Web Page Titles/Names

If you are using one of the latest browsers on your PC, or browse the web on a mobile device, it is very likely that you don’t even see the name of the page your current browser window is displaying.

Why?

Web page titles and even their filenames are important assists in helping your site’s web pages search. By providing a unique title and name that reflects the content found on that particular document, you are providing more meta data to the search engines. If your title/name meta data are accurate for each page, this optimizes search. And we optimize the ability for searching the page, we optimize search for the entire website.

I would think that by optimizing search, the search engines might even be more likely to rank your site’s page higher in the search results. This is the general idea behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO), providing optimized data to enhance your listing’s rankings in the search engine results (often referred to as SERP for your ‘Search Engine Ranking Position’ or ‘Search Engine Results Positioning’).

Yet as I surf the web, it seems to me that more and more I am running across pages that are completely untitled, or all the pages in a website share the company name, or are simply titled and named inappropriately (home, page 1, page 2, page 3…). I have even seen many that are labelled “Untitled”, which seems to be the default name that WYSIWYG web page editors use.

But if you look at how we use the web nowadays, it doesn’t seem unrealistic that this is so unimportant to so many. People in the know understand fully how important these names and titles can be when it comes to optimizing search, because these particular fields, even the filename, are concise representations of what might be found on that page, and therefore, words that appear there, as well as are repeated elsewhere throughout the description, headings, content and image descriptions (maybe even in the image file names), are given more importance in search.

Because the title and name of a page usually use concise wording, even most of the very basic search algorithms place even more importance on the few words found here. And when there are fewer words used, their importance is greater for each word there, because importance is less spread-out when they are concise, as opposed to a certain importance spread between more of them.

That, by the way, is how some SEO professionals think, and I completely disagree, that using more key search words is good.  It is much better to be concise and concentrate on the keywords and terms that are your focus.  These can be underlined with synonyms and such in the content, but to stuff keywords in a title or filename, even in a description or keywords list (within meta tags) is just not a good idea.  But that is a different subject, overusing names and titles.  I just want to encourage their practical use, and even all of the major search engines like to see this, too.  It’s called paying attention to the details.

Of course, any modern advanced search technology uses much more refined algorithms, but it always starts right there, with each page’s own name and title. Why do so many overlook them and their importance to search?

My answer is that the new modern web browsers are making it less important.

When I am browsing the web on my PC these days, I am in productivity/creativity mode, and I usually only have a single web browser window open. But that one browser window is full of tabs showing all sorts of different webpages for all the different online projects I am working on.

Often, I have a tab open for the font creation tool I am currently utilizing. Another for each of my different hosting accounts I manage. Another for my WordPress blog, one tab for Blogger and yet another for Tumblr. I usually always have my Twitter and Facebook accounts readily available, as well.

On top of that I will have the websites open that I am working on, and the next ones I want to touch-up, as well. Because we can do that with modern browsers on a fairly recent machine that has some processing power and enough memory.

So, what do I see as the title of each page in these tabbed windows? Well, since the current open tab is not enhanced above the individual tabs (as it should be) in Chrome or FireFox, I see:

[In] [In] [W] [S-] [Pr] [H] [H] [Sh] [D] [g] [W] [Bl] [T]…

Reduced size screen snapshot of my browser tabs. Chrome shows a letter, maybe 2. FireFox shows a word, maybe 2 short ones. But both are ignoring the current active title, as well as all the others.

It is the modern web browser that is masking how important those Titles are!

If the title of the page isn’t even displayed in the current active browser window, this is a huge burden in educating users the importance of the proper use of the HTML title tag. Especially when Google is declaring that what is the most important thing to it is that their search results are reflecting what the visitor actually sees and is presented with upon arrival to that document.

Isn’t Google itself devaluating these titles in Chrome?

Interestingly enough, your PC or Mac web browser’s address bar is still there by default and yet most users and even many webmasters are ignoring its importance. Site administrators, owners and webmasters ignore it with non-related domain name choices and even more poorly thought-out directory organization and file naming conventions.

