• - Rooms painted yellow make babies cry more.
• ???????? ????? ????????- Blue is the color of immortality in China.
• - Barns are painted red because farmers used to add ferrous oxide to their paint, which gave it a red color, and helped control mold and moss.
• - In India, a red mark on the juego portales internetvideo poker gratiscasinos virtuales paginas webjuego ruleta casinocasinos argentinaruleta fortuna onlinecasino virtual gratisruleta americana paginas internetmaquinas tragaperras pagina webjugar al instante lineacasino virtualesvideo poker paginas internetroulette portales internetapuesta en lineacasinos descargas lineajuegos portalescasino eurodescarga gratis la ruletajuegos descargaruleta americana pagina internetcasino en internetroulette grand jeuganar premio portales internetapuestas libre en lineajugar seguro portal internetcasinos internacionales onlinecasino librejuegos de azarjugar seguro webfree casino game,free casino,free casino gamesjugar tragamonedas internetruleta rusa gratisfree casino gamespromocion casino paginas webcasinos descargas pagina webtragamonedas webpremios portalpremio dinero paginas internetharveys hotel casinoruleta americana lineacasino online españapremio dinero portales internetonline crapscasino internacional paginas internetjugar de la ruletacasinos portales internetjuego instantaneo paginas internetganar premios portal internetcasion on netwww casino on net forehead is said to bring good luck.
• - In the highlands of Scotland, people wore green as a mark of honor.
• - The human eye can discern more shades of green than any other color.
• - Native Americans associated black with the color of soil, which gives life.

If you’re designing for a culture other than your own it’s important to realize that colors have different meanings to different groups of people. Be sure to research any major color decisions you make, especially if you are unsure on their subtle meanings or associations.

They already have blown people away with street mapping and created a stir because some people feel their privacy has been invaded it they where on the street when the Google camera vehicle rolls thru town.

I’ve loved the trending lab for years now. Google video ranks right up there with Youtube.  They also have Google Page Creator  where you can create you own web page.

I’ll be real impressed when they get around to creating Google health insurance, Google global cooling, or Google pedophile identifier.

At the moment, I’m in the middle of this frustrating struggle. I’m trying to buy a car. I don’t really know what I want yet, so I’ve been busy scouring the net for as much info as I can find. Some car company’s sites are easy to find information on, and even go beyond my expectations, however some don’t come close.

First, the good - www.fordvehicles.com This site has met my expectations. There is thorough information on the various Ford models, and it lets me search dealer inventory of new Fords. This is exactly what I want to do. I want to find the car I’m looking for before I go to the dealership. The dealer listings show me the window sticker and offer an easy way to contact the dealer. In fact, I just found the exact vehicle I’m interested in at a dealership that they tell me is 6.4 miles away.

Second, is a site that’s disappointing for me. I love Mini Coopers! So went to the Web site of the only Mini dealership in town - www.dreyerreinboldmini.com. I wanted to find out what kind of inventory they have. It turns out they have their inventory listed, but with no specific details, such as options that are installed, for the individual Minis. There is a disclaimer at the bottom of each description that reads, “The features and options listed are for the 2008 MINI Cooper 2dr Coupe and may not apply to this specific vehicle.” I know they want me to come into their dealership to talk to a sales person, but I’d be more interested in going in to talk to someone if I already knew they had the exact Mini I want on their lot.

Finally, a mix of both bad and good - www.pontiac.com This site allows you to easily search dealer inventory as well. You can see the window sticker and the dealer’s contact info is readily available. The downside is the “Build Your Pontiac” section. It is all crammed into the bottom of the browser window and hard to follow. Some of the important options, like adding on an automatic transmission, are tucked away and harder to find. It also automatically plays music. It’s okay to provide music on a site, but let me turn it on if I want to listen to it.

Always put yourself in the shoes of your site’s visitors. What do they want to do on your site? Meet their expectations by helping them do that as easily as possible, and they’ll be more likely to stick around longer and convert.

