Will the record oil prices and rising gasoline costs be the boon needed to create a renaissance for e-commerce?

I believe so. At the writing of this article according to Bloomberg.com, West Texas Intermediate crude is at $136.33 /barrel and the average price for a gallon of gas is $4.03/ gallon. With record prices with not sign up retreating anytime soon I believe we could see a whole new waves of online consumer that will use the web to purchase items to save gas to the mall or whatever superstore you prefer.

Main Reasons People Shop Online:

1. Save Time

2. Save Money (might be changing?)

3. More Selection (usually)

4. Save Gas (????)

5. Enjoys Shopping Online (small but growing)

At this rate I believe more people will move purchases online to save trips they would normally drive to a shopping center.  Suburbs and Rural areas will mostly likely see the greatest growth in this area, being they are usually the farthest away from major downtown business districts.  This brings us to the next question.

With the rise in fuel prices, will we see prices online rise?

I think so as well, with these higher gas prices (and a host of other issues) we are already seeing prices for air cargo and travel rise in step.  This increase will have too be offset at some point.  I am not sure how long Amazon.com and the likes will absorb these increased operating costs before they will need to offload some of that too the consumer to maintain or prop-up decreasing margins?

In conclusion I wanted to close with saying that we are entering an unprecedented time that will have many ups and downs and a good thing to do is to keep an open mind, weigh the options and make your own choice.  In the end, this is just my opinion. Please email me with comments and if they are insightful or interesting I will add them with your first name, last initial and city/state.

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Dal

This afternoon I am watching a video on SEOmoz and reading a post on Shoemoney.com about the ramifications of giving away tactics that work effectively on gaining higher placement in the search engines like Google or Yahoo!.

I posted a comment on SEOmoz so I will follow up on that.  In my opinion if you are a search engine marketing and you “out” a tactic that you are using for a client and it gets “fixed” by Google and harms their rankings then you are a fool and your client should fire on the spot.

Personally I only give away valuable information like this in a 1on1 situation with someone that I know and trust.  This is a billion dollar industry so you have a market that will try anything to get on top of the rankings so if someone posts a tip that actually works, people are going to not only copy it over and over again for their vertical they will also pass it too all their buddies as well or even blog about it.  At that point Matt Cutts or one of his minions will read it and he will whip out is “Easy Spam Block” button and kill it like Ludacris at Summer Jam.

I already mentioned a cool trick for a social media website at the SMX Advanced after party and I had emails in my inbox the next morning asking me to email instructions on how to reproduce it.  It dawned on me that maybe I should STFU as well.   I am going to sit down with my buddy and explain it too him but it will not be written down and I will ask him to use it for his personally projects only and not never discuss it period.

In this type of environment there is way too much upside for keeping your mouth shut and only sharing with trusted friend then too openly talk or blog about tricks and tactics that work currently.  I know some will say “well, if you so good then it shouldn’t matter”.  Well my answer is “I like to work smarter not harder”.

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Dal

For our first post on this topic I felt it was fitting to do a basic overview of what we view as Social Media and cover some of the benefits for your business and website.

First off lets looks at the Wiki definition of “Social Media”:

“Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings.”

This is a solid definition of the term but I would add some too it as well. Social Media is also about participation in communities as well. Social Media is also about engaging your audience and giving them something to talk about. You can think of Social Media as part of your ongoing effort for your business to interact with your customers and potential customers (also known as enthusiasts).

Common Forms of Social Media:

- Blogging (Online Content Production)

- Discussion Forums (insert your favorite forum here)

- News Submission (digg, Sphinn, reddit, etc..)

- Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, etc..)

- Commenting (Other Websites)

- VoIP (Skype, Gtalk, Jajah)

- Photo Sharing (Flickr)

- Peer Reviewed Content Production (Wikipedia)

Social Media Benefits:

One of the core benefits of Social Media is by participating in the discussion on topics that are relevant to your business you are not only lending expert advice coming from someone makes their living in this industry but you also are humanizing your company (read: Brand) at the same time. If a customer comes across a post you have written and they find it helpful and unbiased, you have in effect made an impression on them that has given them helpful information and builds trust with them.