However, the issue does not stop there. Because screen space is so important on smart phones and handheld devices, the page title doesn’t appear unless we are switching between different page views. In fact, the web browser’s address bar disappears as soon as we scroll down the page a little. That said, as soon as we start scrolling up, it will reappear, reaffirming its importance to navigation. But I honestly don’t think that anyone understands that importance, because I find myself frustrated not having a gadget that represents the browser bar there for me to tap and access.

My differences in UI (user interface) design vary greatly from the mobile plaftform, though. I believe in visual clues that allow navigation. Unfortunately, the mobile UI is very unfriendly in this respect. So although you do have elderly people adopting smart phones, I find them even more frustrated with the expected UI experience because they are expecting a GUI and not the touch motion technology that mobile users have to learn.

Nevertheless, despite the challenges of humans interacting with mobile device interfaces, it remains clear that Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s FireFox are abandoning the display of the all important web page title unless you actually look for it. So now is it becoming just meta data?

I have to ask myself why, and I really do think that they too, are sick of seeing unused or inappropriate HTML document titles. Since the webmastering public at large doesn’t use the title tags correctly, why should they even display them, I suppose?

But doesn’t this start down a new slippery slope where we don’t even worry about our page titles because they are so out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind?

Or are they actually going to give SEO professionals a reason to stick around because as always, all they have ever done is tackle the obvious that a newbie webmaster or newbie web designer without a clue would miss?

Nevertheless, despite their somewhat inappropriate disappearing act from the full view of the global world wide web community, web page titles and names do have a proven impact on assisting search. So it is then obvious that these things really do require your attention when designing a website, setting up a new page, posting a new blog entry, etc…

Just remember that each name and title reinforces the key search words/terms, advertising copy and even the brands themselves that are represented on these pages and it all makes common sense, doesn’t it?

In example…   If you are creating a page about the different kinds of rodent traps, you might want to name your web page HTML file as “rodent-traps.html” and title it “Rodent Traps for the Home”.  Then, on that page you would discuss the different kind of traps available for different kinds of rodents.  Use head tags to identify different kinds of content.  Then, you will link to pages about particular traps or brands… so maybe you have another page discussing Rat Traps at “rat-traps.html” and it may discuss the differences between poison traps, concussion traps and sticky traps, then each of those may point to reviews on particular brands of traps at other pages showcasing those brands or products.

I can go into more detail, but to me this is all common sense.  Of course, I am a well educated web designer, as well as an artist.  I’m supposed to understand this stuff.  But not all webmasters do, and so that’s why I want to reintroduce some of these common sense practices to the world, because when a page title or name disappears, we think about these little beginning design touches a lot less, and yet they are very important to the grand scheme of search.

I don’t preach Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I preach search optimization (which has a better effect on SERP because you eliminate the worry).

Customize your FireFox browser experience with a Persona!

These days we all like to customize our stuff so that it reflects our own personality.  New industries have sprung out of the desire for custom vinyl car, phone and laptop wraps.  And of course we can do the same thing with our FireFox browser now, using Personas, which act like little FireFox browser themes.

We all have to think about how we want to promote our businesses online.  SEO doesn’t work unless there is some sort of promotion program in place.  The more creative ideas always seem to win out over just submitting your website to the directories.

People who make good videos tend to get lots of viewers.  I keep wanting to make my own tutorials but the screen recording and presentation software has always been out of my budget (let me know if you have something free/share-ware that works).

But I finally decided to take a look at how I can get my work out there.  Because I have so many domains, I have been making lots of logos for my minisites & blogs.  But I have always been trying to find a way to share my graphic design skills.

I had been so busy that I hadn’t noticed it.  But every time FireFox updated to a new version it was always inviting me to try out the new personas.  To tell you the truth, I don’t like a lot going on in my browser.  I don’t want it to clash with other websites or be too busy.  I’ve even stopped using the Google Toolbar because it refused to share the same line with any other toolbar and pushed the content down and closed my visible window on the cyberworld.

But as a graphic designer my curiosity has finally gotten the better of me and I was quite amazed what I found there.  Many were just plain awesome because they invoke loyalty to a brand such as the Vikings, the Twins or the Yankees… I even have a couple Superman themes for FireFox, now.

