Website Design | Search Optimization | Social Media | Benzing Technologies » Zing Blog

My Top 5 eCommerce Platforms

Rusty — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:19:44 +0000

It’s definitly been a while since I posted my last blog post and the reason is because of eCommerce. Online Shopping Carts have been running wild in my mind and a few recent clients have been keeping me busy designing and developing them.

In this post I’ll go over the different eCommerce platforms I have used and will give my opinions on ease of use and management. These are simply my persoal choices for clients when they come to me wanting to sell something online. So let’s jump right in.

1. VirtueMart – I found VirtueMart to be very simple to use and maintain, plus it’s FREE. Importing and exporting products can be a problem since that’s an additional plugin which I find tiedous and that isnt very user friendly. As far as setup goes I found it easy to configure and add taxes, shipping details, payment processors. Good templates can be hard to find and alot of the better ones are for sale. There are tons of addons, plugins, etc. The only downfall is you need “Joomla” which isn’t as easy to manage, for all of you non-joomla users, Joomla is a content management system to control your website. But if you have a Joomla website already getting VirtueMart installed and working isn’t a daunting experience.

Themes: Download Themes
Download: Dowload

2. Prestashop – Prestashop is an Open Source all in one eCommerce solution from the get go. Providing a very basic Content Management System built in, Newsletters, and Ajax functionality to add Products and Categories. The import and export abilities function pretty well (in the newer versions) and I was able to get categories and products added to the cart immeditely. Prestashop The only downfall to this software solution is the lack of free modules and themes, I also feel the admin interface still reminds me of osCommerce which I hate.

Themes: Download Themes
Download: Download

5. Magento – You can’t mention eCommerce without supporting Magento. Magento is a full Open Source eCommerce solution. It is very well coded and recommeded for advanced users only. This is in my top five because of the quality they put into the programming and design of the shopping cart software. The downfall to it is the complexity in configuration and adjustment. It’s totally different than any of the other shopping carts I’ve worked with. Adding products and categories isnt too hard but when you want to change themes or move blocks around it can be quite tricky. Magento features builtin SEO, Content Management, Mobile Browsing, International Support and more.

Themes: Download Themes
Download: Download

4. Zen-Cart – Zen-Cart is an Open Source shopping cart system that has been around for a while now since 2003. Zen-Cart offers similar features to Prestashop however it is even more basic and the interface reminds me of osCommerce. Besides that their import/export feature is a good one and I was able to get a basic store up in minutes with minimal effort. They list a huge database of websites using Zen-Cart for every category, so it’s easy to find a site similar to what your looking to create.

Themes: Download Themes
Download: Download

5. Drupal e-Commerce – For those of you who are not familiar with Drupal it is a Open Source Content Management System similar to Joomla in features but with a totally different interface. This is the shopping cart system I have the least experience in but it still goes down as my top 5 because of it’s versility and resources that are provided for it. Drupal has a huge community following them with a huge database of plugins and themes to follow suit. Drupal eCommerce is similar to other CMS eCommerce plugins it integates easily. I was able to setup a basic cart with categories and products in around 30-45 minutes. It’s simple to configure and easy to manage I did not test the import and export functions.

Themes: Download Themes
Download: Download

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WordPress 3.0 Countdown to New Features

Rusty — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:03:42 +0000

With the recent release candidate of WordPress 3.0, the latest version in the most popular blogging platform online, the blogging team readies the new version with some seriously cool features. WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

WordPress 3.0 RC is their latest version of blogging software that has already changed the typography world. So…what’s an RC? An RC comes after beta and before the final launch. It means we think we’ve got everything done: all features finished, all bugs squashed, and all potential issues addressed. But, then, with over 20 million people using WordPress with a wide variety of configurations and hosting setups, it’s entirely possible that they’ve missed something.

So what’s new? well…

1. Wordpress Merged with WordPress-MU
For all of you who don’t know what WordPress MU is. It’s a multi-user edition of WordPress. But wait…doesn’t WordPress already come with multi-user support? sort of. It does allow for multiple users but not multiple installations with multiple users which is what WordPress MU does very well. In the upcoming 3.0 release, WordPress MU will be merged into the WordPress Core. So, from now on, you will be able to run more than one site/blog from a single installation of WordPress.

2. Choose your own Username/Password
This is a feature that I have always wanted from WordPress. From version 3.0, whenever you install WordPress, you will be able to choose your own username and password. You will no longer have to accept “admin” for the username and a randomly generated password.

3. Custom Post Types
Until now, you could only add posts or pages to your WordPress blog. This feature will give you power to create content of any type that you want. For example, you can have Portfolio listings, Products, Catalogs, Library etc. This feature is not going to replace categories or Tags. You will still be able to use categories. Custom Post Types will allow a different way of sorting/displaying your content.

4. Better Menu Management
Another well thought out improvement is better menu management. The new menu system will have a drag and drop functionality that will combine Pages, Categories, and Links. It will also allow the ability of re-ordering, along with sub-menus, and hiding specific Pages or Categories from the menu altogether.

5. Custom Background Image Support
In Version 3.0, you will be able to manage your background image for the themes. You will be allowed to upload a background image and change its settings (positioning, repeat, attachment). I know for sure this will save some time for the theme designers.

6. A New Default Theme called 2010
Well this is a blessing and I am glad to say good riddance to the existing WordPress default theme. WordPress 3.0 will be packed with a brand new default theme called 2010. This theme will include Custom header, Custom Background, Clean Design, Multiple Widget Areas, Cascading Menus and a lot more. Overall, it will be a good base to build on for custom themes.

7. Custom Author Templates
Now you can create specific templates for every author of your blog. For example, you will be able to create a author-benzing.php or author-123.php, which will be called via the WordPress Template Hierarchy in connection to the author with their nicknames benzing or ID 123. Now it will be easy for an author to mark his/her own post or entry with his/her signature.

If you are interested in testing the newest version head on over to www.WordPress.org and download the Release Candidate and see for yourself. You can also view all of the new features here at their codex website.

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.COM & .NET Domain Name Price Increases

Rusty — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:43:04 +0000

Starting July 1st, 2010 Verisign®, the registry for .COM and .NET domain extensions, will increase prices. The fees are charged to domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Tucows, which typically handle domain registration for customers.

ICANN has an agreement that VeriSign is allowed to raise their .COM fees by up to 7% per year. This added $27 million dollars per year to their bottom line. VeriSign took advantage of this in the first two years of its contract, raising .COM registration from $6.00 to $6.86. It was assumed that VeriSign would increase its prices every year to maximize profits, but it did not in 2009.

So now in 2010 they are taking action and rasing fees. The registration fee for .COM’s will increase from $6.86 to $7.34 and .NET’s from $4.23 to $4.65. The current wholesale price of .com domains is $7.04 including an 18 cent ICANN fee (some registrars pay a 20 cent ICANN fee). The new price will be $7.52 including the ICANN fee (or $7.54 for registrars on the 20 cent ICANN fee structure).

This increase will affect domainers with large portfolios, more than any other businesses or consumers. Verisign® stock is currently at 28.89 and has been on the incline since Jun 2009.

So make sure you buy your domains names before the price hike even though it isnt a huge increase expect to see more increases over the years to come. If you want to purchase domain names at an affordable rate Benzing Technologies is offering .COM’s for $7.49 and .NET’s for $6.14.

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5 Ways To Drive Traffic Through Social Media

Rusty — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:04:36 +0000

It’s been a while since I released a blog post and have been tinkering with ways to drive more traffic to our client websites through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Social websites are major tools in today’s online realm so knowing how you can utilize and track them becomes very important. This blog post will go over 5 ways you can drive traffic through social media.

So let’s start with some questions…Do you know how your social media activities are driving offline sales? How many customers came into your store or called for more information after viewing your social media profiles? Will the time they spend interacting on Facebook and Twitter affect your sales? more than likely Yes.

With that said what are ways we can improve our sales through social media? Let’s identify some:

1. Place Your Phone Number on All Social Media Accounts
Now I know what your thinking…I already have my phone on my social sites duh! well yes you do but not your Google Voice number. Not sure what a Google Voice number is? read more here. Currently Google Voice is invite only but you can find invites online or through eBay for $1. I have 1 invite left so first come first serve. Use Google Voice to track incoming calls from your social media profiles if your business has a more consultative sales process or you run a conversational blog or use social networks to generate leads. A natural extension is to place your Google phone number on all of your social media presences and on each blog page for the customers who find you via search. The best part about Google Voice is the ability to have a separate number that forwards to your main number. This also lets you track the number of inbound calls you receive from your Google Voice dashboard.

2. Promote Offline Events on Social Media
This is another no brainier and you are probably already doing this. But how you are doing it matters. Facebook has an especially robust function for creating events and promoting them. Facebook events allow you to post pictures and event location information, while also inviting your fan base to participate. You also can message all attendees to remind them about the event or give special instructions. Creating a Facebook event page then gives you a landing page that will direct visitors to your blog and Twitter followers too. Make sure you take advantage of all the aspects of the tools provided. Twitter also allows for events using hashtags or establishing Tweetups.

3. Offer Coupons Exclusive to Social Media Channels
This is an easy way to generate fans and followers. People love getting things for free or winning things. Not only will this drive more traffic online but also offline at your place of business. Make specific offers through each social media channel you use, like 10% off a purchase if you print a coupon from Facebook, or “buy one get one free” if you use a code sent out in a Tweet. Keep a spreadsheet of the different offers and the response rate, and you’ll begin to generate really useful data about the best way to optimize your marketing campaigns for each channel. Incentives are a great way to build the size of your social media communities. Also, giving fans and followers an incentive to follow you shows the importance you place on social media outreach.

4. Host a Tweet Up or Facebook Party
Creating fun meet ups for your online followers can be a great way to introduce the atmosphere of your business. Charity events and cocktail hours work especially well for drawing attendees to TweetUps. The best way to cement interactions online is to meet your contacts face to face, and there is no better way to do this than to host a party. While you probably won’t bring 1,000+ members to your event like Ford did in the largest TweetUp ever, TweetUps let you form more personal relationships with your local followers. Here’s a great in-depth resource on how to host a successful TweetUp.

5. Connect Social Media and Email Campaigns
This is hugely important and helps retain the interest in your products or service. Many businesses have established email lists they use to stay in touch with customers. Drive visitors on your social media accounts to sign up for your email list to receive more information about your business. Getting social media visitors on your email list can connect you with people you might not otherwise reach through social media. This also keeps things consistent.

So with these 5 tips you can start creating more exposure to your place of business. Now the best way to close the loop between social media and offline action is to promote your social media channels offline as well—adding another way for you to stay in touch with your customers in between purchases or research. I hope these suggestions help you start thinking about ways to convert your social media fans and followers into loyal customers. There are many other suggestions but you will have to wait for our next blog post to find out.

SPAM: Where did it come from? and how to escape it.

Rusty — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:45:31 +0000

This is a repost to AWeber’s Tom Kulzer’s (CEO) blog post. I found it very educational.

In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses
Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation

Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – howhard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at

“standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”,

“info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”

Web Spiders

Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting

ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea

It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

What does your website SOUND like?

Rusty — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:25:49 +0000

Thanks goes out to some geniuses over at DLKU for creating the best way to listen to your website. Taking your source code and turning it into music. I must say that BenzingTech.com beat is pretty slick. The interface is really simple to use and the music can be interesting.

CHECK IT OUT www.codeorgan.com

Check out some cool sounding websites:

www.beverageunderground.com
www.outrageouscocktails.com

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Clarify Your Website Content In Search Engines with URL Normalization

Rusty — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:26:06 +0000

In this post, we will learn more about the aspect of a search engine optimization technique, called URL Canonicalization or URL Normalization. We will see why it is important and why being knowledgeable about it will reduce duplicate content issues.

Do you have the right content on the web, but have four different ways to access it? if you do, it could affect your search engine rankings. If your still confused let me explain. The web is compromised of billions of URL’s or Uniform Resource Locator’s. A URL is part of the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that specifies where an identified resource (website) is available and the mechanism for retrieving it (http://,https://,smtp://,ftp://,etc.).

Now every URL has a structure when it is read by the web server. Let me show you an example below:

http://www.blogsite.com/index.html
http://www.blogsite.com/
http://blogsite.com/

Each of these locations will go to the same page. This is due to improper canonicalization which is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard”, “normal”, or canonical form. Improper canonicalization can cause duplicate content and can affect your search engine rankings. This happens when the search engines index multiple versions of the same page and effectively divide the attributed link equity among the duplicates. Consolidating the worth of your pages by serving only a singular instance of each of them. Having the proper canonicalization is beneficial to you, your visitors, and your search engine rankings.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing all support canonicalization so why not provide it to them. There are several ways to do this but what I find the simplest is using htaccess files. However these only work on apache web servers. If you are unfamiliar with what web server you are using ask your web host provider. To first use htaccess files create one in the root of your website directory and name it exactly .htaccess do not forget the period (.) in the beginning and do not add any extensions to the end of it.

Before presenting a generalized, copy-&-paste version of this htaccess canonicalization solution, let’s examine the functionality involved with various directives.

Choose WWW or Non-WWW form
Use the Canonical URL Everywhere in the Domain
Remove Default File Names From URLs
Ensure a trailing slash at the end of all URLs

Now using your favorite text editor of choice edit the file and put the following code:

RewriteEngine On
# Remove index.php from root URL
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://domain.tld/ [R=301,L]
# Permanently redirect from www domain to non-www domain
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.tld$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.tld/$1 [R=301,L]

Of course you will need to replace “domain.tld” in the above example to your website domain. This will prevent search engines and visitors from linking to duplicate content since it will be automatically redirected to the proper structure. If you are using WordPress there is an even better way to do the same result while delivering dynamic content from your WordPress Blog. However, WordPress 2.3+ does provide a built-in URL canonicalization technique via PHP. Thus, if you are using WP 2.3+, you technically don’t need to use this method, though, if you prefer to handle URL rewriting at the server level, then you may indeed benefit from its use.

# Comprehensive URL Canonicalization for WordPress in Root
RedirectMatch permanent index.php/(.*) http://domain.tld/$1
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.tld$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.tld%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.(html|php)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.(html|php)$ http://domain.tld/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

If your WordPress blog is setup in the root directory then use the above example. If you have your blog in a subdirectory (www.domain.com/blog/) then see the code below.

# Comprehensive URL Canonicalization for WordPress in Subdirectory
RedirectMatch permanent index.php/(.*) http://domain.tld/subdirectory/$1
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.tld$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.tld%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
RewriteBase /subdirectory/
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.(html|php)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.(html|php)$ http://domain.tld/subdirectory/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /subdirectory/index.php [L]

So now you save and upload the htaccess file and it will help prevent duplicate content and provide search engines with better URL normalization. The canonicalization solution presented in this article is both comprehensive and effective. I have been using this technique on client websites since 2008 with great success. Since employing this method, I have virtually eliminated all opportunity for duplicate content to be served from my site and my clients websites. Of course, there are other duplicate content issues not associated with canonical URLs, but we will save that for another article.

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Remember Anything 30 Minutes Per Day

Rusty — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:08:07 +0000

We all have our own perception of time. We count hours but discount how they are spread out. It’s called binge learning and you’ll probably forget everything.

If your like me, there are times when you get excited about learning something new that you spend a day or two non-stop on getting it mastered, only to get tired of it and move on to something else. When mastery is the goal, spending an exorbitant amount of time in one sitting will more than likely burn you out. For example when we work out at the gym we are not expecting to loose 20 pounds of fat or gain 10 pounds of muscle in a single work-out, likewise for learning and remembering information. Our bodies need time to heal; our muscles need time to grow. And the same goes for that muscle we call our brain. When trying to develop a new skill, the important thing to remember isn’t how much you do; it’s how often you do it.

Say your trying to memorize your HTML tags for a quiz your taking in web design class. You’d probably go with one of two familiar strategies. The first approach is spaced presentation and it just means spreading out the studying over time. The other is massed presentation (i.e. cramming) which helps keep the words in your short-term memory, and is actually more effective if you have an exam the next day – just as working out right before you hit the beach makes a noticeable, but temporary, difference. In psychology, this is known as the spacing effect, and it explains why you can’t seem to remember anything you learned in college. I doubt it was the gallons of beer drinking and frat parties…

There is a third approach and is probably one of the more interesting ways to remember. Developed by a man named Paul Pimsleur. Which you have probably heard his name on learning a new language audio books. Pimsleur dedicated his life to understanding and improving language learning process. He observed that the first time you learned a new word, you’d forget it almost immediately. But if you reviewed it again as you were about to forget it, each subsequent review would exponentially increase the staying power of the word. So if you could only remember the word for 5 seconds at first, coming back to it after those 5 seconds would boost your retention time to 25 seconds, then 2 minutes, 10 minutes and so on. At this rate, the tenth review wouldn’t have to take place until about four months after the first.

cramming vs. spaced presentation

The instant you learn something new your mind begins the process of forgetting it. That means cramming works if you need to remember it in a few hours and don’t plan on using it again. Spaced repetition is ideal for long-term retention, but is more time consuming. But graduated interval recall (Pimsleur’s method) relies on fewer, well timed repitions to make sure the word never fades away drastically. See the diagram below for an example.

