Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool

Ready for the coolest new SEO tool that you've never heard of? Try out Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (formerly Microsoft AdCenter Add-in for Excel). Like all the great free SEO tools, it has been developed to aid in the use of a search engine's PPC program. It is still very valuable for organic SEO.

Here's what you need:

• Microsoft Excel 2007
• A MS AdCenter account

Just install it (with Excel closed), start up Excel and you'll see a new tab with a ton of functions that will make any SEO geek smile. But, I won't spoil the surprise. Download it now and get started!

Twitter Hype

In my opinion Twitter is 10% useful, 90% hype. How is it useful? The argument that I've heard is that in a corporate team environment, Twitter is more appropriate for short messages than is email. That's the only one that kinda makes sense to me.

Twitter as a real-time search tool doesn't make sense to me. Anyone who has used Twitter for a day or two knows that the "tweets" are mostly garbage. It's more difficult to get context from short messages, so more difficult to sort the garbage from the nugget of information you are looking for.

I've also tried to use it for promotion. Compared to Digg, or Reddit, it doesn't drive traffic nearly as effectively. For that to work, I imagine I'd need real followers who hang on my every tweet, rather than just other people trying to promote their websites. Unfortunately everyone I know in real life thinks Twitter is as stupid as I do.

So why is Twitter the next big thing, and why is everyone talking about it? Short answers, it isn't the next big thing, and people are talking about it because they are being paid to talk about it. So if you have heard about Twitter, or actually tried Twitter and are wondering "what's the point?" you're not alone.

Easy Cross-Browser Test For Web Development

I ran across an interesting website today, and hope it can save me a little time in the future. The website is http://browsershots.org/, and it claims to show you how a website looks in a crazy number of browsers. You enter the URL in the text field and check the browser boxes. There looks to be over 100 browsers to choose from, and you can check or uncheck each individually. Browsers range from the old, like MSIE (microsoft internet explorer) 4, to the new MSIE 8.

This site would be good for doing a quick check while coding css, to make sure everything is proceeding nicely. I did get some strange errors and anomalies when testing one site that would cause me to do further testing before actually using it in production. Some of the errors looked like a problem with the application itself (some Windows pop-up dialogs in German), and others showed problems that I know don't exist, like missing images, that area probably due to slow download of the application. In fact it took a good 4-5 minutes for my 30+ browser images to load, and I was warned it could take up to 35 minutes. Of course that's the free version, and you can purchase priority processing for a monthly sum.

If you are willing to shell out a monthly fee, the priority processing might make browser shots work for you. The problems I encountered with the free version would make me reluctant to trust it's results. Have a different experience? Let me know what you think.

Bing Webmaster Center

Bing is a new search engine, or rather a "decision engine" that launched last weekend. Bing is really the new build of Microsoft's LiveSearch, with features designed to one-up Google and take some of it's marketshare, particularly in advertising. Bing is reportedly designed to hold visitors longer and expose them to more advertising.

Along with the new features comes a new "webmaster center." Or rather the old MSN webmaster center, just moved lock, stock and barrel, over to Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/.

The webmaster welcome email talks about a "soon-to-be-updated suite of tools." So we'll look out for that. There's also a link to the Bing API, where you can find information and submit an application: http://www.bing.com/developers.

Finally, there is a Bing community: http://www.bing.com/community. It's PRETTY dead over there right now. If you have some spare time you could dominate the place. Or not.

So it looks like Bing is on it's way to matching some of Google's features. The danger in copying something that by the time you get it right, the original will have morphed into something else. We can hope that Bing lives up to becoming a "decision engine" and not just a Google me-too. I'm looking forward to seeing something original on Bing and in the Webmaster Center. Until then, we can just wait and hope.

6 Must-Have OsCommerce Contributions

OsCommerce is a widely used open source shopping cart application that has a very active community of developers and contributors. There are hundreds of modifications, called contributions or add-ons that accomplish just about everything that you might need in an ecommerce storefront. OsCommerce is good for ecommerce start-ups because it is well supported through it's forums and can be set-up and run with minimal coding knowlege, and of course the low cost of an open source package.