But later I made a few of my own.  The first few have finally been approved at:

http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/Designer/SymbioticDesign

Some of these are actually quite busy for a texture pattern, but I’m learning and they still seem to work well for some people with less going on than I have.  Some could actually be modified further if someone wanted to.  And I usually added credit for my business or a website in somewhere (usually on the bottom footer image) with a blatant plug for my website.

I’m still experimenting with stuff and a whole bunch of others are pending, but it’s just a good idea I thought I might share.  It might go somewhere, it might not, but the idea of having a technically sophisticated user (I think most FireFox users are well up on things) that might see my creativity and check out my websites (I am promoting quite a few of them in different patterns), sounded like a good idea and a real win-win if my graphic eye is attracting them to my services.

Thought you might like the idea.

I know there are some “Personas” that I made that maybe I shouldn’t have uploaded, but everyone likes something different and as indicated, I have  just started toying around with this.  I think I have a few better ones that I expect to be approved soon and I am even going to be tapping other parts of my hard drive (some of my folders seem to be growing spiderwebs but have images I know would work well).

Here are some examples of FireFox Personas that I thought worked well:

Brushed Recessed Metal

Brushed Recessed Metal Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Space Craft Panels Persona

Space Craft Panels Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Knurled Persona

Knurled FireFox Persona by Symbiotic Design (Previe Image)

Alien Ribs

Alien Ribs Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Blue Angels 1 through 6

Blue Angels 1 through 6 Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Wavy Grill

Wavy Grill Persona by Symbiotic Design

It’s easy enough to use another designer’s Persona or with very little work you can make your own.  Although it is free, it helps get the word out about your sites and stuff, if you decide to try to make your own to promote yourself or your business.

I’m sure there are other such avenues, if you do something similar, post it here (or in a new thread).

As another designer pointed out, we do have to be careful about what images we use.  I made all my designs, or used photography that I had taken.  Be sure that you have the rights to use anything that you might come up with in your own Personas.  If it’s Copyright at all, make sure it’s your Copyright!  😉

HTML 5 Stuff

Over in the Web Design and Development (WD&D) group (at Google Groups), I started a thread/topic/post for discussing HTML 5 Stuff. One of the members left a link to his own take on the upcoming HTML 5 standard and I responded to it right there in his blog.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that his blog system would not automagically convert less than (“<“) and greater than (“>“) symbols over to html codes, and so every time I talked about these tags, they completely disappeared from the post reply as if they were actual HTML code (whether they were simply disallowed or are actually showing up as code, they simply are not showing up in the text of my reply at all).

So, in an effort to correct how his blog is displaying my reply to his post, I have decided to try to correct and clarify my response to his original post concerning HTML 5 on his blog here:

My Corrected Response on the HTML 5 Topic:

(As indicated, I will also try to edit this post and make it clearer…)

HTML 5 represents web design coming out of the dark ages.  It isn’t just a significant and noteworthy advancement, it represents an understanding in creativity, art, media and the flow of the production process.  And it also offers coders much better and clearer semantics.

More needs to be done, though.  Browser wars continue to over dramatically impede progress as they look to promote their own brand’s and codec as the default solution.  There is no true web authority to lay down the law on these characters who fight like dysfunctional in-laws.  Here too, the world’s governments fail to step in and help resolve issues because it doesn’t even understand this technology.  And no one understands that the lack any real authority continues to impede the process of stanardization support, as well as its progress and further advancement.  Therefore, this demonstrable lack of control over the web (and the internet as a whole) is helping to promote the stagnation of our global economy.

HTML 5 is the answer.  Not in its present form, but as it evolves and support for it finally surfaces across all platforms.  Which is the trouble, because as browser companies squabble about minor issues in order to promote their own brand, their self-serving brand oriented corporate muscling and protectionist attitude holds up progress for the entire rest of the world.  Of course, they obviously think that they are more important than everyone else, or the greater good.  And this is where the lack of any kind of corporate morality is constantly stabbing progress  in the spine of the back, repeatedly, like some sort of remorseless mad axe murder.