We’ve all heard of people getting fired for what their employers found on their myspace page, but it was a surprise to me to realize that researchers are now monitoring social networking sites to gather data. We also know that stings are used to find online pedophile predators, but are police now beginning to watch myspace pages to crack down and find underage drinking or drug use?

Social networking sites have become the latest rage of the internet and continue to grow in popularity. Over the last several months I have seen more and more activity revolving around eons.com, a website targeted at users that are 50 years or older. Business networking sites like Linkedin and Merchant Circle are also starting to complete for their place online.

While the internet can be a great source for data, business, and entertainment, I believe that many people are using it as a way to connect, to feel socially accepted, and ironically, find humanity.

Today, most of the major search engines don’t need you to submit your site to them, they can find it on their own- if you have search engine friendly links from other sites on the Web. So to pay an SEO company to do something the search engines do automatically is a little ridiculous. There are however some common misconceptions. I read an article recently in a trade publication for Realtors regarding SEO and it was very informative and mostly accurate, but the article stated a submission to Yahoo cost approx $300. This is not totally correct, a listing in their directory cost about $300, but if your Web site is designed correctly and you have a link program in place, your site should be found by Yahoo naturally and included in their search results without paying to be in their directory. I do recommend that many businesses pay to be listed in the Yahoo directory, because of the qualified traffic the directory can provide, but again it is not required.

While we normally don’t need to submit the Web sites we create to the major search engines, we do monitor the sites to see if they have been indexed or not, and if a site hasn’t been indexed within a reasonable time frame, we will take the steps to submit the site (at no charge to our customers) to the needed search engine.

I have heard of many instances where a business owner was charged hundreds of dollars by a web design company to submit their site to Google. To me this is an unethical business practice since it only takes a few moments to submit your site to Google and there is no charge from Google themselves. The argument can be made that the SEO company is getting paid for their knowledge and ability to perform this function, but I really don’t think it’s worth the hundreds of dollars many business owners have paid.

Each year the president pardons two turkeys from the Thanksgiving dinner.

Change things up this year with some slider stuffing from White Castles.

Some interesting Thanksgiving facts.

Mix up your traditional turkey recipe with Orange Roasted Turkey.

Here is a long list of Thanksgiving Poems.

No list would be complete without some Turkey cooking techniques.

Adam Sandler’s classic Turkey song from SNL.

Some Thanksgiving horror stories.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Web site.

A Thanksgiving guest liability and indemnification contract.

1. Keyword Brainstorming - Start writing down any possible keywords you feel people might use in the search engines to find your site. Write down everything you think of, even if it’s a stretch. Ask your friends and family what they would type in to find your product. You won’t think of everything on your own.

2. Search - Go to Google, Yahoo, and MSN and type in the keywords you just wrote down to start to look at your competition.

3. Review the Search Engine Results - Look at the number of sites each keyword returns, the relevance of the top results, and the Pay Per Click (PPC) popularity they have. You may also check Google Trends to get a better idea of keyword popularity. All of these factors will give you valuable information on which keywords others are targeting and receiving search traffic from.

4. Identify Top Keywords - Using the data you gathered from the search engines, choose your top keywords that you want to target on your site and in your online marketing campaigns.

5. Analyze Top Results - Using your narrowed keyword list, analyze the top search results’ Web sites for those keywords. A few factors to take into consideration include: site design, search engine optimization, usability, and page popularity (inbound links).

Now that you know more about your competition, you can develop an effective and successful strategy.

I like Mexican food and and will stop by my local Chipotle for lunch on a regular basis. They always have a fishbowl there for people to drop business cards into for a free meal and it’s always full. I am happy to say that they do indeed provide free meals to people that drop their card in the fishbowl. About 2 weeks ago, I got an email from my local Chipotle at 86th and College Park telling me that they had drawn my card out of the bowl and that I could schedule a lunch or dinner for between 15-20 people! So, I called up some family and friends and we met for a great little dinner this week. On a more national level, Taco Bell recently promoted it’s “steal a base, steal a taco” idea to the U.S. (I like this example because it’s about Mexican food again).