Although there are factors that affect the schedule of learning and remembering like the difficult of the word and the background of the speaker, but even a rough time-line would be invaluable for teachers who sometimes need to review old material. This provides a maximum retention with minimum repetition. Now don’t make mistakes, the goal is not to avoid studying every day; it’s to make the repetition manageable so new material can be introduced daily. The most important factor is staying interested and excited about what your learning.

Pimsleur shows us that memory isn’t linear; that even if you spend the same total amount of time studying, the time you spend in between significantly affects what your brain does with the information. Learning is the space between the doing.

Creating a Daily Practice

When software developer Brad Isaac asked Jerry Seinfeld, who in those days was still a touring comic, what his secret was, he advised Isaac to pick up one of those wall calendars that had the entire year on a single page. To Seinfeld, becoming a better comedian meant writing every day, so each day Jerry worked on his writing, he would put a big red X in the box for that day. Pretty soon, there’d be a chain of red X’s and not breaking the chain became his own motivation.

There will definitely be moments when your caught up in the mental resistance that keeps you and I from getting started, we seem to forget how enjoyable the act of doing really is. When you’ve finally started and engaged into your work, you start thinking how much fun it really is. What I love about Seinfeld’s calendar is that it let’s you visually channel your stubbornness and redirect it from being lazy to not missing your mark. Setup goals and keep to them.

If you reading this and find it interesting I would like to test your abilities by picking one long-term goal and commit to it right now. Make a conscious decision to pursue what used to be “I want” or “I should”. Now is the time to start learning that new language or finally learning WordPress (you know who you are). Your going to accomplish this goal by limiting the amount of time you spend on it to no more than 30 minutes a day. You will learn more by working with your long-term memory rather than against it. if you have trouble finding 30 minutes start with 15. Keep doing it over time, you’ll be surprised at how much you’re able to accomplish.

Ways to reduce Bounce Rate on your Website

Rusty — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:05:16 +0000

When you start to follow your website analytics you start to notice a percent of people identified as Bounce Rate. Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate) is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

I recently had the task of lowering bounce rate on a few of our clients websites. And it made me want to learn more about it. I did some research and I wanted to discuss with the world how bounce rate works and a few ways that worked really well for our bounce rate.

Let’s start with continuing education. There is no such thing as a single identified bounce rate. Yes you may see it on your analytics labeled right before your eyes but it has a deeper meaning. There are 4 different types of bounce rate.

The first is called Low-value referrers which are visitors like those say, visiting from Digg.com, or StumbleUpon.com. These people are probably not in your target audience. You should expect most of them to leave immediately, once they’ve satisfied their idle curiosity. Consider any value derived from sites like those as pure gravy; don’t worry if this traffic source has a sky-high bounce rate.

The second type of bounce rate is Direct links from other websites. These links are the equivalent of a vague recommendation: “You might want to check out this site.” People who click such links haven’t expressed a direct intent to engage with your topic to the same degree as someone who actively enters a search engine query. These visitors do have some degree of interest, however, a high bounce rate at this point is a symptom of a user experience problem.

The third type of bounce rate is Search engine traffic, whether from organic SEO or paid links. By clicking your link, these users have actively indicated an acute interest in the topic and should engage intensely with your content. If they leave immediately, it’s a sign that something is seriously wrong with your landing pages. These issues can be 404 errors, navigation issues, slow load time, etc.

The final type of bounce rate is Loyal users. These are the people that want your product or service and make the effort to browse through your website and who return repeatedly to your site. On the one hand, you’d expect the highest engagement from your biggest fans. On the other hand, this engagement might not show up on every visit if they visit often. As long as people keep coming back, there’s nothing wrong with having them sometimes leave after a page view or two.

There is another type of bounce rate but it can be prevented by making sure your IP Address is not being recorded on your analytics. I can’t say how many times I thought my bounce rate was high but it was just me looking at the front page of my website time and time again. Google Analytics provides the option to remove your IP Address from their settings and if you don’t know your IP Address a great website to get it is http://whatismyipaddress.com.

So now that you understand the different types of bounce rates there are some ways to reduce it using a couple methods I outlined below. These method will work with all websites on any platform.

1. Invite users to click on related posts and topics within your blog or website.

There are several ways to accomplish this even on your static websites. If you have WordPress there are a few different plug-ins. the one I use is Related Posts. It displays 5-10 related links using tags. If you have a static website pick a few site links you have related and post them at the bottom of your content. This makes it easy for visitors to view more content throughout your website.

2. Add More Call To Action

Sometimes your website design just isn’t enough to capture your audience. Build more call to action on your website with a box for newsletter sign-ups or even a poll. Drive people throughout your website and make it easy to navigate. Page Peel Banners (PPB) are a great way to reduce the bounce rate. Here is a Free PPB for WordPress. Here is a demo of a PPB, look into the right top corner of the website.

3. Visual Site Maps

Most visitors love a beautiful design with easy navigation so why not make your sitemaps the same way using visual sitemaps. I recently posted here about SlickMap CSS which is a really neat interactive way to display your sitemaps.

I hope by now you know more about bounce rate and how a few tweaks and adjustments to your website can significantly reduce it. If anyone has any other methods of reducing bounce rate please feel free to share in the comments. Thanks.

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10 Essential WordPress SEO Plugins

Rusty — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:53:17 +0000

When it comes to web design management and blogging systems, WordPress wins my heart. In my last WordPress SEO post I noted the 12 Best SEO Plugins. Now I want to identify the 10 essential plugins you can’t be without if your running a WordPress Blog. We have done ton’s of research in finding these plugins and hope you find them as useful as we do every day.

1. Nofollow Case by Case – Nofollow Case by Case is a follow plugin for WordPress but allows you to selectively apply rel=”nofollow” to comment links and comment author links.
Download: Here

2. Ping Crawl – Every time you make a post on your blog it grabs similar posts from other blogs that allow pingbacks using the post tags. It then links to them at the bottom of the post as similar posts. It then executes the pingback on all the posts. You can specify how many posts to do per tag and that many will be done for each tag you use in your posts. Typically it has about an 80% success rate with each pingback and they are legit so the ones that fall into moderation tend to get approved. This creates quite a few deep links for each blog post you make and through time really helps with your link building. Especially for new blogs.
Download: Here

3. Redirection – Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors. This is very important to make sure your not loosing traffic due to 404 errors.
Download: Here

4. SEO Slugs -Removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve your url SEO performance.
Download: Here

5. SEO Smart Links – SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more.
Download: Here

6. SEO Ultimate – This all-in-one SEO plugin gives you control over titles, noindex, meta data, slugs, canonical tags, “more” links, 404 error tracking, and more. An all-in-one solution.
Download: Here

7. Smart 404 – Rescue your viewers from site errors! When content cannot be found, Smart 404 will use the current URL to attempt to find matching content, and redirect to it automatically. Smart 404 also supplies template tags which provide a list of suggestions, for use on a 404.php template page if matching content can’t be immediately discovered.
Download: Here

8. WP No Category Base – Removes ‘/category’ from your category permalinks.
Download: Here

9. Only Wire Autosubmitter – Autosubmits a excerpt of a posts to Onlywire when published. Only Wire is the best way to submit your blog to social bookmarking and social media websites. They currently support over 30 different social sites. Check them out http://www.onlywire.com.
Download: Here

10. Sitemap Generator – This plugin creates a sitemap for your WordPress powered site. This is not just another XML sitemap plugin, but rather a true sitemap generator which is highly customizable from its own options page in the WordPress admin panel. Some of its features include: support for multi-level categories and pages, category/page exclusion, multiple-page generation with navigation, permalink support, choose what to display, what order to list items in, show comment counts and/or post dates, and much more.
Download: Here

If you have any suggestions to other essential seo plugins please feel free to comment on this post or contact us. Thanks.

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5 Successful Link Building Techniques

Rusty — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:56:03 +0000

One of the most difficult, or rather tedious jobs when running a website is getting reciprocal links. It really matters to search engines…a lot. Link building is getting your website address, be it any link from your site, placed on a remote website. Now there are probably several more ways to build links I am not discussing in this post because I have found these five to be the most successful.

So lets go over a few of my link building strategies.

1. Submitting to Design Gallery Websites
If you have a beautiful website why not express how you feel to the design community by submitting it to hundreds of them. And you will be surprised how many accept if your site looks nice and you don’t write a bunch of spammy text about it. One of my favorite submission services is The CSS Gallery List (http://www.thecssgallerylist.com/). They also provide a submission service for $20 which is in my opinion a great deal.

2. Blogging for Trackbacks and Pingbacks
Woah. I may have confused some people. What are Trackbacks and Pings? A trackback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to their website. Pingbacks are similar to trackbacks. They use a XML-RPC request to send a link from one website to another and are less spam prone than trackbacks due to their specifications. They are both essentially for peer-to-peer communication and notifications between websites. Lot’s of current blogging and cms systems already use them: WordPress, MovableType, and Drupal. Know who and where to ping is important. There are millions of websites with the ability to send and receive pings or trackbacks. And there are even website services which help ping your website for example Pingomatic.com which pings search engines to crawl your website when you submit new content. (Wordpress users can modify their ping list on the Control Panel, then Options, then Writing). Pinging a few sites will benefit heavily. Here is a good list of ping servers to get you started.

3. Get Active In Your Niche
Whether you are a gamer, business consultant, or selling ebay items you have a niche online. And a following of people who are looking for your services or products. If you have a blog with content and your getting trackbacks and people commenting on your posts. Now it’s your turn GET ACTIVE! responding to your comments and visiting other websites in your niche commenting on their posts. This is simple but tedious unless you are a fanatic of reading, writing, and commenting. Make sure you look for those high page ranking websites when reaching out. A great tool we use to check Page Rank is GetRanking.info. They provide a simple way to place your website address in a box and poof your page rank is revealed.

4. Directory Submissions
This I’m sure most of you already have done or at least heard of. Submitting to directories is one of the oldest methods of building links. And can still have some great benefit if you submit to the right ones and use optimized descriptions. Ultimately the most important directories are ones with high Page Rank. I would recommend submitting to Google’s Directory www.dmoz.org, and if your willing to pay for submission Yahoo’s Directory offers a great search return for $299 a year. There are thousands of directories online so submitting to all of them would get boring after say 50. But we are in a technology information age and people created programs to do this for us. Although submitting to 10,000 directories with the same description and information might affect the way search engines judge your page rank.

5. Social Media and PR Articles
This is becoming a strong way to build some links pretty fast. Search Engines are crawling more links every year from thousands of social media and article websites across the internet. Some with high page rank and some with DoFollow links compared to NoFollow. A dofollow link is a method some search engines use to determine if they are allowed to follow a link or not which in turn allows page rank to follow. Most websites like Twitter and Facebook not not allow following of links but there are a bunch of others that do: www.rateitall.com, www.xanga.com, www.yedda.com, www.reddit.com, www.dzone.com, www.killerstartups.com, www.ezinearticles.com. If you search google for ‘dofollow sites’ you should be able to get a few hundred results. Find the websites your topic appeals to most and submit them. Become active in these communities and watch the links for your website sky rocket.

So now that you have five ways to start building links get to it. Or you can always contact us and we will help you plan a link building strategy with some other methods as well as those described above. Benzing Technologies – Your Technology Partner

Are you using Social Media effectively?

Rusty — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:49:13 +0000

As if this hasn’t already been talked about by hundreds of people… Social Media is a successful way to market your business. In this post I will discuss several ways to effectively use social media to make it successful for your business.

Being in the web design industry almost every client in our network is now using Twitter. We use it too, for expanding our blogging efforts and gaining more exposure to our products, services, and outstanding eye for design. But are we using Twitter effectively? How about Facebook, Digg, PR Newswire, or any of the thousands of social sites? We are just reaching around 1400 followers from Twitter, 300 from Facebook and some from social bookmarking sites like Digg which really isn’t that impressive.

So wanting to learn more and find out how effective we are, I did some research and found some interesting results/questions.

1. Your a Marketer, Not a User
Marketers can certainly have success with social media, but the key is to be an active user who contributes to the community of the site. Be a user first and a marketer second. If other users feel that you are only there to market, they will not be as receptive to your submissions, votes, or suggestions. This is why companies usually have a social media person on staff to handle this.

2. Am I Creating Content Specifically for Social Media Audiences?
Effective social media marketing involves creating content that will pique the interest of social media users. Once you are familiar with the community at your targeted social media sites, take some time to brainstorm article ideas that may appeal to them. Hence this is why I follow industry users and not just anyone.

3. Are My Followers Social Media Users?
Many sites and blogs, especially those with large audiences, benefit from having readers who are social media users. This makes it more likely that your content will be submitted without you initiating it, and it will make it easier to get votes. If your blog has a low number of social media users you may want to consider introducing them to specific social media sites in your posts.

4. You’re Posting Commercial Content
Social media users do not like to feel like they are being marketed too, and many social media sites even prohibit commercial content. If you are trying to promote your company with social media you will need to do it passively in order to have any success. The best approach is to use social media to build links and exposure to your site, and leave the marketing to other times and situations.

5. You Need To Build a Network
This is a very important point when using social media as a whole. The most successful social media marketers are very well connected. Having a network of friends and fellow social media users allows you to help each other with votes and submissions when needed. Many social media marketers share voting requests with their friends via email or IM, and sometimes even via Twitter.

6. You’re Only Focusing On One Method
Another common mistake is only focusing on the major social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, or Digg. While the major sites are the ones that will send the most traffic, they also have far more users who are competing with you and have more spam/hacked user accounts. If you focus on smaller sites or niche social media sites you may be able to get a “popular” submission with only a few votes. This traffic is much easier to come by and at least you will have something to show for your efforts. A very small percentage of Digg users will ever get results with their submissions. Why? because your a needle in a haystack. Same with StumbleUpon.

7. Your Not Engaging Your Followers
I’m sure you’ve seen voting buttons and widgets on blogs, like buttons, share this, and more. They are there for a reason. Use them and people will do the same for your content the objective with social media is to be social and engage your potential clients just as if you are going to a networking meeting. Plus the more content you share and contribute the more people will engage you and become positive social media followers.

8. Promote Your Social Media Accounts
One important thing with social media is sharing. Promote the fact you have a Facebook or Twitter account and make it easy to become a friend or fan you will be surprised who is already a fan or your work or product and doesn’t mind keeping up to date. The easiest way for you to share your website is with Share This widget. Which makes it easy to share your website or individual pages amongst the internet social sites.

9. Know The Tools
Social sites such as Twitter have tools which you can use to track and manage yours and others tweet activity through their website. Make sure you know what these tools do. Here are a couple social media cheat sheets:
Twitter Cheat Sheet
Facebook Getting Started Guide
Digg Cheat Sheet

10. You’re Only Submitting/Voting for Your Own Content
Don’t be selfish. Social Media needs to have involvement of others and your own content. Read other peoples articles, comment on other blogs, and share other content besides your own. You will not only gain followers but backlinks to your website it’s a win/win.

So What’s Your Experience?
Do you have another important tip to help manage social media effectively? share it with us.

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A new way to display sitemaps using SlickMap CSS

Rusty — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:02:14 +0000

I am always inspired with new ways to display website content. And today I found an interesting and creative way to display sitemaps created by Matt Everson of Astuteo. I am talking about those lovely hierarchical pages of links we mostly find at the footer of our websites. A sitemap is used to display the entire website link structure showing the homepage then drilling into other pages and so on. Most sitemaps on websites are rather dull and simple which is good for the search engines but not on the eye. The better sitemap is using SlickMap CSS, whcih is a simple stylesheet for displaying finished sitemaps directly from HTML unordered list navigation. It’s suitable for most web sites – accommodating up to three levels of page navigation and additional utility links – and can easily be customized to meet your own individual needs, branding, or style preferences. Download it or view the demo below.

