As new websites rapidly appear, new search technologies are also emerging to help guide people to what they are looking for on the web. Social search, human-edited search, video search, and blog search are a few of the technologies which are continually refined with search experience and ease of usability as the goal.

Visual search is one such emerging technology which simplifies search preferences for a visually oriented audience. A few visual search engines at the forefront today include Searchme, Redzee, and Viewzi.

With Internet users demanding more and more visual media on the web, it poses a challenge to grab audience members' attention and make a first impression that sticks in their mind.

Below are some items to consider that will help prepare your website for the new wave of visual search.

"Image is everything"

Andre Agassi used to say "Image is everything" in the Canon Rebel camera commercials. More than fifteen years later that slogan holds true with the new emerging visual search technology.

If visual impact encourages clicks, and clicks are part of the visual search rankings, then it is crucial that your site stand out and appeal to your intended audience.

How will your site visually stand out from the search competition? Hopefully not like a young Agassi from 1990 transported to the present day!

"Every picture tells a story"

With visual search your webpages will be represented as pictures. Will the searcher be able to tell what your site is about and determine if it is relevant to their search as they scroll through the results? An eye-catching graphic can help tell a narrative about your website. Consider the idea that your audience may relate better to a webpage with an image of a person or people. Graphical icons representing sections of your website can also help tell a story.

In visual search engines like Searchme, your website is defined by categories. Ask yourself: What categories most apply to your website? Make sure your content supports major themes and categories that are relevant to your search audience.

A search for "graphic design" on Searchme yields the following categories: Web Development, Advertising & Marketing, Software, Printing Services, and Photography.

If you are a design firm specializing in those services and more, you better be sure your website reflects them. Also, if your design style is anything similar to Rod Stewart's album cover "Every Picture Tells a Story", then you might have some problems getting the searcher's attention!

"Picture perfect"

Companies that spend a lot of time and money on graphic design, website usability testing and robust analytics can see a great return in leads or sales. However, big design improvements do not always require a big budget. Quality web designers and developers can be quite affordable if you have a vision for your company website and provide them content necessary to build a solid foundation. Taking the time to understand how your design can affect the user experience on your site is crucial. A near perfect design can take years to achieve, so don't settle on your first design as the final design.

Your website's adherence to web design best practices from the start can determine your success. Focusing on proven design practices can save you time and money in the long run. Here are a few of the many best practices for website design:

- Web-safe colors
- Web browsers
- Screen resolution
- Readable fonts
- Contrast (navigation and body copy)
- Attractive images
- Rule of thirds
- White space
- Calls-to-action above the fold
- Consistent navigation
- Tasteful advertising

If you think a perfect website can be created overnight, think again. It has taken Jennifer Aniston years to perfect her image after starring in 1997's "Picture Perfect". Countless TV and movies appearances have won her many prestigious awards and accolades. Aniston's hard work and willingness to adapt her image lend to her lengthy entertainment career.

"A picture is worth a thousand words"

In visual search a picture can be worth a thousand words if it entices clicks and drives quality traffic to your site. However, a website that doesn't have the right words to please the algorithms does not stand a chance of getting the top rankings.

Search engine optimization will still play an important role in rankings for visual search. Quality content that is relevant to your intended audience is imperative. The best design in the world is worthless in visual search if it doesn't have excellent content or quality inbound links.

Paint a picture

What picture will you paint with your website design? You've spent years perfecting your design and have played your cards right with organic SEO, so what is next? Taking a step back to review your design and analytics with the goal to refine your "image" will help capture more searchers and satisfy their needs. Settling on mediocrity with good design and SEO can leave your website choking on the dust left behind from competitors racing to the top of the search results.

In order to build a successful paid search campaign, there are a series of best practices that one should follow:

1. Everyone who is considering PPC must have a goal that they want to achieve. These goals can include revenue generated (Return on Advertising Spend), leads generated per dollar spent, and branding (although less common). If a lead generated is your company’s goal, you should have an idea of how much the lead is worth to you. Knowing your goals will be paramount to how you set up your campaign.