These are both very specific examples, but I’m sure you’ve been to a fair, trade show, sporting event, or any number of other public events where a business is handing out free stuff. Ok, so a little taco may only cost them $.20 each, but if you end up giving away 500,000 of them… it comes out to a $100,000.00 price tag (I have no idea what the actual operating cost of a taco is for them, or how many they actually gave away). But the question becomes: Why would they do that?

The biggest reason is the belief they will get business in return. So they give away a $.20 taco, the average consumer is likely to walk out the door having spent 5-10$ after getting their free taco. About half of the family and friends that dined at Chipotle with me this week had never eaten there before. I know they enjoyed the meal and I’m sure some will return in the future and others may even become regular customers.

While the motive may normally be to generate further income, I am happy that several charities and those in need have benefited from the generosity of businesses. For example, how many of our homeless received a free taco because of this promotion? You may think that idea is a little far fetched, but you may not have seen Tom Mabe’s idea on feeding the homeless.
My point is this: If you want to increase sales and promote goodwill, practice the art of giving. Even if it doesn’t return a profit, you may help to make this a better place to live.

1. Is it human edited? This is really important to me. If every single submission, spam or not, is accepted automatically it greatly reduces the integrity of the directory. It may take longer to get listed in a human edited directory, but it is worth it to keep out the spam.

2. Number of Inbound links. Does the directory have a substantial number of links? I like to check that both the Home page and the sub pages have some inbound, natural links.

3. PageRank on sub pages. There has been a lot of talk over some sites losing or having their PR lowered. Obviously, this is just a number, but it does indicate some level of trust with Google. Checking to make sure the internal pages of the directory have some PR lets me know the directory is trusted by Google.

4. Quality of current listings. If all of the listings in the directory are spam, I don’t bother submitting my site. It’s not a quality directory.

5. Submission Guidelines. I like to know what the submission requirements are up front. I’ve been on too many directories that don’t clearly state the cost and other guidelines before I’ve started the submission process.

6. Web site usability. If a directory has broken links, database errors, or is confusing to use, I don’t view it as a quality directory.

7. Visitor usability. I want to make sure visitors to the directory have an easy time navigating the site. We don’t just submit to directories for the link value, we also receive decent traffic from various directories. But if the directory is confusing and hard to use, we won’t get any traffic from it.

We also carefully track our directory submissions. By recording the date is was submitted, and the date it was included, it ensures we don’t double submit a site. It is also good to know how many directory links your site has, as opposed to natural links. It also helps to know how quickly a site is included in a directory for future submissions of other sites.

1. The Dock - The dock didn’t change much, but the parts that were changed, weren’t changed for the better, in my opinion. The blue orbs indicating a running program are harder to see than the previous black triangles. Also, the “ledge” that the program icons rest on now only comes up half way behind the icons instead of all the way. This reduces the amount of contrast between the icon and the background. These changes reduce the over all readability of the dock.

2. Stacks - Stacks is a new feature, and a helpful one. Stacks allows you easy access to downloads, programs, and documents. It makes navigating to these items much easier.

3. Preview - Preview works in two ways. One is Icon Preview. It displays the icon of a file as a miniature version of the real file. You can also press the spacebar while an icon is selected and it will bring up a preview window of what the file looks like. This is extremely helpful for text and PDF files. It’s no longer necessary to open a file to view its contents.

4. Spaces - Spaces allows you to have various desktops running at once. This could be good for organizing types of programs, differentiating between work and home, or just to reduce clutter. I haven’t had the need to use this yet, but I think it will be a great tool in the future.

5. Dashboard - Dashboard still works the same way, but has one new feature that I really enjoy: Web Clips. You just “clip” a portion of a Web site and it will display that part of the site on the Dashboard. I’ve been using this for Web cams. I clipped a Web cam of Waikiki, Hawaii and put it on my Dashboard. Now when I need a short break, I can check in on Waikiki beach and watch the surfers!

