What’s Your Site Rank?

July 12th, 2010 by David

woorankIs it just us, or is search engine marketing getting to be a big thing? First it was just HAVING a website. Next it was social media and now we’re trending more towards combining the two for an even greater return via search engine marketing. What’s next? Mobile technologies (well, yeah, it is actually)?!

All of this can be confusing and hard to understand. Luckily, there are a few good sites out there that put all of this information into one nice scorecard of sorts. Oftentimes, these sites will rank your website against others so you can see where you stand among your competition. Here’s a few of our favorite sites to get you started:

  • http://websitegrader.com/
  • http://www.seomoz.org/tools
  • http://www.woorank.com

With these recommendations and rankings in mind, it’s time to get to work. If you don’t have a twitter or facebook yet, now is clearly the time. Still don’t even have a website? Well that’s a prerequisite to pass any of the tests above. Need to tweak your title tags or increase your inbound links? Better start editing and sharing now. These efforts require constant nurturing and maintenance.

When you’re done optimizing your site with these recommendations, double check to make sure that your site is still user friendly. Oftentimes you can throw all the best keywords into title tags, but have the end result look like garbage to your customers. In our opinion, the customer experience is first and foremost and all else lays somewhere behind that. There is a certain sense of give and take here to be professional and found vs playing the system for short term recognition.

After your site has been tweaked to your satisfaction it is time to wait. Your scores will not be updated automatically because oftentimes these scores rely on Google rankings and the like which often take days or weeks to crawl a site again. So be patient and check back often. OH, and don’t forget to mark your calendar for another 6 months from now. You’ll want to start this all over again then too.

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Don’t get Hacked like Bieber

July 6th, 2010 by David

A few days ago the notorious hacker group from the forum site 4chan hacked youtube and redirected many of Justin Bieber’s videos to “different” content. They made popup windows appear telling users that the teen idol was dead or otherwise indicating that the site had been hacked. Though this prank was relatively harmless, it gives us an insight into what can happen when vulnerabilities are left unchecked in a website.

I’m sure nobody reading this want their site or content hacked. In the case of the YouTube hacking, there was nothing that Justin Bieber or any of the users could have done to prevent the hacking. This hack was created by leaving special characters and lines of code in the comments section of the youtube videos enabled commenters to control or re-direct the page. Users could not prevent this, but rather it was Google’s fault for allowing comments to execute any sort of coding.

The only way for you to protect your content on a third party site (such as youtube, facebook, twitter, etc) is to ensure that your password is strong enough so that your username and the access that goes along with it is not stolen. Remember, it is always a good idea to have a strong password that contains letters (capitals and lowercase), numbers,  and symbols while not containing words that could be found in a dictionary.

If you have and control your own website, security is a different issue altogether. While many large organizations may actually pay hackers to try to break into their site, it can be safe to assume that your small business doesn’t have that kind of money. That being said, there are some things that can be done to prevent hacking. Here’s a few good ideas:

1) Make sure your comments and input forms only allow text and possibly basic html such as links.
2) Set your comments to be approved by an administrator
3) Don’t let anonymous users have special access to your site
4) Control and maintain your users list and only allow people the minimum credentials that they need. In other words, do not give someone administrative privileges if all they need is to edit documents.
5) Upgrade your site’s software if it uses a CMS backend.
6) Change your password regularly.
7) Check your code yourself or have someone who knows how code should look check it out for you to make sure that it is solid, current and complete.

While these may not be perfect, and there are many other ways that your site could be hacked possibly without you being able to prevent it, it gives a good start to protecting your site. By doing these few simple things you can have better security than Google did during its most recent attack and hopefully prevent yourself from having much more pain and suffering in the future.

As for Justine Bieber, his videos have since been restored. Oh, baby.

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QR Codes — What they are. What they can do. Why you should care.

June 30th, 2010 by David
Scan this code on your phone and be re-directed to the DDT homepage

Scan this code on your phone and be re-directed to the DDT homepage

QR Codes are 2 dimensional bar codes designed in the mid 90’s for inventory tracking systems. Their use has since been modified and standardized to incorporate more than inventory management, though. The use of these 2D codes has spread commercially, beginning in Japan, and used by businesses, books, stores, product manufactures, advertisers and the like to enhance marketing materials. QR codes are just beginning to garner press here in the US, so should your business jump aboard?

