OUR BLOG

Featuring marketing tips, tech news, digital wonders, some personal things and everything in between . . .

GOOGLE Reader Going, Going, Gone


Monday July 1, 2013

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“The demise of Google Reader, if logical, is a reminder of how far we’ve come from the cuddly old ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Google days, in which there was a foreseeably-astonishing delight in the way Google’s evolving design tricks anticipated what users would like.”  James Fallows

Google Reader was officially put to rest today…

If you are shocked that Webconsuls is publishing a blog post today, we’re not surprised.  There was a time when we published a post every day of the week. A couple of years ago, when the economy started to improve we found that our clients needed our assistance in so many new ways…writing blog posts took a back seat. In fact in 2012 we only published 18 posts. But we tried to stay abreast of SEO and SMO news by using Google Reader.

Today there are a number of news articles about the termination of Google Reader, and we were particularly taken by one article that offered a very informative infographic that is appropriately called The Google Graveyard.

A Google Projects Resting Ground

Elisa Gabbert of WordStream wrote a great post and included this fabulous infographic. Read the infographic carefully, you might learn about the coming demise of other Google products.

 

Check out our newly remodeled website…

Hope you have enjoyed stopping by today. By the way, last week we updated our website, please stop by and take a look around.  Let us know what you think.

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Technology changes very often and same goes with the standards of web design. Traditionally, a website would have the foundation of the template built off of tables where as now, we have changed that to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) driven div tags.

What’s CSS? CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) is a simple mechanism for adding style to web documents. These styles implement the look and formatting of a website. Div tags allow us to link styles to CSS which can benefit your website more than you know.

How does CSS benefit you?

– Great for SEO. Improve website speed. The speed will be noticed by search engines that crawl to your. It’s simply a difference of milliseconds which is a big deal for crawlers. Loading time can change from .25 seconds for tables compared to .1 for CSS-based layout.

– Easy to maintain. Global site wide changes for the look and feel. Changing the fonts, colors, borders, and navigation can all be done from one location rather than each page individually. This saves time and money to eliminate the tedious process. This also gives your website a visual consistency throughout your website such as the same header, font size/color, etc.

– Cross-browser compatibility. Having your website be W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) compliant makes your website friendly to different browsers. If some of your clients use Mozilla Firefox and others IE (Internet Explorer) or Google Chrome, a website that is W3C compliant will display the same all browsers.

How does your website look?

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Website Optimizer gives us the opportunity to create different versions of our website pages and to test how they are received by actual visitors. There are many well documented design theories out there. If you want to move past theories and test your actual visitors going to your pages Website Optimizer is the tool with which to do it.

Color Theory Color theories, which colors will appeal to your audience and have a specific affect or mood. As fascinating as color theory is, it can feel about as scientific as a horoscope. Cultural differences, variations of shades, and the ebb and flow of fashion can be influential in shaping a viewers perception of your color scheme.

Eyetracking Human testing has established that content with pictures of people appears more professional to viewers of websites. Eyetracking studies have collected results which indicate that viewers are drawn to the line of site of the person in the picture. If you want to highlight specific text or a call to action on your site it is recommended that you use pictures in which the person is looking towards that text or call to action.

Unlike print work, where you would choose your paper stock and give a final okay to the printer before production, in website design we do not have control over the final viewing. Different computer operating systems, different browsers, and even different levels of technical proficiency on the part of the viewer are variables we have no control over.

As we make changes to our website how can we be sure that the results from the changes are not due to seasonal changes, adword campaigns, social media posts or a variety of other variables? There are so many interacting variables.

Website Optimizer allows for a more truly scientific experiment. Visitors are randomly sent to the different versions of the same page and their activities can be tracked and data collected to make your design decisions based on the visitors’ actual response to your website and the actions you wish to encourage. No theory!

If you would like to look into staging a truly scientific experiment with your website design we would be glad to help.

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I had a chance to attend the Microsoft Launch event in San Diego, while I was there I decided to drop in and Flip MindTouch, the developers of DekiWiki. Many thanks to Aaron and Damien for lunch, we had tasty lamb kabob something burritos. Very much enjoyed our discussion regarding the new Deki CMS product, now available thru SourceForge. If you plan on building a website and want to include all the functionality of a Wiki then this is a product you will want to take a look at.

