Bevelwise Blog

Google sent us the email below stating that they will no longer support IE 6. So contact your IT staff and tell them you need to make sure you are upgraded. We suggest you get IE 8, Firefox 3.5, or Google Chrome 5 (the fastest browser) and for Mac users get Safari 4.0. You might a well upgrade to the latest version if you need to upgrade.

Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

Labels: Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Web Browsers

I was just going through a Search Engine Land discussion thread that was posted through their Linked In profile and it was all about "What passes for an SEO professional". Needless to say it has 94 posts over a 4 month period - mostly about how people have paid for SEO and never realized results and trying to establish some sort of benchmark or certification to protect people from have a bad experience with Search Engine Optimization because anyone can call themselves an "expert".

Really, almost anyone who builds websites would be an expert compared to the average business person. Part of finding a good source for your SEO partner is knowing what to ask for. Lots of web people can say a lot that sounds good to the average business person, and they probably do know what they are talking about. BUT...execution of strategy makes all the difference in the results you achieve.

I have had to explain to customers that they didn't necessarily get "screwed" with their web site or SEO, but it is just because they didn't know the questions to ask and the person they worked with just didn't know how to follow best practices or execute to maximize results. There are over 200 factors that go into determining how a site will rank, and unless you have pretty deep pockets, you will have to rely on execution to get results with a focus on 10% of these factors.

It is about properly setting expectations and working to achieve those. You cannot guarantee someone everything they want unless you are using what is known as "black hat" techniques - but you measure you results and guarantee your work based on those properly set expectations. And black hat catches up with a site eventually.

Tips for successful SEO:
1. Be very specific with the keywords or phrase you want to get ranked
2. Understand that this is an ongoing process and you could check every hour of the day and see your own results vary probably up to 10 positions for the same keyword or phrase.
3. Ask for references and examples of work.
4. This is more of an ongoing relationship to be successful - doing it once and expecting it to last is going to be VERY temporary for results.
5. Don't spend all your budget "up front" or for one time optimization. It should be a 6 month budget because then you have the money to adjust once you start to see results.
6. There are basics to effective SEO, but every client engagement should be based on what that client wants to accomplish so your "plan" should be based on your desired goals.
7. Algorithms change regularly - usually 1-2 major changes a year, so there is no long term solution other than to tweak your optimization and it takes some work in order to keep SEO "expertise" by your resource. If you are reading it in a book, it is already TOO OLD to really help.
8. If you are starting from ZERO and don't rank for much of anything but your name, anyone should be able to move the bar for your results. Understanding if you are getting maximum value for your money is much harder for you to quantify unless they help you quantify it. Ask them. Ask for today, and ask for 6 months from today.
9. Be prepared to have more content and pages than you EVER had and have your site grow in pages in order to have enough content to create the quality scores and keyword density you need.

There are many more things to effective SEO, but I don't want to go on forever. If you want to have a discussion, just contact us at www.bevelwise.com and we will be glad to answer your questions and help further.

Labels: Search Optimization, SEO, SEO Professional, web marketing, web strategy

Both Google and Bing (with Yahoo SERP going to be powered by Bing they will really be one in the same) plan to begin indexing Twitter tweets in 2010. That will allow them to show the the tweets within the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). This will more than likely be the first test for real time, non-paid, content to be indexed and shown on SERPs. That means you should position your Brand for more in depth, relevant, and timely tweeting because you will be able to move the bar on the search engines more quickly.

This will also help move Twitter from the social space into the main stream for business purposes because this will make it relevant on so many levels. Effecting real time search results? That is power. I would see Blogs getting the real time priority next(especially those using Blogger if you are Google) as they already help immensely with index-able content on a site. One would have to think that Facebook posts would be on the short list as well to go real-time

Labels: Bing, blogging, Facebook, Google, online marketing, SEO, SERP, social media, Twitter

I was just re-reading an Article from earlier this year in Advertising Age that talked about why emotional marketing messages beat the rational ones. They looked at 880 case studies, covering two recessions to see if there was any difference between the "good and bad times". What was determined was emotional advertising was twice as likely to generate profit gains than the rational ones, with the campaigns that use both, splitting the difference right in between.

The biggest difference was the emotional marketing reduced price sensitivity, which helped companies to be able to hold more firm on their pricing (with a better economy, it would allow you to probably charge a premium). Emotional advertising allows one to create a sense of differentiation for your brand and helps it appear to be worth "more" to the customer. However, a person that would respond to more data driven advertising or rational messaging, is typically more analytical so it is expected that they are more price sensitive because they would be one that "does their homework" first.

Balancing this in the Internet age takes some effort because of how Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Websites, and everything can spread more quickly - especially through industry trade channels. If you combine that with the fact that 80%+ people research what they want to buy online (especially if it is not a standard consumable good) then you have to make sure your message reaches across all mediums.

If you ask most business owners, "Would you like to be able to keep 1% more through your price or increase your volume 1%?", holding that price would be more to the bottom line that the equivalent increase in sales volume. Your marketing needs to help you achieve that.

Labels: better marketing, Internet Marketing, marketing, Marketing strategy, Marketing Trends, Search Advertising

1. Non-Business Name Searches: It's great if people searching the internet are discovering your website without typing in the name of your business. Probably most of these visitors were previously unaware of your business. This signifies that your website is ranking well for phrase that describe its location and the type of products or services.

2. Specific Service or Product Searches: If your company offers a exclusive product or service you will definitely want to be found for it. These keywords will point to your website because you have a search engine friendly website well optimized even for its more unique services.

3. Searches by Zip, Street, & City: An important component of Local Business SEO if having your address in the footer or on every page of your website. Your company can even gather online traffic for searches by multiple zip codes across your region. This is also a result of having a well optimized map listing. For example, in your Google Local Business Listing, make use of targeted keyword phrases in your list of services or products.

4. Synonyms for Products or Services: If your website is well optimized, it will be able to draw traffic from multiple keywords describing its services. Optimize for multiple phrases to describe your business's services and products on pages within your website.

Labels: better marketing, local business listings, online marketing, Search Advertising, SEO, web marketing

There are several sites out there that people use for sharing information and more social media aspects that you should consider registering your name. Even if you don't plan to use Facebook or Twitter, we would advise you at least lock up your name so someone else cannot steal it - which is known as "squatting". Besides, just because you don't plan to use either of them does not mean there isn't the next hottest one around the corner that you should lock up.

This happened with domain names in the mid 90's as websites were coming into popularity. Several Fortune 500 companies ended up in court trying to get their trademarked names back. There has not been any precedence set for Social Media and if and how companies can get control of their Brand once it has been registered by someone else who is not them. As reference, here is an article from Adage that shows you some of the big Brands that don't own their Twitter identity.

You can see if anyone has squatted you out and potentially avoid that by visiting UserNameCheck.com . There are 68 different sites that someone could "squat" you on. Some of them you have never heard of, several are familiar and you can find all the different sites people could squat your identity on. You never know what might be the next big fad or emerge so it is best to lock them up and as new "fads" come out, register those as well, even if you don't ever use them - you can at least know you are protecting your Brand when it comes to Internet & Web Marketing and Social Media.

Labels: better marketing, Bevelwise, Branding, Facebook, Internet Marketing, link building strategies, Marketing Trends, social media, social media optimization, squatting, Twitter, web marketing