I honestly think that HTML 5 will change the world, eventually. But support is key. Why Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to hold-up the show should be considered criminal. I cannot understand why it insists on being seen as the bad guy in the technology development sector when it comes to the web. Of course, Microsoft never has seemed to “get the internet”. But they are not alone in blame for the wishy-washy support for the HTML 5 standard support, either. All browser entities are guilty because they are still promoting their own interests in a standardized codec for the <audio> and <video> tags.  This kind of idiocy continues to overshadow the technology and hold-up progress.

Should they have placed the development of the HTML 5 standard into the hands of a capable independent organization of web designers and developers?  They did.  And yet many of these issues we looked to the W3C and WHATWG for guidance on were ignored.

Yet, the corporate dance is still required.  I mean, I can start a group to develop HTMLX as an independent group, but no one is going to support it if they are not on-board.  And no one is going to want to help develop it as a standard unless it has a good chance of becoming a real standard which is supported by the corporate community.

In the meantime I know that I would have a whole lot more web design work if the HTML 5 standard were a reliable and competitive standard that we could rely on once it is ratified and officially released.  But we can’t because of corporate bickering and the ensuing lack of agreement or support to actually handle the <video> and <audio> tags.

In a time when we need work and to promote progress in order revitalize the global economy, the w3 (the worldwide web) needs massive attention so that we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I am just one of many web designers experimenting with the HTML 5 standard.  I came across a link to this blog post on the subject of HTML 5 Stuff in the Web Design and Development group at Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign).  But I do want better support, and I am calling for the browser industry to get on board (finally).  Because for us web designers, we will have to get on board with HTML 5 or we will simply die in the coming years.  This standard is just too good and helps untie the knots of code which flow and creativity tends to stumble over.

Thanks for your post, I love bringing awareness to HTML 5 and thank you for your effort.  I long to learn more about how to use the <canvas> tag. That tag should be lots of fun in the future. 😉

Reference:
Jame’s Parker’s (from Cyber Designz) HTML 5 and How It Works Blog Entry
The W3C
The WHATWG
The following links require membership in the WD&D group:
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign/browse_thread/thread/faf4070ed871499d

Getting Started on Twitter Info & Tips

I’m sure that you have heard all the buzz on social networking, social media and/or social marketing.  Rest assured that it is a big deal.  This is not all hype.  Social media allows us immediate interaction online, which makes it much more immediately effective and impactful because things do change over time.

For those of you that keep hearing how Twitter is losing visitor traffic to the website and therefore it isn’t important, don’t listen to the naysayers.  That is a bunk statistic because what powers all those Tweets are third party applications and texting from smartphones or PDA devices.  Only recently has Twitter updated the user home page with web 2.0 scripting which allows them to update the user with new Tweet alerts, so no one was really accessing Twitter webpages too much in the first place. Most people are using it from desktop applications on their PC, notebook or netbook, on their smart phone or PDA, and they are using it from all over as they live their day, not just from home.

I can even attest that I have increased sales through Twitter by trying to be helpful, a good resource, and plugging my websites a bit without being spammy.  If you need help with it, just tweet me as @Domainating, or through one of my branded domain names for sale posting account brand names of either @DomainNameGamer or @PremiumBrand.  I am also online there with other accounts, but you might think I am spamming the group if I listed them all (and some of you probably think I am already being too spammy, but I am also trying to elaborate on my point that if you have multiple brands to protect, you should do so).

When “tweeting” on Twitter, remember that you are limited to 140 characters.  All the people (tweople) who follow you will be able to see your tweets (your posts).  It is much like social blogging in 140 character increments.  Anyone searching for posts that use certain keywords can actually see your posts as well.  And you can use this to your advantage by searching for customers looking for recommendations, as well.

Some Simple Tweeting Tips:

Your tweets (posts) can also be seen by even more people when they are retweeted.

As an example, let’s say I saw this tweet from JoeTrippi:

JoeTrippi  Google to improve upon HTTP protocol? Tests show it could speed up page loads by more than 50% http://bit.ly/u6mt9

So maybe I think the Web Design and Development group (WDaDg) members and followers should know this, so I “retweet it” by copying Joe Trippi’s whole post.

