In my last article I published a list of “TEN DO’s” from the 1998 edition of “Web Publishing for Dummies”, today we review ten things the authors thought you should NOT do. You might be surprised, as I was, that all ten are still applicable today.

The great thing about this book (if you ignore references to CompuServe, Prodigy and GeoCities) is that it was written before the search engines moved to the front of everyone’s mind. The information presented is primarily focused on creating a better experience for your visitors, and that is something that we should all be working towards.

Take a moment or two and review this list – did I miss anything?

1)  DON’T inadvertently limit your audience

Be careful when designing your pages not to inadvertently limit your audience by using some oddball feature that can’t be read by large numbers of people who use different Web browsers. Stick to basic HTML and Netscape additions through Netscape Navigator Version 2.0. Think twice before using HTML frames, Java programs, or ActiveX programs; many people won’t be won’t be able to access them. Warn people if you u se nonstandard features. Often providing alternative pages, such as text-only versions of your pages, is worthwhile. And including links to the software that works with your pages often pays-off; a link to Netscape if you use Navigator-specific tags, or a link to the RealAudio site if you include RealAudio sound, are two good examples.

This is still true, however, this advice is all-too-often ignored.  While the various browser makers are getter better about following standards, some still offer “extended capabilities” that some developers take advantage of; ignoring the fact that the rest of the world probably will see none of their hard work.  A larger problem though is the remaining site-owners that insist on having their site mostly in flash.  Years ago people were leery of flash because not everyone had it, and the download for the player was large (based on slower connection speeds), eventually though the folks at Adobe managed to get flash pre-installed on almost all machines.  This made some owners and developers think is was OK to go 100% flash.  WRONG. Aside from the SEO issues (that’s a whole other post), there are millions of people that access the web via mobile devices that have no idea what to do with your flash pages.

2)  DON’T abuse netiquette

Abusing the etiquette of the Internet is easy to do and can bring you a lot of negative attention. If you make any serious offenses, your Web service provider’s server may remove your page. And you can even get into legal problems. Avoid dubious practices such as spamming, sending unwanted e-mail to publicize your site; flaming, being fervently disparaging of other people or other Web pages; or putting up offensive material without some kind of warning label. Netiquette is an amorphous and evolving area of online behavior, so you may want to join a Web-oriented newsgroup where you can ask questions before publishing. Also, check out this site for more info: www.fau.edu/rinaldi/netiquette.html (link no longer valid).

Netiquette is as important now as it was then, just the ways people can ignore it have changed.  I used to say “if you wouldn’t do it in front of your mother, don’t do it on the ‘net”.  Then I moved to Texas (it’s hard to believe what people here will do in front of their mothers).  Even if you WOULD do something in front of your mother, the web may not be ready to see it.  Don’t make assumptions about anything – ever.  Ask lots of questions, participate in the community.  After you know what they want – make sure you have at it.

3)  DON’T “borrow” content without asking

Make sure that content you get from the Web to use on your own Web page is labeled as being freely available for reuse, or else get permission to reuse it. Most people are quite happy to help if you ask nicely and credit their work. The best part is that you make some good contacts with other interesting people. You also keep the law on your side.

Stealing is wrong people, no matter what you call it or how you do it.  Aside from the legal and ethical issues, this is what the search engines call “duplicate content” and it’s a good way to get your site dropped from the listings.  You want good content? Create it yourself, or pay somebody to do it for you.

4)  DON’T make your site hard to navigate

Beginners often organize their pages so that their sites are hard to navigate. If your site has more than two levels, you should give some thought as to how your visitors will navigate it. Nobody likes wandering from link to link with no idea what is where or having to follow ten links to find one piece of information. Keep the relationship between your pages simple. Make it clear which links are internal to your own site and which go out to other sites. Provide an index page or a common menu. And make navigation work consistently throughout the site.

Good site structure is becoming even more important, at the 2010 SMXAdvanced conference, one speaker used a slide that said something like “site structure + SEO = BFF”.  This is another case of the engines liking something that is good for users.  Users have always liked it when it’s easy for them to get around a site and find what they want – now the engines like it too.

5)  DON’T abuse graphics and multimedia

The biggest mistake beginning Web authors- and some experts- make is overusing graphics on a page. Keep in mind that not everyone has fast, expensive T1 lines (special high-bandwidths phone lines) wired directly to their home PCs; by far, the greatest majority of folks receive your web page via a more limited 28.8 Kbps modem. Keep your page size, including text and graphics, under 100K. Here are ways that you can do this without sacrificing design flexibility;

• Convert all photos to JPEG format.
• Use simple icons and banners- images without very many colors or complex textures-in FIG format
• Lay out your site to limit the amount of graphics on any one page, adding pages if you need to display more graphics
• Use thumbnail icons to give access to larger images

All those strategies make your pages smaller and faster for others to download. Your Net surfers will thank you.

Raise your hand if you ever connected to the ‘net via a dial-up connection…bonus points if you remember what your “baud rate” was.

Of course page load times are still important, though I can’t imagine a non-mobile page being under 100k anymore.  Once again (you may get sick of hearing this) the search engines are mirroring what users like;  Users want fast load times and the engines have started putting more emphasis on it as well.  Even though most homes now have super-fast connections, and even mobile devices are getting faster, you’ll want to make sure you tweek every ounce of speed out of your site.