Download it Now | View Demo

Features and Benefits
-Eliminates the need for additional software
-Easily revised with clients on-the-fly
-Clickable anchors with visible URLs
-Design process results in working HTML code

Have An Efficient Plan For The Holidays

Rusty — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:39:33 +0000

Realizing the holidays are on my back, it made me think how efficient we can be to make our seasonal holidays better. I did some research and found a few things we can do to improve holiday efficiency.

So let’s begin…

The Turkey Dinner Calculator – Folks, do not eat Thanksgiving without calculating your dinner. This is a super efficient calculator that can tell you what time to defrost the turkey to how many pounds of turkey you actually need. It’s pretty cool!

Kraft Foods Desktop Widget – Yet another tool to help you eat. The Kraft Widget sets up the Dinner Bell to provide daily reminders, search and view Kraft recipes without having to launch your internet browser, and get continually updated fresh facts, tasty tips and how-to-videos about your favorite in-season produce.

The Food Channel Widget – Being a food lover myself this is a must have for any recipe hunter or food devastator. Now you can get the hottest food trends delivered daily to your web site straight from The Food Channel. It’s Free!

The Food Dictionary – Do you know what a dacquoise is? or what is actually in ranchero sauce? Now the world’s in your hands for dictionary terms on food. Bam!

Halmark E-Cards – Parents! now is your chance to actually save money and have a better chance at the kids retaining them. Think about all the $50 dollar bills you will be saving on those birthday cards.

Make Your Gloves Work With Any Touchscreen Device – This is a super cool way to improve your efficiency by keeping your hands warm and still working on your iPhone.

The Institute of Food Technologist – If you are an avid food enthusiast then perhaps you should join the Institute of Food Technologist. They work with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have research in Food Nanoscience. This of course is a very brief description of their vast knowledge in food technology.

As to end this post I hope these few places of interest make your holidays an efficient one. Happy Thanksgiving from Benzing Technologies!

Customizing Facebook using MyFanSite Tutorial

Rusty — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:07:22 +0000

Customizing Facebook has always been a drag because of the unified styles they insist on holding. Limited customization is however available. This is why we created MyFanSite application for Facebook. It’s provides an easy interface for web designers to customize a tab on their profile or fan page and give it a little more edge.

So let’s get started.
If you want to add it to your personal profile you must approve the application by visiting http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=105603572335 and click on ‘Go To Application’ it will require you to login and allow the application to be added. If you want to place it on your fan page click in the top left menu where is says ‘Add To My Page’ then add it to your fan page from the popup box.

Once you approved it then it will bring you to a screen like so:

On this screen we see our details and a bunch of different boxes. The only fields you need to pay attention to are ‘Background’,'Font Color’,'Background Color’,'Stylesheet’, and ‘Content Box’.

Now to customize your page you need to first design a cool custom background. The size is 760px W x 775px H once you have your background design go ahead and upload it. My example background is below:

Ok so we have our background and it’s uploaded lets test it out. The first thing you need to do is edit the application settings to show the tab on your profile or fan page. This is done very easily two ways depending on how your setting it up. Goto ‘Applications->Edit Applications’ from your facebook toolbar if your placing it on your profile or if you are using it on a fan page you will need to click ‘Edit Page’ from your fan site then scroll down to find My Fan Site and click on ‘Application Settings’. Once clicked it will popup a box which will allow you to add the tab to your page. It should look something like below:

I must also mention this page above is also where you will ‘Edit’ the Fan Site as well. Now that we have it approved a tab on your page should appear which says ‘Fan Site’ and the page should load your custom background cool!. Now comes the fun part…More Customization!

So as I mentioned before the Stylesheet box and Content Box being important, are next.

Make sure you DO NOT add to the Stylesheet Box it will automatically add them. Let’s start with some simple code place this in your ‘Stylesheet’ Box:

1	#content-box{position:absolute;width:200px;margin-top:343px;margin-left:66px;}

This code above will position our ‘content-box’ 343 pixels from the top of our uploaded design and 66 pixels from the left of it. So if you have certain areas you want to feature text you can do so by positioning them around your background design.

Make sure your css is all one line of code for optimum performance of your fan site. Sometimes I notices issues with link breaks. Now let’s add our content. In the ‘Content Box’ we add the following code:

1	<div id="content-box"><h1>Test Title</h1><p>Testing some content</p></div>

Then click ‘Save Settings’ or ‘Create Fan Site’ if you just added the application. Your settings will be saved and your fan page will be customized with some text positioned over your design. This is however very basic usage of this application and as we grow it into something even more special this tutorial should get you on the right track.

Check out our Facebook Site and Become a Fan: http://www.facebook.com/benzingtech

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5 Tips to Enhancing Your Intelligence

Rusty — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:22:34 +0000

Technology is degrading our intelligence. By this I mean technology is taking away from our learning capabilities. But I am learning so much with technology you say, not exactly. We developed technology to make our life simpler not more difficult which in turn without learning new ways to stimulate our minds is degrading our intelligence. Yes there are ways that technology can improve our mental capabilities but Facebook and Twitter aren’t cutting it. I am the type of person who has always been intrigued with technology and ways to improve myself overall.

Your brain is very similar to a muscle. Like muscles, your brain also needs the right kind of exercise and nutrition. The more you use your brain correctly, the more you will enhance your ability to focus and think sharply. On the contrary, if you feed your brain the wrong nutrition you can harm its functioning and thinking capabilities.

Listed below are 5 tips to improve your thought processes.

1. Avoid Watching Television : This is perhaps one of the toughest tips to convince anyone. Many people including myself love to sit in front of the TV. Watching TV is not at all that productive. It neither enhances your mental capability nor recharges your brain. It is very similar to having all energy drained out of your brain without reaping the benefits of exercise. Sure there are some educational channels but are you really retaining that information?

2. Work Out : This improves your psychological well-being as well as reducing depression, anxiety, stress, and helps loose weight which makes you feel better overall. Physical activity stimulates various brain chemicals that may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed than you were before you worked out.

3. Read books that stimulate thought : This doesn’t mean you have to read novels. Read a book that your interested in and will learn something from. This way you will have a better chance at retaining that knowledge and increasing your intelligence.

4. Sleep Early, Rise Early : This was a hard one for me to learn being that I was always such a night owl. But now I normally goto sleep around 11 – 12 pm and rise around 7 – 8 am giving myself between 6-8 hours of sleep. Now the amount of sleep required varies with age. Test yourself for a few nights and find out how many hours of sleep makes you feel rested and not over tired or deprived. A restful sleep will improve your ability to focus and waking up early in the morning enhances your productivity and keeps you alert throughout the day.

5. Find Time to Introspect : Find time for yourself. This is very important and I take this tip very seriously every day. This not only helps improve my productivity but enhances my personal development. Find time where you can be alone and think about things. This will help organize your thoughts and can prioritize your tasks and duties. You will be able to make clear cut decisions and focus on the most important ones. All said and done, I am not advising that you do yoga or chant some mantra. Any technique that allows you to sit alone and think is good. Personally, I prefer talking a long walk alone. Experiment and try out new methods to find out which one suits you the best.

There are many other ways to help improve your intelligence but these 5 tips will get you on the right track. I could also recommend making friends with people who think around your thoughts or setting a time everyday to stop using technology (cellphones, email, etc.). Traveling is also another good way to introduce education into your mind and no I am not talking about going to Africa and staying in a Holiday Inn. Explore your avenues and remember to just think!

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Social Media and Reputation Management

Rusty — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:54:01 +0000

The boom of social media is here and more and more businesses are jumping on board. But can we manage our reputations? With Facebook gaining over 300 million users and Twitter with about 50 million we know that consumers are looking more towards the net for information and purchases. Social media has added a new bump to the growing numbers with being able to comment and post what they want, when they want, and how they want it. This in turn makes it easy for them to say a product or service sucks and not to use it as well as how great it really is. Reviews aren’t new to the net and with more people buying online they depend on these reviews to buy their products.

So how do we manage our reputations in these times? does your company need to hire a staff member to manage social media and brand reputation? perhaps. But knowing a few tips can help without hiring additional staff.

1. Identify a strategy. Running blind you’ll run into trees. Make sure you know your plan of action. This is more of a general social media tip but is still valid in managing your business reputation.

2. Make sure you know your platforms security and privacy settings. For example Facebook has settings and options in your profile that allow you to limit people posting on your fan page or profile. Here’s 10 privacy settings for Facebook users

3. Limit your personal and business interaction together. Social media is about conversations but if you have a personal profile create a fan page for your business or on other networks create profiles for your business only. This will help eliminate those emotional moments in your personal life on your business name.

4. Always read the terms of service when joining a social network. Some social sites hold your information for whatever use or can resell your information to marketing companies.

5. Don’t just friend anyone and everyone. More numbers means better odds but identified numbers sell. Make sure you know their not going to just post a bunch of spam or become ineffective in your social media strategy.

6. Don’t fight fire with fire. Use water. Properly and humbly take care of outtakes or bad remarks with a way to improve their experience. This will ultimately add positive reputation and build great feedback around your brand.

7. Interact with your fans or friends respectfully. Leaving your ego at the door is recommended. You are basically creating a character online for your company to interact with your potential sales or customers. In other words don’t create a dick.

I hope these 7 tips help you as much as they do me. I keep finding news ways everyday to interact with my clients through social media. Now I just need to keep a solid strategy and stay respectful.

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10 WordPress Install Security Tips

Rusty — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:22:53 +0000

Now that WordPress has released its harding release 2.8.5 security is on my mind. I did some research to find 10 tips to secure WordPress and make it harder to break in. Below are some of the tips I found most useful.

1. Always change your WordPress database extension. Default is ‘wp_’ so change it to something like ‘gp_’ or ‘wordpress_’ on install.

2. Remove your admin user. By default the admin user is set to ‘admin’ changing this to another username makes it harder for hackers to guess your admin login.

3. Secure your .htaccess file. If you don’t know what a .htaccess file is click here. Use the code below to tighten security on your .htaccess file by limiting who can access it.


order allow,deny
deny from all
satisfy all

4. Secure your wp-config.php file. While not only setting permissions on this file to 444 using the following code in your .htaccess file can limit who accesses the file.


order allow,deny
deny from all

5. Set proper permissions. Different hosts will have different levels of security but for the most part the permissions should be:
Root install folder to read only (744)
Directories should have permissions of 755. NEVER 777
All files should have permissions of 644
If you do want to use the built-in editor, theme files should have permissions of 666. NEVER 777

6. Deny listing of your website directories in your .htaccess file. This will make sure no one can list all the files in your website folders. Adding the follow code below to your .htaccess file.

1	Options All -Indexes

7. Limit search engines to your ‘wp-’ directories in your robots.txt file. If you do not have a robots.txt file in your root folder create it with the following code below:

1 2	User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-*

8. Drop the version string in your Meta Tags. This is in your template files in the header.php it should look like the code below. Remove it completely if it exists.

1
2

9. Always use a secure password. This is mostly the main reason people get hacked. I use the follow to generate passwords for my users. Password Generator

10. Backup regularly! this is vital to you being able to recover your data regardless of being hacked or having your files corrupted. Luckily WordPress has a plugin to do this easily. WordPress Backup Plugin

Now with this list you should have a darn good secure WordPress install. Now there are other things you can do to increase security but for a small business or blog site not ran by the government these should get you on the right track. Now just stay up to date! make sure you update your wordpress as they release new versions and update your plugins as needed also.

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Google Analytics Just Became More Powerful!

Rusty — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:11:29 +0000

Yes its true, when you thought the good can’t get any better. Google rolled out some useful enhancements to its already useful and powerful Google Analytics tool. The new features gives the tool more flexibility and intelligence. Here are some highlights on some of the new features.

1. Addition of two new goal types for measuring user engagement and branding success that allows webmasters to set thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per visit. Up to 20 goals can now be defined.
2. Improved tracking of mobile websites and mobile apps on mobile devices even if the device is running Javascript or not. This was made possible through the addition of a server side code snippet on mobile websites using Google Analytics
3. Addition of Advanced Table Filtering feature for advance data analysis and for filtering rows in a table based on different metric conditions
4. Creation of Custom Report with the option to select Unique Visitors as a measurement against any Google Analytics dimension
5. Multiple custom variables, sharing segments and custom report templates for enterprise adaptation of Google Analytics. These tools provide customization options for enterprise Google Analytics usage

These are all great new features but one of the best is the Analytics Intelligence. This new feature provides automatic alerts when there are significant changes in the data patterns of your website metrics and dimensions on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Prompting you on significant marks you should pay attention to. This will give you more time on doing corrective actions to highlights by Google Analytics. Very Sweet!

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SWFaddress solves Flash SEO problems

Rusty — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:53:50 +0000

One of the biggest draw backs of flash is using back and forward buttons in the browser and Search Engine Optimization in the URL’s. Well now look no further. Introducing SWFaddress – a small JavaScript library that lets you create virtual URLs for Flash and Ajax. SWFaddress has been around since 2006, and surprisingly not all Flash sites are utilizing this tool.

However, SWFAddress is really only as good as your implementation of it. A sloppy implementation makes it more of a liability than a benefit. So let’s show you the right way to get it working.

SWFAddress can be quickly added to a Website that uses SWFObject only by inserting the JavaScript files into your header section like this:

<script src="swfobject/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="swfaddress/swfaddress.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Now the internal implementation of SWFAddress is somewhat simple and straight forward. Once a Flash movie containing the library is embedded in an HTML page, it automatically initializes itself and provides the developer with notification of state changes that need to be implemented. This might not be the easiest task for everybody, but SWFAddress streamlines the process by fully supporting testing workflow inside the Flash Program and Standalone Player. URL changes can be invoked from mouse-click events, frame actions, or HTML links.

Here is sample code that can be added to a MovieClip button:

this.onRelease = function () {
 
      SWFAddress.setValue("/portfolio");
}

For links in HTML-formatted TextFields, the following approach should be used:

<a href="asfunction:SWFAddress.setValue,/portfolio/">Go to Portfolio</a>

SWFAddress has a single onChange event where the navigation logic needs to be coded. The complexity may vary depending on the Website, but if it’s planned from the beginning, it may improve maintainability by centralizing all the controller actions.

Here is an example of a running logic for the onChange event:

SWFAddress.onChange = function () {
 
      var navigation = new Object();
      navigation.home = {frame: 1, title: "Welcome"};
      navigation.about = {frame: 10, title: "About Us"};
      navigation.contact = {frame: 20, title: "Contact Us"};
 
      var value = SWFAddress.getValue();
 
      website_mc.gotoAndStop(navigation[value].frame);
 
      SWFAddress.setTitle(navigation[value].title);
}

The setTitle method allows you to add unique titles to every section of the Website and they will appear in the browser’s titlebar. It should be used inside the onChange event in order to correctly display the initial title value when the page loads.

With SEO in mind SWFaddress covers this flawlessly. It enables the generation of real links that expose the appropriate content to search engines. The magic happens with some interesting URL rewriting and some trivial server-side code. The following is an example how it works for a Website located at http://www.domain.com that contains a portfolio section.

SWFAddress uses http://www.domain.com/#/portfolio/. The URL that can get indexed is http://www.domain.com/portfolio/ and therefore it should exist as a link in the HTML code of the page. When someone visits the indexed address, the rewriting functionality makes a redirect to the URL that SWFAddress expects. Everything happens on the server side so no user interaction is required.

The situation is different when the same link is followed by a search engine bot (spider). In this case the address is rewritten without any redirection to http://www.domain.com/?swfaddress=/portfolio/. The page that handles all this should use a server-side technology in order to generate the appropriate content depending on the “swfaddress” parameter value.

Page requests containing GET parameters (?var=something) such as http://www.domain.com/#/portfolio/?desc=true&year=2001 are handled similarly. The search engines will index http://www.domain.com/portfolio/?desc=true&year=2001 and the script will expect http://www.domain.com/?swfaddress=/portfolio/&desc=true&year=2001.

The result is a fully indexed Flash Website with deep linking support. This works great and the result is even better. Now we can all have search engine friendly Flash sites. YAY!

While this approach improves the usability of Flash content over the Web, it also requires an additional effort, such as some manual work for static html websites and some smart code for dynamic ones. The best case will be a Flash Content Management System that automates the whole process.

SWFaddress promises to continue adding interesting functionality like AJAX support, transparent user tracking with Google Analytics, and enhanced event handling. It should definitely be considered for your next Flash project.

Download SWFaddress: HERE
View an Example Site: HERE

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Google Local Business Center Just Got Enhanced

Rusty — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:40:58 +0000

Looks like your favorite local search just got better. Google’s Local Business Center will be more versatile in the very near future. The local dashboard currently only shows impressions and view counts, and is very limited in keeping historical data or trends. It doesn’t show which search phrases are attracting local search traffic either, although you can view this information in the Webmaster Tools, but all of that is about to change. Check out the video to learn more:

New Features Include:

Graphical Impression and View Counts (similar to Google Analytics)
Driving direction requests by view count that tie back to the Zip Code or City, State driving traffic.
Top Search Queries triggering Local Maps

This is great news! I have been following my impressions and stats but these new features will break it down even further!

