Signore Web Design

Untangling Social Networking Bridge Services

noreply@blogger.com (adam) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:56:00 +0000

This post is a very preliminary stab at describing the use and untangling of Social Networking Bridge Services©. Very preliminary...

In fact this post describes the actual first pass at creating a strategy to simplify and automate the social networking efforts for the Joy of Sox Movie project. I'm sure that others who have tackled this before will probably know of a better way to do some of these things. I'd be glad to hear suggestions for improvement or other services that might fill the void better!

In the work being done for the client I had one goal. Make the clients blogging efforts be the primary source that feeds all the other SocNet efforts.

What are social networking bridge services anywho?

Simply put they are third party services that facilitate communication between the main social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. They also enhance functionality of the main social networks.

Here's the list of what was used in this strategy:

TwitPic - Allows for uploading of photo's and binding to a Tweet. Enhancement.
TwitterFeed - Will listen to your blogs Atom Feed and create Tweets with mini-url's to blog post. Bridge Service.
iTwitter - MySpace Twitter module that allows Tweets to display in your MySpace page. Bridge Service.
Facebook's Twitter import - Listens to your Twitter presence and imports your Tweets as status updates. This was set up through the projects Facebook page NOT an individual Facebook profile. Bridge Service.
YouTube's Blog import - Import your blog postings into YouTube. Bridge Service.
LinkedIn's Twitter Module - Allows LinkedIn updates to be posted as Tweets on your Twitter profile. Bridge Service.

Here's a graphical map of the strategy:

Of course being in the early stages the strategy has not achieved perfection. The main problem is that the Joy of Sox Movie Blog is not the only source of information intended for the social networks. So consequently if a post originates in Facebook, it posts to Twitter which in turn posts it back to Facebook. But so far this is only a problem for your humble narrator as he makes the post and subscribes to the page that in turn receives it from Twitter. Not a biggie by any means.

There are some obvious things that are not being used right now such as Facebook's Blog import via the notes function. This was a decision in the name of untangling the multiple paths of communication that all these systems are offering.
A clean path of transmission.

I think that if TwitterFeed grows to include and multiplex more input and output streams it could be the end all of feeding Social Networking Cross Platform Communication (did i coin a new phrase again!)

Oh and BTW, I think I'm the first to use the phrase Social Networking Bridge Service © , So there!

Your humble narrator.

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Content in the above posting is not meant to be the definitive last word on anything.
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Facebook Page Promotion Pointers

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:29:00 +0000

Some things to consider with facebook pages:

A client of mine has put up and is building a following for their FaceBook Page. Some discussion about that got me to thinking (again) about a few pointers to consider when spreading the word of your page. See list below. Some are rehashed from previous posts, some are new thoughts:

Make posts to your page in a slow steady pace. Don't dump a ton of updates at once
Try to make your updates relevant for your intended audience
Try to have some media as well (images and video are more interesting!)
Try to word your posts, from time to time in ways that are a little inflammatory (if appropriate for your image and audience) . A heated discussion is better than no discussion
Try to word your posts in a way that elicits a response. People need to be asked questions to get them talking and discussion and comments put the V in Viral!
You should send out updates to blast info to your audience but also replicate the info sent on the FaceBook page itself. This keeps the page looking fresh, new info is automatically placed at the top so new visitors see recent posting dates and will be more likely to decide that this is an active page and worth joining. Ding!
Another good reason for replicating on the page itself is that updates sent to your fan base lack a comment utility! Comments put the V in viral!
Leave comments on your posts or try to have a network of friends that do it for you.
Leave comments that try to elicit a response. The comment discussion is at the heart of the viral mechanics. This is when knowledge of your page grows beyond your circle of friends to your friends' circle of friends. Comments put the V in viral! Ding! Double Ding!!!
It's also a good idea to talk about more than just yourself in your updates. If there's no human element for people to connect with then it just feels like old fashioned marketing and people get turned off.