Out of the box, OsCommerce is pretty stripped down. It's major drawbacks are search-engine unfriendliness and a presentation layer (user-interface) melded with the business-logic layer. Adding products can also be a real chore, especially if you have a large number of them. Here are the contributions I'd recommend adding to any OsCommerce installation:

Simple Template System (STS)
This powerful contribution separates presentation and business logic layers by creating a customizable templating system.

Page Cache
Because STS can generate a large number of database queries, especially in large stores, caching pages can greatly reduce server load.

Ultimate SEO URLS
Rewrites URLS (using apache mod_rewrite) based on product categories, product names and manufacturer names. Great for SEO!

Header Tags SEO V 3.0
Allows customization of page title, meta description, and meta keywords for product, category and manufacturer pages.

Easy Poplulate with Product Attributes
Allows upload and download of your products using a spreadsheet rather than the clumsy admin interface.

Define Content
Allows you to define text content areas in your pages that can by edited using a tinymce interface in the admin area.

Commission Junction Settlement

I'm posting an email I just received with the rest of the bloggers. I've never been a big fan of PPC Arbitrage, AKA SPAM, but did have an account with Commission Junction and a couple of ads up on parked sites for the heck of it.

For those of you who don't know, PPC Arbitrage is the activity of promoting a website that consists of links to other websites. The website owner makes money when people come to his website and click on the links to these other websites, who pay him a certain amount of money per click. The website usually has no valuable content itself, because if it did, the viewer would be less likely to click one of the links to leave the site.

Apparently Commission Junction didn't do enough to squash to hackers and scammers that naturally flock to PPC Arbitrage, AKA SPAM, AKA "trying to get something for nothing." Not that spamming isn't a lot of work, but it's not really "productive" as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, here's what went down:

Settlement Recovery Center v. ValueClick settlement

RE: Important Legal Notice Regarding Commission Junction’s Affiliate Network

If you joined or were a member of the affiliate marketing networks operated by ValueClick, Inc., Commission Junction, Inc. and/or Be Free (collectively, “Defendants”), between April 20, 2003 and the present, you may be a class member in Settlement Recovery Center et al. v. ValueClick, Inc. et al., No. 2:07-cv-02638-FMC-CTx, a lawsuit which is pending in the Central District of California. The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court's certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.

The proposed settlement will resolve claims that Defendants failed to adequately monitor Commission Junction’s Network for the use by third parties of software that does not comply with Commission Junction’s (“CJ”) Publisher Code of Conduct and that is intended to steal or divert commissions from publishers on CJ’s network (“Non-compliant Software”), failed to adequately monitor or prevent third parties from engaging in the theft or “hijacking” of commissions from Advertisers and Publishers on CJ’s Network, and failed to make sufficient disclosures regarding the existence of Non-compliant Software and commission theft, resulting in losses to both advertisers and publishers on the CJ Network.

The proposed settlement will provide a monetary recovery to eligible class members. For class members that currently maintain an account on the CJ Network will receive payment through payments or credits deposited or applied to their CJ accounts; eligible class members that no longer have accounts on the Commission Junction Network will receive a check for an equal amount.

If you are a member of the class, your legal rights are affected by whether you act or do not act. You should review the Settlement Notice as soon as possible as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with this proposed settlement. In particular, the deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is September 30, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.

For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.CJSettlement.com

phpBB Admin Control Panel (ACM) Login Problems

The phpBB Administration Control Panel works a little differently than other content managment systems, so there can be some confusion when trying to login for the first time. If you attempt to navigate directly to the directory that holds the administrative files , i.e. www.yourwebsite.com/adm, as you would with other open source applications such as Joomla or OsCommerce, you'll run into problems. It will appear that you are engaging in a valid administrative login sequence, but even with the correct credentials, you will be unabale to login.

The problem is that phpBB requires you to login at the front-end, click on the link at the bottom of the page labeled "Administration Control Panel," and then reauthenticate yourself in order to gain access. Once you learn this little secret, login is no problem.

