Friday is the end of the week….so I thought that to wrap up the week, I’d pass along a couple of things that impressed me big time and to begin with, my hat’s off to Google!

Huh? Google? Well, yes….a large part – well in fact just about every hour or so, I am running web searches for clients, on clients, on client products, on channel partners, on just about every single thing that you can imagine. And when you do that, when you run search after search, using everything from the Google tool bar to google.ca to tools that wring those results from the Google index….you find out quickly that yup, Google fights back.

How?

Well when the Google algo determines that a certain IP - mine in fact – is making that number of searches, you get the Google CAPTCHAs and you must enter perfectly, the skewed/distorted text you see else your IP is closed down for a certain penalty period. This may be news to some of you…but us SEO types know it well and we know that we must “toe the line” as a normal course of business….and for most of us, we do what we do, but the resentment for Google arises on it’s own.

I make my living in the online world, so for me, Google is my major partner – note, I did not say adversary….I’ve learned that if I can react to the Google algo for my clients, their rankings will rise and so will my business…that’s something a partner does…not an enemy, eh!

Hence I do not dislike Google as so many other younger SEO types do…and what happned yesterday was a cool cool thing and I wanted to share same.

 As you can see, yesterday when you went to www.google.ca you were presented with a Google Doodle, and as you can see from above in case you didn’t “google” yesterday….it featured a wonderful image of our own RCMP, our famous Mounties! And as you probably realize, we here use the same type of icon, our Canuck Mountie as our own blog mascot for over 3 years….but it’s the 140 years that our Mounties are celebrating that is the real news.

And thanks to Google I’m sure that some of the hundreds of millions of web searchers found out that there is something to think on when it comes to being a Canuck…..and that’s surely about our Mounties in their red serge and trooper hat!

So kudos to Google for their lead on this…and to our own RCMP and their help in forging one of the greatest countries on the globe!

Maintain the Right!

It was my pleasure yesterday to have attended a great marketing session entitled “The Right Angle:SHAPE UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA WITH PROCESS + PURPOSE” at our beautiful Art Gallery of Hamilton for the whole morning – and was it a great event, eh!

And I mean that and would think that as they sold out the audience seats, I wasn’t alone in those thoughts – especially as we were all well entertained by Scott Stratten of Un-Marketing who spoke for almost an hour on his thoughts and practices on marketing – Social Media marketing best practices if you will!

And I thoroughly enjoyed his session and laughed, cheered and stamped my feet just like the rest of the audience – what a great event!!!

Here’s how the event was described by my friend Stephanie Shuster of KiteString -

“May 22, 2013 (Hamilton, ON) – Yesterday morning, KITESTRING presented THE RIGHT ANGLE - a session focused on social strategies to help engage people in conversation online, held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.  Guests learned from experts in the field how to manage their messages online, protect their brand image, and problem-solve with confidence and creativity.

The exclusive, half-day event combined three sessions geared at getting guests to think critically about social media practices, including a networking hour centered around creative conversations in a cocktail-hour inspired brunch atmosphere.

Keynote speaker Scott Stratten (President, Un-Marketing) shared his expertise in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing, and held a book signing at the end of the event.  His keynote was a hit and had the audience riveted with bite-sized quotable advice like “the secret to social media is to do something worth talking about” and “when ‘it’ hits the fan, it’s not time to hide behind the fan, it’s time to be awesome.”

Following the keynote, KITESTRING’S Creative Director, Chris Farias, facilitated an interactive Q&A session fuelled by audience questions, and answered by industry specialists including Scott Stratten, Jamie Stein, (Senior Manager – Social Media, ING Direct), Christine Zakrajsek, (Web and Social Media Manager, EllisDon), Michelle Dias (Social Media Specialist, Goodlife Fitness), and Kyle Kuchmey, (President, New Motto; Alumni Officer – Digital Communications, McMaster University).

