Thursday, December 13, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Software That Writes Itsself!
Intentional Software, started by Charles Simonyi will release it's first version of self writing software this year. After reading about this in Business 2.0 I had to learn more. My first question was why haven't I heard about this before, it makes a whole bunch of sense to me, Software written by software, for software.
After visiting Intentional Software's website and reading up on this mind boggling idea of self writing software, I decided to visit Charles private website (http://www.charlesinspace.com/) chronicling his adventures, like his trip to the International Space Station in April of 2007. What an amazing Guy, I have read a few stories about the Godfather of Windows and Office, but I failed to realize what an amazing story this man has to tell.
From a marketing perspective I was disappointed in the Keywords strategy of both the Intentional Software and Charles personal site, for different reasons.
www.ItentSoft.com A simple straight forward site the reads well, if you are interested in the subject of self writing software. There is a Meta description field, but that is all. If meta fields were added and populated properly with meta info relevant to each page, it would attract two or three times the current search traffic.
www.CharlesInSpace.com A very cool flash site, which is also my biggest problem, flash is great for page accents like headers, but when it is used for an entire website, there is no content for Search Engines to index, thus making it difficult to appear for search terms other that the name of the website.
Regards,
John
Check out our webcam www.FindMyWebCam.com
After visiting Intentional Software's website and reading up on this mind boggling idea of self writing software, I decided to visit Charles private website (http://www.charlesinspace.com/) chronicling his adventures, like his trip to the International Space Station in April of 2007. What an amazing Guy, I have read a few stories about the Godfather of Windows and Office, but I failed to realize what an amazing story this man has to tell.
From a marketing perspective I was disappointed in the Keywords strategy of both the Intentional Software and Charles personal site, for different reasons.
www.ItentSoft.com A simple straight forward site the reads well, if you are interested in the subject of self writing software. There is a Meta description field, but that is all. If meta fields were added and populated properly with meta info relevant to each page, it would attract two or three times the current search traffic.
www.CharlesInSpace.com A very cool flash site, which is also my biggest problem, flash is great for page accents like headers, but when it is used for an entire website, there is no content for Search Engines to index, thus making it difficult to appear for search terms other that the name of the website.
Regards,
John
Check out our webcam www.FindMyWebCam.com
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Calgary Municipal Elections
The results are in and I am happy to congratulate Mayor Dave Bronconnier on his third term as our Mayor. I had time to review the candidates websites before I went to vote last night and discovered a wide range of build quality between the nine sites.
Dave Bronconnier - A beautiful site, well built including video and audio clips of the Mayor's position on issues. By far the best site of all the candidates, complete with proper Meta tags. Dave won the race with 61.06% of the vote
Alnoor Kassam - Also a very well built site, however the Meta tags used include stop words and do not align with the text content of the page. Alnoor lost the election with 16.88% of the vote.
David Bertram - This site was thrown together in 5 mins, or so it looks. I would say it is tough to be taken seriously with a site like this. No title, or Meta tags on this single page site. David lost with only 2.62% of the vote
Elizabeth Fielding - Low build quality. She included some good information on her mandate and position on the pressing issues, how ever this does not look like a serious website of someone who wants to run our city. Elizabeth lost with 1.91% of the vote
Al Foster - This site is basically a blog setup with next to no Meta info. Again a low quality build, but has some good content on his mandate and positions. Al lost with 3.07% of the vote
Harry Heck - A decent looking site, but has and error in the Title field and no Meta tags. He has included a good amount of content about himself, but comes only as a semi-serious candidate. Harry lost with 1.82% of the vote
Sandy Jenkins - Another good looking site, that is not optimized for search. I could not get his inner pages to load. Sandy lost with 7.87% of the vote.
JJ Sunstrum - A home made site, with not meta info. It seems his goal is to raise issues in the election, not necessarily to win the election. JJ lost with 0.86% of the vote
Jeremy Zhao - The best of the homemade sites. Jeremy has built and maintaned the site himself, and has done a decent job with video and audio clips to download. How ever he has blank meta fields in each page. Jeremy lost with 3.9% of the vote putting him in 4th place over all. Well Done Jeremy!
Of the nine sites one Dave's was really built and optimized for search. This corresponds with what I see on a daily basis with business websites as well, appox. only 1 out of 10 will be SEO compliant and built well. What is interesting when I look at the election results is the quality of the website directly relates to the %of the vote each candidate captured. I believe the moral of the story is "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well".
For more information refer to the Wikipedia page on the Calgary Municipal Election.
Dave Bronconnier - A beautiful site, well built including video and audio clips of the Mayor's position on issues. By far the best site of all the candidates, complete with proper Meta tags. Dave won the race with 61.06% of the vote
Alnoor Kassam - Also a very well built site, however the Meta tags used include stop words and do not align with the text content of the page. Alnoor lost the election with 16.88% of the vote.
