• WhoseView
• RTE Player
• myTown.ie
• Talk Irish
• Kildare Street
• Teamwork PM
• Qwitter
• Picomarks
• Short.ie
• Interleado
• AgTweet
• Next Bus
• Collab.ie

So best of luck guys, and enjoy the night. Well done Damien on this – another great night I’m sure it will be (sobs that wont be about to enjoy).

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Realex Irish Web Awards 2009

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Interesting Departure for BMW

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Nominate Here

Red Cardinal is sponsoring the Best New Web Application/Service category, and hopefully we’ll get some great apps nominated.

Yes – I just hotlinked the awards logo

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Irish Web Awards – Nominate Now

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Abu Dhabi Advertising System

Here it is from another part of the airport:

Abu Dhabi Advertising System

I have to say it was really eye-catching. Nothing new with carrying the same advert on all spaces, but in a very long corridor such as an airport terminal it looked really well.

Did I remember a single ad?

Nope, not one. Classic case of the medium being more interesting than the media I suppose.

Gratuitous BSOD

You have to throw one of these in. Saw this in BKK:

Bangkok Airport Blue-Screen-Of-Death

And here it is in all it’s gory-glory:

BKK Blue-Screen-Of-Death

It had never dawned on me that there would be a PC behind each of those screens you see in airports, and the fact that this BSOD was isolated to this screen group got me thinking about just how many PCs there were here. BKK Is a BIG airport. Here’s the screen 2-to-the-left sporting it’s Virtual Memory error:

BKK Screen Out Of Virtual Memory

Do Hong Kong Use Apple?

When I saw this the very first thing that came into my mind was Apple:

Hong Kong Announcement Clock

Looks very Appley to me anyway. Of course when it comes to electronic billboards those Hong Kong folk have it down to a fine art:

Hong Kong at night from Kowloon side

Each of those small light blurs is actually a massive electronic billboard atop a skyscraper. Really cool, and if you get a chance to visit this part of the globe it’s a journey well worth making.

All of the above images were taken on a Nokia E71 phone, and if you’re using that model you should definitely grab the V3 firmware. It improves the camera image quality greatly, and fixes a lot of the graininess you can see in my images (which were taken while still using V2 Firmware).

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Airport Digital Advertising – Does The Media Match the Medium?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The Brown Corporation Homepage – The Home of the Amazing Shit Box

It’s a risky marketing strategy for sure. It does look like an interesting product, and certainly a very honest marketing approach. I wonder what Paul Dervan would think of this?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Honest-To-God Product Names

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Reading the SBP yesterday I saw this ad:

Spread Betting Ad

The ad didn’t rotate or animate. The above image was all there was. Would you rush over to their site?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: People Buy Benefits

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

So this post will (almost) totally ignore SEO, and focus purely on some small changes I would make to the website of the Vhi, Ireland’s dominant private health insurance company, in order to improve UX by 100%.

Vhi – Voluntary Health Insurance (vhi.ie)

As a long-time Vhi customer I’m always delighted with the friendly customer-centric approach of their staff. Whenever I call their landlines the vibe and response of their call centre staff is quite inspirational. Seriously – I’ve never had a bad experience calling these guys.

But does that translate to a great online experience?

Replicating the Offline Experience to your Online Channel

Unfortunately for me the simple answer is no – I always find the UX on their website far less compelling. So I’ve put together 5 simple actions I would take to improve the online experience. My top tip is so simple, but incredibly the issue it fixes is quite likely losing Vhi sales. I’ll go in reverse order, keeping the best till last:

If it’s a button don’t tell me to ‘click here’…

I did say ‘if’. This is a pet hate of mine, but I think many people would agree. If you have to tell me to ‘click here’ so I know an element is a button then the element isn’t doing its job:

Click here.. oh it’s a button?

4. I’d love to talk…

These days there is real global push on business efficiency. And many companies are directing support and customer service to more effective communication channels. Judging by the Vhi site they must feel that email is more efficient than the phone line. How can I tell this? The phone number is buried 2 clicks from the homepage. Here’s what you see when you click the ‘Contact’ utility link in the header:

VHI Contact Page

Firstly – no phone number. Instead a form. Something that’s been borne out again and again through testing – users are put off by longer forms. I have a question about my policy and I’d like an answer now. Filling a (long) form doesn’t give me confidence that I’ll receive a timely and accurate answer. In fact, in my particular case I came to the site to find their phone number (as I’m sure many others do also). But I cant easily see any phone contacts. I’m certainly not being pushed into a phone session am I? (One thing I do like about this form is the ability to find my policy number – maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but my policy number is something I never have to hand.)

Without wanting to give away my next tip, there are in fact some further links to phone contacts. There not exactly screaming out however. Let me suggest a small change:

Using underline style helps links stand out

And again with some further styling changes:

Using conventional blue underlined links

And that leads me nicely to my next gripetip

3. Stick with convention – let the links be themselves

Over the past few years I’ve grown more and more convinced that convention is a good thing. When I land on a web page it’s great to easily and quickly identify either what I’m looking for, or how to get there. In the case of the latter using conventionally styled hyperlinks can be a real plus.

Here’s a page from Vhi’s Mutlitrip Insurance section:

Vhi Multitrip Insurance Homepage

And here’s another page one click deeper, the ‘How to Contact/Claim’ page:

Vhi Mutlitrip Insurance Contact and Claim Page

So can you tell where the hyperlinks are? OK – I did shrink the page to fit my blog, but even at that size you’d easily be able to see a blue underlined link. Here’s the last page, but this time using conventional styling on the links:

Example using conventional hyperlink styling

Did you notice that both original images used bulleted lists? But did you realise that one of those lists was actually live links while the other was not? That, in my opinion, confuses users. And confusion, or to be more correct, avoiding confusion, is one of the primary reasons I’m a convert when it comes to convention styling on links.

I know that occasionally blue links wont fit with the theme of your site, but I don’t think you should ever use purple non-underlined text hyperlinks. This is doubly confusing because, by convention, purple is the colour conventionally used to signify a visited link. It appears however that the styling used on Vhi.ie is purple non-underlined for links the user has already visited (did you notice that on the ‘Phone’ link in Point 4. above?). Not ideal in my view, and trivial to fix even for a large site like Vhi.ie (the joys of CSS!).

So there’s Tip #3 – within body content use conventional blue underlined text for hyperlinks, purple for visited links.

2. Show me where I am

Here’s the Vhi’s Multitrip Insurance page:

Multitrip Insurance Page – where I am within the site?

But if you landed on that page would you have any idea where you were on the site? Can you see any indication of your location within the hierarchy? There are some relatively simple ways to do this:

1. Use a current class on primary and secondary navigation – active class styling on the Products link in the main navigation, and similarly, on the ‘Multi Trip’ link in the secondary navigation.
2. Use a Breadcrumb to indicate current location – simple but effective tool that helps ‘ground’ users, and assist with internal navigation (and search engine optimisation)

Here’s what a breadcrumb device might look like on that page:

Use a breadcrumb to indicate current location

So my pen-ultimate tip – give adequate indication of current location. It helps ground the user, and facilitates vertical navigation.

1. Where are you vhi.ie?

Here’s the biggest flaw, and also the easiest to fix. It still stuns me when I find this flaw, even more so for a large corporate site which is a profit-center in its own right. I’ve written about this issue previously for nch.ie, and here it is again. (And just in case you don’t think this is widespread – for months http://iedr.ie showed the same behaviour. This has since been fixed though.)

Requesting http://vhi.ie (non-www) resolves to a blank page

Here’s the link – try it for yourself

Now generally I would advise serving content on either www or non-www, but not both. If you do serve on both then you should ensure that each is the same.

This case however is the worst possible schenario – consider the number of Internet users who do not know the technical difference between www and non-www. Many less-savvy web users will not know to re-try www.vhi.ie when they see that blank page, and it should be a simple configuration change to ensure that both URLs resolve properly.

Given that www.vhi.ie is a transactional site fixing this issue will increase sales for Vhi.ie. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

So there’s my #1 tip – don’t serve a blank page on http://vhi.ie

So there you have it – how in 5 quite simple steps I think Vhi.ie could improve their UX (and perhaps their SEO also) by 100%.

[Postscript: I first started writing this post in December 2007. It has sat in my drafts since then collecting dust. Luckily (for me anyhow) the VHI have not changed any of the behaviour I discuss above. I hope that might change shortly however.]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: VHI.ie – 5 Simple Steps to Improve UX 100%

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

European Online Marketing Spend 2008

We all need figures to back up our assumptions and budget proposals. Here’s a handy prediction from IAB Europe which shows that Europe is fast catching up with our North American counterparts when it comes to advertising spend online:

[O]nline advertising spend within the IAB network in Europe during 2007 will reach 11.5 billion euro, up from 8 billion euro in 2006. This is a like for like increase of 38% on last year’s market value. The spend includes values for display advertising, search marketing, classifieds and directories and email marketing.

The release goes on to mention that in emerging markets the increase is likely closer to 70% YoY, and predicts 30-40% increases in the UK, Denmark, France and Germany.

I like the hypothesised drivers of this growth:

The growth is driven by higher levels broadband penetration across the regions and increased advertiser confidence in the medium.

Of course here in Ireland we don’t actually have demand for broadband… Oh, actually, that was the old eircom…

2008 predictions

Every market identified the same trends to watch in 2008: web TV, mobile internet, behavioural targeting and social media.

I would imagine they were most of the trends we were all watching carefully in 2007. Although, in line with my recent post about Multivariate and A/B Testing, I reckon that BT will take off more and more.

I wonder if their are equivalent Irish figures available? If anyone knows if these stats exist I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: European Internet Marketing Statistics

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

And while I’m here… Why if a video for bespectacular.co.uk is nominated for best use of film, does the Golden Spiders Awards site link to a page on Ican’s website? A page which doesn’t contain the media in question, and seems like a promotion of the agency rather than the clip?

If my site/video was nominated I’d be just a tad pissed that www.goldenspiders.ie is linking to the agency behind it. Or maybe they meant to put those two over under “Best Web Design & Development Agency”? They could join the nice zero timeout META refresh from Clearscape’s special Golden Spiders landing page (yes, like a few others, Clearscape have a GS landing page) to their root page. No idea why they are redirecting.

True sign of a farce Awards when the nominee sites (or the agencies behind them) are more about the ‘awards’ than vice-versa.