Contact: Stephanie Shuster, stephanie@kitestring.ca

KITESTRING is  a company of strategists and creative inventors who solve brand equations.  Their portfolio is focused on the development of strategic brands, integrated campaigns, and digital engagement.”

As you will note, Scott’s session was quickly followed with a panel of Social Media campaign managers for various companies and I loved especially what Christine of EllisDon and Jamie of ING Direct had to offer for their own firms and their view on best practices for Social Media. Great event it was – so #kudos to KiteString for their leadership on this….and I can’t wait for the next one!

Okay, you may not have heard of the Zagat review system for restaurants in the US (learn more here) and the fact that this firm was bought by Google back in the fall of 2011 to be used it was stated “to aid it’s local search rankings” and that seemed to hold some promise for the veracity of same.

What I thought back then (blog link here) was that as Zagat had some real authority in the restaurant review world, that when Google bought same, it could only work well for those rankings and at the same time spin away from Yelp et al  and the plethora of phony reviews.

At least that’s how it looked to me…at the time – but as I’ve learned….things change muchly in the Canadian SEO world, eh!

And Zagat is toast! At least that’s the announcement made just a day ago by Google…and heres’ how I think this will impact local search…but first, here’s what you used to see in Google Maps…

 As you will note I’ve circled the Zagat review rankings on the left hand side that refer to the Chicago Style Pizza Shack….a numerical ranking of same. And here’s what the new Maps layout will look like (at least as far as I can determine on google.ca) -

Note, the numerical Zagat rankings are gone and it includes red stars both numerically and graphically too….here’s a bigger look at what Mike Blumenthal showed yesterday which is where I got this news…. -

So what?

Well, thinking on this change is somewhat interesting…in that Google spent I think something like $150 million on Zagat…and it’s toast.

Hmm….so….is the star review any better? I don’t honestly know….and I think that somehow those Zagat scores are “still” used in the Google Maps algo to rank the restaurants….as in why would anyone waste more than 30 years of a great review system…

But you? What do you think on same….do a quick Maps search for restaurants in your own city and see what you get….and learn more about this big change…..

Okay, you’re an SMB who is trying to get your own website optimized for better keyword rankings for your new potential leads.

You have read a lot on same, you understand your challenges and lastly, you think you have it covered.

You can be using any kind of a CMS (content management system) like WordPress or Joomla or you are using simpler editing by making page by page changes to the basic HTML.  No matter but what the issue will be for you to consider is – did you get all the items done in order and in full.

Of course there’s no way to know – or for me to comment 0n – whether or not you did the whole set of tasks as they should have been done…but in lieu of me actually checking your own site for you…what I thought might be a good idea is a simple checklist for you to match your work against….so here goes – vastly cut down but yup, pure Canadian SEO is right here -

 Page title: did you work hard at crafting a great title for each and every single page – all different of course – and all in the 70 char limitation window? Yes, I know…there is talk in the SEO world, that the 70 char max may not be spot-on….in that some of us are testing a pixel length limiter that appears (at least so far) to be interesting enough for further testing. AND don’t forget that each and every single page of your site is shown – via it’s URL which inlcudes that page title!

Keyword Importance: Did you also “stack” the title with keywords left to right in order of importance for each page too as search engines rank in value the same way that one reads….left to right!

META Description: Did you craft a wonderful advertisement for every single page – all different of course – that shows in less than 156 (or less)  chars, what a potential visitor would find on that page on your site? Make sure they’re all different and that yes, they are specifically relevant to the page that they are on…

 H1:Headline: Did you remember that as the web was a creation of academia….that research papers always have a major headline on a page, that yes, you need to have one – major – H1 tag on each page. Up top where a headline should be too….and no, not 27 of them on a page….just one.

 Body Text: Did you once again, use your keywords in the major body text for each page – again, different for every page and no, not so ‘dense’ that it looks like you’ve stuffed the page with same…but that it is written for a site visitor to learn more about that page – and convert from that visitor to a real live lead!