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11 Websites for Web Analysis

Rusty — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:33:00 +0000

As with every web design comes web analysis. Web analysis is important because you need to find out what areas of your website traffic is finding more interesting so you can continually tweak your site for optimum deliverability and monetization. Below I have listed 11 websites which I think are the best for Web Analysis.

1. Quantcast

Quantcast is one of the 3 major websites dedicated to website traffic and audience. Quantcast provides publishers, marketers and agencies unmatched capabilities to measure, organize, discover and transact based on directly-measured traffic and inferred audience data.

2. Alexa

Alexa is one of the first ranking websites with advanced data regarding target population, country rank and others. The problem with these statistics is that they are provided based on Alexa Toolbar. Again, this fact makes Alexa’s data inaccurate.

3. Compete

Compete is a site similar to Quantcast. Compete’s ranking is based on the stats of +2.000.000 US citizens – this means that Compete is not so accurate outside of US. Anyway – check out Compete for your ranking and compare your results with your competitors’.

4. Dataopedia

Dataopedia.com is a web service that provides comprehensive information (50 different sources) about websites available on the Internet.

5. BuiltWith

This tools is quite complex – it shows various information about your site or any particular site (technologies used, seo, etc.) and it helps you optimize your site. Very useful when you don’t know much about SEO. It has a paid version as well with a lot more tips and info.

6. BizShark

BizShark is a direct competitor to Dataopedia. Both sites share the same concept and have similar information. You will have to decide which one suits you.

7. Website Grader

In my opinion, this is one of the most useful analysis websites. It has a great composition of information: social, seo, general, etc. It even gives you hints and a grade – to compare and further optimize your site.

8. Quarkbase

Quarkbase is another site that gathers its info from multiple sources, but here is their definition: Quarkbase is the best way to find website information contributed by website owner, lover and the Internet Community.

9. Popuri.us

This tools is a lightweight tool that gives you the most common ranks available on the web: Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, Compete Rank, Technorati Rank etc.

10. XinuReturns

XinuReturns is a tool that shows you pretty much everything – Google Page Rank, Yahoo Links, FeedBurner subscribers,Technorati, DMOZ etc. It is perfect for a fast small popularity analysis.

11. Feedcompare

This website is useful when you want to compare your number of feed subscribers with the number of subscribers. For this you must have a FeedBurner account.

There are plenty of other sites as well with interesting results, but I think these ones are the most important.

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24 Search Engine Ranking Factors That Matter

Rusty — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:50:41 +0000

While trying to increase my page ranking I was stumped as to why I still had no page rank and over 1500 backlinks. After some browsing on SEOMoz.org I found my factors and have since used these 24 search engine ranking factors in everything I design on the web. Let’s start in percentage of importance.

1. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
66% very high importance | 8% moderate consensus

2. Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag
63% high importance | 11.3% light consensus

3. Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)
60% high importance | 11.2% light consensus

4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the H1 Headline Tag
49% moderate importance | 10.2% light consensus

5. Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on the Page
47% moderate importance | 13% moderate contention

6. Keyword Use in External Link Anchor Text on the Page
46% moderate importance | 13.6% moderate contention

7. Keyword Use as the First Word(s) in the H1 Tag
45% moderate importance | 11.7% light consensus

8. Keyword Use in the First 50-100 Words in HTML on the Page
45% moderate importance | 9.9% light consensus

9. Keyword Use in the Subdomain Name (e.g. keyword.seomoz.org)
42% low importance | 9% light consensus

10. Keyword Use in the Page Name URL (e.g. seomoz.org/folder/keyword.html)
38% low importance | 9.1% light consensus

11. Keyword Use in the Page Folder URL (e.g. seomoz.org/keyword/page.html)
37% low importance | 8.6% light consensus

12. Keyword Use in other Headline Tags (

–
)
35% low importance | 8% light consensus

13. Keyword Use in Image Alt Text
33% minimal importance | 8.7% light consensus

14. Keyword Use / Number of Repetitions in the HTML Text on the Page
33% minimal importance | 10.3% light consensus

15. Keyword Use in Image Names Included on the Page (e.g. keyword.jpg)
33% minimal importance | 8.6% light consensus

16. Keyword Use in or Tags
26% minimal importance | 7.6% moderate consensus

17. Keyword Density Formula (# of Keyword Uses ÷ Total # of Terms on the Page)
25% minimal importance | 9.8% light consensus

18. Keyword Use in List Items
on the Page
23% very minimal importance | 9.5% light consensus

19. Keyword Use in the Page’s Query Parameters (e.g. seomoz.org/page.html?keyword)
22% very minimal importance | 7.6% moderate consensus

20. Keyword Use in or Tags
21% very minimal importance | 8.4% light consensus

21. Keyword Use in the Meta Description Tag
19% very minimal importance | 9.9% light consensus

22. Keyword Use in the Page’s File Extension (e.g. seomoz.org/page.keyword)
12% very minimal importance | 8.3% light consensus

23. Keyword Use in Comment Tags in the HTML
6% very minimal importance | 5.7% moderate consensus

24. Keyword Use in the Meta Keywords Tag
5% very minimal importance | 5.5% moderate consensus

Now keeping these in mind when you design your website will help give your website a better Page Rank in my next blog post we will go over some of the negative factors and what doesn’t work to get you ranking. I hope these help you as much as they did me.

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13 Essential Wordpress Plugins

Rusty — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:55:13 +0000

Here I’ve compiled a list of Wordpress plugins that I personally use and you should too, that is, if you want a spam-free, quick loading, easily manageable and search engine friendly web site. In my 3 years using Wordpress, I’ve found these to be the most essential plugins that I start every project with. I do, however, have a larger list for my personal site. Enjoy!

Akismet

Who can? You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet. Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.

Automated Keyword Generator

The keywords tag itself will be your title, tags, and category, so you don’t have to worry about the density as long as your post is matched and about the tag and category you have inputed in. The keywords have semi-blackhat SEO order, so it may make easier to you to show on top queries.

Contact Form 7

You need a simple contact form for your site? Oh, you need 7 different contact forms? All with customizeable html and output ttemplates? And it has to be easy to use? I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it is. This plugin can simplify any of your form needs, easily.

DB Cache

The fastest cache engine for WordPress, that produces cache of database queries with easy configuration.

Efficient Related Posts

There is a problem with related posts plugins, and Efficient Related Posts is fixing that by approaching the problem from a different direction and offering a very different solution. Basically, current related post plugins build the list of related posts on the fly when the user needs to view it. Since blogs tend to be viewed far more often than they are updated (often hundreds of times more often), these queries are run way more times than they need to be. This not only wastes CPU cycles, but if the queries are slow (which they will be if you have 1000s of posts and tags) then the user gets a poor experience from slow page loads.

Feedburner FeedSmith

Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.

Optimize DB

Let’s you optimize your WordPress database tables with one click. Click optimize on the right to start optimizing!

Post Gallery

Provides ability to add any number of additional images to each post

Related Websites

Add your posts to the Blog Traffic Exchange and add Links to related websites throughout the blogosphere.

Simple Submit SEO

Displays submit buttons to Digg, del.icio.us, stumble upon, and buzz. Clean and simple interface. Requires wp_head hook in template to insert stylesheet for plugin.

Wordpress 2 Ping.fm

Links and integrate your WordPress account to Ping.fm. Once linked, the plugin will update all your social networks every time you publish a post. You can customize the look of your pings, send custom pings, and set rules for which posts you want to notify your social networks about. This is la creme de la creme of social network plugins, created by people who just happen to specialize in communication and social networks. You will need a Ping.fm account and an application key to use this plugin, which you can get for free at http://ping.fm

WP Super Cache

Very fast caching plugin for Wordpress

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Use PHP to Ping Technorati on your blog updates

Rusty — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:15:21 +0000

If you are familiar with blogosphere you know what is Technorati.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. You can submit your blog to Technorati and ping their servers when your blog site is updated. when you ping Technorati their web crawlers read the updated information on your site.

Technorati offers an XML-RPC ping web service to allow blogs to notify content changes.

In this article we discuss how to write a PHP script to programatically ping Technorati when there is new content in your site.

The URL to ping is rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping.

The method name to call is weblogUpdates.ping.

The request XML must contain two parameters – your blog site name the blog site URL.

From the API documentation of Technorati, the sample request XML is as below:

version="1.0"?> weblogUpdates.ping YOUR WEBLOG NAME HERE http://www.YOURWEBLOGURL.com/

Let’s start writing the XML-RPC client to ping Technorati.

Our first step is to generate the required XML request string.

$site_name = "YOUR WEBLOG NAME HERE"; $site_url = "http://www.YOURWEBLOGURL.com"; $request = xmlrpc_encode_request("weblogUpdates.ping", array($site_name, $site_url)); ?>

The function xmlrpc_encode_request as the name suggests, creates the request XML string. If you echo $request variable you will see output like below:

version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> weblogUpdates.ping Benzing Technologies http://benzingtech.com

The next step is to create the streams context.

$context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array( 'method' => "POST", 'header' => "Content-Type: text/xml\r\nUser-Agent: PHPRPC/1.0\r\nHost: rpc.technorati.com\r\n", 'content' => $request ))); ?>

The code snippet states that we are preparing to make an HTTP POST request to the server rpc.technorati.com.

The next step is to make the request.

$server = "http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping"; $file = file_get_contents($server, false, $context); ?>

We now decode the response XML using the function xmlrpc_decode(). We determine whether the response XML contains a fault structure using the xmlrpc_is_fault() function.

$response = xmlrpc_decode($file); if (is_array($response) and xmlrpc_is_fault($response)){ echo "Failed to ping Technorati"; } else { echo "Successfully pinged Technorati"; } ?>

The entire script is pasted below.

$site_name = "Benzing Technologies"; /** * The URL of your site */ $site_url = "http://benzingtech.com"; $request = xmlrpc_encode_request("weblogUpdates.ping", array($site_name, $site_url)); #echo $request; $context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array( 'method' => "POST", 'header' => "Content-Type: text/xml\r\nUser-Agent: PHPRPC/1.0\r\nHost: rpc.technorati.com\r\n", 'content' => $request ))); $server = "http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping"; $file = file_get_contents($server, false, $context); $response = xmlrpc_decode($file); if (is_array($response) and xmlrpc_is_fault($response)){ echo "Failed to ping Technorati"; } else { echo "Successfully pinged Technorati"; } ?>

The source code is available from the Code Album Github repository.

Tracking outgoing links with Google Analytics and jQuery

Rusty — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:13:28 +0000

When looking for an easy way to track outgoing links in Google Analytics with jQuery I came across this plugin. However, I needed a more flexible way of link tracking, with more control on which links to track and in what format.

For those reasons I use a small jQuery plugin written by Gerry Vandermaesen. Usage is simple:

$('a[rel=external]').gaLinkTrack();

Of course you can modify the selector to your needs, but (for now) you can only track links.

Inside Google Analytics, the tracked link takes the format “/{rel}/{domain}/{page}” by default. If no rel attribute is present, it defaults to “external”. You can change the format of the tracked links by passing the path option:

$('a[rel=download]').gaLinkTrack( { path: '/downloads/{page}' } );

When specifying the path format you can use any of the following placeholders: {rel}, {domain}, {page}. You can specify a default value for any of the placeholders (notably {rel}) as illustrated here:

$('a.download').gaLinkTrack( { path: '/{rel:download}/{page}' } );

This is a first version so feedback and suggestions are more than welcome. Things still to come: proper handling of email links, more options for customizing the tracked path, and more…

Download the full source code (jquery-galinktrack-1.0.js) or the minified version (jquery-galinktrack-1.0.min.js).

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jQuery with other frameworks without conflicts

Rusty — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:05:22 +0000

While jQuery is certainly a popular JavaScript framework, it’s by no means the only game in town. Other frameworks such as Prototype, MooTools, Dojo and many others all have their own strengths, weaknesses, and devoted groupies.

Generally speaking, these frameworks all play well together — you can mix and match framework functionality to your heart’s content, as long as you don’t mind the additional overhead of loading several libraries simultaneously. So you have a calendar widget in jQuery that you love, but you’re already using Prototype to animate your navigation bar? Don’t be shy… use both!

Of course, every once in a while you can run in to problems when combining JS frameworks — particularly (in my experience) when combining jQuery and Prototype. Luckily, jQuery was kind enough to provide us with a workaround.

The Problem: Sharing Syntax

The most common compatibility problem stems from both jQuery and Prototype using the same shortcut syntax: namely, the $().doSomething syntax. Here’s a sample line of code in jQuery:

$('#myelement').addClass('active');

And the same functionality in Prototype:

$('myelement').addClassName('active');

Note the basic similarity? Both frameworks claim the dollar sign notation for themselves, which can wreak havoc on snippets of code dropped willy-nilly into a website. If your jQuery code is grabbed up by Prototype, things will stop working fast. And similarly, if your Prototype code is snagged by jQuery, not even the awesome power of jQuery will be enough to overcome the code confusion.

The Solution: noConflict Mode

But not to worry! jQuery has provided us with a workaround called “noConflict mode.”

By default, there are two equally correct ways to call a jQuery function — the dollar sign notation, and “jQuery” notation:

$('#myelement').show(); jQuery('#myelement').show();

Both of the lines above do exactly the same thing. However, most people use and prefer the dollar sign notation. Why? Probably because it’s shorter, and if web developers didn’t care about brevity in their code, they probably wouldn’t have used a framework in the first place.

Of course, just using the longer jQuery notation isn’t enough. If jQuery has already claimed the dollar sign for itself, any Prototype functionality relying on that notation will still be grabbed by jQuery.

This is where the noConflict function comes in handy. Simply run the following line after both Prototype and jQuery have been loaded:

jQuery.noConflict();

This will cause jQuery to give up the dollar-sign notation, allowing the other library to take it over. And you can still use your jQuery snippet, provided you change all instances of $() to jQuery().
Keeping it Short

The noConflict mode does have one other bit of functionality that I’ve found useful in some of my projects: you can select a different variable to use instead of the standard “jQuery”. The usage looks like this:

var $j = jQuery.noConflict();

Now in addition to using the default jQuery() notation, I can also use the shorter $j() notation. This allows me to avoid running into problems with other frameworks, while still enjoying almost the same conciseness in my code.

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Introducing jQuery $(document).ready()

Rusty — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:10:48 +0000

This is the first thing to learn about jQuery: If you want an event to work on your page, you should call it inside the $(document).ready() function. Everything inside it will load as soon as the DOM is loaded and before the page contents are loaded.

JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() { // put all your jQuery goodness in here. });

The $(document).ready() function has a ton of advantages over other ways of getting events to work. First of all, you don’t have to put any “behavioral” markup in the HTML. You can separate all of your javascript/jQuery into a separate file where it’s easier to maintain and where it can stay out of the way of the content. I never did like seeing all those “javascript:void()” messages in the status bar when I would hover over a link. That’s what happens when you attach the event directly inside an tag.

On some pages that use traditional javascript, you’ll see an “onload” attribute in the tag. The problem with this is that it’s limited to only one function. Oh yeah, and it adds “behavioral” markup to the content again. Jeremy Keith’s excellent book, DOM Scripting, showed me how to create an addLoadEvent function to a separate javascript file that allows for multiple functions to be loaded inside it. But it requires a fair amount of code for something that should be rather straightforward. Also, it triggers those events when the window loads, which leads me to another advantage of $(document).ready().

With $(document).ready(), you can get your events to load or fire or whatever you want them to do before the window loads. Everything that you stick inside its brackets is ready to go at the earliest possible moment — as soon as the DOM is registered by the browser, which allows for some nice hiding and showing effects and other stuff immediately when the user first sees the page elements.

It might help the absolute beginners to see an example of the where you would include your scripts. Note that CSS stylesheets come before the jQuery file, and the jQuery file comes before your custom script:

< !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="yourcustomscript.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

It is in “yourcustomscript.js” that you would place your script inside the $(document).ready() block.

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Create a jQuery draggable sitemap

Rusty — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:49:52 +0000

There are a handful of javascript libraries and plugins available that attempt this task, but none of them worked flawlessly with our HTML. The real issue here is that javascript alone cannot produce a slick solution, the HTML and CSS need to be carefully constructed to ensure that the experience is seamless and pleasant.
The HTML.

