Internet Marketing Blog

Yesterday, at around 10pm PT, Google officially announced it is launching Google TV.  Google TV has a fully functioning browser that you use from your television in your living room or bedroom.  So now, not only will you be able to roam most streets of this planet with Internet access from your mobile device, you get to surf the Web from the comfort of your couch or your horizontal office when you’re just too tired to make it out of bed.

This is a great advancement for technology, connectivity, and laziness, but for those of us who create and market websites, this adds a totally new variable we must consider when creating and marketing those websites.

There will now be a “10 foot UI” (UI=User Interface) which means that viewers will be about 10 feet away, or sofa-to-TV distance, and the images will need to be optimized for this new medium.  Some of what “Optimized for TV” means:

• Text will need to be large enough for “10 foot UI”
• Site navigation can be performed through button arrows on the remote, more like tabbing on your laptop computer, rather than by using a mouse pointer
• Selectable elements need to provide a visual queue when selected

There are MANY new recommendations and requirements Google is outlining for websites to be more user friendly on Google TV.   As for now, I’ll be awaiting my test version of Google TV to give you a full review.

Predictions

I’m predicting Google TV to take a while to catch on if it does.  If you have an extremely aggressive Internet marketing campaign, and already have a dedicated mobile site created for users of mobile smart devices, then I would recommend you jump now to create another Google TV version of your website to accommodate new Google TV users.  For those of you without the time, budget, or desire at this point to make custom changes, I wouldn’t worry about it until you start seeing laptop sales drop and Google TV devices flying off the shelves at your local electronics store.

For your next updates on your website, I would recommend making sure you have CSS navigation with a link hover state added if you do not already have this.  If you are an existing client of Webtyde’s, you would already have been urged to have CSS navigation installed.  The CSS navigation will enable Google TV users to navigate your website.

Here is the official Google Webmaster Central Blog entry:

Optimizing sites for TV

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 9:51 PM
Webmaster Level: All

Just as mobile phones make your site accessible to people on the go, Google TV makes your site easily viewable to people lounging on their couch. Google TV is a platform that combines your current TV programming with the web and, before long, more apps. It’s the web you love, with the TV you love, all available on the sofa made for you. Woohoo!

Because Google TV has a fully functioning web browser built in, users can easily visit your site from their TV. Current sites should already work, but you may want to provide your users with an enhanced TV experience — what’s called the “10-foot UI” (user interface). They’ll be several feet away from the screen, not several inches away, and rather than a mouse on their desktop, they’ll have a remote with a keyboard and a pointing device.

For example, here’s YouTube for desktop users versus what we’re calling “YouTube Leanback” — our site optimized for large screens:

YouTube desktop version on the left, YouTube Leanback on the right

See our Spotlight Gallery for more examples of TV-optimized sites.

What does “optimized for TV” mean?

It means that, for the user sitting on their couch, your site on their TV is an even more enjoyable experience:

• Text is large enough to be viewable from the sofa-to-TV distance.
• Site navigation can be performed through button arrows on the remote (a D-pad), rather than mouse/touchpad usage
• Selectable elements provide a visual queue when selected (when you’re 10 feet away, it needs to be really, really obvious what selections are highlighted)
• and more…

How can webmasters gain a general idea of their site’s appearance on TV?

First, remember that appearance alone doesn’t incorporate whether your site can be easily navigated by TV users (i.e. users with a remote rather than a mouse). With that said, here’s a quick workaround to give you a ballpark idea of how your site looks on TV. (For more in-depth info, please see the “Design considerations” in our optimization guide.)

1. On a large monitor, make your window size 1920 x 1080.
2. In a browser, visit your site at full screen.
3. Zoom the browser to 1.5x the normal size. This is performed in different ways with different keyboards. For example, in Chrome if you press ctrl+ (press ctrl and + at the same time) twice, that’ll zoom the browser to nearly 1.5x the initial size.
4. Move back 3 x (the distance between you and the monitor).
5. Check out your site!

And don’t forget, if you want to see your site with the real thing, Google TV enabled devices are now available in stores.

How can you learn more?

Our team just published a developer site, with TV optimization techniques, at code.google.com/tv/web/.

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

I would like to introduce two more partners Webtyde Internet Marketing works with to help bring our clients the best solutions possible.

Mirliton Media, LLC – eCommerce Website Development and  Custom Software Development.
Studio 1936 – Website Development, Enterprise Solutions, Infrastructure, Consulting.

