CommonPlaces - Boston Web Design and Development

SEO Checklist: Things to Keep in Mind When Talking with Your SEO Provider

emily — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:15:25 +0000

There are many aspects to search engine optimization—keyword targeting, on-page optimization, link building, user experience, and social presence, to name a few. A competent SEO expert will examine your goals and employ those optimization methods that will best address the needs of your site.

Here are some points to consider in preparing to work with an SEO consultant:

1. Who is your intended audience? Are you primarily interested in local, regional, national, or global reach?

A business that caters to local customers would generally want to reach people in its home town or metropolitan area. A regional business might want to attract customers from one or more states. It's important to consider how far you want to reach, because that will be a factor in deciding certain keywords and inbound links. Nowadays, there's a great deal of attention on optimizing sites for local businesses, and there are specific techniques for achieving good results in local searches.

2. What are your target keywords?

This doesn't have to be an extensive list. It can be simply the few terms that relate most commonly to your business—terms that people are quite likely to use when searching for your products or services. From these, your SEO provider can do an extensive keyword analysis to find additional terms that will return relevant results for your particular niche.

3. Are the structure and content of your site well thought out?

There are two aspects to consider here: your content, and the way it’s organized and presented. To attract visitors, it helps to have fresh, well-written content that provides value—that truly informs, educates, or inspires the reader. Relevant, high-quality content generates interest such that visitors will want to share it. Social sharing has become a major factor in search results.

It’s one thing to have good content, but another thing to have that content well organized in a logical flow. It’s widely known that a site needs to be structured so that search engines can access and index it. But more importantly, navigation should be intuitive—content should be easy to find and understand. A site’s user experience strongly influences visitor browsing, conversion rates, and whether the site earns links and citations.

4. What other sites should link to yours?

There is a concept called domain authority, loosely defined as the amount of trust and authority attributed to a website by search engines. A key factor in determining domain authority is the number and quality of inbound links to the site. It’s also influenced by social media mentions, the age of the domain, and the volume of searches for the brand name.

Clearly, links from sites that have high domain authority are important in establishing the authority of your website. You may already have some such sites in mind. Your SEO consultant can validate those and help you find other appropriate sites.

It's important to remember that no SEO provider can guarantee top placement in search results. Search is a very dynamic process, and search results are influenced by a wide range of factors. Your SEO provider takes all these factors into consideration to develop a strategy that will be effective in driving the right traffic to your site.

Relevant articles

“An SEO Checklist for New Sites” by Aaron Wheeler
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seo-checklist-for-new-sites-whiteboard-friday

“8 Durable SEO Elements” by Erez Barak
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2111842/8-Durable-SEO-Elements

Ben Bassi

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CommonPlaces Develops Corporate Website for Axeda

emily — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:51:03 +0000

New website contains highly editable features for administrators

Hampstead, NH, August 29, 2011 – CommonPlaces e-Solutions, a web design and development firm located north of Boston has recently launched a new website for Axeda. Axeda is the leading cloud platform provider for connected products and machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.

The objectives for the enhanced corporate site were to maintain Axeda’s industry leading online presence in the M2M and Cloud Platform space, and to provide an easier content management experience for administrators with a clean, sleek appearance.

To meet these goals, CommonPlaces created a new look and feel for the site by using Drupal, an open source content management system. Drupal provides effortless content management for site administrators, making it an easy choice amongst those looking to maintain and update a website without having to turn to an IT expert.

CommonPlaces designed the Axeda website to be highly editable. Content can be substituted in and out of each page, including the homepage. The body of each site is capable of being updated, as are content blocks standing apart from the main text. These content blocks allow Axeda to highlight relevant information, promote an event, invite readers to learn more, or any other call-to-action that Axeda wishes to promote. Other notable features on Axeda.com include a tag cloud, the creation of lead generation forms, and a live Twitter feed.

“Axeda.com is a beautiful and easy to use corporate website,” commented Ben Bassi, President and CEO of CommonPlaces. “A large part of that is due to the vast resource library we created, where content such as case studies, datasheets, videos, whitepapers and webinars are easily accessible. These items are tagged and capable of being filtered by content type, allowing visitors intuitive access to preferred content.”

