Touchdown Google!

If you watched the Super Bowl Sunday night, you saw at least two ground-breaking events: Of course, the New Orleans Saints took home their first Superbowl Trophy, and the Search Engine Giant, Google, stepped into the world of traditional advertising.  Over the past decade, more often than not, the Super Bowl commercials have generated more buzz than the teams competing. Even when the football isn’t especially great – the commercials usually are, and this year Google took full advantage of the advertising world’s most anticipated event, with one of the most surprising commercials of the night.

Perhaps Saturday’s tweet by Google CEO Eric Schmidt put it best –“Hell has indeed frozen over”. Google ran its first major television ad, and during the Super Bowl, none the less. It was an unexpected move by the search engine leader, who retains a search market share exceeding 70 percent, to spend an estimated $5 million to have a 1 minute advertisement aired during the third quarter.  Google brings in billions from online ads but has steered clear of having a traditional marketing strategy for its own brand, even as industry competitors, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, continue to spent millions on tv and print advertising to compete with them. Google’s sheer size is in disproportion with their advertising budget. The world-known search engine has been mainly promoting itself on the web, via company blogs, and of course by being a constant subject of media reports and countless blog posts.

Google’s heartfelt ad, “Parisian Love”, consists of a series of 11 searches, which come together to tell a compelling story through search phrases. The commercial tells the story of a romance helped along by a series of Google searches conducted by a young man. The subtle, yet powerful marketing message resonated with viewers, and in some cases (myself included) left them a bit teary eyed. The commercial illustrates the story of a young man who finds love after a simple plan to study abroad in Paris turns into love, marriage and a need to know how to assemble a crib.

The buzz-worthy ad has left many viewers comparing it to competitor commercials and many are left confused as to why Google felt it needed to make such a dramatic move to promote its best known product, a product with no real marketing problems. Of course, not everyone thought it was a wise investment for the brand who’s name is almost a verb in the world of search. In the words of YouTube commenter, ShadyHady, “Google commercials? Isn’t that rather like, say, oxygen commercials or knife and fork commercials?” But with Google’s approach to internal marketing, one Super Bowl slot may be efficient when it comes to coverage vs. expenditure.

While the commercial probably did not introduce the Google brand to anyone for the first time, here are a few reasons Google may have made the dive into television advertising:
 

The buzz. People are talking about the ad right?  While the majority of the media coverage has not been about the actual ad content, but rather the fact that there was an ad, it is still coverage. And while it may be short lived, Google is the most talked about search engine at the moment.

Make a statement. Amid the over the top million dollar mini-sagas that make up the line-up of Super Bowl commercials, Google’s ad simply explained what the search engine does and showed just how well it works. This message mirrors the search engines’ simple, yet highly effective performance, which is the very basis of the Google brand.
 

Appeal to advertisers. Some businesses still view online advertising with suspicion. No matter how big Google already is, a Super Bowl slot reminds people that it’s a major mainstream player in the advertising world.

Reinforce their brand. Many commercials serve simply to remind people who the market leader is, rather than inform them about a new product or promotion. World-known brands find it helpful to remind the public about themselves in a positive light — especially on the Super Bowl.

Keep up with the competition. Google may be feeling some heat from Bing and Yahoo’s new campaigns, as well as Apple’s successful advertising. Especially with the growing number of Microsoft Bing search engine “attack ads”, Google may have decided to make their mark in the advertising world. Marty Orzio, partner and chief creative office of ad agency Gotham in New York, called the ad:

 “A classic little love story told beautifully” that highlighted why Google was different from the competition. If you think about Bing or any of their competition, nobody else can say they are playing an important role in people’s lives,” he said. “They have not have been around long enough to have an impact like that. Google is claiming territory that only they can claim, which is why I thought it was absolutely brilliant.”

In conclusion, what Google’s memorable and somewhat controversial Super Bowl presence may signal is that after relying heavily on word of mouth marketing alone, the company is finally learning how to market itself via traditional paths, something that will take a great deal of stategic planning, and  will be crucial as its business diversifies and competitors continue to gain a foothold in the search industry. Using only its own outlets for promotion, such as YouTube, isn’t enough for a company looking to reach a broad mix of consumers. Google is clearly skilled at selling online ads, but formulating a marketing strategy for itself, well it remains a work in progress.