With the internet being so anonymous, trust has become a very valuable if not the most important commodity online. That is the “real power” of Social Media in general is a way to meet your potential customers on neutral ground (anything thats not your website) and give them information to assist them and at the same time you are making a favorable impression on them. When that customer goes to make a purchase they will be weighing many things before making a purchase but if you have really put in effort in helping them with useful information or saved them time you will have goodwill built up with them that your competitors have not and this is what can give you the edge when making the sale.

Other Social Media Benefits:

Well…yes there are “other” benefits as well. If you do a outstanding job of providing great information and make your website into an excellent resource and a place of sales you can get the attention of the “influencers” in your community. I am not going to spend too much time on this subject being that I have a post in the future planned for this subject. An influencer in a simple sense is the person or organization that the people who are interested in your industry look too as a source of authoritative information (think, GigaOm, TechCrunch, Walt Mossberg @ WSJ). If you get these people jazzed about your service or commentary you will get free pres and links that are very coveted are hard too come by. Just imagine if you made a new gadget and Walt happen to write positively about it. Well if you imagination doesn’t work to well then I will describe it as a bank account that happens to have many zeros in it ($$$$).

Is there more?

Yes much more but that will come down the line, I am just trying to use this as a primer before we going deeper into this subject. We haven’t even started to cover the SEO benefits or the viral aspects.

See you soon, til next time

-Dal

In todays post we will be discussing what a Sitemap is and why it is important.

What is a website Sitemap?

In a simplest sense a Sitemap is a page on a website that serves as your master archive for every page ever produced on your website that you want the general public to access.  Normally you want a simple HTML link in the footer of your website that shows up on every page.

What is the value of this Sitemap?

First off, this gives your designer more creative flexibility to do more creative navigation options that could have elements like Flash or Javascript that can cause some difficulties for the search engine spiders when they go to navigate your website to look for new webpages.  With this in place the search engine spider is always one link from your entire website.  The less you make the indexing spider work the better in our opinion.  Second, if you choose to move to a different web domain or you change your URL structure you will have a reference that will help you make a proper 301 redirect (we will cover these later) so you do not lose any valuable Google PageRank.

Anything else?

I have read some statistics that 10-15% of web surfers still look for the sitemap when they come to a new website to find what they are looking for so they see this as a time saver as well.   Saving time for a visitor coming too your website is always a good idea.

-Dal

Today we are going discuss the importance of the logo in your overall marketing and branding strategy. The first element that a potential client sees when opening up your website in their web browser. In these milliseconds the visitor is evaluating many elements to form an impression if they “do” or “do not” want to do business with you.

With this little margin for error you are doing yourself a dis-service if you do not have a professional logo appearance. If you do have a well designed and impacting logo you will find customers will take you and your business more seriously. Here a a quote from the iconic designer Paul Rand on logo design:

Paul Rand Quote:

“Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer’s job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting. ”

I believe Paul really hit it on the head with his quote, he really shows us that the logo is what is used to pull all of the different goals of a piece of design together to give it a sense of form. If someone looks at your logo and they believe it looks amateur or novice what do you think they will infer from this on your company? That first impression is just too important to leave to chance.

Here are a few helpful tips for preparing to get a logo designed:

1. Have the name for the company chosen (secure the domain)

2. Gather a list of your favorite colors

3. Gather a list of symbols that would rightfully represent your business and service

4. Write a short summary of your business function to help the designer understand your business

5. Hand drawn sketches are great (even if they are scribble scratch too you)

Here is a question I am frequently asked when new clients call up and are interested in obtaining SEO service for their website. But why is it important and it is right for everyone. After six interesting years of doing this I have to say “yes it is”.

Let me explain why

First I will give some background into the search engine industry and why they have been around since 1995 and now (2002-present) it matters. Many of might remember your first experience searching Yahoo in 1997. I remember many non-relevant searches coming up like if you searched “Brittany Spears” you might get some pr0n website or whatever was the flavor of the day.

Why would this happen?

First, our not-to-be named spammer knew that Ms. Spear was very popular as this moment so they knew that many people were searching “Brittany Spears” in Yahoo! on a daily basis. With this fact they knew a top 10 placement in Yahoo!’s search index would drive significant organic traffic to their website. Second, the algorithm they used at the time was not very intelligent so it was easy to exploit. This was the early days of SEO and it was pretty basic. A little meta tag spamming and some hidden/cloaked text and “poof!” you were magically transported to the top of the search index. (You wonder why our industry has had such a harder time to establish itself).

What happened next?