More on the last bullet item. Look, we're all grown up here and if you hadn't realized it yet you should have: "Social Media" is the new marketing tool. but having said that the game is slightly different. When you do your marketing on FaceBook, if you just talk about yourself, your accomplishments or otherwise about yourself, quite frankly you'll be putting people to sleep.

I haven't decided on an exact ratio but from time to time you do need to throw in some comments that are just your opinions on a current event, even something as simple as the the weather. Maybe even try to rile people up. Since this is marketing under the veil of "Social Media" you need to show them there's a person behind the page or people will just get that old "marketed to" feeling and vanish from your fan base. It's important to appeal to events in peoples' lives so that they get that warm and fuzzy connection to you.

You can also apply the list above to twitter and MySpace marketing. I can't tell you how many times I've tweeted for a client, then had the thought: Oh, this is too many posts about ME (the client) and gone and checked the fan base only to find that 2 or 3 people have stopped following. Conversely I have tweeted about things not directly related to the client but when people see it they feel connected by the human element of the comment, check us out and start following. Ding!

FaceBook Pages Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (adam) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:43:00 +0000

FaceBook Pages have their own analytics you know!

I put together a FaceBook Page about a month ago for a local Boston band called Clutch Grabwell. If you like to go out to a club and come away with a little ringing in your ears, go see these guys. They are one of the most enjoyable bands I've seen in years. Their signature sound comes from a horn section that can reach in and rip your soul out. They like to mix it up with plenty of covers and do the most imaginative covers i have ever heard. Talking Head's "Burning down the House" or Alice in chains' "Man in the box" with screaming horns. Yeah

So what does that have to do with FaceBook Page analytics. Nothing! Just go see them if your in the beantown area.

Alright, alright. Well for you facebook page owners all i can say is check out the insights link if you have not done so yet. Click for full size image of the FaceBook Page analytics screenshot

The page analytics show you some interesting things about your audience that most analytics just cant, like gender and age. They also show you how well your media and content are being used. This is really invaluable info on how much excitement you generate.

Clutch Grabwell is a naturally viral topic as they have a well established following and have a lot of content to put up on their page.

You can use this information to formulate your strategy. In the case of this client we can see that if we can get the drinking age lowered to 13 we can easily expand out fan base in that demographic. OK, not the most realistic use of analytics, but i think you get the idea.

Make sure you check out your page "insights" and try to really think about how and why your FaceBook Page gets used. It will help you see more clearly what your doing well and not so well.

Twits and Tweets

noreply@blogger.com (adam) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:20:00 +0000

A little about this Twitter and social marketing thing:

A recent comment from a client about Twitter made me realize it was time to poke around that place and see how the "Social Marketing" worked over there. I mean I hope you guys realize that FaceBook, MySpace and now Twitter have become the latest rage in marketing to you!
FaceBook has smartened up. We "Page" makers can even purchase Pay Per Click advertising on Mother F. now, they have become the latest marketing powerhouse. Probably not what Mark Z. had in mind when FaceBook got created. Or was it ;-)

It's actually the way i like marketing best. In this brave new world at least, the golden marketing rules basically seem to be:

1) Keep the interactions real!
2) Keep the content relevant!
3) Talk about the ups and downs of your product (and maybe learn from it)
4) Let the customers enjoy your online identity with humor
5) Let them participate in the discussion that revolves around you
6) Don't just pitch yourself. Can you say boooring!

Even Coke has figured out how to do it correctly. They have the second most popular FaceBook page on the site with something like over 385 Trillion fans (or was that the US deficit $). They have a nice looking page with constantly update imagery and comments.

I made a comment about friend or fan quantity not equaling quality a while back and added "except maybe for Twitter". Well scratch that. In a nutshell the only difference between marketing on Twitter and FaceBook is that you do it all in sentences no longer than 140 characters. So what does that mean??

