Tickets now available for AEA Seattle 2007

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: "Limited seating is now available for An Event Apart Seattle 2007, June 21–22, at Bell Harbor International Conference Center on breathtaking Puget Sound. Spend two days with leading designers, developers, and accessibility experts including (in alphabetical order) …

* Tim Bray, father of XML, director of web technologies at Sun Microsystems, and Tim Berners-Lee W3C appointee;
* Andy Budd, user experience lead at Clearleft, co-founder of d.Construct, and author of CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions;
* Mike Davidson, founder and CEO of Newsvine, former art director and manager of media product development for ESPN and the Walt Disney Internet Group;
* Shawn Henry, director of education outreach for W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), research appointee at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and author of Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design;
* Shaun Inman, award-winning designer and developer, inventor of Inman Flash Replacement and the curiously successful stats package Mint;
* Jeffrey Veen, designer manager at Google, founding partner of Adaptive Path, and W3C invited expert on CSS before most of us knew the acronym;
* Khoi Vinh, design director at NYTimes.com, author of Subtraction.com, and former partner at Behavior LLC;"

Web Design References: Events

Web Design References: Events:

Events and Conferences around the world 2007-2008

SMX: The Search Marketing Expo Conference Series

SMX: The Search Marketing Expo Conference Series: "SMX -- Search Marketing Expo -- is the new search engine marketing conference from Third Door Media, the company behind the Search Engine Land news site and the Search Marketing Now webcast series.

SMX is programmed by the sharpest minds in search marketing. Together, Search Engine Land editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan and executive editor Chris Sherman have covered the topics, interviewed the luminaries and educated generations of search marketers for years."

dotMobi Mobile Web Developers Guide | Blue Flavor

dotMobi Mobile Web Developers Guide | Blue Flavor: "On the heels of my SXSW presentation on the Mobile Web, I’m proud to announce that the dotMobi Mobile Web Developers Guide (PDF) that I wrote has finally debuted. The guide is free to all and is available to download as a PDF (a web version of the guide will be available soon)."

Business of Web Development - Web Development Wiki

Business of Web Development - Web Development Wiki: "Web development is a broad term that incorporates all areas of developing a web site for the World Wide Web. This can include e-commerce business development, web design, web content development, client-side/server-side coding, and web server configuration. However, among web professionals, 'web development' usually refers only to the non-design aspects of building Web sites, e.g. writing markup and coding. Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, or social network services."

Getting Real: What is Getting Real? (by 37signals)

Getting Real: What is Getting Real? (by 37signals): "# Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
# Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that's not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn't).
# Getting Real is staying small and being agile.
# Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.
# Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.
# Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don't."

A List Apart: Articles: Better Invoices for Better Business

A List Apart: Articles: Better Invoices for Better Business: "Invoices are a critical component of every business. They serve as a bill of services, closure for projects, a legal paper trail, and an opportunity to strengthen the rapport between you and your customer.

Invoices that obfuscate information, incorrectly state terms or arrive incomplete can be a massive headache for all parties. These mistakes will only delay the payment process, so it is critical you produce invoices that clearly deliver information your client (or their accounts payable department) will need. Strategic timing and attractive presentation are also important, as they can help “soften the blow” by making your invoice seem less like a stale demand for money and more like a friendly letter."

A Few Tips On Estimating Web Projects : D. Keith Robinson's Asterisk

A Few Tips On Estimating Web Projects : D. Keith Robinson's Asterisk: "f there is one thing I’ve had to struggle with at my new job it’s account management. To be quite frank, I don’t like it and I don’t think I’m very good at it. But I’m learning, as making mistakes is a great way to learn, and some of what I’ve learned my be of use to y’all.

Today I want to talk about how to estimate projects and ensure that your estimates work for you as well as your clients. I’ve found this can be really tricky and if not done correctly can cause real headaches down the road. A proper scope assessment is key to the success and smooth going of any Web project and the project estimate is a big part of a good scope assessment.

As well, how that estimate is handled and used throughout the process can have a great effect on the bottom-line of the project."

