Twitter Searching

twitoria- Unfollow people who have not posted a tweet in week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 6 months or a year.

tweetbeep - Alerts.  Track any time someone mentions you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates!

tweepsearch- Search friends and followers, or just a keyword in all bios currently indexed.

backtweets - searches for links on twitter, even shortened ones.

twellow - List your profile, search twitter, followers, friends, groups also includes a profile editor.

Anonymous Tweeting

secrettweet- A place to tweet anonymously - crazy, scary and hilarious tweets.

Twitter Hashtags

tweetchat- hashtagged tweets are aggregated into on place. You can tweet and it adds the hashtag for you. Great for events and webinars.

tagdef - look up the meaning of a hashtag, like #redsox, but we know what that one is.

Twitter Polling

twpoll- Create a poll and send it on to your Twitter followers on.

For more see Rachel Levy’s big list of Twitter tools

If you liked this post, you may also like Twitter Tools to Share with your Followers

as well as How Your Twitter Profile Can Attract Followers

I went through a series of excuses in my mind after each failure to post my finely crafted comment.  I thought;

• What a lame website
• Did I click cancel instead of submit?
• Is CoComment “doing something” here?
• Is one of my 40+ FIrefox plugins playing tricks on me?
• Wait a minute something is going on here

Maybe I am being viewed as a low life spammer.

Where is the trouble?

I knew that quite a few of the recent blogs I visited were WordPress blogs, so I focused there.  I thought a Blogger blog gave the same trouble, but wasn’t sure.

Contacting WordPress Blog Owners

I began contacting blog owners vie email, twitter or whatever I could find.  All replied.  But the puzzle wasn’t becoming clearer to me. Mostly I just received confirmation that they saw no comment.

A friend suggested that maybe Akismet was invovled.  Hmmm.  Akismet is the blog spam solution that is provided in WordPress.  The parent company of WordPress and Akismet is Automattic.

Akismet could be working with only the limited set of information that I as a commenter provided, such as;

1. My local IP address
2. My email address
3. My website address
4. My name
5. My comment

To test my theory and reduce the number of factors I left two comments on www.digiphile.com.  The first comment was made with my customary information.  The second was made with a diffferent name, website, email and comment.

The first comment was not published and the second was published right away. I asked Alex to see if the first comment was marked as spam and it was. He was kind enough to publish both comments.

This proved that it was not the IP address that was being caught by Akismet.

The Solution

I visited www.akismet.com and poked around a bit until I landed on their Contact page, which was very revealing.

The Contact page has a paragraph explaining why the form does not use Akismet.  The reason is that inhocent people contact them about being caught and marked as spam by Akismet.  If Akismet was running on the form, those messages would not get through resulting in very poor customer service.

This was encouraging. I left a short message explaining my plight.  The following day I received a message from Akismet support apologizing for the problem and telling me that the problem is now fixed. Yippee.

Contact Akismet Support

If your blog comments are not posting, check and see if they are being marked as spam by Akismet.  If they are, just fill out this form http://akismet.com/contact/ and if you are inhocent you will get a pleasant reply in short order. Mine was within 24 hours.

Have your comments been disappearing on you?

567 Massachusetts Avenue - The Enormous Room

Lovely space for a meetup.  Long room with plenty of comfy furniture.  Bar at the back along with three unisex washrooms.  One suggestion: next time, put a sign on the downstairs door so that everyone doesn’t go into the restaurant and then get redirected back outside and in the next door.

The Beginning

Adam Lasnik was introduced.  He revealed that there were at least another dozen Googlers in the room, including a small handful from Friend Connect.  The crowd was more webmasters, SEOs, SEMs and less marketers and PR folk than other meetings I attend.

It was great to see familiar faces like;

@robertcollins, @seosem, @repcor, @JoselinMan, @myimedia, @recklessstudio, @digiphile,

as well as a couple of people I had never met before, including;

@AdamPieniazek, @knowledgejockey, Vinesh Duggar

And I had the bonus of the always thrilling experience of meeting a twitter buddy for the first time in real life, @manfmNantucket I wish I could have talked to him more.

And @KarenRubin, who I recognized, but couldn’t place.  I finally tapped her on the shoulder and asked. Her posse of Hub Spot co-workers laughed and feared that her celebrity would be going to her head now.  A new acquaintance immediately asked for her autograph. It was hilarious.

Google Content

I listened, but heard nothing that was not already familiar or of vital importance to me.  The preparation was useful. They requested questions on the web and then let folks vote on the questions.  So, Adam had a kind of crowd sourced script for the Q&A in his hand.

Thankfully he also took questions from the audience.  I asked about Web Master Tools. I wanted to know what percentage of the backlinks Google knows about are listed in the console.  I was told that nearly all of them. They try to include all that they know about.

Many answers included the “we don’t pre-announce” products and services line.

Adam told us that Google is indexing most of Twitter pretty fast now.

Friend connect released their API.

Chrome is being developed for Linux and Mac, using dedicated teams to build from the ground up.

They are looking at the semantic web. Hmm.

A question from the web got a hearty laugh, “What’s the secret sauce to better rankings?” The standard Google answer was offered. “The answer is 42.”

Another great question, “whether using Google AdWords would help their website rankings?” Nope.

They held a Google Trivia quiz and offered up a bit of swag, including, 6 T-shirts and 2 coffee mugs.  The mugs were shiny, but not Chrome.

Conclusion

Good group of folks, including some who drove all the way from NY and NH.  Cambridge parking is hard, but there is a city lot directly behind the building.  The subway is across the street.

Googlers answered the questions that they could. This means nothing prospective and everything retrospective.  It was very helpful to put some human faces to the Google Borg.  The big elephant in the room was the common concern about Google aggregating information it gathers, personalizing it and knowing just too darn much about you and me.

I heard from @knowledgejockey who spoke with a Google lawyer in the room who told him that they can’t/don’t aggregate personal information.  Not sure he was convinced though. Tin foil hats on boys and girls.

Here is a challenge for future (MeetUp) event coordinators that support networking. Figure out a way to get people together so that they don’t have to yell at each other.  Please.  Is a bar / night club venue ideal for that? Is a meeting room better?

