Earlier this week, I attended the BrightcovePLAY Conference in Boston. If you know anything about Brightcove, you know they have something to do with online video. As such, the conference talked a lot about online video, and I’m about to do a little of the same.

We’re going to do a fairly quick, informal poll. Raise your hand if you watch online video? Ok, keep your hand up if you have a smartphone or tablet device? And hands still up, how many of you watch video content from your smartphone or tablet device? Yep, that’s what I thought.

Current statistics state that online video accounts for 50% of all traffic on the internet (which makes sense, considering YouTube is the number two most-used search engine after Google). Those same statistics say that 25 million Americans watching online video also do so from their smartphone or tablet device. Consider this: In 2010, 31% of people own a smartphone, which is up from 23% in 2009. Currently, 8% of the American population owns some type of tablet device, and that is expected to jump to 27% in the next year as more companies release their versions across different operating systems.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that online video, particularly mobile video, is becoming increasingly important for video content generators. Fairly obvious, given the statistics I threw out, right? (Let’s hope so.)

It is no longer a matter of “I want to watch X when I get home”; it is “I want to watch X on my nearest screen.” It doesn’t matter if your nearest screen is a smartphone, tablet, PC or even TV – either way, people are transitioning from delayed gratification of watching when and where media is being pushed to them, but rather instant gratification of watching when and where they are pulling media to their (mobile) devices.

As a content-generator, that means you must work to limit or (even better) remove any barriers that keeps the user from getting to the desired content -- your content. Your mobile content.

Some things to consider: Does your site only render video in Flash? If so, that means you’re missing the nearly 25% of smartphone users that own an Apple iPhone and 75% of the tablet users on an iPad – I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t exactly scream “edge case” to me.

Is your site optimized to be mobile-friendly? Easy to navigate with touch-screen controls? Adaptive bitrate streaming so you deliver the best quality video no matter if the user is on a 3G network or connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot?

This doesn’t mean that you have to change your desktop website experience that was built with a specific experience in mind. It means you can't just expect users to navigate your site as-is from their mobile device. Nor can you create one mobile version and expect it to work on all devices – different operating systems, different screen sizes, and different purpose.

I know, you’re starting to grab your calculator and your eyes are bugging out about how much that is all going to cost. Customization gets expensive. But what is more expensive? Losing out on your target demographic because your mobile experience is cumbersome or not available at all. (And there are great options available for customizing content for mobile devices – Brightcove just launched their new AppCloud platform this week.)

Bottom line? If your video content is not available when and where your viewers want to consume it, and if you don’t make it easy for them to do so, you lose the opportunity. Which means lost revenue.

Web application development can get tricky. Not only are we, as developers, charged with constructing brilliant websites that address every requirement each project entails, we also have to be concerned with the things not explicitly listed in our requirements document - things like how do we secure it? How do we know it's working at peak performance? How can we make sure people are entering in the data they're supposed to? On top of all that, if we're doing business website development, be sure to stay abreast of current application development technologies, the best ways to improve search engine optimization and last but not least, be sure to address brand experience strategy in everything you do.

See? Tricky. Fortunately, developers are weird. We like the challenges each web application development project presents. Really. We're weird.

Now despite this apparent quirkiness, in any software project we're working on, if there's something someone's built before that can help speed the development process along, we're likely going to use it. Design patterns represent tried and true ways to accomplish certain tasks in code - they're structures that solve problems common to many different project types. Confronted by a massive project with a tight deadline? Spot a process that can be handled by a design pattern? Sign me up! Design patterns to the rescue.

One of the most common design patterns which has been implemented time and time again is the Observer pattern, which is basically a structure that allows you to setup one or more entities (the observers) that react to changes in another entity (the subject). Not an uncommon scenario, right? Think RSS news readers that display news items as they are posted on the remote server. The observer pattern has solid grounding in real-world scenarios too; think of the iconic "hot doughnuts now" sign from your doughnut shop of choice – they light it up, people come running. Ok, maybe not the best of examples, as people still have the choice to grab a doughnut or not, but hey, it’s a vice, what can I say?

Traditionally the Observer pattern is implemented by using a set of objects derived from a common set of interfaces, namely the IObserver interface for objects we want to be notified of changes in another object, and the ISubject interface for the object we want to be watched. Basically, the ISubject interface defines a set of public methods to manage observer signup and notifications as outlined in code segment 1:

Segment 1

    interface ISubject

    {

        public List<IObserver> RegisteredObservers { get; set; }

        public Boolean state { get; set; }

       

        public void RegisterObserver(IObserver observer)

        {

            RegisteredObservers.Add(observer);

        }

 

        public void RemoveObserver(IObserver observer)

        {

            RegisteredObservers.Remove(observer);

        }

 

        public void UpdateRegisteredObservers()

        {

            foreach(IObserver observer in RegisteredObservers)

            {

                observer.Update(state)

            }

        }

 

So a set of methods to add and remove any objects derived from the IObserver interface to an internal list of IObserver objects which is used in the Update method to notify the observers of any change to the ISubject object, in this case a simple Boolean field called state (ugh, brutally obvious, I realize, but prudent..) . The observer objects implement their own interface outlined in segment 2:

Segment 2

    interface IObserver

    {

        public void Update(Boolean state)

        {

            //update status to reflect change in subject

        }

    }

 

And as expected, IObserver contains just one method to update itself to reflect any change in the subject object.