Design Patterns - Web Development Wiki

Design Patterns - Web Development Wiki: "Often referred to as the GoF, or Gang-Of-Four (because of the four authors who wrote it), Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (ISBN 0-201-63361-2) is a software engineering book describing recurring solutions to common problems in software design. The book's authors are Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides. The book is divided into two parts, with the first two chapters exploring the capabilities and pitfalls of object-oriented programming, and the remaining chapters describing a series of classic software design patterns. The book includes examples in C and Smalltalk."

37signals: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design

37signals: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design: "The biggest challenge for web designers is the unthinkably huge number of possible ways to solve any given problem. We usually don't think of this because we have our habits and traditions to fall back on, but there are literally billions of possible pixel combinations for each page we make.

There is a better way to manage this vast complexity than by making big decisions up front and hoping for the best. To make better sites — sites that are functional, beautiful, and 'usable' — we have to break our design problems up into small independent chunks based on the real issues within our requirements. Christopher Alexander, who came up with this stuff, calls these chunks patterns."

Firefox extensions I couldn't live without - CSS Insider

Firefox extensions I couldn't live without - CSS Insider: "After linking to that highly entertaining but somewhat inflammatorily named 'Valentine's Day Massacre' post, I figured maybe I should put up something with a more, um, positive spin. Surely everyone is not completely jaded about Valentine's Day.

So, I would like to publicly profess my love for several Firefox extensions. They make my life as a web developer so much happier and easier, that I wonder how I ever trudged through web-developer-life without them."

Now open for business in Canada, eh!

adCenter Blog: Microsoft adCenter - Now open for business in Canada, eh!

Microsoft adCenter - Now open for business in Canada, eh!

Despite the cold Canadian winter, our Canadian adCenter team has a lot to celebrate. Today marks the official launch of adCenter in Canada. Now, 100% of all traffic is being served by adCenter.

We are very excited to build on the successes seen in the U.S., U.K., France, and Singapore, and to announce that there is now another choice for advertisers in the Canadian marketplace. Sympatico / MSN has access to the largest Canadian online audience with over 19.4 million unique visitors per month.

To anyone who previously advertised to Canadians on Live Search through Yahoo! Search Marketing, we encourage you to continue reaching this high quality traffic by utilizing adCenter Canada. To take advantage of adCenter Canada:

• Visit www.adcentercanada.ca to sign up. All you need is a credit card and your campaign information to get started. There’s a Can $5 sign-up fee to register.
• If you are already using adCenter, you can access this new market by creating new ad groups using either the Canada English or Canada French region and language.
• Contact your adCenter representative.

We know that as Canada heats up (literally), we’ll see new “faces” in the adCenter community. Let us know how we are doing – starting now.

Take all the great ROI you are already seeing with adCenter and come to Canada.
The adCenter Canada team

Analytics - Web Development Wiki

Analytics - Web Development Wiki: "Web analytics is the measurement of the behaviour of visitors to a website or web application. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. Many different vendors provide web analytics software and services.

ryanj creative uses Google Analytics to provide analytics data for clients."

Outsource Management - Web Development Wiki

Outsource Management - Web Development Wiki: "'Outsourcing' involves transferring or sharing management control and/or decision-making of a business function to an outside supplier, which involves a degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and trust between the outsourcer and its client. Such a relationship between economic entities is qualitatively different from traditional relationships between buyer and seller of services in that the involved economic entities in an 'outsourcing' relationship dynamically integrate and share management control of the labor process rather than enter in contracting relationships where both entities remain separate in the coordination of the production of goods and services. Business segments typically outsourced include information technology, human resources, facilities and real estate management, and accounting. Many companies also outsource customer support and call center functions, manufacturing and engineering. Consequently, a debate has ensued concerning the benefits and costs of the practice as well as how to categorize it as a phenomenon."

Online Marketing from Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture)

Online Marketing from Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture)

Yahoo! Search Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yahoo! Search Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Yahoo! Search Marketing (searchmarketing.yahoo.com) is a keyword-based 'Pay per click' or 'Sponsored search' Internet advertising service provided by Yahoo!.

