Posts Tagged ‘msn’

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Happy birthday, Firefox

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Happy Thanksgiving! I would love to write an entire blog entry on this wonderful holiday, but instead I’m going to talk about another celebration: Firefox’s fifth birthday.

Firefox 5th anniversary birthday cake

Imagine trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Microsoft, the giant of software and Web browsers, seemed all but unstoppable in its dominance of the Internet with its Internet Explorer browser five years ago. However, a small browser, which was originally called Phoenix, debuted on November 9, 2004 and started giving Explorer a run for its money.

We now know this Web browser as Firefox. And it just turned five years old. Better late than never, I’ll wish Firefox a happy birthday!

I talked a little about Firefox in my Submit Solution blog entry, “Google Chrome is the best Web browser.” I mentioned that it’s my favorite browser, even if it’s not exactly as fast as Chrome.

I read about Firefox’s anniversary in the Webware article, “After 5 years, Firefox faces new challenges.”

Many factors led up to the swift success of the Firefox browser. Microsoft got a little lazy on creating new features for Explorer. Plus, viruses were specifically designed to target Explorer, giving Internet users a strong incentive to try something new. Right on cue, Firefox arrived with its innovative tabbed interface, customizability and popup ad blocker. It was an instant hit, receiving 10 million downloads in the first month alone.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Web Design Blog on December 1, 2009. It will be entitled, “Firefox fights fresh foes after 5 years.” The photo of the Firefox birthday cake is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Christopher Blizzard.

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Posted in Web Design | 1 Comment »

Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on October 6, 2009. The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.


Newton's cradle in motion

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Posted in Movies, Search Engines | No Comments »

Bing decision engine good for online marketing

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine is quite an impressive tool for Web users and online marketers. I read an article in USA Today, entitled Bing it on: Microsoft overhauls search, again, which gives some excellent info about this new search engine.

Bing search engine homepage

Bing includes search suggestions on results pages to help people narrow their searches and find exactly what they’re looking for. This is what I talked about in my eHarbor Blog entry, “Paid search about to get complicated.” Web users want to find information, products and services faster, so they’re using an increasing number of keywords in their searches.

Including suggested search terms on a results page is nothing new. Google includes them on many of their results pages, as well.

I noticed there are no paid listings on Bing results pages. Maybe that is because the service is just getting started and has not yet had time to develop pricing and other metrics to charge for pay-per-click ads. This could present a challenge to ecommerce, but there is probably a solution, whether it is more investment in search engine optimization, social media or other marketing strategies.

Microsoft calls Bing a “decision engine” instead of a search engine. That has a nice ring to it. They call it that because it is supposed to help people make decisions, instead of just provide a whole slew of disorganized information.

I like the fact that Bing gives price comparisons and reviews of products, 30-second clips of videos on results pages, and its image results page is huge! You just scroll down to see all the images, instead of clicking on lots of pages in Google and waiting for them to show up.

What does Bing mean for ecommerce? It will probably reward companies that work hard on online marketing on SEO with high search ranking and quick access for consumers to their websites. We’ll need to continue to refine the search terms we target. It’ll be interesting to see everything that happens.

The photo of the Bing search engine is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Kimberly Saia.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines | 2 Comments »

Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Great news! The ecommerce industry isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. It’s actually growing in strength, despite the recession. What a pleasant surprise!

Surprised kittens

According to an article in Practical Ecommerce, entitled “Chart of the Week: Search Engine Marketing to Increase,” marketers in the United States are expected to spend $14.1 billion on search engine marketing in 2009. That’s a 16-percent increase from 2008’s $12.2 billion. If it continues to grow at this rate, the amount spent on search engine marketing in the United States could reach $23 billion in 2013.

Search engine marketing is made up of paid-search advertising, contextual advertising, paid inclusion, and search engine optimization. We just finished a series on SEO strategies. I recommend reading those blog entries, if you’d like more information.

You might remember my blog entry on the success of eHarbor, Inc. not long ago. I’m pleased to note this is not just an isolated incident, but an industry-wide one. As the economy sours, businesses are turning more to the Internet for new customers, and getting high placement on search engines, like Google, MSN and Yahoo, is a great way to get their attention.