Not so difficult, right? A handy mechanism to handle distributed subscriber-based notifications for a number of different circumstances; if you haven’t found yourself in a situation where you needed to distribute multiple updates based off one event, trust me you will, and you’ll be happy you know about your friendly neighborhood Observer Pattern

Now while you are more than welcome to implement the Observer pattern using this traditional dual-interface manner, in .NET, there really is a better way. (You knew I was getting to it at some point, didn’t you?) Because the Observer pattern is so heavily entrenched in object-oriented development these days, and since the maintenance of registered observers can get pretty tricky pretty quickly in a traditional Observer pattern implementation, Microsoft went ahead and built its own short-hand version directly into the C# language from the very first version (yup, C# 1.0, don’t see that much anymore do you?) through the simple use of events and delegates. Microsoft uses it so much in their own internal coding, they even went so far as to rename it the Event Pattern (Oooo, Aaahh..)

OK, so here’s how it’s done: we’re going to build a subject class to expose an event whenever it changes internally, then we’re going to define a delegate to handle that event, which we’ll use to link all our observers to the subject– and we’ll transmit the subject’s change in state through a custom EventArgs class. Now, if that sounds like a lot, don’t freak out just yet, if you’ve ever wired up code to an event in .net, you’re already well acquainted with how events and delegates work through the standard signature of an event handler – think of a button click event handler like the one outlined in code segment 3.

Segment 3

public void Button1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //button event code goes here
}

See that EventArgs parameter? That’s how .Net passes parameter values to event processors. So the cornerstone of implementing our own .net observer is by overriding the default System.EventArgs class with our own version to hold the information we need to pass to our observers from our subject class. Sound like a plan? Let’s get started.

Code Segment 4 lists a custom event class which contains two readonly properties, oldvalue and newvalue – we’ll use this class to notify all our observer objects whenever there’s a change in our Subject’s values.

Segment 4

public class SubectChangedEventArgs : EventArgs

    {

        //these values will hold values our observers want to know about

        private readonly int oldvalue;

        private readonly int newvalue;

 

        //constructor that sets old & new values

        public SubectChangedEventArgs(int oldval, int newval)

        {

            oldvalue = oldval;

            newvalue = newval;

        }

 

        //readonly properties to return Subject values

        public int OldValue { get { return oldvalue; } }

        public int NewValue { get { return newvalue; } }

    }

 

Ok, so now that we have a custom EventArgs class, we need to declare the event handler which our observers will mimic to receive subject change events – our delegate:

Segment 5

 

public delegate void SubjectChangedEventHandler(Object sender, SubectChangedEventArgs e);

 

 

The SubjectChangedEvenHandler defines a method signature which all our observers will implement to receive notifications from our subject; two parameters are defined – an object and an instance of our SubjectChangedEventArgs. When declared as a method in one of our observer classes, the object parameter will be a reference to the Subject object the Observer is watching, and changes to its values will be held in our readonly SubjectChangedEventArgs class; code segment 6 lists a typical observer object implementation.

Segment 6

    public class SubjectObserver

    {

        //int to list change in value

        int change;

 

       //subject change even handler to match our delegate and use our custome EventArgs class

        public void SubjectChange(Object sender, SubectChangedEventArgs e)

        {

            change = e.NewValue - e.OldValue;

        }

       

        //constructor that requires a subject to observe

        public SubjectObserver(Subject s)

        {

            //Register our delegate-based method to the subject instance

            //This is how we link our observers to the subject

            s.SubjectChanged += this.SubjectChange;

        }

    }

 

So, the SubjectObserver class has one method that matches our delegate defined to handle any changes in the subject, and we wire up the observer to the subject by linking our delegate-based SubjectChange method to our subject’s ‘SubjectChanged’ event as an event handler. Nice, huh? .Net baked-in goodness. The final piece of our puzzle is the Subject class itself. The Subject class has two responsibilities – to expose an event for changes to its internal value (which we’ll use to hook all our observers to as event handlers), and to ensure it raises this event any time a change to its internal value occurs. Code Segment 7 lists how our Subject class is structured.

Segment 7

public class Subject

    {

        //private int to hold the current subject's value

        private int subjectValue = 0;

 

        //public property to set the subject value,

        //the set method is where we capture the value change and

        //notify all the registered observers of the change

        public int SubjectValue

        {

            get { return subjectValue; }

 

            set

            {

                // new eventargs class to pass the current subjectValue and the new value

                SubjectChangedEventArgs e = new SubjectChangedEventArgs(subjectValue, value);

 

                //update the subjectValue

                subjectValue = value;

 

                //Signal all the observers

                OnSubjectChanged(e);

            }

        }

 

        //declare the event using our SubjectChangedEventHandler delegate

// to handle changes to the subjectValue

        //we'll also use this to attach our list of delegate-based observers to.

        public event SubjectChangedEventHandler SubjectChanged;

 

        //method to trigger our subject change event

        //Note: events can only be triggered from within their respective types,

        // thus we marked the scope as virtual protected to allow the method

        //to be over-ridden while still being able to raise the default event

        virtual protected void OnSubjectChanged(SubjectChangedEventArgs e)

        {

            SubjectChanged(this, e);

        }

    }

 

So there we have it, a public property with its setter calling a protected function to raise its own event to notify all our registered eventhandler observers. Any time the subject changes, the SubjectChanged event gets raised, and all our observers can react to the new value enclosed in our own custom SubjectChangedEventArgs class.

Now, admittedly that seems like a lot of work compared to the traditional ‘I only need two interfaces’ Observer pattern implementation, but the payoff is in the use of the pattern, as shown in Segment 8 which outlines the process of using the classes we detailed previously to gain our .Net Observer pattern sweetness.

