Utah SEO, Utah Search Engine Optimization, Utah Google Maps, Utah PPC » technology

Google 24 Hour Hotline?

toddjensen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:00:53 +0000

Google’s Matt Cutts explains what Google is doing to try and communicate with webmasters. No, they are not about to offer a customer support hotline, but they are trying to do a little more. It’s not much, really, but at least they know we want more information and contact- especially if we’ve inadvertently done something wrong. It’s a step in the right direction, to acknowledge the need, I guess.

Cloud Computing- Basics

toddjensen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:00:09 +0000

Some of our clients recently have asked us to explain Cloud Computing as a concept. I found this decent video from Ken Colbourn, who gives the basics and some examples. He also explains some pros and cons.

Giving up some privacy, and placing your data in the hands of some company that you may or may not know much about. Also, if you don’t have access to the internet, then you don’t have access to your info. The pros include the fact that anywhere you DO have the internet- you’ve got your data. Also, you don’t need to spend lots of money maintaining the hardware. Companies (e.g. Google) is doing this for you, and most the time they offer many of these services free (google docs) or for really low cost.

If the term ‘cloud computing’ is new to you, enjoy the video, above, and enjoy the benefits of the cloud.

Testing You Website

toddjensen — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:00:57 +0000

I recently read this nice article about testing your website. It’s pretty good and I highly recommend it. A couple points i gleaned from Daniel Waisberg, the author.

1. Your site is a laboratory, not a sculpture. Sometimes we’ll have a client that wants their site, or a page to be 100% perfect before it goes live. Sometimes, this is also when their old page is either hideous and SEO and visual cryptonite, or it doesn’t even exist at all. I like to get the new page live as soon as possible, then tweak it as we go.

2. Calls to action. He emphasizes the importance of these on a page.

“Too often calls to action are hidden, by a loaded page with too many graphic elements, by appearing below the fold or by a bad design choice (too small, faint color, or a button that does not look like a button). By improving the call to action and making it prominent on the page, you can sometimes boost your conversion rates drastically”

3. Testing tools:

There are more good tips, but I like these three the best. It’s important to continually be trying to make each page reach it’s maximum potential.

Google Also Getting Visual

toddjensen — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:00:55 +0000

A few days ago we posted about Bing going visual with their visual search, well Google is getting into the game as well. CNN posts a nice video that gives you a sample.

I like the direction this leads. The more visual search becomes, even more people will use it. Search engine marketing will just continue to grow in importance and complexity…but with it, will be a more enjoyable, effective experience for the end user.

Google Captchas reCaptcha

toddjensen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:29:12 +0000

Google is buying reCaptcha, to help with their book scanning initiative. reCaptcha specializes in those captcha’s you see on forms, that prevent spam bots from inundating a site with information requests. The company uses robust scanning technology to get the images from old books. Google is also in the business of scanning old books, so the two made (or are making) a deal.

Will Cathcart, a Google product manager, in a blog post, explains.

“…reCaptcha’s unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. We’ll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process.”

Google’s noble quest to get all information in the world indexed and easily searchable (and make billions in advertising next to it) continues…

Facebook & Bing Working Together…Taking on Google Together?

toddjensen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:20:04 +0000

We at TK have long mused wither Facebook would ever really try and get into the search business. Imagine, if you will, doing a search on FB for a local plumber and getting web results that integrate with your friends from FB. It could deliver results that had your friends searches and input as a display factor. So, if 10 of your friends had clicked on Action Plumbing and given it a thumbs up (or Google’s Digg like placement button) then it will show up more prevalently on your Facebook search. That way, your friends kinda recommend what you see as search results…helping you make decisions based off their digital recommendations. Phew!

Well, if that scenario where to play out…the beginning steps may have been taken.

Facebook is now showing Bing results at the bottom of each search (has been for awhile, I know), beneath their stuff. Does it mean Facebook and Bing and going aggressively after Google (Bing already is)…well, not necessarily as we’ve described above. But it could be the start…we’re just saying…

Just Plain Cool

toddjensen — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:16:17 +0000

This post has nothing to do with SEO, SEM or internet development, it’s just about something that’s pretty cool. The University of Washington is developing a contact lens with an internal LED. Allowing the viewer to have ‘enhanced’ site, not just 20/20 site. More advanced options will include all kinds of great information, like health information, scrolling captions…the possibilities are endless. Still a ways away, but the concept and potential is exciting.