Yahoo began offering this service after acquiring Overture Services, Inc. (formerly Goto.com) (overture.com). Goto.com was an Idealab spin off and was the first company to successfully provide a pay-for-placement search service following previous attempts that were not well received"

AdWords - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AdWords - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product, and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Image ads can be one of several different Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes.

Microsoft adCenter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microsoft adCenter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microsoft was the last of the "Big Three" search engines (Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!) to develop its own system for delivering pay per click (PPC) ads. Until the beginning of 2006, all of the ads displayed on the MSN search engine were supplied by Overture (and later Yahoo!). MSN collected a portion of the ad revenue in return for displaying Yahoo!'s ads on its search engine.

As search marketing grew, Microsoft began developing its own system, Microsoft adCenter, for selling PPC advertisements directly to advertisers. As the system was phased in, MSN search showed Yahoo! and Microsoft adCenter advertising in its search results. As of June 2006, the contract between Yahoo! and Microsoft has expired and Microsoft is displaying only ads from adCenter.

MSN/Microsoft AdCenter:

MSN/Microsoft AdCenter

Forum from WebmasterWorld.com

Web Marketing Overview from Naifawebsites.com

Found this document via Google
Also available at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df7pkxsq_21dx6trj

Web Marketing Overview

Six recommended areas to focus your online marketing efforts:

1. Keywords -- Identify the BEST terms for people to find you.

2. Site Content -- Make it useful and keyword-rich; update frequently.

3. Submissions -- Send to the search engines, and post on directories.

4. Link Strategy -- Constantly increase the number of relevant incoming links (plus online PR).

5. Paid Search -- Place small ads that will appear on search results pages.

6. Email Marketing -- Build a list, stay in constant touch, make offers, pay to be in other e-newsletters.

There are other Internet marketing categories, but these require more resources: Banner Ads, Affiliate Programs, Blogs, and interactions with Online Communities.

1. KEYWORDS

• Build a list of the words and phrases people use to find you

• Keep in mind:

  • Capitalization does not matter

  • Use both singular and plural forms of words

  • Include the cities, districts, regions, zip codes your services cover

  • Think of word variations (advice, adviser, advisers, advisor, advisors, advisory)

  • Also include common misspellings

  • The more “niche” your services and target market, the better chance for higher search engine ranking because the less competition you will have for your specialty keywords (example: motorcycle insurance vs. car insurance)

• Keyword research

• Listen to your clients. What words do they use?

• Technique to see the keywords your competitors use – view their source code

• Keyword list available at www.goldkeylongtermcare.com

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool (Online Demo)
  This free service from Google provides you with a list of terms to potentially target. Enter a word or phrase and the tool returns a list of searched-for phrases containing those words, listed in descending order. Be sure to enter common misspellings in your query. Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

• Example: “ira rollover” – shows good opportunities with phrase variations that have low competition yet reasonable search frequency:
  - roth ira transfer
  - maximum contribution ira
  - contribution limit ira
  - catch up ira

• How to add keywords to the meta tags in your sites source code

  • Tutorial is available in the Customer Central/Online Tutorials/Marketing Tips section of the www.financialvisions.com website

  • Follow the step-by-step instructions, then forward the information to your webmaster.

2. SITE CONTENT – Enhancing with Keywords

• Place most important keywords near tops of pages.

• Headlines are especially important.

• Keyword-rich text in a long paragraph at the bottom of the Home Page. (Use the “Disclaimer” section.) See example at www.goldkeylongtermcare.com.

• Develop several pages focused on particular keywords.

3. SUBMISSION TO SEARCH ENGINES

• Submit your site to the important Web search engines

• Just focus on the major ones; they feed content to the other minor ones

• Simple online tool that can speed up the process:

  • Wait until your meta tags are in your source code (mentioned earlier)

  • Go back to www.siteowner.com/system/meta.cfm

  • Scroll down and click on “Submit Your Site.”

  • Leave the boxes checked on for all of the search engines listed.

• The next step is to be patient. It can take several months for your site to get listed.

