Posts Tagged ‘online’

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Redesigned Magellan Commerce website online

Monday, April 6th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I get to fulfill my promise in my last blog post by writing about some of the great things happening at eHarbor, Inc. I’m excited!

Magellan Commerce, an eHarbor affiliate that was formed in May 2008, launched a completely redesigned and improved version of its website on Friday, April 3, 2009. It is quite an improvement, as you can see from the before-and-after screenshots below.

Original version of the Magellan Commerce website

Original version of the Magellan Commerce website

New version of the Magellan Commerce website

New version of the Magellan Commerce website

Magellan Commerce designs websites, corporate logos, business cards, letterheads and postcards and more for businesses and individuals. They also help companies top search engines with search engine optimization.

Remember the SEO series we finished a little while ago? The tactics we discussed in that series, such as simplifying URLs, optimizing images and improving anchor text, are among those Magellan Commerce uses for its clients.

I recommend checking out the redesigned Magellan Commerce website for yourself today! Feel free to also visit other eHarbor affiliates, like Real Estate Promoter, Submit Solution and Direct Home Find.

I look forward to sharing more positive ecommerce news like this soon.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, eHarbor | 7 Comments »

The world still hasn’t ended

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

So far, it appears the Conficker C virus is not doing much damage, as many had predicted it would. The Washington Post published a satiric blog post on April 1, entitled “Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In,” describing all of the damage being done by the virus. Then, at the end, the author included a note saying, “Just kidding - April fools!”

Cat and dog sitting together

This keeps happening: the Cold War, Comet Hale-Bopp, Y2K – all of these events were supposed to bring about the end of the world, or at least a fundamental change in it. But they failed to live up to expectations. The world hardly changed at all as a result of these events. Yes, I know the Soviet Union fell apart at the end of the Cold War, and that was a pretty big change. But look at Russia today and you’ll see they haven’t really changed that much. President Obama just met with the Russian president to talk about nuclear disarmament. Sound familiar?

Pranks like Conficker C, which don’t deliver on their promises, might actually do a great deal of damage by leading people to lower their guard or simply not care about actual crises that come later on. I never try to fake people out so I can laugh at them and say, “Made you look!” because that damages credibility and makes people constantly on edge and less eager to trust others. That’s not what I want.

This discussion reminds me: Last week, eHarbor, Inc. treated its employees to a showing of the movie “Knowing.” The movie had a lot of good moments, and I especially enjoyed it because the filmmakers actually had the courage to *SPOILER ALERT* blow up the world. No sugarcoating, no simple solution, no endless number of countdowns to avert destruction, like in “Armageddon” (a movie that utterly failed to live up to its title) – just the whole world on fire. Now that’s a way to deliver on catastrophic promises.

Mind you, I don’t want the world to be destroyed and, after seeing the movie “Knowing”, I felt a little depressed. But I do like seeing promises fulfilled when someone bothers to make them. Heck, even “Back to the Future Part II” promised the universe, or at least our galaxy, would be destroyed by a time paradox – but that didn’t really happen. All I’m saying is I hope someday people who promise something earth-shattering will actually follow through with it. Until then, I won’t hold my breath.

By the way, eHarbor and its affiliates (Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution) have good news on the horizon that I can’t wait to discuss. We’re growing a lot and we hope to share the positive ecommerce news soon as new products are released and updates are added to our websites.

The photo of the cat and dog sitting together is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of MïK.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Movies | 2 Comments »

Protect your computer from April fools’ day virus

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I’ve never been a big fan of April fools’ day. Trying to make people look like fools for trusting what other people say isn’t a good way to build trust or add anything positive to the world. I much prefer helping people smile, rather than laughing at their mistakes. With this in mind, I would like to warn my fellow ecommerce enthusiasts about a potentially damaging computer virus set to strike on April 1, 2009.

Watch Out buttonI promised I would talk about the Conficker C virus in my last blog entry. I’m sorry to talk about such a depressing topic, but I hope talking about it will be helpful to you. I am indebted to the Yahoo Tech News Blog for their informative blog entry on this topic.

I first heard about this virus in late 2008 at the Brigham Young University library, where they had messages on computer desktops warning of the danger of transmitting a virulent worm via USB drives. An earlier version of Conficker was already spreading by tricking computer users into installing it onto a computer when the AutoRun message comes up after plugging in their USB drive. It infected 9 million computers with this strategy, and it might infect even more with the new strain.