David Bertram - This site was thrown together in 5 mins, or so it looks. I would say it is tough to be taken seriously with a site like this. No title, or Meta tags on this single page site. David lost with only 2.62% of the vote
Elizabeth Fielding - Low build quality. She included some good information on her mandate and position on the pressing issues, how ever this does not look like a serious website of someone who wants to run our city. Elizabeth lost with 1.91% of the vote
Al Foster - This site is basically a blog setup with next to no Meta info. Again a low quality build, but has some good content on his mandate and positions. Al lost with 3.07% of the vote
Harry Heck - A decent looking site, but has and error in the Title field and no Meta tags. He has included a good amount of content about himself, but comes only as a semi-serious candidate. Harry lost with 1.82% of the vote
Sandy Jenkins - Another good looking site, that is not optimized for search. I could not get his inner pages to load. Sandy lost with 7.87% of the vote.
JJ Sunstrum - A home made site, with not meta info. It seems his goal is to raise issues in the election, not necessarily to win the election. JJ lost with 0.86% of the vote
Jeremy Zhao - The best of the homemade sites. Jeremy has built and maintaned the site himself, and has done a decent job with video and audio clips to download. How ever he has blank meta fields in each page. Jeremy lost with 3.9% of the vote putting him in 4th place over all. Well Done Jeremy!
Of the nine sites one Dave's was really built and optimized for search. This corresponds with what I see on a daily basis with business websites as well, appox. only 1 out of 10 will be SEO compliant and built well. What is interesting when I look at the election results is the quality of the website directly relates to the %of the vote each candidate captured. I believe the moral of the story is "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well".
For more information refer to the Wikipedia page on the Calgary Municipal Election.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Marketing Your Business Online
A recent survey of small business owners tells us that business owners rank the internet and their web page up there with the yellow pages ads in importance to their marketing efforts. What is surprising about the survey is it also tells us that they do not value on-line advertising in the same way as their website. Often many small business owners see on-line advertising in a similar light to T.V. and Radio advertising, it is only for the big guys. This co-insides with my experience as well. More often than not I meet small business owners who believe that on-line advertising is out of their reach.
One of my favorite parts of my job is showing them that we can get them up and running with relevant, targeted on-line ads for less than the cost of a single newspaper ads for one day. Often times business owners shy away from on-line advertising because of a lack of knowledge. Once equipped with that knowledge they quickly discover the value that a program like Google Adwords can bring to there marketing efforts.
As an example I recently made a cold call to a local radio station here in Calgary, I asked the polite gentleman on the phone what it would cost me to get a basic ad on the AM station. The answer was approx. $4000. I was impressed, I honestly expected it to cost more. In comparison to on-line advertising I could take the $4000 and turn that into 3 months of effective online advertising, including well written graphic, and text ads for the client.
If you have been wondering about on-line advertising I would look forward to taking the time to discuss it with you.
Regards,
John Wheeler
One of my favorite parts of my job is showing them that we can get them up and running with relevant, targeted on-line ads for less than the cost of a single newspaper ads for one day. Often times business owners shy away from on-line advertising because of a lack of knowledge. Once equipped with that knowledge they quickly discover the value that a program like Google Adwords can bring to there marketing efforts.
As an example I recently made a cold call to a local radio station here in Calgary, I asked the polite gentleman on the phone what it would cost me to get a basic ad on the AM station. The answer was approx. $4000. I was impressed, I honestly expected it to cost more. In comparison to on-line advertising I could take the $4000 and turn that into 3 months of effective online advertising, including well written graphic, and text ads for the client.
If you have been wondering about on-line advertising I would look forward to taking the time to discuss it with you.
Regards,
John Wheeler
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Business Websites
In the not to distant future you may be asking your self, should I get a website for my business? The answer is YES! The only real question is how much to invest.
A business website is different from most websites because it represents for the most part a Brick and Mortar business that does several different kinds of advertising through out the year, and the website needs to reflect the quality of the business it represents. Here are a few key factors to consider for your new business website.
1. What will people come to our site for? Focusing on the information people are looking for will help increase the rate at which "Web Customers" turn into "Real Customers". For Example if you are researching your competitors online and can not find exact specifications like size or price on any of your competitors websites, then being the one to offer such info could be the key to your success.
2. What do people do once the have come to visit our website? CALL TO ACTION, what is your Call to Action on your website? For Example if you sell shoe laces do you have a button or page for "Buy Your New Shoe Laces NOW, Click Here"
3. Make contacting you easy! People do not want to search for your phone number. If you are a sales based business, put your contact info in the static content of your site (header or footer) to make contacting you that much easier.
As I settle into making regular posts to our Internet Marketing & Advertising Blog, I will add to this list and hopefully help make some decisions easier.
A business website is different from most websites because it represents for the most part a Brick and Mortar business that does several different kinds of advertising through out the year, and the website needs to reflect the quality of the business it represents. Here are a few key factors to consider for your new business website.