Mary Wells, CMO for Axeda stated that “CommonPlaces helped translate our ideas into a highly functional website. The CommonPlaces team delivered a very large project in a tight timeframe, and consistently provided feedback to help make the launch a success.”

This project marks the second time Axeda has chosen to partner with CommonPlaces. In 2010, CommonPlaces built the Axeda Developer Connection, a community for M2M developers using the Axeda Platform.

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About CommonPlaces
CommonPlaces e-Solutions is a full-service web design and development firm focused on helping businesses achieve their online goals. Learn more by visiting www.commonplaces.com.

About Axeda
Axeda is the leading cloud platform provider for connected products and M2M applications. More than 150 leading companies, including Agilent, Diebold, and EMC, rely on Axeda to connect any product on any network, and manage their connected products through the cloud with complete security and scalability — enabling them to innovate with extensive M2M application development capabilities.

By relying on the Axeda Platform to power their connected products, companies are transforming their business by improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs, and generating new sources of revenue. The M2M solutions behind these connected products range from remote service, fleet management, usage-based insurance, asset tracking, mHealth, and more. Join our developer community at: http://developer.axeda.com and learn more at www.axeda.com.

Emily Murphy

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CommonPlaces e-Solutions Honored With an Esteemed Communicator Award for WhatsWhat.me – The Safe, Secure, “Kids-only” Social Network

emily — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:43:13 +0000

Web design and development company chosen amongst 6,000 entries to receive highest distinction

Hampstead, NH, August 18, 2011 - CommonPlaces e-Solutions, a web design and development company based north of Boston, has recently been recognized by the International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA) with an Award of Excellence for work on WhatsWhat.me – the safe, secure, “kids-only” social network that teaches positive online behavior in a non-bullying community. The Award of Excellence is the most prestigious prize handed out as part of the 17th Annual Communicator Awards, a competition honoring the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations, and identity work for print, video, interactive and audio.

CommonPlaces developed WhatsWhat.me for “tweens” ages 7-13, and is compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Built using Drupal content management system, and utilizing biometric facial recognition software, creative video solutions, and other innovations such as grade-based separation technology, WhatsWhat.me ensures a safe, age-appropriate environment where kids can learn and practice online social networking skills.

“This Communicator Award is a fine reflection on the quality of work that CommonPlaces delivers to our customers every day,” stated Ben Bassi, President and CEO of CommonPlaces. “Not only is our team pleased to be recognized with such high honors, but we’re very glad to share this distinction with WhatsWhat.me.”

The 2011 Award of Excellence marks the first Communicator Award CommonPlaces has received. The award finds itself in good company alongside several other honors the Southern New Hampshire web design company has achieved during its 13 years in business.

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About CommonPlaces
CommonPlaces e-Solutions is a full-service web design and strategic planning firm focused on helping businesses achieve their online goals. Learn more by visiting www.commonplaces.com.

About WhatsWhat.me (Beta):
WhatsWhat.me (Beta) is the safe, secure “kids-only” social network for kids ages 7 to 13 (“tweens”) utilizing biometric facial recognition technology, human moderation, grade-based separation and kid-friendly features in a “no-bullying allowed” community. Compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), WhatsWhat.me (Beta) fosters an age-appropriate, empowering environment that teaches positive online behavior, Internet safety and related life skills. At its free Parent Resource Center prc.whatswhat.me parents obtain expert advice, podcasts and information on cybersafety for children. More information: www.whatswhat.me or http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/whatswhat/48109/ Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @WhatsWhat_me. Media Contact: Jeanie Ryan at jeanie@whatswhat.me or 603-235-5266.

Emily Murphy

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Mind Your Own Business!

emily — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:40:29 +0000

On July 14th 2011, CommonPlaces' President and CEO Ben Bassi was featured on the Mind Your Own Business talk radio show.

