WordPress is a constantly evolving platform and this new release, WordPress 3.0 has some big changes in it. 218 individuals contributed to the new version and the changes are pretty substantial.

Custom pages
We’ve been telling clients for years that WordPress makes an excellent platform for building a website that’s easy to maintain and very search engine friendly. WordPress 3.0 takes a big step towards making that easier with several different options for custom pages without having to hand-code new template pages.

Custom snippets.
WordPress coders call these “custom taxonomies” but let’s speak in English here shall we? Now you can have more options than adding just tags and categories to a post. For example, a movie review site can add the ratings to each post. (G, PG, PG-13, R) to every post automatically and users will be able to sort posts by selecting the one they want to view.

Menus administration
If you use the Thesis theme you’re used to being able to manage your menus to put them in the order you want. Now you can do this across WordPress themes with nifty AJAX drag and drop tabs.

Custom designs
The new theme “Twentyten” lets you add a custom header or background image or set background colors without having to touch or understand the CSS for your site.

Shortlinks
Link shorteners abound, but do they use your own domain name? Now you can create a shortened link with your own domain name and keep your branding. Of course it would be best if your domain name is short!

Multi-site control
Remeber WordPress MU (multi-user)? Now it’s fully integrated with the latest version of WordPress. If you’ve got a lot of sites running within your network you can manage all your sites from one central location.

Warning!
Before you go upgrading though, you should read this post–”Upgrading WordPress” for step by step instructions.

Video overview
Here’s a quick overview from the folks at WordPress.

Need help with upgrading, installing or modifying WordPress? We’re here to help! Drop us an EMAIL and we’ll get right on it.

It’s the end of the year (almost) and a good time to review your online marketing efforts to see if what you’re doing online is really working for you, find all those orphaned social media accounts and make sure your messaging is fine tuned for the new year. It’s time fore a website audit.

Web sites.
Check to see that those dead campaigns and micro-sites actually got removed from your web sites. A few Google and Bing searches are a good place to start. Then look into the site directories (or have your web team do it) to ensure there aren’t any orphaned pages laying around sucking up your SEO juice and giving the wrong impression. If you’re not using them anymore put in a re-direct to point the incoming links to a more relevant location and delete the old page. Is the look and feel getting dated?

Domains.
Are all your domains up-to-date? Have you reserved all the domain names related to your business? Don’t forget the .net, .me .biz and .tv domains. Even if you don’t use them now you can point them to your main domain. Who’s the admin contact on the site? Is all the registration information up-to-date and stored somewhere you can find it? (That doesn’t mean a post it note on your monitor either).

Social Media Sites.
Have you reserved your company brand on the social media sites you need to be represented on? Are all the profiles sending a consistent message? Mind you, your messaging should be tuned to the style of the network, but you still need to check and make sure it’s on point. Are there consistent links to important information? Take the time to update pictures and evaluate which networks are getting the most of your energy and which need a little more love.

Search Engine Optimization.
Review your current strategies for SEO. Are your keywords still relevant? Has the phrasing or positioning of the company changed? Check for Alt and meta tags as well as your site map. Has it been updated lately? Do some searches and see how this year compares to your search engine rankings from last year.

Newsletter and Emails.
Been meaning to delete those accounts that bounced from the last 12 newsletters? Get to it because it’s messing with your open rates. Before you send that holiday promotion or greeting letter clean up your list and make sure it’s up-to-date. While you’re at it take a look at your newsletter and make sure the look and feel reflects your brand well.

If you are interested in learning more about social media and how to make it work for your business, you should sign up for my up-coming Webinar: “Putting Social Media to Work for You” .
This is the first in a series of Webinars about social media and social media marketing.I’ll take user feedback to create the next in the series to make sure everybody gets what they are looking for out of these Webinars.

Length
This is a short session, just 30 minutes and no experience in social media is required. I’ll start with the basics and then quickly get to the good stuff.

What’s it all about?
I’ll cover the following topics:
What is Social Media?
How can it help my business?
Overview of social media tools.
Examples of social media use – the good, the bad, the unfortunate.
Where to find data on growth and social media usage.
Creating an effective social media strategy.
5 steps to get started.

Date: Sept 10, 2008
Time: 1 PM PST
Length: 30 Minutes
Cost: Free

Click here for more information.

Google AdWords is one of several online marketing opportunities that allow you to post ads on websites that are interested in generating revenue through their content. You pay per click by the user ads that are viewed but not clicked are not deducted from your budget. Although there are several options besides Google, (AdBrite is one of these) none are as successful as Google at getting you return.

There are two main types of Google Adword campaigns (though there are many variations like images, Flash, video and even radio ads, we’ll stick to the basics here.)

