Archive for November, 2009
Black Friday Promotion
Posted on 27. Nov, 2009 by Dave.
Today as you know is Black Friday! And this in turn means you’re not leaving without an exclusive Black Friday Deal. We’re offering a nice 20% discount that you may use for any product at Foamers during two days – Friday and Saturday. So hurry up to Foamers and paste the following promocode at checkout: 9T49ul6bx3oB4POsr5VQ
Wait, BUT!!!! thats not all; today you also get 20% off on all our custom web design, custom landing pages, custom Craigslist ads, and template customization services + get the template FREE. All you have to do to get the discount is mention this exclusive Black Friday Deal.
FREE when you order customization before Monday 30th
FREE when you order customization before Monday 30th
FREE when you order customization before Monday 30th
FREE when you order customization before Monday 30th
Continue Reading
GENERIC CIALIS on my website? I think my site has been hacked!
Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by John Mueller.
How to use “Fetch as Googlebot”, part 1Webmaster level: IntermediateHas your site ever dropped suddenly from the index or disappeared mysteriously from search results? Have you ever received a notice that your site is using cloaking techniques? Unfortu…
Continue Reading
Hard facts about comment spam
Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by Maile Ohye.
Webmaster Level: Beginner It has probably happened to you: you’re reading articles or watching videos on the web, and you come across some unrelated, gibberish comments. You may wonder what this is all about. Some webmasters abuse other sites by exploi…
Continue Reading
Update on what is going on
Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by veerle@duoh.com.
Here is a little update on what is going on over at Duoh! HQ. The new blog is coming along slowly and I am almost at the stage of adding content. Currently I need to work on the archive page and my about page. Those are still two big pages that I need to finish. When these are done I can concentrate on getting some content in there.
Continue Reading
7 Tips To Get The Best Results From Your Website Template
Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Dave.
1- Keep your template customization simple and easy to use so that the search engines can read it and assess its suitability each time your keywords are used.
In a frantic effort to deliver the latest technology we can never miss sight of the user’s perspective. The fact is, unless web users are able to understand, use and navigate quickly through a web site, it will probably not achieve its objectives. I am not suggesting that all web design solutions are simple. A lot of web sites actually deliver very complex online solutions, however, no matter how intricate the web design, the interface with the user must always be simple and clear.
2 – Curb Your Enthusiasm – while it maybe said that a picture speaks a thousand words, then by the same logic too many pictures can overlap a conversation, moreover, the right use of white space can improve comprehension for the viewer by indicating the relationship between objects or groups of objects – forcing the eye to the center of interest and reinforcing continuity.
3 – Use common-sense – Common-sense is sometimes said to be the least common among the senses, so take some common-sense steps to ensure that your website helps users find their content easily. Ask yourself this – is your content organized in an easy-to-read hierarchical layout? Are you using HTML links on every page, and does each page provide internal links in the text to help the search engine crawler find its way around? Does your site offer a site map and do you include a link to the site map somewhere on each page? And last but certainly not least. Do your pages contain relevant information that clearly and accurately describe your content and is that text clear, crisp and legible?
Part B – Once the website goes live
Continue Reading
Ask the Experts: How Can I Get Video Thumbnails in Google?
Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Gravity.
More and more sites are featuring video. Here’s how to increase your chances of getting video thumbnails within your site’s Google search listings…
Continue Reading
Popular Home Page Designs Deconstructed
Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Smiley Cat: Christian Watson's Web Design Blog.
TechCrunch home page as viewed in Notable
TechCrunch is the most recent recipient of a home page critique by Zurb, using Notable, their visual feedback tool for design teams.
Zurb have also reviewed the home page designs of other popular sites, such as Twitter and CNN.
While some of the feedback about the TechCrunch design feels somewhat subjective (view TechCrunch’s own post on the subject), I do agree with their feedback on the footer, that a different design would likely increase engagement.
In fact I posted my own redesign of the TechCrunch footer a while back. It will be interesting to see if something like this ever gets adopted.
Notable itself looks like it might be a useful tool if it is intuitive for non-technical people to use.
I know it is aimed at design teams, but I would find it really helpful for gathering feedback from other stakeholders (e.g. marketing) who are not always the best at giving their feedback in a clear and detailed manner.
I do like the options Notable provides to review code and copy as well as the visual design of the page. That’s something you don’t see often. The history/tracking features of the tool look handy too. Fine, sign me up for the free version.
Continue Reading
Freelancers: Invoice your clients
Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Oli.
Create invoices and manage account receivables online using one of these 9 web apps. You’ll save time and maybe even earn more money.
The ability to successfully run a freelance design business, requires more than just graphic skills. You’ll need to know how to drum up business, manage competing demands and perhaps most importantly how to [...]
Continue Reading
‘New software version’ notifications for your site
Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 by Maile Ohye.
Webmaster level: AllOne of the great things about working at Google is that we get to take advantage of an enormous amount of computing power to do some really cool things. One idea we tried out was to let webmasters know about their potentially hackab…
Continue Reading
Running desktop and mobile versions of your site
Posted on 19. Nov, 2009 by Maile Ohye.