Well, there may be good reason to do so. For one, QR Codes are cheap free and can be created easily on a plethora of sites. The actual codes themselves are standardized by ISO so you know that there are standards. QR Codes have many uses when scanned (discussed below) including displaying text, redirecting to a URL, dialing a telephone number, creating an SMS message or E-Mail, passing along a V-Card (a virtual business card containing your contact information), a google maps location or a social network address. These codes are typically used by mobile users who take a picture of the code with their cell phone camera thus lending itself nicely to the new mobile breakthrough that is happening right now.

How to use a QR Code:

iPhone scan of QR Code

iPhone scan of QR Code

In mainstream use today, QR Codes are displayed on any flat surface from a piece of paper, to a t-shirt, to a screen. Users will then take a picture of the QR code using their cell phone and an application that was meant to read and translate these QR Codes. There are many free applications out there for all devices and many, such as the android-based cell phones, come pre-installed with such a reader on them. Once a picture of the code has been taken, the user will be shown either the text, e-mail, contact information, text message or be re-directed to a website for more content.

How can this be useful?

QR Codes can be useful by allowing others to quickly locate more information about you or store it in a more convenient way. Say you add a QR Code to your business card with your contact information (VCard) embedded in the QR Code. Instead of having people lose your business card, they will be able to scan your code and add all of your contact info to their cell phone right away. Or perhaps you have marketing materials and feel like you would like to display more about what your product/service can do and there just isn’t enough room on the pamplet. Or maybe paper isn’t the best medium, and you’d prefer people look at your ad and visit your online video. The addition of a QR code can help make these a reality by continuing on the marketing experience onto the web. Then not only will they have seen your marketing material, but will have also visited your website and received further information previously unavailable or less accessible.

QR Codes can be created for any business and with their no-cost status and the impending explosion of the mobile market, this may be a tool businesses should strongly consider implementing in the near future.

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SEO and Web Design

June 15th, 2010 by David

Perhaps you’re confused about what SEO is exactly and how it differs from web design. After all, isn’t a web page all you need — then you tell people about it, Google “crawls” it, and you’re all set? Well yes, at the most basic level that is probably true. But the whole “build it and they will come” mentality is fatally flawed. Here’s why.

Search engines crawl the web looking for new content and websites all the time. They don’t do this completely randomly though, but hop around to sites that it knows changes a lot first and finds links from those sites that direct it to new sites and so on and so forth. That is why it is important to list your wonderful new website with many popular, high traffic’d sites. This makes sure that Google will see your site in a quick fashion.

Once Google get there, though, you don’t want it to take a look around and leave. You want Google and the other search engines to stay a while and really get an understanding of what each page is and means. To do this, your site content should be easy to read and should stay on topic. When writing up what each page will say, have your customers in mind and continually remind them of the product or service that you are offering them and why it fits their needs. Google will pick up on this topic trend and index your site for the keywords, and themes, you use.

Behind the actual text there is subtext which many of the search engines also will either display or use to rank search results. This is what we call metadata and typically isn’t seen when you visit a webpage. Each page on your website should be optimized with 3-5 keywords and a 2 sentence description in the metadata. This will also help sites find the relevant topic of the page so that when somebody types that word or phrase into a search engine, that page on your site (the relevant information) will appear in the results.

Make sure to also choose a strong, descriptive URL because search engines will use text in your web address to find results as well. This, combined with you titles and header tags are two of the most critically important ways of getting your site indexed by the search engines in a way that will display the desired results to your users.

Finally, tag your media. If you are using an image, give it an appropriate name. Use tags for your videos and audio as well. Search engines have a hard time figuring out what the content of these things actually are so they are solely reliant on you tagging and naming your media appropriately in the metadata or caption areas.

Website load time and structure can also play a part in determining how well you are indexed and ranked. Make sure to keep your site simple for users and to avoid lots of fancy javascript and other code. Keep it simple, remember your audience and optimize each page for relevant keywords. Doing these things will put you on the path towards having more than just a website…but a destination.

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The Social Stakeout

June 4th, 2010 by David

urlbar

So maybe you own your business name online, or a close derivative. This is a no brainer in today’s world of e-commerce and online recognition (if you don’t still, see us after class). But have you ever considered owning your own name online? In today’s growing world, it is critical to differentiate yourself from the pack — and with the likelyhood that someone else out there also possesses your name, it may be in your best interest to own yourself.googsearch

I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the internet isn’t going away anytime soon. This network of information continues to grow and more and more people continue to be plugged in, and in more places. This means that information growth is huge and it is easy to get barried in the mess. That is why it is crucial to begin building a foundation for your online self. It all begins with a domain name that closely resembles your own name. This is critical for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes as the URL (the thing followed by “www.”)  heavily influences your search rankings on Google, Bing, and the likes.