How it's done on these different sites:

Well on FaceBook you get to set up a neat looking page (which they change the appearance of randomly, thanks) and upload media, start or participate in discussions, list events, etc and wait and build up your fan base. Once this fan base is built up you can blast the whole group with announcements and keep the love alive.

With Twitter you get to (and have to BTW) do all those things. You just do it in said 140 characters. So one might ask, how do i upload my 200MB video if all i get is a little box that accepts only 140 characters?? Well one answer is FaceBook. Everything you upload there can be linked to. But have you seen the size of their links. ouch. I think most are about 200 characters long, so where's the room for the marketing message?

Well I'm glad you asked.

Thanks to a tweet from my SEO Mentor Jill Whalen at High Rankings I found out about a great short URL service called "Cligs". It's like tiny url but it gives you analytics tracking so you can tell how many people used your link. Yay. You can turn a huge link into a few characters and have plenty of room for your short, sweet and relevant comment.

A little wrap up:

I did an expirement and had some pretty interesting "short cycle" results. I found that if you search the topic your marketing on search.twitter.com, find really relevant results that you can @reply to and point out your clig url you can get about 50 hits in a day with about 10 minutes of work. Since this is taking advantage of the search on Twitter and activity happens at a fast rate, your reply will drop off the charts quuickly too. But the point is you can have a direct impact with little effort a day and get youself noticed. 50 hits/day X 365 Days = 18,250/year hits for 10 minutes a day. Not bad ROI and not a bad way to build that fan base.

That stratergy should be part of the bigger goal to do on Twitter what you do on FaceBook, build up a fan base. On Twitter your building up a "following". Same animal. Like the best practices of any social marketing you should do the following:

Reply to only relevant tweets. If you reply to a tweet about someone not feeling well with a comment that points out your vacation web site, you'll get a resounding go F... yourself. If you reply to a tweet about not feeling well with a comment that is real and point them to this great site you know of with self help remedies for their ailment, you'll get a thank you and widely noticed. Maybe even pick up a few followers
Worry about your Twitter reputation. That means talk about something besides your product. Talk about your life, be part of the "community" not just a marketer. That later will bore and annoy people. Actually contribute.
Follow people and get people to follow you. This is one of the more important long term goals with Twitter (and the others). When you have a big following and you make that comment that mentions the wonderul web site with the self help books, your followers get it right in their Twitter homepage.
Remember with all social marketing, put it out their as a friend not a seller of something. How would you feel about your FaceBook friends loading you up with a sales pitch??

Marketing in the brave new social site world.

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Social Media, Social Marketing, Blah, Blah, Blah.....

This is a little byte about using FaceBook to market yourself. There's a little difference between FaceBook and other mediums. There's also a different attitude you need to have when you work this route.

Although marketing is always about reaching people who are interested in what you've got, and that will never change. The methods with social marketing are sort of counter intuitive to some. You don't ant to use a medium like FaceBook to blast as many unknown people as possible about your great new widget.

That's just social spam.

The idea here is the "tell two friends" method. And the pinnacle of using that method is to get FaceBook friends to comment on your shared links and posts (more on that later). The unspoken contract here is that you respect your friends, and your friends friends and their friends. So you don't treat them like a flock of sheep.

People come to FaceBook to get away from that.

In this medium (and on other social sites except maybe twitter):

Quantity != Quality

There's some simple truth's you need to decide for yourself before you do the "Social Marketing" thingy:

Is your new product or service really that interesting?
Does it appeal to people emotionally?
Are you prepared to be open to criticism on your efforts?

The wider the appeal the better you will do. I dabble in this for my Web Design, that's almost a waste. I only appeal to people interested in finding a web designer.

I also do this for a local Boston band, their appeal: anyone who likes music. aahh ha!

People won't be put off by status updates about a band they like. They will be about my Web Design Company blog postings. uhh oh.

So, anywho back to this thing about the pinnacle of the Facebook posting. Here's the deal kiddo's. For the "tell two people" thingy to work. You need your friends to comment on your postings.