6)  DON’T forget ALT tags and text-equivalent menus

Another basic mistake is not using text-equivalent menus forgetting that many people surf the Net without graphics turned on. Who would turn off graphics, you ask?

Many home user turn off graphics to speed things along, downloading only the graphics that they really need. Some people pay a high hourly rate for their Internet access, especially in much of the non-Western world, and turn off graphics to save money on their connection time. Others receive Web pages via e-mail because they don’t have a direct Internet connection. And some people who are visually impaired use the web with software that translates text-but not graphics-into spoken words. Always use the ALT tag to provide text equivalents to your graphics, as described in Chapter 7. Using the ALT tag is easy to do and will make it possible and easier for all these people to access your content.

It’s somewhat disturbing to me that the primary reason (according to the authors) to use alt-tags was for potential cost savings for users and the last reason was for screen readers/visually impaired.  Sadly, it’s only slightly better now.  Most people include alt text in their images because it helps with search engine indexing and the fact that it helps with screen readers is a nice bonus.

7)  DON’T forget the basics

Your site may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if you forget to include contact information for yourself in the site, how will you find out that you misspelled “bureaucracy” all over the place? Similarly, you won’t get many orders for your spiffy new widget if you put the ordering information five levels down in a web page called “fruit bat guano statistics-1876.”

More basics:

• Use mailto: tags (HTML tags used to specify your e-mail address; for example, <A HRES=*MAILTO:comments@mysite.com>).
• Include a copyright notice
• Add an index
• give credit where credit is due
• Make the important info prominent. Be ready to revise, based on user feedback.

OK, this literally made me laugh.  You have a book “for dummies” and assume they know the basics and are reminding them not to forget them.  Alrighty then.  How about instead of waiting for a site visitor to tell you about your spelling mistakes, you use this new thing we have now…maybe you’ve heard of it – “spell-check”.  But otherwise, yes – do remember to include your contact info, and make it easy for visitors to use. Do have both a site index and a menu, and for the LAST bullet (which should have been first)… make important content easy to find, and adjust if it’s wrong.

8)  DON’T start by setting up your own Web server

There are several “easy-to-use” Web server packages on the market, and Web server capability is even being built into Macs and PCs. But even with these efforts, buying, setting up, and maintaining a Web server can become the most expensive, most complicated, and most frustrating part of Web publishing. Luckily, you can use the free services described in this book, or paid services, to put your content on someone else’s Web server while you learn the other tricks of the trade. Then, as your knowledge and experience grow, consider setting up your own Web server.

I don’t think most people would even consider this an option any more, thankfully there are lots and lots of powerful and affordable web hosting companies available – I’m a fan of hotgator.com.  There are very few cases where it’s necessary to maintain your own server.  Additionally, the phrase “easy-to-use” should never be used to described any web server package.

9)  DON’T forget the “World” in the World Wide Web

Remember that your Web pages are available and accessible to the whole world. Think a bit about that foreign audience. Is it worthwhile to include some foreign language content? Do you use colloquialisms that may not be understood by your foreign Net surfers? How do your pages look to your overseas colleagues who view them through the slow transoceanic Net link? Will your humorous or risqué content offend someone in another country of culture?

When you become a Web publisher, you also become a global citizen and your Web pages play on a global stage. Think through the meaning of your page in advance.

This really boils down to knowing your audience – and being able to adapt if needed.  Usually, a site’s content will fall into a consistent them or category and people who want to read about that content will understand most of how you write about it, regardless of where the live. However, writing for an international audience does take a little forethought.

10)  DON’T be afraid to learn more

Web publishing is not rocket science. It is computer science, but it’s relatively easy computer science. You’re not trying to land the space shuttle here- and chances are, lives are not at stake. Experiment, try weird things. Ask for feedback. Never be afraid to learn complex and hard stuff. (It’s only complex and hard because you don’t understand it yet!) Neat stuff is being developed (and some cool stuff is already out there) that will make Web publishing even more exciting- VRML, Java, new browsers and publishing tools, groupware, Net-based games, and online business infrastructure. All this new stuff is understandable and usable by normal folks like you. Don’t be intimidated. You can use all of them. (If you’ve come this far, you’ve got what it takes!)

Not only should you not be afraid to learn more – you should do your best to always be learning more.  Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, rarely do you learn something by doing it correctly.  Be sure to document how you do things, what works and what doesn’t – this sort of testing will make your life easier.

There you have it – Ten Web Publishing DON’Ts, straight from the web design time machine.

What did you do then that you find yourself  NOT doing today?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Ten “DON’Ts” from the Web Publishing Time Machine

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I was somewhat startled to discover a copy of “Creating Web Pages for Dummies (1998)” on my desk this morning. The book promises I’ll be able to “Create Dazzling Home Pages – In No Time!” I’m still not sure who put it there, or what they are trying to tell me, hopefully that mystery will soon be solved, and hopefully they were thinking I’d get a laugh from it and not that I’d learn something from it. As I glanced at the table of contents, it did generate a grin or two – there’s a whole section devoted to geocites. However two chapters stood out more than the rest “Ten Web Publishing DO’s” and “Ten Web Publishing DON’Ts.” I just knew these tips from the early days of the web would create some laughs, so I flipped ahead and looked at the lists. I could not have been more wrong. Why I was wrong is connected to the fact that there is something very important to note about this book – the ONLY mention of anything search engine related is this brief definition:

Search engine: Web-based services that help you find things you are looking for.