Segment 8

    Subject subj = new Subject();

 

    SubjectObserver observer = new SubjectObserver(subj);

    SubjectObserver anotherObserver = new SubjectObserver(subj);

 

    subj.SubjectValue = 33;

 

    //both observer and anotherObserver both update immediately

    int observerValue = observer.Change;

    int anotherObserverValue = anotherObserver.Change;

 

Ok, now seriously, how freakin’ cool is that? No messy ‘I’m an observer, add me to the list of registered observers’ calls, no ‘ok, I’ve changed, let’s loop through the list of registered observers and let them know’ routines, just wicked fast event-based programming. And did I mention the wicked-fast-ness of this .net Observer implementation? Oh yeah.

Again this is a .Net-specific implementation of a widely recognized and utilized design pattern of modern object-oriented programming, the Observer Pattern. Microsoft uses this pattern extensively in their own class structure for the .Net framework – so much so, they’ve come to call it the Event Pattern. 

Oooh, Aaah…

Regardless, if you haven’t had the need to implement a similar pattern in your own coding projects, you probably will run into it sometime in the future, and when you do, you are now armed with the powerful and pervasive .Net Event Pattern.

The Information Technology field has to have one of the highest rates of evolution of any field. A friendly warning for College Students, if you don’t like learning and discovering choose another field. Over the last 10 years the evolution of the web has been constant. Today we have information flowing to multiple channels, more complex information being captured, and more data being provided to users. With all of the content and information available it is no surprise that finding that content has had to get more complex as well. Optimizing your web site or web application for search engines is getting more and more complex. One aspect to look at is a subtle one. Ensuring that your site map and your keywords are captured, architected, and developed to work together.

A good BA is worth their weight in gold and early on in the requirements and discovery process capturing the keywords can really help the development of your tool. Keywords are a known importance to optimizing your site for organic discovery by Google, Bing and other search engines. There are tools dedicated to keyword mapping to show how your site will be captured by a search engine. What the keywords can’t be, however, are an afterthought to the development process. Keywords are concise definitions of your web site. Like the advertisement on television for a popular clothing retailer right now, the tag line is “Modern. Southern. Style.”. In three short concise words they define themselves. Even the government has taken to this “Safer. Healthier. People”. Keywords have been around for a while and we all know about them but I bring this up to discuss how we focus on them and use them.

A BA can use keywords to focus requirement sessions, the architect on the site map and architecture for the system, designers to ensure the colors layout user experience match the keywords, developers for for the folder structure, and testers to make sure they got it right. Now some would say that keywords should be derived from the requirements and the experience the company wants for its customers. Which is a great point that opens a question, are the creative people that can help write that copy and help getting involved early enough? Once the keywords have been defined so much can be based on them. The point of this column is architecture so lets jump there.

When the site map is being determined and the layout of the site designed/architected keeping the keywords in mind can really help. It is a common best practice to have a site-map on your web site. Many web sites have several versions to ensure they are read by the search engines. Ever added an XML web site document to ensure Google would read it? So using your keywords in various other locations can greatly assist your website.

If your keywords define your site and its content then shouldn’t your page titles include these keywords? With our keywords in the title another step is to ensure that we use the keywords in the URL. For example, instead of www.sitex.com/en/ we could include keywords www.sitex.com/keyword-keyword/. Not only is this more descriptive for the user the search engines will jump up the importance score. Why does this need to be part of the site map? If you are going to include keywords as part of the URL and folder structure the developers need this info to focus on. So that means knowing the site map before the pages are developed so they can use this information to their greatest value.

Considering the search engine will use the links on the site map to crawl the site, using keywords would help raise the score wouldn’t it? Getting into Canonical URL is a little beyond the scope of what we are discussing here but is a topic you might want to look up as well. While it may seem simplistic at this point in time of the internet’s evolution, keywords are still and will remain and important part of content discovery. Understanding how to re-engage on the importance of keywords and their use can help prepare for future evolution of the web.

Ever hear of the concept of ‘the semantic web’? Today a user views pages for information gathering and capture for activities like travel. With the sematic web, pages will interact in a more automated fashion reducing the amount of work a user does. As the web continues to evolve the potential for keywords to grow in importance is still relevant even considering their long history. The tie in to the site map becomes more important as desired functionality evolves. The key to scalability will be planning today for what is coming tomorrow. Preparing for tomorrow begins with looking at the process, collaborating, and working to the future. Don’t pass over the simple things, they just might be the key to the future.

I woke up this morning to a pretty interesting e-mail that was sent to me by way of my Google profile from someone named David Anderson:

I am making a blog for an online writing class I'm taking through UF, and for a module on search techniques I needed to find a non-mainstream website about my topic (sports bars).  I found your old site, the East Lansing Bar Review, and I loved it so I've written my post for this assignment about it.  I've only made five posts so far, but here is a link anyway: http://sportsbarjunkie.blogspot.com/

This is really crazy in so many ways. The site he is referring to is something I created back around 1995. I was attending Michigan State University and worked part-time in the MSU Network Center to make some extra cash. My official title there was Mainframe Consultant and mostly I helped professors and students to use things like Gopher, Banyan VINES, FTP, configure dial-up PPP access, and learn how to use our Unix-based ELM e-mail client. This was a time when most corporations hadn’t even heard of the web, it had fledgling use by Universities, it was being referred to as a fad, and I had just helped to get Michigan State’s own first web sites up.

I wanted to play around more with this new-fangled world wide web so using a vi editor in Unix, working in HTML 1.0 and armed with a copy of the predominant browser of the time NCSA Mosaic, I decided to create a site that offered a personal review of all the local bars and pubs in the East Lansing, Michigan area. I had a lot of fun creating the site. I had even more fun doing the critical research required to provide the reviews. But it really was bare bones ugly, used hand coded tables, some basic formatting tags, and the most advanced thing it included (which was hot at the time) was an image map that used a monstrosity I created with a copy of Photoshop 1.0.