2. Choosing keywords. Next, you must brainstorm “root” keywords that are most relevant to your company. By “root” keywords, I mean base keywords, such as PPC or Paid Search. These are search terms that will receive the most traffic, but generally have a lower conversion rate compared to more specific “long-tailed” keywords. Long-tailed keywords are generally 3-5 keyword phrases which are built off your base set of keywords. An example of this would be “PPC Companies in Cleveland Ohio.” Although this keyword will receive less traffic than “PPC” or even “PPC Companies,” the conversion rate will generally be higher, especially if the end-user is looking for a PPC company in Cleveland, Ohio. So, start with your small set of targeted keywords and then expand into long-tails for a breadth of search possibilities.

3. Organization is Key. If your company sells multiple product lines or services, you should break them down into product or service specific campaigns, such as Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Internet Video and E-mail Marketing. You then can build ad groups in each of these campaigns that relate to the “root” keywords discussed above. For example, have an ad group called PPC Companies. Inside each ad group, there would be keywords that relate to this keyword, such as "PPC Companies," "PPC Company," "Best PPC Companies," "Top PPC Companies," "PPC Management Companies," etc. The more granular you can break keywords into ad groups, the better.

4. Writing specific & relevant ad copies. Creating specific ad groups allows you to write focused ad copies (actual ad text seen in Google). Ad copies must be relevant to the keyword search (therefore some form of the keyword searched by the end-user should be in the ad at least one time). Paid Search is a game of relevancy, and it is important to understand that.

5. Customized Landing Pages. Building organized ad copy and writing relevant advertisements allows you to create customized landing pages geared to the keywords you are targeting. This will also be much more relevant to the end-user and will lead to more sales/leads and a much higher conversion rate. All in all, your ad copy should be relevant to your keywords, and your landing page content should be relevant to your ad copy to produce the best quality score.

6. Advanced Conversion Tracking. How do you know which keywords are bringing in sales or leads? Having in-depth conversion tracking is essential. Without conversion tracking, you do not know what keywords are driving sales/leads and what keywords you are wasting money on. With conversion tracking you will be able to find your true revenue and Return on Advertising Spend.

These are just some of the techniques one should be aware of when considering creating a paid search campaign. However, these are just the basics; there are many more strategies that will help build successful paid search campaigns.

Because of that fact, we can't show you one in action here on this blog. However, you could link over to this video page and watch it in action there.

What are annotations?

Video annotations are a new way for you to add interactive commentary onto your videos! You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear. You can even link from an annotation to another YouTube Video, Channel, or Search result.

Annotations are helpful if you're trying to drive a viewer to click on your link or even just view your description. They can also be useful in directing viewers to other videos of yours on Youtube that may be part of a series.

Wow, over 500? Really? Really.

These user generated sites mostly offer free services whereby users can upload video clips and share it with the masses. Many sites place restrictions on the file size, duration, subject matter and format of the uploaded video file.

The following 500+ sites are broken down into niche topics attracting a particular target audience. Take a look at the vast niches you can find in this list.

Start uploading!

On the surface, it sounds good, and the plan may or may not work.  But I what most impressed me was that the site was built entirely with social media in mind.

One of the mantras we use, (and by "we" I mean me and my fellow social media nerds) is that if you have something worthwhile, share it.  And Pickens allows users to do this in spades with a full array of social bookmarking tools and profiles from Facebook Groups to Twitter accounts.  On top of that, if you venture into the Push section of the site, you can join the plan's own social network for those who share similar concerns.

While the initiative is great, I hope that Pickens' people have thought this strategy through.  While I can only guess how much time will be spent monitoring these networks - and for how long - I am most curious how his people will handle the inevitable:  disagreement and dissent.

