content authors find the CMS hard to use, then it stands no chance at being a successful implementation. Choose a content management system with a comfortable user interface, such as Sitecore. The Sitecore CMS offers a browser-based authoring interface modeled after the Microsoft Office 2007 platform. Its ease of use provides a comfortable experience for most users of all content management skill levels.

With the right content management system, there are several ways to ensure a smooth implementation process as you prepare your organization for the transition. Use the five steps listed below in preparation for your successful CMS implementation:

STEP 1 – Build Requirements List

In order to ensure you are implementing the right CMS that is going to fit all of your needs, build a list of your requirements during the planning phase. By analyzing your needs before choosing a CMS solution, you’re going to ensure a greater chance at a successful implementation. It’s important to choose a CMS that is going to provide all of the functionality you need.

STEP 2 – Create Content Inventory

Start this phase as early as possible. Create a spreadsheet that outlines the purpose of each page on your website using the content you currently have on your website. This process allows you to play with alternative navigation methods and may help you find unnecessary pages that can be removed. It is also important to start building your library of content early in the implementation process. Typically, most time is spent around the design and technology of the CMS, and not enough time on the content. During this phase it’s also extremely useful to develop a content strategy. A content strategy is a plan for what content you want to showcase on your website and how you intend the content to resonate with your site visitors. This is inclusive of not only text but also photos/images, video, documents, and social media outlets.

STEP 3 – Lay Out Content Architecture

The content architecture refers to the hierarchy of the website’s navigation and structure. It should be well organized and easy to understand. Each web page should be grouped and named appropriately. Build the site map during this process as well. There’s no better way to explain where content goes then by simply creating a visual site map. A site map diagram will show the relationship between web pages and determine if a page is too deep or too shallow in the hierarchy. Keep in mind users should get to their information within 2-3 clicks.

STEP 4 – Define Functionality

As you define the functionality of the website, consider your audience and the purpose or goal of your site. Is it to build a reputation, show expertise, distribute information, sell or promote products, build community, or generate sales leads? Most likely it’s a combination of a few things. Rarely is it a single goal. Make sure your CMS solution is not too complex, but still provides enough functionality for the goals of your organization. Remember – the purpose of your CMS is to make life easier.

STEP 5 − Develop Website Management Process

Identify key players such as content writers and editors, and then assign roles and responsibilities. Implement a strong content strategy so that your website is prepared to distribute fresh content on a daily basis. Finally, put an approval process in place for content initiatives. This should streamline the website management process.

Post Implementation Opportunities

Use these 5 steps to ensure a smooth implementation process and a successful end result. It's also important that the developer truly understands the extent of the content before beginning the design process. If the content is not fully understood, pages may end up crammed into the hierarchy where they don’t fit later in the process. If you plan well, then you build once.

Once you have successfully implemented your CMS, you can focus on managing your website, allowing marketing staff to take control of updating content and IT staff to focus on new projects. The CMS will open doors to endless opportunities of fresh, engaging and timely content. It will help you meet business requirements such as optimized communication for website visitors and multi-channel content delivery.

Remember – implement the CMS for your users. Take all of their feedback into consideration and plan ahead. A successful CMS implementation not only builds for today’s requirements, but plans for tomorrow’s needs as well.

The End of Cable Television

I know, the first thing you are probably asking yourself is why a digital agency is writing a blog about cable television. The simplest answer is Google TV. Being the tech gadget addict that I am, I purchased the Google TV device upon its release to the world. While I was mildly impressed with the device, the first thought that came to mind was that cable television will soon be a thing of the past.

Pick Your Programming

If you are like me, you despise cable television providers and the costs associated with their services. Well, revenge is on the way. While Google TV is just the beginning of what is to come, it provides clear insight into how Google and other organizations are going to change the way in which we consume content on our televisions and at the same time eliminate the need for your cable or satellite provider. Wouldn’t it be nice to determine the TV networks made available to you instead of trying to pick some pre-canned package offered by your cable or satellite provider? Why not eliminate unwanted networks that simply give you little to no entertainment value? The time is near where you will be able to select from thousands of networks. Some will cost money, some will be free and continue to serve advertisements, but all will be available with a simple internet connection, not that silly black cable poking out of the wall. It is just a matter of time for Google or another organization to develop software that will allow you to group these TV networks into your own personalized TV package, making it accessible (pad devices, smartphones, computers), social, and easy to manage (control my TV programming from my iGoogle page).

TV and Content on Demand

Imagine being able to watch a TV show and read related content from the web at the same time. I love history, but often times the history programming that I watch doesn’t quench my thirst for the subject. Why can't a show cater to multiple audience members − those interested in a general overview of the subject matter and those who want to know more? The melding of the internet with TV makes this possible. Instead of showing me a historic photo on a TV show, let me click on it and see more, learn about its origins, or browse related content.

Why can't I watch football and see how my fantasy team is performing (or underperforming) on my fantasy football website? Let me pick the stats I see on the bottom or top of my screen. Let me personalize the frequency of scores and updates from around the world of sports. In fact, let me determine where this content appears on my TV screen. Websites like ESPN.com, CBSSportsline.com, and SI.com can develop applications that overlay your TV screen to make this type of interactive, personalized experience a reality.

What's in it for Google?

In one word − ADVERTISING! By now most of you know that Google is nothing more than the greatest advertising company in the history of the world. Is this what inspired Sergey and Larry (Google's Founders) to write such a great search algorithm not so long ago in their garage in Menlo Park, California? Probably not, but that is exactly who they are, and there is nothing wrong with that. Google creates these wonderful products and pretty much gives them away. All they ask for in return from you, as the consumer, is to view an advertisement, served contextually within the content you are consuming. Pretty small price to pay, if you ask me. I know others would disagree.

