I sometimes wonder if the engineers and developers at Google wouldn’t have been at home in the Renaissance, since they seem to constantly be thinking of new ways to revolutionize technology, communication, and the flow of information on a weekly basis. As it is, they are finishing out 2011 by releasing a series of new tools and toys that you should know about:

Google Insights. This is an interesting tool that lets you use the world’s largest search engine not just to find information, but also to see what others have been finding lately, too. Want to know which celebrities, music clips, or travel destinations are “hot” right now? Google Insights puts the raw data at your fingertips.

Google Music. Interested in having up to 20,000 songs in the cloud, download them, stream them to play instantly, or sharing them between smart phones and other devices? If so, then this ultra-cool service is built just for you. Google Music is currently only available in the USA, but if you take a trip down South you can activate your account while you are away from your Canadian home. Songs sell for as low as 0.49 each and you can get full albums for as low as $4.99 (US Dollars of course).

Google Chromebook. Want to know what some of the smartest engineers on the planet could do with the concept of a netbook? Not only do these devices – which are coming to big-box stores everywhere this winter – add all kinds of functionality the market, but they also have amazing group-leasing rates for organizations. This one was definitely on my Christmas list… and guess what? Santa had to order it from Amazon.com (not .ca) and delivered it to our Arizona address. You guessed it… not quite available in Canada just yet, but watch for it soon.

If you aren’t already familiar with these new  toys and tools, then I encourage you to take a few minutes to check them out. Not only are they lots of fun, but they could turn out to be incredibly useful, or at the very least, give you a sense of where the Internet is headed.

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that Google will likely keep releasing new gadgets, platforms, and pieces of software in 2012. And why not? Although not all of them pan out to be the way the company might envision (does anyone remember Google Wave, which was supposed to revolutionize e-mail?), those same technologies and ideas tend to pop up again later. In other words, Google doesn’t limit their ideas strictly to the products that have been launched… they hold onto the best ones and keep building on them through successive products.

Are you looking for a Canadian speaker who can help your audience to get the most out of today’s technology? Contact me today to find have a look at my speaking schedule and availability. I’ll look forward to chatting. Cheers.

In one of its strongest anti-copying measures to date, Google is now letting users directly report websites that “scrape” content from other sources. In other words, if you catch someone copying from you, you can now raise your hand and tell the teacher.

Of course, duplicate content has been an issue for some time, but the world’s largest search engine has never had an automated system that allows business owners and webmasters to point out violators on their own. This is a great step forward for honest online marketers, and just one more reminder that it’s never, ever a good idea to copy content from a competitor.

Here are three quick implications from Google’s new scraper policy:

Don’t try to copy content. Yes, we said this already, but it’s worth mentioning again. Even if you copy content from someone else’s site and change it slightly, you are likely to be caught. And if you are, there is a better than decent chance that you will be banned from Google, which could do damage to your online business that can never be undone.

And besides, who wants to copy content anyway? Your company isn’t just like anyone else’s, so the text and images on your pages should show what’s unique about your business, and why customers want to do business with you.

Protect your own content. The crux of this issue, from Google’s standpoint, has been that certain marketing websites with “scraped” content were ranking higher than the sites that had originally created it. While that’s likely to decrease now, the fact of the matter remains that there are companies out there that would like to steal what you have, so make sure you are working with a business web designer who can protect what’s on your pages.

Keep fresh content coming on to your business site. In a larger sense, this policy reflects the growing importance that Google and the other major search engines are putting on fresh content and articles. They’ve always mattered, but going forward they will likely influence search engine rankings even more. So, if you can squeeze out one blog post a week, and regular social updates – or get social media done for you – the time to get started is now.

The geniuses working at Google’s Silicon Valley offices must have been pretty busy lately. Not only have they decided to outfit an entire town in Kansas with super high speed Internet, but they recently rolled out their “+1″ feature that allows searchers to share which results they find most helpful. But rather than taking the rest of the month off, as some of us would be tempted to do, they quietly introduced another new feature: Google Guru.

Guru, in a nutshell, is a service that allows users to open up a chat window and ask simple questions they want the answers to. Experts or other users can then help them find the appropriate information, without having to delve directly into Google search interface and find results. What are some of the things people might want to find? Here are just a handful of examples:

• Current weather and forecasts
• Sports scores
• Average prices
• Currency conversions
• Time in a different part of the world
• Geographic questions
• Trivia

… and a lot more. Much of this information could be available elsewhere on the Web, but using guru has the potential to make things faster and more efficient.

