B(abble)log - Archives
There might be the odd post between now and the New Year, but for the most part I'm off until January 7, 2008. So, thank you for reading and I wish you all much health and happiness in 2008!
- Twist Image has an outstanding holiday card again this year. They’ve asked 12 influential friends to share their favourite video. Speaking of Twist Image, Mitch Joel is inviting people to be on his Six Pixels of Separation year-in-review podcast by sharing their thoughts on the past year in social media.
- David Rosam over at Dangerous Thinking uncovered a very interesting nugget from a Google expert and has written the post 80% of Clicks Are On Natural Listings.
- Brian Clark from Copyblogger rings in with his review of Seth Godin’s new book Meatball Sunday which hits shelves in the US on December 27.
- Opening a conversation with your customers does not means losing control of your marketing message. Dave Fleet shows that Loss of Control is a Myth.
- Do you need to sell the idea of using social media? This post from Jerimiah Owyang at Forrester Research might make that job a little easier.
- If the term Web Analytics makes you want to run away and hide, this one’s for you. Avinash Kaushik, the Evangelist for Analytics at Google demystifies it for you.
- Search Engine Land addresses the fact that for any-sized business, SEO is not an Option it is a Requirement.
- Starting out in the blogosphere? Check out Shoestring Branding’s How to Build an Authority Blog: Tips from the Experts.
- SEOmoz gives doubters hope about the future with Increasing Integrity in the Digital Marketing Industry--A Survey of Recent Cases.
- What the heck is a widget and should you be using them for your business? Here’s a round up from the Interactive to the Max Big Day conference courtesy of Adele McAlear at OneDegree.ca
Friday Fun:
The end of the year always brings lists of hits and misses. I’ll bring you more in January, but for now I hope you enjoy these.
AdFreak.com brings us not one, but two worst-in-advertising 2007 lists. They are:
- Collateral Damage – Top 10 Marketing Blunders of 2007.
- Fortune Magazine’s Misadventures in Advertising.
Here are the top viral video ads according to Website Magazine.
If you haven't already Elfed Yourself.... there's no time ike the present.
Stumble It! |
Save to del.icio.us | 
Yesterday, it started to snow and didn't stop until this morning. We got about 45 cm (18 inches) of snow mixed with high winds. When I blearily peered out the window this morning I couldn't see the car, the driveway or even the road. It was just a blank canvas of whiteness.
The girl and I have just spent the last two and a half hours digging out the car and driveway. With the help of the municipal snowplow, the end of the driveway is approximately 120 cm (4 feet) deep. My arms are too tired to type... so, for today, enjoy this...
It was a very interesting week in the blogosphere, and here is a random sampling of what was goin' on:
- This week photo sharing site Flickr announced that it now allows you to see statistics on visitors and photo views brought this great step-by-step from Dave Delaney. Flickr shows that it has its tongue firmly in cheek with their stats welcome page for people who don’t have a Pro account. "Statistical goodness"!! This is absolutely brilliant copywriting! (See the screenshot at the end.)
- The SEOmoz's Randfish is rewriting the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. Here is the updated Basics of Search Engine Friendly Design & Development. Read it. Then read it again.
- Just in case you took a rocketship to the moon and missed it, Jerimiah Owyang, Web Strategist and Senior Analyst at Forrester Research launched a Twitterstorm with a blog post he made about the power of Twitter to connect people. Within 3 hours of making his post he had 160 comments (now over 400), there were so many people linking, following and following back that Twitter’s servers slowed to a crawl. Some people are calling it “Twitter Tuesday”.
- Do you have a content management system (CMS) for your web site? Julie Batten at the ClickZ Network gives some great advice on making search work with your CMS.
- Mitch Joel at Twist Image tells us about The Story of Stuff which is stirring up quite a bit of buzz. Check it out here.
- If you are not using RSS (Really Simple Syndication), take a look at RSS: Are Marketers Missing a Trick?
- Is there an echo in here? Ryan Anderson from the New PR blog addresses The Failures of the Christmas Slogan Generator. It was one of the funnier things I read this week.