Do you need help setting up your Wiki based Website?

Gotta love a good burrito, and a constantly evolving Wiki.

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That is if you want to buy your new Apple iPhone in Germany. The 8gb model will get a price cut from 399 euros to only 99 euros ($155) to clear stock out for the release of the 3G iPhone in 60 Days.

When iPhones hit the $150 price point in the US, EVERYONE will have one.

Is Your Site iPhone Ready?

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Adobe announces Photoshop Express. An online based photo editing software similar to Adobe Photoshop (used by professionals).

Photoshop Express will not be as advanced but will allow the general public to edit photos.

Whats the greatest thing about it? ITS FREE!

Free version of Photoshop Express Online

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In this newsletter we discuss…

  • New designs or redesigns by Webconsuls 
  • Mobile Phones and hand held devices Blogs 
  • 508 Compliance 
  • Getting listed on Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search 

New Web Designs by Webconsuls

Over the past few months, Webconsuls has been working on new web designs or redesigns for a number of our clients. We invite you to view these sites. Morningside Recovery An addiction and recovery treatment center in Newport Beach, CA. Pacific Coast Recovery Center A 30 day hospital based program which includes medical detox and hospital inpatient chemical dependency and pain track, located South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, CA Delytes Catering and Event Planning located in Temecula Valley, CA, serving Riverside and San Diego Counties. Your Best Look Michael Nelson, M.D. providing Lipotherapy and Mesotherapy, serving the greater Kansas City, MO area.Temecula Divorce Gina Famularo is a family law attorney practicing in Temecula, California.

Mobile Phones and Hand-Held Devices

Your web site may display beautifully on a PC, but how does it look on a mobile phone? You may be very surprised and a bit dismayed by the result! If you are curious, there is an easy test at: http://emulator.mtld.mobi/emulator.php

Simply access the URL shown above, select the type of device in the drop down and type in your URL without including the “www;” just the domain name.com/.net/.org, etc.

Fortunately, a solution is available. You can have Webconsuls design your site for mobile devices and use a specific “.Mobi,” top-level domain for the mobile site. “.Mobi” is dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices via the Mobile Web. Google Mobile and Yahoo Mobile’s OneSearch will undoubtedly grow in popularity, given the projected sales of hand-held and mobile devices. Current estimates are that 1.3 billion people will connect to the Internet via mobile phones by 2008.

Several of our Clients are already moving ahead at this time to position themselves early in mobile advertising and / or marketing. These include Morningside Recovery, Visions Adolescent Treatment Center and Captain Lord Mansion. Several other clients have already requested quotes and are close to placing orders with us.

To view how well .Mobi works. via a Browser:
A. Open a Web Browser and access: http://emulator.mtld.mobi/emulator.php
B. Select Nokia or Sony Skin
C. Type in: “captainlord.mobi” or “morningsiderecovery.mobi.” or “visionsteen.mobi.” After the http://, it is best to omit the “www.”
D. Click on Submit and wait for the phone screen shown to load.
E. There is a thin gray scroll bar inside the phone display. To navigate, place the cursor on any of the dial numbers and click.

(The best approach of course is to actually use a mobile device for viewing).

Special features included in our .mobi design packages are auto-dialing your business’ phone number. Even better, the mobile device will automatically recognize the .mobi extension availability as well. Images can be displayed and links work quite well. Sites that attain a rating of 5 out of a possible 5 in design quality get into the .mobi Directory and all of our designs meet that rating. Call today for details!

Important Note: In case you didn’t know, Domain age is a huge factor to Google’s rankings. How long you’ve been around, how long you’ve had people link to your site, how old are the sites that link to you, what has your back link growth and history been, etc, etc…..it’s all about Time and Age Factors. In a small way, the age of a domain gives the appearance of longevity and therefore a higher relevancy score in Google. Our recommendation to all clients is that no matter your current .mobi intentions, you should have us register “yourdomainname.mobi” for 5 years, to immediately start “the aging clock.” Cost for five years, with free-parking is only $125.00.