Our HTML consists of nested unordered lists, with each list item containing a definition list for the title, page type, publish status, and action links for editing or deleting the page. The feature for expanding and collapsing child pages already existed, making things extra fun.

<ul id="sitemap"> <li> <dl> <dt><a href="#">expand/collapse</a> <a href="#">Page Title</a></dt> <dd>Text Page</dd> <dd>Published</dd> <dd><a href="#">delete</a></dd> </dl> <ul></ul> </li> </ul>

The requirements.

The behaviour had to intuitive for the user, they need to be able to reorder pages and move entire sections to new parents. It had to be clear to the user where a page would end up when they dropped it (ie. between pages or as a child page).
Simplifying the task.

When one page is dropped over another page, there are three possible outcomes. The page can end up before, after or as a child. This gets particularly tricky at the boundary point between the last child of a sub list and the following sibling. If the resulting location of where a page ends up is the difference of a couple of pixels, the user could become frustrated. We decided to simplfy the problem so that a page could be dropped only before items or as children of items. The only limitation here is that you couldn’t easily drop an item as the last child of a list, but this is only a minor issue as moving the last child up would achieve the same result. You can also drop an item on the parent to cause it to become the last child, but this isn’t so obvious really.

This means for each item on our list we now need to identify two areas where the user can drop the page, on the page to be a child, and above the page to be a sibling.
The javascript.

The great thing about jQuery / jQuery UI is how it lets me write the code I want to write, and takes care of cross-browser behaviours and gaps in DOM manipulation. Anyone who has attempted at creating drag and drop functionality for a website will be well aware of the headaches involved in getting everything to work smoothly across browsers. jQuery UI seems to handle this brilliantly.

The first thing I want to do is create a div inside the list item to act as a dropzone for placing items as siblings.

$('#sitemap li').prepend(' ');

piece of cake.

To allow an item to be dragged, we simply call the draggable() function on the items that can be dragged.

$('#sitemap li').draggable({ handle: ' > dl', opacity: .8, addClasses: false, helper: 'clone', zIndex: 100 });

As we are dealing with nested lists, it is important that only the definition list inside our list item acts as a handle, otherwise our old friend Internet Explorer can get a little confused over who’s meant to be moving and who should be staying where they are. By specifying ‘clone’ we create a duplicate list item that follows the mouse, while the original item waits patiently for us to decide where it should belong. An opacity of 0.8 and a high zIndex keeps the clone on top of everyone else and slightly opaque. It’s the little touches that really count.

The magic.

$('#sitemap dl, #sitemap .dropzone').droppable({ accept: '#sitemap li', tolerance: 'pointer', drop: function(e, ui) { var li = $(this).parent(); var child = !$(this).hasClass('dropzone'); //If this is our first child, we'll need a ul to drop into. if (child && li.children('ul').length == 0) { li.append(' <ul>'); } //ui.draggable is our reference to the item that's been dragged. if (child) { li.children('ul').append(ui.draggable); } else { li.before(ui.draggable); } //reset our background colours. li.find('dl,.dropzone').css({ backgroundColor: '', borderColor: '' }); }, over: function() { $(this).filter('dl').css({ backgroundColor: '#ccc' }); $(this).filter('.dropzone').css({ borderColor: '#aaa' }); }, out: function() { $(this).filter('dl').css({ backgroundColor: '' }); $(this).filter('.dropzone').css({ borderColor: '' }); } });</ul>

Ok. That’s a fair chunk of code, let’s break it down.
We only want to accept sitemap list items, we don’t care about other items they care to drop here.

The tolerance specifys the drop item to be the element under mouse pointer, we’re expecting the user to place their mouse where the item should end up.

When the drop happens, this is how we decide what to do:
We set the variable ‘li’ to be the parent of the dropzone (as both the definition list and the dropzone div are children of the list item). This is just for convenience.

When the user drops the page, we need to decide what they landed on, if it has a class ‘dropzone’ then we are placing the dropped item before us. Otherwise we are placing this as a child.

As the item is being dragged around, it is imperitive to give an indication as to where it will end up. We can do this by conditionally applying a background colour to whichever item we are hovering over. For the ‘dropzone’, we instead apply a border colour, as we want it to display as a solid line between the two items.

At this point we can also fire off our update in an ajax post to the server, in order to commit the change.

The CSS.

The secret to the interface working really well is CSS. By making sure we have the right paddings and heights in the right places we give the user enough space to comfortably drop items. If we keep the space around the definition list tight, and apply a 4px border plus 6px height to the ‘dropzone’ div, we give the user 10 pixels of droppable area. This is plenty to guarantee the user will be comfortable. The 4px border gives us a strong, clear indication that the item will be dropped as a sibling.

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Creating a jQuery RSS Aggregator (reader)

Rusty — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:26:14 +0000

Chad Udell with Visual Rinse wrote a fantastic tutorial on creating a jQuery RSS Feed Reader using a PHP proxy to bypass browser security displaying any xml feed using AJAX.

Read more on his blog post http://visualrinse.com/2008/09/24/how-to-build-a-simple-rss-reader-with-jquery/

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Web Designers Gain A New Resource For Inspiration

Rusty — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:27:04 +0000

With the internet expanding rapidly coming up with new creative designs can be a daunting task. That’s why we created a website to help do just that, inspire designers. WebInspir.com is a web 2.0 designer inspiration website. Where online designers can submit their creativity to inspire others. Designers can vote on top designs and we took into consideration the SEO aspects of the website and made sure every page is properly optimized and indexed by the search engines.

So get creative and submit your next design! http://www.webinspir.com/category/submit/

LinkShare Opens Pay-Per-Call, Turns Heads

Rusty — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:04:30 +0000

Originally posted on Website Magazine

LinkShare has a long, productive history in the affiliate space, and the latest LinkShare innovation is already turning heads. Pay-per-call gives publishers and affiliates a new way to earn – both online and offline. LinkShare provides custom, individual phone numbers for affiliates to connect consumers with advertisers. The advertiser gets a qualified lead, and the publisher has the opportunity to earn on each call placed to the advertiser.

“This whole new platform with pay-per-call allows our publishers to get commissions in ways they never could before,” says Russ Pechman, VP of Linkshare Lead Advantage. “Online or offline, this opens publishers and advertisers to a new world of opportunity.”

Once a phone number is established, publishers can promote it on their website, flyers, billboards, banners behind airplanes – just about anywhere. Advertisers can speak directly with their prospects, whether for lead generation or closing a sale on a product.

The program is leading off with lead generation, an area where advertisers can learn a great deal about their prospective audience. More advertisers — including retailers — will be signing up over time. Pechman notes that pay-per-call could be an ideal solution for advertisers who rely on human interaction during the sales process. For example, high-cost items, financial services, real-estate, insurance and much more. What’s more, certain demographics are more comfortable with a phone call than a click. This solution opens up an important channel perhaps previously unavailable.

There are, of course, controls. Advertisers can set the requirements for a commission, such as length of call, interaction within the call (press ‘1′ for more information) and more. And LinkShare provides terms and conditions, just like online, as well as measures to prevent fraud. “We make sure we’re working with the right publishers, just as we would online,” says Pechman. Also, the human element of a phone call can give advertisers the ability to detect a genuine lead from an unqualified lead.

This is certainly an exciting development for LinkShare, publishers and advertisers. It’s further proof of the online world blending in offline and making e-commerce accessible away from the desktop. Using the vast network available through LinkShare, new lines will be opened. “It’s going to be great to see a whole new person emerge who has never had the technical savvy to try something through a website but is good at promoting things in their own way,” says Pechman.

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jQuery Anything Slider Plugin

Rusty — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:17:06 +0000

Originally Posted at CSS-Tricks

Just what the world needs, another jQuery slider. YAWN. I know, check this one out though, it’s got lots of cool features.

Here on CSS-Tricks, I’ve created a number of different sliders. Three, in fact. A “featured content” slider, a “start/stop slider“, and “moving boxes“. Each of them had some cool interesting feature that I needed to build at the time. All were well-received, but as is the case with these things, people want them to do X, Y, and Z in addition to what they already did.

This new AnythingSlider is an attempt at bringing together the functionality of all of those previous sliders and adding new features. In other words, to create a really “full featured” slider that could be widely useful. This is the first time (on CSS-Tricks) that one of these sliders is an actual plugin as well, which should make implementing it and customizing it much easier.

[VIEW DEMO] [DOWNLOAD]

Features

Slides are HTML Content (can be anything)

Next Slide / Previous Slide Arrows

Navigation tabs are built and added dynamically (any number of slides)

Optional custom function for formatting navigation text

Auto-playing (optional feature, can start playing or stopped)

Each slide has a hashtag (can link directly to specific slides)

Infinite/Continuous sliding (always slides in the direction you are going, even at “last” slide)

Multiple sliders allowable per-page (hashtags only work on first)

Pauses autoPlay on hover (option)

Link to specific slides from static text links

Usage & Options (defaults)

$('.anythingSlider').anythingSlider({ easing: "swing", // Anything other than "linear" or "swing" requires the easing plugin autoPlay: true, // This turns off the entire FUNCTIONALY, not just if it starts running or not startStopped: false, // If autoPlay is on, this can force it to start stopped delay: 3000, // How long between slide transitions in AutoPlay mode animationTime: 600, // How long the slide transition takes hashTags: true, // Should links change the hashtag in the URL? buildNavigation: true, // If true, builds and list of anchor links to link to each slide pauseOnHover: true, // If true, and autoPlay is enabled, the show will pause on hover startText: "Start", // Start text stopText: "Stop", // Stop text navigationFormatter: null // Details at the top of the file on this use (advanced use) });

Customization

Adding/Removing Slides
Just add or remove more

items from the list inside

, everything else happens automatically.

Adjusting Size
For example, if you wanted to make the slides 580px wide instead of 680px wide, you just need to change some CSS. Change the width of .anythingSlider ul li to 580px, change the width of .anythingSlider .wrapper to 580px, and reduce the width of .anythingSlider 100px to 660px.

Linking Directly To Slides from Static Links
Target the link using and ID or Class (or whatever), and apply a click handler. Then call the plugin function and pass it a number of the slide you are trying to link to:

$("#slide-jump").click(function(e){ $('.anythingSlider').anythingSlider(6); e.preventDefault(); });

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Google Adds Keyword Predictions to Search Insights Keyword Tool

Rusty — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Google recently upgraded their Insights for Search tool to include predicted keyword search volumes as well as interactive maps of how keyword search volume changes over time.

There are lots of business implications of the forecast data:

Having predictable trends for a search query or for a group of queries could have interesting ramifications. One could forecast the trends into the future, and use it as a “best guess” for various business decisions such as budget planning, marketing campaigns and resource allocations. One could identify deviation from such forecasting and identify new factors that are influencing the search volume as demonstrated in Flu Trends.

Some business categories are more predictable than other categories:

Over half of the most popular Google search queries are predictable in a 12 month ahead forecast, with a mean absolute prediction error of about 12%.

Nearly half of the most popular queries are not predictable (with respect to the model we have used).
Some categories have particularly high fraction of predictable queries; for instance, Health (74%), Food & Drink (67%) and Travel (65%).

Some categories have particularly low fraction of predictable queries; for instance, Entertainment (35%) and Social Networks & Online Communities (27%).

The trends of aggregated queries per categories are much more predictable: 88% of the aggregated category search trends of over 600 categories in Insights for Search are predictable, with a mean absolute prediction error of of less than 6%.

If you were to launch a brand new business from scratch it might make sense to target a less predictable category since it would be more open to new market entrants & they would not appear on the radar of competitors as quickly.

And Google now make their Insights for Search charts embeddable in third party websites via iframes. Given that, I just added those data points to our keyword tool below the keyword data our tool returns, which is like having an instant second opinion on the keywords.

This allows you to instantly estimate the seasonality of a particular keyword. And if our search volume seems somewhat inflated and/or you are uncertain if it is accurate then you can look at the search volume graph for more data. If the keywords graph is quite spiky for a non-seasonal keyword (or if it has no data returned) then there is a good chance that there is a bit of noise in the data.

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5 Important Link Building Strategies to Kickstart your Website

Rusty — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:03:01 +0000

Originally posted at DivitoDesign.com

Link building is a very important strategy in your search engine optimizing campaign. In the first part of my search engine optimizing tutorial, I gave you 8 SEO tips that you can implant on your website or blog. Today, we will talk about how to get quality links pointing to your website.
General Knowledge

One thing that is most important to link building is this: a few high-quality links favors numerous links of a low caliber. That means you have to search for the best links that fit the topic of your website or blog.

1. Reciprocal Links

Explaining reciprocal links is simple: you exchange links with other websites. You link to them, they link to you.

Those websites or blogs have already build a reputation in the search engine’s eyes. The SE’s trust them. When you start a new site, your site is not yet trusted. However, if you have that website linking to you, the engine know that you offer something good too. Generally, because you have good content or if you are their friends. They will easier trust you too and list you faster and better in their results. You build on the reputation of the popular website.

However, don’t think you can scream at a few of these sites and ask them for a link. You have to build a site with a good layout and content first, before they might feel about linking to you.

Here are a few pointers that you have to remember when asking for a reciprocal link exchange:

Place a link to their website before you ask them to put a link on their website to your website.

Be gentle.

Make it as easy as possible for the webmaster to add the link. Provide the URL and the anchor text.

Give them all the information they will ever need: links page, place of link, pagerank etc.

So, where to find these sites?

Be creative, that’s the keyword. Here are a few spots to get you going:

Look around in your niche, what blogs or websites are you reading that covers the same subjects?

Become friends with those webmasters and bloggers. Friends will help friends, right?

Look on the sites of your competitors: who are linking to them? Find them and contact them.

Look for sites that have already linked to a page on your website and ask them for a reciprocal link.

2. Social Media

This is the time of Social Media and I am sure many of you have an account on Digg, Delicious, Facebook or Twitter. Great. It’s time to make use of this social media to attract loads of visitors, but it also can be used to attract a number of great one-way links.
So, how does it work?

Hundreds, if not thousands of people in your niche are interested in your articles and content. The larger the number of people that read your article, the larger the number of influential bloggers and webmasters are amongst them. Those people might enjoy your article that much, that they start linking to them. Simply because your article is interesting to their visitors. That is social media.

How can I get that number of visitors from Social Media?

If you run a company site: start a blog.

Start writing articles about subjects in your niche.

Try to fill up gabs that your ‘competitors’ didn’t fill.

Write great headlines.

Submit your content to the major social media sites and the ones that are in your niche.

Just remember, to get on the front page of the large social media sites is very hard. With submitting your article to the social media sites in your niche, you will reach the people that are interested in your article. The people that are looking for your content. If your article is good, they will vote for it and a few of them will link to you.

3. Directory Submission

In the past, directory submission was a great and important way to get a number of links pointing to your site. However, in this media age, the search engines are much more sophisticated. They won’t fall for that.

Adding your website to a number of high-quality directories however, can help you get better rankings. Make sure you search for the correct category that your website should fit in. Here are a number of directories that I feel are from a high-quality.

Google Directory

Yahoo! Directory

Web World Index

World Wide Wub

The Directory Site

Adding your website to any of these directories makes your website more important in the eyes of the SE’s. Those directories are known for only publishing the best websites. If you get listed, you build your website on the reputation of that directories.

4. Guest Post on Popular Blogs

A popular blog in your niche has a large number of followers and visitors. You would like to reach this people because they are interested in your articles.

One way to reach those people is to write an article on that popular blog. When your request is honored, you let the people out there know you exists and that you have value to provide. In return, a link and a description of your website or blog is posted above or under the article. When that articles gets a PageRank (and with popular blogs, that usually happens pretty fast), you will get a quality one-way link to your website.

Also, don’t forget the number of visitors that will click your link when your article was interesting enough. It’ll get your name out.

5. Forum Signatures

If you are very passionate about your niche or subject, you already know that there are a number of great forums out there that discuss everything in your niche.

In many of these forums, you can use signature links. Sometimes these link are no-follow (which means the SE’s don’t value them for the search results), but sometimes they are normal do-follow links. If you are active in that forum and post in many conversations, more and more links from different conversations are pointing to your website. This is a good thing.
Where to find those Do-Follow forums?

Here is a small number of forums related to web design and media that allow do-follow links in forum signatures:

Digital Point Forums

Sitepoint Forums

Webmaster Talk forums

V7n forums

You can get more do-follow forums in this niche by visiting reading the “forums with link juice“-article.

If you are in a different niche and you wish to find do-follow forums, make sure you become active in a few forums and try it!

Any Suggestions?