Try to share your links and other posted items in a way that elicits comment. That is the viral hook to move beyond your "circle of trust" to the greater FaceBook world outside. Better yet, craft your postings so that people will want to share it themselves and tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on........

The Portable Device Revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Here's a little post that has nothing to do with web design.

Unlike the masses who run out and buy an overpriced iPod and have it good from the start, I like to find the cheapest set-ups and see what it takes to get them going.

Hence, when i decided i wanted portable video too, buying an iPod or getting a Verizon cell phone was out of the question. I decided to focus on two of the most promising looking items with the lowest price tags:

The Sansa Clip e280 - 8Gig MP3/MP4 player, $49.00 (refurbed)
The Sony PSP 3000 - MP3/MP4/Skype/Internet Radio/Web Browser/ PSP games and Movies. $169.00 at BestBuy.

Hands down of course the winner was the PSP, but first the short review of the Sansa Clip:

It's a neat little unit. I don't think i need to list the pro's for an MP3/MP4 player with FM radio and a voice recorder, so here's the cons:

If all your MP3 ID tags are not version 2 (IDv2) the player can get locked up and you need to go through a painful process to force the player to wipe the memory and reinstall the OS (yeah, i mean it, my jaw's still on the ground)
You need to use a proprietary video converter that rotates the video 90Deg to fit the widescreen that runs from top to bottom. not side to side. Hence you watch a video holding the player on it's side.
The now converted videos become useless on any other platform
Unless you have superman vision, forget watching video's on this.

The PSP is pretty impressive. Being a Sony they had to find a way to give it a drawback and that would be the memory stick for memory expansion. But I found a way around that!!!!

The PSP 3000 is fairly cheap. It plays converted videos very nicely (but getting to a "converted video" is a learning process)
It has a mryiad of features that i like:

The screen size is just right so us old types can enjoy video on it.
It plays video games (umd)
It plays movies (umd)
It's an MP3 player
It's an MP4 player
It's an image viewer
It has a fairly decent browser (even FaceBook recognizes the PSP and serves up a modified page)
It does Skype flawlessly
The internet radio is slick
The wireless network set-up is pretty easy

The Cons:

Memory stick (See my solution below!!)
Your sort of left hanging for how to properly convert videos (A++ Solution)
If you want to use poster files for you lists in the player make sure the image is named the same as the video, put in the same folder with the video and a width no greater than 160px! (thanks for not telling me that anywhere sony!)
Memory Stick (sorry ;-)
There's not a lot of movie selection for the UMD format, but with the MP4 player, so what??
The internal speakers could get a little louder.

So tell me about this Memory stick issue????

Here's the problem. An 16Gig memory stick costs like $100 bucks. can you say OUCH!!!
An 16Gig Micro sd card can be had at Amazon for $35.00 bucks!!!!

Well, Add this:		To this
	+
and you have 16Gig of memory stick for under $40 bucks!

Email and the happy inbox

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:47:00 +0000

Here's a couple of pointers on issues I see from time to time. The first is an quick discussion on housekeeping and avoiding your inbox from outgrowing the space quota it's got. The second is a discussion to highlight a particular setting used most often by people who want to view there email account from multiple locations and have access to all emails (in the POP3 environment not IMAP).

Inbox health and you!

There is one main issue to consider with inbox's in general and that is exceeding your designated inbox limit. You might ask what that means and what happens then?

You inbox is typically given a quota in MB's that it can not exceed. Every email and every attachment takes up some amount of space (Kb, MB or beyond?). The total of all emails and attachments can not exceed the mailbox's size limit.

Well what happens if it does?

You will not be able to send emails but more importantly everyone who sends you an email will get an error stating the users mailbox is over it's limit. Unless they are diligent enough to keep resending it until it works, there's very little chance you'll ever see the email.