If you want to be found online (and trust us, you do), you had better start building a sound foundation now. Today’s offline relationships are being resumed online and vice versa thus building and growing the amount of contact and information available. But what if the information that a potential employer, a boss, or even a potential client finds about you isn’t really you — but someone else with your name? Well, that can be both embarassing and damanging. It could cost you the job, the client, or maybe even a friend.

So start building your online home. Start with owning your name as a domain name. If it’s already taken, try adding your middle initial or your middle name. Still taken? Cator your site to who you most want to see it. For instance, my resume is posted at HireDavidLanphear.com, while all of my social networks are the prominent focus of my more casual DaveLanphear.com. The point is to own you, or a part of you online and to link it to other interesting facts about you. YOU want to be the most prominent source about YOU. After all, you’re your own best representative. Now take control of your reputation online and start building a solid foundation today.

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Ubuntu reads your iPhone’s secrets, finds bat cave location

May 28th, 2010 by Liam
Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

The first time I used Linux was about 6 years ago when Red Hat 8.0 hit the public scene. Linux, and in particular the Red Hat and Ubuntu distributions, is a popular operating system that competes with the likes of Windows and Mac OS X. One of the neat features was being able to poke in Windows (XP, Win98) hard drives to retrieve “protected” files for my friends over the network or through a floppy. It was even possible to use a simple female to female USB cord to connect my linux laptop to a live Windows XP session at the login screen prompt and bypass the prompt to automatically load into the administrator account. The scary part about all of this is that it’s still possible today.

If I were to pop in a homebrew (geek talk for home-made) Backtrack Linux live disk into your computer, I still have complete control over your system. I could be on the same network as you, and could access your administrator account if it’s not setup correctly (like 98% of Windows users, which comprise of roughly 90% of the total Operating Systems market). This is still possible today, even with Windows 7.

Mac’s are not so easy. Mac’s running OS X 10.4 or later are even more difficult. Yet, Apple devices using the iPhone OS: jailbroken, unlocked, and now completely vulnerable are left open to possible data theft. No jailbreak required. Just a normal AT&T iPhone. Without any hack at all.

How is this done?

Well the glorious discovery had already been known to me personally since I actually sync my iPhone with Amarok — an iTunes alternative. Even with a pin lock, Ubuntu Linux can bypass this requirement when you simply plug it into a computer running Linux. What does this mean?iphone

Your music, photos, videos, email, Google Map Data, Google safe browsing database,  game content, and anything else on your iPhone can be copied, changed, or deleted; without a trace. AT&T recently announced that 40% of iPhone users are Enterprise users. My assumption is that Fortune 500 companies assume their data is safe on their phones, but the reality of the situation is that your data is not secured. What’s worse than this?

The issue has been reported to Apple, but so far they are unable to duplicate the problem. I suppose people will think twice about forgetting where they leave their iPhones.

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Glee + Social Media = <333

May 28th, 2010 by David

Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a little show on Fox called Glee. For those of you who have been living under a rock (or are above 35) I”ll give you a little summary. Glee is a show about a group of high schoolers who are all a part of their school’s glee, or theatre, club. Every episode takes on some high school perception, style of music, or is a tribute to some artist. Throughout the show, the individuals or the club as a whole will break out into song — a sort of TV Musical.

Well, not only is the show a success but it’s marketing has been too. With a target audience of those younger adults, glee has successfully leveraged the power of social media to interact with its dedicated fan base (now called “Gleeks” or “Gleekers”). So just how did they do it?

A) They knew their audience and went for it. glee1

Gleeks are typically in their teens and early twenties, a prime target to engage via social media particularly facebook and itunes. On the Glee Fan Page, fans could not only interact with each other but could have cast members (such as the notorious Sue Sylvester) post updates and teasers about the show.

B) They created a spokesperson and made her the symbol

Sue Sylvester, a comedic figure who also happens to be the antagonist, was chosen to be the voice of the social media campaign. This is important because fans knew who they were engaging with and could relate to her personality. It carried the theme well from TV to social media and made the character seem “real”.

C) They used multimedia to appeal to fans

The Glee campaign was heavy on its use of multimedia. They released teaser videos, created interviews with the cast, and made a whole music video that was unlike anything the cast had done before. Something to make Gleeks who thought they knew what was coming say ‘What was that?’ This got people talking and discussing what could possibly be coming next and stirred a great deal of word of mouth marketing.