Why is that important you ask? Because this book was written before web designers/developers thought that getting attention from Google was more important than giving visitors good content. The fact that the authors were concerned with content makes both of their lists still (mostly) accurate. Below is the list of ten “DO’s” along with my comments about how they may (or may not) apply today.

1) Do think about your target audience

Who is your Website targeting? A little thought along those lines can make your pages much more appealing to your visitors. Before you begin creating your website, choose the right look and feel and style of presentation that is appropriate for your audience. Include links that your visitors find interesting, not just the ones that you find interesting – unless that’s the point of your page, of course. In addition to using good sites as models (see the next “DO”), research other media, such as newspapers and magazines – the articles and the ads – that have a similar audience as yours to find good and bad examples.

This is still great advice – it’s impossible to deliver great content if you don’t know what your audience wants. Your site might hold the secret formula for free energy from the ocean, but if the reader is looking for instructions on how to make great mojitos, to them, your site sucks.

2) Do use good sites as models

Many good sites are out there. Ignoring those good examples when designing your own site is not the best idea. Take a look around and find the designs that work. Think about why each design you like works well for you. Is it the use of color and layout of the Web page? The fact that the site loads quickly? Well-organized content? Note what works and why, and then strive to duplicate that effect in your own Web pages. Look for conventions in presenting information that Web users have grown accustomed to, neat design ideas, and various types of content. You’ll be surprised how many ideas you get from this huge reservoir of Web expertise.

I had a boss once that was fond of saying “I don’t need you to re-invent the wheel, just find a better way to use it.” Keep that advice in mind while you research other sites for ideas. You don’t always have to do something completely different, just do it better than the rest. It’s interesting to me that in 1998 (when people were lucky to have a 56kbs modem at home) a quick load time and well-organized content where obviously important factors. Today, when most teens (college students) have NEVER used a dial-up connection, we are once again concerned about how quickly our pages load.

3) Do get permissions for content

You can easily peek at the HTML source of any Web page, and that’s a good way to learn new design techniques. But you can also easily grab any content that exists on the Web, even privately owned content that belongs to others. However, the fact that grabbing others’ content is easy does not make it right or legal. It’s also not necessary.

A great deal of public domain content is out there, and getting permission to use private content is not hard. If a Web page does not explicitly say that its content can be freely borrowed, assume that it’s copyrighted or otherwise protected – which means you should ask before borrowing any of it. Many people are happy to let you use their content in order to gain exposure on your pages, as long as you provide proper attribution and reciprocal links. In the process, you may just gain new friends or business contacts, as well as avoid legal problems down the road. (And in case you get tempted to borrow quietly, keep in mind that word of unethical practices gets around quickly on this amazing global network.)

Sadly, this is something that seems to always be forgotten. C’mon folks, don’t be a jerk – it only takes a minute (or two) to do things the right way.

4) Do use links to outside sites

No matter how great your content is, you’d be wasting the most important feature of the Web if you did not include links to sites outside your own. No matter what your topic, you can find complementary sites out there on the Web. Giving your visitors links to those sites is only courteous. If you research your links carefully and organize them well, your links can be a valuable resource to others. In your own Web surfing, you’ve probably found it to be true that one of the best experiences on the Web is the serendipity of stumbling upon some cool link that you had no idea existed; give your visitors that experience. Point them to the outside world. That’s why it’s the Web and not the Thread.

I can recall conversations with clients about this, they would get so upset about me linking to OTHER sites. “Why do you want them to leave?” they would ask. Thankfully, I think most people have now realized that links to other sites are not only NOT evil, but people like them. And, since people like them – guess what, the search engines like links too.

5) Do use graphics and multimedia

A prime attraction of the Web is that it is designed to present graphical information, yet there are still many beginning Web authors who are intimidated by graphics and shy away from using them. Include a picture, icons, bars, and graphical menus in your Web page. Go ahead, try out transparent and interlaced GIFs. Multimedia is a great addition tool one or two sound files, a QuickTime movie, even a simple animated GIF can really liven up a site. The bottom line is that sites rich with graphics and multimedia are much more interesting than purely text-oriented ones. Give it a go. (But be prudent)

This is still true, in fact it’s been shown that pages with images actually get more readers than those without. Just don’t go overboard, you don’t want to give people seizures.

6) Do think before you create

It may sound basic, but a surprising number of people lust jump in and start throwing around text and HTML tags with no clue about where they’re going or what they want to accomplish. That approach is fine if you just want to play around – in fact, that approach can be a lot of fun. But if you want to make a good impression on the Web, sitting down and thinking about a few things ahead of time really pays off. Sketch your Ideas on paper. Then describe them to someone else and ask for feedback. This prep work forces you to consider things that you may not think about otherwise: Page layout, graphic design, relationship between pages, target audience, content structure, link grouping, and other issues that, when properly integrated, can make your site a first-class Net surfing experience.