If Google has another meetup I will be inclined to think up some questions, pluck up my courage (so that I meet more new people rather than talking to people I already know) and attend.  Thanks Google.

There is no immunity to the folly of Internet Explorer 6.   You can even find a website devoted to the demise of IE6.  JBS Partner’s first Drupal project fell victim to IE6.  After the brand new website went live, we learned that the majority of the client’s visitors use IE6 and were seeing a blank white browser page.  We also learned that they are located in rural areas and use dial-up to connect to the Internet.  I was told upgrading the browser could take over 30 minutes to just download the files.  So, we fixed the problem.  Here’s how.

The Server Config

On a dedicated server, we were running Drupal 5.1.5 on Apache 2.2.20 Unix, PHP 5.2.6, MySQL 5.0.67 and JQuery 1.2.6

I wanted desperately to fix this issue.  There is no shortage of articles on www.drupal.org about IE6, the WSOD and blank pages in IE6.  Rob over at Mustard Seed Media and I searched and searched for an answer to no avail.   Marc Ray over at Right Sprocket volunteered a strong effort. And my old co-worker Bob Caslin looked for a solution as well.

Drupal Performance

Initially it was discovered that visiting the Performance page and disabling Caching and CSS Aggregation stopped the IE6 blank white page problem.  However, that did not feel like a solution to me.  The site would have run just fine, but we hadn’t found the root cause of the issue.

Matthew Saunders referred me to Andy Lasda who found solutions in short order.

CSS Aggregation Solution

One of the requirements of the project was a backup of the database that emailed the .gz file to the site owner.  The 5.2 dev version of Backup and Migrate offers this capability.

However, the 5.2 dev release of Backup and Migrate also contains significant JavaScript to streamline select administration functions. It was this JavaScript that caused IE6 to incorrectly load aggregated CSS files.  This is why the CSS loads failed.  It was especially problematic after using the browser Back button.

It was also discovered that the dev version of Backup and Migrate was causing frequent PHP errors.

Moving to the stable version ( http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/backup_migrate-5.x-1.2.tar.gz ) did  not eliminate these problems.

The Backup and Migrate module was removed. Instead a combination of Mutt, Chron and a little scripting enabled the database backups to be emailed out and then deleted from the server so that they don’t accumulate over time.

Caching Problem Solution

It was also discovered that during the Drupal install file permissions were effected which prevented the web server from caching files to the temporary directory.    The group and owner was set to an account that is not the account that the web server runs as.

Server Performance Bonus

I also asked Andy to review the server’s overall performance. He found that it was quick and responsive.  Music to my ears.  The server load through testing remained at .4 and MySql performed up to standard.

The memory_limit in the php.ini file was increased from 32MB to 96MB which was a good idea.  Also zlib compression was enabled.  The following was added to the Drupal site’s /etc/httpd/conf/sites/www.xyadomain.com conf file.

# Enable file compression by MIME type
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

I truly hope that this is helpful to someone else as they troubleshoot IE6 issues in Drupal 5.1x.

Each server (hardware), OS, software, security patch level and configuration is different. We are hired to get the site working where it is hosted, rather than proving that it works on a developer’s machine.  I can certainly understand why some developers find it faster and more economical to only do projects if the client will host on their server, an environment that they are familiar with.  As in this case, getting to the root of the problem in an unfamiliar server environment is not always meaningful or affordable, while getting things to work is always meaningful.

By the way. I met all the guys listed above through Twitter.  Very good guys.  I can recommend them all.

What have you tried to solve your IE6 issue?

Retweet This - This GreaseMonkey script makes retweeting a snap on the web. Adds a nice little Retweet button to your Twitter webpage. Note, it inserts “Retweeting”. I edit this to the now standard and much shorter RT, instead of Retweeting.

When I take the time to figure out how to edit the source file, I will update it here. RT is better than Retweeting.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/26500

Search Twitter - Keep track of all mentions of your Twitter name.

http://search.twitter.com

The following syntax will limit the search to mentions of your name by other people only, thereby excluding your own tweets. In the following example, the username is fairminder. The search string means to exclude from the search the name fairminder when the mention is from fairminder, but search for all other mentions of fairminder.

-from:fairminder fairminder

Twittelator Pro for the iPhone - great tool http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/

Not being entirely intuitive, here a few powerful tricks that I had to look up.

• Reply = Tap once. On the next screen, tap the reply arrow at the top left.
• Scroll down = tap the arrow in the footer.
• Scroll all the way up = double tap the header, where the time is displayed.
• ReTweet = touch and hold the screen. ReTweet and Copy Tweet options become available.
• Add Follower = You meet someone IRL you want to follow. On the Accounts screen, click on <your twitter handle>’s Tweets. Mine says “Fairminder’s Tweets”. Double tap your own avatar (photo). Type the new Twitter name in the Follow field.

There is lots more help here;http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/Twittelator_Hints_Tips.html

Hashtags Add #redsox to the end of your RedSox tweets. Then use Twitter search, listed above, to quickly find all of the Tweets related to the RedSox. Sports games, conferences, meetups and other live events will often start the hashtags flying.

Twitter Karma is great for reviewing who you are following and who is following you. You may find folks that have not tweeted in three months and want to unfollow them. You may find folks you talk to regularly but you have not followed yet. Good information discovery tool.
http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

A lot of folks love TweetDeck to create following groups.

Free Twitter Background Designer: Create a custom background with images and text in a few minutes and upload it in your Twitter settings page. http://freetwitterdesigner.com/

What tools can you not live without?

Enter the Dell Latitude E6500.

Shopping

Aside from performance, my shopping was motivated by price, low price.  This is my primary computer and gets hooked up to a 21 inch monitor. I don’t travel but once a year, so weight is not a factor.

I looked at the typical retailers; Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Sony Style, the local computer store, even Apple to get some perspective.

I looked online at ToshibaDirect.com, NewEgg.com, SlickDeals.net, BensBargains.net, CheapStingyBargains.com and others.

In both cases they had a few models from a few brands, take it or leave it.  Many systems had 60% or even 75% of my ideal feature set, but none had 100%.

Best Shopping

I found the Dell Outlet offered the widest range and greatest quantity of optional features and available laptops.  I could quickly sort for the features that appealed to my.  I could make the choices that I wanted.