D) They released new songs shortly after they aired

Glee Tweets

Glee Tweets

While this won’t work for most businesses, Glee is able to sell more than just their TV show. They can go above that and sell their songs as well. These songs are available to download almost immediately after they are aired leading to impulse purchases and a “got to get them all” type of attitude. if you haven’t heard the latest glee rendition of a song — what have you been doing?

E) They made it fun

Glee is all about having fun and they delivered spot on. Through their facebook page and twitter account you could always look forward to a quick laugh, bright colors, and some good music. They always had some fresh and fun content to browse and something to make you anxiously await Tuesday night.

F) They involved their audience

Not only did they post, but they got feedback from their audience. Glee ran a contest to determine who would become a guest star on an episode of glee. Tens of thousands of fans submitted videos of themselves which can then be used by Fox to advertise anymore and even further spread the viral effect of the show. They also posted polls for fans to participate in and asked questions (some ridiculous) encouraging fan response.

G) They kept it consistent

Whether you were getting an update from their facebook feed or their twitter account, they kept the look and feel the same. This helped customers identify with that central character (Sue) who spread across all their platforms as the lead spokesperson and showed consistency in effort and style through the campaign.

Though Glee is certainly different from your ordinary small business, many of these principles remain the same. Before you start a social media campaign, decide who your target audience is. From there you’ll choose the social media sites that best serve that market. Then let your audience know who they’re talking to. Nobody wants to chat with a  computer — let them know who you are in an open and fun way. Use multimedia tools to enhance your campaign, even if they’re not the best. And finally, have fun with the people you engage. Don’t give up, and make sure that you involve the people you interact with consistently. Make them brand loyalists and encourage the syndication of your content onto others.

If you follow Glee’s lead, there just might be a standing ovation for all your hard work.


An example of a teaser video

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5 Rules of Thought Leadership Blogging

May 25th, 2010 by Brian
blogging101

Blogging is a form of social media that is used and often abused. When consumers hop on the web for insight, they’re looking for quick and easy text. It’s a great way to build up thought leadership, but in order for this to be achieved, your audience must first actually read your post.

So just what will get you that edge you need for readability? Follow these 5 rules to retain and entertain your readers!

  1. Keep it simple – don’t write verbose essays, make sure the entry is quick and easy to understandblogging
  2. Know your audience – remember who you’re targeting: potential customers and consumers looking for general knowledge. Do not use jargon specific to the industry. Write in a way that an 8th grader can understand.
  3. Include a minimum of 2 visuals – visuals not only make the text look less wordy, but they also catch people’s eye.
  4. Space it out – Separate your entries into paragraphs and do it often. Breaking up the text will make the entry appear easier to read and it will keep the reader’s attention.
  5. Make your point –Don’t ramble and go off on tangents. Each entry is made for a purpose so state your case and do it quick or you’re going to lose the reader.

 

Blogs should never be a pain to read, especially when they’re providing great thought leadership insight to their readers. Engage your readers, don’t put them to sleep! Now get out there and start blogging the right way!

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What the new Google APIs mean to you now.

May 24th, 2010 by David

Last week, Google held a huge conference of geeky programmer types in order to make some surprising new announcements. Among these announcements was the release of new APIs for developers to jump in on and use. The new API sets Google decided to include were a brand new Latitude API, a Buzz API, and a Feed API.

So what is an API? API stands for Application Programming Interface. Pretty much, software is built in such a way that you can open up bitsand pieces of the software individually. So instead of going straight to the application or website that you need the service of, you can go elsewhere. This allows other people (3rd parties) to utilize some of the features that other web developers have created. For example, you don’t have to go on twitter everytime you tweet. That’s because twitter has opened its API to outside developers to create their own platforms on. So now we can go on Tweetdeck, CoTweet, Hootsuite, Brizzly, or one of the many numerous other twitter applications to tweet. That’s because twitter was nice enough to open up it’s API so that other software programmers can build in some (twitter decides how much) of the twitter functionality.

So you can see how this can be kind of a big deal. Opening an API is like giving developers a new toy, and with the APIs that Google released last week there could be a lot of playing to do. There is no telling what new innovative products will come from opening an API, but both Google and the 3rd party that dreams them up stand to gain. But how can you benefit from this?

