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BluDomain’s new Aiden template HTML add-on option SEO review

Marc — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:21:19 +0000

Since my year-end review a few days ago of 10 of BluDomain’s add-on HTML template options, BluDomain has added another, Aiden. So here is a quick review of the SEO attributes of Aiden. Before we started let’s review BluDomain’s selling advantage for adding their HTML option to your purchase.

A duplicate HTML version of your template. It automatically takes on all edits made within the administrative editing area of your flash site. The HTML site is also compatible with Apple’s iPad. The HTML site is highly beneficial for search engines, each word and image is searchable and as such your site will gain much more search engine exposure.

In summary while visible on non-flash devices, it is lacking in good structure and features for effective SEO improvement much the same as the other BluDomain HTML add-ons. A properly installed and themed WordPress install in conjunction with this BluDomain template will provide much better SEO opportunities and performance than the BluDomain HTML add-on.

Bludomain template name Aiden
HTML option cost $100
Audited HTML page: http://www.bludomaintemplates.com/aiden/html/#!/ABOUT_ME

Significant SEO related observations -

The URL would be better if it did not include the “html/#!/”, moving the unique page file “ABOUT_ME” name closer to the domain name.
None of the page’s content is present in the About page source code. Confirmed by Search Engine Spider simulator. The content is not indexable because it is not present in the page’s source code. Search engines need to “see” and read each individual page’s content in order to list pages in their indices. If your page content is not in the search engine’s index it is not able to be ranked and presented in search results.
No provision for SEO invaluable H1 and H2 headlines, SEO Doctor confirmed.
No internal crawlable navigation links. Confirmed by SEO Doctor and Spider Simulator.

The end of Flash? It is for Flash Mobile on smartphones and tablets.

Marc — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:04:47 +0000

Earlier this month Adobe announced in an email to developers that it was ending Flash Mobile. Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO, explained the strategy as follows:

We believe that HTML5 is a significant catalyst for growth for Adobe. And it’s a multi-year vector of innovation for most of our products. HTML5 is great for Adobe and great for the industry.

The key phrase I just used, and I people to make sure we all recognize this, is that most of our products – absolutely HTML5 is going to result in the substrate of the web undergoing a major overhaul – but it’s much bigger than just web pages. It’s the foundation of how content is going to be delivered in the years ahead.

Web, video, publishing, gaming are all going to increasingly rely on HTML5 across PCs, phones, TVs, and tablets. That is the foundation that we’re building toward and that’s the foundation we’re going to take a leadership position in.

A couple of days later Flash developer Mike Chambers expanded on the reasons for ending Flash Mobile and the future of Flash in general. He noted that:

Finally, given the growth of HTML5 on both mobile and desktop browsers, we decided to more evenly balance our resources dedicate between Flash and HTML5.

Halting development on the Flash Player for mobile devices frees up resources for HTML5 development (tooling, frameworks, browsers).

So the future at Adobe calls for less Flash and more HTML5. Contemplating Adobe’s increasing investment in HTML5 development tools and at the same time terminating Flash for mobile devices and what it means regarding Flash overall brings to mind the following quote from Winston Churchill; “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Can it be that in a few months or a couple of years that as Flash Mobile went, so will Flash? To learn more regarding the problems and performance of flash on mobile devices read this analysis by GigaOm on why Flash Mobile did not work out.

Give it some thought when you make an investment in your website. With site visits by mobile devices quickly climbing towards 15% to 20% of the total site visits, according to IBM, it is a very important marketing consideration. For your website and marketing it seems that “to Flash or not to Flash” is the question. With Adobe putting its money on HTML5 for its future shouldn’t you?

It seems time to revisit some of the basic issues. Do you remember April 2010 and Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Flash? particularly concerning security, reliability and performance?

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

In retrospect Steve Jobs had reasoned answers, before hardly any of us had even thought of the question.

New website for custom woodworker and cabinet maker Don Ragland of Austin Texas

Marc — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:59:47 +0000

I enjoy creating websites for small business. These websites provide the business owner a competitive advantage and fairly quickly result in increased business. One of my most recent is a website for Austin, Texas based custom cabinet and furniture maker Don Ragland. Don is a successful craftsman and woodworker creating custom cabinets and furniture in Austin for over 20 years. His marketing was basically the yellow pages. But with dramatic reduction in use of yellow pages (search engines and smart phones have almost replaced yellow pages) and increase in cost of advertising Don had come to realize that he needed a good optimized website in order to be found and reach today’s prospective clients.

Because of the great business results a relative of Don’s has with one of my custom websites, Don asked me to create an effective website for marketing his upscale woodworking. Over a just two week period working with Don, and for much less cost than even a small yellow pages ad, you can now visit the website we created.