Shopping for a refurbished computer meant that the prices were very low.

A special Dell Outlet 20% discount on Latitudes I learned of on Twitter ended my shopping days, thankfully.  Follow @DellOutlet on Twitter.

My Twitter Personal Shoppers

I had a lot of help along the way, mostly through my Twitter buddies.  A shout out to most of them follows, including;

@dellservergeek Many Tweet Q and A

@Bruceericatdell Hour long phone call after a few Tweets

@chrislackey Mulitple Phone calls and lots o IM. A good friend.

@lisawood Tweets and IM.

@OnSiteStudios Many, many Tweets

@zestor Many Tweets.

And many more Twitter buds than I can list here offered one or more replies to my hardware and configuration questions.  Thanks to you all. I really appreciate your input.

I know that the folks at Dell will be happy to assist you as well.  You will have to ask the other folks individually because they have jobs that are not at Dell.

Ordering

It just so happened that as my research was culminating I learned that there would be a 20% discount offered on Latitudes at the Dell Outlet in a few days.

I had scoped out the inventory pretty well and printed out my top five choices and made a little feature grid as a kind of crib note.  I didn’t know if there would be a mad rush. I had read somewhere that Dell had sold over a million dollars of computers through Twitter.

On the day of the discount I checked the @DellOutlet account moments after posting the discount code and ordered my laptop.  The code worked too.

I ordered on Monday. It arrived Thursday afternoon. I chose the 5 to 7 day shipping option for $20. It arrived in 3 days.  That’s cool.  Well, they didn’t have to build it did they?  Just ship it.

Features

CPU - My first goal was a faster CPU.  I wasn’t clear on the value / performance curve so I didn’t know if I should look for a 1.8, 2.0 or 2.4Ghz CPU.    I got bits of advice here and there and decided to shoot high.  My laptop has an Intel Dual Core Duo 2.53Ghz CPU. It has two cores, so it’s like a 5.6GHz CPU.

HD - 5400 RPM Hard Drives are pretty standard.  I knew that 7200 is faster but needed to learn if heat or battery usage were relevant issues.  I decided they are not.  My laptop has a 7200 RPM SATA HD.  Disk size was not a concern because the standard (160GB) is well beyond my requirements.

OS - I have a Dell desktop with Vista that my wife and kids use. I use XP day to day. I don’t really like Vista, partly because I don’t know it as well.  Lots of people said skip Vista, get XP and that suited me just fine.

Shopping for XP is another story.  Very few stores offer it.  Online you have a better chance.  However, at Dell Outlet, you can search for systems with XP Pro and Vista Business.  I really liked that.  Vista only was a deal breaker.

RAM - Don’t care.  I looked for as little RAM as possible because I planned on buying 4GB from Crucial.

Video - The debate here is interesting. There is no question that embedded video is not superior to a separate video card.  However, learning whether I could tell the difference or had a NEED for a separate video card was well nye impossible.

The shopping was very challenging for this component at the Dell Outlet Store.  You can search for 0, 128, 256 or 512 MB of RAM for your video card.  However, the E6500 offers an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M.  Chris clued me into the fact that this is a separate card, which would be much better than the embedded Intel video that is also offered.  Being 160MB, it does not show up in any of the searches except for when you search for All.  I felt this video offering was very hidden.  Thanks to Chris and @zestor for helping me see the difference.

Wireless - The network packages varied as well. The gang on Twitter got me sorted with the alphabet soup that is wireless networking. B A G N in order of acceptance.  Well, N is not widely accepted just yet.  I chose the card that offers A G N.

DVD/CD - This model offers both 8X and 24X speeds.  You have to know that both are available to get the faster one.

Battery - Again two sizes are offered 6-cell and 9-cell. More cells are better. I got the 9-cell for more battery life.  What I forgot to remember is that the larger battery is a feature. It sticks out the back of the laptop a good inch or so. Not an issue because the power and network cables are right there anyway. It just surprised me.

Power - Again two powers are offered, 65 watt and 90 watt.  The 90 watt will charge faster.  I got the 90W.

Display - There are a few offerings here. I chose the LED display (1440×900) for a better view than I have now.

L2 Cache - This is memory for the CPU to work with.  More is better. The E6500 I chose has lots, 6MB.

FSB - The Front Side Bus, again faster is better. This one has a 1066MHz FSB.

Back-lit keyboard - That just sounded cool. However, I haven’t figured out how to turn it on yet.

I managed to get a configuration without a fingerprint reader, for which I am grateful.  Above is not an exhaustive feature list, just the ones that I considered.

Here are the full specs right from Dell.

Dell Latitude E6500 Setup and Quick Reference Guide

First Impressions

Arrival in three days was awesome. Glad I didn’t pay for expedited shipping.  Providing an initial delivery date of three weeks. Not so awesome.

In the box is the laptop, a simple Setup and Quick Reference Guide and the following CDs.

1. Dell drivers
2. Dell Webcam
3. Cyberlink DVD
4. Roxio Creator 9.0 DE
5. Windows Vista 32BIT SP1
6. XP Pro SP2

Unpacking, I was impressed by the industrial sized power cord. It is very thick and powerful looking.  The “brick” is flat which will make for easy travel.  I don’t remember paying extra for the blond hair under the transformer strap though.

Power Up and Installation

First thing was to install XP Pro.  That was short and easy having done it plenty of times. I enjoyed the Monks humming along, encouraging me. Thanks for the background music Microsoft.

First thing installed was Firefox.  Now I have to go install a lot of software.

Conclusions

A bit early for those. But both of my kids commented on how ugly it is.  What they don’t know is that it will be 10X faster than my current system.  I don’t care that it is black and square. It is a business laptop and not many people will see mine.

It looks solid and reliable and it will be fast and serve my needs for years to come.  Did I say it will be fast?

What features do you look for in a PC?

Where do you prefer to shop?

If you want cheap domain names, and by that I mean you only want to pay $10 or less for a domain name (the registration fee) and don’t want to sign up with the various drop services, you still have some options.

How to Find Domain Names

You can search for and find domain names at godrops.com

This site allows you to search for recently dropped domain names that have been tasted, but not registered.