Imagine if Google cracks the TV medium. Imagine bringing search and sponsored ads and new wonderful services to your TV. Google can, and they already are. More viewers on a Google-powered service equal more opportunity to sell advertising space to your company. Not only that, but they know exactly who your viewers are, what they are watching (now and in the past), where they are, and most importantly how to serve an advertisement that takes all of these factors into account, making the advertising dollar that much more effective. Oh and one point not to be overlooked, Google can provide extraordinary reports and metrics back to the advertiser, making the Nielsen Ratings look like the Apple IIE. This is all scary and wonderful at the same time.

More Possibilities

I have already noted just a few of the possibilities and realities of what a Google TV type device brings to the consumer, but what I haven't mentioned is how it can benefit just about any company in the world looking to get noticed in order to sell their goods or services. The thought of advertising on TV is a daunting task to most companies. Not for long. Soon, you will just go to Google Adwords, establish your advertising strategy and determine the medium from which you would like to serve those ads. TV? No problem, pick the shows, pick the geographic market, pick the demographic market, pick the time or hey − let Google figure out how to best spend your advertising dollar. They are real good at it.

As someone that works at a digital agency, it’s difficult to summarize the opportunities this type of technology offers our clients. The possibilities are endless! More than anything, companies must realize the importance of their content management and content distribution strategies. Centralized content, served to multiple devices, to numerous mediums, in different formats is the new requirement.

I'm not naive enough to think cable television companies are going away and will simply become internet providers, but they will change. They have to, otherwise they will become the modern day Blockbuster, once controlling a market but not smart and/or fast enough to see what that market was going to become and how technology was going to change it.

Voice Mail Preview - Microsoft Speech Technologies

A funny thing happened today − I left a voicemail for one of our technology partners. The message wasn't humorous at all; however, the way it was captured and then displayed to its intended recipient turned into a modern day game of telephone.

The message was captured by our partner’s Voice Mail Preview system, which is offered within Outlook 2010 and Outlook Web App. The system is powered by Microsoft Speech Technologies and is intended to provide a clean translation of a voice mail directly into email.

The technology is still in its infancy and can be seen in its raw translated form in the email below, which was passed along to me by our partner.

Voice Mail Preview:

Hey Bob,

Not Ryan malts brat Ferndale hey thanks for goodness back so quickly pretty well helping us most but but but your slower there out on the.

Central a part of the country so -- .

Moving with thanks that's all but pretty wild he is a lock this and outlook so I can give me a shout when you get a cup message we'll talk about next steps and we can move pretty quickly get this thing up for you.

Alright thanks.

I'm pretty sure that I don't speak German and haven't spoken Spanish in over 10 years, so what did I actually say?

The Actual Message:

Hi Bob,

It’s Ryan Moltenbrey at Verndale returning your message. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly as I thought you folks in the middle of the country worked at a slower pace!

We are moving ahead of schedule and looks like we'll have a pretty good chance to have the hosting infrastructure set up by the end of day tomorrow. Please give me a shout when you have a moment and I can update you on the progress.

Alright, thanks.

Ryan

The moral of the story is that the next time you leave a message and hear that it is being delivered by MS Voice Mail Preview, Google Voice or any other translated service you may want to think twice. Or, just make sure to speak extremely clear and very slow.

Voice recognition software kits do typically come with a microphone and training materials normally used to familiarize the software with the user’s voice. It is strongly recommended to read the script multiple times in order to increase the accuracy of the software. If the product is not familiar with the user’s speech patterns and enunciation, then the message is unlikely to come out clear, depending on the quality of your voice recognition package.

Learn more about Microsoft Speech Technologies as this is a fast growing segment in the technology landscape.

Social Media: Risk Mitigation Techniques

I stepped on the treadmill and selected how many miles I wanted to run. As I began to put one foot in front of the other, I picked up my iPod and chose the playlist I wanted to listen to while I ran. I felt at ease because I knew I was in control, but what if I wasn’t? How would I feel if I didn’t know when the treadmill was going to stop or what song would come on next?

A loss of control is one thing many companies fear when it comes to social media. Exposing real-time customer feedback to large networks of people, with or without the resources to monitor it, is a frightening concept for many organizations. Not to mention the threats and vulnerabilities that could cause harmful exposure of corporate networks. Despite hesitations, most organizations still participate on social networks because they understand that if they don’t, then they may suffer an even greater lack of control. Now that search engines are factoring in “social signals” to determine PageRank, organizations are under more pressure to participate if they want their website to perform well on the search engine results page (SERP).

Since social media tools do not require any additional technology to implement, corporate social media strategies don’t always begin with thorough planning and risk assessments. In a previous post we discussed different social media risks and how to implement a social media strategy. As promised, this is an additional post focusing on different risk mitigation techniques.

Use the table below to mitigate any corporate social media risks that you feel may threaten your organization.

If your company does experience any brand issues related to the risks above, it is best to respond to the matter immediately. In 2009, when Dominos suffered a social media crisis, they did not respond right away, hoping the backlash would subside. It was not until later when they addressed the issue that customers began to let go of the controversy.

Social media use in the enterprise will challenge organizations because it will change company culture and process. Departments such as customer service, marketing, and business development may experience shifts in communication as social media continues to become a dominating force. While this article focuses on the risks, social media presents great opportunities to connect with clients and business partners. With good strategy and risk management, social media becomes a powerful tool for the enterprise and a requirement for businesses that want to lead in their industry.

Verndale Celebrates the Holidays at Fenway Park

Wait! Fenway….in winter? You bet! This holiday season Verndale employees got to experience Fenway Park up close and personal as the team celebrated the season and all of Verndale’s 2010 accomplishments.