LISTINGS IN DIRECTORIES

• Three major directories that are free:

  • Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org)

  • Yahoo! Local (local.yahoo.com)

  • Google Maps (maps.google.com)

  • Step-by-step tutorials are on www.financialvisions.com in the Customer Central section mentioned earlier.

• The main Yahoo! Directory (https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/) costs $299/yr., but

  • will definitely improve your search engine ranking if you make this investment.

• Process:

  • Listing process is more complicated than making a simple URL submission

  • Browse each directory; need to select your category when you submit your site

  • Get ideas by looking at the companies that are listed in different categories.

  • Decide on the best category for your business

  • Look at your competitors in that category to get ideas for how to describe your business.

  • Write your description, usually can use a maximum of about 20 words.

  • Follow each directory’s instructions for submitting your site.

  • For most directories, you will submit only one time in one category. Yahoo! Local, however, allows multiple categories, so take advantage of that.

• Directories focused on specific industries, as well as other local directories. For example, search for “directories (your town or region)” and “directory (your town or region)”

• Professional organizations -- Check their online directories to make sure your website address is included and has a hyperlink to your site.

4. LINK STRATEGY

• Relevant, incoming links to your site (called “link popularity”) are viewed favorably by search engines, so link-building efforts are critical to improving your ranking. Factors to consider:

• The “bigger” (high-traffic site) the incoming link, the better. That’s another reason the directories are so important.

• Focus on INCOMING links; avoid having too many OUTGOING links.

• Do not use “Free-for-all” pages and “link farms,” or services that promise lots of links. The search engines will actually penalize you if links aren’t relevant or don’t relate to the content on your site.

• Reciprocal links:

  • Create a “Resources” page. (See example on www.goldkeylongtermcare.com)

  • Find complimentary websites; search for “link building software”

  • Local link partners – find them on Local Yahoo!

  • When you locate sites, send personal emails to administrative contact found in the Whois Directory (www.allwhois.com).

• Online Press Releases

  • PRWeb.com. Also, search for “free press release distribution.”

  • Examples of newsworthy topics:

  • A new partner has joined your firm

  • New address

  • Your support of a worthy cause

  • Your company is offering a new service

  • Workshop or seminar announcements

• Format: search for phrase “press release format” and you’ll find examples.

5. PAID SEARCH, Google Adwords

Google Adwords is the leader in this category, though all search engines offer paid search, the small ads (also called “Sponsored Links”) that appear next to the “organic” results.

• Process:

  • Set up an Account.

  • Determine how much you will budget for each day.

  • Create campaigns

  • Choose keywords that will trigger your ads to appear

  • Decide what you will pay for each click on your ads. The ads will no longer appear on a particular day, once your daily budget has been reached.

• Use Regional and Local Targeting

  • Your ads will only appear in the geographic region you have specified.

  • Your ad’s position is determined by both its click price, and its RELEVANCY. If it has a good click-through-rate, it can appear higher than those who have higher bid prices.

• Test the program by starting small ($5 to activate, $.05/click, a few dollars a day)

  • Go to adwords.google.com, and click on “Sign-up Demo” to preview the sign up process.

  • “Click to begin” and you will be walked through the process.

  • Or… You can pay Google to set up a customized campaign for you ($299)

6. EMAIL MARKETING

Build an email list of people you know and those who agree to receive emails from you (opt-in list).

• Capture email addresses on your website by offering free reports, free seminars, etc.

• Rent opt-in lists from “email list houses” (do a search). One resource is www.listfinder.directmag.com.

• Keep adding to your list whenever you collect business cards, or talk to people and ask for their addresses so you can send information.

• Text ads in other e-newsletters (also called “sponsorships”)

• Submit articles to other e-newsletters

• Common E-Mail Pitfalls

• Placing content below the fold (not seen in the Preview window)

• Making it too difficult to unsubscribe

• Sending the right offer to the wrong database segment

• Leaving out the call to action

• Asking too many questions on the newsletter sign up form

• Buying a list, instead of renting one

• Not checking in with customers on a steady basis

• Treating everyone the same

• Sending emails with attachments (main reason for routing to spam folders)