Tasting describes the process of registering a domain name, seeing how it performs, and then returning the non-performing domain names to the registrar for a refund within 5 days.  This serves as a quick filter, preventing you from searching through lots of undesirable domain names.

Domains with hyphens, numbers and domains that are not dot coms are undesirable.

How to Evaluate Domain Names

You could simply pick the ones that sound good to you.  This is an unreliable approach for selecting a domain name.

Instead, you might evaluation a potential domain name by gathering some relevant data before making the purchase.

Let’s run through an example. Today godrops.com shows that premiumstoves.com just dropped and is available for registration.

Search Google

Search Google for “premium stoves”, “premiumstoves.com” “premium” and “stoves”

How much search volume is there?
How many paid ads are there?
What do the top listings look like?

Search the Google AdWords key word tool for premium stoves

Is there any search volume?
Is there adequate search volume?
How much competition is there?

Also, take a peak at Google Trends.

Gather information at Estibot

Enter your domain name at estibot.com and look at the collected data.  A domain name that already has traffic and ranks is generally better than one that does not.

Enter in another domain name or two to get some perspective.

The dollar figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

Search the Wayback Machine

Visit the Wayback Macine and enter the domain name.

Was a website ever built on the domain name?
If a website was built, does it look good or not?
Was the domain name parked?
When was the domain first indexed by the Wayback Machine?

Search and Evaluate Domain Names for Free

This quick evaluation demonstrates that premiumstoves.com does not fit my profile for possible acquisitions.

Additional Domain Name Search Resources

Bust A Name - enter a few key words as it searches for matches
Make Words - combine key words into domain names that are available
Dot Center - find expired domain names
Domainsbot - creates and searches for domain names based on keywords
SmartPageRank - helps you find domains based on criteria you set.
If you want to purchase software, consider the Domand Research Tool.

There are hundreds of additional resources to find, select, evaluate and purchase a domain name.

How do you find domain names?

How do you evaluate domain names?

I will be happy to udpate the list with your suggestions.

Line spacing in paragraphs plays in important usability role. Just like with happy couples, closeness shows that content is related. When paragraphs and headings are equidistant it is harder for the reader to know what is related to what.

The WordPress editor will strip out br and p tags that it decides are redundant.

WordPress will strip out multiple returns (enter).
WordPress will strip out br tags
WordPress will strip out p tags

Removing paragraph tags and break tags is not what most bloggers expect to happen. In fact, the removal of paragraph and break tags is a common source of frustration for WordPress bloggers. We want the paragraph formatting to be right. Hitting enter and enter and enter has no effect.

WordPress offers equal spacing between paragraphs

paragraph
paragraph
empty blank line / space
heading
empty blank line / space
paragraph
paragraph

To improve usability give readers spaces

paragraph
paragraph
empty blank line / space
empty blank line / space
heading
empty blank line / space
paragraph
paragraph

Here is how to add empty blank lines or spaces between paragraphs

Select HTML mode

Type in < p >< code >< br/ >< /code >< p > without the spaces

Copy and paste on each line that you want to add a blank empty line or blank space between paragraphs or headings or ordered lists or whatever.

Veiw the source code below to see an example

paragraph
paragraph
space
heading

paragraph
paragraph

I hope that if you find this helpful or you have another suggestion that you will leave a comment below.


1. How long have you been working in website design and marketing and what attracted you to it?

JBS Partners started in 2002 providing website design and hosting services.  Thankfully the website business has grown as more services have been added to meet client demand.   The attraction to the work includes my interest in art and design, computer and technology as well as general business and Internet marketing.  These are all wrapped up in my website design and marketing business, which is pretty cool.


2. In your opinion, what’s the measure of a good SEO/PR/Blogging professional?

If you think about the design process for a new website, it moves along a design and development continuum.  The SEO work needs to start at the beginning so that the key word research can inform the information architecture, page structure and titles and content.  Clients are pleased when they start to see prospective clients hitting their website and filling out forms, even though we are still fine tuning or tweaking the not-quite-completed website.  Getting results out of the gate is a good measure.


3. Whose Blog do you read the Most?

Mine of course. Each article has to be drafted, written, proof read and then reread.  I used to read Aaron Wall’s SEOBook a lot and the SEOMoz blog.  These are good resources for general knowledge and industry trends.  Lately, I spend more time on IM and Twitter sharing and learning with others, which leads to reading a diverse range of blogs and websites across the Internet.


4. What’s your best “SEO secret” or blogging tactic?

No secrets here. Transparency and openness are the rule.  For some reason clients and SEO’s think that there is a silver bullet answer out there somewhere.  Some of these folks think that there is a lot of mystery.  Although there are a lot of moving parts, it is not a mystery.  The search engines are trying as hard as they can to think like humans.  My advice is to engage, participate and join in the conversation.  Write, comment, tweet, blog, interview and experiment.


5. Search engine algorithms are getting smarter, and a lot of people predict Organic SEO services will become obsolete. How do you plan to adapt?

My experience with clients suggests that they will continue to value and appreciate the blend of search and marketing advice that allows them to compete successfully in the market place.  That will never be obsolete.  There will continue to be best practices as well common practices that should be avoided.  We help our clients navigate these choices.


6. Please Describe the biggest challenge you face in your current job.

There are a couple of challenges, neither of which is insurmountable.  One is educating the prospective customer.  A lot of effort is required to explain abstract services to allow the value to be understood and then appreciated.

The next challenge is maintaining the momentum of a project.  Clients get distracted and project delays are introduced despite a genuine interest in the final results. I have even had clients tell me that they need to be nagged.  Calendar software is my friend.


7. Do you have any advice for someone who is interested in SEO, but doesn’t have a background in it, on how to get started in this field?

Read. You will quickly discern the garbage from the prize information.  Do.  There is no experience like experience.  Design, program, blog do these things and experiment.  Test, test, test, break things, fix them and break them again.  Make connections with knowledgeable people that will guide you and help you find the answers that you need.  Work for yourself or for an agency and then switch.  Understand both sides of that market.  Lastly, build your own properties to generate income.


