Spring’s just about here with a great weather, Montreal is warming up for Internet, Web Conferences and Tech Events. And this is a crowded Conference season this year. Obviously we don’t have the humongous Events like SXSW. But lot of last year biggest events are taking place once again with larger and better speaker line-up. It’s also good to see that new smaller events are taking place pretty much each day of the week covering a large set of subjects, from Usability to Java.

Montreal Major Web Conferences

ConFoo the Techno Conference

The new and biggest Tech conference in Montreal, takes place this week downtown Montreal at the Hilton Bonaventure Hotel. This new and improved version of the yearly PHP Conference now includes all back-end and front-end aspects of Web Development with new partners: W3Quebec, Montreal Python, Montreal on Rails and OWASP Montreal.

The 3 days packed conference with 400 attendees is actually a blast with local and international experts on Java, .Net, PHP, Python, Ruby, databases and front-end Development. For those who missed it, a next year event is likely to happen and be announced in the next few months.

Webcom Montreal

On the other side of the Web scope, much more for Marketing, PR and Communication people, the Webcom Conference is taking place on May 26th. It’s a lot similar to the last year event, Webcom Montreal 2009, with a solid speaker line-up.

Meet Tech people in Montreal (free)

MonDev, Open Source Week Montreal

As the two other major event in Montreal are happening the same week, Brendan Sera-Shriar started a Open Source Week to get the ball rolling all the week and pack as much activities, presentation and workshops as possible.

All the info is already online so be sure to check that special MonDev week!

Yulblog & Yulbiz Montreal

Ok these events are quite different but they both target bloggers in Montreal. This time of the year they both celebrate their anniversary. Yulbiz Montreal is turning 4 this March 30th 2010. In the other hand, the oldest blogger meet-up without interruption, Yulblog is turning 10 March 19th.

W3Quebec, Third Tuesday, NewTech, Tweeters and Startup

There’s plenty of smaller Tech event in Montreal going on almost every day of the week all year. This obviously include the W3Quebec doing conferences and networking events, one of the geekiest crowd in Montreal, in a good way talking about leading technologies.

Monthly events in Montreal includes the fine folks at Third Tuesday, their Montreal events bring top-notch Web marketing speakers in a friendly atmosphere, I highly recommend going to one of their events. There is also a Vancouver and Toronto version of the Third Tuesday Conferences.

Twitter is on the rise I must say since 2009 in the Montreal tech scene and new events like Montreal Tweetup and Twestival Montreal are a convenient way to meet great people, help a good cause and drink a few pints, the Twitter way.

Other event that I honestly do not know as well as the other mentioned in this post, but well deserve a shout out, includes Startup Drinks, Montreal NewTech, UXMontreal and new events that I’m sure gonna be listed on the Montreal Tech Event Calendar.

I’m looking to go to as much events as I can in the next few months, hopefully will see you around!

cheers

Follow me on Twitter

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

Montreal 2010 Web Conference and Events

Photo credit: Rickydavid

Focus on your passion

This video from Gary Vaynerchuk and his book, Crush it, have been an inspiration for me and this personal random post is kind in the same spirit.

I’m bad at so much things. To make it as clear as Gary V. said in his ecstatic video, in my style :

I suck at writing. My English grammar sucks, as well as my french… Which sometime lead me to use a mixed language both in writing and verbally.

I suck in all administrative tasks. I’m not an excel kind of guy, I’m more going with my feelings. The guts and passion definitely lead to some lunatic moments. And I can go on and on about things I’m not the best in the world at…

A lot more people need to stop worrying about what they suck at, and worry about what they’re good at. Gary Vaynerchuk

Introvert and passionate

I’m trying to stay focus on what I’m good at, my expertise and somehow forget about my weaknesses. It ain’t easy in thought time, when you question yourself a lot, it’s too easy to forget about our ability and just see the crap.

So please bear with me and stay focus, 2010 is gonna be a hell of a year.

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

I suck!

Looking back at 2009

Looking back at 2009, I’ve started a new full-time job in 2009 as a Digital Strategist at TMP Worldwide… which I ended on December 24th, to work full-time freelancing - more on that in the coming weeks of course.

It’s been a great time working at TMP and I’ve learned a lot on working for one of the world biggest advertising agency but time has come to move on to other things.

So let’s do at least these things in 2010 :

1. Pass the Google Analytics IQ Certification
2. Pass the Google AdWords Qualified Individual Certification
3. Develop a sustainable Online Marketing business
4. Write most blog post/do video post here and finish the WordPress theme sitting on my hard drive.
5. Start to develop some of the domains I have for niche sites.
6. On a more personal note, keep up with my good gym habits and go to at least 2 times a week.