- Google announces Knol, their attempt to build a knowledge repository. Search Engine Land takes a look at what it’s all about.
- Yes, more on social media! If you’re trying to sort out whether or not you should enter into social media as a marketing tool, then look over What Social Media Isn’t – 10 Misconceptions from Search Marketing Gurus to make sure that you are starting off with the right expectations.
- Vote for the Freakiest Advertising Moment of 2007 over at Adweek. The contenders are down to 16 very strange finalists.
Friday Fun
If you haven't heard of Seesmic, think of video Twitter and you'll have an idea of what it is. My pal Adele from McAlear Marketing and I were discussing spectacular new marketing strategies, (okay, we were drinking) and decided to give it a whirl. Unfortunately, we ran into technical difficulties. The results speak for themselves. (I'm "bonus" girl.)
Have a great weekend, all!! Talk to you next week.
Currently, I’m working on a bit of an SEO copywriting manifesto (which starts with “SEO is not a Band-Aid: My optimized copy cannot fix your crappy site.”), and thought I would share another similar rant…
Design in a void doesn’t work.
With one or two rare exceptions, I have had the good fortune to collaborate with very talented designers, who care about user experience and consider the message when creating a website design. But this isn’t always the case.
I’m sure you’ve seen a few of these “design in a void” sites yourself. The ones that look like the content is an afterthought. (Because it was.) Or, the oh-so-sexy site that has a set height and width, forcing you to click “next” to get more information. Or the Flash beginning that has little to do with a company’s business objectives. Unless you are selling Flash design or creativity, it’s usually not necessary. (And, when you have to add “Skip intro” at what point does commonsense kick in?)
In no other advertising medium is this design über alles approach acceptable. Would an agency hire actors before developing a television commercial? Would a print ad be created without consideration for the copy? Never.
So, why does it happen on the Web? I'm not sure. If you've got any ideas, I'm all ears.
Let me share a story. Not so long ago, a client (who shall remain nameless) hired me to write optimized copy. We all seemed to be on the same page. I delivered what I felt was not just good optimized copy, but great marketing copy. It was tightly written and not overly long, running about 200-250 words per page. Later, I found out that the design had been created first and the space allotted to content was approximately 50 words in a rather smallish font. I was livid. I also won't be working with this company again.
Perhaps you're thinking this is just sour grapes on my part. Sure, I’m no different from any other copywriter. It’s hard to see something that you’ve laboured over be chopped.
But at the end of the day, what matters is this: Is it better for the site visitor? Does the copy flow more naturally? Read better?
In my case, it wasn’t better for the consumer at all. The copy sounded odd and basic product information disappeared and, visually, it was hard to read.
Back to my main point… Website design is a group effort, not the domain of one department.
If you’re thinking of redoing your site consider these points:
- What are your business objectives?
- How can the content and design work together to provide a better user experience?
Adland's David t Jones sent me this, contending that 2007 really was the year we ran out of ideas. He really does build a strong case here! But, what do you think?
Don't get me wrong - I love Toronto. But it often amuses me.
The multitude of generic store names... (The Beer Store, The Cookbook Store, The Futon Store, The Casket Store - I kid you not), etc.
The various advertising fiascos as Toronto attempts identify itself through comparison to other cities. (I had a good laugh as I passed a block of condos on the weekend that some developer had archly named "South Beach", perched near the freezing waters of Queen's Quay.)
And, while shopping in Kensington Market (Oh, the joy known as Global Cheese), I stumbled across this sign...
I don't know about you, but I prefer a bike with wheels.
I'm out of the office tomorrow, so here is the wrap-up, one day early...
- Sean Moffitt at BuzzCanuck discusses the 14 Drivers of Successful Viral Advertising/Marketing.
- Don't let your news release get cut by Google’s catch 22. Here are some great tips from the Bad Pitch Blog.
- The lengths some brands will go to for advertising space. AdAge tells us about McDonalds newest campaign to advertise on report cards.