But so it was born: the East Lansing Bar Review. For a couple of years I kept updating it and occasionally I got really interesting feedback or comments. It even got me a few free beers from local bar owners. When I left MSU my younger brother Mike took over the site and moved it (all 4 or 5 HTML files and all 5-6 images) from my student web account to his. He kept it updated for a couple of more years before he graduated. A couple of years later we got tired of being contacted about it from people asking for updates so Mike posted a note on the site explaining this and since then it’s gathered electronic dust but apparently it’s still there.

15 years from when I created the site, I’m now the CTO of Definition 6 where we create massive high-end brand experiences that include transactional sites with extensive back-end systems integration, hundreds of thousands of pages of content in enterprise-class Content Management Systems, on-line video experiences, mobile web sites, mobile applications and more in addition to spending a ton of time doing Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, On-line Display Media, and Analytics.

In an effort for this blog post to have a point and not just be nostalgic rambling or reflection on how far we’ve come in terms of the web and on-line advancements, what really stands out to me is considering how high this site shows up in results for major search engines. If you search for East Lansing Bars it still comes up as one of the top several results on Google. And if you search as David describes he did in his blog post it’s number one. Keep in mind the site was originally written and posted before Google even existed and at a time when Yahoo! had just come onto the scene as a start-up. The very concept of organic search engine optimization didn’t even really exist let alone was it the means of livelihood for the legions of people that practice its art today. I’m sure there are some things to be said for how today’s algorithms treat a site with such a long tenure favorably as well as the tenure of links to that site. And I’m all but certain that the same site published today would not be treated so favorably. But it is probably worth noting that a site hosted at relatively bad URL by today’s SEO standards with no meta-data, no thought to Information Architecture, and bad file naming practices still shows up high for certain not uncommon searches when the content was meaningfully written and relevant to the subject matter of interest. I’ll leave the rest of the analysis to the real SEO experts out there (and my apologies to our Creative Department for even publishing a link to this relic of a site on our blog).

Thanks, David, for the trip down memory lane and for giving me some interesting things to think about this morning.

Google Instant is a new search enhancement from Google that loads new search results with each keystroke you type – it performs queries in real-time. Google is now pretty much predicting what you are searching for before you finish typing your query. Of course, this confirms what we've all known for years, Google IS actually smarter than you.



According to Google, the primary benefits of Google Instant include:

•    Faster searches – Google Instant predicts what you are looking for before you finish typing (Google states this can save a user 2-5 seconds per search)

•    Smarter predictions – Google knows the words people use to search for different things – as you start typing, Google produces a list of search terms (usually including the one you were about to type)

•    Instant Results – you no longer have to hit return to get your search results – your search results load as you’re typing.

Those are some pretty meaninful benefits. For me, I"m most excited about the fact that Google has unveiled some pretty significant innovation around what it does best: search. 15 new technologies contribute to Google Instant and with this launch, it's pretty clear Google plans to maintain its market dominance as the world's most used search engine.

But Wait, Do I Need to Change My SEO Strategy?

The most common question people will want to know about Google Instant is what impact these changes will have on search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. The short answer: none. According to Google, Google Instant doesn’t change page rankings at all, so your current rankings will be intact.

Realistically, SEO strategies will need to change as a result of Google Instant. For starters, marketers should pay attention to what alternative terms appear in Google’s suggestions list under the new Google Instant model.

Google's suggestions can sway users to select a term other than the one they intended to search. Depending on the terms your site is indexed for, and the volume of searches for the particular term each month, websites could notice a decrease (or increase) in traffic as a result of the suggestions.

Search engine marketers would be wise to optimize their sites for suggested terms that may compete with terms they already enjoy prominent ranking.

Closing Thoughts

Google Instant is a significant change in the way Google works. I like the change and feel it’s a great enhancement to the user experience. I also like anything that saves me time in my workday (even if it’s only five seconds at a time).

By improving the user experience and delivering more instant gratification for users, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google’s market share tick up a bit. As usage increases and user experience improves as a result of Google Instant, organic and paid search strategies may need to evolve to adapt to changes. For now, marketers should hold tight, but earmark some more budget for search enhancements in 2011.

What do you think? Do you like Google Instant? Does it improve your search experience?

BONUS: Want more on Google Instant? Watch Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search, discuss these changes in her interview with TechCrunch:

Intuition can guide you to the place of innovation, and analysis guides you to the method of innovation.

Driving down costs is the goal of every business in every industry. Identifying and nailing down Cost Drivers in a Interactive Media Agency is one of the most challenging aspects of Innovation due to the service model and diversity of projects. The more diverse the services and the more capabilities an organization has, the harder the cost drivers are to innovate. This is the challenge.

Create Measurability

In order to analyze data, you need to collect data. The first step is to establish a normalized set of information, and discover commonalities that you measure over time. It's difficult in service business models to identify measurable practices since commonality between projects may not exist. In contrast, it is much easier to find measurable actvities within consistent services. For example, in the realm of public service such as law enforcement, response times can be measured which can lead to innovation in terms of communication technologies, route mapping, and routine patrolling route generation to optimize the response times and measure improvements. In the same light, commonality and metrics need to be put in place so that you can innovate. Without this baseline set of metrics, most improvements are subjective and can be hit and miss.

Measurability and Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing strategies and improved search engine optimization follow the same metaphorical principle. Because optimization is always a moving target, you have to establish a control on your marketing practices and only change a few independent variables at a time, such as keyword density, or keyword targeting in ads, in order to see their effect. In the case of organic search results, the effect of changes may take weeks or even months before they actually show results. To top it off, search algorithms and prioritization change "without notice." To discover these changes requires a scientific mindset for the search engine optimization consultants.