Back in 1998 look and feel were among the biggest concerns of somebody building a website. The web hadn’t started creating applications yet, sites were mostly information storage locations. While look and feel are still very important today, you need to go beyond that in your planning phases. Think about your site structure, what directories, file names, tags, categories – even how much traffic you might eventually get. It can be difficult to gather all of this, but if you don’t get it right in the beginning, your growing pains might be bad enough to kill a whale.

7) Do ask for feedback

You’ll be amazed by what people say about your pages. (Some of the comments may even be complimentary!) Put your e-mail address on your home page and ask for comments. People who have never before seen your site will have a good, fresh perspective and can give you feedback on things that you may not have thought about. Everyone can benefit from outside input. Criticism by your prospective audience is not only useful, it’s also educational. You can learn a lot about what people expect and want. Criticism can’t hurt anything but your pride, and it almost always improves your site.

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when people would only tell you what they think of you if you asked them. Now, in the era of Twitter and Facebook, it can sometimes be difficult to make them stop talking about you. That can be good or bad, depending on what they are saying – but in any case – LISTEN TO THEM.

8) Do test your pages

Testing your pages is easy. You probably don‘t send e-mail without spell-checking lt. Similarly, you should not put up your Web pages without testing them. That means looking at your pages on your own machine before testing them on the web – follow links, see how graphics and text fit together and so on. Also, looking at your pages in different browsers doesn’t hurt. If you can`t do it, ask a friend or even a stranger to help. Oh, again, don t forget to spell-check your pages.

This is just plain crazy-talk, right? While some people are comfortable throwing up gibberish, I don’t know many people who enjoy reading it. And, as the authors pointed out – make sure all your images load correctly, links are coded with valid addresses and yes, even on 2010 you STILL have to check your site in multiple browsers.

9) Do publicize your site

Nothing is more frustrating than putting up a site that no one visits. Fortunately, publicizing your site is not hard. Add your site to the popular indexes, for example, through the excellent “Submit-it” site: www.Submit-it.com (NOTE: This is no longer a submission site)
You can also post to appropriate Usenet newsgroups, put out a press release, or shout it from the rooftops. Just building a site doesn’t necessarily mean people will come to it. You still have to get the word out.

Of course site promotion is still important, but I would certainly suggest you avoid sites/services that claim they’ll submit your site to thousands of engines and indexes. Press releases, done correctly are a good way to start. Does anyone use UseNet anymore? You should make sure your site has a valid sitemap for the engines to crawl, but beyond that – there are lots of ways to promote your site.

10) Do update your site

A static site is a boring site. True, it works for some purposes, but in general, if you want people to continually revisit your site, you must keep it updated. The best sites are those that continually provide new and interesting content. Include pointers to information that’s frequently updated, like “Thought for the day” or “Links to new, cool sites.” Let users know how often to expect updates and be sure to showcase new content. A “New” icon next to recently added or updated content can work wonders.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “content is king” more times than you care to remember, but it’s based on the fact that both people and search engines like for you to keep your site fresh and the easiest way to do that is with a steady stream of new content.

There you have it – Ten Web Publishing DO’s, straight from the web design time machine. What did you do then that you find yourself doing again today?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Ten Web Publishing “DO’s” from the Web Publishing Time Machine

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That’s the word for day two – just WOW!
For me day two was more about meeting great people and learning about great tools than anything else.

Of course the highlight for the day was that Rhea Drysdale (@Rhea) decided it was safe to follow me on Twitter, even though every time she looked over her left shoulder, there I was.  It was really great to meet you Rhea!

Matt Cutts of Google fame also chatted with a few of us about his recent weight loss success and shared his secret to success.  It’s hard to believe, but apparently if you exercise and eat more fruits and vegetables, it’s good for you.  Who knew?

Matt Cutts – Opening remarks

This was my first time to see/hear Matt speak.  He is quite entertaining.  Much better in person, with a crowd than in his videos (Sorry Matt).

The big announcement for Matt – which he said he hates to do at shows – was that  Google has created a system called Friend Connect and associated plugins for WordPress, Drupal and PhbBB that make it possible for people to use their Google/Yahoo accounts as identification when leaving comments on blogs, rather than having to create a site account with yet another username/password.  Honestly, I didn’t think this was an issue, but there were a few “ooo’s”, “ahh’s” and “cool’s” in the crowd.  I’m certainly not a huge commenter, but I leave them when I feel the need.  The sites I visit just ask for email address, a web site name and my comment.  That’s not a big deal for me.  Maybe it is for you.  I’m not gonna go all @GrayWolf, Google  conspiracy theory on you, but the evil side of me wonders how this information is being collected and used – you have to know that Google is not going to waste an opportunity to know exactly where you go on the web and how you feel about the things you read.  Seems like a no-brainer to me, and I’ll neither be installing friend connect on my site nor using it on others.  In fact, it makes me want to double check that I am logged out my gmail and yahoo before I start surfing.

Matt was asked, and spoke briefly about the issue of duplicate content.  He said Google is less concerned with www vs. non-www versions on the same domain and more so with the same content on different domains.  He did suggest that use of the new canonical tag would be a great way to avoid issues.  However – it is vital that you fully understand how it works and test thoroughly before implementing in a live environment.  He suggested that all your internal links should use full URL so that if your site is scraped/copied the links still point to the right place

Of course, Matt was asked for some search engine optimization (SEO) tips.  He pulled out his “standard response card”  he didn’t call it that, but I’m it is.  He had 7 tips to share – Most are pretty common, one I had not heard before, but makes good sense.