Right now, just stay on the lookout. If you had previously been using Tweetdeck as your Twitter manager of choice, grab the update as it has utilized the new API sets already. You’re now able to Buzz and share your location on Google latitude straight from within Tweetdeck. In the days (weeks) to come, you’ll surely see more new advancements come out for each one of these API sets. Let’s take them individually with a few lighthearted predictions as to what you may expect:

photoGoogle Latitude — In case you haven’t heard of it (it’s pretty new) Google Latitude is Google’s attempt to get into the geo-location tagging game, sorta. It has decided not to take the check-in route so many others (like our beloved Foursquare) have pursued, but instead is trying to give an always-on always up to date view of where your friends are at any given point. it sounds kind of creepy, but it’s actually sort of cool. And unlike Buzz, there are some built in privacy settings.

What to expect: Latitude has some great potential. It also has the potential to absolutely EXPLODE the location scene. With its integration into Google Maps you can expect mash-ups (combination of two different company’s APIs to make one new site) galore. It will only be natural to have twitter embedded along side your location eventually. Store will be able to push out updates and offers to their friends in real time if they notice that they are close by. The Latitude API will allow for increased mobile marketing (the opt-in kind) and a hyper-awareness on where customers are and how to best reach them.

Google Buzz — Google Buzz is Google’s much criticized attempt to enter the social media and social sharing space. It is intended to allow people to better share their information and things that they find on the web. I’ve been using Google Buzz for a couple of weeks now and have found it to actually be very handy. It’s a great way to show others what you’re reading and what you think they might be interested in too. This is a great way to expose your thought leadership, another avenue with which to promote your blog, and a wonderful means of helping out your intended customer find what they need.

What to expect: Opening the API to Google Buzz means that it is no long constrained just inside of G-Mail. This makes Buzz a legitimate competitor to Twitter and even may steal market share from delicious and the likes. It is my understanding, though, that Buzz will soon become the 4th application sitting just outside of the big 3 (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). It is a great way to share what you find on the web, but twitter still seems much more natural…at least for now. Expect location (Buzz has location features that may slightly outweigh twitter’s) to be a big push with Buzz offerings with user’s able to push what they physically experience to the internet easier in all forms of media.

Google Feed — Google is now looking to overtake basic RSS. It’s earlier APIs allowed for updating content but nowhere near in the fashion Google is pushing for now. Google Feeds were nice, but often slightly delayed and available for some things and not for others.

What to expect: Google has sped up its Feed process so that updates come as soon as they happen and come directly to the browser. This will allow businesses to stay better informed, and users to get the quickest updates possible. It turns the web into an always updated powerhouse where you’ll never have to leave the browser. This will certainly advance Google’s cloud initiative as well as their Chromium project (where they want to create a whole operating system that is just a browser). Google’s feed API will make the web like a 24/7 stock exchange, all living in the real time web. This can also enhance the internet of things, the idea that every appliance and tool you own could someday be internet ready and all talk to each other (the refrigerator runs out of milk, so it sends a message to your car’s GPS to plan a route to the store).

All of these things are very exciting and could certainly change the landscape of how businesses promote and stay on top of the latest trends. The only problem — we’re not quite there yet.

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Social Means Online and Off

May 20th, 2010 by David

Social Media has become an outrageous buzz word today. Social this, social that. It’s been thrown around so much that its meaning has become so construed that it hardly even applies to being social anymore. Being social is, by definition, getting out there and engaging.

The online world exploded the social scene in the past 5 years. First there was MySpace, followed by Facebook and now Twitter is striding into the mainstream. But somewhere in this mix, social has shifted. Many people are advocating spending outrageous sums of money on online “social” tools to create themselves, or to tweak their image online. Well my belief is that online creation is only half of the story.

Being social is engaging your customers both online and off. Being social isn’t opening up a facebook account and remembering to post every so often. Being social is using online tools to enhance your offline image. It’s about gaining a competitive advantage by using technology more efficiently both online and offline to enhance the customer experience. It’s about engaging with others on facebook and forming a relationship so that they use your service or buy your product in store or online — if not now, then maybe in the future. Being social is about staying up to date on the latest technological innovations and implementing the ones that make sense for you or your customers.

Social means putting yourself and your brand out there for the world to see and accepting the feedback. When the feedback is recieved, formulate a response. Outsource what you don’t understand to enhance the customer experience, yet remain engaged in the process. Keep your directory listings current, your website up to date with the latest features and fresh happenings. Use your online presence to promote your offline presence and have them be a geniune reflection of each other.

While social certainly has a place in the realms of facebook jargon, being social is so much more. It’s how you use the services, engage your clients, and continually enahance your image with the latest updates that truly set you apart from the rest and make you social. Be a leader in your industry by being social and you WILL get noticed.

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