8. If you could rank for any keyword phrase you don’t currently rank for, what would it be?

One could make a lot of money ranking for Viagra or similar terms, but I would be happy to rank for
boston website design or small business websites


9. Assuming you had never gone into website design and SEO, what would you be doing now?

Well, I was a systems administrator for a large mutual fund company and than a start-up, so I would likely still be involved with computers, networks, operating systems, domain name servers and the like.  And hopefully be in some type of customer facing role. I enjoy intermediating between people and computers.

If there was a departure with the past, I would likely be even more involved with Social Media tools (Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, FaceBook, Flickr etc.) and helping clients understand and benefit of the new rules of marketing.


10. What’s Your Favorite professional sports team and why?

Living in Boston it feels quite natural to be a big Red Sox fan. I became a fan in 2004.  Before that the newspaper sports section was of no interest what-so-ever.  Now, I enjoy keeping up with baseball.  I have since learned that my grandfather was a Red Sox fan.  For some reason the other New England sports teams have not caught my interest, although I will watch play-offs.
Well that’s the end of our interview.

Thank you to @MelaniePhung for writing the questions for everyone.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@fairminder) !

Here is a simple example to illustrate a fundamental point:

1) Search Engineers - they create the search algorithms

2) Search Algorithms - are constructed to provide the searcher with relevant search results

3) Relevant User information - the Search Engines hope to provide relevant results to you

Now, off to the side are the search marketers with a decision to make as to where they focus their attention to improve a website’s search results.  The choices are listed above, 1,2 or 3.  Which do you choose?

1) Search Engineers.  Never met one.  I assume that they must be pretty tight lipped in order to keep their jobs.  Not an easy target.

2) Search Algorithms. Again, never met one.  I assume that they don’t even have lips. Not an easy target.  Now you can setup a test bed with hundreds of domains, scrutinize Google patents or read celebrity SEO bloggers and gather information that may have been relevant.

You can never be certain of every detail and the details definitely change as sure as the sun will rise the next day.  The search engineers constantly improve the search algorithyms to provide more relevant information to searchers. It’s certainly a moving target.

3) Relevant User search results.  I am one who seeks relevant search results.  I have met other people who use search engines seeking relevant results.  Maybe this is a sensible place to focus my attention for the long term.

Technical or Fundamental SEO

If you choose #2, you are called a Technical SEO

If you choose #3, you are called a Fundamental SEO

If you are a Fundamental SEO and focus on the user, you will by default have pretty good aim on the algorithm as well.  Seems reasonable and sounds like the Fundamental SEO’s have a bit of a short cut.

How do you approach your SEO?

What do you see in the icon? Think about it before reading on and please offer your thoughts in the comments below.

There are at least six answers that have been mentioned and a handful of representations are intentional.

1. A spider web
2. Partners - the people shoulder to shoulder in a circle
3. Navigation wheel of a ship - remember Netscape Navigator browser
4. A cross - the dark blue lines
5. Diversity - the figures of alternating color
6. A site - as in cross hairs providing focus toward the center

Others have seen a show flake, jumbo jets in a circle ready for take-off and people.

I was thrilled to be invited as a guest, finding myself tagged as a member of the media. I felt a little bit anxious with feelings of obligation, but an honest reflection of the day is all that anyone can really expect.

This post brings a very unlikely combination of perspectives. Not only am I familiar with the subjects being presented and a few of the presenters, but I worked in hotels for years and am taking the role of speaker at my first hour long presentation to a large audience in early October.

Logistics

Parking in Cambridge is never easy. Parking at this event was very easy because it was in the same building.  The cost was $22 for the day. I never left the building for about 11 hours.

The event space was on the second floor.  The sign in desk was obvious and had ample room to register attendees.  The schwag bag contained a program for the day and two books, Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae, and David Meerman Scott’s New New Rules of Marketing & PR.  I had to chuckle because they are both books that I already own.

Attendees were required to walk through an area serving another convention which was confusing at first, but I think everybody figured it out quickly enough.  The hotel provided staff to assist in way-finding.

The first speaker was scheduled for 8:15 am.  However, the doors remained closed until 8:15 or maybe a minute or two later.  I still wonder why folks were not invited in before this time.

The reception area after the event was long and narrow with sun exposed glass walls.  The afternoon sun likely keeps this space warm even in the dead of winter.  A couple of the rooms were warm, but it could have just been me.

Presenters

It is an entirely different perspective when you are friends with hosts and presenters and even their agents.  A big benefit of attending events is meeting new people and learning new concepts. I often struggle with the tension between seeing friends and wanting to visit with them and the hesitation most of us feel in meeting new people.  I ended up doing both, hanging with the crew and meeting some folks that were new.

Brian Halligan opened the morning with a thorough explanation of inbound marketing, including a helpful history of marketing that culminated with where things are going in the future. This led very naturally to the opening keynote speaker.

David Meerman Scott really set the table for the entire day.  His presentation, which at one point seemed to show slide number 98 was clear and informative.  I really should read his book now.

Seth Godin was of course entirely entertaining, colorful, energetic and relatively predictable.  This is not a presentation of ground breaking discoveries.

Both presenters did a fine job of engaging the audience, clearly making their points while subtly not letting us forget the title of their current or upcoming book titles.

The five other presenters that I joined covered a range of topics, including;

1. Website re-design
2. Optimizing landing pages
3. Social media and PR
4. Social media strategy
5. Viral video

My favorite, was the subject that I deal with on a daily basis, site building and SEO.  I liked it because of the challenging ideas; namely that changing design is usually retrogressive breaking more things that it fixes.

Selling custom design for years, it was hard to embrace initially, but the case made was solid.  Site owners think of design first.  They really should think of content first.

Search engines can see the text, but not the design.  Awesome content brings visitors by way of the search engines. And, yes, I have seen design challenged sites perform well for their owners.

There was one presentation that I wanted to leave three or four times, but felt glued to my seat.  The information density was too high, the voice was monotone and the room was warm and dim, and I was hungry.

I was surprised to meet speakers on Social Mediafolks that were “not sold” on Twitter. I offered them some food for thought after the presentation, which they seemed to welcome.

Next Year

The Inbound Marketing Summit is a well balanced mix of content and networking. The speakers were all accessible and willing to speak with attendees.  I found the attendees eager to learn and meet new people.

This is a strong component of the summit that will be very satisfying to future attendees.

