Notes From the Desk

In the modern version of the cola wars, Google Vs. Bing, Google has been making a number of changes to their search engine. Some successful, while others were made hastily to keep up or ahead of their main rival.

This past week it appears they completed major changes to the image search aspect of google.com. I must say I both love and hate the changes at the same time. At first glance the new look is very clean with the image search refinement menu on the left (images size, type & colors in the image), to the right Google eliminated multiple pages of results for one page that has a long vertical scroll, in a “Louvre style” image display. This cluttered image stacked on image style creates a a cluttered look that jars the eyes and makes it hard to view and explore the results.

Don’t get me wrong, Google did good overall with their changes. The image results seem more relevant to the query & I’m a fan of the rollover effect they have employed. When you rollover an image you get a slight zoom with details about the image. This is good because it gives you a slightly clearer image before you commit to clicking and displays only the details to the current image rolled over

The part I’m particularly a fan of is when you click to see a full size image. In the past you had to search the result site for the image Google found. Now when you click to see the full size image, Google will still take you to the result site, but displays the full size image in an Ajax pop up window over top of the website. making it easier to find.

So over all I would have to give Google an A- for their effort. While I find the Image result page crowded & cluttered (kinda the exact opposite of the google mission statement), the important aspects of search refinement, relevant results, & ease of use are more important. I’m sure we will be seeing Bing’s response to Google’s changes shortly. So keep your eyes peeled for them.

Since the mid-late 90′s music artists slowly lost a big promotional tool, MTV, to reality, game, & talk shows. You see when MTV was “Music Television” they would play these 3-5 minute clips called Music Videos. If you fast forward to the new millennium, a prime replacement to MTV has taken over & has no end in site. That replacement is Internet Music Videos (IMV) assisted by sites like vimeo.com & youtube.com. The beauty of these sites and IMV is you don’t need to be KISS or Aerosmith to produce a quality video for the masses. Unlike MTV, the people get to chose what they want to see on the internet. This opened the flood gates for smart/inventive local & indie bands to jump on the scene and make some waves.

The best example of this to date is OK Go‘s “Here it Goes again” video that threw them into the main stream and onto countless TV shows. As OK Go continues in their career they have evolved their videos with the latest release of “End Love”. But with this process OK Go is able to reach millions, where in the old standard of MTV they would have only been aired at 4:00am and faded into obscurity.

Another example of bands utilizing the concept of IMV is Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (GPN). In a lead up to the release of their self titled album, GPN created stripped down performances of their songs with a single camera and no cuts. The release of these IMV’s did more then any interview in a magazine could do, they introduced the world to the new music of GPN for free and created a buzz that otherwise may not of been there.

This concept or formula is evolving and being replicated by many. Even in it’s simplest forms videos on the web are powerful Red Wanting Blue has utilized it to inform their fans of their recent signing with fanatic records and the release of their album “These Magnificent Miles” on a national stage. The key to this is not letting your brain get in the way and finding a solution that works for you.

Flip UltraHD Camcorder + YouTube Membership = Endless Possiblities

There is an animated gif out there from the late 90’s that I ran into while looking at a local church’s website. It is an animated gif with 3 bowing monks and below the monks it simply states “Eternally Under Construction”. The website was trying to make a small religious pun, but the underlying statement of a website being eternally under construction is how every company needs to view their website and it’s function within their business.

The brochure mindset is an idea that dominates business owners’ perceptions of what a website should be. A brochure is usually a tri-fold piece of paper that states some facts about the company and probably won’t be updated for a few years. While brochures are extremely useful and their place in marketing will never disappear, applying the same rules and thought process to your website is applying old school rules to a brand new beast and it just doesn’t work.

When starting out on the development of your website, you need to come in with the mind set that your website will be a living, breathing marketing tool that must grow and evolve over time. A website is not something you can build and forget about. Companies that take this approach to their website will quickly see their numbers dwindle.

Here are some quick tips on how to keep your site growing and evolving through time.

1. Publish press releases or news articles on your website. Have a section on your home page for a link to the article so it is at your site visitors’ finger tips.
2. If you can’t afford to redesign your website, alter the color scheme. Just like a room in your house, a fresh coat of paint can visually transform your website.
3. Swap out your main home image once a month. This image is usually the first thing that catches a viewer’s eye.

The goal of these changes or others is to give visual clues to your site visitors that your site is up-to-date and evolving as your business or area of business evolves. If your site appears stale or stagnant, than people will think your company is stale or stagnant.

The greatest thing about the World Wide Web is the way it levels the playing field for the little man. The web puts small businesses and Indie bands in direct competition with their larger counterparts. The bonus is that unlike TV ads or a traditional print ad, you don’t have to break the bank to compete.

Scott Terry, the lead singer of Red Wanting Blue, was talking about this subject in a recent interview. Terry commented on how bands utilize the web as a promotional tool. In the beginning everyone had their own website and would stencil it on everything from t-shirts to equipment boxes. Then with the success of people like Colbie Caillat making it big with MySpace, everyone switched from their own website to their own MySpace page and began plastering that address all over their equipment and shirts. Finally he expressed wonder of where all the self-promoting on the web would go next.

Right now we are starting to see the next phase of this self-promotion and brand identity cycle shake out with other social media options taking center stage. With all of the options out there where do you begin?

No matter what your company or group does on the web, if it is going to succeed you have to build your web identity on a solid foundation. That foundation is your website because you have complete control over the design, features, and content. This is the one place that is 100% your company. Social media sites like Facebook & MySpace are no substitute for a custom website. Social media sites only give the illusion of control, not real access to all facets of the site.