The night began with a guided tour of America’s most beloved baseball park. The winter chill didn’t stop employees from venturing through the stadium, learning all kinds of facts about the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park...like:

Fenway Facts

Although it came close, there has never been a nine-inning perfect game pitched at Fenway Park, thrown by one pitcher in the 20th century
The first night game ever played at Fenway Park was in 1947. Night games began in the 1930s, but Red Sox ownership did not want to pay for lights.
The stadium seats were originally made of oak when the park first opened
Fenway Park has one of the last hand-operated scoreboards in the Major Leagues – can you name another baseball park with one?

Verndale employees ended the tour at Fenway’s EMC club where the festivities began. The staff wined and dined while celebrating the season and all of the year’s great achievements.

What a great way to close out the year, celebrating our endeavors and awarding team members in a place that knows “team spirit” very well.

You can find more photos from Verndale’s night at Fenway Park on our flickr page. Also, look for more blog posts, VerndaleTV episodes, SEM Tips and more in 2011....See you next year!

Top 10 Blogging Tips for 2011

It’s that time of year when you set new goals and resolutions, striving to do better than last year and the year before. Did you set a blogging goal this year? There has been a lot of hype around blogging due to a recent challenge WordPress issued for bloggers, asking them to post blogs more frequently. The challenge is to blog daily or weekly all year. Could you do it?

Why make the effort? If you’re writing for a corporate blog and are focused on driving more traffic to your website, then you should know that search engines love “fresh” content. The more the better. More published content causes frequent crawling, which typically results in more visibility. If you are going to commit to more blogging this year, then use these blogging tips to help you blog like a pro:

Blogging Tip #1 – Choose an Attractive Topic

If you want to interest a lot of people, then write about an enticing topic that is highly searched. Check out industry-related blogs to see what other bloggers are writing about. Look at trending topics on your social media news feeds. All of this content should spark some ideas that you can then put your own spin on.

Blogging Tip #2 – Write a Killer Headline

Pick a headline that is going to persuade the reader to click on your post. The headline should be creative in order to attract users, but also provide a clue to what the blog is about. Keep it simple.

Blogging Tip #3 – Incorporate Target Keywords

Once you’ve chosen your topic, search for related keywords to integrate into your blog. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to evaluate the traffic volume of each word. Then pick out one or two words to target. Use them frequently in your post, while being careful not to overuse them. This tactic is critical for on-page optimization.

Blogging Tip #4 – Links, Links, Links

Link to relevant internal pages and other resources that are significant to your blog. Make sure to be strategic when linking and choose relevant keywords as your anchor text.

Blogging Tip #5 – Tell a Story

Now that your headline has gotten the reader to click on your post, hook the reader by telling a story in your intro. Share something people can relate to that is going to project personality and make your post unique.

Blogging Tip #6 – Provide Useful Content

While telling a story is a great introduction to a blog, make sure the blog has substance. This will keep readers coming back for more. Provide your audience with tips, techniques, lessons, advice or other types of valuable information.

Blogging Tip #7 – Learn from the Best

Keep your eyes on the experts in your industry who are blogging. Watch how they communicate their messages and portray their own styles. Check out these company blogs from our industry -

Blogging Tip #8 – Close with a Call to Action

In your conclusion, include a call to action for your readers. This doesn’t have to be a sales pitch or demanding request. Simply provide a link to more information or social networking sites so readers have the opportunity to share your post.

Blogging Tip #9 – Add Visuals

Jazz up your post with an image, chart, graph or video. Readers will enjoy having a visual while reading your post.

Blogging Tip #10 – Distribute Your Content

Now that you’ve created some great content, leverage it. Post it on your social networking channels at least 3-5 times over the next few days. Post a teaser on your homepage linking to your blog. Include a link to your post in your company newsletter. All of these tactics will send traffic to your site.

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5 Ways to Maintain an Accessible Website Using Your CMS

Whether you are required to be 508 compliant or you simply want it to be simple for everyone to find and use your information, your CMS will make this task much easier. After you learn the basics, keeping your website compliant will just be a matter of simple upkeeps.

Some of these things you can combat in several ways and during different parts of the production process. Though the upkeep seems easy to someone who might have HTML knowledge, to most this is all new and a bit confusing. Save energy on upkeep and instead focus on content.

Color blindness:
Being color blind can be a hamper if a website is not designed with a palette to account for it. The easiest way to combat this is to make sure your website has enough contrast, especially with links and background colors. To do this all you have to do is print your website or designs in black and white. If the images or links that you want visible are not, then you’ll know that the contrast is not large enough between items. Best practice is to stick with dark text on a light background, preferably white, to ensure users can read your content and aren’t distracted by blinding colors.

Images:
For those who cannot see, or cannot see well, it’s important to fill out the ALT attribute for each image. The CMS can make this easy. Whenever you pull an image attribute to an item, pull its ALT attribute from the media library or pre-fill it with an appropriate value as well. For example: In a newsletter listing you can make the ALT attribute the title of the newsletter. “Alt-text” should always be written in complete sentences so the user can fully visualize the content without seeing the image. Using a period at the end of attribute sentences also signals those using screen readers that the description has ended.

Navigation:
Navigation can also be tedious for a visually impaired user as their browser reader will read aloud the top navigation and side navigation with every page load. In your templates allow a hidden link that skips down to the page content. For visitors using screen readers, it’s especially important to provide keyboard shortcuts to important content. When using form input fields, the “tabindex” attribute helps define the path the user should be filling out the form.

Media:
Descriptions of media are often overlooked. With many text readers the ability to understand a flash video or JavaScript interaction is not easy. A simple <noscript> with a description of what the item is will still allow you to describe your media to your users without the need of disrupting your visual display to the rest of your audience. You can place the item’s small description or the title of the media item that has been uploaded into the Media Library.