Be sure to check out eHarbor, Inc.’s affiliates for help in designing and optimizing your websites. These affiliates include: Submit Solution, Magellan Commerce and Real Estate Promoter.

The photo of the surprised kittens is from Flickr and it is the copyright of telachhe.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 12 Comments »

Step 6 to topping Google: Strong anchor text

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 6 of our multi-part series on effective search engine optimization tactics. You may notice that in many of my blog entries, I include links to past blog entries and other informative sites. I try to include appropriate text for each link in order to give you (and search engines) an idea of what information the link will contain. This Ship anchor in Greenock, Scotlandtext, known as anchor text, is another way to optimize your website for search engines.

Anchor text should be specific and closely related to the topic you are addressing. If you put in random links that are neither relevant to your content, nor descriptive of the information on the linked site, you are wasting your time. Links should be helpful to your website’s visitors, offering them additional information in a highly visible manner.

For instance, if I want to create a link to the Submit Solution website, I simply link the text “Submit Solution” to http://www.submitsolution.com. So when you see text that is blue, purple or red, you know that it links you to Submit Solution’s website or at least something related to Submit Solution (which, by the way, is a division of eHarbor, Inc.). As a bonus, search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN also use the anchor text to understand the relevance of that page to this one, potentially boosting your ranking.

Here are some good ideas to consider when choosing anchor text for your links:

- Keep your text short and descriptive. Brevity seems to be a common theme in this SEO series – like in my blog entry on optimizing images.

- Avoid generic terms like “Click here” or “article.” Those really don’t describe what the link is, and there are many other creative ways to anchor your links. Come to think of it, I mentioned avoiding generic terms in my blog entry on Web page titles, as well. It feels like we’re coming full-circle in this series.

- Don’t use the actual URL as the anchor text, unless you have a good reason. I used the URL of Submit Solution above simply as an illustration. You can also include a URL to promote your website, if it is new or poorly connected at the moment. You know, I think we discussed good URL practices earlier, as well.

- Make sure your links are easy to spot. If you use a style that makes links look just like regular text, people won’t be able to find them, and they won’t be much use.

By the way, including internal links to different parts of your website can help visitors navigate your website more freely and intuitively. Give it a shot, but don’t go overboard. Make sure the links are meaningful and add to the message of the page you are currently working on. Improving website navigation – that’s another topic we’ve covered before on the eHarbor Blog! Simply amazing.

This is the sixth part of this series. We started with a blog post on making content king, and we’ve covered a number of topics along the way. We’re coming close to the end of this series on strong SEO practices. We’ve got plenty of other great ecommerce topics to talk about, as well. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The photo of the naval monument in Greenock, Scotland is from Flickr and it is the copyright of Bob the courier.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines | 3 Comments »

Step 5 to topping Google: Website navigation

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 5 of our multi-part series on effective search engine optimization practices. Thanks for sticking with me through this fun little series. This is my 12th blog entry on the eHarbor Blog. I’ve had a lot of fun talking about eHarbor’s history, eHarbor’s future, and even several reasons to smile.

Disorganized garage in Tokyo, JapanWe started this series by talking about improving website content, and continued with a post on designing Web page titles and optimizing images. Now we’ll consider how best to organize websites to improve navigation for both search engines and customers.

You can choose a number of ways to organize your website content. Just make sure you’re consistent. Here are some good ideas to optimize your website navigation:

- Create a quick, intuitive navigation system. Allow visitors to click just once or twice from the homepage to find the specific information or services they’re seeking.

- Be careful not to link every page to every other page. This can cause confusion. Provide relevant links to other pages, but don’t go overboard.

- Stick with text-based links to navigate your site. Using Flash or drop-down menus can make it difficult for search engines to crawl through your site.

- Include a list of your main categories on the sidebar of each page. This can help visitors quickly browse through topics without having to return to the homepage often.

- Use well-designed URLs, as we discussed in the last blog entry in this SEO series. If people cut off part of your URL, try to make it so it will still lead them to part of your website. For instance, if you take this blog entry’s URL www.eharborinc.com/blog/2009/02/03/what-eharbor-is-and-
why-it-matters-to-you and cut off the last part so you are left with www.eharborinc.com/blog/2009/02, the link still works.

