Tuesday 23 February 2010

Art Director Found!

After only 2 and a bit months at the helm, our Art Director Nate went awol from the Tusk office. 
After a few frantic phone calls and email messages we located him in the far north-west of Papua New Guinea. After befriending the locals, gorging himself on pounds of seafood and surfing himself senseless on what he calls "God's Left-hander", Nate is now back infront of his keyboard waiting for the next brief to hit his desk ... albeit a little sunburnt.

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Monday 18 January 2010

Death to Internet Explorer 6

In-light of recent media coverage involving suspected Chinese attacks on Google and various other companies I thought I'd take the opportunity to discuss the continued use of Internet Explorer and specifically IE6.

I personally think that most people still using IE6 are unaware of the security risk they are taking. Internet Explorer has been subjected to many security vulnerabilities and concerns: Much of the spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet are made possible by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer, sometimes requiring nothing more than viewing of a malicious web page in order to install themselves.

The "Aurora" IE Exploit recently used against Google users is the perfect example of a security flaw used in Internet Explorer. The link below contains an example video showing just how easy it is for this type of attack to occur. http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/01/the-aurora-ie-exploit-in-action/

I know that may of our clients are forced to use IE6 because of company / corporate security policies setup by their system administrators. What I don't understand though is the continued use of IE6 by system admin's when other options are available.

System admin's will argue that undertaking an upgrade is a expensive exercise and that they are better of delaying upgrades and saving money until they can undertake a full system upgrade. My response to these remarks are, "What is more expensive… the lose of company data (sensitive or financial) or having a virus run through the company network?"

There are other reasons for not using IE6 which are related to web development, basically IE6 is holding things back. There are many new tools available in modern web browsers but unfortunately some of these simply cannot be used because of the existence of IE6. Another problem is the development time used to get websites and web applications compatible with IE6, this can sometimes account for up to 20% of development time.

So if you have the option to upgrade or change web browsers, you can find a list of modern web browsers below.


Google Chrome - http://www.google.com/chrome/
Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Safari - http://www.apple.com/safari/
Opera - http://www.opera.com/

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Tuesday 27 October 2009

How To: Excite Consumers and Satisfy Search Engines

Search Engine Optimisation is one of those areas where there is much speculation about the exact ins and outs, what works and what doesn't. New tricks and methods for success are continually arising however many fail to deliver long term, lasting results. Here is some information regarding content, programming techniques and design considerations.

 

Content

It's become apparent that it’s not just about programming methods or SEO tricks but rather… content. The key to long term success and for you to be Google Bot friendly is to provide and update your web presence with rich and relevant content. It comes down to owning an area of expertise and becoming an authority figure within your field. The more knowledge you can provide others with, the better your web presence will become.

There are many options available to provide industry insight and information to your audience. We have had alot of success for our clients through news and/or blog implementation. Unfortunately in many cases, we see these mediums often implemented incorrectly, without clear strategy and understanding.

Your websites content, such as the ‘homepage’ and “about us” pages, should address your company/business, serving as informational content to allow viewers to learn who you are and what you offer. Content in this case should be direct, highly relevant, and is usually written in the third person. News articles are best to contain informative company information such as new product/service releases, awards won, events, new client and/or partnership announcements etc... Again this contents ‘voice’ is professional and third person in nature. A company’s blog however is best served as a more casual voice. An extension of the views and happenings of the staff and company. This “voice” or specific tone and writing style is a very important difference between the blog and news platform. What might be suitable for the blog is not always relevant and appropriate for your news readers.

BLOGS.....You can either have a blog built within your website, or alternatively there are many ‘free’ blogging platforms such as e-blogger and Wordpress you can use. Setting them up is quite easy...but a word of warning, blogs require content and you must be prepared to allocate time to keep them up to date and relevant. This is sometimes overlooked and we often have clients commenting that they never realised how much work they would be.

 

Some other points you may find useful in evaluating blogging for your company...

  • A Blog is a great way to create back-links to your website. Start posting information that others are interested in and you will soon find that other website are linking to you. This process is called a back-link, back-links are a great way of improving your online ranking.
  • Blog items should then also be carried across any social mediums that you may have operating, eg. Facebook and Twitter.
  • Above all, blog content should remain casual, regular, fresh and create a conversation with your audience.

What should I blog about?

Blog about things that are relevant to your brand, business, industry and most of all your customers. Outlined below are some brief examples of the types of things you could choose:

  • I sell swimwear - start a blog about what suits different body types (show photos) and mention your products, providing in text links to the relative pages.
  • I sell sports apparel - blog about your sponsored athletes, events and interviews (embedding/linking videos from youtube and vimeo)
  • I market an event - blog about more informal news and updates that do not qualify for the news and additionally you may choose to do an event calendar with an RSS feed.

 

Programming Techniques

Below a list of programming considerations for the purpose of Search Engine Optimisation.

What works:

  • Unique page titles with relevant keywords. These should not resemble spam and should be as short as possible.
  • The use of h1, h2 and h3 titles.
  • Create a google site-map for your website.
  • Create an RSS feed for your blog and/or news.
  • Ensure that your homepage features text that is highly relevant to your company and its offering.
  • Easy to understand and identifiable URL’s. For example:
    BAD http://www.example.com/index.aspx?pageid=23&subpageid=45&sessionid=904258034
    GOOD http://www.example.com/about-us/the-company/?

What doesn’t work:The range here is far too great to cover everything, however featured below are some of the more common misconceptions that we have come across.

  • Meta Descriptions - Google doesn’t take note of meta descriptions for any reasons related to search rankings. The only reason for Google to use your websites meta descriptions is to populate content in the listing. This is only done if no other content is available on your website. Check out this site for more information, click here.
  • Keyword Stuffing - As mentioned earlier, it is important to become an authority figure within your field. By spamming readers with repeated keywords, users are likely to leave your page. To create a sticky website, pages should be rich with quality content. By repeating keywords, users will feel as though they are being spammed and this will negatively affect your brand. It is also worth noting that search engines are both a tool and also your audience. Spam can negatively impact the way search engines read your website too.
  • Content Rich Doorways - These can in some cases have a short term benefit for your website, however are not looked upon fondly by Google. It is known as bad industry practice and will not work to deliver long term results.


Website Design

Clients are often so focused on search engines that they forget about their clients. Site design and layout are vital factors for attracting and maintaining visitors to your website, and ensuring the brand identity is upheld. After all its not a search engine thats going to purchase your products or services, but real people. Your website should be engaging for visitors not just a bunch of keywords. With a bit of fine tuning, your website can be easily optimised to maximise user visits and repeat visitation. A product we have found useful is Crazy Egg. This is a simple tool that provides easy to read, user friendly results about visitors interaction with your site. Once applied to your website the reports allow you to gauge what features are working and what are not. The product creates a heat map over selected pages, allowing you to see where users are clicking. This valuable information will allow you to fine tune the layout and design of key pages to optimise usability, ultimately creating a flow of information that will direct your customers to the most important items.

By taking your consumers into consideration and by correctly projecting your brand online, businesses can actively improve their online presence. The online medium is a difficult one to navigate, however by understanding some of the fundamentals, success can be achieved. By effectively managing your companies outlets online, positive search engine optimisation will begin to evolve. A natural progression of increased reach and awareness will occur, allowing your business the opportunity to grow.

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