Content Managment Systems

What is a Content Management System or CMS? It is adminstrative software that allows a business to add, edit and delete text and images from their Website without the knowledge of HTML or web programming.

The interface is a lot like a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. There is a learning curve involved, but a Website built on a Content Managment System is perfect for a small business without a technical person on staff, but who wants to keep their Website fresh with new and updated material on a frequent basis.

Good Content Management Systems are database driven, feeding the data into the presentation layer, or user-interface templating system.

There are many good Open Source Content Management Systems out there, which can help you acheive a professional looking and easy to maintain web presence. Let TP Designs help you choose the best Content Management System for your Website.

Open Source Web Applications

The following is a list of open source web application demos I am working on. Support for each of these should be available shortly.

Content Management Systems
http://drupal.tpdesigns.net/ - Drupal
http://www.tpdesigns.net/ - Joomla

Social Networking Sites
http://www.fanclubhelper.com/ - ELGG
http://aroundme.tpdesigns.net/aroundme - AroundMe

Technorati Ping Problem Solved

Check my main SEO blog for the solution to the Technorati ping problem.

Technorati Ping Problems

This would normally be a post for my Pleasanton Web Design Blog, but therein lies the irony. Technorati doesn't like that blog. It tells me I haven't updated for 393 days. I don't believe that is accurate. I've pinged the crap out of them, written new posts, and even deleted my claim to the blog and reclaimed. Still didn't work. This blog is pinging and updating Technorati just fine. I have a WordPress blog on my Web Design Website that is also pinging and updating with no problem. I checked all of my settings on Blogger Beta, and they're tip-top. Is it them or is it me? It's them isn't it.

Well according to the plethora of comments (including mine now) on this similar technorati ping problem blog post, yeah it's them. I have an email into support and am hoping for a timely resolution to the matter.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

I just ran across a great tool in Google Accounts that I was not previously aware of. It's called Docs and Spreadsheets. I was reading the Silicon Valley Web Guild's User Experience Blog, authored by
Reshma Kumar, WebGuild Vice President and User Experience Forum Chair. She mentioned it in one of her posts, and I thought it was worth a look.

With Google Docs and Spreadsheets you can create, collaborate, share and publish documents and spreadsheets online. You can save the documents in Microsoft Word format, or PDF format, which got my attention. Unfortunately, on my first test I include an image in the document, and when saving as PDF, the image wasn't included. The text looked fine though.

The spreadsheet interface looks like Microsoft Excel, and you can export it do the same basic formats that you can with Excel, including .xls.

Overall a great tool. I'm on the bottom of the learning curve right now, so maybe the solution to the image problem will come as become more familiar with the tool.

Microsoft adCenter

I just signed up for a Microsoft adCenter account for the first time. A web hosting company that I use was offering free trial vouchers, so I took advantage. I've used Google Adwords for Pay Per Click (PPC)advertising before, but at that time I was looking at the big head (a few competitive key phrases) rather than the long tail (many less competetive key phrases), so the ROI just wasn't there for me. Now that I am less lame at SEO, I decided to give PPC another try. It was free after all. Well, $5 for the set-up.

The account setup is very similar to Google AdWords. If you haven't done either yet, and are interested in seach engine ranking for your Website, you really need to look at the keyword tools in the AdWords, or Microsoft adCenter accounts (does the way marketing people mix upper and lower case letters in their product names REALLY bug you too?).

I haven't received editorial approval, so I don't yet know how Microsoft adCenter will work out for me. I am writing this now because one of my keyphrases in the campaign is "fremont web design" and in looking at the lay of the land on MSN after setting up the PPC account, I noticed that this blog was number one for that keyphrase already. So maybe I had better start writing something here.

Keep it Fresh with Sitefresh

TP Designs has a new web design package upgrade called Sitefresh. Changing the look of your site periodically will keep it looking fresh, and keep people coming back again and again. Sitefresh ensures that this happens. Email sales@tpdesigns.net for more information.

It's my new blog! I love it here. It's so roomy. A little dark, but very roomy.