I had made a decision to remain blissfully unaware of the entire farce, but I stupidly checked the list. Now the deviant in me cant wait to take a look at some of the sites using the newly released judging criteria

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Golden Spiders Awards 2007

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Via Marketing Alterntif, then Adverblog.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: WonderBra Catches Scrolling Ad Display

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Some extracts:

Main Findings

• In 2007, a remarkable 68% of hoteliers will be shifting their budgets from offline to online marketing activities, representing a huge shift from traditional methods.
• US properties rely more on direct to consumer bookings via their stand-alone websites compared to intermediary sites as a percentage of their overall Internet business (20.7% and 16.6%, respectively) than do their international counterparts (15.3% and 17%, respectively) who are still receiving, on average, more of their Internet bookings from intermediaries.
• The top three Internet marketing formats hoteliers believe produce the highest ROIs are website optimization, Search Optimization + Organic Search, and website re-design.
• Interestingly enough, more hoteliers believe new media formats as consumer generated media and blogs will generate better ROIs than traditional banner advertising.
• An average of 16.2% of Internet transactions occur through intermediary websites.
• US hotels rely more heavily on keyword search marketing (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) that their international counterparts who favor website re-design and optimization, and strategic linking.
• Franchised hotels seem to rely more heavily on the chain websites.

Being one of the toughest online niches, I’m often amazed at the poor quality of many hotel websites. The 16.2% figure for intermediary websites seems a bit low – I would have expected this to be far higher. Some interesting figures and worth the read.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Internet Marketing For Hotels – Best Practice & ROI Study

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Perhaps the biggest strain for anyone starting up is the financial burden – let’s be honest, if you have started a small business you will know that it can often be years before you cross the threshold to profitability. And so the free help and advice of others that have trodden the same path can be absolutely invaluable to a new entrepreneur.

Enter stage-left Business Advisory. Mr. Mulley from Cork has organised a fantastic resource for entrepreneurs – ShareIT – a day-long free training programme in Cork on Saturday March 24 coming.

I wont go into detail, but the line-up of contributors is fantastic:

• 9am to 10am – Walter Higgins – Bootstrapping a micro-ISV (small independent software vendor).
• 10am to 11am – Jenny Kent – How to be an effective communicator
• 11am to 12 pm – Conor O’Neill – Outsourcing – a guide
• 12pm to 1pm – Krishna De – Marketing Matters for Tech Startups
• 2pm to 3pm Laurence Veale – The perfect web project
• 3pm to 4pm Richard Hearne – Search Engine Optimisation for your website
• 4pm to 5pm Donagh Kiernan – Sales

If you are interested in attending the training session you can contact damien.mulley < AT > Gmail.com.

The Press Release can be found here: ShareIT Press Release (mirror: ShareIT Press Release).

See you in Cork!

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Business Advisory – businessadvisory.ie – ShareIT

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

53% of Irish Companies Fail On-Line Search

How can I not be interested in this article? That title is just a great hook. Ok, maybe I’m not your average reader, but I think that most site owners will be interested in the subject matter. And I know for sure that specific facts and figures are always a great way to grab attention.

The press release was picked up here and here. There are a number of statements made in the press release with which I concur whole heartedly. I know that many Irish web sites do not leverage the true potential of search marketing, and I work to help as many people as I can to get better results from ‘the Google’ in particular. It’s great that someone is drawing attention to this.

But there’s one issue with this PR that gives me some concern.

Can you find Captivate Digital?

The company that released the study is called Captivate Digital. Neither article linked above actually published any contact details for Captivate Digital so I tried a normal Google search for “Captivate Digital” both with and without quotes. The only result I found was the published press release itself. No website. No references whatsoever on page 1.

captivatedigital.ie

According to iedr.ie captiatedigital.ie was registered just this past January:

domain: captivatedigital.ie
descr: CAPTIVATE DIGITAL LIMITED
descr: BODY CORPORATE (LTD,PLC,COMPANY)
descr: Corporate Name
admin-c: ACU792-IEDR
tech-c: ABG704-IEDR
renewal: 05-January-2007
status: Active - LOCKED
nserver: NS1.DNSIRELAND.COM
nserver: NS2.DNSIRELAND.COM
source: IEDR

I cant say for sure that the domain is connected to the company mentioned in the press release, but I imagine the likelihood is high. When you visit that domain you get treated to this:

Another great example of how not to leverage some publicity

I do think it’s great that new companies are entering the Irish SEM space. It’s certainly long overdue, and I believe that increased attention brought to SEM can only improve Ireland’s competitiveness on the Internet.

It’s just that the PR isn’t fulfilling it’s primary function, which I believe was to draw attention to the releasing agent. I’m reminded of the Ordinance Survey Ireland mobile mapping application some time back. But in this case I think the problem is compounded by the fact that the company in question is an Internet marketing firm.

Perhaps it was an error and Captivate Digital pulled the trigger a little too early by accident. I hope they quickly recover and get a site live and ranked.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: 53% of Irish Companies Fail On-Line Search, Says Captivate Digital (Who Also Cannot Be Found)

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The history of the ‘blow-in’

Back in August of 2006 I started this blog. That’s just 6 short months ago, and I quite honestly couldn’t be more flattered than I am right now having received 3 nominations for the Irish Blog Awards. (Full lists and links to all nominees is available here or here.

So I want to help this community that has welcomed me so warmly. But bear with me for one moment.

We’ve been held back

The Irish are world-renowned for their culture, their art, their bant and their craic. The shame is that in the on-line world we’ve been held back by the woeful regulatory inadequacies that have allowed out infrastructure to rot. So I’m wondering whether I can do anything, regardless of how small an act, that will help this community. Well, all I know is SEO, so… If I can get just one or two extra visitors to Irish sites I’m going to.

My plan

UPDATE: Hold the boat a minute. Some people are starting to ping this but it’s not always 100% clear if they are simply reporting it or actually availing of the offer. Please try to be clear – mention that you would like the review or link with the anchor ‘search engine optimisation’.
Thanks.

So here’s what I propose to do:

There are over 500 nominations for the blog awards. I’m offering to help each and every one of those sites, FOR FREE.

First off, if you are one of the nominees well done. And here’s the bonus – if you would like me to provide an SEO review of your site then read on.

TO EACH AND EVERY NOMINEE

I will undertake an SEO review of your site at no cost to you. I’m going to check your site for the most common spidering and indexing issues. I’ll also give you my very biased ‘first impression’ for good measure.

I’m going to analyse your homepage, the most important page of your website. No catches. No fee. Just expert advice for free.

Now, mindful of the fact that there are over 500 of you who can take me up on this offer, I need to create some process to achieve my goal of helping you all.

So I’m going to ask anyone who wishes to take up my offer to please follow 3 simple steps:

1. I need a little information. Nothing private. Just a little background on your website. If you can write me a few sentences to let me know the following:
   • [added]category you are nominated;
   • your blog’s topic or niche;
   • your target audience;
   • how long you’ve been blogging;
   • how old is your domain;
   • the names/URLs of a few other sites, competitors or friends, in your niche.
2. I don’t really want an extra 500 emails clogging up my Inbox, so I want you to put the above in a new post on your own blog. Give the post the title ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ and, now here’s the important bit, link back to this post from your post. When you link back my blog will pick up the Trackback and record your post. That’s how I’ll know you have accepted my offer. If you use WordPress all you have to do is place the link in your post body and Bob’s you uncle. Something like <a href="http://www.redcardinal.ie/marketing/11-02-2007/search-engine-optimisation/">search engine optimisation</a> will do nicely.
3. I would like you to mention one other thing if possible – tell me what you want to achieve SEO wise, and if there is any particular issue you think needs addressing on your site.

Right, there’s no rocket science up there.

Expectations, expectations

A little bit of expectation setting is needed before I leave you to go and write your posts. There are about 500 of you. I’m not going to turn any of your sites into the next [insert the biggest most famous blog you know here]. But I might just find one or two things that prevent your site getting into Google, and hopefully find some nice new visitors for your blog.

I intend devoting around 15 minutes to each site. That might not sound like a lot of time for a review, but I live, eat and sleep SEO, and an experts eye together with the tools I use can identify many issues instantly.

If I get a large response to this offer (go on surprise me) it will likely take me quite some time to complete every review. I’d love to be able to just drop everything, but that’s simply not feasible (any clients reading this – you’re actually dreaming and will wake up shortly).

If I could set up another site to publish the reviews I would. I don’t want 500 pages of reviews here on my blog, so I’m going to publish them to my feed. Yep you read that right. If you take me up on my offer your review will appear in my RSS feed and not on my site. So you need to sign up.

Hurry, this offer won’t last for long

I’m going to leave this offer open until 5pm February 16. The reviews will be published from March 1 onwards.

Oh, and if you manage to win a category I’m hoping to offer you even more help. It will be another limited offer, so sign up to my feed to make sure you don’t miss out.

Thanks for nominating me.

Richard

You can ignore the rest – it’s just pings for the nominees.