Content Block:
Most websites have a generic content block where the user can place their content of generic pages. Here is where you cannot do a whole lot. There are some things you can do when content is placed into the CMS. For example, ALT attributes for images that are uploaded, linking text that is descriptive and not just “click here,” and a small descriptive paragraph about any video that is uploaded as well.

So as you can see this is pretty straightforward. What I have found to be most helpful in all of this is that the CMS makes it easier for the website owner to update the website when regulations change. For a full list of 508 compliant needs, check out the Section 508 Standards Guide.

How to Avoid Black Hat SEO

Are you hungry for higher rankings? So hungry that you’d break SEO rules and regulations?

Don’t do it.

If you see an opportunity to improve search engine rankings, but it feels wrong - then it’s probably wrong and against Google’s quality guidelines. Abusing these guidelines may result in penalties or complete removal of a website from the search engine indexes. So how do you avoid using these “black hat” techniques? Let’s take a look -

What are black hat techniques?

Black hat techniques, also known as “spammy” techniques, are tactics used by website owners to gain higher rankings in search engines. These tactics typically involve presenting website content in a visual or non visual way that is unethical and creates a poor user experience for the visitor. While black hat techniques may create short-term gains, they could hurt your website in the long run. Here is a list of black hat SEO tactics to avoid when striving for good SEO results:

Cloaking

Cloaking is a black hat technique in which the website content is displayed differently to the search engine spider than it is to the human user. There are several different types of cloaking including, IP Address Cloaking, User-Agent Cloaking and JavaScript Cloaking. The purpose of cloaking is to get search engines to display the web page when it otherwise wouldn’t be displayed.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages or gateway pages are created to redirect users to another page. For example, if a user clicks on a SERP listing that is linked to a doorway page, then the user will most likely be redirected to another page that is irrelevant to the description that the user originally clicked on. The website owner had to of used some form of cloaking to send the user to the doorway page.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is a black hat technique in which targeted keywords are repeated excessively throughout the website content. Some content editors even go to the extent to hide keywords by matching the text color to the background. This is frowned upon by search engines and can be easily detected.

Link Farm

Links farms are websites that stuff their websites with useless links and are solely linked together to gain popularity. Naïve website owners will then exchange links with these websites hoping to boost their rankings. You do not want to link your website to a link farm.

Paid Links

The number, and more importantly, the quality of links that link back to a website is a determining factor of how a website is ranked. In order to improve website rankings, some website owners purchase links from websites that pass link popularity values, rather than naturally building their link credibility through having others voluntarily link or “endorse” their web content. Purchasing links is against Google’s guidelines and can eventually impact a website negatively if it is penalized. To learn how to report paid links, check out this blog post written by the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts.

These are only a few of many black hat SEO techniques to be aware of when trying to improve your website’s visibility. There are many valid methods you can use to increase your website’s rankings including on-page and off-page optimization techniques. Contact your SEO team if you’re interested in learning more ways to optimize your website.

Create Your Own Camtasia Tutorials for Free

Alright, so Camtasia is not completely free, but you can download a free 30-day trial to create your own tutorials. The screen recording and video editing software can be used for training and sales videos as well. Just download the free trial and get started…

Choosing Your Topic

What should the topic of your Camtasia tutorial be? Think about the programs, services and products you know well. Choose a topic that you are comfortable talking about for a few minutes. Camtasia allows you to record great screencasts on anything you can put up on your computer screen. That PowerPoint presentation you just gave last week - record it and put it up on YouTube. That new service or product you’re selling - record it, post it on YouTube and extend your reach to millions of viewers in minutes.

Recording Your Screencast

Camtasia allows you to record your computer screen and then go back to zoom in on important features, enhance sound quality, import images, add arrows or shapes and even insert voiceover and music as well. Simply click on the “record the screen” button in the upper left-hand corner (image below) to begin recording your screencast.

Editing Your Camtasia Tutorial

Once you have recorded your Camtasia tutorial, edit your screencast from the timeline (image above). Here you can cut and paste different parts of your video, adjust audio and voice narrations, as well as create callouts and zoom keyframes. Rearrange the order of your video into different segments or import additional videos to complete your Camtasia tutorial.

Sharing Your Video

When your video is ready to be shared, click the “produce and share” button at the top of the Camtasia screen. Camtasia will save your video in several different formats including MP4, AVI, etc., depending on where your video is going to be posted. The program will also give you the option to upload it directly to YouTube or Screencast.com. In moments your screencast will be available on the web at no cost.

Google Analytics Tutorial

This is an example of one of our Camtasia tutorials covering Google Analytics (below). The project took a total of 3 hours to produce and share to the web and is receiving daily visits on our YouTube Channel, as well as our VerndaleTV page.

Future Tutorials

Are there any tutorials that you’d like to see? For more information on Camtasia or to suggest a tutorial topic, please leave us a message in the comment field below. Check back to VerndaleTV for more Camtasia tutorials coming soon.

Front End Development: Why is it so important?

The core function of what I do has always been front end development, which has expanded over the years along with the advancement of the Internet. Front end development is not as complicated as it seems, but it certainly involves visual sensitivity and a programmatic austerity. Let me explain…

What is Front End Development?

Front end development is a mix of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, also referred to collectively as DHTML, used to make a project look good and function well. At Verndale this step is used to prepare your project's designs to be integrated into a content management system (CMS) by our Engineering Department.

Why is Front End Development important?

This step insures that your content will be well laid out, easily readable, search-friendly, and accessible. All of this is done through the standards Verndale has set up to ensure that throughout the lifecycle of the project any changes can be done efficiently, while still being sensitive to budgets and timelines. To make sure we stay conscious of these issues we prepare for each project's needs by placing our standards under a constant internal review.