From an online marketing standpoint, this probably doesn’t mean a lot for your business at the moment. That’s not to say that it doesn’t matter, however. The introduction of Google Guru means more ties between the world’s largest search engine and mobile devices, more interaction with people instead of search engine spiders, and an overall focus on helping users find the information they’re looking for with minimum effort.

As you consider your online marketing plans going forward, try to find ways to make it easier for people to locate information or do business with you more efficiently. That’s because, as Guru shows us, you’re bound to be rewarded for it sooner or later.

eKzact Web Design and Online Marketing is Calgary’s premier Internet development company. Call us today to schedule a free consultation and find out why!

If you’ve noticed something new about your Google search results today – and not everyone will, since the changes being made are gradually across different locations and browsers – you’re not alone. Google has recently announced that they’ll start adding “+1″ buttons to listings.

What does +1 mean? It’s most similar to Facebook’s “like this” tab, which allows users to point out which pages are destinations they consider to be most helpful. The results are then made public to your Gmail contacts, although this may expand in the future, and Google has some tentative plans to collect aggregate +1 data for sites and pages to see which ones are most popular.

As a web user, this might seem like a neat little feature to share which sites you enjoy. But as an online marketer, it should alert you to some deeper truths and trends. Here are three things you definitely need to know about Google’s new +1 addition:

It’s further blurring the lines between search and social media. By essentially following in the footsteps of Facebook’s like this or Twitter’s “retweet” option, Google is positioning itself less as a pure search engine and more of a social hub. Expect that these Internet giants will continue to battle it out for the lion’s share of your attention.

Online marketers will try to one up each other. You can bet that, as soon as +1 becomes widespread, companies will be trying hard to one up each other with more +1′s. Not only will it make them seem more popular and possibly spread their marketing message, but there’s the chance that it could even help their search positioning down the road, if Google (logically) decides that sites with more approvals should get higher rankings.

Quality content is more important than ever. Ultimately, what +1 does is place more control into the hands of searchers. And what sort of sites and pages will they reward? That’s right, the ones with the most helpful – and most interesting – content. Having high quality writing and video on your small business website has become more and more important in recent years. That trend is only going to continue.

Need a Calgary Web design and online marketing partner who can help you stay on top of the latest web trends? Contact eKzact today. We’ll show you what’s going on in the online world, and how your business can take advantage.

Google and the other major search engines have reported in the past few years that “image result” queries are on the rise. This isn’t all that surprising — lots of people check out pictures of nature, super-models, sports events, and more — and might seem like it has nothing to do with you and me.

The reality, though, is that people aren’t just looking up celebrities and postcard landscapes… they’re also searching for images of friends, colleagues, and vendors.

What does this have to do with you, or your online marketing? It’s simple, the bigger and better you get, the higher the odds are that someone is going to decide to try to put a face with your name and Google you for image results. Or, the more pictures there are of you online, the more likely it is that someone searching your company is going to come across one of them. In either case, think carefully about what they would find. Is it something that would help, or hurt, your professional image?

If you aren’t sure, then your first step should be to perform a similar search yourself. Many people do this and are surprised at what comes up. For one thing, there might be a lot of photos of another person with the same name but (whether obviously or not) isn’t you. And for another, you could come up with photos you haven’t seen in years, snapshots where you have been tagged on other people’s social media profiles, pictures from old jobs or news articles, and so on.

Regardless of what you find, there are two things you deftly should do: first, try to remove anything that might harm your long term professional prospects; and secondly, make sure there are at least a few places where people can find a nice, comforting, professional photograph of you. In fact, go ahead and spend a few dollars having one done if you need to — it’s a small investment with a potentially large payoff.

Most of us aren’t famous enough that we have tons of adoring fans searching out our photos online. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can afford not to clean up our image online.

Need common sense advice and uncommon Internet marketing results? Get in touch with the team at eKzact — we’re one of Calgary’s leading web design, online marketing, e-commerce, social media, and everything else you need to keep your business moving ahead on the web.

As Google continues to develop it’s “Local Business Centre” one of the new advents is the introduction of physical labels that include a barcode. These physical labels are being sent to business owners that have already verified ownership of their Local Business listing on Google maps.

The barcode, or QR Code that is on the label allows people with smart phones to simply scan the code with the phones camera. Litterally within a fraction of a second, you receive all of the business details from Google’s Local Business listing including any coupons or offers that the owner has posted.

Reviews are also returned. The good, the bad and the ugly are returned. In fact Google even suggests that there is no better time than the present to leave a review -

“Leave a review right after you leave the business. What’s a better time to write what you think, than when you’ve just visited?”