Then I start the next post I make with “RT @” – RT means ReTweet, and the @ (at-sign) in front of a username functions as a mention so that they get credit and anyone seeing the retweet can check them out by clicking on the username (and possibly add them as a resource to follow).  so now it looks like this:

RT @JoeTrippi Google to improve upon HTTP protocol? Tests show it could speed up page loads by more than 50% http://bit.ly/u6mt9

…now, everyone following me will see that, as well.  So if you have something significant or valuable to say and do it consistently, you might be followed as a good resource by those who are searching related keywords in posts to follow.

When you mention other tweople’s usernames using the @ mark, they will see it in a special mentions area.  However, others may not see it if it is the @ sign is the first character of the post.  If you want others to see something, you just have to make sure that another character (other than a space) precedes the @.  Lots of tweople use a simple dot so that a reply to someone by mentioning them in the post where they want others to see might look like:

.@Domainating Thanks for the tip.

If you don’t use the dot or other character to precede the @, others still may be able to see it, so not using the dot or other preceding character does NOT make it a private message.  For instance, it still can be seen in your quick quip next to your picture on any of your follower’s (people following you) following page (the list of people they are following, which is accessible from their profile page) as the last post you made when listed there (there are usually multiple pages, you would only be listed on one of them).

If you want to send a message directly to another person (tweep) privately that only they will see, you can send them a Direct message by using a “D”:

D Domainating, you are ugly and your mom wears army boots!

…only I would see that post (or anyone looking over my shoulder when I was accessing it).

The catch is that you can only D (Direct message) your friends.  That means that in order to D the username you want to, you have to be following him/her/it AND they have to be following you (which is considered a mutual friendship).  Perhaps this is why they made @ kind of private if there are no characters in front of it and the username in a message?

The “#” (aka the number sign, the American pound sign of weight, or at Twitter it is most often called the hash tag) mark helps categorize posts and trends that people can access as a keyword or category, so that people can browse tagged messages according to subject.  So I might post…

ICANN accredidation means nothing because all registrars have to follow ICANN rules, and ICANN does not police registrars. #domain #domains

So now this post has been categorized using the hashmark so that other people looking for posts using the domains and domain keywords can easily find them.  They also speak to the trends of subjects in the social network.

Note that you will find tweople looking for recommendations on a web designer, a CMS, a domain registrar, a smartphone, a wireless service, an antiviri & security suite software package, and more, and Twitter can put you immediately in touch with these people.  Now THAT’s real time (social) marketing.

Twitter can be quite useful.  And you will find that as you establish relationships and have engaging conversations, you will reap the most benefits.

Twitter Tools and Utilities:

There are also several directories that specialize in listing tweople.  The most popular is wefollow and by listing yourself there you can gain a following of others interested in the same subjects.

Klout (http://) is a Twitter analysation tool that you may be interested in.

TweetStats n. an app to graph your Twitter stats (or anyone else’s, incase you want to check them out before you follow them if you are worried).  The graphs are nice, but I like to see the most used words and hash tags.

As noted above, I use a Twitter client (third party software) to monitor my Tweets.  My favorite is an Adobe Air application, @TweetDeck:

TweetDeck “TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more.  TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date.” …from the homepage itself.

…hope that helps you get started (if you aren’t already)!

Thanks for reading!

The Contradiction of Search and the PPC Advertising Business Model

This post is a response to the article “Bing Now a Serious Challenger to Google” by Jeff Bertolucci, PC World

One should probably read this article in order to understand the inspiration for this post, though it isn’t absolutely necessary.  The links in this post open in a new window so that you won’t lose your focus here and can get back to this post easily (aren’t I a nice guy?).

Bing can actually be a boon to website designers & developers & teams of whom work together because unlike Google that does not penalize for poorly coded websites, it was reported that Live dropped pages that were improperly coded.

I have already made the argument that good web coding should be rewarded by the search engines in my blog.  I am not asking for awards from the search engines, but it makes sense to me that since a website represents the actual soul of someone’s marketing message, bad code should indicate a very poor marketing effort while professionally done, tight, clean code should be rewarded as such.  And I also emphasize that reducing the ranking ability of tables based layouts should be the very first consideration in establishing that part (of the formula) in the ranking algorithm.

I twittered this previous post to @mattcutts, who is in charge of Google’s Web Spam Department, twice yesterday and yet never received a response from him.  I suppose he gets a bunch of such posts from many being in his position, but I have also seen him respond to such posts, as well.