MYOB focuses on entrepreneurs, their stories, and a wide range of topics for entrepreneurial businesses. Listen in for some information on CommonPlaces’ involvement in the always-expanding mobile space, and an overview of our company as a whole.

Emily Murphy

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Go modular. It's the Drupal way.

emily — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:57:46 +0000

Back in the day, you could make a website with a single page of code. Technically you still can, but it would either be extremely simple for today's standards, or a big confusing mess. It's interesting to note that even then, this single file would most likely be called "index.html" and would work as a replacement for the directory's default index: a list of the files in that directory on the server. Even the simplest list is modular in the sense that it's composed of individual units.

Modularity has grown from separating images and CSS files into their own directories and files to grouping entire chunks of installable and configurable functionality. Content management systems like Drupal are prime examples of why this is good practice even with your own custom code. The question we always ask ourselves as we develop is, "Can this [module/theme/functionality] be disabled without affecting any other functionality?" If the answer is "no", we revise it until it works as independently as possible.

So when should you go modular? Let's discuss three examples of when this is a good idea with Drupal.

First: When you're setting up your site.

So you've downloaded some essential contributed modules (such as Views, Imagecache, and CCK if you're using D6), installed Drupal core, and possibly a theme. You've put your modules in the sites/all/modules directory and are about to create another custom module. But wait, let's go back a second. What if your client wants a subdomain or a second, related site down the line? Now is the perfect time to prepare for those possibilities by configuring your Drupal site as a multi-site. Instead of piling everything into sites/all, create a sites/example.com directory and determine what would be useful everywhere and what would only make sense for example.com. In each of those directories, create modules/contrib and modules/custom to separate anything contributed to drupal.org from any custom modules you build. Need help with the multi-site setup? Drupal.org has a slew of great tutorials and documentation (http://drupal.org/node/43816).

What's the advantage to the multi-site setup? It allows you to compartmentalize your code into site-specific divisions. Say example.com has video functionality that sub.example.com does not, but you need to share users or other functionality between them. This would be the perfect time to put your Embedded Media Field module into sites/example.com/modules/contrib and everything else that's used across both sites in sites/all/modules/contrib. Or, what if you need to build a custom games module for example.com that won't be available on sub.example.com? Same thing, except your custom work will go in the respective modules/custom directory. Themes are another great example. Maybe sub.example.com is a mobile version of example.com and requires a different theme. Now you have sites/sub.example.com/themes, sites/example.com/themes, and sites/all/themes to work with.

Second: When you're writing custom modules.

Drupal and a lot of its contributed modules are immensely configurable out of the box. However, no matter how robust modules get, we always end up needing a custom solution somewhere and therefore, a custom module. But again, you're stuck with the dilemma of where to pile those hooks and preprocessors. Cram it all in your aforementioned games module or an ever-expanding site module that if disabled will send your site back to an OOTB contrib state? Or modularize your custom folder even further? Here's a hint: choose the latter. You'll thank yourself later. Not only will this minimize or even eradicate the adverse effects of enabling/disabling such giant modules, but it'll also add to the best practice of self-documenting code by allowing for more specific module naming, making your code easier to navigate.

In some cases, you may not need custom edits, but it's still a good idea to export and backup certain bits of content to code, e.g. views, especially if you're working as part of a team and need to keep track of who made edits, you or the client. Keeping your views modular, i.e. adding your views export to a related module instead of stashing them all in a single site module, further exemplifies this best practice. Again, ask yourself, "Can this be disabled without affecting any other functionality?" If your views are stored in one module, your whole site will go down.

Third: When writing a custom theme.

It's easy to think of modules in a modular fashion, but how can we apply that practice to our theme? Now comes the question, "Does this belong in a theme or a module?" With all the theme functions and preprocess hooks in Drupal, it's both easy to load up your theme's template.php very quickly and tough to logically separate your theme from your modules. Generally speaking, if there are template files or theme function overrides involved, it should go in your theme. However, if your changes are part of a custom module's general scope of functionality, like if you need to use template_preprocess_views_view to customize the output of your games view, put it with your custom games module. Keep your theme focused on the design, markup and CSS and your modules focused on functionality. Sometimes you may use the same functions in both, but keeping the separation of purpose will make your site organized and easy to update.