The cost drivers in Search Engine Marketing involve keyword market prices. Camping a commonly used keyword for PPC can cost you a fortune. Using longtail strategies and finding ways to effectively identify your product, service or company is the innovation point, and only good analysis and keyword research will get you there. Consistency is the rule of the game to establish and maintain hold of brand loyalty, market share, market segment, and also online in terms of keyword ownership, and search engine rankings.

Internet Application Development

With Internet Services, the identification of cost drivers needs to be built into the process by abstracting out parts of the process that show commonality and measurability. This should be the starting gate through which your innovation charges. Like online marketing, application development is a moving target. New technologies explode onto the marketplace on a regular basis, tempting you to change how you do business. Again by using a scientific approach, by controlling your process and making sure you change a few things at a time, you can drive changes from the right point of view rather than hype, and effectively make improvements on your cost drivers.

I read an article on MediaPost that showed how 2 major retailers, The Home Depot and Best Buy, targeted the U.S. Hispanic community.  One company failed while the other is gaining more sales.  What is interesting to me is that it appears that they both took the same approach, got back the same unexpected results, and then went in two different directions.

Both companies created a "U.S. Spanish" website.  Their target was U.S. Spanish speaking consumers.  What they discovered was that they were getting a lot of non-U.S. Spanish speaking visitors to their websites.  These visitors wanted to buy online just like U.S. consumers.  In many cases, the non-U.S. consumers were either visiting relatives or friends in the U.S. or were Mexicans crossing the border to shop.  The prices in the U.S. were cheaper than in their country and so they wanted to get their items in the U.S. and then bring them back home.  So what is the problem with that?

For Home Depot, the problem is that they did not take the foreign credit cards on the U.S. Spanish site.  Best Buy on the other hand embraced the additional and unexpected consumers and did allow the foreign credit cards.  Best Buy is finding that, even though they don't ship overseas, people will order online and ship to friends or family where they will pick up the items later.  They also have found that U.S. Hispanics are using the website to print out information before they go to the stores to purchase the items.  In many cases it is easier for them to understand the information in Spanish.

One of the more interesting sides to this story is that The Home Depot has stores in Mexico, they have a Mexican website (in Spanish, of course), they have an English Canadian website and they have a French Canadian website.  So they are marketing to everone across North America except the the growing number of Spanish speaking Hispanics in the U.S. and those Spanish speaking visitors who wish to purchase in the U.S.

Not knowing the full details of the costs involved, it would be interesting to see the cost for Home Depot to maintain the U.S. Spanish site and the revenue the site could bring in (if they allowed foreign credit cards) and the revenue brought in by those in the U.S. who used the site to gain more information about products they wanted.  It seems to me that 4 months of running the U.S. Spanish site is not enough time to determine its impact and that if Best Buy can make it work for them, The Home Depot should be able to make it work, too.  Besides, if a French Canadian site can work for Canada, why can't a Spanish U.S. site work here?  I wonder if Home Depot is looking for a way to recreate the U.S. Spanish site in a way that will embrace those consumers that liked having the site available.

Are you looking to build a website to market your products or services to the fast growing U.S. Hispanic community?  Definition 6 is an Atlanta interactive marketing agency that can help you.  Besides doing website development and web application development, we can manage your Search Engine Optimization, your Search Engine Marketing and your email marketing campaigns while providing web analytics that ties everything together.  As we gather more and more valuable information about your consumers, we can tweak all methods of marketing to maximize your dollars.  Contact us and let's get a plan in place for you.

Recently I visited the doctor for a single respiratory CT scan in which AFTER insurance I ended up paying close to $1,500. Upon seeing the exorbitant bill I headed straight to the nearest Mc Donald in an attempt to convince myself that ordering from the “Dollar Menu” could be a long term strategy to help me subsidize the 10 costly X-Rays (I think it’d have been cheaper for them to simply open my chest and take a look rather than spend 30 seconds photographing my lungs).

During the car ride home, in which I ate all of my fries before reaching the front doorstep, something dawned on me. As I attempted in vain to wipe the french-fry grease from my hands I came to the realization that when you combine something that’s good AND cheap it can make anyone’s day better.  Granted my cholesterol/MSG high only lasted for but a moment, I decided in the spirit of giving I’d share the same free and good satisfaction with those of you in the blogosphere.

As every aspect of business slowly moves into the clouds, businesses have been turning to website integration platforms such as SalesForce.com. Many businesses are unaware of the Sales Force app exchange, and those who are often times don’t realize there are a plethora (I’ve been dying to use that word) of extremely useful and FREE applications that help to make Sales Force a complete online marketing and sales tool.

So on behalf of myself and Definition 6, an interactive media agency in Atlanta, I present you with the top 10 FREE Sales Force applications that every business can benefit from. In no particular order;

1. SalesView:

MarketingSherpa released its 2009 eCommerce Benchmark Survey and reminds us that we should be gearing up for what is projected to be an improved holiday season: up 9% over 2008.  Nearly 1,500 eCommerce marketers rated tactics for improving website conversions.

1.  Perpetual shopping carts

These take many different forms:  from a simple note that there’s a product sitting in the cart to dynamic overlays showing images of the product, price, and estimated shipping costs.  The perpetual shopping cart keeps the purchase in the mind of the customer; that psychological anchor helps guide them back to the purchase.

2.  Website search

Consumer research suggests that almost 50% of shoppers prefer internal search over traditional menu options.  This number naturally rises when they have a specific product or brand in mind. 

The first priority is to test your internal search regularly to ensure that it works effectively. Second, examine the different business factors that can be used to optimize internal search results.  Some marketers use a ‘last in-first out’ method to move inventory, while others use their analytics and database systems to sort products by profit margin.  The choices are as broad as your technology and creativity.