6. Coverflow - Coverflow is a feature I haven’t used a lot either, but I know a lot of people who think it’s great. It uses the same concept that iTunes has been using for a while, which allows you to flip through files quickly while previewing the contents.

These are the main design and usability changes that have stuck out to me. Feel free to agree or disagree, or leave your other observations in the comments!

1. Larry and Sergey Halloween Costume 2007 - Great illustration of Larry and Sergey along with a caption contest in the comments! I haven’t come up with a caption yet, but some of the ones already posted are really funny.

2. Matt Cutts Costume Dilemma - Matt has links to pictures of his previous costumes, and he’s taking suggestions on what to be this year.

3. Halloween Google Logos - A time line of Google’s Halloween logos from 1999 to this year. It seems each year they get a little more involved. Also included are Halloween logos from Yahoo, Ask, and YouTube.

4. Halloween Costume Search Stats - Some interesting stats on the most popular Halloween costume searches. There are also links to some cool, geeky costume ideas.

5. Google Maps Halloween Icon - Instead of an icon of a person walking on Google Maps Street View, there’s a witch for Halloween.

Adwords: Google’s advertising system which shows relevant advertisements on search results pages and Web sites.

Algorithm: The mathematical function that a search engine uses to organize and rank Web sites based on the user’s query.

Alt Attribute: Provides a text description of an image when the image can’t be seen. It also helps describe the image to the search engines and helps people with screen readers access your site easier.

Analytics: A tool that gathers and measures visitor data for a Web site. This data could include the number of visitors, which pages they visited, how they got to the site, how long they stayed, etc.

Anchor Text: The text a user clicks to follow a link.

Backlink: A link that is pointing from one Web site to another.

Blog: Short for “Web Log,” it is an online journal or diary.

Click Through Rate (CTR): The number of clicks a link receives out of the possible number of clicks, or impressions (views).

Content Management System (CMS): A system that allows for easy updates to be made to a Web site.

Conversion: Occurs when a person completes the intended action. This could be making a purchase, filling out a form, downloading a file, etc.

Crawl: The process of search engine spiders gathering information from Web sites.

Directory: An organized, and often human edited, list of Web sites.

Headings: Normally used as section headlines, or for larger/more important pieces of text on a page.

HTML: Short for Hyper Text Markup Language, it is code that tells a Web browser how to display elements on a Web page.

Inbound Link: Synonymous with “backlink,” it is a link pointing from one Web site to another.

Indexed: Included in a search engine’s database.

Keyword: A word or phrase that a person might use in a search query to find a Web site. Web site owners may do research to find the most popular keywords related to their industry and include them on their Web site to capture more search traffic.

Meta Tags: Information in the Head section of a Web page that is not readily visible to human visitors. Although Meta Tags don’t play a large role in SEO anymore, the Meta Description Tag can still play a part in an overall SEO campaign.

Organic Search Results: Search results that are displayed based on the natural algorithm of the search engine, not based on the paid advertising.

On-page: Any factors within a Web page.

Off-page: Any factors that are not a part of the Web site that influence it. These could be links, advertisements, reputation management, etc.

Pay-per-click: An advertising system where an advertiser pays a certain amount of money every time a person clicks on their ad.

Query: The search term or phrase a person types into a search box.

Rank: Where a Web site is listed in the ordered list of results returned by a search engine.

Reciprocal Link: Occurs when 2 Web sites both link to each other.

Search Engine: A tool used to search indexed Web material, which is ranked in order of relevance based on the query.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP): The results that are shown after a person submits a query to a search engine.

Sitemap: A page on a Web site that displays links to all, or the most important, pages with in a site. A sitemap can be used as an efficient navigation tool for both search engines and human visitors.

Spider: A name for a search engine bot that crawls Web pages, or the process by which search engines index Web content.

Title Tag: Located at the very top of the browser in the (often) blue bar. It is the title of the Web page.