1. Use good URL & Site structure
2. Use good and unique page titles
3. Use your chosen keywords in URL and titles
4. Use keywords naturally withing your content (don’t try to stuff them in there)
5. Page title and site URL do not have to match
6. Check your site logs often to see what you already rank well for
7. Post often

It was great fun to meet Matt an hear him speak, a great start to the day.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

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I’m sure most of you are well aware of the hullabaloo caused by the recent move made by Mars/Skittles that converted Skittles.com from a traditional web site to a mashup of social media sites, incorporating content from Facebook, wikipedia, YouTube and Twitter.  The overall success of the social experiment has been debated widely; some seem to think it was brilliant, others feel it is ridiculous mistake to place control of a brand’s voice into the hands of the general public at large.  Regardless of which camp you are in, all seem agree that it took considerable courage.  Understandably, word of the new site spread like wildfire.  Before long, nearly everyone on Twitter was sending messages with “#skittles” in them, just to see if they would show up on the site.  I began seeing people comment in my “twitter stream” about what others had written just to get listed on the skittles page.  I realized that people were not just looking for their own tweets, but were actually reading what others had written – score one for the skittles team.

This made me curious – if people were reading what others wrote, would they also click the links others posted – just because it was on the skittles page?  I decided to turn the skittles experiment into one of my own.

I selected three articles that had done well with my readers, but had not had traffic in a few days.  I watched the “chatter” at skittles.com until the traffic slowed enough so that the tweets showing up stayed on the page one for about 10 minutes before dropping off.

Starting at around 10:30 AM I posted tweets about every 20 minutes containing links to one of the articles, and mentioning skittles somehow in them.  I spaced them this way to make sure that more than one would not show up at the same time and tip off the readers what I was doing. I was also careful not to send the same link twice in a row.  I stopped around 4:30 PM after sending 16 of the linked skittles tweets.

It was not my intent to trick the readers, but the tweets did imply a slight connection to skittles, however none came right out and said they had anything to do with the candy, or that the links would talk about skittles.  Most of the tweets I sent were similar to the examples listed below.

• Does advertising help or hinder your business? http://zi.ma/19e094, grab some skittles and read on
• I like to eat skittles while I do site testing http://zi.ma/831f makes it more fun, less like work
• I wonder if the skittles page uses the keywords meta tag http://zi.ma/78a88f ?

Because I didn’t want to increase my page views except through the skittles experiment, I asked (and reminded a few times), my regular followers to please ignore my skittles tweets – though a few threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t knock it off soon.

As I watched my links scroll down the skittles page, I was happy to see they were being clicked on and even re-tweeted.

When the day was done, the three pages had been viewed just under 100 times total.  Not huge numbers by any means, but given how and where they were posted, and that each was only viewable for about 10 minutes – I’m calling this a succesful test.  Had I been a bit more sneaky about the text in my tweets, I’m sure I could have lured a few more in.  Thankfully, my bounce rate did not jump – believe it or not, it actually went down some.  Hopefully some of those 100 people will come back and read more of my pages…if you are one of them WELCOME BACK and please pass the skittles.

UPDATE: The zi.ma URL shortener is now dead.  As such, the links above will no longer work – sorry.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

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We’ve all heard the expression “it’s too good to be true”.  That’s something that as marketers, we have to be careful not to create when we promote our products – no matter how great or innovative they may be.  People often have preconceived ideas about what various products can and can’t do, and claims of performance that go beyond those expectations may be viewed as unrealistic and unbelievable.  If your customer thinks you are exaggerating the performance of your product, they may still be willing to try it, but will not be willing to pay the price you expect for such an industry break-through.  Your customers see the transaction as risky and will want to limit possible losses.    Even if your products do all you say and more, if people don’t believe you, the perceived value of your product will lessened.

What if your product was a talking dog?

A guy is driving around the back woods of Tennessee and he sees a sign in front of a broken down shanty-style house: ‘Talking Dog For Sale.’ He  rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the  backyard.

The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

‘You talk?’ he asks.
‘Yep.’ the Lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk , he says ‘So , what’s your story?’

The Lab looks up and says ‘Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA. In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.’

‘I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running.  But the jetting around really tired me out , and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security , wandering near suspicious characters and listening in.  I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a bunch of medals.’

‘I got married , had a mess of puppies , and now I’m just retired.’

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

‘Ten dollars.’ the guy says.

‘Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?’

‘Because he’s a liar. He never did any of that crap.’

The shanty dweller has in his possession an incredible wonder – worth much more than $10, but because he does not believe it to be genuine, he is willing to part with it next for next to nothing.

What is your product worth?

Or, more importantly – what do your customers think it is worth?  So how do you find this out?  Simple…research and testing, but you already knew that – right? Talk to your current customers, talk to people you want to be your customers.  Find out what they think of your current products, and others in the industry.  Surveys and focus groups will help you to find out what is a perceived realistic expectation.