It’s also a good idea to include a sitemap on your website to boost usability to site visitors and visibility to search engines. There are two kinds of sitemaps that have two different functions: HTML sitemaps and XML Sitemaps. XML Sitemaps usually have a capital S to differentiate them from HTML sitemaps, so I’ll follow that rule.

An example of a sitemap can be found on the Real Estate Promoter website: www.realestatepromoter.com/index.php?base=site. This sitemap lists all of the main pages and their subcategories in a clear, concise manner. It is best to organize your website by subject matter, putting specific materials under appropriate categories. If you were selling real estate on your website, you could use something like this for your setup:

Homepage -> Properties for sale -> Waterfront homes, condos, rental units and other specific property types

HTML sitemaps are mainly designed for website visitors, not necessarily for Google, MSN, Yahoo or other search engines. Search engines can use them to understand the context of pages on your website, but they should be focused on helping your visitors find what they’re looking for if they get lost.

XML Sitemaps are much better at providing information about your site to search engines. You should consider using a Sitemap if:

- You recently created your site. Google often finds sites through links from one Web page to another, so new sites with no inbound links are almost invisible to it. A Sitemap allows search engines to find your website, even if it is relatively new.

- Your site has dynamic content like AJAX or Flash.

- Your site has a large number of archived pages that are not linked together.

A Sitemap gives search engines a great deal of information, including:

- How often your Web pages are updated with new content. Blogs and other content-dense sections of your website can gain more attention this way.

- Which pages are more important than others, in terms of hierarchy. Your homepage would have the highest ranking, while categories would be slightly below it, and materials under those categories would be a little lower. This helps search engines understand the context of Web pages, but it doesn’t affect a page’s search-engine ranking if it is ranked below other pages on the site.

If you would like a step-by-step walkthrough to help you set up a Sitemap for your website, check out Google’s Sitemap Generator script.

This is the fifth part of this series. We’re coming close to the end of this series on strong SEO practices. Check out the Submit Solution website for more ideas on building SEO on your website. We’ve got plenty of other great ecommerce topics to talk about, as well. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The photo of the messy garage in Tokyo is from Flickr and it is the copyright of coccu.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 7 Comments »

Step 4 to topping Google: Simplify URLs

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 4 of our multi-part series on effective search engine optimization practices. I took a little break in my last blog entry to talk about some fun things that make me smile. Let’s back to talking about important SEO tactics. We’ve talked about making content king on your website, adding concise Web page titles, and optimizing images on your site. Now we’ll talk about simplifying your Web pages’ URLs.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) movie posterTo start things off, it’s time once more for me to apply my love of movies to the discussion at hand. As Indiana Jones noted in a key scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “Belloq’s staff is too long. They’re digging in the wrong place!” You’ve probably seen that movie, so you know that Indy’s nemesis had part of the instructions to build the staff of Ra, but because his staff was too long he was led to the wrong place in his search for the Ark of the Covenant.

All of this is highly applicable to URLs. If a URL is too long, it can be difficult for customers to remember and difficult for search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo to catalog. If Indy were a webmaster, he would probably have said, “Belloq’s URL is too long. They’re Digging in the wrong place!”

That might be a little silly, though.

Examples of long URLs that are poorly structured and hard to follow can be found at Mapquest and Google. On Mapquest, I looked up the mailing address of eHarbor, Inc. and it gave me this: http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Orem&state=UT&address=13
23+N+Research+Way&zipcode=84097&cat=eHarbor%2C+Inc.#a/sea
rch/l::1323+Research+Way:Orem:UT:84097-6200:US:40.321124:-1
11.680809:address:Utah+County:1/m::15:40.324683:-111.679178:
0:::::/so:Eharbor+Inc:::r::25:::::/e.

Google searches are a little better. Here’s the URL of a search I did for eHarbor: http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=
1G1GGLQ_ENUS311&=&q=eharbor&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f.

Now that’s a mouthful.

I don’t mean to slight Mapquest or Google. The purpose of their URLs isn’t necessarily to look pretty and get posted on websites. They exist solely to contain search parameters and show people what they’re looking up. However, in the world of ecommerce, keywords are essential, and you want your URLs to reflect that.