5 Pieces
Ach go háirithe
Beaut.ie
BifSniff
Clamnuts
Creative Imagination – Ken McGuire
ElBlogador.com – The Voice of Irish Nationalism
From Ireland to Kansas City
Fustar
Ginger Pixel
Inside the mind of an idiot
IrishElection.com
Jason Roe’s blog
John Handerlaar’s Blog
Kind I Like – Things that look like people
Léigh ar mo T-léine é!
Letter to America
Magoo
Nialler9
Pretty Cunning
RedFly Marketing
Soundtracks for Them
Spoilt.ie
Stunned.org
Team Geared Up
The InFactah Blog
The IQ Content Blog
Twenty Major
UnLaoised
Alive in Limerick
An Irish Craftworkers Good Life
An Spailpín Fánach
An tImeall
Arse End of Ireland
ArseBlog
Backseat Drivers
Barbara’s bleeuugh!
Beaut.ie
BifSniff
Biz Growth News
Blogorrah
Bock the Robber
ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
Fustar
Head Rambles
I Take Photees
Ireland 16 Days
IrishElection.com
Letter to America
Manuel Stimulation
Mcawilliams.com
Mine’s A Jack Daniels
Nialler9
Pygment
RedMum’s Blog
Skinflicks
Snackboxdiaries
StigOnline
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Community At Large
The InFactah Blog
The Limerick Blogger
Tir na Blog
Twenty Major
Womans Aid
Ach go háirithe
An Saol
An Spailpín Fánach
Arm Rúnda na Gaeilge
Blag Shomhairle
Chetwynde Down
Hilary NY
Léigh ar mo T-léine é!
MH Wombat
nobyegarawn
Roinnt Smaointe
Seo Panu ag labhairt
Smaointe Fánacha Aonghusa
1169 and Counting
A Tangled Web
An Caomhach
An Saol
An Spailpá­n Fánach
Balrog
Best of Both Worlds
Bock the Robber
Damien Blake
Daniel K. Sullivan
Dominic Hanngian’s blog
ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
Extra Extra
Graham O’Maonaigh
Green Ink
Harry McGee’s blog
ie-Politics by Gerry O’Quigley
Ireland – The Voice Of The Nation
IrishElection.com
Maman Poulet
Richard Delevan’s blog
Seamus Ryan’s blog
Semper Idem
Sicilian Notes – Richard Waghorne
Skinflicks
Slugger O’Toole
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Dossing Times
The Tuppenceworth Blog
The United Irelander Blog
The Young Unionists
ArseBlog
Backseat Drivers
Balrog
BifSniff
Blather
Blogorrah
Howth Coastguard Blog
In Fact Ah
Ireland 16 Days
IrishElection.com
Links Heaven
Old Rotten Hat
One Breast Less
Sligo Camera Club
Sligo Rugby Football Club
Team Geared Up
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Community At Large
The Dublin Blog
The Limerick Blogger
Tuppenceworth
UCD Science Librarians
Womens Aid Blog
Wow Blog
Bernie Goldbach
Cian and Simon for Irish Election
Conn O Muineachain
Donncha O’Caoimh
Gavin Joyce for Kick.ie
Macdara in the Leb
Michele Neylon for IrishBlogs.info
Rick O’Shea
Sarah Carey
Simon McGarr
Tom Raftery
Adam Maguire
Alive in Limerick
An Spailpá­n Fánach
Best of Both Worlds
Dublin Opinion
IrishElection.com
Public Inquiry
Road Deaths.ie
Sarah Carey
Skinflicks
Stephen Spillane
The Limerick Blogger
The NewsWire
The Story
5Pieces.com
Aidan Finn
Bernie Goldbach
Clare Dillon
Conor O’Neill
Creative Imagination – Ken McGuire
Donncha O’Caoimh
EdenWeb Blog
Firstpartners.net
Francis Shanahan
Ina O’Murchu
IQ Content Blog
James Corbett – Eirepreneur
John Collins
John Naughton
Justin Mason
Michele Neylon for IrishBlogs.info
Mobileblogr.com
Pat Phelan
RedCardinal Blog
Robert Burke
Tom Raftery
What Will you see next?
Your Tech Stuff – Adrian Weckler
Ach go háirithe – Reasons Behind Australian Rough-House Tactics In International Rules Series (Exclusive)
andcurve – Cock-blocking beats
Arse End of Ireland – Berties Perspiration
Arse End of Ireland – Won’t Somebody think of the children
Backseat Drivers – Sex – Breakfast of Champions
BifSniff – Dry White Seasoning
BifSniff – Spyware
Blogorrah – The Twink Tapes
Blogorrah – Why can’t we all just get along?
Captain Purplehead – Ah Tis All Too Much
Chetwynde Downs – The Naile Raye Quintet
Dublin Opinion – Property Market Causes Ireland to shit its brain
Earth and Universe – Legend of Uncle Tom and the Bubble Car
ElBlogador – DUP In Gay Marriage Shocker
ElBlogador – These are a few of my favourite things
Fustar – Dis-courtesy Call
Fustar – Manky Toy Monday: League of the Transformable
Gingerpixel – Garda Prank Call
Green Ink – Beep Beep Beep
Head Rambles – Giving Up Smoking
Head Rambles – Translation Help Needed
In Fact Ah – The Occasional Diary Entries of German Director Werner Herzog
Irish KC – A Kansas City Phone Call To An Irish Mother
Irish KC – Irish Conversations
Kav’s Blog – Westside Story Bud
Letter to America – Drama – Thy Name is Pong
Life’s a bastard – Scientists – I’m against them
Manuel Stimulation – From Bad to More Bad
Manuel Stimulation – Victory to Moroccan Imperialism
Old Bitter Balls – Or was this just a dream?
Political Quote – PDs new Spin Doctor
Pure Cork Boy – Music: The Roaring Forties
RedMum – Guilty Pleasures
Rick O’Shea – Ketchup… Catsup..
Rinceoir – Cry Havoc
Skinflicks – Babys called Bad Bad thing
Snackbox – AbuseOS from TwinkSoft
Snackbox – The Story of Jimbob
The Great Wee Azoo – Awfully awfully
Twenty Major – Countdown to Next Election
Twenty Major – Post Secret
Wayne Ordinary American – Wayne loves you one and all
4Basra
Alan in Belfast
An Irish Craftworker’s Good Life
An Saol
Arse End of Ireland
Beaut.ie
Betty the Sheep
Blogorrah
Bock the Robber
Dario Sanchez’s Angry Dome
Elly Babes
Fastlad
Harry McGee
Head Rambles
Ireland 16 Days
Ireland from a Polish perspective
Kav’s Blog
Lexferenda
Linkmap
Michael Flangan
Notes on the Front
Peppermint Tea
Skinflicks
Style Treaty
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Great Wee Azoo
The Midnight Court
The News Wire
The Waiting Game
What will you see next?
Where’s the Salt?
Womens Aid
Allagi Blog
Argolon
Ask Direct
ATP Blog
Barry Walsh
BH Consulting Blog
Biz Growth News
Bubble Brothers
First Partners
ForestHill Blog
Ice Cream Ireland
ImageFile Blog
Inter-Actions
James Corbett – Eirepreneur
Keith Bohanna
Kevin Kelly Unlimited
McGarr Solicitors
Michele Neylon
Piaras Kelly
RedCardinal
Roam4Free Blog
Voicesage Blog
“Ach go háirithe – We love Irish we do
An Cainteoir Dáchais – Ag táraíocht na ndálseoirá i mBaile Átha Cliath
andcurve – Cock-blocking beats
Annie Rhiannon – Three years too late
Arse End of Ireland – Where do you get your smoke from?
Arse End of Ireland – The Bertles
Balrog – McDowell should walk over Rape crisis
Bifsniff – Should You Be Laughing At This?
Blather.net Snackbox Diaries – Introducing AbuseOS from Twinksoft corp
Blogorrah – Rochegate: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Bock the Robber – Haughey
Conor’s Bandon Blog – You may feel a small prick
Cruiskeen Eile – Boys will be Boys
Cruiskeen Eile – Phwoarr. How to Report on the Troubles While Getting
David McWilliams – The Dundrum Paradox – Don’t be Paddy Last!
Dervala.net – The Passion-Industrial Complex
Earth and Universe – The day I quit as an Altar Boy. The Genesis of success!!??
Earth and Universe – The legend of Uncle Tom and the Bubble Car
ElBlogador – Bloody Sunday In Pictures
ElBlogador – Peter Robinson
“Empire State View – Barry Egan
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace – After traffic in Cork
F̼star РDavid Sque Interview Part 1.
F̼star РChess with balls
Graham Ó Maonaigh – Ending Gun crime requires a ‘harm reduction’ approach
iQblog – Irish kitchen sink usability
Irelands Few – Corruption WithIn Unionism?
IrishEyes – Richard Waghorne has a closed mind
Letter to America – Drama – Thy Name is Pong
Life is a Journal – Self Help and Personal Development for Lazy People
Madspoon – Sheep 34 Banana
Maman Poulet – Maman Poulet
Minesajackdaniels’ Blog – Pompoms and bottle tops.
Old Bitter Balls – Keeling Time
Political Quote – Bertie Ahern does a ‘Nixon’ over money scandal
Red Cardinal – Golden Spiders – Are These Really Ireland’s Best Websites?
Redfly Marketting – DMOZ Submission Guide
Ricks Breakfast Blog – A Religious Experience…
Ricks Breakfast Blog – Most Extraordinary Day of my Life
Skin Flicks – The JC Skinner guide to drinking
Stig Online – The most painful 12 miles of my life (and the other 14 were hardly easy)
The Adventures of Truculent Horse – Culture Shock III – The Language Barrier
The Dossing Times – The Riots and the consequences.
The Dossing Times – Riots in Dublin
The Great Wee Azoo – Awfully Awfully at Castleward Book Fair
The Midnight Court – Paper Round Exclusive!
the torture garden – the best songs of 2006
Twenty Major – A thousand words
Twenty Major – Countdown to the next election
Ulster Young Unionist Council – Ignoring the Big Issues
Young Unionists – In defence of the Act of Settlement
Alan in Belfast
BifSniff
Blather.net
Contemporary Arts Review
Dead Beat
Empirestate View
Fustar
Georgiasam
Green Ink
In Fact Ah
KC Irish Fest
Letter to America
Maguires Movies
PaddyC Movie Reviews
Poet Bloggs
Sinead Gleeson
Soundtracks for Them
Stunned
The Cat Flap
The Dreaming Arm
The Harlot’s Progress
The Torture Garden
Annie Rhiannon
Barbara’s bleeuugh!
Conor O’Neill
Dec’s Rambling
FatMammyCat
From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace
Gerry Gainford
GingerPixel
Hangar Queen
Head Rambles
Kav’s Blog
Mine’s a Jack Daniels
RedMum
The Newbrowne Blog
The Rambling Man
The Waiting Game
Una Rocks
Wayne Ordinary American
Winds and Breezes
ArseBlog
Billy Lyons
Fustar’s World Cup
In Fact Ah
Irish Go blog
Laois Talk
Liverpool Access
On the Ditch
PaddyC Movie Reviews
Piranha Triathlon Club
Rebel BMX
Sligo Rugby Football Clun
SportCrazy.net
Team Geared Up
The Kop Blog
Tom’s Sporting Almanac
Wiffy Blog
Caitriona.net
Capture Capture
Dancing Shades of Light
Derek Knight Photography
Donal’s blog
Focus Pocus
Gingerpixel
Glassey Alley
Headphoneland
How your mama now?
I Take Photees
Iced Coffee
I’m never gonna dance again
In Photos
Ireland from a Polish perspective
Kind I Like
Léigh ar mo T-léine é
Letter to America
Mcawilliams
North Atlantic Skyline
PAD – Photo a Day
Photographe à Dublin
Pygment
RedMum
Rymus.net
Seth Wheeler
Snoother
This is Diopter
4Basra
An Irish Craftworker’s Good Life
Ask Direct
Ball*istic
Beaut.ie
Bibliocook
Burma Review
Clear of Cloud
Clerical Whispers
Graham O’Maonaigh
Green Ink
Howth Coastguard
Ice Cream Ireland
Ireland 16 Days
Irish Go blog
Irish KC
KC Irish Fest
Lean Healthcare Services Blog
Lexferenda
McGarr Solicitors
Munster Pubs
Myers Watch
One Breast Less
PR Matters
Random Grub
Siopa Eile
SSIA Watch
The Good Life
The Waiting Game
Wearie
Whois Ireland
World Debate Website
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge
Faoi dhein an dorais
House is a Feeling
In Fact Ah
Kilkenny Music Blog
Magoo
Mp3Hugger
Nialler9
Sinead Gleeson
Soundtracks for Them
Spudshow
The Torture Garden
Una Rocks
Wearie
2 Irish Geeks and a TV
An Lionra
An Saol
ArseBlog
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge
Doop Podcasting
EdgeCast
Faoi dhein an dorais
Kevin Kelly
Letter to America
Okey Doke Football
Oldbones
Open Source Podcast
Podcasting.ie
Podleaders
Richard Delevan
The Persuaders
Twenty Major
Wargeek.net
An Lionra – 06 12 06
Arseblog – Episode 1
Arseblog – Episode 10
Arseblog – Episode 12
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge – Podchraoladh Caoga a Naoi
IT@Cork – Eddie Hobbs
Letter to America – Chapter 29 – The Lift 2.0
Letter to America – Chapter 43 – The Date – Part 1
Letter to America – The Irish Blog Awards Podcast
Oldbones – The Favour
Podleaders – Dan Bricklin
Twenty Major – Pizza Delivery
Twenty Major – Scientology