 Image SEO: You have to realize that there is no reason in the world to name a page image for instance, image001.jpg. That’s pure non-SEO thinking and yet yes, there are hundreds of millions of sites that do just that. Sometimes, a site builder may rename an image to say “gateway.jpg” – again another mistake in that the chance to show a search engine that this image has SOMETHING to do with the content of the page, not th content of the image itself – and yes, using keywords as a part of the image name is best practices! AND do not forget to use the ‘alt=’ tag to further get a search engine to index same!

 On Page Internal Links: One way to help your on page optimization is to remember that links that will be indexed by search engines should be both fully readable as well as again, specific to the fact that relevancy was very important for better rankings and that relevancy metric is very much a part of your rankings!

Lastly a simple reminder – that the search engines long ago realized that when a site uses on page optimizations that are not different for each page…i.e. when they use the same title or META description tags – that’s not a sign that the optimizer is lazy….it’s just that the optimizer didn’t know better….but now you do, eh!

Okay, I’m one of the first to admit that I like tables. I do not like CSS. The reason for same is that at my age the old adage about “old dog and new tricks” may have some bearing but for the most part, I believe that when you find something that works perfectly, you use it. In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Hence, my reliance on tables for site page layouts and CSS only for formatting fo fonts etc…. A few years back I was hired to be a part of the team that did the canada.com website re-design and development – a set of tasks that I totally hated due to the HUGE CSS dependencies!

That said, I’m wrong! Or at least, I’m admitting that CSS may have a place in my new site layouts and designs and that comes from it’s ability to react to the “responsive design” principles….which I define here from Wikipedia -

“Responsive web design (RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones”

As you can tell by this simple definition, it appears that folks smarter than I have determined that there is only ONE WEB – but MANY DEVICES….hence the need for web developers and designers to use responsive design to allow all users no matter the device, to see the site in it’s optimal form.

That said….good gosh is there a ton to learn and get caught up on….so if you too are maybe thinking that yup, it’s time to learn something new…here’s some great spots to get the basics and even some URLs where you can test and practice same….

Ethan Marcotte has a great book out here, enttiled “Responsive Web Design” that outlines both how to think beyond the desktop and craft beautiful designs that anticipate and respond to your users’ needs but also explore CSS techniques and design principles, including fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries, demonstrating how you can deliver a quality experience to your users no matter how large (or small) their display…” – definitely a great starting point!

Smashing Magazine is a well known top site that offers up some of the best articles and tutorials etc on various web items – and their coverage here is an aggragate of various pieces all on responsive design – again, a top notch site to glean info from for sure!

Over at A List Apart where they explore the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices lies a page that again curates various books/posts/articles on responsive design and that’s such a great list that I’m only partially thru same, eh!

WebDesigner Depot is not to be left behind here and the folks here have published a very recent list of tools etc that anyone interested in learning more about responsive design should surely click on to learn more….what a great list here, eh!

LukeW’s look into responsive design, device experiences and RESS with regards to needs and usage of same is also a great short piece to read to learn more about some of the choices one needs to be able to make to fully understand what needs are for our clients….and dont’ forget to scroll to the bottom of that page to see further info too! Oh and some great responsive design stats are here too!

When you’re ready to test too, try this URL for just that too!

And lasty, the 2nd Annual Online Live Responsive Web Design Conference, has pages full of notes on presis and such on the complete Conference…what a great trove of information here for us all…do give it a click as it’s well worth same!

Making things more “visual” is  how the firm known as Visual.ly promotes their work – and as a new convert to their banner, I am more than impressed! What am I talking about here?

