Archive for April, 2007

For a small business blog, the template and control panel with automatic uploading makes adding fresh content to your main website easy. Where you choose to host determines how your content is integrated into your site. This can be a critical decision when part of your goal is search engine optimization.

Here are 3 common methods for hosting your newly created blog content.

1. Free hosting by the blog service provider. Blogger by Google, WordPress and TypePad are well known.
2. Setup a sub domain of your main www domain which replaces the www with “blog” in your web address.
3. Setup a subfolder “blog” below the root directory so the address would be your www domain plus /blog.

My choice is #3. The subfolder of your main site entitled “blog” creates a longer www name, but the disadvantage is minimal. The major advantage is your content is no longer remote or separate from your domain. When search engines visit your site to index content having the blog content in a subfolder means it is indexed as part of your main site.

With the other methods, if your original website was launched and never changed, it remains stale. Instead of a dynamic new addition, you have a dusty commercial site in one place, plus a separate advice, news or review blog that grows and grows.

This post is an excerpt from a published article I wrote. Read the full article for integrating your blog here.

Get this free PDF report for SEO website promotion here. Imagine a search in Google with 155 million results and making page one for a very generic search. This is the second in the series under Small Business Owners Report: Do-It-Yourself Website Promotion, and the title is 30 Minutes a Day Free Methods.

Most clients ask about search engine optimization for small business owners, and conversations can take hours to discuss the fine details. This new release is a short course and overview of the 4 key SEO methods that I used to get to Google page one including quick start advice and lists of free resources.

Here’s how the series began. In May 2006 I promised clients documented and proven advice for website promotion with search engines. After 9 months, the results were better than I could imagine. I’m releasing a total of 6 reports for Small Business Do-It-Yourself Website Promotion, and the second one is done and ready for free download.

Visit my blog to subscribe to posts, and get announcements as other reports are released. Comments or questions are welcome.

After making a custom template to integrate a client’s blog to match their main website it was time to do mine. The new look of the Small Business Resource Center Blog includes a matching top banner, overall color scheme, and similar footer. Blogs require slightly different coding techniques, and using a template makes an exact match impractical.

Here’s a screen shot smaller than actual size of the client’s new blog created for Conquer Realty, Inc. in Kissimmee, Florida.

Visitors may be interested in the social bookmarking chicklets and links at the bottom of each post. A tutorial plus free download with all graphics and code to easily add social bookmarks to your old Blogger or new Blogger template was posted previously.

Here is a tutorial including my zoom test to determine if a photograph is suitable for print. To create a full color business card design with photographs, the final quality depends very much on the resolution of the photo you take. Keep in mind that what you see on your computer monitor is low resolution, and although it may look great the quality may not be appropriate for printed marketing materials.

To perform the zoom test double click on the file name of your photograph in My Documents to open it, and zoom in at 5 times normal size. If key lines or shapes like a person’s eyes or nose look blurry, you need a better photo. View the quality comparison of my white cat shown below.

Compare the left side which is perfectly clear at 5x normal size to the right side which is obviously blurry. Your computer screen is low resolution with 3-color images, and screen illumination enhances the look. Printing on paper requires high resolution and a 4-color process, and obviously cards are not illuminated. Test your photos with the zoom technique or you may face disappointment with the printed cards.

Bonus tip: Another test is file size. When creating a business card for print check the file size in My Documents and if it is less than 100KB under the “size” column, you need a better version. My advice is bigger is better and a minimum file size of 200KB and up is recommended. I prefer 1000KB which is 1 megabyte, or larger.

On a personal note, and not included in the About Me, the cat in the photo adopted me and incredibly likes to go for a daily walk. Yes, just like a dog this cat stays at my side without a leash for a mile or more and then back home. It was abandoned and living off garbage bins before adopting me. Neighbors are astonished. One asked if I ever worked as an animal trainer. This cat is absolutely gorgeous, so most people think it’s she, not he.

Finally, visit my directory of royalty free photographs to search more than 200,000 high resolution pix for your next project.

This is an excerpt from a published article I wrote. There is no excuse for forwarding what I call friendly spam which is junk email from known contacts which appears convincing, but is actually spam. Small business owners should be cautious, or you may risk loss in credibility. In most cases the spam contains an alarming message quoted from a supposedly credible source that shocks the reader and requests that you forward this to everyone you know.

My advice for everyone including small business owners is visit the Urban Legends website and do a search on key words in the topic of any email you receive begging you to forward it to everyone you know. Urban Legends at www.snopes.com is my choice for debunking false emails. They track and investigate vast numbers of email hoaxes and give detailed reports on each with either a true or false conclusion. It is extremely rare that I search a suspicious message and find out that Urban Legends determined it was not a hoax, but that happens, too.

Use caution before forwarding email. Your credibility could be at stake. Read the full article published online here including tips for protecting your small business contact identities.

Tracking visitor activity on your small business website or blog does not have to be a mystery, or expensive. If you already downloaded my free report “Google Page One in Just 9 Months” you may have wondered “How did he know that one key search phrase was a visitor from Denver?” or “How did he know about it the same day!?”. The answer is I use free website traffic analysis from StatCounter.

Here is the introduction from the StatCounter home page:

“What is STATCOUNTER?
A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats. Insert a simple piece of our code on your web page or blog and you will be able to analyse and monitor all the visitors to your website in real-time!”

Next, here’s a list and selection of statistics that you may view and analyze to find out which pages of your website are the most popular, where visitors came from, and how long they stayed, plus more:

Summary
Popular Pages
Entry Pages
Exit Pages
Came From
Keyword Analysis
Recent Keyword Activity
Recent Came From
Search Engine Wars
Visitor Paths
Visit Length
Returning Visits
Recent Pageload Activity
Recent Visitor Activity
Recent Visitor Map
Country/State/City/ISP
Browser
System Stats
Lookup IP Address
Download Logs

Information gathered from the statistics may help you revise content or add focus to popular products or services. The more you know about traffic patterns the better you are able to adjust the strategy of your small business website.