3.  Enhanced display

Consumers are enthusiastic about getting multiple, varied photos of a product.   People want to know as much as they can about a product, and even static images can help.  Showing videos how to use products or explaining complex features can bring products to life for the user.

Definition 6 is an Atlanta ad agency and has extensive experience in building and designing eCommerce websites.  We can improve your Search Engine Optimization.  We are experts in Google Search technology and can implement search at your site.  We can also help you with your interactive advertising campaigns and targeted email marketing.  Do you need a mobile advertising strategy?  We can help!

Business owners often times find themselves at odds with the popular proverb “the best things in life are free.” Fortunately even in business this enchanting life lesson can at times prove to be true, and it just so happens that some of the best ways to boost your organic page rank really are free. Below I’ve compiled a small list of ideas, tools, networks, and websites that every business should be utilizing whether it’s an owner of a small business undertaking these strategies personally or a major CEO using his resources to have an interactive marketing agency with more experience and manpower tackle the tasks outlined below. (If you outsource this work I  would suggest using Definition 6  - an Atlanta Internet Marketing company - of which I of course recommend without bias)

The top 7 free ways to boost your organic page ranking;

1)    Link Building:

Links are to rank as to what Sunny is to Cher. Of all the ways in which marketers try to lure search engine spiders to their page, link building is perhaps the most used as well as one of the most effective in search engine optimization. In laymen terms, you want to have links on your site that link to other sites and vice versa that have relevant, useful information and resources for your visitors. If you link to irrelevant or random content, the search engines will shun you. The more relevant the content, the more likely search engines are to recommend your site to others.  It’s important not to abuse this strategy as over-linking will become more harmful than helpful.  You can build your link network by simply requesting your partners link to you, registering on link directories (you can add yourself to almost every link directory in one single swoop at http://www.addurl.nu/), or by consistently interacting with other websites on forums and blogs in the hopes that they link to you naturally.

2)    Online Press Releases: 

If you’ve launched a new site, redesign, application, service, or online utility it’s important to get the word out through the virtual newswire. Telling news outlets relevant information about your technology or business developments is a great way to get instant linkbacks and even social bookmarks for your article. It’s important to once again not to abuse this strategy, as sending out irrelevant press releases every day will get you banned.

If you’d like a one-stop-shop for getting your releases to the major players I’d recommend using www.prweb.com and www.prleap.com .

Here’s a great example of how Definition 6 used PR to increase its organic search rank and traffic; http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-27-2009/0005066618&EDATE=

3)    Squidoo Lenses

Think of Squidoo Lenses as free micro sites that allow you to create debates and forums for topics specific to your industry or company. They are quick and easy to set up and allow you to link back to your website along with each corresponding lens you create.  If you post thought provoking, controversial, or useful lenses the odds are very good you’ll not only see a big boost in ranking but a significant boost in traffic. I personally come across dozens of Squidoo lenses every day by way of Google search and end up at the lens creators’ website. 

www.squidoo.com 

4)    Social Media

Unfortunately I would do this topic a great injustice by pretending I could summarize each social media outlet and the use/benefit of each. Instead, I will simply say that if you’re not currently on the social media landscape your competitors are one step ahead. Statistics show time and time again a direct correlation between businesses social media activity and their websites rise in page rank and traffic.  Definition 6 alone has received numerous business leads this month from its Twitter & Facebook social media marketing. Unfortunately many marketers have shyed away from these mediums mainly due to their lack of understanding, but I would highly recommend if you’re unwilling to dedicate a respectable portion of your budget to social media marketing that you attempt to read up on your own and establish your presence on the following social media sites which have been proven to significantly boost page rank;

•    www.facebook.com
•    www.myspace.com
•    www.twitter.com
•    www.flickr.com
•    www.technorati.com

Here’s a good example of how Definition 6 has leveraged Twitter; http://twitter.com/definition6

5)    Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites 

Social bookmarking sites are quickly becoming one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic to your site. Many businesses abandon the use of bookmarks because they themselves fail to keep their social content (blogs, facebook, twitter, etc) updated. Moreover, many marketers fail to provide useful, relevant, engaging content for their viewers. Major businesses such as Dell & Apple have made millions of dollars just by leveraging social bookmarking sites. By providing users with contents, breaking news, or useful tools and resources one of your website landing pages can spread as virally as a yawning kitten video on youtube. Here are a list of the most important social bookmarking sites;

•    www.stumbleupon.com
•    www.reddit.com
•    www.digg.com
•    www.delicious.com

6)    Forum Signatures

It’s not enough to simply have a space in the interactive market; you need to interact with it as well. Another free (and at times laborious) link building/traffic boosting strategy is forum & blog posting. By engaging with consumers and peers on industry forums as well as blogs you accomplish a multitude of goals: you show you’re engaged in your field, you are accessible, you are knowledgeable, and most importantly you can end your posts with your website link thereby building your rank, credibility, and traffic.

7)    Blogs

Lastly, and perhaps the fastest of these growing trends, creating a blog. Just like the strategies before this, it’s important to note that creating a blog for the sake of creating a blog does nothing for your website or your brand; in fact it may negatively impact it. If you plan on creating a blog, which you should, be sure to actively post but more importantly post relevant useful information. It’s better to hold off posting for a few weeks to wait for an exciting topic or item than to boring and unhelpful articles every other day. Blogs are a great way to tie in social bookmarking, social media, and link building.

In my continuing research into marketing to the Hispanic consumer, I'm finding great articles from MediaPost that provide good information on why and how to reach this particular audience.  So here is an article by Joseph Kutchera (Why Does Google Send U.S. Hispanics To Foreign Web Sites?) that talks about what Google is doing with search results for the Spanish speaking community and how you can apply similar ideas to your marketing campaigns.