We work together to bring you professionally developed, custom SEO eCommerce website solutions that help bring visibility to your business.  Our powerful team gives your company the most cutting-edge online shopping cart to sell your products nationally or Internationally in worldwide markets.  Please contact us today for a free consultation.

Nearly half of mobile owners have made a purchase via phone
New survey shows consumers are getting comfortable with m-commerce.

Repost from http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/10/14/nearly-half-mobile-owners-have-made-purchase-phone by Bill Siwicki.

48% of mobile phone owners have made a purchase via the mobile web or a mobile app, according to a new survey by Lightspeed Research. What’s more, 48% of those who have made purchases prefer to use their credit cards for payment. While the majority of purchases were of digital products such as apps and music, the data show that consumers are getting comfortable transacting via their phones and are sharing sensitive payment information to complete purchases.

Regarding payment, in addition to the 48% who prefer credit cards when shopping on their mobile phones, 32% prefer using PayPal or a similar alternative payment mechanism, 17% prefer having a purchase charged directly to their phone bill, and 3% prefer redeeming a coupon or promotional code.

When it comes to shopping, the survey finds 78% of mobile consumers have purchased apps or games, 44% music for their phones, 39% ringtones, 31% other goods (including physical merchandise), 27% movie tickets, 22% take-out food, 16% travel items such as hotel stays or train tickets, and 15% movies and other video content for their phones.

“This research highlights that mobile phones are a viable way for retailers to reach customers. With almost half of respondents having already purchased this way, and many more researching store locations, comparing product prices and reading product reviews, the shopping experience is being completely transformed,” says Chris Urinyi, CEO of Lightspeed Research. “Retailers have a real opportunity to understand this change and reach customers and potential customers in a new way. There’s a revolution coming to the shopping experience, and it’s coming on the mobile phone.”

The survey was conducted from August 26-30 and is based on the responses of 3,905 U.S. mobile phone owners who participate in Lightspeed Research’s mobile phone panel.

In addition to making purchases, mobile consumers are actively participating in other shopping activities, the survey shows. 80% have used a mobile web site or an app to locate a nearby store, 70% to comparison shop, 65% to read customer reviews of products, and 56% to obtain more information on products on a retailer’s e-commerce or m-commerce site.

Of mobile phone users making purchases, 36% used an iPhone operating system, 19% a BlackBerry, 7% a device using the Windows Mobile operating system, and 13% other mobile devices.

See our Local SEO plans for becoming visible in your local market.

Webtyde Internet Marketing, LLC has been certified as a Small and Emerging Business Enterprise for marketing businesses on the Internet through the Louisiana Economic Development (LED). LED is responsible for strengthening the state’s business environment and creating a more vibrant Louisiana economy. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the LED for the SEBD Certification. I personally look forward to being a part of the growing New Orleans technology sector and helping businesses all over the entire state of Louisiana prosper from innovative use of Internet technology.

I just received an email from a friend that showed how far computers have come in the last 50+ years.  This image shows the IBM 305 RAMAC in September of 1956.  This “Super” computer had a 5 MB hard disk drive (HDD) that weighed over a ton.

IBM 305 RAMAC - 5 MB

I have much love for my 16 GB thumbnail drive right now.

Canonicalization sounds like a process for recognizing saints.  But it’s actually one of the most important aspects of organic SEO.  Consolidating your URLs (see below), or “good” canonicalization means search engines crawl more pages of your site.  It means that link authority and PageRank get consolidated, so you have a stronger link profile.  It means fewer broken links from other sites.  Bad canonicalization gets you all that stuff, but with the opposite effect.

DEFININTION

The simple definition of canonicalization is: “every resource on your web site has a single web address.”  This means every page, every image, every video, etc.. has only one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for each page of content, image, video, etc..

A URLs look like this:

http://www.webtyde.com/

Or, http://www.webtyde.com/internet-marketing-blog/blog-entry.html.

Or, http:///www.webtyde.com/internet-marketing-blog/blog-entry.php?meh=123.

Note that I said ‘page of content’.  That means that a single page of content, article, product description or list of articles should appear at a single URL.  You should never have multiple URLs for one product description, or one article.

Some of the overly complex content management systems and e-commerce suites out there make canonicalization a challenge.  But it’s doable.

CONSEQUENCES

Here’s an example of “bad” canonicalization:

http://www.webtyde.com/

But it also lives at

http://webtyde.com/  ***NOTE: No www***

People will find the home page at all three versions.  They won’t know the difference, right?  Well, sure…but search engines will.  Googlebot sees the three above URLs as three different pages on the web.  That has two major consequences that hurt SEO.