Matt Cutts has previously indicated that he believed that since the browser may not have had any issues with the underlying code, even if the code was poorly done, no web page was ever penalized for having poor coding practices.  However, this seems to ignore the fact that the worldwide web has become a commercial entity, and that any individual website presence represents the full resources which have been brought to bear for online marketing as a public and professional presence on behalf of a company or person.  Even if a free personal homepage, a web page exists to promote something, even if it is just information.  The sharing of it also helps promote that page’s authority and therefore its presence (possibly indirectly, but usually not).

Let’s face it, the internet is no longer free or even publicly available to all.  It is a goldmine and a company that can leverage itself as an effective online resource can prosper if marketed smart and promoted effectively.

The key here then, is the fact that Google is ignoring the commercialization of the worldwide web (aka: the w3) despite its monopolistic dominance of the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising industry.  This means that a company has no influence based on merit and drives the need for recognition through advertising in order to be noticed.

This same monopolistic attitude is seen in Matt Cutt’s attitude towards paid links.  Even though a paid link represents a measurable online marketing effort by a company or individual, he frowns on them as a purposeful and deliberate means of influencing the search engines.  But that is a protectionist attitude and monopolistic argument, because it is Google’s own algorithm itself that is tallying up direct links as votes for a website, not the marketer.

And since Matt Cutts has warned us that Google may penalize websites in the future, I will tell you that I have personal knowledge of and experienced the fact that Google is now, already started penalizing websites that display suspected paid links.  This is now a known fact based on the performance of a number of my websites which are utilizing free web hosting where paid links are employed in order to offset hosting cost, and also proven by the fact that you can report paid links to Google (as proof, simply check out Google’s “Webmaster Tools” which expedites such reporting by offering a very prominent link to do so).  My web traffic is now negligible and the PR (PR stands for Google’s “PageRank” system or ranking a site from 1-10) is non-existent at almost all these sites.  Although all of these sites are new, they had been previously gaining traffic and growing in unique visits.  A few had a PR of 2 or 3 and most of the rest were at a PR of at l.  There were a few PR 0 sites too, but now most are not even acknowledged by Google’s PR system.  They are all CSS design based WordPress sites.  They all include unique content.

In effect, as a monopoly, Google is trying to funnel any and all advertising sales through it’s own PPC (or Pay-Per-Click, as in paid advertisements) marketing program.  Most people I speak to that are marketing their business themselves and are aware of Google’s “Do not buy links” policy are actually afraid to advertise anywhere else.

The stunning idiotic result from an otherwise very smart and successful internet marketing entity known as Google is that no one there sees this contradicting business model as pure monopolistic. This is a business model which is excessively slanted in its own favor and the end result is highly unbalanced and completely unfair, especially to individuals, professionals, small to medium businesses and any business that is starting up.  Because Google sells links and tells everyone not to buy links.

In other words, Google’s business model suggests that only corporations should consider playing because demonstrated effort and merit through efficient and clean professional code which it spiders on a regular basis has nothing to say or add to a company’s online marketing effort.  And this is completely opposite of how Google should monitor marketing and effective online presence building.

Furthermore, instead of simply influencing marketing channels, Google is using protectionism in order to dominate advertising via its monopolistic presence.  The end result is a message which tells every webmaster and online marketer, “Play it our way and play with us or die.”

Nothing is more contradictory than Google’s advertisement and PPC marketing model if it is actually a serious search engine.  And we all know it is the largest.  But it is now ignoring the webmaster’s efforts in clean and efficient CSS structured and styled, properly coded (X)HTML web pages.

Quite simply, the PPC advertising model is extremely flawed because it relies on a corporation’s ability to play by pouring in gobs of money to secure the top positions with the top bids.  Even though there is a little wiggle room allowed for effective advertising copy (monitored through click-throughs), the end result is that in order to secure the top ads, the price of the advertised product has to support the bid, which makes end-sold products and/or services inherently higher.