I encourage practitioners and managers in PR, marketing, ecommerce, web design and social media and those that need these kinds of services to attend the Inbound Marketing Summit. For a one day event in packs a punch that can’t be beat.

If you want to learn more about this year’s presentations, slides are available here; http://www.inboundmarketingsummit.com/agenda/ From there you can visit the blog and video streams.  These will give you a very good idea of the quality content that was available.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the primary sponsor HubSpot who not only offers an internet marketing blog, but also website grader and press release grader.

There is a lot of value that the HubSpot team is pushing out to small and medium sized businesses.  Start taking advantage of this by visiting thier website and attending next years Inbound Marketing Summit.

Today, I can confirm both customer and colleague relationships initiated through Twitter as well as many friendships and even money in the bank. Here is how that all changed, after a Twitter primer.

What is Twitter?

Twitter falls into the category of social media applications. This communication tool allows you to keep in touch through short messages that can be sent to many people instantly.

You can update three ways: to all subscribers, directed to one person, or sent privately to one person. Updates are 140 characters maximum. (As a reference, the text immediately preceding this parenthetical note is 139 characters long.)

When you first open your account you are missing the most important component of a useful Twitter account – people whom you follow and people who follow you.

How do you find people to follow?

Below are six suggestions for finding people to follow, but first a little business-focused contemplation. Think about your purpose and motive. This will help you focus on following the right kind of people. Two important business questions are:

Do you want to follow people with similar interests, in the same industry?

or

Do you prefer to develop a group of followers who will benefit from your products or services and possibly hire you?

Most people tend to reciprocate followers, so keep the Golden Rule in mind. Follow the kind of people whom you want to be followed by.

1. Follow a couple of people you know, such as the person who introduced you to Twitter. Follow me @fairminder.
2. Follow their friends. Observe conversations and then choose new followers from among the people others are talking with.
3. Upload your contact list to Twitter to find people on Twitter whom you already know. Follow #2 above again.
4. Visit TwitterPacks. It lists all kinds of Twitter folks according to special interest.
5. Search on Twitter for your city or town name along with the state, and review profiles to find new people to follow.
6. Visit this TweetScan. It’s a more advanced twitter search site.

Number 2 above is a successful method because it includes some measure of social validation as you move from friend to friend of friend, rather than guessing whom to follow. You know the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together”? It really does apply here.

What should you say?

Twitter is a microcosm of life and has the potential for an equally wide range of subjects to be shared.

Feel free to jump in and send an update to someone in response to an update that you read. Or simply answer the question that Twitter poses: “What are you doing now?” Keep it interesting and related to the purpose and motive you established earlier. What you read on Twitter may inspire you to start a new conversation.

Here is a small sampling of what you may find or contribute on Twitter.

• Breaking news - News of the Chinese earthquakes hit Twitter long before traditional news outlets.
• Interesting links to a photo, audio, video, website, blog, forum post and more.
• Local meeting information - I enjoyed many meetings discovered on Twitter.
• Messages of encouragement - Tragic personal news can generate condolences from around the globe.
• Absolute rubbish - Not so interested that there are now three spiders on your wall.
• Tech help - Many have received answers to tech questions right away.
• Friendship - A listening ear, someone who will respond.
• Weather updates - Timely, accurate reports from far and near.
• Affinity groups - For example, fitness groups encouraging each other.
• Sports scores - We love those Red Sox.
• Reviews and recommendations - Comments on books, movies, products, etc.
• Directions - You are likely to get a helpful reply from a local.
• Polls - Simple polls that gather interesting information.
• Discounts and special offers - People and companies send out both.

So what happened with me?

I followed people, wrote updates, joined conversations, offered sports scores and website-related advice, asked for technology help and sought out talented people to help serve the needs of my clients. It was especially fun when I later met Twitter friends in real life. Now the Following and Followers numbers on my account are approaching 1,000.

What most people seem to be interested in is how money was made through Twitter. It began by sending a helpful update that was well received.

Shannon sent an update that said, “Hey, check out this website I just designed.” I did and then sent along a few suggestions for improvement. Shannon said he really appreciated these suggestions. Keep in mind that his update was not directed at me and I didn’t know him then. It simply went zipping by at a time when I was “on Twitter.”

In fact, he asked me to be an advisor on his next project. I agreed and he was so pleased that he paid me 50% more than he had originally offered. He subsequently went so far as to write an unsolicited blog post recommending my services. Wow, all this born out of 140 characters.

As the conversation expands, it is not out of the ordinary for it to move from Twitter to email, IM, telephone and in-person meetings.

Initially Twitter did seem like it was for the birds. I understood Twitter no more than I can understand the birds outside my window right now. Friendly folk on Twitter and in real life showed me otherwise.

I hope that you will also learn that Twitter is not for the birds, but a valuable tool for your business and social tool box. Come join the conversation! I promise to reply.

Jim Spencer
JBS Partners
“Fairminder” on Twitter

What has been your experience on Twitter?

This article first appeared in the August 13th , 2008 issue of the High Rankings Advisor newsletter. Many thanks to Jill for sharing her wide channel of distribution. Many readers opened accounts with Twitter in the following days, and over a hundred have followed Jill and I on Twitter.

You may also be interested in reading other postshere;
Twitter Tools to Share with your Followers
How Your Twitter Profile Can Attract Followers
Twitter related services
What is Twitter? (from Sept., 2007)

Generally when you follow someone on Twitter they will either follow you automatically or investigate you and then decide.

Let’s look at some ways to configure your profile to encourage people to follow you, rather than scaring them off.

Here is an image of my Twitter profile for reference.

Twitter Profile Sidebar

People are looking for something in common, something specific, or something entirely different from what they are accustomed to. If you don’t fill in this information, then visitors have less information to make a good decision (which would be to follow you).

About

Name: Extra points for a real name that seems authentic. Someone that hides thier identity makes me suspicious.

Location: I have a certain affinity for certain locations. I also just feel better knowing where in the world someone is. Sometimes knowing it is well past bedtime in that part of the world is useful.

Web: Link to your website, blog, or your account on Linkedin, MySpace, FaceBook or whereever people can find out more about you.

Bio: This is an important area with 160 characters to fully utilize. Let people get to know you, find something in common, discover an interesting fact about you. Provide as many details as you can. Have a sense of humor if you like.