Online now for less than a week, we have already gotten the brand new site and domain name in the search indexes. All that is just the beginning of the SEO and search engine marketing that comes with the website.

If you would like to know about the cost and return on investment of my small business websites like Don’s, please call, send an email or leave a comment.

5 Great Custom Google Analytics Reports for your website – FREE

Marc — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:04:09 +0000

My Dad often said “what gets measured gets done”. And these five custom reports seem to “channel” that wisdom helping you understand your website traffic and set and meet goals. All particularly important if you are an online marketer or derive other revenue from your website. And the standard Google Analytics reports often don’t provide some of the data detail you need.

I will be brief, just do the following now. Get the details, why these are most useful, how to use the reports and install the reports in your Google Analytics account by going to this Search Engine Watch article by Greg Habermann “My Top 5 Most Used Custom Reports in Google Analytics“.

These are excellent well crafted reports for analyzing your site traffic and making well-reasoned changes to your site to increase your results and meet your goal.

This is one of my favorite articles of this month and if you have any questions please send me an email or leave a comment.

BluDomain owns over 17,000 domain names. Why yours should not be one of them.

Marc — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:48:23 +0000

Every week I analyse a few websites for people using BluDomain templates seeking ways to improve their site and increase their SEO and search marketing. When I do this I look up where the site is hosted and in whose name the domain is registered. It is not uncommon for more than 40% of the domain names of the BluDomain sites I analyse to be held and registered in the name of BluDomain, rather than the business owner who uses the domain. You need to control and manage your domain, it is your business identity on the internet. Having your domain name registered in another person’s name is problematic for a number of reasons:

1) Most importantly according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) policy the person or company who is identified as the registrant is the person who owns the domain name. If there is a dispute or question as to the owner, the identified registrant receives preference. If you are not sure if you are the registrant of your domain name you can look it up on a Whois, I like this one – http://www.whois.sc/. For well over 17,000 domain names you will see information something like this:

Registrant:
BluDomain
17919 E. Dorado Drive
Centennial, Colorado 80015
United States

2) By being the registrant you get to make decisions such as; which registrar to use for your domain, how you want to be billed for your registration fees, if you want to extend your registration term to over five years for SEO purposes, other services such as privacy and even shop for ease or use and savings.

Fortunately to transfer your domain from BluDomain as registrant to yourself as registrant is easy and very low-cost. There are two things you need to do to begin to change the registrant to your name:

Send a support ticket to Bludomain asking for them to transfer the domain name to you.
Determine where you want to have your name registered. At this time I like GoDaddy’s domain name services (it is the company that BluDomain uses too). GoDaddy is a good domain name registrar and low-cost too (but GoDaddy is not so good for most website hosting). Wherever you decide to manage your domain you need an account to receive the domain name transfer and have it your name. GoDaddy can start this with you over the phone at (408) 505 -8877

That is all you need, but if you have any questions or would like me to analyse your Bludomain for ways to improve its SEO feel free to send an email or leave a comment.

Measuring the SEO of your site, your competitors’ sites and the people trying to sell you SEO services

Marc — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:16:44 +0000

There are a lot advantages to having a website with strong, positive, active SEO properties and structure. The search marketing opportunities from excellent SEO may dramatically increase your business income and significantly reduce expenses.

Many website owners will pursue trying to improve their site’s SEO but have little in the way of methods to measure progress or change. Before you spend a lot of time and/or money on SEO it is very helpful to have “baselines” to measure your own site and how it “stacks-up” against your competition. Also before you buy any SEO services I suggest measuring the site of the SEO company. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that if they are selling the service shouldn’t their site(s) demonstrate some of their SEO ability?

So how to measure a website’s SEO? There are a lot of tools, but there are two I use everyday. These provide a quick snapshot of a site’s SEO potential and can be refreshed to show the results of any changes that you make. This means you get an idea of your progress without having to wait possibly weeks for Google’s index to reflect your changes.

They are:

the Website Grader website and,
Vladimir Prelovac’s SEO Doctor add-on for Firefox (you will need to use Firefox)

Both of these tools will provide you a numeric percentage type score and some summary evaluations of important site structure, elements and assets. It is important to understand that these tools cannot measure the outcome of your SEO efforts. (After all you can have great SEO but have it poorly targeted to your potential market. ) But even if you have the best content it will likely fail in the search engine results against your competitors if your site does not score well.

And what is a good score? Glad you asked. In a competitive market I think you need to be above 95 (or work towards) in the SEO Doctor and above 90 in the Website Grader, for meaningful organic search marketing. Because successful search marketing can provide such lucrative results to a business “winning” is now a matter of very small percentages. The difference of 1-3 percent in either of these tools can mean your site will not appear high enough in organic SERPs to gain any visitors. The race is not between sites that score 80% and 90% neither of them maybe winning, it is between the sites at 94% to 99%. So if you want the benefits of organic search you can’t settle with being better than 80% of websites. You need to be better than 95% percent of them.