There are already several QR Code scanning apps on the App Store. I dropped a $1.99 and got one and scanned the code on this page… It works very quickly.

To learn more about being a “Favorite Place on Google” you can visit this page here

Cheers -

David

]]> http://www.davidawest.com/2009/12/08/google-favourite-places-and-bar-codes/feed/ 1 http://www.davidawest.com/2009/05/30/does-the-world-really-need-another-search-engine/ http://www.davidawest.com/2009/05/30/does-the-world-really-need-another-search-engine/#comments Sun, 31 May 2009 02:44:50 +0000 David West http://www.davidawest.com/?p=212

Not long ago, Microsoft tried to buy into YAHOO with some billons of dollars. It didn’t work out. Apparently that didn’t turn Microsoft away from the potential of becoming a rival to Google. This was a bid that I actually hoped would occur – because competition is good. As much as I respect Google, it would be nice if there was an alternative search engine.

Enter Bing.com

Microsoft is not branding their new search engine as a “MSN” or  “Live” upgraded – it appears that they have actually been innovative. Some of my colleagues who know me may be surprised to know that I am excited about this. On the surface, based on a short into video, it looks like this may be something good.

I am glad that Microsoft is going to take another run at providing search results. I hope that eventually 50% of the world users use it for their daily search and I hope that in the not too distant future when I ask a prospective clients how they found us… they will answer “I Binged you”.

Competition is Good.  It’s good for search engines, it’s good for websit designers and it’s good for operating systems.

Enough said… for now.

Cheers – David

Here is a quote from an email from a company representing itself as a “professional search engine optimization” service. They also provide pay-per-click services.

“Thank you for signing up. Ash said that he was able to cut a deal with Google, and you will get a report from Google in our behalf, and you will be able to track every  visitor from your site and you would be able to track every detail and you would know where your clients come from. They would be able to identify if it’s by eB——–W-b [name removed to protect the stupid], YP, search results, and other marketing endeavors. We would like to ask for your FTP access in order for it to work efficiently, and accurately. “

Find out why this statement not only raised red flags around ethics, but also raised my hair… I write at length about this one at our corporate blog.

….to read the full posting, visit the eKzact blog and read the article, “Some Peoples Kids… will say almost anything”

What a great name for a web-service developed around a simple concept – reminders.

Remember The Milk or RTM as they refer to it on their site is at first appearance a simple way to manage to-do lists.  Great features like ‘tags’, reminders and the ability to create as many lists as you like start to surface only after you start getting into the meat and bones of the service.  Then the true subtle strengths surface. RTM features the ability to share tasks with you coworkers or family!

So on first glance, RTM is pretty cool.  On deeper digging, I found the golden nugget! Upgrading my RTM account to a “Pro” account, unlocked the features that truly make this a must have add-on to our daily routine.  You see, we adopted Google Apps as our primary tool for managing our enterprise email, calendaring and shared documents nearly a year ago.  The one thing that is missing in Google Apps is a great TO-DO list management system.  RTM has solved this with a quick and easy Fire Fox plug-in.

Once the plug-in is installed in your FireFox web-browser (the web-browser you get to choose and choose to get), your RTM to-do list will show right along side of you Gmail in-box. Taking this all a step further, I can now quickly associate my email conversations to an action item in my RTM to-do list.  Later, when I am reviewing my to-do list, I can quickly return to the related email conversation. We have full control over marking list item completed or postponing them to the next day – all from within Gmail.

How much would you pay for this incredible one time offer?  (just kidding)

W a i t…  You also get -

The ability to easily sync your RTM lists with your Blackberry or iPhone todo lists! Yes, that is correct, two way sync to your smart phone!

So, a powerful action list manager, integration with your Gmail interface, and fully synchronized to your smart phone…

Just $25.00 per year!  Or, if you don’t need a ‘Pro’ account, your “Remember The Milk” account is FREE.
Hope you are enjoying a great Summer!

David A. West     Visit “Remember The Milk” now!

PS – I almost forgot to mention that you don’t need an internet connection to use RTM.  Using “Google Gears” you can sync RTM to your desktop and review your action lists while your flying to Hawaii… for business of course.

It is difficult, sometimes, to convince a client that their website is actually performing quite well. Clients expectations, sometimes, far exceed their websites ability to perform. Google Analytics offers an industry leading statistics engine for website owners and developers to track and trend website performance.

Using Analytics to better understand how visitors behave, we can determine how they are finding a website, what search engines are people using and what keywords visitors use when searching. We can also review bounce rates and the number of pages viewed by a visitor.