Our goal for these standards is to make our production efficient; therefore, manageable even at later stages in the project's life cycle. Since we are always reviewing and improving our work internally we are able to preemptively catch many of the issues that arise in the later stages of a project. This allows us to stay efficient during this stage and later stages, while also saving time and money during the entire project's development cycle. Experience has taught us that time saved early on exponentially saves time later on and that saves money for each project.

At what point in the project process would we see front end development?

If we are developing a project for you, front end development is part of the package. We will handle the transition from the creative designs to the back end development. We will also be part of the Quality Assurance during the later part of the project's cycle, assuring the site works as it was expected before its final stage.

For web consulting work we will be reviewing the quality of your current website to see if it holds up to the quality we see as important for your project success. Some of the things we look for in these reviews are the website's speed performance, its content's layout for search ability and its adherence to 508 requirements for accessibility if it has any government requirements. The specific testing depends on your project's needs.

In Conclusion…

Though the front end development stage of a project is usually hidden, it is still important for you to understand the needs of this step and the benefits it provides to a project's success. With our experience we provide an efficient transition to the back end development - and that allows your project to be done right the first time.

How to Drive 129+ Visitors to Your Website

Is it possible for one blog comment to drive 129+ unique visitors to your website? You better believe it! But, is this quality traffic landing on your website or simply curious clicks?

This depends on your blog commenting technique. External blog commenting can be a great way to send traffic to your website if it’s done effectively. If you comment on a blog with relevant content to your site and provide a useful link to your website, this can help drive qualified traffic, which increases exposure and the likelihood of acquiring more external links. There are a few things to remember when posting comments on blogs in order to drive quality traffic.

Generating Quality Clicks

In order to gain quality interest in your comments, make sure you are providing valuable, relevant feedback. It’s important to actually read the blog post and then add something interesting to the conversation. Make sure your comment includes your personal opinion or advice from a past experience, not just an unrelated sentence or two that links back to your site. A quality comment will grab the attention of a quality reader.

Gaining Maximum Exposure

If you want to generate a large number of clicks, then it’s important to choose a high-profile blog that gets a lot of readers and RSS subscribers, as well as other commenters. On November 5, 2010 Verndale posted on Mashable, one of the largest blogs on the Internet with a reported 40 million monthly pageviews. The blog topic was “How To: Calculate the ROI of Your Social Media Campaign.” The blog comment, which linked to one of our blogs, “Mitigating the Risks of Social Media,” generated 129 visitors in just a few days and is still producing clicks today. Of these 129 visitors 67.01% were new visitors that looked at an average of 2 pages per visit. This was added exposure for the Verndale site that took a minimal amount of time and effort to achieve.

Gaining maximum exposure on a high-profile blog also involves commenting immediately after the article is published. Readers don’t typically read through 50 comments so it’s important to have one of the top five comments on the post.

Reap Long-term Benefits

Finally, for branding purposes, make sure all of your comments are posted by a branded profile with the same name, image and signature. Many commenting fields will allow you to login using one of your social media accounts. Be sure to use the same account each time so that readers begin to recognize you as a consistent commenter.

Hopefully in no time you will gain added exposure through blog commenting that drives quality clicks to your website. Just imagine the opportunities that could transpire from dedicating just a few minutes a week to commenting on external blogs. Perhaps, those blog authors will begin commenting on yours.

If you have any questions regarding this off-page optimization technique, contact one of our SEO team members.

SEO Tips and Tricks for the Spring Season

Make this spring your “SEO Season.” Don’t let the final days of the winter blues cause your SEO efforts to fall by the wayside. It’s time to spring forward with these SEO tips and tricks and get ahead of your competitors in search engines.

Use these SEO tips and tricks to gain visibility on organic search results and drive more traffic to your website. Take some time to apply the following techniques and make every effort count -

Use Social Media to Boost Search CTR

It’s no secret that social media has begun to influence search engine rankings, but a recent comScore report reveals that social media actually increases search click-through rates by 94 percent…

Target Long Tail Keywords

As you develop your keyword strategy, try targeting long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are phrases that are three to four words long as opposed to more generic or head terms that are only one to two…

Avoid Ranking Penalties

Google places penalties on websites for various offenses varying anywhere from Manual Penalties like off topic porn content or link purchasing (in the J.C. Penney example) to Algorithmic Penalties…

Optimize Flash with swfobject

Even with crawling advancements, Flash is still not really SEO-friendly, but we understand that there are very good reasons to use Flash, so in order to rank well with Flash-heavy pages…

Search-Friendly Website vs. Search-Optimized Website

Essentially, a search-friendly website is one that is “crawlable” by search engines in that it makes strong use of HTML, rather than a search-optimized website that is…

Leverage Google Boost for Local Search Optimization

According to Google, 97% of people research online before buying locally. Google Boost, an advertising solution that allows local businesses to connect with potential customers…

International SEO Guidelines

Are you looking to reach potential customers abroad? It’s no surprise users all around the globe use search engines (mainly Google), but the search results, and consequently SEO strategy, differ from country to country…

Take Advantage of goo.gl API Access

Google is going even further to expand its URL shortener, “goo.gl,” with the most recent launch of goog.gl API (application programming interface) access…

Were these SEO tips and tricks helpful? Do you have any to add that we might have left out?

If you’re interested in receiving more SEM tips, sign up for Verndale’s SEM Tip of the Week to receive them weekly by email.

Workflow Automation with the Kentico CMS

A defined workflow sets the foundation of every efficient business process. Whether a company is hiring a new employee, managing a lead, processing a sale or updating website content, every task must be properly transferred to the appropriate team members in order to keep the project on course. Workflow automation within a content management system (CMS) allows content to be transferred or automated from worker to worker as the activity is recorded and tracked. As a result, this can reduce inefficiencies in business process, as well as free managers from having to micro-manage employees.