As I am not the best Search Engine Optimizer there is, I am sure many of you have a lot more tips that work. I would be happy to hear them, because it will improve my own SEO-campaign, but it’ll also help the other readers.

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How to Create Totally Secure Cookies

Rusty — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:36:51 +0000

Originally Posted at Carsonified.com

Securing cookies and sessions is vital to keeping an application secure. Many tutorials have been written on the subject, but as the internet (and browsers loading it) evolve so do the methods you can use to keep your application secure.

In this article we’re going to break down the various components of a cookie and what they mean for security. This will include limiting the cookie to certain domains and paths on those domains, choosing what information to store, and protecting the cookie from cross site scripting exploits. In a second article we will go into more depth in how to protect everyone’s favorite cookie, the session ID.

How Cookies Work

Cookies are simply key/value pairs that let us get around HTTP being a stateless protocol. When a developer has data they wish to last for more than one connection they can use cookies to store that data on the client side. While this tends to get handled by the programming language being used it is accomplished using HTTP headers.

When the server wants to set a cookie it passes back a header named “Set-Cookie” with the key-value pair and some options.

View larger

On subsequent requests the client will send along its own header to let the server know the name and value of its stored cookies. The server will not continue to send back the cookies, it will only send them if there is a change.

View larger

You can see all the headers for yourself using the LiveHeaders plugin for Firefox.
The Problem

This data is completely in control of the client- it is trivial to change the values of a cookie. That means that, just like post and get data, all cookie data must be validated in some way. At the same time you’ll want to avoid storing sensitive information, such as passwords, as cookies are stored in cleartext and anyone with access to the computer later can easily pick those up (I know of at least one security forum that was hacked in this way). It is also important to note that HTTP does not encrypt the headers in any way. If the connection isn’t over SSL then it will not be protected from snooping eyes.

Session cookies are no different than any other cookie- their value is just a simple ID. Those IDs are susceptible to all of the same limitations as other cookies. The real power behind sessions happens server side, where the ID is used to pull out data stored on the server. This has many benefits over storing data directly into the cookie itself- data can’t be manipulated by the user, large amount of data can be stored without having to send it back and forth with each request, and you can store data you otherwise wouldn’t want the client to have access to.
Getting Started

The first step towards securing your cookie is to restrict that cookie to only your application. This is especially important in environments that support multiple sites or applications (the type of shared hosting you often see on corporate or university domains). By restricting the cookie to only the applications that need it you reduce the chances of it being sniffed while also keeping the cookie namespaces clear for other applications that use them.

There are three options that can be sent along when creating a cookie that, when used properly, will keep the cookie limited to only your application. Before setting these options you will need to ask yourself a few questions-

What parts of the website need access to the cookie?

Will the cookie need to work across sub domains?

Will the cookie need to persist if the user leaves an SSL portion of the site?

There is also a forth option used by newer browsers to restrict access to cookies by javascript.

As you will see, how exactly to restrict the cookie really does depend on the exact purpose for that cookie. A banking or ecommerce site may restrict their cookies to only SSL, while a blog or news aggregator may want to leave things more open.
Cookie Options

Send The Cookie To Only Your Application

The Path argument specifies what paths on the site to send the cookie. The default value of “/” means every request will get the cookie, while “/forums/” would limit the cookie to just that path. This path is going to be based on the actual URL the browser uses, before any mod_rewrite or other URL mapping.

Don’t Share With Sub Domains

The Domain option allows you to specify whether or not to send the cookie to subdomains. Setting “www.example.com” will mean only the exact domain “www.example.com” will be matched, while “.example.com” will also match again any subdomaim (forums.example.com, blog.example.com).

Require a Secure Connection

Using the Secure option you can tell the browser (or other http clients) to only send the cookie over SSL connections. This means the cookie will not be available to any part of the site that is not secure will not have access to the cookie, but it also makes it much less likely that you’ll accidentally send the cookie across as cleartext.

Protect Against XSS Exploits

This HttpOnly flag is used to tell the browser that it should not allow javascript to access the contents of the cookie. This is primarily a defense against cross site scripting, as it will prevent hackers from being able to retrieve and use the session through such an attack.

The HttpOnly option is not by any means full proof. As a client-side defense mechanism it relies on browser support to work, but is only supported by a few browsers (Firefox 3+ and IE 7+, with partial support from Opera 9.5, IE6 and Chrome).

Configuring the Cookie

In PHP, setting the arguments for cookies is done through some optional arguments on the “setcookie” function:

setcookie( name, value, expire, path, domain, secure, httponly); // Open setcookie( 'UserName', 'Bob', 0, '/', '.example', false, false); // Locked Down setcookie( 'UserName', 'Bob', 0, '/forums', 'www.example.com', isset($_SERVER["HTTPS"]), true);

To change the cookie values for the session cookie requires the “session_set_cookie_params” function, which needs to be called before the session is started.

session_set_cookie_params($expire, $path, $domain, $secure, true); // Open session_set_cookie_params(0, '/', '.example', false, false); // Locked Down session_set_cookie_params('o, /forums', 'www.example.com', isset($_SERVER["HTTPS"]), true)

Summary

Cookies remain the basic method of identify tracking on most websites and keeping them secure is a vital part to keeping applications as a whole locked down and secure. In this article we went over four methods for protecting cookies on a general level.

When using cookies its important to remember to:

Limit the amount of sensitive information stored in the cookie.

Limit the subdomains and paths to prevent interception by another application.

Enforce SSL so the cookie isn’t sent in cleartext.

Make the cookie HttpOnly so its not accessible to javascript.

Please check out the second half of this series, where we’re going to take the next step with an in depth guide to securing sessions.

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32 Google Ranking Optimization Tips

Rusty — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:20:40 +0000

Figuring out the process of SEO can be quite a challenge. Knowing what you need to do and what work best and where to put your performance is a daunting task. So this is where I can help you out by providing 32 Google Ranking Optimization Tips. These were gathered from various sources and started with the Google Webmaster Guidelines. So lets get started.

1. Keywords In Your URL’s – First word is best, second is second best, etc. Use hyphens to seperate words.

2. Keywords In Your Domain Name – Ranks very well same as above using hyphens to separate words.

3. Keywords In Title Tags – Keyword in Title tag – close to beginning
Title tag 10 – 60 characters, no special characters.

4. Keywords In Description Meta Tag - No more than 200 chars long. Google no longer “relies” upon this tag, but will often use it.

5. Keywords In Keyword Meta Tag – Use less than 10 words. Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance. No single word should appear more than twice. If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do.

6. Keyword Density in Body Text – 5 – 20% (all keywords/total words). Some report topic sensitivity – the keyword spamming threshold % varies with the topic.

7. Individual Keyword Density – 1 – 6% (each keyword/total words).

8. Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 Tags – Use Header font style tags appropriately. Limit to 1 or 2 per page.

9. Keyword Font Size – “Strong is treated the same as bold, italic is treated the same as emphasis” – Matt Cutts July 2006

10. Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) – Directly adjacent is best. Limit keywords so as to not get a negative for keyword stuffing.

11. Keyword Phrase Order – Does word order in the page match word order in the query?
Try to anticipate the search query, and match word order.

12. Keyword Prominence (how early in page/tag) – Can be important at top of page, in bold, in large font.

13. Keywords In Image Alt Tags – Should describe image message – Do NOT fill with spam
(Was part of Google Florida OOP – tripped a threshold – may still be in effect to some degree as a red flag, when summed with all other on-page optimization – total page optimization score – TPOS).

14. Keywords In Outgoing Links (anchor text) – Use title tags in links and keywords in link text.

15. Keywords In Internal Links – Same as above use keywords in title tags and link text.

16. Validate All Internal Links – Validate all links to all pages on site. Use a free link checker. I prefer to use this one by w3c.

17. Efficient Tree Like Navigation – TRY FOR two clicks to any page – no page deeper than 4 clicks.

18. Inter-Site Linking – Make sure you have appropriate linking to lower level sites so the spiders can find them easily.

19. Outgoing Links Should Be Relevant – Google patent - Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms. CAREFUL – Links can and do go bad, resulting in site demotion. Unfortunately, you must devote the time necessary to police your outgoing links – they are your responsibility.

20. Outgoing Links Anchor Text – Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive.

21. Link Stability Over Time – Google patent - Avoid “Link Churn” which basically means when one or more links provided by the document changes over time.

22. Less Than 100 Outgoing Links – Google says limit to 100, but normally accepts around 2000.

23. Domain Name Extension Top Level Domain – TLD – .gov sites seem to be the highest status, .edu sites seem to be given a high status, .org sites seem to be given a high status, .com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google.

24. Page Load and File Size - Try not to exceed 100K page size (however, sometimes there isnt much you can do, such as with larger textual pages). Smaller files are preferred <40K.

25. Fresh Content – Google patent - How your site changes over time. Newer the better – if news, retail or auction! Google likes fresh pages. So do I.

26. Amount of Content Change – New pages – Ratio of old pages to new pages.

27. Freshness of Links - Google patent - May be good or bad. Excellent for high-trust sites. May not be so good for newer, low-trust sites.

28. Frequency of Updates – Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cache.

29. Keyword Stemming – Use plural and non plural keywords, use phrases and narrow terms.

30. Site Size – Google likes big sites. As do most search engines.

31. Age of Page vs. Age of Site - Age of page vs. age of other pages on site
Newer pages on an older site will get faster recognition. Old is best. Old is Golden.

32. URL Length – Keep it minimized – use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE – less than 100 is good, less is even better just be sure to use keywords.

I hope this list can help you as much as it did myself. I have been researching SEO and optimization techniques for weeks now and found that this list is the best to follow in optimization for Google and other search engines that follow similar rule.

If you have more to add to this list or need help with optimizing your website feel free to comment or contact us.

- Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cacheKeyword

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10 Recession Marketing Myths De-Bunked

Rusty — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:29:48 +0000

This post was written by DJ Francis at experiencematters.criticalmass.com we loved it so much we posted on our blog. We do not take credit in writing this post what so ever.

Former CMer David Armano wrote a popular post here in early 2008 entitled 10 Ways Digital Can Help You Thrive In A Recession. I encourage you to read it – its lessons remain salient today.

David’s post examined the opportunities offered to brands by a poor economic condition. And some marketers have caught on. But many still believe some common online marketing myths; an especially dangerous practice during a recession.

In the spirit of David’s post, here are 10 marketing myths de-bunked in order to thrive during the recession.

1. Things are stable now – I shouldn’t rock the boat.

The boat is already rocking – you just haven’t noticed yet.

Joseph Jaffe has this to say about marketers and risk:

“Instead of taking bold chances, we have become seduced by the promise of glory and reward that comes from sticking with the status quo. We have failed to manage risk. And in doing so, we have also failed to manage another unavoidable reality of our industry: change.”

Seth Godin adds that managing risk is not only our job as marketers, but part of the natural order of the industry. In his book Tribes, he writes that “[s]tability is an illusion…Today, the market wants change. The market demands change.”

Marketers must expect change – even plan for it. It is often the most exciting part of the job.

2. I’m Afraid.

How is this a marketing myth? Think of everything you hear around the office that translates into “I’m afraid.”

“Has the boss seen this?”

“Nobody’s done that before.”

“It’s risky.”

A lot of businesspeople hunker down during a recession, hoping they can just ride it out without creating too many problems. That’s actually more risky (and scary).

It’s OK to be afraid of new marketing tactics, but it’s not OK to allow that fear to stop you from taking risks. As General Eric Shinseki said: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

3. Forget [insert social media initiative] – we just need to sell our client’s stuff.

True, selling is important. It was the focus of my post last week: The Modern Agency Still Sells, Right? But social media marketing can help build trust and gain supporters.

Phil Dunn recommends five ways for you to use social media to increase sales, including prospecting, persuasion, closing, delivering value, and customer service. Keep your focus, but don’t discount the medium’s potential to increase sales, if done correctly.

4. We finished the website – now we’re done.

This is digital – you can go back and make changes. In fact, you should!

Compared to print, digital efforts are astoundingly inexpensive in alter. Armano calls it the Beta Economy (#1 on his list). As a marketer, it’s imperative that you check your web statistics, garner knowledge from them, and make changes based on this data.

Why spend so much on a website and ignore its optimization? We’re always in beta…always.

5. I’d be better off letting my competitors try [insert new marketing initiative] first. Then I can learn from their mistakes.

What you consider mistakes are actually learning opportunities. Sure, some missteps are more seriously, but consider the experience your opponent is gaining while you sit on the digital sidelines.

Expert commentary from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War explains the importance of being ahead of your opponent:

“Once war is declared, [the leader] will not waste precious time…with all great strategists, from Julius Caesar to Napoleon Bonaparte, the value of time – that is, being a little ahead of your opponent – has counted for more than either numerical superiority or the nicest calculations with regard to commissariat.”

Being first allows you to build up what Len Kendall describes as a sort of “giving storehouse.” His “Give/Take Ratio” post illustrates that subsequent market competitors will have to work much, much harder to earn trust than the early adopter.

6. Cutting our marketing and advertising budgets will help us squeak through the recession and end up stronger afterward. [If you're not thinking this, your clients might be.]

Henry Ford said, “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”

Think things have changed so much since Ford’s time? John A. Quelch, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School concurs:

“This is not the time to cut advertising. It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic time.”

‘Nuff said.

7. Focus groups are expensive, but it’s the only way to get customer information.

A recession is a great time to expand your online customer research because focus groups are simply too expensive. You can often garner just as useful information by observing customers and potential customers online.

David’s post discusses this as #7: Trade focus groups for digital ethnography.

“Social networks and search engines can be rich ethnography tools…before you slash that discovery phase, think about how digital can be used to find things about the behavior of your target.”

I would add web analytics to the mix. One of the best indicators of how your audience will respond to a message is to determine how they’ve responded in the past. Test headlines, ads, designs, and copy variations to determine the most effective tactics.

8. We don’t have anything to share with our customers. Besides, they don’t want to talk to us, anyway.

This is sometimes true. Not many people want to chat up the guy who makes their ball bearings.

But there are a lot more brands people want to interact with that aren’t making an effort yet. So what do you have to offer?

First, you’ve got access. If customers are interested in your product, it’s likely they would want to take a peek behind the curtain.

Second, you’ve got an experienced workforce with highly specialized knowledge. Employees frequently have the potential to be amazing brand representatives, given the proper encouragement.

9. I’m in a highly regulated industry…so I can’t do anything remotely risky.

Pew comes out with reports all the time verifying that Americans interested in their health are online (the latest is here); and heck, my health insurance company has a Twitter account. Chase Bank and others have even developed iPhone apps.

Even the stodgiest, most regulated industries – from health care to insurance to banking – are realizing that their customers are online…and they’d better join them or risk being left in the dust.

10. ROI is the only thing that matters.

ROI or “return on investment” is the ultimate metric. I’m not saying we should trash it.

But ROI is different in a web 2.0 world – especially one in a recession. Unlike direct marketing in days of old, customers take a more round-about path to purchase.

If you’re stuck on ROI, consider this slight twist. David Alston calls it the “return on ignoring“. From the post: “Exploring investment return for social media is valid and necessary within a business framework. But equally important is carefully assessing the price for not being involved.”

Can you afford to ignore channels where your customers are already discussing your product? Not likely.

Economic slowdowns are opportunities

I started thinking about this while writing my e-book: Marketing During A Recession: Economic Slowdowns Are Opportunities. It seems to me that this is the time when marketers should be pushing the envelope; yet, it seems like most aren’t.

Do you agree with the marketing myths listed here? How has your marketing changed during the recession? Click the title of this post to add any comments, we welcome them all.

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Creating a Custom MySpace 2.0 Profile

Rusty — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:14:43 +0000

Customizing social media pages is an important factor for designers, users, and social media marketers. The ability to create custom backgrounds and designs for myspace, twitter, etc. can become a lucrative business model for savvy designers and developers.

Compared to many other social networking sites, Myspace offers the most flexibility in the layout and design of a profile page. They provide a ton of customization options and make it easy to get a new look quickly.

There are some prerequisites before we jump into a fully custom design. You will need a photo hosting site account like flickr,photobucket,or picasa. This will host your background images or other media you want to put on your profile.

Let’s create a professional-looking page with the new Myspace 2.0.

Once you sign-in to your account, you’ll click to edit your profile.

Now, make sure that your profile is set to MySpace 2.0. If you already upgraded then you can skip this step.

You’ll now easily be able to browse around and interact with the theme editor at the top of the page. This is where the magic happens and you should play around with different settings to get the feel for how it works and what each selection in the theme editor does.

Now you can choose to use the themes that Myspace offers or upload a custom Myspace theme.