- This falls into the “What were they thinking?” category: Hershey Co.'s new Ice Breakers Pacs packaged like cocaine.
- It's Martin Scorcese doing Hitchcock in this nine minute mini-film "Freixenet: The Key to Reserva" created by JWT, Spain. It’s also a bit like Christopher Guest doing a film about a commercial.
- Facebook’s Beacon advertising platform continued to make news last week. This article, from Social TNT, examines the PR mishandling of the issue with Zuckerberg Plays Jetman While Facebook Burns. Shortly after, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook does some damage control about Beacon through the company blog.
- If you ever wanted to start a blog, but didn’t know where to begin, Connie Benson’s great Blogging 101 series will help you get it off the ground.
- The myth of the long tail and the true value of blogging over at Copyblogger.
- What were you doing search-wise in 2003? With the start of the SES conference in Chicago, SearchEngineLand has a comprehensive look at the search industry's evolution over the past four years.
- Great highlights on the session on SEO Design and Organic Site Structure at WebmasterWorld PubCon 2007 in Las Vegas, courtesy of Search Engine Roundtable.
Bonus:
Ever wanted to find someone and hit a dead end when Google turned up nothing? Lifehacker has a great article on how to track down anyone online.
Friday (came early) Fun
Greenpeace is not generally known for their humour, but their new ad promoting energy efficient light bulbs takes on a “cheeky” tone.
Facebook got you flummoxed? Twitter leaves you with a 140 characters of speechlessness? Find the whole concept of social media a little fuzzy?
Never fear, Chris Brogan, the social media and social networks guru, has come to the rescue. This is something I am very excited about: Chris is dedicating his next 100 posts to the specific mission of helping us grow the value of our social media and social networking efforts. If you're like me and looking to build your online brand, expand your networks and share the stuff you love, this is a must-read series.
So, go on... check it out!
From the same company that brought you such hits as The Art of the Alt and The Title Tag – The Web’s Wallflower here comes…
Meta tags – what are they? Is it true that they are completely useless? If so, why bother?
What are they?
Meta tags (description and keywords) are little bits of code that are embedded at the head section of your site, after the title. They are not visible to the site visitor (unless, of course, the site visitor happens to be looking at the source code.) They were originally for website owners to provide search engines with information about the site and the webpage contents to help proper cataloging of the site.
Is it true they are completely useless?
Well, pretty much from a purely SEO point of view. In the mid-90s the meta keyword as well as the meta description tags were used and abused by people wanted to manipulate the search engine rankings. So, gradually, search engines stopped using meta tags as a factor in the search engine algorithm.
If so, why bother?
For the meta keyword description, it’s the flip of a coin of whether or not even to bother. If you’re a new site owner and not sure of what you’re doing, I would recommend that you NOT include the meta keyword tag. If you repeat your keywords too many times (keyword stuffing) in the meta keywords it can have a negative effect on your site, harming its rank in the search engines. You can use the meta keywords tool for popular misspellings and keyword stemming. For example, if you’ve used “team-building activities” on your site, you might want to include “teambuilding activities” in the meta keywords. As well for keyword stemming, if you’ve discussed how to improve company morale, but not used the verb tense “improving company morale”, you might want to include it in the meta keywords. Again, this is for the very few crawlers that still support it. And even then, who knows.
However, keyword descriptions are another story. Some search engines use the keyword description as the blurb that appears below your URL in the search engine results. Again, this tag is not really about improving your site’s rank, but more about providing a pithy marketing message directly to your target audience. Of course, be sure to include your keyword phrases. Each page should have a unique keyword description that summarizes the page and encourages the searcher to click.
For example, for a link to an online store:
Looking for red and white widgets? Visit ABC Company’s online store to order your widget today.
For an informational page:
Discover a complete resource for free team-building activities that will help improve company morale and team spirit.
There you go, the meta description and meta keywords basics. To learn more visit Danny Sullivan’s excellent tutorial, How to use HTML Meta Tags, on Search Engine Watch.
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