While every content management system offers a different form of workflow automation, this post focuses on setting up workflow within the Kentico CMS. The Kentico CMS offers organizations the ability to create “customizable workflow or approval processes for different document types and site sections.” (see figure 1)

Kentico Tip: Customize the workflow notification e-mails in Site Manager -> Development -> E-mail templates

For example, if you want your marketing director to approve all new content posted to the blog or news section, then you can easily set up a workflow process where content editors are required to seek content approval from the marketing director before the content is published.

Figure 1 – Document Lifecycle with a Workflow:

Once the document is submitted, an email is sent to the appropriate person, notifying them that there is new content awaiting their approval.

Kentico Tip: Turn off e-mail notifications in the workflow process in Site Manager -> Settings -> Content Management

This improved workflow process speeds up task completion and reduces labor costs, allowing companies to deliver faster and more consistently.

Defining a Workflow

To get to the workflow management settings in the Kentico CMS go to the Site Manager -> Development -> Workflows. Once you are there, you’ll be able to create test users, define new workflow and custom workflow steps. The following video will show you how to define a new workflow using the Kentico CMS 5.0.

HD version available here

Storing Version History

During the workflow process you may want to go back and access an old document version that you might have saved over. The Kentico CMS offers a versioning feature that automatically saves each document version. Instead of rewriting lost content, you can simply open an older version saved in the CMS.

Kentico Tip: Version history length can be configured in Site Manager -> Settings -> Content management -> Version history length

Using the Kentico CMS, you can also view different versions side-by-side to compare changes that were previously made. Both of these features can save you a lot of time and energy.

Elements of Successful Workflow

Successful workflow will streamline content publishing procedures and reduce turnaround time. One important aspect of successful workflow is ensuring that every member involved understands and agrees upon the project purpose. It is also important to review the process from time to time and eliminate any unnecessary steps. Training can be a key element of successful workflow as well. If your employees are familiar with the tools they are using and understand the workflow, then they will be more likely to succeed in the process.

In order to maintain successful workflow with your Kentico CMS, make sure you:

Prevent overlapping work using the check-in, check-out feature
Provide training for employees
Always tie workflow step and/or permissions to roles, not users (this way you don't have to repeat the process of assigning workflow steps and permissions each time you add a user to your organization)
Assign roles to appropriate users
Monitor the state of tasks

For more information on using workflow in the Kentico CMS, contact one of our Kentico experts.

10 Tips for Creating an Effective Landing Page

Remaining competitive in the world of online marketing is a challenge that many businesses are facing today. The online sales rate is only increasing and online competition is fierce. Most organizations are not only learning how to develop a strong online presence, but are also working to generate traffic and convert that traffic into leads or sales. The landing page is a powerful tool used by businesses to monetize online traffic successfully.

A landing page is essentially a web page that is optimized for landing users from various online marketing campaigns and specifically designed to convert those users. Typically landing pages are not linked from the site’s navigation or sitemap.

The effectiveness of a landing page is measured by its conversion rate, or the rate in which a visitor lands on the page and takes action. It can be used to market a product or service, advertise a contest or promote an event. It is a powerful tool because it allows companies to be extremely targeted when tailoring their messaging to a specific audience.

For example, if your company is marketing a new product, it may be more effective to send traffic to a landing page specific to the product, instead of directing traffic to the main website. The main website may list other products or services which could cause the visitor to become quickly distracted or lost, or even bored. The focused messaging of a landing page could help drive user engagement and capture the desired conversion.

There are several fundamentals that go into creating an effective landing page; we’ve listed some of the essential ones below:

WRITING TIPS

Keep it Simple

Keep the page copy concise and digestible. Users typically read the first and last paragraphs before diving into the middle of the page. It’s more effective to bullet out important points and leave out the fluff. It’s also good to speak in the second person and explain exactly how your service is going to benefit the reader.

Matching Language

Headlines and page copy should reference the ad copy that sent the user to the landing page. This will keep the page more familiar and engaging for the user. If you say 20% off the product on the banner that sent the visitor to the landing page, then the landing page should also say 20% off to keep the customer experience consistent.

Clear Call to Action

Prevent your reader from getting lost on the page by creating a clear call to action. Make sure the page copy is persuasive enough to guide the reader right to it. Best practice is to have a minimum of two conversion points per page. It is also effective to provide incentives for your visitors to convert such as sending them a white paper or report once they have completed the conversion.

Communicate, don’t Advertise

The focal point of your landing page should always be to communicate, not to advertise. Advertising should get users to click the link to your landing page, but then your landing page itself should provide valuable information that clarifies the value of your offering.

DESIGN TIPS

Above the Fold

For landing pages, it’s important to keep as much content as you can above the fold in order to make the conversion as easy as possible. The user should not have to scroll far on a landing page to find the main message. Make sure your conversion point is at the top of the page and pops right out for the user to see.

Remove the Navigation

Consider removing the main navigation from the landing page. This could be distracting for the visitor and may cause them to overlook the conversion calls to action. The narrowing of navigation options you present to the user will help funnel them to where it is you want them to go. You can link to main areas of your site through footer links so you’re not completely restricting users who seek to visit other domain pages.

Properly Branded

Is your landing page properly branded? As important as it is to keep your brand consistent across all platforms (including your landing pages), it is just as important to use graphics carefully. Don’t use any images or graphics that will distract the visitor. Again, keep the page simple.

Supporting Material

If you’re marketing a service or product, then include awards or portfolio images on the landing page as supporting material.

On-Page Optimization

Use proper on-page optimization tactics to help your landing page achieve higher rankings in search engines. On-page optimization helps reinforce a page’s content theme through incorporating the target keyword phrase throughout various areas of the page. But, if you do not want the page returned in the natural search results because it’s only meant to be visited from certain campaigns, then be sure to block it in a robots.txt file and a place a noindex tag on the page.