This is where your design skills come in handy and the creativity runs wild. To upload your professional Myspace theme, paste your own CSS code into the appropriate box. Don’t know how to write css? no problem. Get a brush up on CSS at W3Schools.

Make sure that you’ve clicked in the appearance box that you don’t want to choose a layout. Then input your CSS code in the textbox as seen above. Once you know what CSS is and have an idea on how to code it you need to know what codes in MySpace can be modified. Below is an example blank 2.0 CSS file:

/* body, main font properties, background of page */ body{ background-color: #f8f8f8; font-family: helvetica, arial; font-size: 11px; color: #333333; } /* width of profile, second background color */ div.wrap{ width: 60%; background-color: #fff; border-left: 1px solid #878787; border-right: 1px solid #878787; } /* header & navigation properties */ div#header, div#googlebar {background-color: #878787;} #topnav {background-color: #878787;} #topnav a {color: white;} #topnav ul, #topnav ul li {border: none;} #topnav ul li a:hover {background-color: #6C6C6C;} /* global module properties */ div.moduleMid1 {background-color: #EFEFEF; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid #AFAFAF;} /* basic details */ div.profileDemographics {background: white; border: 1px solid #AFAFAF;} /* Interests, Blog Entries, Details, Friend Space & Comments */ h3.moduleHead{ font-weight: bold; font-size: 16px; } /* general, music, status, ethnicity */ strong, h4 {font-weight: bold; color: #333333;} /* link properties */ a:link {color: #333333; font-weight: bold;} a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} /* odd/even properties */ .interestsModule .odd, .detailsModule .odd, .commentsModule .odd {background-color: #F7F7F7;} .interestsModule .even, .detailsModule .even, .commentsModule .even {background-color: #EBEBEB;} /* footer properties */ div#footer {font-size: 10px;}

If you want to hide boxes and elements on your profile MySpace 2.0 Codes has a great reference of information to help you out. And a tutorial from Skeedio should get you up to speed on modifying the css files for MySpace 2.0

Once your done, click to publish your profile. Once published, click to view your profile and your Myspace page should appear like so:

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Web Analytics with Instant Gratification

Rusty — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:18:19 +0000

I was searching for more detailed reports when I came across a blog post from Useful Tools. Going over the review on W3Counter. I remember using the counter company back in the day but never thought I could get such up to the second results. Their web analytic data is quite amazing.

Some of their features include:

See who’s online now, and follow their path through your site

View a Live Visitor Map of your visitors as they arrive

Learn what sites started linking to you today

Discover what new search phrases are bringing you traffic

W3 Counter is an analytics tool that updates in real time. You can who’s looking at your website right this very second, where they are located geographically, and how they found your site. Once they leave, you get immediate access to their activity. You can also see which pages are getting the most views, who is referring your visitors to you and where visitors tend to land on your site. Additionally, you can track your Feedburner RSS stats. Another neat feature is the ability to label individual visitors and observe their behavior over time.

W3 Counter is simple to install-just cut and paste the tracker c0de. Or, if you are in Wordpress, use the plug-in. They have many different styles of badges and hit counters to add to your site. The user interface is kind of plain, but all of the information is laid out so that it’s easy to navigate and to understand.

Best of all, a basic account(missing some features, but still quite functional) for one website with under 5,000 page views a day is free. Paid accounts are $9.95 per month and include up to 1,000,000 page views as well as more advanced features like a live map that shows visitors as they enter and exit your site and the ability to label and track individual visitors.

W3 Counter is not the only company offering real-time stats. Other companies, such as Chartbeat, also update in real time. Still, the free service is a great value and the information it provides is quite useful.

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Is Your Brand On Demand?

Rusty — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Searching for the next best article to read. I came across a post from Experience Matters by Allyson Hohman. She gives some great information to make you question if your brand is on demand.

She says “Listen to your audience. Get to know what they really feel about your brand. No, what they REALLY feel. You may be surprised what you hear – good and bad. There are some free social monitoring tools that can help with this process, but if you only listen for a small amount of time you will find yourself back at square one sooner than you can tweet about the experience. Build a solid foundation for the future. Take the time and invest in a tool that will help you get ahead.”

The creation of an On Demand Framework is key.

So what is “On Demand”?

Being equipped with the right messaging in the right place when the consumer chooses to engage is being ON DEMAND. So how do help with that? Social Media of course…Join the bandwagon.

Be…

1. Insightful – Know your audience. What do they like? What is their online behavior?
2. Remarkable – Stand out from the crowd. Use emotion to connect with your audience. Let them know you understand them and can make their lives easier and/or more enjoyable.
3. Valuable – Getting someone to engage with your content is the first hurdle, but how do you get them to return or engage with you again? Give them something of value. Make it about them, not you.
4. Dynamic – “2.83 million pieces of new content are posted every day.” (Nielsen BuzzMetrics) Don’t be part of the clutter; create a path that is uniquely yours.
5. Portable – Engage with the consumer wherever they are, at any time. Consumers are looking for you – be there to greet them.
6. Conversational – Online media has transformed into a social and interactive experience. Brands must participate in the conversation. Consumers now expect it.
7. Everywhere** – Consumers don’t see the difference between channels. They do not care nor do they want to understand your online strategy. They just want to find what they are looking for when they want it. Simple. Be where your consumers are. Use insights to make these decisions.

Do you really need to be everywhere?

No, but If you want to have a long lasting relationship with your audience, then you must understand where they spend their time online, how they use each channel and why they use each channel. Perhaps in your business this is everywhere.

Use the three P’s as a reminder.

Penetration – What’s the penetration of a channel against the target audience?

Perception – What is the consumer perception of a channel among the target?

Potential – Can we successfully market to them in a particular channel?

If you always start with the customer, use the On Demand framework and consider the 3 P’s, you can place your bets and win every time.

If you need a brand overview feel free to call us.

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53 Ways to Become a Better Entrepreneur

Rusty — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:40:56 +0000

Do you want to become a better entrepreneur? Well who doesn’t, right?

Over the past 8 years I have started around 9 companies. Sadly most of them failed, but the good news is, I have learned a lot over the years. Some of these things maybe obvious to you, while others may not, but none-the-less there will be something that will be beneficial to you.

Here are 53 things to keep in mind if you want to be a better entrepreneur:

1. Don’t let emotions cloud your decisions.
2. Accept criticism, no matter who gives it to you.
3. Never stop networking.
4. Learn from your own mistakes.
5. Learn from other people’s mistakes.
6. Around every corner lies an opportunity for you to sell something.
7. Don’t get too greedy… pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
8. Try not to mix your family life with your business life.
9. No matter how successful you are, you shouldn’t stop learning.
10. Spending money on good lawyers and accountants will save you more money in the long run.
11. Don’t pick a stupid company name… and if you do, don’t change it later on.
12. Hiring employees won’t solve most of your problems.
13. Be agile because slow and steady won’t win the race.
14. Being agile isn’t enough, you also have to be scrappy too.
15. Having a good business partner will be a key factor in your success.
16. Don’t be afraid of the unknown.
17. It is easier to save money than it is to make it.
18. You don’t always have to innovate; there is nothing wrong with copying.
19. Have a marketing plan.
20. Don’t under estimate your competition; you can’t always know what they are doing.
21. Watching movies like Boiler Room, will teach you how to sell.
22. If you don’t have a business mentor, you better get one.
23. Your income will be the average of your 5 closest friends, so pick them wisely.
24. Diversifying is a good way to play things safe.
25. It doesn’t matter what you want, it only matters what your customers want.
26. When others are fearful, you should be greedy. And when they are greedy you should be fearful.
27. You don’t always have to pay for advice. You’ll be amazed with the free advice you can get pick up from the web.
28. The best chances you have of becoming rich is through your willingness of working hard.
29. Even the most idiotic business idea can make money.
30. Sex sells and it always will.
31. An easy way to make more money is to up sell to your current customer base.
32. Base your business decisions around metrics.
33. There is no such thing as a safe bet.
34. You don’t have to start a business to be successful.
35. Raising venture capital is harder than being struck by lightening.
36. Staying under the radar isn’t always a bad thing. Being out in the open is a great way to attract more competitors.
37. Learn to be a team player.
38. If you ever get screwed over, think twice before you burn the bridge.
39. Learn to manage both your personal and business money.
40. Live in a location filled with entrepreneurs.
41. If you don’t take any risks, there will not be any rewards.
42. Don’t let anything stand in your way.
43. Sometimes you have to wait for good deals to come to you.
44. The smartest route isn’t always the easiest route.
45. Being too aggressive can backfire.
46. With networking, it isn’t about whom you know, it is about whom your network knows.
47. It’s never a bad thing to know too many rich people. Whether you like them or not, they can always come in handy. So make sure you always play nice with them.
48. Use your email signature to promote your business.
49. Don’t be afraid of social media. It is a great channel for customer acquisition.
50. You’ll learn more from starting your own business, than going to business school.
51. Having a personal blog doesn’t only help build your personal brand, but it helps your business as well.
52. Your competitors don’t have to be your enemies, you can learn a lot from them.
53. You can grow your business by working for free.

Hopefully these suggestions will help you improve your entrepreneurial skills.

ARTICLE SOURCE – QuickSprout – By Neil Patel

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Following Consumer Trends

Rusty — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:32:41 +0000

I was recently reading some articles on cultural patterns and patterns in society and thought about consumer trends and patterns. I found an article on Yahoo called “Hot in recession: Cheaper wine, chocolate, Spam“. The article goes over the current wants of the consumer industry during this recession or “down turn” of the economy.

If you read the article, you’ll learn that the following products are “hot” which, although ambiguous, suggests they might be a good idea to target with your current related websites or a new website altogether.

- Chocolate
- Running shoes
- Cheap wine
- Gold coins
- Gardening seeds
- Tanning products
- Spam
- Dinty Moore stew and chili
- Condoms
- Dating
- Laxatives
- Pepto-Bismol and other stomach medicines
- Bike helmets
- Guns (because of Obama administration)

So with this list it’s almost impossible NOT to create a gun and laxatives website. I would recommend you read the entire article to get a feel for the psychological aspect behind these product increases. Learning these behavioral trends will help you predict future behaviors.

A head start can often be the difference between success and failure. Here are a couple sections in the Yahoo article that point this out:

“Consumers have trimmed household budgets and postponed buying cars, major appliances and other big-ticket items. Yet they still are willing to shell out for small indulgences and goods that make life more comfortable at home, where they are spending more time.”

“People are much more focused on their homes and their immediate happiness and they’re buying things that they can use themselves — seeds, fishing equipment. Lipstick and chocolate are small rewards that make you feel better.”

Keep in mind that these are recent trends and could not be next month. For example “gardening seeds” would make a great stand-alone website but by the time you’ve got your site built just to your specifications, planting season could be over. Remember the trends and notice consumer spending.

Get creative. Come up with an angle. Personally I think that chocolate and cheap wine have the biggest upsides when all things are considered. But then again, I’m sure a lot of people might decide something else which means larger opportunities could be elsewhere.

As I end this I hope the information was helpful/interesting and don’t forget… always be on the lookout for great opportunities disguised as regular, every day information!

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12 Best WordPress SEO Plugins

Rusty — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:18:53 +0000

So you’ve freshly installed wordpress and you’re ready to put in the time and effort to make it a huge success. A few steps go a very long way for the long term success of your blogging site. Gathered from a variety of sources, here are the steps I now follow to optimize a fresh WordPress install:

1. Permalinks (Friendly URLs) – Not a plugin but adding the search engine friendly urls will help index your links with keywords people are searching for. Fortunately WordPress has built in permalinks under settings. I usually choose the custom method and change it to /%category%/%postname%/

2. Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update. You can get the plugin here.

3. All in One SEO Pack – Hand’s down this optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines. You can change each page or post title, metatags, and more. You can download it here.

4. SEO Friendly Images – This is a Wordpress optimization plugin which automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes. If your images do not have ALT and TITLE already set, SEO Friendly Images will add them according the options you set. Additionally this makes the post W3C/xHTML valid as well.

5. Ultimate Google Analytics -This plugin adds Google Analytics JavaScript to each page on your weblog without making any changes to your template. The plugin can also add tracking to outbound links, downloads from your own site and mailto: links. You can download it here.

6. Social Bookmarks -This plugin for WordPress adds a list of XHTML compliant graphic links at the end of your posts and/or pages that allow your visitors to easily submit them to a number of social bookmarking sites. You can download it here.

7. WP to Twitter – The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your WordPress blog using the Cli.gs URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post from Twitter. You can download it here.

8. WordPress 2 Ping.fm – Links and integrate your WordPress account to Ping.fm. Once linked, the plugin will update all your social networks every time you publish a post. You can customize the look of your pings, send custom pings, and set rules for which posts you want to notify your social networks about. You can download it here.

9. PodPress – This plugin adds tons of features designed to make WordPress the ideal platform for hosting a podcast. You can download it here.

10. FeedBurner FeedSmith – The plugin will detect all ways to access your feed (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/feed/ or http://www.yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php, etc.), and redirect them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed and optionally, your main comments feed as well. You can download it here.

11. Robots Meta – This plugin provides many different optimization techniques to help in indexing specific pages or not indexing pages. Also can edit .htaccess file and robots.txt file. You can download it here.

12. Easy AdSense – This isnt much of an optimization plugin but it does work in sync with the rest of the plugins above. It provides a very easy way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. You can download it here.

With these 12 plugins you should be on your way to a more optimized blog. I hope these plugins help you as much as thay have me. If you need help with your WordPress blog don’t hesitate to call us.

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5 Ways to Market Your Blog With Twitter

Rusty — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:37:08 +0000

I came across another great article written by Spencer Spellmen of Tutorial Blog:

It’s no surprise that Twitter has quickly risen in popularity among social networks. Few national and local newscasts can go an episode without mentioning the powerful tool. It’s almost become a competition to see who can gain the most followers or who can follow the most celebrities.

As a blogger, there are many different ways you can promote your website through Twitter.Here are 5 ways to market your blog with Twitter.

1. Promote your blog posts.

Use your Twitter account to share posts with your followers. There’s several different Twitter applications available that will automatically update your Twitter status when you publish a blog post. The power of it comes when your followers then share/retweet your blog post to their followers.

2. Involve your followers.

Twitter ultimately comes down to interaction. You’re not going to get more page views by just telling your followers to check out your new post. Pose a question or target your followers in a way that will spark discussion. Engage your followers!

3. Put a Twitter app on your blog.

Many bloggers are very active on Twitter, yet much of their audience doesn’t know it because there’s no place to show it on their blog. Put a Twitter widget with recent Tweets or a link on your blog that points people to your profile.

4. Interact with other bloggers in your niche.

Although it may not seem relevant to promoting your blog, it’s important to network with other bloggers and even promote their work. The better relationship you have with fellow bloggers and the more you share their work, the more likely they’ll be to share yours.

5. Offer incentives to your Twitter followers.

Doing regular contests and giveaways are the easiest ways to get easy traffic to your blog. Giveaways and deals are one of the most shared types of tweets on Twitter and as long as you’re giving away something interesting, then you’re sure to get traffic to your blog.

Article Source – TutorialBlog.org – http://tutorialblog.org/5-ways-to-market-your-blog-with-twitter/

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9 Tips for Successful Email Blasts

Rusty — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:23:14 +0000

When you design an email these days it’s still quite far off from the browsers. There are still no standards for email presentation and designers are stuck using ancient coding techniques to create the best effective method. Using the following 9 tips should help you create a successful email blast until the standards are created.

Fortunately, there are people working to create standards. Email Standards Project is a website that is at the top of the list working towards establishing these standards. Launched in November, the Email Standards Project is an advocate of the establishment of common standards for emails, and is probably the closest thing there is to a regulating body in this field. The site even offers a helpful rating system of various email platforms based on its own acid test.

Let’s jump into these Tip’s.

1. Go back to HTML – Scrap everything you’ve learned in recent years about tableless CSS structures and revert back to the HTML that your grand parents grew up with (its an exaggeration, but I swear it’s been that long since I’ve used tables). Now forget about positioning divs with CSS and rely on table cells to lay out your content as many email readers will not render positioning properly or at all.

2. Use Inline Styles – Most major email readers, whether they’re online, like Gmail and Hotmail, or desktop applications, like Outlook and Thunderbird, will ignore everything between the tags, including your styles (whether you do it via or tags). This means you should style your HTML using inline styles. Be careful though there are many CSS properties that will not render properly, for example the ‘position’ property. A detailed report on how various major email readers performed against an Acid Test (which tests a handful of common CSS properties) can be found here.