Stats

This is another important source of information for the potential visitor. It is best to try and keep the Following and Followers numbers relatively similar. You don’t have to follow everyone, but if the ratio gets beyond 5 to 1 or even up to 10 to 1 people will assume that you are a spammer using a robot to follow new people really fast. That’s not good.

Twitter is about the conversation. No on wants or expects a conversation with a spammer or robot.

Following: Follow as many or as few as you like. This is not a contest with prizes for the highest numbers.

Followers: Do your best to maintain some semblance of balance between Followers and Following

Favorites: Real people favorite a few updates.

Updates: Once you start keep at it. A profile with one update is not that appealing. Keep at it over a few days and fill up a page on a variety of subjects that interest you.

Potential followers will also read a few of your updates and scan the Following avatars to see what is going on or not going on in your account.

Summary

Complete the About section with useful information so that people can get to know you and will engage you in conversation.

Don’t look like a spambot by following a thousand people on the first night you open your account. Take your time. It’s not that far from real life here. You have to open up a little to start the conversation.

See you on Twitter @fairminder

If you like this article, please see my Twitter article that was first seen on High Rankings Advisor - Is Twitter for the Birds? A Tweet Tweet Tutorial It makes a business case for Twitter.

What suggestions do you have to improve a Twitter profile?

The Scene

A free meeting of over 600 people. The event is sponsored by the Venture Capital firm Venrock. There are a lot of VC’s on the floor as well as folks in every related Internet line of business you can think of. Most attendees are in the mobile and web communities. You could bump into a graphic designer, someone in PR, banker, entrepreneur, mobile platform programmer, social media specialist, newspaper writer and so on. A lot of early-stage company folks come to see others like themselves.

The event includes five minute presentations from three “Main Dishes”. The audience gets to ask each presenter two questions. Often the audience yells out, “How do you make money”. Some speakers are confident in their revenue models, others, not so much. Most of the time, the crowd groans at the answer.

Before and after the “Main Dishes” there are pioneering “Side Dish” presenters around the perimeter of the room. Here innovative web companies present their products and services to an eager audience one on one.

How to succeed

Be social. Reach out to meet new people from beginning to end.

I remember leaving the ballroom at the end of the event and this gal simply asked me what impressed me. I answered and she and her posse and I ended up at the dinner table. I made a few interesting friend, many of which I now see regularly. Leave a comment if you can guess any names here.

The ballroom is packed. It is hard to move around. It is very loud. But, just remember, everyone is here to meet new people. Why not be one of those people?

I met some new people that were very interesting and talked with some great friends as well. It’s these repeated small touch points that allow relationships to grow over time.

This is also a very good venue to find a job or employees.

One of the better advantages of attending is to find a group to go out with afterwards, so that you can really get acquainted.

The next Web Inno, as it is affectionately called, will be on September 15th, 2008 at 6:30pm in Cambridge. Come out and see what’s new in technology and meet someone new.

1. They know SEO really well
2. I like their style
3. My schedule was open
4. Travel distance is not an issue
5. I might learn something
6. Curious who they hoped would attend
7. Needed to find out what this is all about

Who was there?

There were definitely some interesting characters in the room. In fact we discovered that one fellow diner and I have a mutual friend and colleague. Hi Jeff.

Three of us work for ourselves, two with clients. Another guest recently was hired. All live within an hour’s drive of the High Rankings office. A relevant crowd, but I will leave it to Jill and Pauline to say how relevant.

What was discussed?

The current and past careers of each guest, speaking at conferences, Twitter, increase in local clients, domaining and some helpful advice on an upcoming project for my business. Nope, no great secrets. A lot of understanding SEO has to do with actually dispelling false information.

Would I go again?

Yes. And I would be more prepared with challenging questions, even if I had to solicit questions from my friends on Twitter.

True or False High Rankings SEO Quiz?

The High Rankings SEO Quiz

1. Need to submit your URL to the search engines
2. Frequent spidering helps rankings
3. PPC ads will help organic rankings
4. Sites are banned if they buy links
5. Must use a specific keyword density
6. Should have 250 words on each page
7. Duplicate content will get your site penalized
8. Validated code will rank better
9. #1 Rankings always lead to increased traffic and sales
10. Rankings will drop if you stop paying your SEO company

Answer if you get the first one right, you get them all right.

What if you have eight downloadable files and you want to know which of the eight is downloaded the most?

The easy option is to use the Site Overlay feature. However, I found, on a low traffic site, that it did not record clicks on file download links. Please let me know if you find otherwise.

Google provides another option, adding a javascript tracking code to each file download link. This bit of javascript assigns a pageview to the clicks on your file links which Google easily tracks.

Adding the Google Analytics code to your links

a href=”folder-name/file-name.pdf”
onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/file-name.pdf’);”>
This is a complete code sample

a href=”folder-name/file-name.pdf”
This line is the path to your pdf. I didn’t need to change anything here.

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/file-name.pdf’);”>
This line is the tracker code. This is the new Google code that was added.

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’folder-name/fn.pdf’
The file-name.pdf in this line can be any text that you choose. Here it is shortened to fn.pdf.

Bonus: Try a shorter link name

I shortened the file name text compared to the acutal file name so that it would fit nicely in the Google Analytics display.

• Simple cut and paste
• Consider shortening the file name
• Works with any kind of downloadable file, pdf, avi, doc and so on.

Give it a try

Don’t expect to see the results immediately. Google suggests waiting one or two days. I saw results within 30 minutes.

Here is a link to the Google Analytics Help page. http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55529&topic=11006

You are invited to share your comments below. Thanks for visiting.

What will you find inside Search Marketing Standard?

My latest issue includes articles on:

Google, Social Media, Linking, Analytics, WordPress optimization, AdWords, Flash, Social Media Marketing and an SEO event calendar. There is even a crossword puzzle.

Articles are authored by longtime experts and up and comers alike, including:

Eric Ward, Kim Krause Berg, Chris Boggs, Joost de Valk, Bryan Todd, Grant Crowell, Gord Hotchkiss and Cameron Olthuis.