Two friends and a little company called Google got its feet off the ground. They made is very interesting conclusion. If you weighted website by the other websites that links you. But not quite that democratic, all links (votes) are not created equal. The more weight your website holds then the more weight your link (vote) carries as well. Well folks, this was a game changing event and actually made the Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization industry into what it is today.

Why was this so important?

Well before this advancement you were more likely than not to get non-relevant results when you searched more generic or popular topics. Well this would really tick off the average web surfer. I would even propose that they would even look for alternative search engines until they would find one that would not get such un-relevant search queries. Google gave them this option they were looking for and has helped them gather over 60% of the entire search market.

Was it just Google or did something else happen?

Yes something else happened at the same time and I will take a moment to cover this. Human nature has always revolved around being a “hunter gatherer”. We go to work everyday to “seek” out money to take care of our families. We go to the grocery store to “seek” out the food and we constantly “seek” out information to better our position or educate ourselves. So I would propose that humans had it in them to be “natural” searchers at heart being that is part of our nature throughout history. You might be asking yourself “that is great but how is that relevant too my web marketing”? Let me bring in the other item that happened before I bring us full circle. Second is broadband penetration, this is important and I would say was a major reason of why Web 1.0 never reached its potential. There was a general lack of computers and high speed internet in the average American home. We have now passed that 50% penetration point and most workplaces also have some form of high speed internet access. If we look at the internet itself and the speed that most web services run at we have nearly light-speed access to a plethora of information online (if you know how and where too look). I believe this development has not even begun to really show how it is going to affect society in general being that the internet is still in the early stages of its development. Giving people this type of access, speed and now useful tools to find information is unprecedented in human history. We can see that limited access to information was an effective tactic used to control people so giving this access to anyone should free people over time.

Okay, why is this important?

It is important because this is the last frontier where it is like the wild west online. Many businesses we talk too daily either has never heard or SEO, don’t understand the importance or had a bad experience and are taking that as a reason why SEO is not for them. Well guess what, SEO is fundamentally important and should be the cornerstone too any marketing strategy.  It is still a level playing field with an experienced search engine marketer.  You can have your brand along side the largest brands on the planet.  Unlike PPC (Pay Per Click) or any other advertising medium it is and will always be “pay to play”.   With the search engines making their money from users clicks on the ads that appear along side with the non-paid search results.  They are never (I mean never) going to let people buy there way into these results because they have built trust with the users and if it came to light that Google ever let people buy their way into the index then people will flood to the next search engine that did not practice this type of revenue generating activity and if everyone does this then I personally will be launching a search engine to bring this back to the people.  It is that important and fundamental.

Full Circle (Summary of SEO Importance)

Okay now we have most of the important elements accounted for so we can go into why SEO is important for “any” website or business.

1. People search for things everyday so having your website placed high in any search engine for the generic keywords that relate closely to your core business function

2. This is natural traffic that will come daily depending on the popularity of the keyword or phrase

3. You competitors are doing it or will be shortly once someone explains this too them

4. You have the most level “playing field” you are going to get as a small or medium business owner

5. You can appear along side fortune 500 companies and this enhances your brand

6. Search is only going to grow as more people come online and learn about different methods to finding information or services

7. Search is the ultimate time saver (People love convenience)

8. People assume you can find the best deals online

-Dal

One of the concepts I found that has persisted is that Graphic Designers are Web Developers (Coding) and Web Developers are Designers. This seems to be a common view among many business acumen and the professionals them self.

The problem lies that many times when you receive your website you either have a great design with average coding or a average design with excellent coding. This does not even take into account if the coding is search engine friendly. Most of the time when you meet an exceptional Graphic Design he will have some sort of Art degree. This is a good thing, this means this person has formal training in design, color balancing and strong typography (fonts) skills. Rarely I will find a very competent programmer in this same person that can code their design into a fully functional website.

When you meet a strong coder that has knowledge in Apache (Linux) and IIS (Windows) administration, CSS, PHP and MySQL experience along with other specialty skills you will rarely find a great natural designer or a designer that decided to head down the web programmer career path. These are two separate skill sets that are rarely found in the same person. If you do have someone who says they can meet these two highly specialized skill sets, I would look closely look over their portfolio and evaluate the design and the coding on their own merits.

You will find that if you bring a designer and coder together for your project the end results will more then if you have a single person deliver both.