I wish you all a Happy new year, be safe

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

2010 New Year’s Resolutions

You can view my Google Analytics IQ Certification and my online test records.

The Google Analytics Individual Qualification is a proof of proficiency in Google Analytics that is available to any individual who has passed the Google Analytics IQ test.

The difference between the Google Analytics IQ and Qualified Company is a bit fuzzy. The Certification isn’t easy, you better be ready even if the Conversion University videos seems very straight forward. Still it’s a way less arduous process than companies goes through for the Google Analytics Consultant. DJ Kennedy has some suggestion to help circumvent this Google Analytics program issue.

Tips for the GAIQ Exam

Have another browser window opened with these resources that you’ll need during the Exam. As you have 90 minutes (can be paused) to answer the 70 questions get ready with the Google Analytics IQ Lessons videos.

• Open your Analytics account
• Regular Expression Tool
• Google Analytics Support Page

Finally you need to score at least 75%. Edit February 2010: Google raised the bar to 80% which is a good news overall.

Other Google Analytics resources

Of course Avinash Kaushik with his Web Analytics an hour a day and his new book Web Analytics 2.0.

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

Passed the Google Analytics IQ Certification

The importance of websites to a recruiting strategy is indisputable. The websites’ efficancy and effectiveness is imperative and is growing more valuable every day. A unified Web presence, part of a long- and short-term global marketing and communications strategy adapted to recruitment needs, is key.

Let’s look at some important basic technical website marketing guidelines you should consider when marketing your Web presence to future employees. Most of these elements involve search engine optimization (SEO), using a site’s integral elements (title, HTML code, incoming links, outgoing links, etc.) to improve its ranking in search results.

Page Title

The Page Title is not the visible title, but rather your site’s HTML <title> tag seen at the top of your browser window.

This page element, which is often underestimated and poorly used, is essential for SEO as well as  users as it boost’s your web pages’ accessibility and usability. Each page must have its own title which is less than 65 characters including spaces, easy to understand and reveals information about the content of the actual page, not the site..

Paying attention to the page title will definitely improve the volume and quality of traffic to your website!

Meta Description

This information, used mainly by user agents (e.g. search engine robots), is hidden in your pages’ HTML source code and not normally visible. Search engines such as Google, however, will recognize this information and display it as the page description, as seen in the example below.

The meta description, which must be less than 150 characters including spaces, is therefore the first contact you’ll have with your candidate through search results. As with titles, each page must have its own meta description.  It’s  a powerful marketing tool that allows you to be noticed, to make Internet users want to click on the link and visit your site.

Programming Code

Your pages’ HTML code is the technological structure that supports visitors and search engines. You would never buy a house with a shaky foundation would you?… well, the same goes for your Web pages. Good structure is the mark of skilled work and can promote enhanced search engine optimization.

You can quickly check the code on your Web pages with the mark up validation service offered by W3C, the consortium that set’s Web standards.

Outgoing Links

External links pointing to your pages and job offers are the most important indicators used by search engines to rank your site among the billions of indexed pages. On the Web, a link to your page is a vote from the site displaying the link. The more prominent the site, the stronger the vote of confidence!  You can  check the number of links to your website and where they originate. Take http://www.samuellavoie.com, for example. If you go to the Yahoo! search engine, you can enter the following search:

linkdomain:http://www.samuellavoie.com -site:www.samuellavoie.com

This request will find the links to this site.

Conclusion

This (very) short list of key criteria can be used to sharpen your Web presence and give you an edge in the Wild West that is today’s Web. Competition for traffic and high-quality candidates who are active users of the Internet is on the upswing and will continue to increase.

There are more than one  hundred guidelines for search engine optimization to consider if you want to improve the presence of your job offers on the Web. Comments as always appreciated or contact me.

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

Basic Search Engine Optimization for Recruitment Site

Why you should care about Google Wave?

Google has a good track record at successful products launched in established markets. Look at Gmail launched against Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo Mail with now more that 150 million users. It’s Open Source; the code is open for improvements and such as you can create your own Wave server. Take a look at the Wave Developer blog with an interesting Wave API preview.

The load of features can turn off users who aren’t early adopters. It aim to be a Project Management system built on a real-time communication system, including Instant Messaging with shared conversations, drag and drop files.

If you think about it, it’s about becoming a communication hub for users. To compete to be the communication hub that Facebook is becoming.