One can argue that Frugal is a great alternative to advertising, but Frugal, which promotes low prices and coupons, is not even close to effectively marketed anywhere on the web but at Google.  With Google AdWords, you have the ability to build a woldwide presence instantly for a product, service and/or brand through Google’s content network, and each ad placement is in direct competition with the crux of web content found on each individual page, so users/readers/viewers have already demonstrate an active interested in that type of service/product/brand.  Google offers no such alternative with Frugal, nor does it effectively promote Frugal because it is not in the interest of its business model.  Google only uses Frugal in order to offer an argument against clear protectionist intent and related issues.

Long way to go to make a point that hasn’t been made yet, isn’t it?  That’s right, I still haven’t gotten to the point, all these facts mere lead-up to the idea that… [deep breath]…  if any decent search engine (with a significant presence) actually allies with the web designer/developer/studio to provide truly relevant results based on the seriousness of a company’s marketing effort by rewarding the effort, consistency and merit of professionalism which is demonstrated in the effectiveness of the code which a bot has to crawl and cache any damn way, I am sure that would go an enormously long way in allowing web design/development professionals the recognition they deserve.

But Google’s contradictory business model turns it all upside down.  It wants to see your links and tallies them to help establish your PageRank and this same tally (not the PageRank, but that link tally) also influences your ranking in the search engine results in some significant way through its algorithym.  It monitors your presence and influence on the web, but it sees paid direct links as spam.  It presently and demonstratedly marks sites with reported paid links as spam and stops sending them traffic through its search resources, even though Google is in the actual business of selling links itself, and just because they are indirect pointers to pages that is so-called different (and yet it is still advertising, still paid links).  In order to play, one has to pay Google, driving up product/service costs because Google’s AdWords model is self-corrupting.  And Google continues to scare us into using their PPC ad services.  People and businesses have been broken or made on their understanding and use of this queer system, both through PPC ads and the actual search results.

Why anyone else wouldn’t take advantage of the inherent corruption and contradiction of Google’s business model is beyond me.  Remember in fact that this is how Google started, promising an alliance with webmasters to produce effective search with relevant results.  This is what drew us all in.  And if webmasters saw a true benefit from providing clean code, they would.  But the fact is that Google only cares about content, not marketing (unless it is its own), not professionalism in presentation in the one way it could absolutely and logically measure it.

So in the end analysis leads to only one conclusion for me, this is an opportunity crying to be taken advantage of.  Bing may not be the one with the balls to do it.  It, after all has been a consistent follower in the business of the internet.  It didn’t even get it, at first, and almost missed the boat completely.  But Bing does represent an expression of a search for new ideas.  And yet, Microsoft has historically not embraced innovation in the same way that IBM snubbed Microsoft’s innovation.  It is old and Microsoft has clearly never lead the industry in any sort of innovation with the internet because it suffers from the same old conservative snobby old boys network attitude that IBM scoffed at.  Microsoft just doesn’t understand the new generation and the digital age.

But, in the same way, Google is doing the exact same thing.  It has forgotten its alliance with webmasters and web professionals.  Google now inhibits business through the same lack of understanding in the unfairness of its business model.

Which actually leaves the door wide open for a new player.  Yahoo is, after all, primarily a portal, is branded as such, and is ever abandoning any of its efforts in search because it refuses to innovate.

Anyone want to start a search engine?  The sky is literally the limit.  It should embrace net socialization, all forms of web media, localization and news.  Without utilizing a business unfriendly contradictory business model. No one does that, and it would be easy to do effectively.  But that’s another post for another time.  😀

By the way, can anyone reach the present that Google left me?  It’s dead-center in the middle of my back. Actually, it’s not that bad.  The percentage of websites I have on free web hosting is not very significant, so the blade is tiny.  But I was one of those webmasters that jumped on the Google bandwagon, so the betrayal does sting.

My code has evolved, but Google refuses to evolve their search and refuses to acknowledge superior design code.  That said, so does every other search engine.  Because they all are on the PPC marketing kick, too.  But Google and I had a thing going.  Actually, we still do, breaking-up is hard to do no matter how much a loved one may abuse you.

You know?

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Associated Reference Links:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181980/bing_now_a_serious_challenger_to_google.html
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Career Search

Trying to find a good job is in itself a full-time job.  And now I am starting to get pretty discouraged.  Although I am still working on my own projects, these self-employment web design projects are now becoming few and far between as less work is coming in.