EFFECTIVENESS OF A LANDING PAGE

All of the fundamentals listed above play into the result of the visitor completing the process that you have lined up (purchase, subscription, download, sign-up, etc.). It is how well you execute on these aspects that will determine if the landing page is successful or ineffective.

Contact Verndale today and find out how you can take full advantage of an effective landing page.

It’s Business - and It’s Personal

What are you doing to personalize your inbound customer touch point? - A question asked by Unica’s VP of Products, Elana Anderson during yesterday’s virtual conference, “The Future of Marketing: Technology Driven Personalization.” The virtual “microconference” featured 60 thought leaders in 60 minutes, offering insights around personalized marketing and how it is causing a profound shift in the industry.

The reality that potential customers are no longer wandering across websites is sinking in for a lot of marketers and it’s becoming more and more apparent that it’s personalization that is going to deliver in the present and the future. The “personalization revolution” is another industry shift for marketers, where one generalized message sent to all contacts isn’t going to hook the consumer anymore. Consumers want the trusted relationships with the corner grocery stores like they had in the past, along with the VIP treatment.

What is your company doing to make customer interaction personal, compelling, and engaging? Are you taking advantage of your customer relationship management (CRM) system? Are you leveraging marketing automation software?

We are moving into an increasingly digital world where the right advertisement that’s placed at the right time in front of the right person is going to get the sale. We’ve highlighted some of the key takeaways from the conference below. Use them to make sure your company is taking full advantage of personalized marketing to build brand awareness and increase sales.

25 Facts, Tips and Strategies for Personalized Marketing

The future of marketing belongs to companies that can become a part of the consumer's identity.
Less mass communication more mass customization.
“Product recommendations” is the 3rd most popular way to find items to purchase.
IP recognition software will provide a dynamic individualized experience on websites.
Location-based mobile messaging is the ultimate value for some and ultimate Big Brother "creepiness" for others. You better know your customer!
Content needs to be contextualized to the current conversation, not the last one. Consumers move very quickly.
Marketing messages are no longer about ads... they’re about content, authenticity and value.
Why get more personal? Because it makes your brand more memorable.
Are you asking the right questions? People want to share information about themselves if you just give them the chance. Get them to nominate themselves.
Use targeted landing pages to drive higher conversion rates.
Harness the power of tools – use listening tools and keyword searches to understand what customers need.
Educate – create compelling content and use different channels to distribute.
Engage – use social media tools and blogs to engage prospects and customers.
Make sure you’re targeting within the right context. Are you targeting your customer during work hours? During free time?
It’s not about privacy, it’s about value proposition. Customers will trade personal information for better service. Give customers the right value and privacy will be less of an issue.
The key to personalization is hard work. Answer your emails and look up people’s backgrounds - you’ve got to grind it out.
Personalization is about talking to people as persons. Focus on human emotions, worry less about technology.
Consumers trust reviews from friends before anyone else. Make sure you’re providing quality service.
Don’t forget the value of traditional marketing efforts as well. TV ads are becoming more targeted…two people could be watching the same show but different ads.
Intent-driven personalization is best because it is based on the intent here and now. Understand engagement and determine how the user is engaging on the site here and now.
Read the digital body language of your consumers. If they have visited your site multiple times, monitor their activity and adjust your offerings based on the data you have.
Strategize. Who are your top followers and fans? What are they doing? How can you sell to them without being annoying?
All marketing that matters begins on the web because the web is the medium for a two-way dialogue. Structure a dialogue so you can capture the consumer’s imagination. If you can get into the consumer’s mind, interests and emotions, then you’ll get a shot at their business.
Business is personal. It’s helping to create trusted relationships. People like meeting the people behind the brands. Likeability is the first step to a long-term relationship.
People expect what they get elsewhere. If you can have Caller ID at home, then why aren’t businesses using it to provide better service?

What are your thoughts around personalization? Do you feel it is revolutionizing the field of marketing? If you had one minute to share some insight, what would it be?

Contact Verndale if you’re interested in learning more about customer relationship management or marketing automation.

How to Pursue the Social Consumer

Salesforce, a leading cloud-service provider, recently announced that they have entered into agreement to acquire the popular social media monitoring platform, Radian6 for $326 million. Radian6, used by more than half of the Fortune 100 companies like Dell, PepsiCo, GE and Kodak offers companies social monitoring services that enable them to better connect and engage with their audience online. The acquisition demonstrates how social media is changing business transparency and fusing online and offline engagement.

“In order for a business to become a social business, it requires the creation of bridges between business functions and social customers and bridges between existing silos,” said Principal of the Altimeter Group and social media expert, Brian Solis, about the acquisition. The new media guru, along with the Pivot Research Team surveyed 700+ marketers at the end of 2010 and found that in 2011, marketers plan to increase social media usage by 75 percent. More than 50 percent of the surveyed marketers plan on handling the social media marketing in-house. Tools like Radian6 will give organizations the software to better understand and serve their social consumers, as well as monitor complaints and competitors.

The report also showed that aside from age group, 84 percent of brands and agencies participating in the Pivot Study see the social consumer as a primary or secondary target in 2011. 59 percent also view social consumers as pivotal to the brand. Who is the social consumer and how can businesses target them?

Who is the social consumer?

While the social consumers are largely dominated by millennials, they are present at all ages, according to Solis. They surf social networks looking for reviews, coupons, customer feedback and special deals. They are social and tech-savvy individuals, spending most of their time on social networks, new media apps and services. They are quick to try new social platforms and typically pay more attention to what other social consumers are saying before they listen to any marketing campaigns.