1. What will people come to our site for? Focusing on the information people are looking for will help increase the rate at which "Web Customers" turn into "Real Customers". For Example if you are researching your competitors online and can not find exact specifications like size or price on any of your competitors websites, then being the one to offer such info could be the key to your success.
2. What do people do once the have come to visit our website? CALL TO ACTION, what is your Call to Action on your website? For Example if you sell shoe laces do you have a button or page for "Buy Your New Shoe Laces NOW, Click Here"
3. Make contacting you easy! People do not want to search for your phone number. If you are a sales based business, put your contact info in the static content of your site (header or footer) to make contacting you that much easier.
As I settle into making regular posts to our Internet Marketing & Advertising Blog, I will add to this list and hopefully help make some decisions easier.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Difference Between Shooting a Bullet & Throwing IT
Welcome to the FindMyWebPage blog. We will post tips on getting more organic traffic for your website using Website Optimization techniques. FindMyWebPage is an Internet marketing firm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with a focus on increasing user experience through effective web design and marketing. As this is sort of a FAQ blog, all questions are welcome.
Our current clients come from all over Canada, and have engaged us to increase the amount of business they see through their website. Our approach is simple, gives people what they want and they will come back.
Here is an outline of our approach.
1.Analyze
Analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Mint, or the up and coming Re-Invigorate are the key to building a successful website. After just a few weeks of collecting data we will start to form an idea of why people come to your site and what they do once they are there.
2. Domain Strategy
It is vital to secure multiple domains using your products and brands as well as a few keyword domains. We often create landing pages that funnel the traffic into your main site.
E.g. www.SunSpa.ca also uses www.CalgaryHotTub.ca (landing page coming in june 07)
3. Website Optimization
This is the biggie. Our FindMyWebPage service focuses on Website Optimization. It can include changes to the CSS, main menu, adding calls to action and next steps, changing your stactic jpg map on your contact page to a interactive Google API map and of course applying a Keyword Strategy to your Meta Tags and content. A few other common functions of Wite Optimization are resizing your images to increase your loading speed, or upgrading the quality of your images for a better quality feel to the site.
Here is a prime example of a completed site that focuses on Construction Jobs.
4. Marketing & Advertising
Once we have completed the first 3 steps we will move onto marketing your optimized site to directories and search engines on the internet. Our FindMyAdOnline service will manage your Online Advertising and advise you on the best approach for achieving your goals. We recommend Google's Adword Program to our clients. Our packages include your keyword research, Text ads, Graphic Ads and daily management of the account. On average our clients spend $1000/month for 1000 targeted exposures of the website.
5. Email Marketing
Now that your are making full use of your web space and starting to increase your overall activity on your website it is time to start collecting names and email address of potential and current clients. Our FindMyClient service will manage this process for you including designing your email newsletters and managing your data base. A good email marketing campaign along with an Optimized site to take advantage of the increased traffic is how we will take your online presence to a new level!
As time goes on I look forward to answering any questions and providing insight into the internet and it's endless advantages.
Our current clients come from all over Canada, and have engaged us to increase the amount of business they see through their website. Our approach is simple, gives people what they want and they will come back.
Here is an outline of our approach.
1.Analyze
Analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Mint, or the up and coming Re-Invigorate are the key to building a successful website. After just a few weeks of collecting data we will start to form an idea of why people come to your site and what they do once they are there.
2. Domain Strategy
It is vital to secure multiple domains using your products and brands as well as a few keyword domains. We often create landing pages that funnel the traffic into your main site.
E.g. www.SunSpa.ca also uses www.CalgaryHotTub.ca (landing page coming in june 07)
3. Website Optimization
This is the biggie. Our FindMyWebPage service focuses on Website Optimization. It can include changes to the CSS, main menu, adding calls to action and next steps, changing your stactic jpg map on your contact page to a interactive Google API map and of course applying a Keyword Strategy to your Meta Tags and content. A few other common functions of Wite Optimization are resizing your images to increase your loading speed, or upgrading the quality of your images for a better quality feel to the site.
Here is a prime example of a completed site that focuses on Construction Jobs.
4. Marketing & Advertising
Once we have completed the first 3 steps we will move onto marketing your optimized site to directories and search engines on the internet. Our FindMyAdOnline service will manage your Online Advertising and advise you on the best approach for achieving your goals. We recommend Google's Adword Program to our clients. Our packages include your keyword research, Text ads, Graphic Ads and daily management of the account. On average our clients spend $1000/month for 1000 targeted exposures of the website.
5. Email Marketing
Now that your are making full use of your web space and starting to increase your overall activity on your website it is time to start collecting names and email address of potential and current clients. Our FindMyClient service will manage this process for you including designing your email newsletters and managing your data base. A good email marketing campaign along with an Optimized site to take advantage of the increased traffic is how we will take your online presence to a new level!
As time goes on I look forward to answering any questions and providing insight into the internet and it's endless advantages.
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