Keyword Campaigns
These are geared to show up on a website based on the specific keywords associated with them.
Typically, an advertiser select a set of keywords related to the product or service they wish to advertise. The ads are then displayed based on those keywords. An Example of this would be the ads that show up on the right of a Google Search. These ads can show up in other search engine results as well, or websites that use the Google engine to do their searches.

Contextual Campaigns
These ads are targeted to the content of a website that is part of the Google content network. Google searches sites that are interested in hosting ads and matches your keywords and other campaign data with that of the websites and uses their extensive search and linguistic processing technology to ensure that your content ads show up matched with relevant content.

As an advertiser you can select channels and even target particular websites that host content you are interested in being connected with.

How to choose between keyword and contextual ads
Actually it’s a good idea to run both, but here’s a rough example. A keyword campaign is very closely targeted and will likely get less overall clicks than a context based ad. Context based ads may get a lot of views, but fewer clicks.

What does it cost?
You can create an AdWords campaign for any budget, but there are some tricks to making your AdWords campaign successful.

Once you set up a campaign you can use Google’s excellent keyword tools to hone in on keywords that fit your needs and to see what Google recommends the minimum bids be on these keywords. Set your daily budget at your minimum rate at first, then see how it ranks among other sites. Set your Maximum CPC as high as you are comfortable with and then see how often you actually hit that cost. If you’re hitting it often, it may be time to take a second look at your campaign.

This is really where the art of a skilled AdWords professional comes into play. The constant tweaking and adjustment of a campaign is what will really wring as much value as possible out of it. If you just create an ad by guesswork and then let it run for a while you may or may not get results, but you aren’t very likely to get the best results possible.

Position is everything
If your ad shows up 25th in the list of ads it’s probably not going to get much notice. Your ad gets positioned based on two things: The rate you’ve set as your maximum bid (cost per click) and the relevance of the content on your site to the keywords and the content on the target site. The trick is to position yourself in the top 3-4. You don’t have to be in the top 10.

What this means for you is; key words will get you less exposure, but a higher click-through rate, but a context ad will get your brand out in the web-verse a lot more, with fewer, but possible more valuable clicks.
so if you’re building your brand and want to get your name out there a lot associated with content that matters to you, choose contextual ads. If what you want is clicks and you don’t care about branding as much, go for keywords.

Working with your content and SEO "Experts"
It’s important to make sure that the content you’re sending ads to relates directly to the ad. This may take some tweaking to get the most value from the ads, and you may want to create customized “landing pages” so you can track effectiveness of the campaign and closely target the ad to the content.
this can take a little time but the rewards will be obvious.

Warning: Be very careful how you create these landing pages. There are a lot of people who will tell you to build hundreds of ‘doorway’ pages or “shadow domains” to send traffic to that will focus the traffic and lead them into your website. Ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies will not recommend this method. The same goes for ‘Free for All’ links farms or mass submission engines.

How do you gauge success?
Adwords dashboard allows you to quickly view the statistics related to your ads. It is very helpful to install Google Analytics and turn on their tracking features to see the difference in your traffic. If you have old traffic reports use them to see the difference in your traffic with and without the adwords campaign.

If your landing pages are sales related, you should be able to easily see if your ads are being successful or not based on their conversion rate. If what you are looking for is a traffic increase, keep careful record of your traffic before, during and after a campaign, and consider creating A and B ads to see which perform most effectively.

AdWords management
The most important part of an ad campaign is careful monitoring of the results and constant “tweaking” of the content on your site, the text of your ads, and the channels you market to. This takes daily attention. You’ll need to analyze your placement among other ads, the “bounce rate” of visits, and the change in the Average time on the site. You’ll also need to carefully monitor the budgeted allocation and distribute that as necessary to get the most value from your campaign.

We recommend creating multiple ads and comparing the results over time to find the best fit for your ads and get the best results.

Want to learn more?
Call 415.990.3991 or email us and let’s talk about specific ways that Google AdWords can improve your site traffic and conversions. We can help you create a new campaign, work with your site to get the most out of a campaign or fine tune an existing site to optimize return.

Hey, I’ve got a new tutorial up on MacInstruct. This one is on how to create sitemaps using SiteOrbiter. It’s part of the new “Code Mojo” series I’ll be writing for. SiteOrbiter is a native Mac freeware app that not only helps you see your site from a high-level view, but it will create a Google Sitemap for you too, something every site should have. MacInstruct has a lot of info for you Mac addicts, so get over there and check it out!
If you’re a Mac love and you’re looking to learn the secret tips and tricks, or you’re looking for new Mac software to optimise your work-flow. MacInstruct is the place to be.

When I set up a new WordPress install, I find it a whole lot easier to work on themes and try out new plug-ins while it’s on my Mac than uploading and running it on the live server. I use MAMP PRO to run PHP on my Mac, so it’s easy to install WordPress and test.