Call or write us if you wish to have a .mobi site developed or if you want to purchase the .mobi domain extension.

Blogs

As mentioned in our press release sent to you earlier this month, Webconsuls is anxious to help our Clients benefit in a variety of Social Marketing Optimization (SMO) opportunity areas. One of its components is “Blogs” or Blogging. For the uninitiated (or for those in Dennis’ generation who know what a slide rule is), a Blog is an online, regularly updated journal or newsletter that is readily accessible to the general public by virtue of being posted on a website. Why all the interest? A recent discussion by Site-Reference about benefits from Blogs (cut and pasted below) should “hone” your interest and attention:

  • Blogs are a great medium for your customers and prospects to get to know you and your services better. 
  • When you post information to a blog the blog software automates the process of updating your website with the new information and archiving old content; simplifying the chore of keeping your website fresh and relevant. 
  • Blogs can automatically announce (ping) to the world whenever new content is added. Again, this automated process simplifies the all-important (and normally time consuming) promotion process. 
  • Through the use of syndication methods your blog postings (writings) can be monitored easily by fans of your services/writing. 
  • Blogs provide a wonderful platform for readers to interact with you by leaving comments. 
  • Due to the highly social and interactive nature of blogs it is possible that links will begin to appear to your posts from other websites. This can increase your website’s link popularity and will only happen if you write engaging and source-worthy content. 

Call or write us to have a Blog added to your web site.

508 Compliance

Congratulations and kudos to Attorney Edna Deeb http://www.ednadeeblaw.com. Edna holds the distinction of being Webconsuls’ first Client to request, order and achieve overall accessibility compliance with regard to section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act.

Compliance is designing or modifying a web site to be usable by persons with visual or physical disabilities, often with the help of a screen reader device, captioning, etc. While not yet a requirement in most fields, (except government sites), this topic closely mirrors the more familiar ADA considerations and regulations. It is almost certain to become a consideration in new web site designs. Google already is testing “Accessible Web Search for the Visually Impaired.” A parallel benefit in achieving compliance is that many required enhancements also meet standard browser conformance (W3C) recommendations and therefore should help with traditional SEO and positioning rules.

Call or write us if you wish to have your site modified to be section 508 compliant.

How to List Your Business in Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search

Have you ever tried to search for your business in Google Maps or Yahoo Search? The easiest way to do this is to type in your business service or product and the name of the city and state where your business is located. What will be displayed on Google is “Local Business Results for…” and on Yahoo it will say “Local Results…” Did you find your business listing? You may find that if you type in the specific name of your business with the city and state, your listing will appear, but it may need to be updated with more details about your business. According to the Site Reference Newsletter, “Even if your business is done completely online, you may benefit from getting listed in Google Local or Yahoo’s local listings. People often feel more comfortable doing business with someone who is local; and potential customers may stumble across your business while searching for other things.”

We know that many of our clients are already listed in Google Maps and Yahoo Search, but for those of you who are not, we have found that this is one area of internet marketing where you need to register your own business. The reason for this is that both Google and Yahoo go through a security process to determine that you are a real business at that location. They either verify the information submitted by phoning your business or sending a postcard addressed to the business, which requires that you sign back into Google Maps or Yahoo Search and enter a PIN number.

As always, if you have additional questions, please feel free to call us and we will make every attempt to assist you with this value added feature.

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We have decided to send you our newsletter more frequently. You can expect one about every month.

In this newsletter we are going to discuss:
• Something you can do to generate traffic to your web site.
• An opportunity for our clients in the travel, hospitality, recreation industry
• How you can help yourself and us
• Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts
• Changing Web Site Hosts

Something You Can Do to Generate Traffic

Frequently our clients ask us how or what they can do to generate more traffic to their web site. We think the one thing, and maybe the best, is to get links to your site, especially links that are relevant to the theme of your site.

You should go to the web site of any local, trade, or professional organizations of which you are a member. Does that web site list, with links, the web sites of their members? If so, are you on the list with a link to your site?

As you spend time on the Internet you should be looking for any directories or specialized search engines that target the theme of your site. You should be looking for opportunities to get your site listed on these directories. Many of them are free, or only require that you link to them. Some are paid, and for those you need to do your evaluation of the economics.