The first thing he points out is that if you search in Google using Spanish words, 50% or more of your responses are going to be for sites outside of the U.S. borders.  So why does this happen and why do marketers miss this target audience?  Kutchera provides the answer.  "Google and other search engines index sites globally while we marketers, agencies and media sellers work within the economic and political borders of the U.S."  When people search using Spanish words and terms, Google is going to return sites that have Spanish content on them.  Does your website have Spanish content?  If you do, you may still be missing out on this audience for a few different reasons.  Kutchera points out the following.  1) Your Spanish site may not be optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like your English site.  2) Many Spanish speaking Hispanics like to go to sites of their country of origin. 3) Spanish language markets are more likely to spend time on their content, making it more relevant than someone from an English language market who is updating a Spanish language website. 4) U.S. advertisers have been slow to move budgets toward online marketing and therefore not providing the resources necessary to provide the content that is necessary.

So what can you do to reach the Hispanic population:

- Purchase non-U.S. targeted inventory on your search buys along with your U.S. targeted inventory.
- Reach out to Hispanic country-of-origin web sites through ad networks.
- Apply behavioral, contextual, and language targeting to further segment and understand your Hispanic audience.

As a Senior Consultant at Definition 6, an interactive marketing agency with expertise in Web Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Consulting, I'm seeing lots of evidence for companies to shift some marketing dollars to specifically target Hispanics in the U.S.  This growing population is getting online at a very fast pace.  There are millions and millions of them out there that could be buying your products or services if they could find you.  Are you willing to let them go to your competitors?  We can help you target them.  We can help you get ahead of the curve.
 

As an Interactive Ad Agency executive I get questions all the time from various people about eMail Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design, Social Media Marketing, and Online Advertising. Often times it is from a frustrated marketing manager who says something like: "My boss doesn't get digital marketing and it is frustrating", so one of the things I try to do is help map digital marketing back to a deep seated belief in the executive mind.

Let's take banking and social media marketing, this conversation came up at Mashable Atlanta, "how can I convince my banking boss that social media is something we should use?"  I asked the marketing manager if her boss believed that banking was based on relationships? And of course, the answer was "yes", then I asked if he was one of those bankers that thought it was important to be a member of the right country club, right business club and school alumni network; And of course, the answer was "yes". Well, then it is very clear to me that the banker was the perfect candidate for social media marketing, because social marketing is about "RELATIONSHIPS" and the banker clearly believes that you need to have a relationship with your customer and prospects. So I pointed out that we should talk to the boss about joinning the best new club in town, "the social media networks" - be it Facebook, LinkedIn, or Affluence, it was the new club where RELATIONSHIPS were made and strengthened.

We will see how the conversation ultimately goes with her boss, but I wanted to share that the technique to selling Interactive Marketing to management is to start where they are and move from there to the digital world. Check out our thoughts at twitter.com/Defintion6 or my personal tweats at twitter.com/mkogon.

I just got a call from a strategic business partner, and as an Interactive Advertising Agency we stay up to speed on most things in the marketplace, and he was calling me from a break at a conference for his company.  As he said hello, I congratulated him on their company raising another round of VC dollars.  He said "Wow, how did you know that?!"  I told him simple; Twitter!  I was a follower of his company's partner account and at the same time they told the company they tweeted about it.  Interactive communications is so fast, that in less than 5 minutes the word was out!  Now this is a great story because they are an eMail marketing partner of ours, he is a long time friend and the news was good.  We talked about what the investment meant to his company and our partnership, we discussed how online ad agency business was continuing to see good growth this year and that 2010 was going to be a great year, and hung up smiling.

Now what if the news had been bad?  What if they had a meeting that was altering the relationship with partners and it was negative?  And someone had tweeted about it? I suspect our call wouldn't have been the same. 

Let's talk about your online interactive marketing and message management.  Do you have a twitter monitoring policy?  Do you have an account?  Do you follow your partners, customers, employees, competitors?  I do, you should too. Website Development is a very small part of being digital, search engine optimization is only a part as is eMail or even PPC. The big parts are listening, monitoring, and watching the ecosystem and being informed as quickly as possible to make decisions as rapidly as possible.  So next time you are with your Interactive Ad Agency, ask them what they know and when they learned it.  You will be amazed at how fast Digital has become.

The best part of having an Interactive Advertising Agency is seeing how leading edge thinking evolves and grows. Years ago we would just talk about eMail Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Consulting, Website Development and hosting services. That was it and then the crash of 2001 came along and Interactive Advertising Agency life became harder and many companies went out of business. If the last two days are any indication of things to come, interactive advertising is going to only become stronger in the next 18 months. Take a look at this chart from Media Daily News:

ZenithOptimedia, GroupM Forecast U.S., Worldwide Ad Recession In 2009
	2008	2009	2010	2011
ZenithOptimedia
U.S.	-3.8%	-6.2%	+2.1%	+2.8%
Worldwide	+1.3%	-0.2%	+5.5%	+5.8%
GroupM
U.S.	+0.3%	-3.2%	NA	NA
Worldwide	+2.6%	-0.2%	NA	NA

Who would want to be in the traditional adverting and media business next year?  Not me, and not because traditional isn't important and can't help brands, but compared to Interactive Advertising - look at this chart from Online Media Daily:

Share Of Worldwide Ad Spending By Medium
	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Newspapers	27.1	25.4	23.8	22.3	21.2
Magazines	12.0	11.5	11.2	10.7	10.4
Television	37.3	38.0	38.3	38.5	38.5
Radio	8.0	7.6	7.1	6.9	6.7
Cinema	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.6	0.6
Outdoor	6.5	6.7	6.9	7.0	7.1
Internet	8.6	10.3	12.1	13.9	15.6
Source: ZenithOptimedia

Next year Interactive Adversing will exceed Outdoor, Radio, Magazine and I personally believe by 2011 will be equal to newspaper even if  others don't yet. Look for our upcoming posts on some rapid start programs on how to get involved in Interactive Advertising solutions for 2009.