First click this link to go to their site, to learn more about what this visual design firm does with numbers – IMHO, about the best part isn’t all about eye candy as the most utilitarian of work-a-day tasks can benefit from a fresh coat of paint and an attempt to simplify and clarify information – and here’s how they put it -

“That explains why we recently turned our attention to Google Analytics. More than 10 million people rely on this free tool daily to keep track of their website’s performance. It works well and we use it ourselves. But, with our experience in designing data-rich visual experiences, we knew it could be better.

Instead of requiring you to log-in to a website, Visually Google Analytics Report is automatically delivered to your inbox each week. And instead of an intimidating dashboard approach to analytics, it tells the story of key metrics such as the number of page views, social engagement, SEO, and bounce rate in a more visual way — highlighting the areas a site administrator needs to focus on in order to see improvement. Visually Google Analytics Report isn’t intended to replace your existing dashboard. But we think it’ll save you plenty of time and (at least if your numbers are up) put a smile on your face….”

As for what you “see” when you join up, I thought I’d add my own google analytics infographic here for you to see….click on same to see it full size…

As shown, the infographic is created in the following way. First you do need a real Google Analytics account to track your numbers for your site. You then join up at visual.ly and once your confirmed, you then click the link to go to their analytics area, and you will get a drop down with any/all of your GA accounts. I picked my Canadian SEO Blog site…and what you see here is what I see too. Note – I do not use GAA for this site as I’m an Urchin dude, but I did turn on GA for the site just to see how visual.ly did with my account….so this is a single week reported here, fyi.

It outlines the various areas that GA is tracking, puts those sections up in various styles and colors, fonts etc…and what you get down at the bottom of the infographic is the Exec Summary area.

Is this Exec Summary accurate – to my mind, yeah…it`s a summary that does come from all of the various factors so I`d be more than willing to consider their own `formula` in this….

All in all, this is a great way for any SMB to watch over their analytics….while the infographic is short it does carry some great graphic looks at your various areas of concern….

The fact that they do indicate that they protect your sites GA privacy is nice to see, and you can get this infographic emailed to your email account too is a nice touch.

So, give this site a try….I did and I`ll carefully map their works on my own GA clients too…you too?

I am so proud today to be adding my own comments to this great news for both our city and our business community! We have a brand new CEO at the Chamber and it’s just been announced that our Innovation Factory COO Keanin Loomis will be taking over those duties soon!

Kudos to the Chamber BOD for this choice and to Keanin too for the new job!

Here`s how our local Hamilton Spectator reported on same -

“Keanin Loomis fell in love with Hamilton as soon as he arrived here in 2009.

Now he has a chance to make a difference to the city’s future as the newly appointed president and CEO of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.

Loomis, a 38-year-old former Washington, D.C. lawyer, was named Thursday to the top job of the business lobby group. He is currently chief operating officer of Innovation Factory at McMaster Innovation Park.

“I practised law in Washington for a few years but became pretty disillusioned with that life,” Loomis said in an interview Thursday. “It was the commute, the hours and the soul-sucking work. You get tired of that after a while.

“Washington never felt like home,” he added. “I’ve moved 20 times in my life and Hamilton is the first place that has really felt like home.”

Since coming to Hamilton, Loomis has been involved with founding Innovation Factory, has served on the Hamilton Economic Summit Advisory Committee for three years and for two years as chair of the chamber’s innovation and technology committee.

Loomis replaces David Adames, who left the chamber just over a month ago to take a job in Niagara Region. Since Adames’ departure, former chamber chair Richard Koroscil has been serving as interim president.

As CEO, Loomis said he’s not planning a sharp departure from the direction Adames set — he plans to keep the organization focused on the “issues of the day” including transit, the city’s “Open for Business” strategy and keeping the 168-year-old institution relevant in a new world.

“I loved the direction David was taking it,” he said. “I haven’t had many chances to flex my policy muscles, but now I’ll be able to do it from a higher platform.”

In a news release announcing Loomis’s appointment, chamber chair Louise Dompierre said the organization is getting a “dynamic” leader.