For more tips on overriding themable output (http://drupal.org/node/341628 or http://drupal.org/node/457740), visit Drupal.org for the most direct documentation.

Shaun Sutherland

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Let's Talk Some More About Mobile

emily — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:19:10 +0000

On June 15th, CommonPlaces' CEO Ben Bassi was featured on 1590 WSMN’s “The Mix” talk radio show. Ben took part in a short conversation about the importance of optimizing websites for the mobile web and tablets. Listen to the discussion below.

Emily Murphy

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The Time to go Mobile is Now: Thoughts from SIPA 2011

emily — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:10:45 +0000

Yesterday, I presented in Washington, D.C. as part of the 35th annual Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) conference. My presentation, “Mobile and Tablets for Publishers – Ready or Not, Here They Come” focused on the importance of maintaining a mobile-ready, device-neutral website and best practices on how to get started.

Did you know that in Q4 2010, there were 100.9 million smartphone shipments as compared to 92.1 million PC shipments? It’s also predicted that by 2014, tablets and smartphones will represent 64% of all computers worldwide. These are astounding figures and only continue to rise. As such, I was very excited to speak to a room full of publishers regarding the value of optimizing websites for mobile devices and tablets.

Upon returning from the conference, I wanted to share a summary of my presentation in our blog.

The time to go mobile is now

Mobile is no longer a promise, but a reality.
Mobile is where your readers are
A mobile presence will help solve problems and increase profitability
You’re losing money if you don’t have a mobile site

Mobile presents a few challenges

Smaller real estate
Some devices don’t support flash and other proprietary display technologies
Using only a portion of content from desktop website
Potential lack of synchronization with desktop, tablets etc.

Solution – Several different approaches on going mobile

Multi-site: Multiple websites generated from a common database (content, images)
Multi-Client Adaptive Design: Displays site differently depending on user’s device
Third party products: Accesses website and detects when a mobile device is utilized. Creates a separate mobile website / user experience
Independent versions of site – Not recommended!

Let’s take a look at each of the advantages of disadvantages of each method.

Multi-Site - Advantages

Selective content published on main site is also published on mobile site
Each site can have its own distinct functionality / purpose
Or can share functionalities from one code base

Multi-Site – Disadvantages

Degree of difficulty in set-up
Need to have a CMS that supports multi-site
Separate theme required for each type of device

Multi-Client Adaptive Design – Advantages

Theme adjusts to any resolution / size
Great for publishing the same content on a multitude of devices
Design is device independent

Multi-Client Adaptive Design - Disadvantages

Devices all have same functionality and content
Disabling content creates unnecessary overhead on device
Images have to be resized by the device
Requires HTML5 & CSS3 media queries

Third Party Products – Advantages

Ease of use
Can easily pick and choose what content areas you want on mobile site
Synchronizes most content
Can create distinct mobile theme

Third Party Products – Disadvantages

Cost of operating two distinct systems
Content has to be previously selected to synchronized
Lacks Authentication

If you’d like a recommendation on what method would work best for your organization, contact us today.

Mobile Tips and Best Practices

Ask yourself, “why would someone visit my mobile site?”
Only provide the most important and relevant information
Direct visitors to the activities they wish to do right away, in a short period of time

To listen to the presentation, please refer to the player below.

If you would like a copy of the slides, or would like to get started on optimizing your website for mobile devices, feel free to contact us.

Ben Bassi

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The New England Xpo for Business: It’s a Wrap!

emily — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:38:41 +0000

Earlier this week CommonPlaces exhibited at The New England Xpo for Business in Boston, MA. We really enjoyed meeting several attendees seeking a strategy for improving their online presence and explaining the power that their website could have. One of our favorite things to do is educate folks on what is possible, and how to use technology to advance beyond competitors.