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: An Important Announcement – Free Consulting for ALL IBA Nominees

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Pat: Hi Richard. Would appreciate any mention. Am beginning to feel like a link wh***
http://blog.roam4free.ie/win-a-pocket-pc-with-roam4free

Me: May I ‘dismantle’ it? It might not be pretty

Pat: Lmao Please do

Of course I’m not one to turn down a free sacrificial lamb, so…

Before I start…

Before I go any further here’s my policy on posting and linking out on request. If something is worthy of a post or a link I’m normally quite happy to oblige. There, that was easy.

Roam4Free

Roam4Free.ie is a great idea. I’ve been with O2 since they were Digiphone, and for many years was always over-charged on my roaming. And I received many a refund to prove it

(Fortunately all O2′s roaming partners ‘set’ the same price a year or two back – how anti-competitive can they get?)

I think Pat is on to a winner. But I also think he really has to nail the website because (and I’m assuming here) it is the primary sales channel.

Oh, and by the way, my comments here could easily apply to any website, so I hope they might be useful to other readers, not just Pat.

What’s the first thing you see on any website?

Well more often then not it’s the page title. As one of the top elements in any HTML page, the title is very first on-screen element to be populated in your browser.

When I visit Roam4Free.ie I see this title:

Welcome to Roam4free.ie – The end of sky high roaming charges !

Two things strike me. First there are no targeted keyword phrases in that title. Other than ‘roaming charges’, which I doubt people search on, there are no reasons for people to discover Pat’s service via the number #1 Internet gateway – Search Engines.

So what phrases might I suggest to Pat?

Well I can see that ‘roaming charges’ and broad matches have very little volume. But the terms ,’international sim cards’, ‘mobile international’ and ‘cell international’ (cell = mobile in the US) and a number of long tail derivatives of those phrases have fairly good volume (000′s per month).

Now just for a minute I’m going to take off my SEO cap and put on my marketing cap. Pat is doing a great job of promoting this (Read/WriteWeb just popped up in my reader). So he’s going to get traffic. Therefore he needs to balance the SEO stuff with pure marketing. And the page title can be a powerful marketing tool.

The title has to quickly establish the product’s benefits for visitors. It should also attract some Search Engine Love if possible. Here are some of my suggestions:

Reduce your International Cell & Mobile Roaming Charges by up to x% with Roam4free.ie

or maybe:

Turn your Mobile into a Free International Cell Phone with Roam4Free

Both of those titles include some relevant keywords that might help with SEO efforts. But more importantly, they both tell the visitor exactly what the product does in simple English, and include a clear call to action. I always think the best way to get your message across to the widest audience is to speak in plain simple language (and pop a couple of nice high-volume keywords in there for measure :mrgreen:).

I posted about the benefit of using good marketing copy in your META description tag a while ago, and I think Pat could look at editing his current Description:

Works in over 115 countries. Receive calls for FREE in over 65 countries. Up to 90% discount on standard mobile rates

I would spell it out – mention ‘international sim card’ somewhere in that copy. (Good use of upper-cased ‘FREE’ though.)

One other point worth mentioning here is that different pages can effectively become honey pots for various search phrases (you should always try to target different phrases on your various pages) . And while I’m on the subject, remember that people can land on any page, not just the homepage, so you should consider every page a selling opportunity.

The Homepage Itself – Quick to Figure or Quick to Leave?

The homepage makes good use of contrast and visual boundaries to break up the main page areas:

I think I have made it clear on numerous occasions that I am not a big flash fan. The flash image on the homepage (sorry, you cant see it in the image above) really doesn’t reinforce the copy on the page. A static image of a sim card will have the same effect in explaining the product. And as for placing static text within the flash file – silly, silly..

And then there’s the font colour, which I feel is too close in contrast to the background colour (blue on blue in places).

This product is crying out for a ‘Sell It To Me Homepage’

Personally I think the homepage should be the seller. If you can convert from the homepage you’re on to a winner. The more pages people check out the more opportunity they have to reconsider that purchase decision.

So how would I make the homepage sell? Perhaps a three point storyboard that explains the product, how to get it, and how to use it:

1. Get a Sim card
2. Add credit
3. Roam4Free

Yes I know all that info is all ready there, but I think it needs to be simplified and given more prominence on the page. Make it feel as simple as possible – 1, 2, 3. Get prospects into the comfort zone.

I would place all the ancillary info into the appropriate story element above, e.g. ‘Use in over 115 countries’, ‘Compatible with most mobile phones and networks across the globe.’, ‘No call set up.’ in step one Get a Sim Card

‘Easy to use. Top up from where ever, when ever.’, ‘Per-minute billing. Save up to 90% on standard mobile rates.’ in step two ‘Add Credit’.

‘No line rental. No minimum contract. No hidden costs – Just FREE incoming calls in over 65 countries, and up to 90% off standard mobile rates’ in the final step.

OK, you might have to edit this last group a little. But the point is to keep the decision process as simple as possible and the purchase path short. Give customers the info needed to make the all important purchase decision without leaving that homepage. (Not sure if implementing the pricing would be possible here though?)

Did anyone else notice the critical navigation flaw?

Take a look at the image above. Apart from there being no obvious homepage link (we read left to right and expect the homepage link to appear top right LEFT of the page), (oops, a little typo there – I’m slightly dyslexic…) I can see the most glaring Achilles heel. But before I declare my hand, some history.

The Internet has been around for a while now, and over time a number of conventions have formed and been widely accepted. The most widely accepted convention is how to link. Unfortunately Roam4Free.ie breaks that convention, badly.

Take a look at the navigation bar:

Do you see the link for signing up? Well it’s there all right. But if you are like most Internet users you glance rather than read, and you’d be forgiven if you missed the sign up link.

It’s actually there at the top of the navigation bar: ‘New User ? Buy a sim to get an account today!’.

The link is not underlined, and worse still, it uses the same color as the labels on the login form. One of the most important links on the site, ‘Sign Up’, doesn’t look like a link at all, it looks like plain text.

Click Here To Purchase

This page is straight-forward and to the point. In fact it’s a little thin on content – there’s a lot a free real estate there, so I would consider increasing the font size to make reading easier. The font size should also be varied to give a visual cue as to the importance of various text elements.

But this next bit pisses me off. When you visit a site you have a goal. You want the shortest and quickest path to achieving that goal so you can move to your next goal.

So every moment of time waisted due to poor design reduces the goodwill you have toward the site in question. On the purchase (sign up) page I am given a link to ‘More Details’. Here’s what I get:

How has that improved my experience? I just waisted 2 clicks – one to view a useless page, and another to go back to go back to where I came form. And a small fraction of visitors wont bother to go back.

Call Rates Page

Try this without Javascript. OK, maybe I’m a little pedantic on this one, but what about mobile browsers? After all, mobile users are the target market here, and I do think mobile Internet might catch on sooner or later…

Nice use of XMLHttpRequest though.

Have I anything good to say?

Yes! It’s a great idea, and I hope it catches on.

My criticisms of the website might seem harse. I only checked a few pages TBH, and I’ve seen far worse. It’s a nice site, and with a few tweaks could probably really pull in traffic that converts.

I see an affiliate system also in the offing. That should push the boat out further as those clever affiliate people target some of the juicy long tail phrases I noticed.

Something I won’t mention…

On a final note, the site has one thing I haven’t mentioned that I think could be a huge asset and very serious linkbait. I’m not going to say what, but I might whisper it to Pat at some stage :mrgreen:.

(If anyone can guess what it is I’ll give them any link they request – no baddies though.)

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: The Tale of a Link Whore, a Mobile PC, a Site Review, and some Clever Market Disruption

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Those Awards, a ‘Best Site’, and some META tag fun optimisation

I swore that I wouldn’t mention those awards again (see, I kept my word :mrgreen:), but this post has led to a rather large amount of traffic.

It appears that many people are hitting Red Cardinal off searches for “moviestar”. Here’s a quick screen shot of the Google results for that term:

(You’ll have to take my word for it when I say that my post ranked #2 for that search for a long time. I’m now at #5. Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve no idea why www.beingthere.com/ is returned at the current #2? And one more thing, does anyone else find that ‘Movistar’ suggested listings in the middle useful?)

Here’s a larger image of my blog post listing on that page:

When I wrote that post I was a little angry at said awards. So I gave the post a META description of “moviestar.ie is NOT the Best Website Launched in 2006″. And boy have I got some traffic from people searching for “moviestar”.

Meta Tag Optimization alive & well

First off, Meta Description tags have little or no ranking benefit. What content you stick in that tag wont make your site rank any higher (well, for Google anyway). But that tag can be hugely powerful for websites that do rank well. That’s because Google generally uses your META Description for the snippet underneath your page URL in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

When you think about your META description tags, you should think of them in terms of getting click throughs, not ranking.