Links to your site help in three ways

  1. Someone may click on the link and visit your site. Obviously if the themes of your site and site linking to you are similar, the more likely that it generate traffic. 
  2. Search engines track the number of sites linking to you. The theory is that the more links to you, the more important the site hence a higher ranking. 
  3. Search engine spiders crawl the Internet going from site to site and indexing web sites. Links to your site help drive the spiders to your site. 

An Opportunity For Our Travel, Hospitality, Recreation Business Clients

Centraltravelguide.com is a one-stop resource that provides consumers with an online national travel and vacation guide of information. We are delighted to announce a Partner Arrangement with Webconsuls, featuring a tailored program to provide special benefits to Webconsuls’ clients.

Although there are numerous “travel related” websites currently available on-line, Centraltravelguide.com sets itself apart by specializing in “a quick and easy searchable database” of information.

This content is free of the usual “banner” type of advertisements, pop-up windows, airfare offers, hotel discounts coupons and other travel related information that often interferes with a consumer’s informational needs.

The site is simply ‘sponsored’ by travel and vacation related websites. These sponsors are conveniently located in their corresponding area of the site. For example, our client, Magic Falls Rafting (www.magicfalls.com) is a sponsor of Centraltravelguide.com’s MAINE accommodations area, as well as its RAFTING section. With this system of sponsorship Magic Falls specifically targets those consumers applicable to their services.

Best of all there’s no cost to Magic Falls Rafting. All Magic Falls does is host a link to Central Travel Guide on their main index page. This linkage provides visitors of Magic Falls with a national database of information just clicks away. This type of co-sponsorship markets both Magic Falls Rafting and Central Travel Guide.

Centraltravelguide.com is in the process of building its network of sponsors. Besides sponsors in the vacation and travel industry, CTG is also visited by consumers from other websites outside the travel industry. Their database information is partnered with sites like Collegenews.com, a site that has received over 3 million hits annually for the past three years.

Central Travel Guide is like an online ‘inserted travel guide.’ Their database of information is currently available on 12 partner sites. The site, and it’s easily accessible database, was launched this past May and expects to fill up with partnerships quickly. For information on becoming a Sponsor, contact Webconsuls as soon as possible to ensure obtaining your State Sponsorship position.

How You Can Help Yourself and Us


Your web site was developed on a computer, probably by a designer, maybe one of our designers, maybe by yourself or a friend. In any case the site was transferred to what it called a Server where it is hosted on the Internet. So your designer has a copy and there is a copy on the server. When you hire Webconsuls for Web Site Marketing we download your site from the server, make critical changes for search engine placement, and put the site back on the Server. We also monitor the success of our work and may later make other changes to improve positioning.

Now let’s say you want to make a change to your site, maybe a modest change like changing a few images. If the designer works with the version on the designer’s computer and then uploads it to the Server, our important changes will be lost. It is therefore critical that you inform whoever is changing your site that they should work with the version on the Server so that they then start with the version that has our changes. You should also tell us that the site is being changed so that we make sure that our work has not been lost.

Redoing our work because someone else has destroyed it is not part of our arrangement with you. In the future we will charge for this work. Before starting we will tell you what has happened and provide an estimate at $75/hour.

Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts


Our Silver Package is designed for small sites, those about 5 pages or less, that are not in extremely competitive categories. For these sites we make our changes to up to 5 pages and submit to the major search engines and directories. Quarterly we resubmit the key pages and send a position report to the client. We have recently raised the sign up fee for Silver Accounts to $475. The quarterly fee is $75.

The Gold Package is designed for larger sites in more competitive categories. For these sites we work on up to 9 key pages. We resubmit monthly and send the position report on a monthly basis as well. The sign up fee for Gold Accounts has been raised to $500. The quarterly fee remains at $100.

Platinum accounts are large sites in very competitive categories. These sites are custom quoted. The schedule for submissions and the position report is done on a case by case basis and we generally add pages designed by us for search engine placement.