Many individuals who stopped by our booth had questions as to why a mobile website is important, how a CMS can allow for painless website updates, and why the concept of “planning” in the online world should be taken so seriously. For those of you that we spoke with, thanks for stopping by! Don’t hesitate to contact us if you wish to further our conversation.

If you didn’t get a chance to speak with us at the show, feel free to contact us, and we’ll answer any questions you may have. You can also catch CommonPlaces at the New York Xpo for Business on November 16th. More information on that event can be found here.

2011 was the first year CommonPlaces exhibited at this event, and we were very glad to have done so. We always enjoy connecting with fellow New Englanders and tuning into the hot issues on everyone’s minds. The team had a great time at this event, and we’re really looking forward to New England Xpo 2012!

Emily Murphy

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Join CommonPlaces at the Business Event of the Year!

emily — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:22:19 +0000

Join CommonPlaces e-Solutions at the New England Xpo for Business!

Event details:

May 25, 2011
Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA
Visit CommonPlaces in Booth #322
Register Here for Free!

Learn how you can enhance your online presence, generate more leads and stay ahead of the competition.

CommonPlaces plans, develops, markets and supports successful and customized web solutions to help you achieve your online goals. Our device-neutral platforms ensure you’ll reach your customers on their gadget of choice.

We’re proud to be a partner of the largest business networking convention in New England, offering 36+ seminars, 300 exhibits, special events, and 8,000 executives in attendance.

Stop by our booth to learn about our full-range of solutions, including:

Mobile optimization and applications
Content management systems (CMS)
Project management
E-Commerce
Social media and online promotion
Website security services
Data mining and discovery on user-generated content

Come see why businesses repeatedly trust CommonPlaces for all of their online needs.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to speaking with you!

Emily Murphy

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Project Management System Comparison: Unfuddle vs. activeCollab

emily — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:03:26 +0000

CommonPlaces is dedicated to the success of our clients’ projects. To make sure everything is running smoothly, we require a project management system to assign tasks, efficiently use resources, track time, pull reports both internally and for clients, store files, allow clients to issue support tickets and more.

We’ve recently been looking into using a new system that would provide greater functionality and ease of use. Using the selection criteria identified at the bottom of this post, our team narrowed our choices down to two finalists: Unfuddle and activeCollab.

We had already been using Unfuddle for some projects. Overall, we found that time tracking was painful in this system. To work around that; our internal team built a time-entry tool and a front end for pulling hour reports by date, projects and person.

We found the benefits of Unfuddle to be the following:

Low learning curve and very fast adoption
Fast & Flexible; can be used any way needed in order to get the job done
Customers can log in and immediately understand what they are seeing
The Drupal Feedback Module is already in place
Our internal team can build what we need with API
GIT integration

Conversely, we have identified the following concerns with using Unfuddle:

Storage limitations
Limited permission levels
Somewhat free form
Single resource on a task
No Gantt Chart for scheduling
No resource management, just lists

In looking at activeCollab, we found it to be a more robust project management system with available plug-ins. Additionally, because the system is installed on our own server, there are no limitations in regards to storage.

We found the benefits of activeCollab to be as follows:

Robust feature set
Powerful and reasonably priced add-ons
Available widgets and gadgets
Housekeeping service makes it SaaS-like
System is hosted internally, so users are not limited to storage restrictions, nor are there storage fees. Internal hosting also provides added security.
Email integration is slick
Seems that any oversights or flaws are covered by low cost plug-ins

The following are a list of concerns with activeCollab:

Medium learning curve - this system will take some time to learn
Having to learn a new workflow will slow migration and adoption
Flexibility of workflows
Resource Management

Sample Feature Comparison

CommonPlace’s feature wish list is below. Every company’s wish list is unique to their processes and use cases. Below is a sample of the features CommonPlaces used to evaluate Unfuddle vs. activeCollab:

Based on the above criteria, we’ve made our selection. But we’re interested in what you think. What system would you choose to best fit the needs of your organization? Does your team use a different system that you’ve found to fit your list of requirements for a project management system? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.

Emily Murphy and Sherrin Bull

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