As people searched for “moviestar” many saw my snippet. That snippet aroused curiosity and served as a good call-to-action. And people did act – by clicking and visiting my post.

So next time you’re creating your unique META descriptions for each page (did I mention that unique descriptions on each page reduces the chance of duplicate content filters hitting your site?) you should think about searchers. And you should think about your descriptions as headlines – the more attractive your headline the more likely you will receive that click over a less interesting or off-topic snippet.

People still believe in Meta Tag Optimization

Just as a parting note, I took a quick look in my favourite keyword tool to see what people search for. And they are still searching on phrases related to meta tag optimisation:

[Update] The actual search query is actually “moviestar.ie” (without quotes) – yes, you’d be absolutely surprised at the number of people who search for a domain name.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Who Said META Tag Optimization Was Dead?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

I probably don’t deserve to be nominated for any of those categories… but if anyone fancies fanning a poor SEO’s ego

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Irish Blog Awards *cough* *cough*

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Judging by the photos Apple will release an ultra sleek device (no surprise). And of course, Apple are renowned for nailing fantastic technology interfaces. Keeping it simple with absolutely functional interfaces is the cornerstone of Apples design.

But could this herald the long-postponed ‘Mobile Internet Era’?

Read/Write Web is talking up the UI, which, without a stylus, should be interesting. (When I heard about pinching gestures I thought about this great video of a multi-touch interface.)

The out-of-the-box partnership with both Google and Yahoo! shows a quite serious posture to target the Internet user – the free push-email from Yahoo! must be of concern to Blackberry? And the iPhone will also include some pretty comprehensive connectivity options to keep you on-line.

But it’s Apple’s ability to take a product and push it into the mainstream, both physically and mentally, that offers the greatest chance that the iPhone will be the tipping-point for mobile Internet. If Apple manages to achieve the same success for the iPhone as the iPod I think Mobile Internet will finally become a mainstream reality. (Notice the slide on Read/Write showing 10m units and 1% market share in 2008. Bear in mind iPod has 80%+ share…)

When mobile devices become the prevalent access points for the Internet (there’s a lot more mobile phones than computers) we are going to have a sea-change in search (hello localisation), and websites will need to get clever about publishing content for mobile (hi xHTML, device-optimised content).

Now, I just wonder how Irish businesses/websites will be positioned for the Mobile Internet?

Not unrelated, but if you want to eliminate you mobile roaming charges try Roam4Free, an international sim that lets you roam for free.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Apple iPhone the Tipping-Point for Mobile Internet?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication is a format for publishing web pages and other content.

In essence RSS is very similar to the content you would find on any website, with a few differences. RSS does not include any styling information that would give the ‘page’ a custom design or layout. If you can imagine reading this page without the header up top, the sidebar on the right or anything else that is superfluous to the viewing this story.

An RSS ‘feed’ can also contain more than one ‘page’ in a single file. That’s the real beauty of RSS – you can look at many stories or pages from a website without leaving the RSS ‘page’ or feed.

But perhaps the biggest difference between RSS and a regular web page is the ability to aggregate or combine multiple RSS ‘feeds’ (published RSS files are often referred to as a ‘feeds’) in your ‘reader’. A ‘reader’ is a program used to read and display the ‘feeds’ or RSS pages. Here’s what mine looks like:

I read the feeds from over 100 websites just about most days. Now if I was to visit all those sites it might take me 3 or 4 hours, but my reader shows me the feeds fom all those sites on one page. I can view the website name, the title and a snippet of each item. When I click on a story title I can read the content of that ‘page’:

Using my reader to aggregate thee feeds I can keep track of many, many blogs and websites.

RSS Readers

I use Google Reader. It’s free and rather than sit on my computer it sits on the Internet so I can access my feeds from any computer with Internet access.

The main web browsers and email clients now incorporate RSS features also. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera allow you to track and read feeds right in your browser.

So how can you tell if a site publishes a feed?

When you visit a website you might see the following icon appear in your address bar:

That icon has been adopted by all the major browsers for the purpose of depicting RSS feeds. It is available for download at Feed Icons. Older feed icons might look like this:

You can see that orange is the predominant colour used to depict RSS.

Making your feed icon appear in the address bar

Since most of the major browsers now support RSS it is a good idea to notify the browser that you have a feed so that the RSS icon appears in the address bar. To make your feed visible to agents you should include something similar to the following META in the head section of your page:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.site.tld/path/to/rss2.0/feed/" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.site.tld/path/to/rss0.92/feed/" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.site.tld/path/to/atom0.3/feed/" />

This auto discovery technique is also used by most readers and blog aggregators so it is a good idea to include it.

RSS features and uses

RSS can be used for many purposes. E-commerce stores can publish their products via RSS. Employment sites often offer customised search feeds so users can keep tabs on particular job-type vacancies. Many large sites offer multiple feeds so you can track only the information of interest to you.

Search engines and RSS

Search engines love RSS. They just devour feeds because they are very machine readable. Feeds also contain something search engines love: TEXT. And lots of it.

Very often my feed will rank well for specific search phrases and my site might have 2 or 3 pages ranking on the first SERP (Search Engine Result Page) – the post, my homepage and my feed . When multiple results from my site appear on a results page the probability of receiving a referral increase dramatically.

So does RSS matter?

RSS is here. It has not reached the tipping-point just yet, but the integration of RSS into the major browsers during 2006 means that RSS should become more and more mainstream over time.

And just as I finish this what appears in my reader?

the latest research done by Japan.Internet.com and goo Research shows that RSS’s bringing more accesses to the sites.

Q1: Do you visit more sites due to RSS feeds?
- More, 34.6%
- Hasn’t changed, 59.5%
- Less, 5.8%

Q2: Do you visit sites you read on RSS feeds?
- Always, 23.5%
- Sometimes, 58.1%

From Multilingual-Search.

Perfect

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Really Simple Guide to RSS

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

“ready for a new day”

Well perhaps Dublin was, but I’m not so sure about Microsoft.

My day out at Croagh Park

Getting to Croagh Park isn’t the easiest of feats. I arrived after 11am and caught the end of the opening keynote. After a few minutes standing at the back my curiosity got the better of me and I headed to the demo area on the fourth floor. This was where things started to become unstuck.

The Search room

As I am moderately interested in search I headed straight for the Search room. I found a seat (not difficult because everyone else was still upstairs) and a nice MS guy offered to show me the ropes.

The first point to note was that the demo machine seemed a bit temperamental. A few glitches appeared when tabbing through applications – the screen just went dead. My guide mentioned that the demo machines weren’t up to spec for Vista (they certainly weren’t new computers).

He was a knowledgeable and talented guy, but unfortunately he couldn’t tell me if Vista’s new search function would index my web browsing. Nor could he tell me how search behaved across a network.

I do like some features of the new search interface. For instance, if you hover over a search result the related META data appears in a pop-up.

As I was early for the actual demo I went and grabbed a soggy roll and a cup of coffee.

So much attention, so little knowledge

I returned for the search demo proper and found my way to one of the few remaining clients. The demo was of a web-based reporting application that pulled data from a whole bunch of MS products. I’m still not sure how it tied in with search to be honest.

There was one Microsoft person for every four guests in the room, and I asked the nearest rep if I could pull up the application the presenter was showing on my client. After some discussion between Microsoft people I received a response in the negative – the application was running on a server and only available to the presenter. So I carried on watching.

Why demo in Windows 2003?

Strangely, the presentation appeared to be running on a Windows 2003 machine. Now I could be wrong, and it might simply have been a theme, but I still found it odd that Microsoft would promote Vista using a Server 2003 theme?

When the presentation was finished the speaker happened to walk by. I asked him if the web application was platform agnostic and he confirmed it was – it would run on Firefox and other browsers. He also gave me the URL to access the application where I sat. Pity the first couple of fellas hadn’t known that.

As the search presentation was recycling I headed away and caught about half an hour of a very animated and knowledgeable speaker on encryption and Vista’s built-in security features.

Fly me to the moon

Neil Armstrong was a very good speaker, receiving a standing ovation both on arrival and exit. He spoke extremely well and was thoroughly interesting to listen to.

I’m not sure if it’s just me (and Google hasn’t been doing me any favours recently with my tin-hat syndrome), but I felt some of his speech was debunking the debunkers. Maybe he’s just tired of all the naysayers who claim he never got any further than some desert in the US mid-west.

So was I enlightened?

I’ve got to be honest and say no. The welcome package contained two publications, one on the knowledge economy, the other an overview of the Irish case-studies profiled during the day.

I’m really quite surprised there was nothing in the pack about Vista. In fact there was nothing about any of Microsoft’s products. The two publications had a lot about benefits but absolutely no details on the products. I have to say I’m not really any the wiser apart from actually trying out the new Vista UI.

Did I miss something or was I just expecting too much? Or was Micorsoft ready for today?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Dublin Might be Ready for Vista, But is Microsoft?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The following is taken from a press release from Movistar.ie’s Public Relations firm Thinkhouse PR:

“Best Website Launched in 2006! We are absolutely thrilled,” said Gavin McConnon of moviestar.ie. “We spent a lot of time researching and trialling the website ensuring that it was designed in a browser-friendly way.”

The press release goes on to say:

Beating off stiff competition from sites such as callcosts.ie; sellityourself.ie; the Golden Spider was awarded to Moviestar.ie for its performance, as a functioning site in addition to design, innovation, content, navigation, technology, interactivity and ease of use.

An apology

I try very hard to not be subjective. I feel the quality of what I write here is dependent on being as objective as possible. The next line is purely my subjective belief:

If the above is correct, and the judges did indeed award a Golden Spider to Moviestar.ie (the site has been updated since the GS awards) for “its performance, as a functioning site in addition to design, innovation, content, navigation, technology, interactivity and ease of use“, I think they should hang their heads in shame.

As a business I think Moviestar.ie may well be exceptional. As a website it most certainly is (was) not. Had the award been for the ‘Best New Internet Business in 2006′ I would have little or no complaint.

Moviestar.ie currently ‘owns’ the top 10 Google.com positions for the search phrase ‘moviestar.ie’.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Moviestar.ie

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

A very interesting poll conducted by ICM on behalf of the BBC indicates that TV is being substituted by Internet and Mobile Video. The poll of 2,070 people showed some very interesting results:

• 43% of respondents watch less TV as a result of watching Internet/Mobile video;
• 22% watch Internet/Mobile video either ‘occasionally’ or ‘Once a week or more’;
• 28% in the 18-24 age bracket watch Internet/Mobile video once a week or more.