If you somehow have a product that performs beyond the perceived possibilities, be prepared to back it up. Pick the right kind of marketing for your product. If your potential customers need to be shown how the product works, a simple print ad isn’t going to be enough. While it is important for us to know our products, it is even more important for us to know our customers and how to advertise our products to them.

So – how much is a talking dog worth these days?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Is Your Product a Talking Dog?

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If you are even remotely involved in marketing, communication or PR, you have no doubt heard of Ragan Communications.  The good folks at Ragan have been providing expert advice for years.  Ragan, like many others in their field, have been getting more involved in Social Media, e-marketing and even Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

One of Ragan’s staff writers recently posted an “aticle” (UPDATE: Original article now resides in member’s only area.  Here is a Google cached version) (UPDATE: Now the Google cache is dead too…sorry) on how to land on the first page of Google.   In the story, author Michael Sebastion summarizes for us a presentation made by John Spagnuolo at a recent Ragan conferance (which generally are quite good – you should go to one).

Michael’s summary was well-written and John’s suggestions, aside from implying Web teams are slow and difficult to work with, were accurate.

How many SEO rules can one article break?

The page this article is on breaks many of the rules talked about by John, and a few other  important rules of SEO.

Code bloat

Most SEOs advise that in order for Google to be convinced your page is relevant, you need to use a lot of good content and as little code as possible.  Of the roughly 1,500 lines of source code in this document, only 30 of those are the article.  I’m baffled by the insane amount of JavaScript and embedded CSS.  The site layout mixes Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and static layout from multiple tables, nested within each other.  Even in the days before CSS, nesting tables four deep was a bad idea.

There are no hard and fast rules on code-to-content ratios, but having a page with less than 10% content (like this one) is certainly not a good idea.  The article tells us “content is king” and I agree.  It’s too bad that on this page code is king and content is … well, the king’s 3rd cousin on his mother’s side.

Keywords

Michael and John tell us to start our optimization by finding and using the correct keywords.  I’m sure what they meant was content keywords, but the keywords must also be included in the Meta tags.  Meta tags are less important now than they used to be, but they can not be ignored.  Let’s take a look at this page’s keywords meta tag.

<meta name="keywords" content="Articles, aticle, title, story, ragan select, related stories, related products">

It seems that Ragan wants us to find this SEO article by searching for “aticle” and not something SEO related.  The description tag is even more puzzling – it’s empty.

Alt tags on images

John & Michael remind us to always include alt tags for our images – that’s good advice.  This page has very few images, one of them though is the company logo.  Too bad the only image I could locate an alt tag for is the icon for the RSS feed.

Page titles

The title for this page is not horrible, though I don’t know why they felt the need to tack “Article | Homepage Articles” to the end of it.  This page title is better than the rest of the site though, many of the other pages on Ragan.com use the same title over an over again.

Page URLs

Michael does call out Ragan for it’s reliance on long, dynamic URLs.  Google has said that it can follow simple dynamic URLs with a few parameters.  This page passes eight url parameters and none of them are something a human can understand.  Google may be able to find this page, but I’m not holding my breath.

Credibility

I’ll end my article where Ragan started theirs, with credibility.  John and Michael discussed a few ways your site can lose credibility.  I think they actually showed us a better way.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

How NOT to get your SEO article on the first page of Google

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Because I don’t consider myself an SEO rock star, I find it curious that for each of the phrases below I rank on page one of Google (tested on 12/10/2008).  These rankings are not just here in Austin, Texas. Thanks to testing done by some of my Twitter pals, I know the pages have similar ranks in other parts of the country and the world.

• chicken timballo
• austin tx seo
• austin texas sem
• submarine sailors
• choosing twitter name
• yummy birthday cake
• kahlua pecan pie

It’s true, I do have good content for each of these phrases, but (to me at least) it seems unreasonable to think that there are not dozens, or even hundreds of other sites with more relevant content.  With all of the recipe sites on the web -  not to mention all the corporate sites with product recipes – why does my site outrank them?  Most puzzling to me, the SEO market in Austin, Texas is so competitive that companies are using pay-per-click (PPC) to lure in business – how does my little “hobby” site outrank the SEO experts getting paid big dollars to optimize Web sites professionally?

Do I do something magical to my articles? No.  Do I stuff pages with keywords? No.   When I write my articles, I try to be conversational.  I write as if I were talking to somebody in person.  I use descriptive categories and titles, both for my articles and for my pages.  That’s it.   It seems to me that perhaps Google prefers small, simple pages to those of giants without a consistent writing style or methods.

What do you think? Is this good on-site SEO, dumb luck, or is Google on the fritz?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Great SEO or Google on the fritz?

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Now I’ve decided to name names.  Hopefully they have the sense to at least have a “Google alert” set up and will read this.  If you are one of THEM, congratulations for getting here.  The messages listed below were all received within one week, Sunday midnight to Sunday midnight and arrived outside of regular business hours (CST).