“Keanin brings to the table a range of experiences and a great knowledge of the chamber’s operations and membership. He has forged a broad network and is highly respected in the city. We were most impressed with his deep understanding of everything that is going on in the community,” she said. “Additionally, because of his energy and vision, we also get an individual who will continue to provide dynamic leadership on behalf of Hamilton’s business community.”

As you can see, ìt`s a chance for our community to be led by someone who has the skills and abilities to really lead….in itself a challenge but after getting to know Keanin over the past 2+ years, after sitting on committees with him and watching him push and cajole and empower and engage with stakeholder after stakeholder – I know he can do the job!

Just another example of how our city is moving ahead…what a great example of a smart choice for our business community, eh!

Once again, it was my pleasure to be involved as one of the Mentors for the weekend just past’s big #HamOnt event – our third StartUpWeekend and what a great success it was too!

Held downtown on James St South, at the popular Radius Cafe building, this event was ably led by our Innovation Factory, Software Hamilton, KiteString agency and Vana Workforce and each of same had their top-notch talent there to present and run the whole event.

With dozens of participants the event was truly a success – and here’s the Press Release on same -

“Hamilton, ON (April 29, 2012) – Last weekend, over 50 developers, designers, marketers, business professionals, animators, and engineers came together at Radius Cafe (venue sponsor) to spend 54 hours trying to launch new startups in Hamilton.

This spring, Innovation Factory, KITESTRING, Software Hamilton and Vana Workforce announced that they had teamed up to bring the international movement  of Startup Weekend to Hamilton for the third time since 2011. In addition to a very generous contribution from McMaster University Xerox Centre for Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (Gold Sponsor), many local companies from across the community showed their support for this exciting initiative – BDC, Ridout & Maybee LLP, City of Hamilton Small Business Enterprise Centre, (Supporting Sponsors), and Big Bee Convenience (Food and Beverage Sponsor).

The 54-­‐hour event was designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-­‐technical entrepreneurs. Beginning on Friday night, the attendees met, shared their concepts through a series of public pitches, and voted on the most popular ideas before breaking down into 7 teams (they named themselves Walkbug, Fitted, Shelf Spotter, Pastee, RedB, Key Space, and Placement). The teams spent the rest of the weekend on brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, and culminated on Sunday night with demos and presentations. Participants created working startups during the event and were able to collaborate with like-­‐minded individuals outside of their daily networks.

The Friday night kickoff party included inspirational speeches by Stephanie McLarty (REfficient), Matt Gartner (Group Notes), and Heather Payne (Ladies Learning Code), while a panel of mentors worked with teams throughout the weekend to help refine their ideas and build better projects. On Sunday afternoon, each team presented to a panel of judges – Carolynn Reid  (City  of Hamilton), Bill Brown (MaRS), and Justin Hogeterp (Fluid Media) – who selected the winners: Pastee (winner of a 2 hour consultation with Strategic Innovation Works) and Walkbug (Winner of a 1 hour consultation with Strategic Innovation Works, a Net@ccess hosting package, a SEO package from KKTI, and 6 months of office space at Platform 302). Damien Steel (OMERS) gave a closing address about seeking investment as a startup, and the group celebrated with a closing night reception…”

As you can tell, we all had a real treat – watching and learning about the passions that these entrepreneurs brought to their various startup companies – and I personally liked the back-and-forth of ideas and strategies as they occured too!

Big “tip-O-the-hat” to all the sponsoring companies and the superb event operations too! It’s not easy getting such an event off the ground and then running same well – so Kudos to Stephanie, Tammy, Kevin and Ash for their damn fine hard work!

And will there be a StartUpWeekendHamilton:4 ?

I’d bet on it, eh…this kind of an event is good for our city and our new generation of entrepreneurs too!

Okay, so your site is pretty. You’ve gotten your branding and images all perked up and the aesthetics look pleasing to your focus groups and testing has shown that yes, your value proposition is succinct and believeable. But no clicks. Huh?