Changing Web Site Hosts


It is sometime necessary to change your web site host. This can be a simple process or it can get very involved. A new host needs to be found, Internet records must be updated, your site needs to be uploaded to the new server, any server functions that your site uses need to be tested and perhaps redone, and email accounts may need to be reconfigured.

We have recently moved the Webconsuls web site to Millennium, a hosting company located in Southern California. As part of the move we will have to redo the area that processed credit cards on-line, so that functionality is currently down at our site.

We will work with you if you want to change your web site host. However we will need to charge if there is extensive work involved. Contact us and we can discuss.

Dennis Helfand and Dick Fay, Managing Partners.

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We are writing to keep you informed about some major changes in search engine marketing and to bring you up to date on activities at Webconsuls. Please read this newsletter carefully as it contains information that can keep you ahead of your competition.

Paid Registrations

Paid Search Engine Reviews

There is a growing trend toward paid search engine registration. We have an article on our website which we encourage you to read. You will soon be receiving your latest Position Report from Webconsuls. There will also be an email with recommendations from Webconsuls on paid registrations for you.

Many of the most popular search engines – Yahoo, Looksmart, Excite etc. essentially require paid registrations for commercial sites. You pay a fee to have someone look at the site and determine if it should be included in the directory. The fee is paid whether or not the site is included.

Pay Per Click

Another growing area is the so-called pay-per-click search engine. For these, you bid on a search term and pay your bid if anyone searching on that term clicks to your site. The higher the bid, the higher your position. These engines also partner with other engines to increase your exposure. The best known of this type is GoTo, and several of our clients are registered with GoTo. However GoTo now has a minimum bid of 5 cent per term and a minimum monthly charge of $20 for each site.

We have been researching a new “pay per click engine” that is getting high marks of late. It is called FindWhat.com. There is neither a minimum bid nor any monthly minimum. Since it is so new, many categories are as yet untapped. A bid of $.01 will often place your web site in first.

There is an added benefit. For those web sites occupying a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place position, FindWhat.com guarantees that your site will also be listed on the first page of the Excite.com engine under a category called “sponsored sites.” We tested this with two clients this week (five keywords each) and within a few hours, each web site was found on Excite’s first page under that keyword! In many cases, our 1st place bid was only a penny. Normally, Excite charges $199 to review submissions. This seems like a good deal.

If you are interested in either of these, you should first visit the site at GoTo or FindWhat and search on the terms that interests you. The results will show the bid to obtain the top spots.

Inktomi Paid Submission

The last new service that we want to mention is a paid submission service to Inktomi. Inktomi is used primarily by other Search Engines for Indexing. When a site gets listed on Inktomi, it becomes immediately accessible to 125 Web search partners including AOL, iWon, MSN & HotBot. For an interim period only, Webconsuls will register one or more Web Pages for our clients for only $16.00/per page. If you are not now listed on the Inktomi partner engines, then you are encouraged to do this as we think it is very cost effective. The Inktomi registration fee is an annual charge.

Webconsuls Search Engine Friendly Website Developments

Site Designs/Redesigns

Webconsuls continues to turn out new/redesigned web sites at an increasing pace. Please consider us in helping you with page updates, completes site redesigns, database capabilities, or e-commerce/shopping cart additions. You’ll find our pricing to be extremely competitive and our workmanship of the highest quality. Recent site completions include:
Newport Channel Inn, Newport Beach, CA

Kauai Vacation Home, Poipu, HI

HOSPITALITY PROPERTY “FOR SALE” MARKETING

Helfand-Enterprises, a division of Webconsuls, LLC is engaged in assisting property owners and/or realtor-brokers to bring attention to properties for sale. We use our Internet Marketing expertise to help property owners sell their hospitality property. This is entirely a risk-free program that is enjoying excellent reviews from participants. There are no fees of any kind unless and until we find a buyer for you and additionally, we create a “for sale” web page at no cost. Examples of pages we’ve created can be viewed here.

BUSINESS SALES ONLINE

At the request of several commercial brokers, Webconsuls is about to launch a new service to list businesses for sale on-line. The concept will be modeled after the successful hospitality property program. We are still ironing out a few details. If you have a business to sell and are interested, please contact us.

Dennis Helfand and Dick Fay, Managing Partners.