• Dell Direct
  The good folks at Dell sent me two messages.  One arrived on Tuesday at 6:19 AM (not so bad) and another on Friday at 4:31 AM.  I like Dell.  I have and will use their products.  However, I am not a fan of these emails.  In my opinion, they lack focus.  I am overwhelmed by offers in multiple product lines and categories in the same e-mail.  My print preview showed them as being six pages long, that’s a lot of stuff for one email.  Try some segmentation.
• Ebay
  They sent me a message on Friday at 12:40 AM encouraging me to list my car at ebay Motors.  I use ebay pretty often, but the only car related purchase I’ve made was a new keyless remote.  So, I’m not sure why they think I should sell my car, or why they think it’s on my mind at midnight – on a Friday.
• JC Whitney
  The e-marketers at JC Whitney sent me email on both Tuesday and Friday, each at around 7:30 AM.  This is not nearly as bad as midnight, but for me – still ineffective.  The interesting thing is that while I did request a catalog nearly two years ago, I have never purchased anything from JC Whitney.  Further, I have never (to my recollection) clicked through from one of their messages.  Perhaps it’s time to clean up that list a bit.  I can guarantee your boss will not be so upset with a reduction in list size when your click-through-rate (CTR) climbs substantially after you trim the dead wood (that would be me) from your low-hanging fruit tree.
• Photobucket.com
  Just one email from Photobucket, unfortunately it was a 5:30 am wake-up call.  Even if I was interested in having a photo site do my collages for me, I’m not thinking about it at that time of the morning.
• Proflowers.com
  I really like Proflowers.  I like the products, I like the web site, love the customer service.  I have bought a lot of flowers from them.  I have even clicked through from emails to make purchases.  However, both of the messages they sent me during this particular week arrived around 6 AM.  At 6 AM, the only thing on my mind is “why did I stay up so late tweeting?” and “why is that alarm so loud?” Please keep your emails to the time of day when I am awake and within easy reach of my credit card.
• Reunion.com
  I *think* I may have some info on this site, but can not recall the last time I visited.  I have certainly never clicked-through from an email.  These marketing geniuses sent me mail on Tuesday and again Wednesday at 1:30 AM and 2:30 AM.  I can assure you that mail coming in at at 2:30 in the morning, alerting me that somebody searched for my profile, will never be clicked on by me.
• Southwest Airlines
  I have flown on your planes just once – and vowed to never do it again.  Sending me email at 5 AM telling me how great you you think are won’t change that.  Try sending me email at 10 AM telling me you realize that you have horrible customer service and that your customers are not cattle….AND that you are working to correct these problems.
• University of Phoenix
  Just one email from them, but it was at 3:38 in the morning.  Granted, there may be some people up late worrying about getting that extra $20,000/year that your TV ads tell us we’ll earn by having a higher education degree, but I’m not one of them.  I’m a busy, employed, office worker – one that needs a good six hours of sleep and you just ruined that for me.  Thanks.
• Walmart
  You keep hearing about people who actually pay for the music they download – I’ll admit it , I am one of those people.  Apparently the marketing team at Walmart thinks that because I am crazy enough to pay for music, I must also be crazy enough to be up at 2 AM on Tuesday morning to read a lengthy, ad packed email telling me all about what’s new in Walmart entertainment.  I’m not that crazy.  Message deleted.
  

In addition to the email marketing (loose use of the term) listed above, I did get a few that made a little more sense to me.

• Thompson Cigar
  I am a customer – not an aficionado.  I buy perhaps, one medium sized box approximately every six months.  Two emails a week is serious overkill for me.  I am happy that emails arrive at 9 PM, it seems to be a reasonable expectation that someone who buys cigars online might be online at that time of the day.  I definitely recommend segmenting the mailing list into groups based perhaps on frequency and dollar amount of purchase.
• TaxAct Online.
  I used this site to submit my 2007 taxes.  It was a fast, simple process.  I’ll probably use them again this year when the time rolls around.  They sent me just one email, which arrived just after 11 PM on Wednesday.  That’s not too late in the evening, but for me it is pushing the envelope of rational thinking.  I would prefer these arrived earlier in the day.

I feel compelled to give a special shout out to the people charged with sending the email newsletters at Ragan Communications.  This company earns it’s bread and butter teaching others how to communicate efficiently and effectively.  During the same one week time frame, I received 14 emails from them.  Admittedly, one of the mailings is titled “Daily Headlines” and I did subscribe to it.  Further I will admit that I did subscribe to the other mailings as well.  However, having made that disclaimer I have to say this: FOURTEEN EMAILS IN ONE WEEK!   Sorry, lost it there for a moment.  Ragan communicators – seriously, let me take a breath in between emails. When they first started to arrive, I eagerly read each one.  Now, I have a rule that moves your hard work to a folder to be skimmed when I have time to spare.  Today is Tuesday and the oldest one in the folder is from last Wednesday, there are 12 of them – 12.  Your message is being lost in the fray of a 100 other things – convince me that your weekly barrage is worth my time.  Good luck.

I have to ask; why do you continue to buy mailing lists?  E-marketers, please be more aware of where the lists you buy come from.  I wish I had kept some of the so unrelated-it’s-funny emails that I have gotten over the last few months so I could share them with you.  Alas, I have but the one that arrived this morning. The “Government Health IT Selection Committee” was kind enough to contact me today with this message: “Your position within the government IT community qualifies you to receive a complimentary subscription to Government Health IT Magazine – an exclusive publication from the publishers of Federal Computer Week.”  Yes, in my former life I owned a web design, hosting, ISP company and as such could have been called an “IT person.”  but I have never had anything to do with government or health related IT.  Additionally, for the last 18 months I have been (and hopefully will continue to be) employed as a marketing professional.  I would say this qualifies as lead generation failure.  This is why you can buy huge lists of email addresses for so little money.