Now that we have a better understanding of the social consumer, how do companies target them? For one thing, companies have to work hard at staying ahead of social consumers. This is not an easy thing to do. To start, make sure your company has an effective social media strategy and is aware of all social media risks. This will help with brand awareness, as well as managing your online reputation.

Here are some additional ways to target the social consumer:

Design for the “Facebook generation.” Is your website fresh, engaging and social?
Target through search - it is the first step to most online experiences.
Incorporate video on your social channels and website.
Get personal - make your customer interactions memorable using personalized marketing.
Talk with your customers and not at them - ask questions and listen to their answers.
Whether it’s custom-built metrics or a third-party service like Radian6, use social monitoring tools to track and measure engagement, as well as define the social media ROI

These are only a few effective methods to market to the social consumer. The challenge of today’s marketing industry is building relationships with customers, while leveraging the latest tech tools. Companies really have to show a human side and provide a memorable connection for marketing success. If your company is having a hard time transitioning or you have any additional ways to target the social consumer, please contact us or leave a comment in the field below.

If you are thinking about integrating Salesforce as a CRM and want to take advantages of the new Social Monitoring services with the Radian6 acquisition, be sure to contact Verndale, a certified Salesforce Partner, to answer any of your questions.

Dreamcore 2011: VerndaleTV Interviews Sitecore Brass

Sitecore’s Dreamcore 2011 conference came to an end this week in Boston, concluding yet another successful showcase of Sitecore products to its prospects, partners and customers.

Several Verndale team members attended the event and were provided access to interview the leaders of Sitecore USA. Topics ranged from new product releases to Verndale’s long-lasting partnership with the platform.

Don’t take it from us though; see what Sitecore had to say first hand:

Darren Guarnaccia: The Customer Engagement Platform

“Sitecore’s Customer Engagement Platform is our revolutionary new product that really incorporates much of what we’ve got in our Web Content Management Platform and extends into that, really the ability to engage your customers consistently across all of your digital channels,” said Darren Guarnaccia, Senior VP of Product Marketing.

Paul Markun: The Dreamcore 2011 Experience

“The range of experiences at Dreamcore is what surprised me,” said Paul Markun, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitecore. “The developers want to have some exposure to some of the business content and we have business users who want to come rub shoulders with developers and other colleagues and learn in that way.”

Erick Mott: Engaging Through Social Media

“You’ve really got to get in the game,” said Erick Mott, VP of Community. “Think in terms of real-time and really genuinely try to engage one-on-one.”

Jason Crea: Sitecore’s Partnership with Verndale

“This partnership has actually been a cornerstone to the Sitecore partnership model,” said Jason Crea, VP of Client and Partner Engagement at Sitecore. “We have a close-working relationship with not just the account and business development teams, but actually on the technical teams, the project management teams and those deep communication channels actually are at all levels of the organization from the executive right down to the producer.”

Sitecore continues to distinguish themselves from the pack in the mid-market and their industry-leading vision was front and center at Dreamcore 2011.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Dreamcore and would like to thank the amazing Sitecore team that took some time to speak with us. Can’t wait for next year!

Email: An Endangered Medium?

Unless you’re behind the push to use alternative web-based mediums for communication, the idea of email becoming extinct anytime soon may seem dubious. But chances are strong that you used web-based email less in 2010 than 2009.

A recent comScore report, The 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review showed that web-based email usage was down for just about every age group under 55 from 2009-2010, with the 12-17 age bracket showing the largest decline at a staggering -59%!

Web-based email, or webmail refers to email accessed through a browser, so think Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! mail, etc. as the majority of email usage analyzed in this report.

This means that the groups of people who make up the majority of internet users and have the most experience with email are now actually shifting away from the medium.

The report also noted that email usage among seniors has increased, which isn’t surprising as a larger percentage of the Buick owners today have had more exposure to the web than their predecessors.

So what was attributed to the shift? The report also went into detail on what sites people spent their time on. It showed time spent on webmail sites declined while social networking sites increased drastically.

People are spending more time on social networking sites and less time on email sites and there’s no doubt a connection: the purpose of both channels is centered around connecting and communicating with one another.

Perhaps Zuckerberg Was Right

Last fall Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg predicted the death of email when he introduced Facebook’s new messaging interface.

“We don’t think that a modern messaging system is going to be email,” Zuckerberg said at a press conference in San Francisco. “We want people to be able to communicate in whatever way they choose: email, text or Facebook message.”

Facebook has simplified the way users communicate with the new email system, modeling it after instant messaging and other online chat boards. Users are now able to communicate through Facebook via text, email or instant message and receive communications from all of these avenues through one news feed. Users typically value when related information from a variety of channels is consolidated into one place and that’s what Facebook’s messaging interface is trying to accomplish for users. And with over 500 million users with active Facebook accounts, it’s certainly playing a big role in the decrease of web email usage.

Will Business Email Follow Suit?

Many organizations with well established IT departments have typically hosted email in-house, whereas others as of lately have turned to cloud email services like Gmail in an effort to cut costs. While many companies and large universities are making the switch to cloud-based email services, will they make another shift towards using social networks to communicate?

One social networking system that businesses are turning to is Salesforce Chatter, a business collaboration tool used by enterprises to share information and communicate in real-time. Launched in June, 2010, Chatter has been viewed as a big step in the right direction for organizations trying to become more social and community-oriented when connecting with prospective customers. Essentially, it’s a collaborative web-based environment for colleagues to post communications, share files, and follow relevant groups or certain users. Salesforce says it’s one avenue that companies can take to advance office productivity and efficiency by “going social.”

If the usage of social networks continues to increase, which it’s expected to do, then we can probably expect more workplace-focused social communication tools like Salesforce Chatter to gain adoption - the kind of social sites business managers would actually like their employees to be on all day.

For more information on the state of cloud computing, watch this video on VerndaleTV.