If you’re not one of the first lucky users who gets an invitation, get your invitation. Lifehacker also did a pretty neat and complete Wave first look post. Please comment your thoughts

update: Wave works on iPhone (after a fairly broken browser check tho')

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

Google Wave the Communication hub

So I have been using this web service called a social tool, Twitter for more than 24 straight months. Beside the fact that I’ve been using it for 2 years is freaking me, it’s been a nice ride so far with lots of positive outcomes

More seriously, when I joined:

• Celebrities were still not on it.
• Quebecers were very few on it.
• It was basically geeks, programmers and Internet ninjas.

Then came the Online Marketers. Trying to leverage it as an advertising platform (how surprising?). You can be-a-magpie (btw yes it’s a referral link, why not?), you can Twittertise and do SponsoredTweets to name a few.

And then all the others; the mainstream early adopters came along. They flew on Twitter and the mix of them and the online marketing people bring an explosive mix of spam bots, marketing gimmick and all kind of money making tactics. Twitter struggle with all this attention, bringing some chaos with anti spam bots features. I think they are learning, we’re all learning with this 50 millions people social experiment as well as for Facebook but more focused on real time information and less on privacy issue. Hopefully they will bring new feature to fix the spam issue with Verified Account and more filtering options for the noise problems.

How to not let Twitter owning you

My tweets were slow at first; they were not a bunch of people like now virtually all my Internet savvy friends are on it. I was a bit cautious about it, felt really screw when a forum closed after 2 years in 2004, in which I had more than 3 000 messages. Steve at Mindsix can testify that feeling

Twitter is something you choose to do, much more like blogging than Facebook, and you always should add some sort of value to it. It can be very personal or professional, doesn’t matter. Still if you are new to this tweeter verse, you really should take the time to learn how to use it, including basic tips, choose a third party software for your phone or desktop and be a part of it for more than just one month.

TweetStats Samuel Lavoie

Follow me!

Follow me on Twitter at @sammyQc

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

My Twitter Two Year Anniversary

As for the tagline, it should somehow combine some elements of your mission, promise and brand as James Chartrand perfectly nail it down in this post about rock-solid tagline. At the opposite I found lots of people advocate to name their business with silly, funny and somewhat off names. Thoughts on that?

Here is a list of a few business name that I found inspiring for diverse reasons in the Web development and Web marketing :

Québec :

• Ressac Media
• Adviso
• AoD Marketing, Adapt or Die

US + UK :

• the big noob
• CL, Crush + Lovely
• Respiro Media
• Carsonified
• OmniTI
• thingsthatarebrown
• AdaptD
• Chama
• Distrop
• Electric Pulp

Have you found some interesting, inspiring one? Especially for Web businesses

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

Business name Inspiration

Beside private work, it’s been pretty busy at the TMP Worldwide office, of course as the only Web guy, everything web related goes down to me. Still seems to me that meetings and process are taking way too much of my time…but heh that’s the corporate world.

Business Work projects

Some really cool things are going on for me on the business side; it should see the light and being more public in a little while…

Until then, wait and see

To wrap up this personal post, thanks a million to you, reader. Even if my English still sucks.

Hope you had an amazing summer and/or vacation time. Here’s me in Barcelona. You can also view the set on Flick.

Barcelona trip

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

I’m Still Alive And Kicking!

What will the future of Facebook look like in a few years? I still remember when it was brand spanking new. Talking about it to everyone I knew. To put into perspective it’s now the 8th largest country in world.

Facebook is growing at the rate of 7 new users a day.

Since the last 12 months, they have gone through two new redesign, experiencing users rebellion and PR nightmare as Zuckerberg had a hard time managing all that hype and media attention. It seems they have been able to manage all that and still maintain an extraordinary growth rate. At the current rate, Facebook can have 500 million members in less than a year, is that really sustainable and how they can manage to not be the next MySpace? The overall effectiveness of the site to connect friends, family and colleagues is still pretty strong. And personally I’m still using it on a daily basis to connect with people and share stuff, yes Twitter is far better at sharing but as a media hub I don’t see Facebook loosing it anytime soon.

And for those who think they don’t have any plan to monetize their social platform, I believe they do. Facebook is your life hub, their cost will decline for two reasons, more registered members mean lower cost to support each new member and technology is getting cheaper by the day. And do not forget that contextual advertising, involving your personal activity is still getting off the ground.

Post from: Internet Strategy SEO & Web Developement

The Future of Facebook