As I prepared to write this, I discussed my “problem” of being woken up at all hours of the night by my smart phone going off when new email arrives with a few of my friends & co-workers.  Believe it or not, they suggested I get another email address and just not worry about it, or even worse – to tag it as spam.  I have used a fake address myself when I anticpate the company will be sending me spam.  But these are messages are not junk.  They just need some TLC, better timing and in some cases, better list management.  Just because I don’t want this stuff, does not make it universally spam.  There is a lesson here emarketers, if you don’t give your readers what they want, when they want it – you are a spammer in their eyes.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Email Marketing – update

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You’ve heard it a 1,000 times over, you must advertise to keep your business afloat.  For many businesses though, effective communication with consumers is one of their biggest challenges.  You must try to think like your customer, put yourself in their shoes. That’s not always an easy task.  Often advertisers are so caught up in the copy, the design, the music and the ‘call to action,’ that they forget to consider the surroundings and circumstances under which the ad will be seen consumers often end up seeing advertising which probably cost more money to create that it brings in.  Not all mistakes are so big that they jump out at you, little ones happen too – but they can damage your image just as easily.  Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or a big agency it can be easy to over-look mistakes when you are so closely involved in a project.    Larger advertisers may have the time, money and resources to do A/B testing or focus groups.  It’s my opinion though, that because humans like to make others happy the people being watched and/or tested will inherently try to figure out what the tester wants and give it to them.  Testing, if possible, is an important and useful tool – just use the data you acquire carefully.  Lastly, I strongly urge you to have someone without a vested interest in your advertisement, and who has never seen any version of it, look at it to make sure that it gives the intended message and does not make you look like a jack-ass.  I hate to tie this back to lawyers, but much of what they quote is based on what a “reasonable person” would do.  Put your ads to the same test – what would a reasonable person see, think and feel when they experience your ad?  I offer a few samples I think should have a “reasonable person” test.

Make up my mind – is golf a distraction or not?

One of the TV spots I cannot help but rant about when I see it is for Viagra.  It opens with a couple sitting on opposite ends of a very large couch.  He’s watching TV, she’s reading magazines.  The man gets a devilish grin on his face as the announcer says to “get rid of the distractions.”  Right on cue the couple takes turns tossing their “distractions” out the windows – TV remote, magazines, golf club.   They waltz happily to the stairs and disappear from view (No doubt for a rousing game of twister) as the disclaimers scroll by along with an invite to see also their printed ad elsewhere.

So what’s my rant?  First – it’s a TV ad, if TV is a distraction to be removed, how will I see the ads for other products they want to sell me?  Second, and my favorite; he tossed out golf clubs and she tossed out a pile of magazines….distractions.  However, the end of the spot asks us to see their ad in GOLF MAGAZINE.  Um, hello?  Are they distractions or not?  I think the real problem is that big-ass couch.  Try some snuggling on that thing once in a while why don’t ya.

What’s that (whoosh) sign say?  Never mind.

Roadside advertisements make me crazy, I know that the billboard companies hire talented designers and copy writers – but who checks to see if the ad will work on the road as we whiz by at 70 MPH?  I’m sure that when the PDF proof is verified on screen, it looks great.  But what about the proper scale for how far away the viewer will be?  When I taught in the Navy we were told that then when we write on the board, text should be one inch high for every 10 feet of distance to the student.  There must be a similar ratio for billboards.  Can the billboard pass a 5 second test?  If not, start over.

Print does not have to be “traditional”

If you are running print ads you can normally use more creative content since there isn’t the time urgency that there is with broadcast or roadside media.  You should still make sure that you use the 5 second test on your ads to verify the main point is properly conveyed.  Your call to action becomes critically important.  It must be strong enough for somebody flipping pages as they sit in a waiting room or library to remember your ad when they get home.  However, it must also be subtle enough to not outright irritate them.   Be sure to take advantage of the fact that nearly everyone is online now – include a web address where the reader can get more info.  Offer something free, info packet, pens, coupons – people will sign up to get almost anything if it’s free and that will be bring you closer to your potential customers.  If your web host can do it, use a unique URL for each ad so you can measure its success.  I’ve already explained why mobile-enabled web sites are important, so if you can, make sure yours is.

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Does your advertising help or hinder your business?

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I decided to follow the majority of advice, switched over a few days later and never looked back.

Today while attending the eMarketing seminar at InnoTech Austin, my decision was proven to be the right one – multiple times.

I was fortunate enough to actually meet several people from my tweet stream, and a few more that follow people that follow me.  The spark of recognition when I introduced my self was obvious.  I have no doubt in my mind that had I stayed with @web_guy on twitter, those people I met today would have had no clue who I was.  Yes, we may have figured it out eventually, but that immediate recognition helped to jump start conversations because we already (sort of) knew each other.

Related article - you may want to read So you’ve decided to join Twitter…now what?

Post from: Austin, Texas SEO - Jack Leblond

Changing a Twitter Name (update)

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