Here are some principles that can help you create strong URLs for your Web pages:

- Use a simple organization structure on your website. For instance, on the Magellan Commerce website, if you click on the “Features” tab, you will go to this URL: http://www.magellancommerce.com/features. Very simple. Just add a / to your main URL and include a word or phrase describing what is in that section. As you add content to sub-pages, you can simply add another / and additional words describing the content on those pages.

- Along with the first point, it’s better to use words than numbers in your URLs. Words are much more “friendly” to your site’s visitors and they help optimize your pages for search engines. Using “page 1” or seemingly random numbers and code to organize your URLs isn’t pretty and doesn’t help much with SEO.

- Don’t use too many keywords in your URLs. Be brief but descriptive about what people can expect to find on each Web page. No need for a whole lot of repetition.

- Only create one URL for each Web page. It’s possible to have multiple sub-domains and versions of a URL. For instance, you could have http://submitsolution.com and http://www.submitsolution.com go to two different sites. Choose one form of a URL, with or without www, and stick with it. Also, you’re better off only using lower-case letters in URLs, instead of mixing capital letters in.

This is the fourth part of this series. We’ll cover several other ways to achieve SEO in upcoming blog entries. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The “Raiders of the Lost Ark” movie poster is from Flickr and it is the copyright of MDH in Houston.

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Posted in Movies, SEO, Search Engines, eHarbor | 7 Comments »

Step 3 to topping Google: Optimize your images

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 3 of our multi-part series on constructive search engine optimization practices.

In my last two blog entries, I discussed strong content writing and Web page titles as ways to build search engine optimization for your website. Today I’ll discuss optimizing images. Everyone loves a good image because it can add something special to your story and make a positive impression on readers. I like using them to add humor to my posts and visually describe what my post is about.

Three sleeping kittens

I’ll use the image above to illustrate good ways to optimize your images. By the way, I love cats, just like I love movies, and that’s why I’m using a picture of kittens. If you put your mouse over the image, you’ll see a caption pop up that says “Three kittens from the same litter snuggle together for a nap.” That is the image title or caption.

If you right-click the photo and hit the “Properties” button, you’ll find additional information that is used by search engines, like Google, MSN and Yahoo, to “see” what is in the images. Search engines are blind, so you have to spell out exactly what is contained in an image for them to notice it. One way I optimized this image for search engines is by providing alt text, which appears when the image does not load properly. This helps people who are unable to see the image to know exactly what it is, and it also helps search engines at the same time. By adding relevant, succinct alt text, like “Three sleeping kittens,” you are that much closer to optimizing your image.

The location of the file is www.eharborinc.com/blog/images/2009/0
2/sleeping_kittens.jpg. There are a number of lessons to learn from this file name and location. The file is in a specific folder that is meant only for eHarbor Blog photos. If every image’s file was located in a different place, it would be more difficult for search engines to go through and find them. It’s much better to have a good organizational system in place.

Most of the files we use in this blog are in JPEG format, but you can also use GIF, PNG or BMP to store your images. I find that JPEG is effective for my purposes, but each format has its own strengths and weaknesses, so you should pick and choose the format as your needs change. Also, keep the name short and simple. Don’t use generic names like “Image1.” I used “sleeping_kittens” because that pretty well describes the image.

This is the third part of this series. We’ll cover several other ways to achieve SEO in upcoming blog entries. Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide for more information on this topic. The photo of the kittens is from Flickr and it is the copyright of Gúnna.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Real Estate, SEO, Search Engines | 14 Comments »

Step 2 to topping Google: Add Web page titles

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Welcome to part 2 of our multi-part series on great search engine optimization practices.

Do you see that blue line on the top of your browser that has the Internet Explorer or Firefox logo in the left corner? That’s called the head tag. Do you ever read the text in that line? Search engines love reading that text, which is called the tag title. In fact, what is written on that line is typically what shows up in the main line of Google searches. For that reason, it is absolutely essential that you write relevant, keyword-focused titles for each Web page.