It is actually a pretty bad, huge mistake to make on the behalf of business, not to advertise or not to hire.  It is now, when the advertising rates are lower, and the job market is full of great talent, that companies need to continue advertising and hiring the cream of the crop people it needs not only to survive, but to grow in the face of difficult times.

Advertisers that continue throughout these hard times will be rewarded in the long run because they will have much less of a difficult time establishing brand recognition when compared to the competition that refuses to maintain brand awareness.  Part of that reason is that consumers are more careful and are now establishing lasting business relationships with people they trust.

It is the same reasoning that businesses need to continue hiring the talent required to not only survive this economy, but to grow in spite of it, because the landscape of the internet and successful marketing techniques are changing so quickly that new alliances and innovative approaches have to be developed quickly and effectively with the business community itself.  Sit on your laurels too long and it is highly likely that your company will not survive the current economic devastation we are experiencing.  If GM and Chrsyler did not teach us through their lack of innovation, we have learned absolutely nothing.

I had been able to look pretty optomistic about all of this until now, as I know that I have great talent to offer the right company for the right position.  Unfortunately, I am not getting any favorable replies from anyone, anywhere.

Admittedly, I am located in a bad spot here in South Dakota.  Very few companies here get the new medias.  They are still having trouble accepting television’s role as a marketing tool, much less understanding that every single business and professional require a well branded portfolio that can represent the business in a positive light 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (or 366 days per year on a leap year).

We started out here not simply because I have roots here, but because it is such a great place to raise a family.  However, due to the considerable lack of understanding for the incredible advances in technology and new media, my skills have largely been ignored by the community as a whole.  Plus, it is more of a challenge for me to get the word out about my business when I am working out of a home office.

However, I am still trying to remain positive in my career search despite the frustration I have encountered.  But just like taking my business to the next level by aqcuiring a commercial property, it seems that in order to be noticed by potential employers outside my own area, I really need to personally visit their locations.  This is actually much more difficult than I would have thought.

It takes so long just to establish contact with a potential employee that it is significantly difficult to setup a scheduled appointment with any one of them.  And herein lies the real problem, because I have no problem visiting any location in the pursuit of a career advancement.

While it is true that I will make significantly less than I would be getting as a freelance artist/designer/copywriter/webmaster/seo/promoter/marketer/director on a contract basis, the reason that I am looking to find a decent career in the web design industry and relocate to wherever I am required for such a new position is the very attidude that I am facing because of the ignorance in this area for my industry.

Although getting to a few interviews for my craft is still a vital concern of mine, I have run into an article that was quite eye-opening for me.  In fact I actually started writing this post so that I could mention it. Therefore I should possibly apologize for this post since I am sort of backing into this recommendation, but I found that the Seven Great Questions to Ask at a Job Interview was a great article posted at Lifehack. If you are looking, or thinking of looking for a new position, I highly recommend that you read this article.

Remember, the interview is for you, as well.  Any company would want you to make an informed decision if you are offered the job.  They don’t just want people who can offer winning interviews, they actually require a person that is capable of performing the job and fulfilling its requirements as they see it,  as an educated leader.  But if you don’t know what that position entails, you are probably flunking the interview as yet another amongst the masses of applicants they are getting, anyway.

Though I have had a few interviews, they have not been in my chosen field of web design.  I know HTML, XHTML, CSS, graphic design, branding, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, copy writing, keyword optimization, search availability, website optimization, online marketing, social networks, one way link building, search engine marketing, PPC adverising, as well as traditional marketing and advertising.  I am also gaining knowledge and experience in Flash and have quite a few tricks up my sleeve for other creative solutions to web design issues.  In short, most serious businesses need someone like me directing their creative art department.

I just don’t have the resources to expand my business to the next level with a commercial presence and a complete advertising campaign.  And just like any other advertising business, I would be doomed to failure without a significant advertising campaign.

Which is why I am quite serious about relocating out of this family friendly area back into a metropolis where my talents would be valued and exploited.  I need a steady career that my family can count on guys, and if you are checking out my blog, please consider that I am quite serious about excelling as the web designer everyone would want.