It’s a stage I think that many many SMBs go thru and that stage can be headed ‘little usablity’ and yes, we see at least 50% of our potential SEO clients coming to us and being “stuck” in that rut. Pretty site, but is it visitor friendly or usable? And the answer is usually no, it’s anything but.

I’ve blogged on this usability topic many times before, starting way back in 2011 here  and then again here  and here  and here too!

Usablity is a very important factor in that it’s critically important for companies that want to build brand loyalty and attract customers, as people are turned off by websites which they have trouble using. Make it simple for a potential new client or customer to make an inquiry or to buy your products/services.

Photos, colours, contrast, graphics and layout are aesthetic elements that enhance communication of information. The visual form of these elements on your website depends on the ideas you want to communicate to your potential customers. Ideas you might articulate include “trust this company,” “buy this product,” “read this information,” “explore this area,” or “take this trial” etc. We integrate your objectives with aesthetic elements to achieve a desirable website atmosphere that will effectively communicate ideas and information to your customers.

Usability then is all about “converting” that is, the process of converting a website visitor to a new lead or a new sale. Usability then is pretty important when your own competitors are only a click away and as Dr. Pete puts it “poor usability drives away customers and translates directly into lost revenue.” And lost revenue is something that we all want to avoid.

If a site has strong usability, then it allows in fact it promotes it’s visitors into accomplishing their on-site goals….from making a buy of a product to finding out how to contact the site owners for more information. Usability allows a visitor to make that choice easily. It allows them to navigate the site with ease. It allows them to pick and choose thru multiple pages or tabs or windows or iFrames – whatever the technology and design that is used – it is transparent. It simply put is not a hindrance to any visitor.

Again Dr Pete over at usereffect.com is someone that I wanted to point you at – while I believe that he is now a full-time employee over at seomoz.com – his knowledge on site usability can still be found on his site along with some great checklists, tools and pointers at more information on how to get your own site optimized for usabliity! Well worth the click, for any SMB to learn more about Canadian SEO and how to provide usability to their own sites, eh!

Not often that I get surprised here in my community, but I bumped into this great Pitch competition totally by accident.

I dont know if that’s because it’s gender specific, i.e. women competitors only, or if I’ve just been too deep into my own Canadian SEO practice, but here’s the skinny on this great event for our #HamOnt women entrepreneurs!

This event is run by a great #HamOnt site that runs monthly events too, and the upcoming one on April 29th looks like a winner too! But back to the Quick Pitch Competition, and here’s how it looks -

“Does your business need start-up support?

Women Entrepreneurship is running a Quick Pitch Business Competition just for you!

Winners will receive cash as well as support through free consultation.

Simply fill out our Business Proposal template and email it to info@womenentrepreneurship.ca before May 1, 2013.

Download Business Proposal

The top finalists will be announced after our April event.

Those finalists will then present their idea to a panel of judges during our May event, and the winners will be announced and awarded.

Business Competition Rules:

1. You can only submit one business in this competition, and at least 50% of the business needs to be owned by you

2. Your business idea should be unique with a completed business proposal using the provided template

3. Your presentation (pitch) must be no longer than 5 minutes – No PowerPoint or Props

4. Your business must be in its beginning stages (max 2 years)”

As you can see this is a great idea and I’m so proud of our #HamOnt community for the development of same. Who would be judging, might come to mind and I can offer that the panel of judges sounds topnotch too!

• Laura Babcock from POWERGROUP
• Jenn Hudder from KITESTRING
• Serena Lee from Simpson Wigle LAW LLP

And the Competition is moderated by Shelley McQuade from Cypress Strategies.

And I hope that if you’ve ever thought about getting into a Pitch Competiton, that this little post might be just the thing to spur that motivation and get you working on your Pitch itself….you have only 1 week left to enter…so don’t delay!

And see you there too!