3. Don’t Use Background Images – Using background images has become an essential tool on the designer’s belt. However, there is such an inconsistency between browsers that will actually display background images that it’s best not to use them. As an Outlook 2007 user, I know as a fact that no background images are displayed (this is true for Gmail as well). On the other hand, readers like AOL Webmail and Windows Live Mail (not Hotmail) will render background images correctly. Since it’s too difficult to predict what reader your audience is using, your use of background images should only be for enhancement and not as something your design depends on.

4. Expect Your Images To Get Blocked – For security purposes, many email readers will block images embedded in an email by default. This is because email applications are trying to help you eliminate spam and block bad images as well as Trojans that embed themselves into images. Today’s reader must opt-in on each email to display the images (though some may allow readers to set their preference). What this means is that you should NOT rely on your images to communicate your message. Avoid replacing too much text with images and make sure your email design still gets the point across even when images are not displayed. Use ‘alt’ attribute to display the same information in your images.

5. Use ‘Alt’ Attribute In Images – To avoid completely losing the message on an image when images are blocked, fill out the ALT attribute for each of your images. This ensures that the important content from the image (i.e. the text) is still passed along. This also helps in cases where the reader is using a text-only email client, as the image will be replaced by the ALT attribute.

6. Always Use Absolute Paths – Make sure to use absolute paths when referencing images. Relative paths (i.e. /images/my-image.jpg) will break as the email reader won’t know what the path to the image file is. Your image paths should look like this instead: http://www.mywebsite.com/emails/images/my-image.jpg. This is so simple that it can often be accidentally overlooked so make sure to double check your image paths before you send out your email.

7. File Size Matters – Using large images in your email design will slow down the download process on the reader’s end and may deter them from reading it all together. In some cases, exceptionally large emails may also be flagged for spam and viruses. To minimize these risks, optimize your images so that they have the smallest possible file size. This may require you to play around with JPG, GIF, and PNG formats to see which gives the highest image quality with the smallest file size. Where possible, use plain text to communicate your message.

8. Avoid Using Rich Media and Forms – In a browser, using Flash, animated images, and forms extends interactivity to the user experience. In an email, it bulks up the file size, raises security flags, or just doesn’t work at all. If there are interactive components attached to your email campaign, you are far better off linking the reader to your website than to attempt to embed them into the email itself. It’s an extra step but at least you can be sure that your rich media and forms will work. Also you can track links to your website this way.

9. Design For Minimalistic Reading – Just like designing for a web browser, you need to be considerate of screen resolutions and window sizes. In addition to this, email readers often have added sidebars and navigation on both sides of where your email content is displayed, further decreasing the amount of space you have to work with. I say keep the width of your email design at least within 800px (we commonly use 750 px or 640 px).

If you are considering doing an email campaign let us help you keep it simple and effective. Contact Benzing Technologies Today! (866) 980-2369

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Evaluating Web Sites : Is Yours Effective?

Rusty — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:36:27 +0000

When it comes down to evaluating your website you need to think on both sides of your brain. One (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The other (the left brain) is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole.

With both sides of your brain working you will see how they both can be used to evaluate your website. Let’s start with design and then point out some functionality and content tips.

DESIGN
1. Is it inviting and welcoming?
2. Is the purpose of the site clear? Is it obvious who owns this site?
3. Is the page attractive? Does the visitor want to explore the site further?
4. Can you find your way around the site?
5. Is it easy to find your way back to the home page?
6. Are the pages attractive on monitors set to various resolutions, on various browsers and on both Macs and PCs?

FUNCTIONALITY
1. Can various users (with various computer skills) interact with the site in the desired manner without assistance?
2. Is technology (menus, scripting, animations, bells and whistles) used to aid communication (as opposed to confusing the visitor)?
3. Do all the links work? Do pages download quickly?
4. Is there an over abundance of flash or scripting?

CONTENT
1. Is the content interesting and appropriate to the site’s mission?
2. Is information helpful and relevant to the topic?
3. Is the content fresh (not outdated)?
4. Is there too much content and not enough visual elements?
5. Does it contain essential information? (Mailing address, telephone numbers, home/search/contents/contact buttons, keyword-heavy text, organizational news, quick launch links)

All of these listed above are answered with a well designed website. You must create the best overall experience while being compatible with people who’s skills range from none to uber geek. Now we can’t accommodate everyone who visits your website either due to language barriers or technology hindrances. So you must first decide who your target market is and how to accommodate that market on your website. Keeping in mind different methods for different cultures.

Choosing the right design agency is also key as they understand the ways to attract your visitors and keep them coming back for more. But how do I know who the right design agency is? Well, ask them questions. The more education you have on what your looking for and your needs the easier it will be for both you and the design agency your working with. If they have trouble answering your questions or you get confused with their process then look elsewhere.

If you are on a tight budget or are unsure about getting a website then you must first decide if your ready to go online. Do you have a residual client base? do you need to be online? how do your clients notice you? these are all great inital questions you need to answer first. I don’t always agree with “You get what you pay for” but it does show its value when you choose the right design firm. Finding that fine line between affordable and functional.

If you have any questions or comments about this post please feel free to contact us.

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Top 10 Social Networking Sites

Rusty — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:36:42 +0000

Article written by: Spencer Spellman of Tutorial Blog

Everyone knows about the top social networking sites. Most people would agree that Myspace, Twitter and Facebook are the best social networks, but how about beyond that?

Although Myspace, Twitter and Facebook are some of the most recognized networks, many people around the world don’t use them. So, where do all the social networks rank? Below I’ve listed in order the top 10 social networks, taking factors into mind like registered users, funtionality and unique visitors.

1. Facebook. Although it hasn’t always reigned supreme, in recent months Facebook has come head to head with Twitter. Facebook is more stable technically and offers many features that Twitter doesn’t.

2. Twitter. Twitter has definitely gotten a lot of face time in the news lately, however, it still has some work since its in its infancy. Luckily for avid users, the creators are continually working on new features and better functionality.

3. LinkedIn. Many business professionals use LinkedIn. It’s a great resource for posting an online resume and highlighting your business skills.

4. Myspace. Up until this last year, Myspace was easily the number one social network. However, Myspace is falling behind — some might say it’s been left in the dust. Although it’s in decline, Myspace still holds value for musicians and artists.

5. Ning. Although Ning has millions of users, it’s little known and utilized by most people. Ning has revolutionalized social media in a lot of ways in how it boasts thousands of niche networks within itself.

6. Bebo. One of the better known social network sites among the smaller sites, Bebo, like Myspace, gives users the option to customize their profile. Bebo has recently increased traffic because of new features that let users see their friends’ activity on other social networking sites.

7. Orkut. Although its little known in the U.S., Orkut is extremly popular in other countries, including Brazil and India. Most suprisingly is that its owned and operated by Google.

8. Hi5. Hi5 has been floating around as a social network for a while, but has never been able to keep up with the competition of Facebook, Myspace and others. It has most of the same features as Myspace and Facebook, but is more popular in Central America.

9. Friendster. Many people think that social networking began with Myspace, but it really originated with Friendster. It remains a top-notch social network similar to Myspace and Facebook, despite being overtaken by them a few years ago.

10. Xanga. Of the ten listed here, probably one of the lesser known, although its been around for more than 10 years. Xanga is different in how it focues on photo, video and weblogging.

ARTICLE SOURCE – Tutorial Blog – http://tutorialblog.org/top-10-social-networking-sites/

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jQuery Media : A Fun Tutorial on Sounds, Video, & Roll Overs

Rusty — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:45:58 +0000

This article was written out of joy in finding out that jQuery has the capabilities to play sounds and music on your website. Hurray! I love the possibilities of javascript and xml and embrace it as much as I can without making the website too overwhelming with AJAX or non-search friendly.

We want to start by making sure you have the required libraries. Starting with the latest jQuery. You will also need the Media plugin. For the sounds example towards the bottom you will need the Sound plugin.

Playing Media Files

Let’s start with a basic html page which will house our media player.

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This is my example jquery music player. <a class="media" href="path/to/sound.wav">media file</a>

With our html page built out we add our jQuery scripts between our header tags:

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<script src="path/to/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="path/to/jquery.metadata.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="path/to/jquery.media.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"></script>

With this setup your media file link will be converted into a media player where visitors can now listen or view your media file. keep in mind if you use mp3 or flash video you will need a media player. You can download it here.

VIEW THE DEMO

Let’s get into more advanced options. Now these options can be provided using an options object or by using the jQuery Metadata Plugin which can be downloaded in the beginning of this tutorial.

The following options are provided by the media player plugin by default:

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// global defautls; override as needed $.fn.media.defaults = { preferMeta: 1, // true if markup metadata takes precedence over options object autoplay: 0, // normalized cross-player setting bgColor: '#ffffff', // background color params: {}, // added to object element as param elements; added to embed element as attrs attrs: {}, // added to object and embed elements as attrs flashvars: {}, // added to flash content as flashvars param/attr flashVersion: '7', // required flash version // default flash video and mp3 player // @see: http://jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Media_Player flvPlayer: 'mediaplayer.swf', mp3Player: 'mediaplayer.swf', // Silverlight options // @see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb412401.aspx silverlight: { inplaceInstallPrompt: 'true', // display in-place install prompt? isWindowless: 'true', // windowless mode (false for wrapping markup) framerate: '24', // maximum framerate version: '0.9', // Silverlight version onError: null, // onError callback onLoad: null, // onLoad callback initParams: null, // object init params userContext: null // callback arg passed to the load callback } };

Any global settings can be explicitly overridden by simply changing its value. For example:

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// change default flash player $.fn.media.defaults.flvPlayer = 'myCoolPlayer.swf';

So let’s use a couple of these options to get some different results. Going back to our header tag scripts we change the options to display a video.

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<script src="path/to/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="path/to/jquery.metadata.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="path/to/jquery.media.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"></script>

Now that you understand how to use this media plugin there are tons of available options and dynamic capabilities to really make this a marvelous contribution to the jQuery library.

Roll Over Sounds

Perhaps you would like to perform roll over sounds or onclick sounds using jQuery. This can be done pretty easily using the Sounds plugin which you can download in the beginning of this tutorial. Let’s start with a full source example page.

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<script src="path/to/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="path/to/jquery.sound.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"></script> This is my example jquery sounds on rollover. <a class="rollover" href="#">mouse over sound</a>

You should have a great understanding how these plugins can help enhance your website to play your media content or cool rollover sounds. If you have any questions or still need help feel free to comment.

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Developing an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy

Rusty — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:42:35 +0000

While I was researching other ideas on how to market myself socially I found a website with a great article on Developing an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy. Anna Laura Brown with Examiner.com writes:

Do you have an effective social media marketing strategy or plan? If not, you are just wasting time with social media and you may earn some money or get some business but you will not succeed at the level that you would like to. I see many people using social media in the wrong way or in many cases they are wasting time and goofing off. Now if your goal with social media is just to have fun then there is nothing wrong with this, but, if you are using it to get clients and make money, then it is crucial that you develop an effective marketing strategy and that you stop playing around.

Here are some tips to help you develop this strategy:

1. Write down your social media marketing plan. It is not good enough to simply have it in your head. It must be written, clear and specific. Include as a part of your written plan your goals by month and year as well as exactly what you plan to accomplish with your social media marketing. For example, How many new customers will you attract this month? How many newsletter subscribers? How many people will you approach about a joint venture partnership?

2. How much time per day will you spend on your social media marketing? Unless you are just getting started and you need to set up your profiles, or you are in the business of internet marketing or teaching social media, an hour a day will be just the right amount for most people.

3. Do you have a friend or follower policy? Do you know exactly who you are looking to connect with and what your rules are for accepting a friend request or following someone back on Twitter? Is this policy written down or just in your head?

4. What is your target market on social media? There are all kinds of people who are using social media and it is crucial that you decide exaclty who you want to connect with. In many cases, you will choose the same target markets that you are marketing to off line or with other marketing methods. However, you also need to consider where you can best connect with your target market. For example, if you are looking to connect with sales professionals or other top executives, while you will find many of them on Facebook or Twitter, it may be smarter to use Linkedin to connect with them. Or if you are looking for moms of young children you may find that more of them use Facebook than Twitter. You need to evaluate your target market and determine where the majority of them are and then spend the majority of your time on that social network.

5. What is your budget? Do you have money to spend on social ads such as those on Facebook? If you do not right now, then you should set a goal to eventually be able to do so as this will increase your marketing effectiveness.

6. What products and services will you promote with social media? If you have more than one business or job, which one will you market? or will you market both of them? If you have only an off line business or a physical product will you create some information products you can also market with social media? Doing this is another way to increase your social media marketing effectiveness.

7. Which sites you will use on a regular basis? Which ones will you use less frequently? Most people find than any more than four sites are too many on which to be active. Decide which ones you will use and then stick with them.

Answer these questions in written form and then take the time to adjust your plan as needed. Then get busy and work your plan and your social media marketing will be much more effective.

ARTICLE SOURCE – Examiner.com – http://www.examiner.com/x-13398-Salt-Lake-City-Social-Media-Examiner~y2009m7d30-Developing-an-Effective-Social-Media-Marketing-Strategy

	See who’s online now, and follow their path through your site
	View a Live Visitor Map of your visitors as they arrive
	Learn what sites started linking to you today
	Discover what new search phrases are bringing you traffic

1. Go back to HTML – Scrap everything you’ve learned in recent years about tableless CSS structures and revert back to the HTML that your grand parents grew up with (its an exaggeration, but I swear it’s been that long since I’ve used tables). Now forget about positioning divs with CSS and rely on table cells to lay out your content as many email readers will not render positioning properly or at all.
2. Use Inline Styles – Most major email readers, whether they’re online, like Gmail and Hotmail, or desktop applications, like Outlook and Thunderbird, will ignore everything between the tags, including your styles (whether you do it via or tags). This means you should style your HTML using inline styles. Be careful though there are many CSS properties that will not render properly, for example the ‘position’ property. A detailed report on how various major email readers performed against an Acid Test (which tests a handful of common CSS properties) can be found here.
3. Don’t Use Background Images – Using background images has become an essential tool on the designer’s belt. However, there is such an inconsistency between browsers that will actually display background images that it’s best not to use them. As an Outlook 2007 user, I know as a fact that no background images are displayed (this is true for Gmail as well). On the other hand, readers like AOL Webmail and Windows Live Mail (not Hotmail) will render background images correctly. Since it’s too difficult to predict what reader your audience is using, your use of background images should only be for enhancement and not as something your design depends on.
4. Expect Your Images To Get Blocked – For security purposes, many email readers will block images embedded in an email by default. This is because email applications are trying to help you eliminate spam and block bad images as well as Trojans that embed themselves into images. Today’s reader must opt-in on each email to display the images (though some may allow readers to set their preference). What this means is that you should NOT rely on your images to communicate your message. Avoid replacing too much text with images and make sure your email design still gets the point across even when images are not displayed. Use ‘alt’ attribute to display the same information in your images.
5. Use ‘Alt’ Attribute In Images – To avoid completely losing the message on an image when images are blocked, fill out the ALT attribute for each of your images. This ensures that the important content from the image (i.e. the text) is still passed along. This also helps in cases where the reader is using a text-only email client, as the image will be replaced by the ALT attribute.
6. Always Use Absolute Paths – Make sure to use absolute paths when referencing images. Relative paths (i.e. /images/my-image.jpg) will break as the email reader won’t know what the path to the image file is. Your image paths should look like this instead: http://www.mywebsite.com/emails/images/my-image.jpg. This is so simple that it can often be accidentally overlooked so make sure to double check your image paths before you send out your email.
7. File Size Matters – Using large images in your email design will slow down the download process on the reader’s end and may deter them from reading it all together. In some cases, exceptionally large emails may also be flagged for spam and viruses. To minimize these risks, optimize your images so that they have the smallest possible file size. This may require you to play around with JPG, GIF, and PNG formats to see which gives the highest image quality with the smallest file size. Where possible, use plain text to communicate your message.
8. Avoid Using Rich Media and Forms – In a browser, using Flash, animated images, and forms extends interactivity to the user experience. In an email, it bulks up the file size, raises security flags, or just doesn’t work at all. If there are interactive components attached to your email campaign, you are far better off linking the reader to your website than to attempt to embed them into the email itself. It’s an extra step but at least you can be sure that your rich media and forms will work. Also you can track links to your website this way.
9. Design For Minimalistic Reading – Just like designing for a web browser, you need to be considerate of screen resolutions and window sizes. In addition to this, email readers often have added sidebars and navigation on both sides of where your email content is displayed, further decreasing the amount of space you have to work with. I say keep the width of your email design at least within 800px (we commonly use 750 px or 640 px).