Seybold Scientific

An Analytical Approach to Marketing Online.

Daylight Saving Time Ends November 2, 2008

During Daylight Saving Time, clocks are turned forward an hour, effectively moving an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. In the United States, Daylight Saving Time began on Sunday, March 9 and will revert to Standard Time on Sunday, November 2. In the European Union, Summertime began on Sunday, March 30, and will end on Sunday, October 26. Unlike the United States where time zone switches are staggered according to local time, all time zones in the European Union change at the same moment.

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Published: October 26, 2008
By: George Seybold

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A different approach to Website Design in Boise

A website is arguably the most important aspect of your marketing collateral in today’s environment. Most consumers in Boise and beyond start with an online search for a product or service. Once they locate a website consumers judge whether or not to buy based on its appearance. Web developers typically build websites with the idea that the website should be ‘aesthetically pleasing’ with little regard to how they will be found in the first place. The problem with these websites are that they have great visual appeal (i.e. flash) but that search engines can not read the code and understand why or how it is relevant to what you are selling. The end result, your website isn’t listed within the top results of a search query.

As a Boise based company we look at website design from the business operational point of view. A website should be aesthetically pleasing however the first step is that it should be readable within the search engines. With that in mind we build our website to have a framework that comes search engine readable from day one. That means when you add onto your website everything become targeted to a specific topic and does not just reference the home page keywords and description. Our view on website design is that your website is a business and should be run like one. If your website isn’t obtaining you customers than your website is a cost not an investment. Our model is website design with a purpose, if you don’t have conversion goals on your website are you getting the most out of your business?

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Published: October 24, 2008
By: Ajay Shah

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Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Through Keywords

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a series of techniques that are used to improve the relevance of a website within a search engine query. For a business, becoming search engine optimized equates to bringing more traffic to a website, and generating more sales. Ideally, through SEO a website will appear on the first page within the search results of popular search engines i.e. Google. Through a naturally high position the likelihood of a web user clicking on the website’s link becomes increased significantly.

First steps in search engine optimizing your website involve researching keywords that are commonly used in your industry. A starting point is to think of yourself as a customer looking for the product/service that you sell and taking note of the keywords that come to mind. Another common way to find keywords is to do search engines query’s for similar products/services. Once you have established these keywords, it is essential that you use them in the following areas in your website: 1.) the page title, and 2.) H1 & H2 (heading) tags. Search engines look closely at these areas when defining where to place a website within a search result.

In addition, when going through the steps of search engine optimization; descriptive page titles add a level of user-friendliness and aid the web user in determining whether the content of the page is worth visiting. Therefore, for web usability, be as descriptive as possible in conjunction with using select keywords. Finally, the use of headings (especially H1 and H2 tags) enables web users to easily scan your website to understand if it is indeed what they are looking for. Having a website that is both user friendly and search engine optimized will contribute to the acquisition and retention of regular visitors.

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Published: October 23, 2008
By: Ajay Shah

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Promote Your Business With MySpace

While the MySpace social networking website is predominantly seen as being a music related site, it can be used for much more. Integrated into your online marketing mix, and treated properly, it can form a good basis for Social Media Optimization and for Search Engine Optimization. Certain social networking sites, including MySpace, naturally receive a lot of weight from search engines. As such, a link to your own web pages from MySpace pages can give search engine rankings a boost. However, perhaps the biggest benefit of using MySpace is the ability to network with people that are naturally inclined to use the service you offer or buy the product you provide.

Be Ethical

Possibly the biggest tip you will ever get on using MySpace positively is to avoid spamming other users. Always use ethical means and ensure that you establish a MySpace page that offers genuine value to somebody other than yourself. MySpace spam is a fairly big and extremely annoying problem – if you are seen to be a perpetrator of this annoyance then you won’t be promoting your business or website in a positive light and you will actively deter new leads.

Joining Relevant MySpace Groups

MySpace offers a number of Groups, and many of these groups are business related. The forums are an online community where members can get together and discuss related topics that interest all members. Spam is often found and deleted, anyway, but you can still promote your own service as long as it is done ethically and properly. Signature links are the most common method – a method that has been employed in forum advertising and more recently blog advertising for some time. Post relevant comments, useful tips, and answer people’s questions with a conclusive response – other members of the community will be inclined to read your post and click your signature link.

Create A Powerful Profile Page

Ensure that your profile is easy to read, includes relevant links to your website (but not an over abundance of them), and offers genuine information. It’s perfectly acceptable to include information pertaining to your business and your website in your profile page. Members of your new MySpace network will click on your username and view your profile page. This provides you with the opportunity to sell your services in a positive light.