Finally, just one note of caution in using the tools, don’t follow the tools blindly. Sometimes there is a good reason to vary from their offered guidelines. Just know your purpose in doing it.

As always, if you have a question send me an email.

Nice words from Mike Black of Black Studios Photography

Marc — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:59:35 +0000

When I do a website for a business, the scope includes many, many details that are related in enhancing the search marketing and social media marketing potential of their business’ web presence. It is not just about the website look anymore. Details include; website code validation, social media integration, search marketing keyword content creation, site visitor lead conversion, the website and hosting speed, even domain name and registration optimization. Over the last years I have helped Mike with all of this, including two website. So I really appreciated this recent note from Mike.

A big thank you goes out to Marc Fuller for helping me figure out some SEO issues with our website. I love the Bludomain flash website product for our galleries and Marc has been great at helping us integrate a WordPress based Bludomain web/blogsite wrap for www.blackstudios.com , now in it’s second generation.

I can figure out about 80% of what I need to do, but it’s Marc that takes it to the next level with his customizations and detailed internet marketing optimization knowledge.

I just like to create websites that win new business for my clients.

Optimizing Facebook Places pages for your business

Marc — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:38:19 +0000

Facebook Places is a fairly new feature and it works much the same as Google Places. Giving a map, hours, details, even allowing Facebook members to check-in plus more. You can even merge Facebook Places with your Business page, which is wise for some small businesses.

This is how Facebook describes Facebook Places:

“Places is a Facebook mobile application that allows you to see where your friends are and share your physical location. You can check in to nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit. Use Places to experience Facebook in a completely new way by connecting with your friends in the real world.

Facebook Places provides a presence for your business’s physical store locations encouraging your customers to share that they’ve visited your business by “checking in” to your Place. When your customer checks into your Place, these check-in stories can generate powerful, organic impressions in friends’ News Feeds, extending your brand’s reach to new customers. Best of all, it’s free.”

There are reportedly over a million Facebook Places already automatically created for storefront businesses in the North America. With the traffic in Facebook alone it is well worth capturing and integrating Facebook Places with your Facebook Business page, if you have not already.

Here is some information on the how-to.

First step is to see if yours already has been created and claim it.

To find your Place, (from Facebook’s instructions) -

“Your Place may already have been created by Facebook or a Facebook user. To see if your Place already exists, search on www.facebook.com via the Search bar on your computer. If you find your Place, you may proceed through the claim flow on the following page.

Otherwise, you may need to physically be located at your store’s location. Once there, launch Facebook Places using your Facebook for iPhone Application or any HTML5-enabled mobile device via touch.facebook.com. Search nearby Places to find your Place. If you are unable to find it, you may add it by clicking the ‘+’ or Add’ icon.”

Not there? You can Create your Place.

“Creating your Place on Facebook is easy. To add a new Place, enter your Place’s name and description (this can be edited later on). Click add. You have now successfully created your Place and you may check-in.”

Now claim your Facebook Place, this is much the same as it is in Google Places.

Claim your Place as this will allow you to manage your Place’s address, contact information, business hours, profile picture, admins and other settings. Managing a Facebook Place is similar to managing a Facebook Page, but there is additional functionality including maps, directions to the business, and check-ins.

1) Login to www.facebook.com, search for and select the name of your Place. Click on “Is this your business?” to claim your Place.

2) Check the box to declare that you are an official representative.

3) Next, we will attempt to verify your Place by calling the phone number listed for it. Please ensure that you can accept phone calls at the listed number. Click the “Call me now” button. During the call, we will provide you with a 4-digit verification PIN.

4) Enter your 4-digit verification PIN to verify your business. If you don’t receive a phone call, click on the “Call me again” link. Once you’ve verified your Place, you will receive a confirmation message that it has been claimed.

If you have multiple Places to claim, you must go through the claiming process for each of your Places. In addition, a solution for linking multiple Places to a single Facebook Page may become available in the future (emphasis added).

The last step for merging your Place and Business Page is optional and not recommended if you have multiple business locations. That may be changed if the possible solution mentioned above is provided by Facebook in the future. But, if you have only one location and are likely to have only one location for the forseeable future I would merge the pages.

This is what Facebook has to say about the features of a merged page.

“You will be able to manage your business centrally on Facebook if you choose to merge your single Place and Page. This includes posting status updates, photos, and links. Most importantly, all of the people who Liked your Facebook Page will remain connected to your business and you can continue interacting with
them.