Check out my new tutorial on Macinstruct to see how you can be up and running with MAMP and WordPress on your Mac in just a few minutes.

How do you tell potential customers that your product is something they need?
Print ? Websites? Viral marketing campaigns? Trade show kiosks and in person presentations?

All of these work, and they can work very well, if you can get it to the client the moment they need it. But what if you are3,000 miles away and you can’t make a sales call?
That’s the beauty of a product demo.

Whether it’s a cutting edge 3-D or video generation of the latest features of hardware,

or a walk-through of the product features you know they’re looking for, a product demo can be there when you can’t.

You can attach a link to an email and in seconds it’s delivering the information they need. After a presentation you can leave behind a disk or a link to a URL where they can get a tutorial or refresher on the features, or pass it along to the decision maker who “Just couldn’t make it” to the meeting.

Besides showcasing a new product, product demos can take the load off your customer service and support teams too.
You just launched version 2.0 and the support request are streaming in. “I need to know how to ___ FAST”. “What manual?”. Just moments after launch, you can email your clients and refer them to the demo with all the new features highlighted.

OK, so you’ve decided you need a demo. Now what?

• What kind of demo serves your market best?
• What format works best for the product?
• Is it a marketing tool or a support tool?
• Is it for training or information?
• How will it be delivered?

Taking the time to answer these questions will take you a long way through the discovery process necessary before you get started. Don’t have the time? We’ll help you define your needs and the right delivery method to accomplish your goals. Call us and let’s get to work!

New ways to use AJAX on your website abound, but which tool framework should you use?
Over the next few posts we’ll share some of our favorites, with examples to things we’ve done, as well as other cool sites out there that use these frameworks too.

MooTools is one of our new favs. The folks at Greening You wanted to add some snazzy to their homepage. Moo Tools gives us a way to dynamically float headlines over the header images and add a pop-up text box to the feature story.
These stories and headlines can be updated by Greening You staff through the Joomla portal admin, so they always look fresh, without having to know a stitch of code.

Got panoramic images on your site and you want a light and easily implemented way to show them off? Check this out. or you can build a sweet little gallery using Mootools.js and Electric Prizm’s Slideshow class for Mootools.

CNet likes MooTools too. In fact, they’re using it to replace some widgets previously done in Flash on their TV site, like their video menus. Here’s a link to MooScroller in case you want to give it a try, and several other nifty projects in development by CNet’s team.

It’s not all graphics with MooTools, oh no. Her’s an example of a WYSIWYG text editor, a calendar date picker, and Suzuki uses MooTools for the text news ticker here, as well as for the feature boxes. There are form vailidator scripts and even some asyncronous form submission scripts.

Next time you’ve got some extra space in your schedule for a little professional development, why not spend some time with MooTools?

Are you a Macophile? Check out my latest tutorial on Macinstruct, the website that teaches you how to use your Mac to it’s best advantage.

Everybody has a few tricks for searching effectively on the web, but with Google and all it’s cool tools built in already it’s fun to really dig deep and see what you can find. We’re just touching the surface here, but I bet there’s one or two tricks even you didn’t know.

Images
So let’s say you’re looking for an image of someone on-line so you know what they look like when you meet them. Or you need an image of a famous face.
Type their name into Google and search images.
Searching for Jackson, for example, get’s you lots of images of all of th jacksons and their relatives, but it also gets you topo maps, city info (who knew there were so many towns called Jackson??)
But type in “Janet Jackson”, click search images and then go up to the search string at the top and add &imgtype=face
Now you’ll get back a much more tailored search.

Calculating and conversions
Google also has a built in calculator. Simply type the numbers you want calculated into the search box. It also does conversions. For example type 2 gallons in cups or 10 USD in EURO and Google will convert it for you.

Page titles
You can search for page titles only use the allintitle: operator, ( allintitle: tatu digital ) to see what pages. This is a great way to research a person or business who might be on multiple websites. You only get one reference per page, and it’s likely to be more useful since it’s the title of the page.

Phonebook
Phone numbers are easy. Type it in like this:408 555 1212 (remember the spaces) or phonebook: 408 555 1212. Need a number for a person? Try phonebook: person’s name and state abbreviation (phonebook:

MP3’s
Want some mp3’s? Easy, copy -inurl:htm -inurl:html mp3 “zeppelin” and replace zeppelin (how COULD you!) with the band you want to find. This also works with other extensions like flv, mov, wav, aiif etc. You can see the possibilities. Mind you now, it’s not always legally posted documents you find, and downloading files from people you don’t know could lead to nasty viruses and such like. You’re on your own here.

Last but not least, want the news from a particular day in history?
Type in the date december 7, 1941 and see everything online with that date…