Missed Google’s Super Bowl commerical? Watch it Here

Original article found at:  http://blog.thenetimpact.com/

Coming from a print background has helped my web design greatly. Some of these helpful hints come directly from print design, while others were simply learned through experience. They are not in order of importance.

 1. Use typography to grab attention instead of a graphic. - You’ve heard to saying, “less is more.” It is most effective in web design because you have a very small window of time to get the reader’s attention. A big heading using only text will be more effective than a large graphic. Think about newspapers. In the same way a reader scans the newspaper they will scan a website looking for a heading to tell them what to read or what to do.

2. The grid is by far the best framework. - After you’ve gathered information about the site, start sketching a grid. Figure out how many columns are appropriate. Try to stay under 16 columns. Any higher and might find it hard to stay consistent. At the same time, a one or two column grid will probably be too restrictive. Do not simply guess the width of an element. Readers will positively respond to a mathematical layout.

 3. Don’t be afraid of white space. - This might be the most difficult concept to sell to a client. Break away from the old conventions of web design where you need a left and right border. While borders are purely preference, white space should not be. White space does not just mean the color white. It simply means to leave a little extra “air” in between your elements. Too tight and your elements will visually appear as one confusing mess.

4. The fold is very important. - Keep in mind most screens are still around 1280×760, so the fold will most likely under 760px. Try to keep your most important elements, like call to actions, above the fold.

5.Follow common typography rules.

- Hang your first quotation mark outside the body of text.

- Line height for body text should be at least 4px above the font size. For example: 12px Helvetica should have at least a 16px line height. Lines of text that are too close will be harder to read.

- Your main body of text should be around 10-16 words per line. Too long and the reader will struggle to find the next line down.

- Use no more than 2 font-families. I generally try to use just one. There are times, however, where you might want to use a different font for headings.

- Keep it simple. If you want a heading to stand out from the body, use no more than two differences. A good example: bigger type size and bold. A bad example: bigger type size, bold and italic. Sometimes just making the type size bigger is the perfect solution.

6. Reset your CSS browser defaults. - When it comes time to code your design remember to reset browser defaults in your css document. Different browsers like to add their own padding and margins to elements on the page. This will save time and major frustration.

Things to consider before using flash in web design

Although multimedia has its role on the web, current flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons:

1.) Makes bad design more likely

2.) Breaks with the web’s fundamental interaction style

3.) Consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site’s core value.

4.) Overuse of Flash can make your site all but invisible to the search engines (Flash and search engines are like oil and water)

About 99% of the time, the presence of Flash on a website constitutes a usability disease. Although there are rare occurrences of good Flash design (it even adds value on occasion), the use of Flash typically lowers usability. In most cases, we would be better off if these multimedia objects were removed. Flash is great when used well. For example, the current state and popularity of online video streaming with sites like YouTube wouldn’t exist in the way it does without it. The problem is that beyond this the disadvantages of using Flash far outweigh the benefits in most cases. (Jakob Nielsen’s study 2000)

While Google and Yahoo have made some advances in trying to index content from combined Flash and text-based sites, a site built entirely using Flash still faces nearly insurmountable obstacles when it comes to search engine optimization. The minor indexing improvements have not turned into benefits for site owners. A site that uses Flash for specific kinds of graphical content will not be penalized like a site that uses Flash for navigational elements, possibly frustrating the search engines’ ability to follow links from page to page.

Apart from increasing the load time of your website, excessive usage of Flash might also annoy the visitors. Use it only if you must offer features that are not supported by static pages. Being a browser plugin, it has a reputation of slowing down computers by using excessive CPU. Flash 10.1 however will support GPU usage to take the strain off the CPU. Which is nice. Flash is also frequently used for navigation, when it isn’t necessary at all. Remember, by doing this you are making it less accessible to use. Avoid this, as there are many great options using js libraries such as jQuery.

Bottom-line, Flash is good for very specific graphical elements. The rule-of-thumb you should apply is, “Does the Flash content compliment and support the content?” If it doesn’t, or worse, if it actually distracts from or inhibits the usability of your site, you may want to reconsider your choices…

Contact The Net Impact to learn how you can effectively add flash development into your online marketing strategy to enhance brand identity, increase customer satisfaction, improve marketing initiatives and showcase ideas in a way never before thought possible!