Your new merged Page will now be updated with a richer design that includes Place information such as maps and check-ins. Your core Page content – Photos, Videos and Events will remain, as well as any custom tabs. In addition, you will keep your existing vanity URL if applicable.”

There is not much to do proactively for the merge, Facebook will likely prompt you to merge the two if you have both a single Business page and a claimed Place page attached to your Facebook profile record. Facebook recommends the merge upon the following conditions -

1. You are prompted to merge
2. You have just one physical store location
3. You have one Facebook Page representing your business

For more details please review the following resources -

The Facebook Places Help FAQ – http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1159

The Facebook instruction guide, 6 page illustrated pdf – http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Places_advertisers.pdf

Let me know if you have any questions, or need assistance. I feel this is an excellent way to extend your business and website further into social media. Particularly if your site is already integrated and socially enabled. SEO has become much more than just keyword marketing on a webpage. Today it has to include social media. It almost calls for a new term.

Is Flash soon to be the new Betamax?

Marc — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:58:52 +0000

Some people are choosing to view the discussion around Flash and iPhones/iPads as Apple versus Adobe. I think a better perspective simply centers on open web standards, improving technology and what is best for content distribution/use.

Many consumer electronics and internet features taken for granted today, were adopted and advanced by the porn industry. The success of VHS over Betamax was felt to be due in part to porn video being widely available on VHS, but rare on Beta. Not too long ago PC World had a feature article on 12 ways that the adult entertainment industry changed the internet. Among the top three positive innovations is listed the early use and improvement of streaming content or video. And following some patent infringement lawsuits in the early 2000′s, adult online content providers adopted Flash in a very big and almost universal way. It was a good way for them to distribute content in a widely accessable format. That was then.

This week one the largest producers of online porn says his firm is leaving Flash and adopting the HTML5 video standard ASAP. In a recent discussion with ConceivablyTech, Ali Joone of Digital Playground had this to say about his company’s view of the future of Flash and HTML5

Not surprisingly, while many of us are still trying to figure out which way we should go, Joone has already a clear direction for his company: “HTML 5 is the future,” he said. For Joone, it is a simple matter of exposure why HTML 5 will win over Flash.

More than two years ago, he began offering content for the iPhone. Since Apple does not allow pornographic content in its App Store and since Safari does not run Flash, DP began taking the HTML 5 route. DP’s HTML 5 streams for mobile devices have been available for more than a year now. Joone said that he is following the Flash integration in Android, but he indicated that it is rather irrelevant to him whether Android will support Flash or not: “Mobile browsers run HTML 5 very well. Flash brings everything to a crawl and has an impact on battery life. With HTML 5, there is no reason to show our content in Flash.”

DP is still publishing content in Flash online, since desktop browsers, especially IE8, aren’t ready for HTML 5 yet. “We are waiting for browsers to catch up. As soon as they are ready, we will move everything to HTML 5,” Joone said. He noted that he was grateful for what Flash has delivered, but said that it was “just a matter of time” until Flash disappears. “It’s the next passing of the torch.”

As the “format wars” have shown from 78′s to 8 tracks to Beta to Laser Disks to HD DVD, … content rules. If there is no compelling content reason to install Flash I expect that in the future fewer and fewer PC and similar devices will install a proprietary closed software add-on to view Flash content or websites. Just a thought to consider when investing your time and money in a website format, what do you think will be the future of Flash. Which did you think would win; Beta or VHS, HD DVD or BluRay?

The Joy of a WordPress Based Website

Marc — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:20:31 +0000

example

One of my newer photography website clients (and a former Flash website owner) gets a lot business from Facebook. This morning he sent me an email with this link to the Facebook Developers Wiki asking if there was a way to automatically include the Facebook Share button on his website pages and posts. If you visit that link, it will give you a snippet of code that you manually place into each page/post, some instructions on where to place the code and it also tells you how to modify the code to change to the look of the Facebook Share box.

With WordPress there is an easier option than learning the code and manually placing the code in each page or post. There is a plugin that will do it automatically. All you need to do is install the Facebook Share WordPress plugin. The plugin is also documented in the Facebook Developers Wiki.

Part of the “joy” of a WordPress based website is the huge open source code community you become part of when you use WordPress. A community of people who are constantly creating new ways to enhance the basic WordPress code to make it one of the best website platforms available particularly for business marketing/networking. (Like the people who created and shared the Facebook Share plugin.) And it makes it especially easy for non-programmers to enhance their own website in almost any way wanted.

Unlike most Flash websites and other closed source platforms, you can make as many changes as you want to your website and not violate any copyrights. Yet, you can also use WordPress to even enhance most Flash websites and others.

If you have any question about enhancing WordPress, a WordPress website or adding WordPress to your current website send me an email.