One of the main ways to avoid this situation is to delete email that are no longer needed or move them to locally stored folders.

If your shouting at your screen right now: Hey now Adam wait just a minute, I delete emails all the time!!! You've got a screw loose.

I might just have, but that's fodder for another post. But what I do need to say is: Until you have emptied your deleted items folder the emails have typically not been removed from your mail server! haha!

If you've been humbled and are moving on to the next point: What's a local folder?

Let's take outlook for example. If you look under your "Outlook Today" folder you'll see your inbox, sent and deleted items folders. Your inbox and deleted items folder might represent emails still on the server if you have a setting called "leave a copy of messages on the server" checked off. This setting is the crux of the next discussion BTW. If you right click the "outlook today-->New Folder" selection, the resulting folder will represent a local folder. Anything you move there is stored on your hard drive regardless of the above mentioned configuration. Multiple local folders are the best way to organize your emails and keep the server healthy.

Do you need your email account available at multiple locations?

The "leave a copy of message on server" configuration is the crux of making this possible. If you don't leave a copy on the server then you have downloaded it to a particular PC's hard drive. Once this is done it obviously can't be seen by PC's at your other locations.

There are trade offs with the capability of configuring for multiple locations the most important of which is the mailbox exceeding it's limit. The best way to avoid this and maintain usability of this type of environment is to do a couple of things:

Whenever you move an item to any PC's deleted items folder... EMPTY IT to remove emails form the server. Multiple deleted items folders on multiple devices can spell trouble.
Select one PC to be the repository for items that you will move to a local folder. A second option is to move them to a mobile device that can be synced with the repository. Failing to do this will result in the "I now I saved that email but where is it" or more commonly referred to as INISTEBWII syndrome.

Hopefully these discussions can help you avoid a bad situation that only your friends will tell you about, your customers shore wont tell you an email bounced!

Got them to your site? Now what? Why your site needs a search function!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:59:00 +0000

Web site owners get very focused on what will get their web sites found in the search engines. What will bring in visitors to their spanky new web site and they should get focused on that.

Of course we all want users to find our own sites and just love them.

But one should not assume that because site visitors are showing up in dribs and drabs (or droves) that they are getting what they want.

You might look at it this way:

Getting hits on your site is only 1/3 of the puzzle. In general terms you should think of your web site recipe like this:

1/3 Good SEO
1/3 Good content
1/3 Good understanding of site visitor's needs and wants

OK, Good SEO makes sense and I'll run right out and clone myself so i have enough time to always be creating good content but how the heck do i understand what the site visitor wants?????

Well there's a couple things to become familiar with once the cloning process is completed. I hear it makes you feel like half the man you used to be, but anyway I digress.

Google Analytics
Some form of site search avec reporting functions

BTW, Signore Web Design set's them both up when we do a web site for you!

Google analytics and Bounce rate

The first item, Google Analytics™ is a great tool that provides you with detailed unbiased information (compared to web hosting tracking tools) on site visitors activities on your site. The pinnacle of this information is the "Bounce Rate".

Bounce rate tells you how many people get to the first page on your site and high tail it out of there. It's a great indicator of weather your site is completely disgusting users or drawing them in. Believe it or not, typical bounce rate runs around 40%. Boy that seems high, but based on the ADD nature of web surfers it does sort of make sense.

The response to a bad bounce rate can vary. One of my sites GBI-Avis modular Home has a bounce rate that runs around 20%. Yahooooo! that's half the industry average. If you look at the site you'll find it's pretty enough but not flashy. No flash intro's (bad idea anyways) and screaming graphics, rollovers, etc. It does more with a focused text box (text with a bordered div around it) than you would believe. The point here, lowering bounce rate is not about "flashing up the site". It's about finding out what your visitors come to your site for and make those items stand out.

So where bounce rate lets you know there's a problem, site search helps you determine what it is.