The one thing we could not do in the past was demonstrate to the client that their websites performance is good, or bad, based on benchmarking. It was nearly impossible to demonstrate that other websites of similar size and nature perform better or worse than the clients website.

Google has “stepped up” and changed this by introducing “Benchmarking”. As users of Google Analytics, we have been given the choice to share the statistical data gathered from our websites. In return, Google has made the “Benchmarking” data available back to us.

Google states that there will be a minimum of 100 accounts compared in any given category. Some categories could potentially have thousands of sites being benchmarked.

The data from participating sites is averaged and anonymized through the aggregation process, then classified into a category. We limit the effects of outlier sites from the aggregate data in each category to help ensure that the benchmarking data is most representative of the industry vertical you choose to compare your site against.

Google Analytics Benchmarking Help

Google exposes vertical categories when there are enough websites that fall into the category. If a category for your vertical market is not showing, it is likely because there is not enough data to create a direct benchmark. You will still be able to benchmark websites of a similar size.Google Analytics benchmarking currently allows us to show a comparison for the following metrix;

• Visits – unique visitors to the website. Not hits… hits don’t mean anything.
• Bounce Rate – did they pop in and out again…
• Pageviews – total number of pages viewed during the reporting period.
• Avg. Time on Site – how long did the “stick”.
• Pages/Visit – how many pages a visitor viewed for this visit.
• New Visits vs. Returning Visitors

We currently add analytics to all of our accounts where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Online Marketing services are involved. If you are a website owner and would like to have Google Analytics installed on your website, please feel free to contact us and we would be glad to help you.

Understanding how your website is performing in relationship to search, online marketing and in comparison to your vertical markets is critically important. If you have a website and are not measuring it’s success, you may be missing an opportunity to improve.

Getting visitors is okay – Getting customers better!(tm)

Regards,

David A. West
eKzact is a leading Calgary Website Design company.

I read about “off line” or “disconnected” web applications some time ago. We are now starting to see these off line applications come into production use. Google has recently added the ability to use their popular “Google Docs” applications off line.

The Google Docs applications include a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application. Up until this point, Google Docs has been an on line only application. While the apps are extremely useful and easy to use, the limitation of only being able to work while on line was at time difficult. The limitation of only being able to show a presentation, for example, while connected to the Internet was one of the biggest limitations that I found.

The advent of the ability to synchronize a local copy of the Google apps and my actual files to my local laptop has removed the limitations. I can now work on a presentation or document on line, and in full collaboration with my peers, and then take my laptop off line (say flying to Vancouver) and continue to work on my presentation. When I arrive in Vancouver and setup to speak at the convention center, I can run the off line version of my presentation during my lecture!

If you haven’t tried Google Docs, you can easily create a free Google account and give them a try. If you are looking for an enterprise solution to email, document collaboration and calendaring, then you should consider Google Apps for your business. We have helped several small business clients in recent weeks to take full advantage of Google Apps in their business. Our own company, eKzact Solutions, has been using Google Apps for nearly 5 months now. We have grown to love the Shared Calendaring, Gmail Interface and the Apps for document collaboration.

One really nice feature of Google Apps is that we get all of the upgrades Google staffers enjoy! No fees for upgrades, and no fear of end of life. Google uses their own applications to support their own business and their 10,000+ employees around the world.

If you would like to learn more about integrating Google Apps into your business, please drop us a note here.

Cheers,

David West

Someone wrote about our business today and Google sent me a note. Do you know when you or your business is mentioned on a website, forum or blog?

Google Alerts is a free service provided by the Worlds leading search engine. A testament to the speed of the Google bot is the speed in which Stuart’s blog entry today was indexed.

I received this alert at 8:45 PM today, the same day that the blog entry was written.

On 1/28/08, Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply@google.com> wrote:

Google Blogs Alert for: link:www.ekzact.com

Leading IT Companies come together to help Calgary Small Business
By Stuart R. Crawford(Stuart R. Crawford)
A new group of leading IT companies in Calgary have recently come together to help out the needs of the Calgary Small Business community. Technology needs in Calgary are becoming more and more complex and Calgary businesses need a group …
Calgary Small Business IT Blog – http://calgaryitblog.blogspot.com/

Google states that some handy uses for alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

I monitor our company domain names, trade names and some keywords that are important to us. The use of Google Alerts for search engine optimization and testing is invaluable. You may want to setup an alert on your business name or personal name to see what people are writing about you!

You can sign up for Google Alerts at this location — http://www.google.com/alerts

Cheers,

David A. West

PS – Thanks Stuart