Add Media Regularly

If you sell products, write articles, or create video content or music, then your MySpace page can include any and all of these. Adding media and links to related pages is essentially what MySpace is about and what it is most widely used for. Create your page, invite others to visit it and join your network of friends. This allows you to keep in regular communication with those people.

Summary

In a nutshell that’s it. The more people you reach out and friend in the MySpace Social Network the more chance you have of finding those people who want your product or service. Think along the lines of groups with specific interests, or people within the area you can actually service and reach out to those folks first. Most of all, being present gives you an advantage over most of your competitors in most situations.

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Published: October 14, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Got an idea to help the world? Here’s $10 million

Got an idea that could change the world, or at least help a lot of people? Google wants to hear from you — and it will pay as much as $10 million to make your idea a reality.

To help celebrate its 10th birthday, the ambitious Internet giant is launching an initiative to solicit, and bankroll, fresh ideas that it believes could have broad and beneficial impact on people’s lives.

Called Project 10^100 (pronounced “10 to the 100th”), Google’s initiative will seek input from the public and a panel of judges in choosing up to five winning ideas, to be announced in February.

Google announced the project live on CNN on Wednesday morning.

“These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple — but they need to have impact,” Google said in a news release. “We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition.”

More >

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Published: September 25, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Cuil is Cool!

Now this is a BIG deal. CNN reports on Cuil.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Anna Patterson’s last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

Google now faces its first rival launch by former employees in the form of Cuil.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable — only this time it’s not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced “cool.” Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers — Russell Power and Louis Monier — searched for better ways to search. Now, it’s boasting time. What do you think of the new Cuil search engine?

For starters, Cuil’s search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that’s at least three times the size of Google’s index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index’s breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won’t divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn’t ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

Continued here >

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Published: July 30, 2008
By: George Seybold

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How to Restore Your iPhone

This is how to achieve DFU mode. You can do it on every phone:

  • Attach the phone to the pc
  • Turn the phone off
  • Hold power and home together for *exactly* 10 seconds
  • Release power but keep holding home until the pc beeps as a USB device is recognized.
  • At no point will the display come on. Now your restore should work.
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Published: July 11, 2008
By: George Seybold

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H&R Block Social Media Programs Success

Who would ever think that a financial services company would be innovative about marketing? Paula Drum is vice president of marketing for H&R Block. In this podcast, she explains how programs using Twitter, Second Life and other onlines venues have had impressive success. As Drum tells Jennifer Jones, one of their great surprises was how much human capital they had to spend to make the programs work. She advises all marketers to truly understand just how much personnel commitment it takes to implement such extensive programs.

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Published: June 30, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Like Pigeons, but Social

As we move more into delivering social spaces online and as the mobile framework opens and becomes more ubiquitous I began to think around something I saw once. If you have seen the movie “A Beautiful Mind” then you might recall when he attempted to map the grazing habits of pigeons. Not unlike pigeons, humans tend to meander about without much recognizable logic outside of the basic life sustaining activities.

I then introduced into this exercise the thought of how social networks may play into the randomness that occurs and how those of like mind might not encounter one another even when in close proximity, and how if one could expand their social network based on proximity encounters how that might change the dynamic of the interaction.

I also thought around the geo-marketing or hyper-local marketing concepts that might be exercised based upon this location-based data using mobile carrier towers to triangulate location and personal social network preferences to create context and thereby deliver a hyper-personal, hyper-local ad unit which is both relevant and timely.

Then I happened across this article that shows some of gone before me and boy am I excited about the possibilities.

http://www.seansavage.com/encounter-bubbles/

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Published: April 17, 2008
By: George Seybold

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@ Java in the morning

java

This morning I started out fairly early to get some work done before the mad rush and to be available for a client (East coast). I went into the office which was as quiet as a church and thought - this is going to help me get some good rem sleep .. or I can go elsewhere.

I decided to pop into Java (6th and Idaho St. in Boise). This is my kind of place. First let me say that even at the ridiculous hour at which I was in here on a Monday morning, the people (baristas) were friendly. The quality of the drink is always the same - great, and they offer free wi-fi and power outlets. What else could a mobile worker ask for?

Many of the businesses around Boise could learn a lot from Java. Make yourself unique, make a consistent and quality product and invite me to stay a while. I want to be where people are .. invite me and invite others .. we’ll linger, but you’ll reap the reward. Thanks Java! 

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Published: March 24, 2008
By: George Seybold

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