The magazine publishes four issues per year, which is nice flow of information that will not overwhelm you. With this discount you have a great opportunity to develop and affirm your own Search Marketing skills and pocket some change as well.

Take the first step in subscribing to Search Marketing Standard magazine.
And remember to enter this coupon code at checkout: “FRIEND15“.

There is good reading here.

What’s your take on the Search Marketing Standard magazine?

Here is a story of business engagement. Engaging the audience and developing a conversation.

I asked a simple question of the presenter, which was asked and answered by the speaker during the webinar. Nothing spectacular here yet.

Then the speaker offered to look over my blog and offer suggestions after the webinar. I took him up on it and he followed through. Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing over at HubSpot provided substantial suggestions. Many are on my to-do list.

Mike also referenced a few articles on the HubSpot blog so I spent a bit of time reading and found many useful articles. This exceeded my expectations of the benefit of joining the webinar, as did Mike’s email that included eight suggestions for my blog.

So, as a way of showing my appreciation, I would like to offer a few suggestions on how to improve the usability of the HubSpot blog. I willingly admit that I do not yet practice all of these suggestions here at www.jbspartners.com .

Let’s Start the Overhaul Recommendations for HubSpot’s blog

One of the important factors of good usability is predictability or accurately indicating what is ahead. This dictates a common-sense order of events. Order and relative position are themes you will find illustrated as you read on.

Click the thumbnail below to see a full size screen shot of the HubSpot blog page that is being reviewed. Opens a new page.

Promotion

Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us and reddit are valuable tools to help spread the word about quality articles. Below is a snap shot of a HubSpot blog title with social bookmarking links.

How can this be improved?

Could the social media text links be shifted down and placed on the same row as the Digg flag, instead of on top of the Digg flag? Stacking them leaves a large amount of blank white space to the right of the Digg flag, which is often restful, but not needed here. The post title is quite lost because it is placed so close to these links and graphics.

And for the posts that have not been Dugg, still move the social bookmarking links away from the title.

In fact…

Could you move these links to the bottom of the article? I might feel more genuine about voting for you after I have read the article. Why make me scroll back up to the top of the page to click the link? Move the social media links to the bottom of the article.

Byline

Who is the author? Introductions generally come before conversation. Place the byline at the top of the post instead of the bottom of the post. If the blog post is low on graphics, add an avatar or a photograph of the author as well. This kind of personalization is helpful when you meet the author in person or see the same photo elsewhere on the web, even in the comments below.

Date

When was the post written? Please don’t make me scroll down to the bottom to search for a date that is presented in tiny, faded font. Readers care. Information does expire. Don’t be afraid. Trust your readers. Include the date at the top . Many subjects on the Internet are date/time sensitive. Get this information out in front of the article.

Comments

Same as above. Honor your commenters by placing the comment author’s name and the date above the comment. Those that comment are often a part of a community. They will be looking to see if others that they know have commented. Books and newspapers place the author name before the text.

Place the commenters name first and date (and time information if needed) after the name.

A long column of comment text is boring. Instead, modify your comment styling to alternate the background color of every comment. This adds a bit of visual interest, breaks up the column into readable chunks, and aids the reader that is scanning the page. We know that readers scan, this change will make that easier.

This is a sample of alternating comment colors taken from www.cameronolthuis.com

Displaying the number of comments at the start of the comments section further enhances usability by providing the user with information about what is ahead. Nine comments is very different from 256 comments.

This is a sample taken from www.copyblogger.com

The HubSpot blog authors are very proactive about commenting on the blog comments. :loud applause: This encourages the sense of community that results in more comments.

Readers are interested in what the author has to say and who the author is. They also want to see if the author is reading and responding to posts. Uniquely style the comments of the author. Choose another background color, add a one pixel boarder, or what ever works with your style.

This example is taken from www.pearsonified.com Chris is the author. Here he uses bright red next to his comment.

Day of the Week

Providing the day of the week, month, date, year and time of the post might be too much information. I vote to remove the “Wednesday” portion of the date. Do not eliminate the year.

Spacing

Evenly spacing everything gives equal importance to everything. This does not provide the visual queues to aid the reader and provide good usability. Add extra blank lines before new areas of the post. At the end of the article add a blank line. An orange colored “Comments” title is very helpful. Give it some room by adding a blank line above it.

After the comments section, add a blank line before the comment form.

Remember to place related things near each other. Even in this blog post that you are reading, the bolded title “Spacing” that begins this section is nearer to the text about spacing than the text above which is about the Day of the Week or even the text below which is about the Comment Form.

Comment Forms

The button says “Post Comment”. “Post” is a technical term. Let’s be more welcoming and friendly. Try; Leave a comment, Leave a reply, add a comment.

The captchka is regrettably necessary. The explanatory text could be placed next to the text box and the word “code” could be replaced with the word “text”. Nothing wrong with adding a please here either, since this requires an extra effort of the visitor.

Required Fields

There are asterisks by the required fields. Many visitors are new to blogs as well as commenting. The form should make it as clear and easy as possible for them to participate. Add required field explanation text so that visitors can see what is expected of them before they see an error message and leave.

Email Notification

I always appreciate the ability to subscribe or to be emailed when there are comments made to a post that I have commented on. Great idea. This develops the feeling of engagement and starting a conversation. However, using the term “someone” is less supportive of this objective. What is being offered here is the ability to “Notify me of follow up comments via e-mail” So, we could just say that.

Quick Summary

2. Social Book Marking tags belong at the bottom of a post
3. Bylines belong at the top of a post, along with the date
4. The comment author name and date of the comment should appear before the comment
5. Alternate the styling of comments
6. Provide unique styling of the blog author’s comments
7. Display the number of comments at the top of the comments section
8. Keep day/date/time information simple
9. Space related content near each other
10. Space unrelated things apart from each other
11. Explain required fields
12. Email notification is awesome

Two questions?

1) What did I miss?

2) Why would you do something different?

I look forward to reading your comments.

If you would like to learn more about styling your comments in WordPress specifically one place to read is here - http://www.pearsonified.com/2007/11/professional_stylish_comments_for_blogs.php

If you like this article, click on the little green “Share This” icon below. It will help you share the article in the manner of your choosing. There are two tabs and lots of Social Bookmarking choices for you as well as “email a friend”.