1.)  You lose link authority.

If blogger “A” comes to ‘www.webtyde.com’ and links to that page, blogger “B” lands on ‘webtyde.com’ and links to that URL, and blogger “C” lands on ‘www.webtyde.com/index.html’ and links to that page, Googlebot sees three links to three different pages, and applies one”vote” to each one.  These three links could have sent three authoritative signals to Googlebot for my site’s home page.  Instead, they’re split into three weaker individual votes for three different pages.

2.)  Search engines won’t crawl your site as deeply as they might.

Search engines allocate resources for each crawl.  No one knows exactly how, but it’s safe to say Googlebot won’t just wander around your site until its found every page.  At some point, it gives up and leaves.  If multiple pages on my site have multiple URLs, then visiting search bots waste time tracking down all of those different versions.  That’s time they could spend crawling other unique pages, instead.  So fewer unique pages of our site end up in the search index, and we have fewer chances to rank.

So, if you’re not already a client, give us a call so we can start cleaning up your website. Canonicalization fixes are generally simple, have a broad impact and let you fix multiple SEO problems at once. You’ll get more link authority, deeper site crawls and better rankings. What are you waiting for?

I’d like to say bravo to Google for customizing the World Cup results to include icons, teams, and game times.  It’s going to be hard enough watching some games at 6am CT, much less making sure you’re watching on the correct day!  Thanks, Googs.

Google FIFA World Cup Results 06/08/2010

In the midst of taking over the world, Google made time to celebrate this important milestones in the history of the Geek, complete with fully interactive game in their logo.  Happy birthday, Pac-Man!

Google Pac-Man 30th Anniversary Image

In a recent article by Matt McGee, 102 retailers were surveyed about what percentage of their sales were attributed directly to their SEM (search engine marketing) campaigns.  According to the survey, 27% of people who responded to the survey said that search engine marketing (which includes SEO and PPC) accounted for more than 50% of online sales.

Please see entire article here – Search Marketing Remains Strong For Retailers: Survey.

Although this article focuses on SEM, which is a combination of SEO and PPC (paid results), it should really give you an idea of what your ROI can be compared to other traditional forms of media by investing your marketing budget into Internet marketing.

Somethings need to be maintained more than others, but almost everything needs consistent maintenance in order to uphold the original integrity of the thing or idea.  For instance, you should paint your house once every five to eight years on average depending on such factors as the quality of the paint, color of the paint, climate, surrounding environment, sunlight exposure, exterior siding material, etc…  You may need to maintain your relationships with people a little more often by taking a friend out to dinner a couple times a month depending on your relationship and how close you consider your friendship.  As for your Internet marketing campaign, Wired Magazine has told us that Google made 550 changes to their algorithms last year alone.  Looks like you’re going to need to think about taking your SEO expert out to dinner for this one.

First off, I want to make sure you understand the terminology.  An algorithm is a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, as for finding the greatest common divisor.  Google’s actual algorithm is, and always will be, a mystery and closely guarded secret in order to protect the integrity of their search results.  It’s about monitoring every change Google makes and following right behind.  No matter how ethical a campaign you run, there will still be changes you will need to make in order to keep up with your competition on Google.

It’s not just about what your competitors are doing and matching or outdoing them, you must also take advice from your SEO expert to help you update your website in order to keep up with Google’s most recent changes.  Being the diligent SEO expert that I am, I get the luxury of having an industry email sent to me every morning at around 4am CT, seven days a week, and I get to read through the 40 or so article and blog entries each morning that have been posted by the industry experts.  I’m very happy for the information and it keeps me very informed so I can keep my clients at the top.

Our SEO maintenance usually consist of a yearly contract designed to maintain and enhance your existing positions by adding a variety of strategic options, as well as a year of monitoring and making changes to your website as Google changes.  Many years ago, it was considered absolutely acceptable to solicit links and give reciprocal links back to those who gave your website a link.  Outbound links are now considered to be negative and we had to make immediate changes as soon as we discovered this major change in Google’s algorithm or all our clients would have started to perform poorly in the rankings.  All our clients who were in an SEO maintenance contract were adjusted and fixed for free and actually saw sharp rises in their rankings.  The people who were not under a maintenance contract were left to fend for themselves, or more likely, sink with many others who were not aware of the changes.

With the fight for Internet search supremacy fierce and the speed of changes white-lining between Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, SEO maintenance is a wise investment for your SEO campaign.  Whether you are in Google Local or in Google’s organic rankings, every campaign should be maintained in order to remain competitive and keep the high rankings.