Tip: One feature that some users may overlook is IP blocking. This option allows you to block your visits from being recorded in the statistics, so you are only tracking real prospects.

My advice is use the invisible stats so they are not displayed on each page. Visible hit counters on a commercial website may affect your credibility. Visitors may react negatively to low numbers and high numbers may be considered overstated like tweaking an odometer.

Feel free to contact me for a quote and assistance adding the hidden code to your small business blog template or each of your small business website pages.

Resources for testing the quality of your small business website are available online, and they’re free. The first test can be done while visiting your home page. In the upper right of your browser are 3 square buttons including the left one with underscore to minimize the page, the “x” on the right to close the page, and the middle one which you will use for this first test. Owners with a small monitor in 800×600 can skip this test.

Clicking the middle button will simulate what people with older computers see when they visit your website. If you were met with a surprise and everything fell apart or got scrambled, discuss cross browser and monitor size compatibility with the site designer. People with older computers and small monitors should experience your site the way you intended.

The next 5 tests utilize free online resources from websites that will test your site instantly. Follow the links and type your www domain address in the appropriate box and follow instructions to see results on these tests:

View what search engines see to simulate the text found by search engines to index your site. Search crawlers cannot view graphics, so the text in the code is what they use to determine the importance, theme, and value of your website.

Checking valid code to W3C will allow you to test your website for proper HTML and identify errors or warnings that should be fixed. Some sites require scripts from external sources that may be beyond the control of your website designer.

Test website accessibility here to see if your site passes the needs of handicapped people viewing your web pages. Persons with disabilities use screen readers and voice synthesizers that “read” your content, plus other special devices.

The page rank prediction tool provides an estimate of the future rating of your website from 1-10 in ranking by Google. This is an estimate only. Most small business websites will be in the 0-5 range, and new numbers are updated every few months.

The URL trends report summarizes your pagerank, plus gives added statistics about major links to your site. Information about your page description, original date created if known, and other details are included, also. Report info is updated monthly.

Use these resources to check and then track your website performance. These factors may or may not be important to you, and certainly older site designs would not be expected to pass all tests. If you fail any or have questions about the importance, discuss them openly with your web developer to evaluate the cost of upgrading your site.

For general voice recording for personal use, or to add audio to your website, you may want to consider Audacity which is an open source freeware editor. Unlike the default Windows recording program that comes with most computers, Audacity features advanced options including export to WAV or MP3. It is Mac compatible, also. Here is the control panel shown smaller than actual size:

You may download Audacity at SourceForge.net at no cost, and then all you need is a microphone or headset with built in mic to begin recording. Additional features include recording mono or stero mix, plus advanced sound editing and special effects.

The look that you present to customers should be consistent no matter where they find you, so materials should include a familiar theme that is easy to recognize. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. When starting a new business, entrepreneurs should consider following a logical order to establish a corporate identity. From experience I’m sometimes contacted by small business clients who put the cart before the horse.

Often small business owners approach me for a custom logo design when they already have a business card or website, but no real logo. Many times there is no consistent theme, font, or color for what is already done. It’s always easier to keep a familiar look if you develop your corporate image in steps, and only continue to the next step after each is approved. Here is my advice:

Logo – this is the foundation for building your image
Business card – do this next once the logo is approved
Website – use a color scheme consistent with the card
Other – now print ads, yellow page ads, trifold brochures, car magnets, etc. should all be done to match

Think ahead, and don’t take shortcuts or think you can’t get “extras” just because you’re getting a free layout. Some services that do advertising layouts for free will gladly include your logo and color scheme if you ask. If not, consider the value of branding your company image and pay to have your ads, website, or printed materials done by the person who did your logo.

Add social bookmark chicklets to individual posts easily with this tutorial for the new blogger by Google, formerly beta. I’ve included a tutorial for old blogger template customization, also, plus all the necessary graphics and code.

Download the free tutorials to add social bookmarks to old or new blogger Google accounts here (zip file, 15Kb, right-click and “save target as” to download). Social bookmarking became very popular since 2006, and it is a method that allows people to tag their favorite websites to a free social bookmarking service.

Is social bookmarking unfamiliar or new to you? View the string of cute social bookmark graphics at the bottom of my posts. Each is a link to a social bookmarking website where you may store and share links to your favorite websites or blogs. The key advantage is you may access your favorites from any computer, anywhere, so they’re always available even when you travel. Learn more about social bookmarking at Wikipedia.

Icons, the code, and full instructions for my top 12 social bookmarks are included in the zip file, plus advice for adding more. The tutorial covers BlinkList, Blogmarks, Del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Google, Reddit, Simpy, Spurl, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and Yahoo. The code is in the same order as those on this blog, but you may rearrange them as desired.

One frustration of publishing a blog is adding widgets to enhance the experience for your visitors. I was particularly stumped because this blog for my commercial site was created with an old blogger template, and my personal blog “Growin’ Up in Maine” was done with the new blogger template. The old version is straight XHTML which was easy. New blogger templates are XML based with limited documentation since released out of BETA by Google early in 2007.

The solution took long hours of research and debugging. When I started to hand code HTML for website design back in the mid 1990′s, I learned early on that a single typo error can ruin the look of any site. Unravelling the mystery for the old blogger and new blogger was equally challenging. To help novice bloggers save time, the code is written to easily customize your blog using copy and replace instead of cut and paste. Add these icons to your blog so visitors can quickly find you later.