(This post was largely translated from our Japanese version of the Webmaster Central Blog )Recently I introduced several methods to ensure your mobile site is properly indexed by Google. Today I’d like to share information useful for webmasters who man…
Continue Reading
Getting Started In Internet Marketing
Posted on 19. Nov, 2009 by AQ.
When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?
For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.
At its core, internet marketing is about these things:
* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads
Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.
My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.
My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.
However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.
Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.
While there are many more aspects to internet marketing than just permission-based email marketing, email has definitely been the cornerstone on which our business is built.
More on Getting Started In Internet Marketing
Continue Reading
Lawn Care Business – 5 Important But Not Urgent Things To Focus On
Posted on 18. Nov, 2009 by AQ.
If you’re familiar with Stephen Covey’s best seller ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ then you’re familiar with the idea of ‘important but not urgent’. These are the things we can do that help us reach our goals and aspirations but in most cases, they’re not considered urgent.
More on Lawn Care Business – 5 Important But Not Urgent Things To Focus On
Continue Reading
Pros and cons of watermarked images
Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Maile Ohye.
Webmaster Level: AllWhat’s our take on watermarked images for Image Search? It’s a complicated topic. I talked with Peter Linsley—my friend at the ‘plex, video star, and Product Manager for Image Search—to hear his thoughts.Maile: So, Peter… “wat…
Continue Reading
Prize Draw: Win 500 Free Business Cards
Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Smiley Cat: Christian Watson's Web Design Blog.
The kind folks at Overnight Prints — purveyors of fine printed products such as business cards, postcards, greetings card and flyers — are offering one lucky reader of my blog 500 free business cards (free shipping included too).
How to Win
Simply leave a comment on this post as to why you’d like the business cards. The winner will be drawn at random from the comments and notified by email (so use a real email address).
The deadline is 11:59pm CST Tuesday, 24 November.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Anita P who is the randomly chosen winner!
Continue Reading
7 Top Resources to Download Free Website Templates
Posted on 16. Nov, 2009 by Dave.
Whenever we talk to a prospective template customization client we always get asked some of the same questions such as, how much for just a basic website, how long do the customizations take? – probably the one question we hear most is: What if I didn’t by my template here do you work on other people’s templates? Not as easy to answer as you would think, without knowing more about from whom or where you got your template. But typically, we can customize any template weather it be ours or not. In addition template customization is always delivered on time and we make sure that you have the most standards compliant web sites possible. With that said, I’ve put together for you a list of the 7 top resources to download free website templates, plus a special bonus.
1 – Style Shout
2 – Six Shooter Media
Continue Reading
Twitter Saturday Night Special
Posted on 14. Nov, 2009 by Dave.
We don’t know if you noticed (some of you surely did) but today we gave out a discount code on our Twitter account. It was a 20% discount for everyone who wanted to use it, no limitations – except for the fact that it’ll expire Saturday night . BUT! Tomorrow we’ll be giving out another sweet discount, even a better one. So you might want to follow us on Twitter – in case you still don’t for some reason – in order to be able to use the discount code tomorrow.
Plus, if you still haven’t, check out these FlashMoto CMS templates… this product is so amazing, you can edit your content right on the web page and you don’t have to know Flash or anything – everything is basically drag and drop, which is techy for cut and paste. Plus, SEO and deep linking features and even a Google Analytics tool that lets you measure your customers click path, so you really should check it out….
Continue Reading
Help Google index your mobile site
Posted on 13. Nov, 2009 by Maile Ohye.
(This post was largely translated from our Japanese Webmaster Central Blog.)It seems the world is going mobile, with many people using mobile phones on a daily basis, and a large user base searching on Google’s mobile search page. However, as a webma…
Continue Reading
FlashMoto CMS Where Simplicity Meets Multimedia
Posted on 13. Nov, 2009 by Dave.
One thing that I hated about developing with Flash is how everything might be just fine one minute and suddenly it just decides to shuts down the next. Though I must admit that Flash is always very cordial. It will say something like, “Flash has encountered a problem and needs to close,” that it is very sorry for the inconvenience, and that it is nothing personal but there’s no time to waist, it must relieve itself at once. And, me being the agreeable person that I am, will simply click “OK” and watch desperately as all my work just disappears, never to be mentioned again. Of course, we no longer have to worry about any of that with FlashMoto.
(its easy, try it)
DEMO
Continue Reading
Post-Halloween Treat: New Keywords User Interface!
Posted on 11. Nov, 2009 by Sagar Kamdar.
Our team had an awesome Halloween and we hope you did too. Yes, the picture below is our team; we take our Halloween costumes pretty seriously. :)As a post-Halloween treat, we’re happy to announce a brand new user interface for our Keywords feature. W…
Continue Reading
Using The Internet To Grow Your Lawn Care Business
Posted on 10. Nov, 2009 by AQ.
As you look for ways to spread the word about the lawn care or landscaping services you offer, it’s become incredibly difficult to overlook the various marketing opportunities provided online. The Internet has very quickly become an integral part of how we do business today and even though you don’t provide a product or service online, you should still include the Internet in your toolbox of ways to get new lawn care customers.
More on Using The Internet To Grow Your Lawn Care Business
Continue Reading
ssupak on 
