Category: Featured Articles

More and more companies are releasing mobile website experiences with the explosion of smartphone sales and smartphone Internet usage. In fact, the behavior of the mobile user provides staggering support for launching a mobile site. Take advantage of the millions searching and surfing the Internet while on their smartphone. Give those visitors an opportunity to engage with your brand and make it easy for them to complete a valuable conversion. Below are six simple mobile website design hints and screenshots of a couple good mobile site designs.

Yahoo! released the ten top searches for 2011 which includes a device, television show, a catastrophic event and various individuals. I wanted to say “celebrities” instead of “individuals” but just could not bring myself to categorize some of the people listed as celebrities. At least two and a half are viewed as evil by a significant slice of society, so I did not want to recognize them the coveted status. How many of the people or search queries on the list are evil in your opinion?

Tech-Ed North America 2011 is next week, and will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. I will be stationed in the MVP Award Program booth spreading awareness and sourcing new Microsoft MVPs (Yes, I am a Microsoft employee acting as a Community Program Manager for the MVP Award Program).

Case study might be a little strong, but we certainly can learn from this example that keyword URLs are much better than GUID URLs. FilmJabber is managed by a buddy of mine named Erik Samdahl. He is a movie fiend with an edgy opinion making his movie reviews an interesting read. FilmJabber also offers some pretty cool contests with good giveaways making his movie website quite appealing. Erik also is a much more adept web developer than I am so we barter services. I get web development when needed and he gets my SEO and Social Media advice.

So I went to Google today and saw an interesting display of their brand. Below you can see a black and white image. A man’s face is partially covered by a piece of paper that reads Google in an old world font. I was curious because the center of the image displays an arrow icon used frequently as a convention for web-based video players.

Ever receive an unexpected email from a friend regarding their business? Ever think it is a good idea to gather up customer email addresses and blast them with promotional offers? Are you aware of the CAN-SPAM Act? The CAN-SPAM Act is a Federal law that regulates commercial email use. Yep, “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial websites is REGULATED. Each separate violation can net you a $16,000 fine. Do I have your attention now?

The Emerald City ComiCon or ECCC was held this past weekend for the ninth year. (What does this have to do with SEO, Social Media or Community? Well #ECCC was very popular on Twitter the past few days. Then there is the massive community aspect. Getting tens of thousands of raving fans under one roof celebrating together what they all love. Also, comic book conventions are very geek related, and I am a geek so there is the more obvious connection.) Each year this outstanding comic book convention grows bigger and bigger, and I have been attending the ECCC since the beginning with some intermittent absences here and there. If you are a comic buff then you must hit this annual event because you can find that elusive back-issue you have been seeking for years. There are dozens of comic vendors that from all appearances packed their entire shop for display and sale at the convention.

Duane Forrester, Chris Moore and I held a SEO workshop at this year’s Microsoft MVP Summit, and fifty brave MVPs registered to have their websites put into the meat grinder of our collective SEO knowledge. These tech savvy experts submitted personal blogs, corporate websites and forums to be analyzed for missed opportunities and white hat analysis.