It's only a matter of time before some people's interactions become overly political or even mean spirited.  Will they shut down the profiles?  Erase comments?  My hope is that his social media advisers will let it go. Why?  Because that's part of the deal when you open that social media door.  Companies and individuals must take the good with the bad and learn to address the community without blackballing disagreement.

In another tidbit that may only interest me, when the site was unveiled yesterday, the press contact’s email was from a PR firm email address. Today, however, the same contact's email address has been changed to one on the Pickensplan.com domain.  While there may be a plausible explanation for this, in the era of transparency and being upfront with your audience, I wonder if someone felt a Manhattan PR firm email address may change visitors' perception of the organization?

At any rate, I'll be monitoring the site on a regular basis as this could be a fascinating case study down the road.  I just hope Mr. Pickens and his advisers can keep up.

Facebook will also prompt users to select a sex if they have not already.  I got my notice within the last week, and, yes, I have finally selected my sex.  I am now declared a male to my legions of friends on Facebook, and they will be spared the misfortune of seeing:

Paul has changed their profile picture.

Elementary school teachers of English everywhere should rejoice.  Now if only something could be done about loose vs. lose and its vs. it's.

If you are interested in other topics central to online writing, see a just-published video of me interviewing Fathom SEO's content manager, Daiv Whaley, about writing & SEO.  Daiv says,

It definitely comes across as amateur and poor when you see a website that's got a misspelling or bad grammar.  It just really brings the quality of a website down.

Here's to Facebook--and websites everywhere--improving their quality.

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

These numbers should come as no surprise, as YouTube has long dominated the online video market, but these metrics convey other facts that are far more interesting. In addition to the amount of videos viewed, the data showed that 71% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online videos, and that the average viewer watched approximately 228 minutes of video throughout the month. This information more than confirms the potency of online video in today’s Internet, but what does it mean for you?

If there was ever any doubt that online video is here to stay, these numbers should blow that doubt out of the water. The sheer volume of users taking time to watch online video makes that clear. More interesting about this data, however, is that it was only pulled from video content sites similar to YouTube and MySpace. This means that only the major players were used for the data, leaving out thousands of sites hosting their own video channels, such as Fathom SEO TV’s Channel Guide. Furthermore, there are countless business sites featuring video that also went uncounted. The lack of inclusion of these sites strongly underlines the fact that the numbers shown in this data are actually short of the true results, despite their already impressive size.

If you take nothing else from these numbers, you should leave with this: Online video is a helpful, powerful, and most importantly, visible way to enhance the content on your site. With the numbers growing every month, everybody is going to be looking for their slice of that viewership to promote their product or service, and you definitely don’t want to be left behind.

*All data courtesy of comScore via http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2268

"Let a thousand domains flower ..."

For 6 figures apiece.

As reported in today's NY Times, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) announced yesterday in Paris that it would soon allow companies, organizations, or countries to use new suffixes in their top-level domains.  It will also allow non-Roman language scripts like Chinese.

The Most Interesting Points of the Article

1. Commerical Brouhaha: Competing groups will vie for city names while spammers will try to get product names for phishing scams.
2. Companies are going to have "first priority" to protect their brand names ... at a 6-figure cost.
3. Internet activists: "consumers are going to be confused."
4. Auctions, independent reviews, and 3rd-party challenges will be used to settle conflicts.

Search Engine Marketing Questions

Will .bud automatically be seen as the right of Anheuser-Busch, or can a marijauna advocacy group lay claim to it?

How will Google choose to rank the new suffixes, knowing that they are costly purchases?  Will there be a new class of sponsored listings, or will they go in the traditional organic results?

Is is really worth it to pay that much for more branding in your domain?  If you're a large corporation, maybe it's a no-brainer.  But for small- and medium-sized businesses, that could be a significant expenditure with perhaps little return, especially if you're already doing well in Google rankings.

As the editor of Domain Journal stated in the article, it also might be harder for users to remember new suffixes, especially if everything is up for grabs.  Even if browser bookmarking technology continues to grow more sophisticated, there may be a certain number of people you lose who can't remember your .city or .state or .book or .travel suffix.