I think there is probably some food for thought in those figures, and marketing experts need to pay more attention to video delivery over emerging technologies.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Internet Video Eating Into TV Time

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

So i found the results over at Silicon Republic:

1. AOL Best Financial Website
   Winner: aib.ie/personal
2. SalesOnLine.ie Best Travel, Tourism & Hospitality Website
   Winner: hostelworld.com
3. Daft.ie Best News, Media & Entertainment Website
   Winner: RTE.ie
4. Comreg Best Sports, Health and Leisure Website
   Winner: RTE.ie/sport
5. FÁS Best Social Networking, Community & Not For Profit Website
   Winner: trocaire.org
6. RTÉ Best Education Website
   Winner: gaelscoildehide.ie
7. HostelWorld.com Best Marketing Campaign
   Winner: carbuyersguide.ie
8. Department of Communications Best Web Design Agency
   Winner: clearscape.ie
9. IEDR Best Technology Innovation Award
   Winner: cashcollector.com
10. Allianz Best Retail Website
    Winner: gohop.ie
11. Cash Collector Best Professional Services Website
    Winner: Raymondpotterton.com
12. Irish Jobs Best e-Business Website
    Winner: Myhome.ie
13. ArgusCarHire.Com Best New Website Launched in 2006
    Winner: moviestar.ie
14. Best Broadband Application Award
    Winner: tg4.ie
15. Arekibo Best Public Sector Website
    Winner: callcosts.ie
16. Red Ribbon.ie Best HR, Training and Recruitment Website
    Winner: monster.ie
17. Internet Hero 2006 Award
    Winner: Cormac Callanan
18. Eircom 2006 Golden Spiders Grand Prix Award
    Winner: RTE.ie

Well done to all the winners.

Cathal Magee, managing director of eircom commented:

The entries this year were outstanding and testament to the strength of the Irish internet industry. These awards provide an important opportunity to recognise and showcase online excellence.

[Emphasis mine]

I have to say that my research begs to differ with you Mr. Magee.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Golden Spider Awards – The Results

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

GPS mapping software for your Symbian phone

Sometimes in the morning I have the radio on. Occasionally I hear Pat Kenny, not because I particularly like his show, but because he comes after whoever preceded him.

Yesterday morning there was a very interesting interview with a guy from OSI (Ordinance Survey Ireland). They’re the people who produce the maps of our country.

The discussion was about a new GPS mapping application that lets users view OSI maps of Dublin on their mobile phones. The benefits were spelt out in a very compelling manner. Tourists, it was mentioned, could guide themselves with the mapping software, while Dublin’s residents could use the maps to find unknown streets and locations. And if you use a Nokia GPS phone the mapping software will even guide you to your destination. Pretty cool, and definitely the way of the future.

Buy on-line

Users can purchase and download the GPS mapping software for €29.99 from the OSI website, and the product comes complete with 500 POIs (Points Of Interest) for many of Dublin’s top attractions and locations.

It sounds like a really fantastic product, and I was quite surprised that an Irish company (and a publicly mandated body at that) was actually at the cutting-edge of this type of technology.

Great exposure, dreadful follow-through

This morning I got a chance to visit the OSI website to learn more:

Hmm.. not much to go on there. I expected there to be some emphasis on this new cutting edge mobile phone GPS mapping software. Well I’m honestly none the wiser so I select ‘Browse our mapping products and services’:

I’m really not making much progress here. I cant see any mention of mobile phone GPS mapping software. Maybe ‘digital products’?

Not there, so back to the homepage and this time I try ‘GPS services’. The guy on the radio did mention that this works with GPS. Nothing there either. To be honest at this stage I’m beginning to wonder if this is just some big joke. So I try ‘OSi Trail Master’:

Well this might be it. Unfortunately there’s no real reference material here to tell me what I’m looking at. Alas, it’s another false hope. Only two more options on the homepage left, and next up is ‘OSi StreetSmart’:

Bingo. With hindsight the name makes sense, but without any pointers figuring this out is far from trivial. Anyhow, now that I’ve finally found what I came here for I’d like to find out more. I suppose I should click the image – it is an anchor after all:

How to burn great publicity

Now most people couldn’t buy the publicity gained from a nationwide radio interview. That type of broadcast is just marketing gold-dust. Businesses have flourished on the attention garnered from radio mentions…

Yesterday morning the OSI gave us a text book example of how to burn through fantastic publicity with poor follow-through.

What’s the lesson? When you do get great exposure make sure you’re ready and waiting to fully leverage it.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: When You Get Exposure Leverage It

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The first, ‘Major Search Engines Unite to Support a Common Mechanism for Website Submission‘, relates to a joint initiative by Google, Yahoo! and MSN to support the Sitemaps 0.90 protocol.

What does this mean for site owners? Well if your familiar with Google sitemaps, you’ll know that getting crawled, and ultimately indexed, can be assisted by submitting a sitemap to Google.

Now that same sitemap will be accepted by all 3 major search engines, so there will be no need to generate proprietary sitemaps for each.

The second piece of news relates to the expansion of Google ads for mobile. Google Ads for mobile (beta service trialled in the US, UK, Japan and Germany) will be extended to France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, China, Ireland, India and Australia. So soon we’ll be getting Google Ads on our mobiles here in Ireland.

Personally, I think that in a couple of years it’s all going to be mobile, and that particular space is where you need to be looking in terms of strategic Internet marketing. I hope to look deeper into the mobile space in future posts.

Is anybody using Google Mobile Search? And if so, how do you find the service?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Engines Group-Hug Sitemaps & Mobile Ads come to Ireland

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Bus Eireann is a wholly-owned subsidiary of C.I.E., which in turn has a single shareholder – the Irish Government. In 2005 C.I.E. received €283.4m of tax-payer funds to supplement their operating cash flow.

The C.I.E. group website makes reference to it’s accessibility credentials:

When I first entered the Bus Eireann site a noticed that the root directory was redirecting with a 302 header to site/, and the site/ directory was, you guessed it, redirecting with a 302 to site/home/.

I spidered 17 pages of the Bus Eireann site for validation. The 17 pages contained 2205 errors and 230 links to files producing either 404 or 302 response codes. The homepage is framed.

But I think the jewel here is the icon in the navigation bar on the left of the page:

Here’s the mark-up behind that particular image:

<div align="left">
<a onmouseover="MM_swapImage('Image28','','[...]',1)" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" href="../home/vip_index.asp">
<img width="205" height="43" border="0" src="[...]" name="Image28"/>
</a>
</div>

[Note: I removed the paths to the image files for admin purposes.]

I am curious how any visually impaired person is expected to find this link? If I use a text reader it has no idea what that link is for. The ALT attribute is omitted on each of the navigation images – to any screen reader those image anchors effectively mean nothing.

I won’t even start on the design….

[Thank you CreativeIreland.com for the inspiration :grin:]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Did Tax-Payers Money Pay For This?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Google again…

Now we all know Google. Google has changed the way we interact on a daily basis. We use their Search Engine more than any other. They supply us with lots of great free services. And they act as the ad broker of choice on the Internet.

While some people may find it curious that I don’t block Google ads (it’s relatively easy to do you know), the main reason for not doing so is to see what’s being advertised and to whom.

Adwords

Adwords is a great way for any site to get noticed. The system is cheap, reliable and trust-worthy. However, Adwords only leads the horse to the water. That’s all you’re paying for.

So what happens when the horse doesn’t drink? Google gets paid and you’re out of pocket. So how often do you check to see what keywords are performing? Not just on clickthroughs, but on conversions? If you don’t check these things your practically throwing away your money. Let me explain by going back to John.

I was reading John’s post and noticed the ad block after his post:

It got me curious. What were they offering and why target John’s site? So as a curious individual I clicked on the ad:

You see I clicked on an ad for

Presentation Skills
Natural, effective and interesting presentations at all levels

I liked the strong copy and was interested in how it related to John’s site. And here’s the big problem. The landing page I hit makes no reference that I can see to ‘Presentation Skills’. In fact, at an Internet glance it seems like the site in question is in the call/contact centre business. There’s no relevance.

When I click on an ad for ‘Presentation Skills’ (assuming that it’s going to be advice or products) and land on your site you have about 5 seconds of my time to give me what I’m looking for.

After those 5 seconds have elapsed I’m back with John again.

And that’s why landing page theme is the most important factor for conversion. You can have the best copy and design in the world, but if it’s off-theme you’ve just lost a prospect.

(As an aside: It seems to me that there could be quite a market for SEM (Adwords etc.) optimisers here in Ireland. For more on this subject see this discussion.)

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Are Your Adwords Campaigns Leaking?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Total Sample: 128 sites;
Valid CSS: 33 (26%);
Valid HTML: 12 (9%);
Valid Section 508: 28 (22%);
Valid WCAG 1.0 Priority 1: 26 (20%);
Valid WCAG 1.0 Priority 2: 4 (3%);
Valid WCAG 1.0 Priority 3: 3 (2%);
Valid TV Core: 37 (29%);
Valid TV HTML: 15 (12%);
Valid TV WCAG 1.0 Priority 1: 43 (34%);
Valid WAVE Overlay: 27 (21%);
Sites with consistent mark-up: 76 (59%);

CSS, HTML, Section 508 & WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 Compliant: 6 (5%)


Special mention should be made of both www.ssiaoptions.ie and www.ulsterbank.ie. Both sites validated to WCAG 1.0 Priority 3 standard and require only limited changes in order to become fully compliant with all tests conducted.

And just one final piece of analysis:

Update as per Ricardo’s suggestion

This analysis was born from the comments left in this thread about W3C standards compliant coding.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Golden Spider Awards – Are These Really Ireland’s Best Websites?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Today there are multiple ways to get noticed on-line. For the vast majority of Internet users Search is predominant route taken to your website.

When it comes to marketing for Search Engines there are two techniques available to you:

1. SEM Search Engine Marketing (e.g. Adwords, YPN); and
2. SEO Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Marketing

The phrase Search Engine Marketing may not be well known to most, but I’m pretty sure that just about everybody who has gone on-line in the past few years has seen SEM in practice. When you use a Search Engine you are presented with a SERP (Search Engine Result Page) for your particular search phrase or word. Here’s an example of a Google search screen (with the SEM paid results highlighted):

Most people are very familiar with this image. To the right of the search results is a narrow column with a number of stacked text adverts. If you look carefully you can just about make out the ‘Sponsored Links’ title at the top of that column.