Site Search

There are a couple of free services, atomz.com and freefind.com that we have integrated into client sites. These services provide a customizable form & customizable results page that integrate into the site but also provide statistical reporting. This allows you to see what the site visitor TRIED to find on your site. Coupled with Google Analytics you can tell if they ever found it. If a predominant portion of your visitors search your site for the same terms (and that term describes something you offer) then it's obvious your not presenting the product or service clearly enough.

To sum it up, getting them to the site wins the battle. If you don't capture them
quickly then you've lost the war.

Organic SEO - I need to get higher in the rankings by Tuesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:15:00 +0000

How quickly can i get ranked higher in organic search results?

Well that depends on where your starting from and what type of changes are being made:

This is brand new domain:

Well in this case, If SEO has been done from the start your in for a little bit of a bumpy ride. take Google for example; They'll give new sites a boost in the first couple months of operation but then the site will fall off somewhat. The site will fall off sharply if no SEO efforts have been made.

This is brand new web site on an old domain:

Once again attention to SEO will have an impact. If the site structure has been radically changed from what Google has cached, you could disappear for quite a while until your new content is re-ranked (6 Months or more?). There's some things to consider in site redesign:

Has the file names and file structure been preserved. This change will foul up the weight Google gives the current site. To transfer your current page rank you should use permanent redirects (301) in your .htaccess file (or other similar method) to point Google's cache of old pages to the new/replacement pages.

This is the same old site on the same old domain, just getting SEO for the first time:

It might not be that long, a few months perhaps.

Final thoughts

With any SEO campaign, that's done ethically and designed to have long lasting results the time frame for those results is not short. It can be from several months to a year to see tangible and predictable results.

Organic SEO is not as simple as PPC where well written ads and a budget can get you in the sponsored results that day. Actually PPC should be considered on a short term basis to fill the void.

Organic SEO is a more hand to hand combat situation where you need to outrank your competition. and do it in a world where page rank,quality content and quality inbound links have a lot of value in that fight. Where search engines will take months to respond to the value of your site changes it just can't be promised in a day.

If someone tells you it can, I'd look elsewhere for the SEO work.

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Content in the above posting is not meant to be the definitive last word on any topic.
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Template sites and Templating. What's the difference

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Yes, what's the difference

In a nutshell template sites are pre-packaged web sites, typically containing a menu structure pointing to a few pages. There are some attributes about them to consider:

They are rigid. How was the navigation designed. Does it use graphical elements (almost always)? What if you want to change the menu structure then?
Was it designed to be flexible in other ways? what if you change the logo at the top will it skew the page display?
How do you feel about several other web sites having essentially the same look?
What if you need to add e-commerce, a blog or some other functionality? again, will the framework be flexible enough for these additions without major rework?
If you select a template site and modify it and "break something" who will fix it.

these are a few considerations but certainly not all.

What do you mean by "Templating"?

Weather your designing a site from scratch or creating template sites at some point you need to design the first "Template" that other things flow from.

Template site designers do not need to consider any customer specific customer needs at this point they just come up with a pretty design that they hope will sell.

Web site designers also "Template" but we do it at a point where the unique customer design needs have been considered and we do it with future flexibility in mind (because hopefully we will be the go to person for updating the site.

Spam - Some things to consider about email and your inbox

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:26:00 +0000

All of us get spam. It's impossible to get away from.

Below is a very simple discussion on email habits. It's by no means "The complete guide"
but rather a good place to start.

There are some general practices to consider when it comes to your inbox:

Don't Open that email!!!
Don't open an email unless you know the sender or at least it is clear that it is legitimate. Spammers consider a legitimate email address to be gold. They typically embed images or other web-bugs to let them know your address is good. When you open the email you've made their day!