Site search is yet another website search engine optimization solution that we help our clients with.  It is a relatively low cost way to improve overall site experience for users and can help drive conversion by quickly getting users to the content they want.  Onsite Search also alleviates website abandonment if users aren’t quickly and easily finding what they are looking for.

How can Definition 6 help?
• Add “Google-quality” search to your company’s public websites
• Brand it to look like your current site design
• Can be done using a SaaS or appliance approach

What can we deliver?
• Branded search box and results on your public website
• 2 hours of training on the search service or appliance admin interfaces

Estimated timeframe for delivery is 2-3 weeks.  Contact us today for more information: http://www.definition6.com/contact-us.aspx

I really enjoy the field of Interactive Advertising and being the head of an Interactive Advertising Agency as it allows me to see the continued evolution of the digital space.  I found an interesting chart on eMarketer the other day and I wanted to share it.



Look at these growth numbers! I know many of you are saying, wait a minute, we are not seeing double digit growth like the last few years and these projections are down from what they were in August. I know that you are correct, however if you are in the paid search business or search engine optimization consulting business this is a great chart. If you are into email marketing or provide website development services, then this is a very good chart to see.

Most advertising mediums are being cut back and actually declining, most expenses in all departments are being reduced. Our field is still going to grow and growth is always relative. If we grow 7% and the others decline 3% we actually see gains in excess of the 10% spread as compared to total spending. It is just great to be an interactive advertising agency!

Steve West, a Definition 6 Senior Graphic Designer shared this on blogs...
In 1929 Franklin Roosevelt began delivering his now famous fireside chats while he was governor of New York. After becoming president in 1933, he delivered his first presidential fireside chat on March 12 to talk to the American people about the bank crisis. After that, he delivered 29 more fireside chats until 1944. On November 15, President-elect released his first radio address and posted the same address in video on YouTube talking about the economy.

The Obama campaign brought his presidential campaign to the web in a way like never before. It involved a website that solicited $5 donations, a blog that talked about the campaign as well as an in-depth resource about their stand on current issues. This unprecedented approach brought in more support than any campaign before and brought people closer to the candidate. Now that the election is over, President-elect Obama has taken this same initiative and created a new website, www.change.gov. On there you can read news posts, follow blog posts about the transition, learn about the agenda and look at the nominees.

This new spirit of bringing the oval office to the people is an example that companies can follow. A blog is one way to way to connect to your audience and put a face on your company. In this arena, you can easily discuss what you believe and what your goals are. Subsequently, if you are using search engine optimization marketing as a tactic to drive customer acquisition, having a blog will increase your chances of being ranked with the search engines.  Or if you haven’t updated your news section lately maybe a blog would be a better way to show what you’re doing. Just because you haven’t been in the news doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say or should be saying.

Lori Willard, a Definition 6 SEO Specialist, recently came across an article in Marketing Sherpa that offered a few excellent pointers on optimizing your videos for internet search engine optimization.

Here are a few key points to take away:

• Host an SEO 101 Class for your video production team. Identify the keywords you would like to incorporate and discuss where they can be included.

• Include the term "video" as a modifier in some of your keyword terms. When people search for videos they will typically include the term "video" in their search query.

• Host each video on its own landing page. This gives you the opportunity to add keyword rich META tags in the html along with a unique URL for that page that includes specific terms related to your video. 

• Write compelling titles and descriptions incorporating targeted keywords that add interest to your visitors.

• Add a transcript or summary of your video in text along with the video itself. This is a great way to add additional content to your page and further incorporate your keywords.

• Add an XML video sitemap to your website. Google will allow you to submit a list of URL's that contain your videos, video titles, along with a brief description.

In closing, video files are not only a great way to add another level of engagement to your website, they also can be an integral part of your websites search engine optimization solutions.

Read the complete Marketing Sherpa article here

Cecilia Barella, a Definition 6 Account Coordinator, recently discussed an article she read on Marketing Sherpa...

Landing page rules typically say that ad-response forms should be as short as possible and require the least amount of information because extra clicks lower conversions. But what was found is that if you create a process that’s user-friendly and that’s tailored to the customer, they’re actually willing to provide you more information. One example of a company using web search engine optimization is Continental Warranty, an insurance company.  The article says they went from using a one page- one step process to a three page process. Using better real time analytics tools incorporated on their advertising they were able to serve their customer tailored landing pages. 

Cecilia focused on a few key points in the article:

1. Before users get to a landing page you can capture the following information:
- Search keywords that drove them to click on an ad and land on the page
- Time of day they arrived
- Day of the week
- Web browser they were running
  
 
2. Determine the first step’s creative: Keywords show what customers are really interested in, so you know which questions to ask on the first page or which creative and graphics to use. (Make the content relevant to the search that got them there.) Time of day and day of the week can dictate how much information you can serve on your landing page, if it is during the weekend, the user might have more time and be more interested in reading detailed content. Second Step creative will be based on the information provided on the first form and third form is optional.  

3. It is important to keep testing the landing pages, this is where your interactive media agency can make a big difference.  Continental Warranty uses a system that automatically tests landing pages based on different user profiles. Pages that are not performing are removed from the rotation; high-performers are used more frequently. They are also constantly pushing new pages or tweaking existing pages based on targeted consumer information that they gather.

Cecilia's concluding thoughts were that search and website integration of both content and creative can enhance the customer experience.  By investing in your online campaign you can not only improve customer experience but also increase ROI and company revenue.
 
The full article can be viewed at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30758&amp;pop=no#