It is good that the Icann board will be hearing public opinion before the next major meeting in November.  If enough people voice concern about what could be a robber baron era for Internet domains, maybe this flight of fancy will never leave the ground.

Photo courtesy of basykes via Flickr

When I think of social networking websites, I often think of people keeping tabs on what their friends and acquaintances are doing:

• Johnny is grilling buffalo burgers with his friends.

• Denise is looking forward to 3 days of debauchery in Las Vegas.

Or social network applications as platforms for broadcasting your status to the world:

• Paul is typing a blog post right now.

However, online social networking can be more than just a tool for idle chattering, comparative shopping, or advice-seeking.  Social networks can also be vehicles for charity. If you've used Facebook even as little as I have, you've probably already recognized some famous charities with groups: Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontiers, Habitat for Humanity, et al.

There are also individual applications--Causes, Razoo SpeedGranting, Changing the Present, Change.org--that allow users to make direct donations to a wide variety of causes via Facebook.

And still there are other charities like Malaria Engage that are independent websites built around social networking.  Malaria Engage's goal is to eradicate malaria, specifically targeting Tanzania with 7 research programs to which donors can give.   It uses a social networking web platform (provided by Zazengo.com) to encourage donors to interact with researchers based on their individual interests.  Its founder, Tom Hadfield, has this to say in an April Reuters UK article:

"Our dream is tens of thousands of people will use social networking tools to build a movement that eradicates malaria."

Just as companies salivate over the prospects of finding customers through the word-of-mouth of trusted friends on social networks, charities and altruistic individuals also hope to appeal to your philanthropic side.   The fact that certain charities have capitalized on these avenues to raise awareness and cash reflects that old marketing adage to go where the people are.

Are you a friend of charity?

Photo courtesy of Martin Kingsley via Flickr

Usability is defined by five quality components (as described by Usability Expert Jakob Nielsen):

• Learnability: Can users easily accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors will users make (including the severity of these errors) and how easily can they recover from them?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

 
How Usability and SEO Go Hand In Hand
When SEO is implemented correctly, it should make your website rank higher on search engines and drive more traffic.

However, even with targeted traffic from search engines and the proper calls to action, your website may not convert as desired. A visitor may leave if the website is difficult to use. Obstacles may include a poor navigation structure, a homepage that fails to clearly state what a company offers, uncertainty about what can be accomplished on the website, and information that is hard to read or doesn’t answer the users’ key questions.

In the Internet Age, people want to quickly gather information. As a result, they won’t take the time to stumble around your site or read through a user’s manual to get what they need.

 
Improving Usability
Like SEO, usability is an iterative process. However, it is more important during the initial development stage of a website. Improving a website's usability involves taking the time to think about how someone will interact with the website before making it viewable to the world. An essential goal involves minimizing the number of clicks needed to locate information.

Once you have put some thought into the website, some form of usability testing should be completed (it does not need to be expensive or require a sophisticated usability lab). In addition to having multiple people view the website and provide feedback on its design and ease of use, I recommend using the "10-second usability test" devised by web designer and author Dan Cederholm of Simple Bits.

The "10-second usability test" includes turning off the design and asking the following questions. Is the website still understandable? Does the structure make sense? "Turning off the design" involves disabling CSS stylesheets by commenting out the stylesheet include line or via a plug-in like the Web Developer plug-in for Firefox. When you turn off the CSS stylesheets, you can see the content and navigation the same way a search engine spider will experience the site. Although this method is unscientific, it is an easy form of usability testing.

Usability is crucial because it can make or break the website experience - whether that’s a human being or a search engine trying to get from one page to the next. Messy websites rank lower on search engines, attract less traffic and end up with fewer conversions.

If you think through SEO and usability together, you will be in a better position to convert more visitors and beat out competitors fighting in the same market.