These adverts are displayed after an auction process – publishers pay Google (‘paid search’) to display their ad in this space, with the highest bidder receiving the highest placement.

Every time someone clicks on those sponsored links Google receives a payment form the publisher of that ad.

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO, on the other hand, refers to techniques used to achieve a higher ranking in Google’s main (‘organic’ or ‘natural’) results:

Google receives no payment for placement in these results. A website’s ranking is determined automatically by search engine algorithms. The higher your rankings the greater the traffic you receive relative to competitor sites.

Search engine optimisation is all about understanding the algorithms employed by the major search engines and optimising those factors that algorithmically enhance your website’s rankings.

Why SEO is more important than SEM

In a nutshell, SEM is a quick fix. The day you stop paying for those ads you will lose all new traffic.

Worse still, the day your competitors decide to bid 5c or 10c more for your keywords you will find that your ad has dropped off the first results page. You might be able to control the cost per click but you cannot control the cost of absolute traffic.

SEO can take time. SEO can be expensive. But when you do attain high organic listings your site cannot be toppled by a mere incremental bid.

Those trusted top organic positions are just that – trusted, and people see the paid listings for what they are – paid.

SEO is a sustainable long-term promotional strategy

SEM is great for the short-term promotion of a website. It gives your site that initial hit that can result in visitors and revenue. But at a cost.

In the long term sustainable high profit strategies convert into higher profit and lower acquisition costs. Those strategies are built around high organic placements and that’s why SEO is more important than SEM.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Why SEO Is More Important Than SEM

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

We’ve seen the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google and the introduction of video.myspace.com. And with Google’s big money purchase (and News Corps efforts to purchase YouTube themsleves) it is evident that the smart money is willing to gamble on video being the killer app of the near future. (That gamble may be paying off – YouTube had 81,019,000 visitors in September 2006 making it the 14th most popular property worldwide, Source: ComScore.)

So are we on the cusp of a shift toward Internet-driven video marketing? More and more television adverts are ending up with their very own streaming websites. Advertising campaigns are integrating Internet elements as much more than a simple afterthought. To me this gives an indication of where the advertisers are looking.

Here are some great examples of recent marketing campaigns that have leveraged Internet video:

• Dove

  This is just a great campaign. By making people look at how they perceive beauty Dove is managing to align their brand with reality rather than the perception created by the beauty industry. The video is available at www.campaignforrealbeauty.com, but the real kicker for me is the use of social networks to propagate the campaign. Over on YouTube there have been over 50,000 views of the video:

• Sony Bravia

  The latest Bravia advert directed by Jonathan Glazer has been getting quite some attention the last while. Again the marketers have given the advert its own website, while YouTube has been generously seeded with the video which, judging by a quick search, has had well over 100,000 views:

  The even greater beauty of this advert is that user-generated video of its making is starting to appear. This is the ultimate in self-perpetuating advertising (your audience creates the adverts for you):

  (Does anyone else feel a greater appreciation for the advert after watching that?)

• Wheeeeee

  Using the Internet as a distribution channel isn’t just for the big-budget corporations of the world. Even a small non-profit organisation barely a few years old can take advantage of Web video. Ok, so perhaps they’re a wee bit more Net-savvy than most companies out there, but Mozilla have shown the potential to get your message across without the paying old-media prices:

  Over 400,000 views for that one ad alone!

• Nike Time

  Back to a real heavy-hitter. Now it’s not like Nike have cash problems and can’t afford to use main-stream media, but this next clip has over 7 million views over on YouTube. The ad owes nothing to creative skill of the creators but everything to the creative skill of the subject (if you like football you can’t help but love this):

  The only real expense is the sponsorship deal (I shudder to imagine the magnitude of that figure) – those 7m+ views didn’t cost a penny more for Nike.

• And the Irish?

  Well of course we have our very own Shamrog Isle, the clever Funda viral from a few months back, that fully utilised the Internet to distribute it’s message. The Funda video received almost 50,000 views and God knows how many blog posts and comments, and in case you missed it the first time around:

So as the cost of distribution (bandwidth) tends towards zero it becomes apparent that bandwidth-intensive media will migrate to, and become prevalent on, the Internet.

The interfaces we use to interact with the web are developing at pace, both from a technical perspective and a sociological one. Witness the rise of social networks and the new web2.0 interfaces that foster interactivity.

I think it’s only when you consider where we were and where we are that the shift really becomes apparent. In just five short years we have moved from quite simple on-line advertising techniques to rich interactive media such as video seeded in communities like YouTube.

And remember, video is still in its infancy – the viewing numbers above might not seem large but these are the early adopters. Just wait until things go mainstream.

I think Internet video as a marketing channel is poised to become big indeed.

If your viewing this post via RSS and cannot see the videos click here.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Internet Video – The Next ‘Big’ Marketing Theme?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The real beauty for the RSS publisher however, is that by offering multiple channels for your content you are absolutely maximising the possible coverage you can receive.

People are more likely to remain loyal when you offer what they want on their own terms.

The other day I came across Downloadsquad.com and what really caught my attention was their RSS feed page (sorry for the long image but you’ll see why):

Alongside their main feed they offer feeds based on categories, feeds based on platforms, feeds about companies – the list goes on. Quite simply Downloadsquad.com are giving me what I want how I want it. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic feature.

Now, I wonder how long it will take Ireland’s main news and media properties to offer us this kind of choice?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Want Loyal Customers? Give Them What They Want How They Want It.

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

I have to say the video blew me away (but of course until we see the working application everything is based on a very polished teaser video):

That UI is very, very impressive looking.

It is unknown what architecture this app is built on, but there is some speculation it’s on Flash and Flex (the video looks too smooth to be html/js).

Regardless of the underlying technology, what is plain to see is that these guys are thinking outside the box and working on a very new and innovative way to organise our lives. The biggest break-through seems to be the ability to work off-line seamlessly and easily re-sync later on.

How long will they remain independent (if they are independent?) if they can actually deliver this application?

Looking forward to seeing the real-life version You can sign up for the Beta here.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Like To See The Organiser Of The Future?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

In ‘13 Deadly Google Sins‘ I looked at a few of the most serious issues that can affect a website’s ability to rank well in Google.

Now it’s time to look at 10 ways to make Google love your site and feed it with all those fantastic visitors:

1. Getting Indexed

   If you want to get into Google’s index in short-time you need to get as many authoritative links pointing at your site as possible. Forget about using the Google submission tool, just find some links from regularly crawled sites (sites that frequently update their content are usually crawled more frequently). With the right links pointing at your site you can get indexed in a week or less, so go beg, borrow or steal to get those links.

2. Give Some Friendly Directions

   When you need to find your way you look at a map. Sitemaps are just as useful to spiders as real maps are to humans. In fact, sitemaps are also incredibly useful for your human visitors so consider creating both a html and an xml sitemap – the former for humans (and spiders!) and the latter for Google Sitemaps.

3. Don’t Stress Out the Googlebot

   Where possible use well formed, semantically correct mark-up. I make sure that my pages validate over on validator.w3.org (well, I let the HTMLtidy plug-in take care of this).

   I also spend a fair bit of time on the page title, the header elements, the text body and the internal link anchors. I try to ensure that keywords are consistent across these four page elements. This helps Google to identify what your page is about.

   BTW the page title is quite an important variable used by Google when applying SERP positioning so make sure to get the correct keywords into each and every unique page title.

4. Avoid overuse of Flash

   Search Engines have always had problems with Flash. For this reason Flash-based websites are notoriously difficult to rank well in Google.

   If you must keep that cool looking Flash site you should consider offering a text-based alternative (not just for the SE’s, but also from a usability perspective). Failing that, you could try utilising the <noembed> or <noframe> elements to incorporate as much text into your pages as possible. If absolutely all else fails your last hope is probably the ‘Google Bomb‘.

   While I’m on the subject, try to avoid using Flash for navigation – bear in mind that some people don’t have Flash installed and others (like me) block Flash from their browser.

5. Create Unique Compelling Content

   Google loves unique content. But more importantly so do humans, and the best advice is to create your content for human visitors first and foremost.

   Great content attracts attention and people show their interest by linking to your content. Every time someone links to you Google counts this as a vote for your content – the more votes the higher your SERP ranking. Oh, and just for the record, the converse of this also holds – Google hates copied content just as much as it loves unique content so don’t expect much love if you scrap other sites.

6. Better Links = Higher SERPs

   The most important trick to getting those all important #1 positions from Google is to get great links pointing at your unique content. (Having a 10 year old domain doesn’t hurt also, but that’s another story.)

   This is probably the trickiest part of getting Google’s love – if people cant find you how can they possibly link to you? Well my advice is to go for the low-hanging fruit first. Human edited web directories offer a great way to get some easy links.

   If you have a bit more time you could also try some writing some quality articles related to your niche and submit these to the top article directories.

   A quick note about link anchors:

   If I can control just one single factor when looking for Google love then it would have to be the anchor text used in the backlinks pointing at my content.

   *Note*: Quite a few people have asked me what are the best anchors to use. I recommend you check out Wordze if you need to find the best keyword anchors.

   IMO Google applies quite a serious bias to the anchor text used in your backlinks when determining the most appropriate SERP position (and if you want to see what the difference is between #1 and #2 or #1 and #10 then take a look at this).

   Some link tools and other info

   Most Search Engines allow the use of the link: operator to display the backlinks a website has. Generally I use Yahoo.com to check backlinks quickly, but be warned that the Google link: command NEVER displays anything other than a sample of your backlinks.

   MSN have just recently released the LinkFromDomain: operator which shows you all the outbound links from a website (handy to check where a site is linking to).

7. Tell Google Where You Are

   Google offers country-specific searches on all its search properties. If you want to appear in any particular ‘pages from [your country here]‘ search you must fulfil one of the following conditions:

   1. your site must be physically hosted in the targeted country (and the server IP must resolve to that country); and/or
   2. your domain must use the ccTLD of the targeted country.

   So if you want to target the ‘pages from Ireland’ search your website must be either hosted on a server located in Ireland (use this to test) or your domain must be a .ie ccTLD.

8. Remember the ‘Long-Tail’

   Google indexes pages not websites so each page can target different keywords that apply to the niche you are targeting. The more possible ways people have of finding your site then the more potential visitors your site will receive from Google.