Make your Web page shine on the iPhone

Everyone has seen the commericals that showcase the iPhone screen’s capabilities to flip around, expand and zoom  in every which way imaginable to creatively display a web page. Now that the iPhone is out there and in full-swing, there is an interesting set of challenges that web designers are going to face more and more as mobile devices become more Internet friendly, and that is how to design sites for these devices.

The iPhone uses Safari, which should not recquire any extra work from web designers to create a page that is compatible with the device. But, if you are looking to create a page that ”wows” its  iPhone viewers, instead of simply ”working”, there are some things you should consider.

When building a Web page you need to consider who is going to view it and how it is going to be viewed. Some of the best sites take into account what type of device the page is being viewed on, including resolution, color options and functions.

When testing and creating pages for iPhone compatibility, don’t forget …

-The more phones you can test on the better-   see for yourself what works. Test on as many  phones as you can to make sure your page’s look, feel and navigation is just right.

-Make your page degrade gracefully- You can write your pages for Flash-enabled, wide screen browsers, but make sure that the critical information is visible even in a tiny monitor that can’t handle any special feature

-Build a wireless specific page - Make your wireless specific page highly available. Most people come to your home page, and if the link to your wireless page isn’t there, they’ll leave if the page if it is too difficult to use.

-The Iphone has a very small screen- The narrower the content is on your normal page, the less it will have to shrink to fit a cell phone window.

-Divide page content- It can be difficult to read long segments of text on a cell phone, so putting them on multiple pages makes it easier to read.

-The shorter the links, the better- If you’ve ever tried to type in a URL on a cell phone, you’ll know it is a pain – keep the URL short as possible.

-Do not place navigation at the top of the screen- There is nothing more annoying than having to page through screens and screens of links to find the information you want. If you’ve looked at Web pages that were designed for cell phones, you’ll see that the first things that show up are the content and headline. Then, below that is navigation.

-Make your images small- Yes, the iPhone can zoom and unzoom in on images, but the smaller they are, in both dimensions and download time, the happier your wireless customers will be.

Lastly, It is true that the iPhone can display most Web pages exactly as they would appear on a personal computer. But it is also possible to create Web sites and applications that look and work much like the iPhone’s built-in applications, and sites that do are the ones that will win the hearts and fingertips of iPhone users.

Apple has provided a set of resources for developers to use when designing for iPhones at:  http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/

Are you placing enough emphasis on the importance of images in web design?

In the ongoing debate of content vs. image with regards to web design, one thing has become apparent; a website is most successful when the two elements complement each other. Yes, even on a website, a picture truly is worth a thousand words. An image may be the easiest, and the most appealing, way to send a message. Images are an integral part of web design, they hold the power to enhance the overall look and feel of a website and capture the attention of incoming traffic.

The “content is king” way of thinking, may hurt some websites. Images are an important part of web design, and their significance should be evenly considered with that of the content. While content gives necessary information and is constructed with the needs and desires of visitors in mind,  images are used to aid the information visually to the web users. When appropriate images and content work together your website is both informative and memorable to visitors. Unnecessary usage of images and inadequate content will result in a weak website.

Why incorporate images on your website?
• Influences the buying habit of the customers
• Images demonstrates the products and services effectively
• Images work to create a memorable impression

Images have a mesmerizing influence on the human mind. There has been a lot of experimentation with images on the Internet to give a more interactive, appealing look and thereby enhance effective communication. No matter how well-constructed and informative website content may be, it will never have the ability that images have to bring a visitor into a magical fold at the first glance.

Are web development and design companies using social media networks to improve traffic?

If  the answer is no, they are missing out on one of the most efficient, and not to mention one of the least expensive, ways to drive traffic to your website. Ranking opportunities, increase in brand recognition, both locally and globally, and engaging your target audience are just a few benefits of incorporating social networking links into an overall web development and design plan.

An excellent way to incorporate the presence of social networks into your website design strategy is to include social bookmarking tools on your site. This tool will give your reader the option to comment on your content, give feedback and to share your information with others. This is easily accomplished by placing social bookmarking tools at the end of each post. Many sites offer “share this” options which make it easy for readers to submit the page being viewed to popular social news web sites and communities such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and email. This process of sharing valuable content online can be compared to word of mouth marketing, with the exception being when the information is online, the “buzz” instantly becomes a searchable asset.