But if you must:
If you must know what this email is about here's a method to help you know this email is a fraud and keep you from opening it (An outlook based answer): In outlook right click the message of interest and select "Options" from the pop up menu. You'll get a bunch of text like this (the email headers):

Received: from ([76.96.62.55])
by sccrmxc17.comcast.net (sccrmxc17) with ESMTP
id (20071022161557s17005ktpde); Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:15:57 +0000
X-Originating-IP: [76.96.62.55]

Received: from dsl88-248-1763.ttnet.net.tr ([88.248.6.227])
by IMTA24.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast
id 3UFF1Y00Y4ttjZk0000200; Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:15:57 +0000
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:15:16 -0800

From: "some"
To: kced1z3@comcast.net

Look at the areas highlighted in purple you'll notice that the From: address at the
bottom of the email headers does not the received lines (also marked in
purple). Also the display name in the headers is "some" , this is not a name any legit email sender would choose to show. This is not a foolproof check but it can give you a good idea of an email legitimacy. Also, the To: address
(bottom line) is not my address but i received this email in my inbox.
Had i opened this i could have warmed the heart of some spammer somewhere by letting them know it was sent to a real email address.

The email has an attachment, should i open it?

You should know my answer by now! But in case you don't: NO!
Unless it's from someone you know or an email you expect. There's no good reason
for strangers to send you attachments (potential viruses) .

Anything else to consider?

You really should have some basic security app's on your PC. Virus, PC firewall ,
phishing protection should all be installed. Most services charge ~$30 per year to
keep subscriptions current. If you think that's a rip-off then i would figure
you've never been through a disastrous infection on your PC. You can wipe
out 10 times that in one event when you factor in lost information, productivity
and not to forget loss of private information.

Things to remember:

* Don't let spammers know they've reached a legit email address.
* Don't open unless you know who it's from.
* If you must look at it. Look at email headers first to determine if it's legit.
* Make sure you have up to date security app's on your PC. Don't skimp here!

Is my web site ever really "Completed"? Content VS. A.D.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Will my web site ever be done?

Regardless of why your asking that question the answer is: NO!

There's two important reasons for this:

Once site visitors figure out there's never any fresh content why would they come back?
Once the Search Engines figure out there's never any fresh content why would they come back?

Search Engine spiders have been designed to be as picky as humans about keeping their interest piqued. There needs to be a regular dose of fresh content for your web site or search engines will simply spider your site less often and give it a lower ranking.

There's a good reason for this. To make search results more useful the Google's of the world have decided that new content is best for the people using their search engines.

NOTE: The search engines spiders can pretty well read your text and determine if it's well written for a human or just spam, crammed full of key phrases to try to rank higher!

You might well ask "What about the ADD web surfer? Don't I only have 7 seconds to capture and retain them.

Well Yes that is true, but then you need to ask yourself "Well what do I offer them now?".

Think of it like this:

Have you ever been to a web site that took too long to download?

A web site that didn't immediately focus you on the information you were looking for?

What did you do then? Well if your like me you spent as close to that 7 seconds
as possible and then moved on. Lets assume for a moment though that your attention was caught in that seven seconds. You saw clues that what you were looking for was on this site. what did you do then????

You started reading!

Well how would you feel if you then discovered the page had the same old content, no new information. Or worse yet was just a key word stuffed, SEO unethically optimized useless piece of %@#%@#$%@#$. Pretty P.O'd I'd think. I know i am when it happens (or when the result is just another page of results and not what I'm looking for).

So if you ask yourself the "what then?" question raised above you should realize that the A.D.D. web surfer is not so A.D.D. after all. One of my testers put it quite nicely:

Once i realize that the site has what I'm looking for I'd read War & Peace to get the information! Just not over and over again.

So you decide, is your web site ever going to be done?????

About this page!

noreply@blogger.com (Adam Signore) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Hi and welcome,
I plan on using this section to comment on a wide range of topics that i hope will be useful to techies and non-techies alike.

I'm just starting this up in the secon quarter of 2008 so it will be a little sparse right now.

If you've got something you'd like to hear my comments on drop me an email at:

adam@signore.net

Thanks,
Adam.