Traffic: The amount of visitors to a Web page.

As we’ve talked about many times on this blog, branding is so important for a business. Your logo, storefront, packaging, atmosphere, and philosophies all go into your brand. Is creating a flashy, “cool” Web site right for your brand? In many cases it’s not. Think about your brand and who your customers are. Are you a professional with serious-minded clients? They will probably want to see an equally professional site where they can easily access the information they’re looking for. Is your audience not very technically savvy? You’ll want to keep things simple. Here’s a link to a blog I came across recently about “trying to be cool.” It’s a year old, but still very relevant to this topic. The last paragraph sums this up perfectly:

Authenticity, originality and uniqueness. If your brand doesn’t inherently have these traits, please… don’t attempt to be cool. You’ll look like you’re having a mid-life crisis, and you will be laughed at. You can play the “cool dad” who’s still a grown-up and acts accordingly, but don’t try to be 18 again. If it’s important to connect with the younger audience, don’t do it with your existing brand… this is the time for a new one that’s created from the ground up to appeal to a different mindset.

Similar to branding is your marketing plan. Your Web site needs to be consistent with the rest of your marketing. If the site is drastically different than the rest of the marketing pieces, customers may become confused and will have a harder time trusting your brand. Having a “cool” site isn’t worth it if it turns customers away.

Finally, having a “cool” site usually means implementing fancy “tricks” with Flash and Javascript. These can obviously have detrimental effects on SEO efforts if not done in moderation. Don’t get me wrong, Flash, Javascript, and other SEO-unfriendly techniques can add a lot of value to a site when used purposefully. But when it is done just to look “cool” it is unnecessary and could hinder the effectiveness of the site. If you want to gain leads from people finding your site, you need to make sure the search engines have an easy time indexing as much material as possible. As most SEOs will tell you, “What’s the point of a pretty site if no one sees it?”

“Hey Baby, Can I buy you a link?”

“Got Traffic?”

“Fish + Ken = Love”

“Feed Me”

“Give a man a link, he has traffic for a day. Teach a man to linkbait, he has traffic for life.”

“SEO experts know how to get it up.”

Here’s one for the little SEO offspring: “Don’t blame me, I’m still in Beta.”

And one more that is blatant, shameless self promotion: SEO Pirate logo

How color works

The difference between RGB and CMYK

More information on color models

Gamuts, spot colors, and halftones

Color management myths

RGB to CMYK conversion

CMYK for those who do RGB

In the time before search engines, people used links to get around the Internet. It was the only way people could find new sites, unless they already knew the URL. When search engines were invented they cataloged pages on the Internet and took into account the amount of times someone “vouched” for a site. Now people didn’t have to rely on other’s first-hand word of mouth referrals, the search engines would organize that information for them.

On Wednesday we learned that AP is suing Moreover for “copyright infringement” by displaying titles and snippets of stories on their news aggregate site with out permission. By linking to a page, your are recommending it and citing it for other people to see. When writing a book or article, you cite sources, but do not need to obtain permission to use those sources. Providing links is no different. If this suit goes through, what will happen to the many news aggregate sites, or even search engines? The Internet relies on the ability of people to link (or cite) other sites - that’s why they call it the “Web.” Why would you want to be left out of that Web?

• Real Estate
• Insurance
• Car Dealerships
• Funeral Homes
• Gambling

Why are these industries taking advantage of SEO? I believe it’s because consumers expect them to be. All of these industries represent expensive items. People have learned they can go to the internet to research these items before purchasing. And the people within those industries have realized that they need to be in front of those consumers during their research phase if they want to gain that lead. Companies within these industries, who are not taking advantage of SEO are probably losing business to someone who is.

But there are also many industries who are not incorporating SEO into their marketing plan. Many of them include:

• Health care providers (doctors, dentists, etc.)
• Local restaurants
• Auto mechanics
• Specialty retail shops

Most, if not all, of these and more rely on word of mouth and drive-by/foot traffic. Our business manager, James, says the most common response when talking to someone in these industries is that their primary target market is not searching on the internet. In most cases, I find this hard to believe. I know I have searched for one or more of these services, and an increasing number of people are, too, every day.