Confusing signs pointing in opposite directions

Here’s an example: If you look up “eHarbor Inc” on Google you will discover the following words in the first line of the first search result: Search Engine Marketing - E-Harbor, Inc. - Home. That is exactly what is at the top of the eHarbor, Inc. home page. It’s good to include the name of your company at the top of each Web page, as well as a brief description of the services you offer or what is on that page.

Content on your website needs to be king if you want to gain repeat traffic, but Web page titles are also essential to help customers find your website in the first place on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Here are some tips for creating titles for your Web pages:

- Use words that accurately and succinctly describe what is on the page.

- Don’t use too many words, even if they all describe the page’s content. Brevity is often the mark of a great writer!

- Don’t stuff the titles with keywords. Use words that clearly explain the content of the page, but don’t use every word that could possibly describe it.

- Avoid generic terms or simple numbering schemes on your pages, like “Page 1,” “Page 2” and so on.

This is the second part of this series. We’ll discuss optimizing images in the next blog entry on search engine optimization. Be sure to come back to the eHarbor Blog often for updates. Much of the information found in this blog entry comes from Google’s SEO Starter Guide. The photo of the confusing signs is from Flickr and it is the copyright of aturkus.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines, eHarbor | 13 Comments »

Step 1 to topping Google: Make content king

Friday, February 13th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Content is king. If you don’t have great content on your website, you’ll probably never have much success attracting Web traffic.

In my last blog entry, I talked about the importance of using search engine optimization in your ecommerce strategies. But how exactly do you do search engine optimization? That’s the $64,000 question. This is the first of a series of steps you can take to get on the right track to the top of search engines, like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Some of these are fairly common-sense, but others might require a little more in-depth knowledge of Web design. Experts in eHarbor’s divisions, Magellan Commerce, Submit Solution, Real Estate Promoter and Direct Home Find, are a great resource for figuring out all of the complex details of SEO.

Lion overlooking his kingdom

The first, and most important, step to achieving SEO is to create content that is relevant and interesting to your customers. Writing content that grabs the right people’s attention and gives them something of value is the best thing you can do to get them to your site. Otherwise, people won’t see any reason to come back to your site, even if it pops up first on search engines.

Having a great-looking website with good organization is important, but filling that site with excellent content is where the most essential work lies. You must research who your targeted audience is and what their main concerns and questions are. Then create content on those topics to answer their questions so they will see you as an authority on the subject. Another benefit of having great content is that it will get the attention of other
bloggers/webmasters, persuading them to link to your site. This is the best offsite way to achieve SEO. It can’t be just any content, though; it has to be high-quality content, if you want to gain respect and business.

Good grammar and spelling are also a big part of creating good Web content. If your text is littered with glaring spelling errors, you won’t look like an expert, no matter how good your research or information is. For example, check out this article from the New York Times entitled “Economy Shed 598,000 in January.” I noticed several problems with the grammar and punctuation of this article, causing me to question how much I can trust the information in it. Here are some of the problems:

- In the third and tenth paragraphs, “Over all” is used when “Overall” would be the correct term.

- In the ninth paragraph, we find this: “average weekly earnings climbed $614.72, up $1.67.” I believe the author meant to say “average weekly earnings climbed to $614.72, up $1.67.” Otherwise, that would be an incredible jump of both $614.72 and $1.67.

- In the twelfth paragraph, they forgot to put an a in “the new report offered no hint that bottom was in sight.” I checked back a little after the article was published and I noticed they had fixed this error, so that’s a good sign.

- The author forgot to put a period at the end of the last sentence of the eighteenth paragraph.

These are all fairly minor errors, but they show that even the work of the New York Times, which has the benefit of being edited by some of the top editors in the business, can still have mistakes. It appears that they corrected almost all of these mistakes in their updated version, so it’s nice to see they take care of quality after the fact. The point is that you should not only do your homework and add relevant content to your website regularly, but you should also make sure that what you put on your site meets the quality standards your readership expects.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this is just the first part of this series. We’ll cover several other ways to achieve SEO in upcoming blog entries. Be sure to come back to the eHarbor Blog often for updates. I am indebted to Google’s SEO Starter Guide for much of the information in this blog entry. The photo of the lion is from Flickr and it is the copyright of law_keven.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media, SEO, Search Engines | 21 Comments »

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