Many computers might be affected with the current strain of Conficker without users even knowing about it because it is not scheduled to become active until April 1.

No one knows what will happen when Conficker C does become active.

It might be used to steal personal information, take control of computers, erase hard drives or otherwise cripple computers. Now is a good time to back up your files and try to minimize your exposure to this virus. You might want to run a free Microsoft safety scan of your computer to help detect and hopefully get rid of the Conficker C virus before it’s too late.

I hope you’ll have a happy April fools’ day and not get fooled by this disruptive and dangerous virus. The photo of the Watch Out button is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Salim Virji.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 2 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 »

eHarbor, Inc. launches Squidoo pages

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I have some great news to share! eHarbor, Inc.’s Squidoo page is up and running. Squidoo is a social-media tool you can use to advertise your business and services online. You can also use it just to write about something you enjoy that’s not related to ecommerce or anything like that.

Squidoo logoIn addition to eHarbor’s Squidoo page, be sure to check out the Squidoo pages for several of its divisions:

Real Estate Promoter

Submit Solution

Magellan Commerce

Feel free to check out our pages and post your comments and ratings. We appreciate your input.

That’s my quick ecommerce note for the day. I hope you enjoy reading the information about eHarbor and its affiliates in these Squidoo pages. Some of eHarbor’s history and facts can also be found in past blog entries on the eHarbor Blog. You can definitely check those out, as well.

We’ll get back to our search engine optimization series on Thursday, March 5. Stay tuned!

The Squidoo logo is the trademark of Squidoo LLC.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 5 Comments »

Worst time traveler ever

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You know how in “Back to the Future Part II,” the future (2015) was going to be an awesome time when everyone would have flying cars, hoverboards, self-lacing shoes and self-drying clothes? Things have turned out a little differently.

Just imagine how people in the past would react if one of us went back in time and told them some of the silly things we use our advanced technology for. I think it might go something like this (Click on the photo below to see a larger, clearer version):

Time traveler explains Twitter to 1950s people

We’ll talk about ecommerce topics in the next post on the eHarbor Blog. I just wanted to share this picture because it makes me laugh – a lot.

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Posted in Fun, Movies | 4 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 »

5 reasons to smile today

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I recently read a blog entry on Copyblogger (a great blog if you want to improve your online writing skills), entitled “Warning: Contents are hot.” In it, the author recommended writing about a topic you’re passionate about in order to create some interesting content that people will love reading. I thought I’d follow that advice.

Laughing kittenThe eHarbor Blog has been going strong again for three weeks. I’ve been focusing on eHarbor, Inc., ecommerce and I’m right in the middle of an informative series of blog posts on using search engine optimization to improve your ranking on Google and other search engines. I thought I’d take a little break from online marketing topics and write about something a little more spontaneous to remind myself and my readers of much that is right in the world.

I’m not much for creating controversy, but I do like talking about things I love. I also really enjoy bringing others happiness. It’s tough to feel happy or positive when you read so much bad news every day. There are plenty of news articles about the global economic recession, real-estate downturn, stimulus packages and every other challenge going on in the world. To combat these emotional drains, I would like to suggest five reasons to smile today.

1. Despite the trouble in the economy, Forrester Research predicts ecommerce will grow, in terms of both sales and market share, from 2009 to 2013. eCommerce sales increased 13 percent to $141.3 billion in 2008 and they are expected to grow another 11 percent in 2009. Online sales should even surpass $200 billion by 2012, according to their estimate. Now that’s some great news.

2. I’ll bet you didn’t know that today, February 23, 2009, is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day and Play Tennis Day. This is your opportunity to give your dog a treat as you play a few sets with a friend.

3. George Frideric Handel, composer of beautiful musical pieces, including “Messiah,” was born on this date in 1685. Several years ago, I got to sing the tenor part of “For unto us a Son is born,” and boy is that some high-pitch music. I admire anyone who can sing well because good music always uplifts me and makes me smile.

4. On this day in 1940, Disney’s “Pinocchio” was released in movie theaters. While it’s not my favorite Disney movie, “Pinocchio” does have one of my favorite songs: “When you wish upon a star.” I told you I love movies.

5. One more reason to smile is that life feels a lot nicer when you can lift your head up and smile at whatever comes your way. Even if you can’t control everything that happens to you, you can control how you react to it, so try to stay positive, and focus on what you can accomplish right now.

The photo of the laughing kitten is from Flickr and it is the copyright of d u y g u.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Fun, Movies | 8 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 »

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