Usually the real reasons for not using SEO are cost and fear. Many of the industries above that are not involved in SEO are putting their marketing money into traditional marketing such as TV, Newspapers, Billboards, and Phone Book ads. All of these have a finite life span and can be very expensive. Yes, setting up a Web site and starting an SEO campaign can be expensive upfront, but there is no time limit on how long it will last, and it won’t continue to cost as much money in the future.

However, fear can be a bigger obstacle to over come than cost. Many people are afraid of trying non-traditional marketing methods. Whether it is a fear of the unknown or fear of technology, it prevents people from committing to online marketing. I think with time this fear will diminish, and people within these industries will need to give in to the demand of the consumer. Many consumers are beginning to expect to find most things online, and companies that can’t provide what people are looking for will fall behind in their industry.

The basis of the suit states that Target.com is discriminatory to blind users that access the site using reading software to vocalize hidden text on the page. The main complaints: alt tags missing on images, purchases are unable to be completed without a mouse, missing headings needed to navigate the site, and that image maps are inaccessible.

This isn’t the first time ADA regulations have been pushed online. In 2002, Southwest Airlines faced a similar suit from a blind Florida resident. This will be an interesting argument and case to watch. The Target case involves printable coupons not accessible to the blind and the inability to navigate store locator’s thus denying a disabled persons full enjoyment of services/goods of a covered accommodation. Disability Rights Advocates representing the NFB states: “If a pure internet business looked at this case and said ‘we’re off the hook’, they’re greatly mistaken.”

So what does this mean to businesses in general? Creating a Web site that is SEO friendly will likely improve your accessibility to all users, disabled or not. Vocalization software used by the blind is similar to search engine bots that index Web sites. Both are programs that have limitations that visual users do not, so designing your site to be “search engine friendly” should also help to provide access to disabled users.

There are two sides to this case and we should try and evaluate both sides. This case could open the floodgates for future lawsuits and may push socialist agendas on a capitalist society. In my opinion the potential for increased revenue by servicing all possible customers, being non-discriminant, and the potential negative PR should all out-weight the opposing viewpoint.

On Sept. 18th we saw the first hit to the site through Google. It was a search for the business’ name, and Analytics said it was a new visit. This was very odd to us, as the site was still under construction and Google and Yahoo were both reporting 0 inbound links. I didn’t worry about it too much and decided to give it some time. But now, 2 weeks later, they’ve have 12 different searchers hit their site. Many are for some variation of the business name, but 1 of them was for one of their top (local) keywords. They’re ranked on the first page (#7) for this keyword - with zero inbound links!

Now I had to investigate; why are they cached (and ranked) already? Yahoo Linkdomain didn’t show anything, and they aren’t cached in Yahoo anyways. Google Webmaster Tools also showed no inbound links, but the entire site was cached with out any errors. I started searching online for a reason, and realized that the domain could have been previously registered and cached in Google long ago. After checking archive.org, I decided this probably wasn’t the case.

Finally, I came across this article and had an “oh, yeah!” moment.

“When you use Google toolbar with PageRank enabled, the toolbar automatically sends and records the page’s URL you visited in Google’s database. If a page URL is not found in Google’s database, Googlebot - the robot of Google, will visit this page later to index it.”

I have the Google PageRank Tool bar installed. Which would explain why the site is cached in Google and not Yahoo.

One thing was still bothering me. Why did this site get cached so fast? There is one other site we just completed not long ago that is also only 5 pages. It took almost a month for the site to be cached in Google, and it had about 2-5 links pointing to it. The only difference is that it was not built with a CMS. Another factor I considered is the fact that the first site I talked about was receiving searches for the business name and domain name, while the second site was not. I’m sure there is a logical explanation. What do you think?