To be a successful player in the increasingly popular social media game, a company must be in the business of consistent and relevant content publishing. Search engines and social network users respond positively to sites that are frequently updated. People who use social bookmarking sites want to know that you care enough about your content to submit it manually and to tell them why they might be interested in it. Every time you rate another site or communicate with another user, you are building up your credibility. Get on the good side of these people and you can use social bookmarking sites to greatly increase the traffic to your site!

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A great website starts with a goal. Ask yourself what it is that you want from your site. What image of your company do you want to portray? Are you looking to begin ecommerce and sell products and services straight from your site?

Once you have the answers to these questions then you can begin to design and develop your site. If you are new to this you might want to contact a web development and design company to assist you.

No matter if you get help or do it on your own you want to be sure to follow some simple guidelines. You want the content on your site to be focused. A visitor to your site should immediately know what services or products you are offering. If they don’t know what you provide they will quickly leave your site. The information needs to be useful and up to date. The content on your site should give you credibility in your industry so that visitors feel they can trust you and your products or services. Include newsletters about the latest occurrences in the industry or with your company, provide statistics, offer former client testimonials. The more information you have provided the safer a visitor will feel with your company.

A website will allow you to provide a wealth of information to your site visitors. Don’t throw all of that information at them on the main page. Include navigations that are simple and smooth. It should be easy for them to get through the information as they navigate around your site. Good organization and smooth navigations make it easy for them to find the information they are looking for so they don’t get frustrated and leave the site.

The look of your website should be appealing. The background colors and text colors and font should complement each other. If your site is hard to read people won’t read it, they will leave it. Remember that different browsers sometimes read colors differently so something that looks great on your screen might look horrible on a different screen using a different browser.

These are just a few of the things to consider when creating a great website. As you design your site, don’t forget your main goal. Don’t build your site geared towards your business gear your site toward the visitors so that they will become customers.

Websites have to accomplish many missions. One of the most important is being effective at getting people to perform whatever action you are wanting such as buying an item, submitting an email address or downloading a report. The rate at which you convert visitors to these actions has a significant impact on your ability to use pay per click (PPC) ads. If a click on an ad costs $5 and you convert 1 out of 10 (conversion rate equal 1/10 or .10, then it costs you $50 per action. If you value that action at more than $50, it makes sense to use PPC in your marketing strategy. Since PPC is an auction system and if the value of the actions are the same amongst competitors, then if you convert at a higher rate than your competitors, then you can bid a higher price per click and still achieve the same or better cost per action (cost per click / conversion rate = cost per action). Being able to bid a higher amount yields a higher position and more clicks which gets you more revenue than your competitors! An excellent series of articles on PPC strategies is at St Louis Pay Per Click

Most websites are simply static HTML. However a large number of websites, especially larger ones or ones that change often use application programs to create the HTML when the page is requested.

The are a large number of different programming technologies used in building websites. A few of the common ones are Microsoft .NET, Java and PHP. .NET only runs
on Microsoft servers, PHP and Java can run on Microsoft and Linux servers.

Each technology has it’s small pluses and minuses. Probably the most important is what technology you or your staff are familiar with, ease of integrating with backend systems, and what infrastructure your websites will run on. There are very few things you can do on one platform that you cannot do on another. I often hear that someone chooses Linux/PHP because this software is free. While this may be important for small or inconsequential websites, the costs of the Microsoft products are small compared to the overall life cycle cost of the web site. Simply having a better development interface is probably justifys the cost of .NET in labor savings. Linux hosting does tend to be cheaper.

The database selection is probably more important as this can get expensive if you have a lot of requirements. MySql is an excellent choice for many applications but it lacks some important features for large or complex applications. SQL Server and Oracle both have low cost solutions that work well for many needs but once you get into more sophisticated requirements, you’ll need to spend some real money

Also available are web content management systems. These database web applications allow the user to easily create and publish web sites with out much more difficulty than a word processor. There are a wide range of options ranging from very expensive to open source free versions. An important area to keep in mind is if the product supports search engine optimization well. One seo web content management system is the MyImpact CMS platform. It is a high performance, high capacity mid-range platform with excellent SEO capabilities