After you have laid the foundation of a great website, you should next integrate the features like a blog, online store and discussion forums. The days of hosting your blog, online store, or forum with a third party site (i.e. yoursite.blogspot.com) is over. There are too many full featured, easily customizable options out there to use a third party site. The URL for your blog, forum, or store should be yoursite.com/blog, anything else and you are really promoting the blog company and not your site.

Then there are the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. What do you do about those sites? To put it simply, use them to your advantage. In my opinion every company should have a Twitter account, it’s too easy of a promotional option not to. When choosing social media outlets, choose wisely. If you can’t do it well, you shouldn’t do it at all. A forgotten or poorly utilized Twitter or Facebook page is quickly giving potential clients a bad taste in their mouths. Always be on the lookout for the next trend that fits your company and helps you reach your goals.

Finally, know that a positive web identity that pays its dividends isn’t something that happens on accident. It’s something you build and cultivate over time. To start, be sure to build on the solid foundation of a great website and grow from there.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the tweaking of your web site that takes it from being listed as #350 on a google search to the top 20. What is the point of having a web site if no one can find it? Search engines like google.com and yahoo.com are always changing how they rank web sites, so you must constantly be working on your web site to bring it closer to the top of the list. Follow these 5 tips to help improve your ranking.

1. Create a standard Site Map and XML sitemap: For those that don’t know, a site map¹ is a page in your web site that lists every page of your web site in a single location. You may ask yourself “Doesn’t my navigation² already do that for me?” Well, not really. For the most part navigation only shows the top landing pages. There could be many other pages inside each of the landing pages. While a spider³ will find those pages eventually, a sitemap is faster and you can guarantee a spider finds every page by using a sitemap, while it may not with just a navigation. Also, if your navigation utilizes flash or java script it is highly likely a search engine spider cannot follow the links in the navigation. I recommend everyone have both a standard HTML sitemap⁴ and a XML sitemap⁵. This covers all your bases. While a search engine like google prefers the XML sitemap, you still leave the possibility of another using the HTML sitemap if need be.
2. Add your web site to relevant directories: For good search engine rankings you have to have inbound links⁶ to your web site, and a good way to start getting those is by submitting your site to relevant directories on the web. Submitting your site to dmoz.org or paying to submit your site to http://dir.yahoo.com creates that inbound link to your site. Don’t go crazy with this and paste your site in any directory or forum out there. If a search engine spider thinks your site isn’t posted in a relevant spot of a directory or forum you could get black listed, which just sets your site back months or years in SEO rankings.
3. Create a unique title for each page: Often each page in a web site has the same title or no title at all. When a search engine lists a page of your site in the search results, it lists the page title with each entry. You don’t want your pages to come up Untitled or with a generic title that doesn’t answer the searchers’ questions. Give each page a unique descriptive title so the searcher knows instantly what they are getting.
4. Add your business to google maps: People frequently use search engines like their local yellow pages. They often do searches like “Cincinnati Hair Salon” or “Sporting Goods Ohio”. When a search is entered in this fashion google will show local results at the top of the page.  To get your business to pop up here create a google account and then add your location to google maps.
5. Let your web site marinate: While you should always be updating and working on your site, there is a limit. Remember it takes at least a month if not longer (up to 3 months) for your site to get indexed by search engines. Tweaking your text every day can be a waste of time. What you need to do is work smarter, not harder. Review your changes before they are made and implement them in bunches. Don’t chicken peck text changes or you won’t see the full results of your work.

¹ Sitemap: Apage within your web site that has a complete list of links to all pages in your web site

² Navigation: The main group of links at the top or to the left of a web site.

³ Spider: A program used by search engines to read the contents of your web site. And they follow the links on web pages to get to the next web page in your site.

⁴ HTML Sitemap: Is the same as an XML sitemap except it is created in the standard web code and is visually friendly for visitors to view on web sites

⁵ XML Sitemap (Extensible Markup Language): Code that allows web site developers to create custom code that displays the sitemap in clean and simple code for Search Engines to understand.

⁶ Inbound Links: Links from other web sites to your web site.

Recently, a friend of mine was in a job interview and was asked to explain a few things on his Facebook page that the company was curious about. The first thing they asked him was to explain the religion he had posted on his Facebook profile. Racking his brain, he tried to remember what he had posted on Facebook. It finally dawned on him that he was still listed as a “Follower of the Church of Darrell Williams.” While this may be a funny inside joke among friends, it may not be so funny to potential clients or places of employment. Is there such a thing as a personal Internet identity that is separate from your business identity? As with everything on the Internet, there is no clear-cut yes or no answer, but with a little luck we can wade through the murkiness.

First off, a good rule of thumb to think of when dealing with posting anything on the Internet is that once it’s on the Internet it is there forever. Even if you remove those comments or embarrassing photos, they are most likely still out there somewhere. With websites like archive.org you can bet that there is copy of something you posted 5 years ago.

So does this mean the end of fun on the Internet? Can I post on Facebook, Flicker or MySpace without being scared I could get fired for what I just posted? What this does mean is that you need to think twice about what you post. Students and employees throughout the country have been expelled or fired for photos or comments posted on Facebook and MySpace.

If you want to control what the public can see of your profile on the Internet, make sure to use the security settings on forums and social networks. Make it so only approved friends can view your information. But don’t forget that your friends can download the pictures from your pages and repost them, so this is no guarantee of safety.

The bottom line is the Internet and social networking sites have made the world a much smaller place. While your personal Internet identity and business Internet identity are not one yet, the lines are blurring and the day will come when what you post on the internet can and will come back to haunt you. The Internet is still a playground where you can have fun, but remember the rule of thumb, what is posted on the Internet is there forever.