   You should make use of keyword estimators (again, Wordze is a great tool for this, but bear in mind that no keyword tool is flawless) to ensure that your pages and copy contain the keywords people actually search for. There are many free keyword tools that you can try.

   You should also familiarise yourself with the advanced operators available from most of the major search engines. ‘inanchor:’, ‘allinanchor:’, ‘intitle:’ and ‘allintitle:’ are extremely useful for determining how competitive particular search phrases are, and these operators should form part of any serious keyword analysis.

   It’s worth mentioning that the rapid growth of local search (e.g. appending place names onto queries) means that targeting particular locations is becoming more important. I personally see far more referrals come for localised search queries than from country-only filtered searches. (Note – I work on optimising Irish websites so this observation should be taken in that particular context.)

9. Learn just 1 important Apache module

   If you want to really be best friends with Google then I suggest you learn 1 fairly easy Apache module:

   mod_rewrite allows you to turn those ugly dynamic URLs into their pretty SEO-friendly static-looking counterparts.

   mod_rewrite also allows you to redirect the non-www to your www website URL (or vice-verse). This issue, known as the canonical URL, is one of the most common causes of problems within Google’s index.

   I also suggest getting familiar HTTP header codes, and in particular the 301 redirect which might someday save your relationship with Google.

10. Play by the book

    If you try to game Google chances are you’re going to fail. Unless you are extremely well versed and experienced in
    black-hat techniques any attempt to ‘con’ Google is likely to have very serious consequences for your site.

    I recommend you become familiar with the Google webmaster guidelines, and very carefully research any grey areas before you implement any semi-shady changes to your property. Wrong-doings usual result in either a penalty or an outright ban depending on the severity of the misdeed.

    If in doubt I would check out Google Webmaster Group – you never know it might be me who answers your question :grin:.

If you have any questions or comments on this post why not leave them below. I try to answer any questions people leave, so feel free if you want my opinion on anything.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: 10 Steps to Getting Into Google And Staying There – The Ultimate Quick Guide to Google SEO

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Paid and Organic Search – Impact of Ad Copy on Click Through Rates (Post 2 of 3)

The post makes for interesting reading – the findings are sure to apply in many other contexts also.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Click Through Rates Can Soar With The Correct Copy

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Look, I’m really, really sorry Funda, but I hope this isn’t the end product? Come on? After the great viral I know you have to have something else for us?

Well I suppose I’ll have to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Their site obviously wasn’t ready in time (the help page is a bit of a laugh).

Maybe after watching that video I was expecting to get bells and whistles galore and some strong unique site features to attract home buyers.

Well it’s all very basic (especially when compared with funda.nl). I’m a wee bit surprised and somewhat disappointed to be honest. The dutch are well known for their JS coders, and those page refreshes onSelect of county/city are ugly. In fairness, the detailed views aren’t too bad, but again a bit of spiffing up with some JS and DOM scripting would make the user experience a whole lot better.

Curiously (for me anyway), Funda.ie don’t bother with the page title (unless they hope to rank for ‘Detail’) and file name structure is going to make it extremely hard to get the site indexed. (Come on, I had to get in something about the SEO!)

I did notice that Funda are looking for both a lead and a developer so I’m sure the website will improve soon.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for the big surprise follow-through that gets us all talking about Funda Ireland and not Dublin Coastal Development. Please don’t let me down Funda.

[Edit - Jason Roe has also been blogging about Funda and the Dublin Coastal Development and has conducted one or two experiments to rank for related key phrases.]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Dublin Coastal Development a LOT Slicker Than Funda.ie

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

RTE reported last night that the cost of this campaign was €30,000+. This figure doesn’t surprise me but I was a wee bit disappointed when I noticed this morning that a Google search for “funda ireland” only returns a #5 spot for Funda’s website (#2 with the quotes).

I think that this viral will be hugely successful in creating a buzz about Funda, and in this respect it would make sense to plan for the SE’s also.

The Funda website is only a placeholder at the minute and a very (even very, very) modest link-building campaign would have ensured that the Funda website gained a #1 ranking for its own name. I’m sure that soon they will have that #1 spot but still think that it’s a shame that they seem to have overlooked this area of on-line marketing.

I do now also wonder if they have a good strategy in place for passing the link love and on-line buzz from The Dublin Development Company to the funda on-line property? The property segment is a fierce area of the SERPs and I’m sure that after the buzz dissappears Funda will have to fight with all the the other on-line property sites for SE rankings.

Ok, I’m sorry for focusing on the SEO side of things, but, after all, it is my job :).

[EDIT - I've changed the post title to see how well this post ranks for 'funda ireland'. Sorry to anyone who gets a 404:D]

[UPDATE 28 September - Lo and behold, this post is now #1 on Google for 'funda ireland'.]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Funda Ireland, €30k (excluding the SEO)

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

While the website is very professional, what really makes this viral special is a 3 min promotional video (also available from the website) showcasing ‘the biggest construction project in the state’ which will include ‘the world’s only giraffe-only zoo’, Howth 2 ‘an exact replica of Howth on the southside’, and is ‘a world on water that can be seen from space’:

(Did you notice the caption )

(Again the video is so slick that you would be excused for missing those captions the first time around)

I have to say I really like this and I will be very curious to see just how many people register on their site for this ‘development’.

Best of luck to Funda when they start operating here.

[UPDATE 26 September - last night I saw a news report that costed this project at over €30,000. Today I saw the following banner over on boards.ie:

I think that they want to fill that database with as many email addies as possible.]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: How About Some Serious Irish Viral Marketing

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

The work I do (which, yes I know, I need to document if I am ever to turn this website into a lead-generating medium) helps Irish companies to rank well for their chosen keywords and phrases. Generally these keywords and phrases relate in some way to Ireland and/or a particular geographic location in Ireland.

Most of the largest Internet forums are based in the US and while webmasters and web professionals from around the globe frequent these forums daily discussions specifically about the Irish market are, well putting it bluntly, non-existent.

Recently I have come across a plethora of sites run by Michele Neylon (who also runs Blacknight Web Hosting). I’m not sure how he manages so many Internet properties AND runs a large business, but somehow he does (are you sure there aren’t two of you Michele?).

Anyhow, one of the sites run by Michele is irishwebmasterforum.com. Originally the forum board of Search.ie, Michele has recently spun the board out to it’s own domain. There are many highly experienced and IT literate people posting on this particular board and it is a great resource for Irish-centric webmaster information.

It’s well worth a look in – I have always found someone willing to offer a response to any question I have posted there (I answer one or two SEO related questions myself from time to time ).

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: IrishWebmasterForum.com

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Well a thread over at Irish Webmaster Forum contains a link to a page on the website of YourCar.ie [please note that the page contains offensive material], an Irish on-line car dealership portal.

At first I thought that maybe the site had been hacked. But looking around the site it seems that the link to this page is in plain view in the footer on all pages with the anchor ‘Silly Stuff’.

In this day and age it is just breathtakingly stupid to post this type of material on a public website. On a corporate website belonging to a company selling cars for some of Ireland’s largest car dealers this has to count as a marketing cock-up of monumental proportions. Who is vetting the site content over there?

This company makes hay of the fact that they “won the Overall Marketing Award from The Marketing Institute of Ireland in 2005″ (see here). I wonder do the Irish Marketing Institute want to be associated with a company that hosts this kind of material?

Really not very clever marketing if you ask me. I would be interested to hear what others think about this?

[EDIT] I had been concerned that maybe their site had been hacked but I noticed this on the offending page:

Tell Your Friends About YOURCAR.IE
Why Not Make It Your Home Page??
Our job is to improve your day. Contact us and we will post your innermost thoughts, jokes etc.
All postings are at our discretion,
Crudity in any form will probably be posted!
Remember brevity is the soul of wit.
Come on give us your best shot…………….OH AND BUY A BLOODY CAR!!

Hmm….

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: YourCar.ie ‘Silly Stuff’ – More Like ‘Incredibly Offensive Stuff’

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

I noticed that in the original post, as well as including a neat article about AJAX, the author makes reference to job vacancies at the company he works for.

While he probably didn’t write the guide specifically as link bait for those positions (but who knows?), it very certainly has helped create free highly-targeted advertising and exposure that would normally require a hefty budget.

His post has made it to Ajaxian which has a huge tech based readership. I imagine those positions will be filled quite quickly.

An excellent example of good content getting noticed and achieving business goals.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Link Baiting to a Job Vacancy

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

PraxisNow, an Internet marketing consultancy, surveyed more than 300 business websites located in the greater Dublin area and found a lack of awareness of how to use the sites to bring more revenue to the companies that maintain them.

A massive 95pc of the sites surveyed were estimated to have 10 visitors per day or less on a rolling average. Close to 70pc of the sites had less than the required amount of content for Google to deem them ‘substantial’, so that they are being penalised for having insubstantial content.

Fewer than 23pc had a Google Page Rank of five or better thus further limiting the sites’ placement when search results are presented. In addition, more than 90pc of the sites did not have an opt-in facility for visitors on the home page.

Most of the sites covered for the survey had no meaningful statistics collection, which PraxisNow claimed would prevent them from knowing if the sites had lots of visitors.

First off, I think these are useful statistics. I am not in the least surprised by the findings of this survey.

But one piece of this story really stuck out:

Fewer than 23pc had a Google Page Rank of five or better thus further limiting the sites’ placement when search results are presented.

As any good search engine optimisation engineer (what a name?) will tell you, a websites position in the SERPs is determined by a number of factors, amongst the most important of which (in my opinion) are the PageRank and topic/theme of that site’s IBL’s (In Bound Links) relative to the search term. Yes on-site content counts also, but a sites PageRank is relatively unimportant in relation to its position on the SERPs.

You can perform countless searches on Google and find the top SERPs having lower PageRank than subsequent results. Many searches on Google return #1 spots with PR2′s and PR3′s. (I had a client with a PR1 site that ranked #1 for ‘bbq dublin’ for many months out of the 1.1m results returned by Google. Suffice to say they did very nicely from this search term.)

Looking at the Praxis Now website they have a Toolbar PageRank of 2 (yep, who am I to talk but give me 8-12 weeks and the next Google update ). Now, I have no reason to doubt that Praxis Now have excellent marketing knowledge and know-how. I also have no reason to doubt that their seminars may be beneficial for marketers wishing to learn new techniques.

But, being honest, I do have to question their knowledge of PageRank, SERPs and Search Engine Optimisation based on the language quoted above.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Praxis Now, PageRank and SERPs

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!