Font Display Techniques

Cufón offers the ability to upload a font file (.ttf, .otf, and a few others) and spits out a javascript file that, in conjunction with the cufón base code will use the canvas HTML5 element to display the font you want. The text is actual text and can be selected by a browser as well as crawled by the search engines. Because cufón leverages HTML5, there are still some complications with IE, though they can be overcome with some additional code. A full set of instructions are available to aid you in using this method.

Typekit offers a more plug-and-play option to add custom fonts to your website. You add a single line of code to your templates and you can then configure your font settings from the Typekit website. They offer a free version that supports a partial font library, but the paid versions incorporate many more fonts and more flexibility in how many fonts you can use and where. You can browse the full line-up of fonts to get a feel for the wide range of options they offer. Typekit supports all modern browsers and will cover 95% of traffic for most people.

Google Font Directory works in a similar way to Typekit, but without any required registration. We detailed this on the Schipul blog after it was announced at Google IO, but it should also be included as an easy option. Currently there is a very small selection of fonts available, but we are guessing that number will grow.

@font-face is a CSS option that allows you to point to a font file and have it displayed in the browser. While this is technically supported by most browser, the different font types are not very well supported. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera support TrueType/OpenType TT fonts and OpenType PS fonts. Internet Explorer supports Embedded OpenType fonts. The biggest difference in the font types is the licensing and security behind them, and it is unlikely any browser will support all font types in the near future. What this means is that it takes some work to use @font-face to display the proper font to all of your website visitors.

The Best Text for Your Site

The Google Font Directory offers the easiest way to implement a new look to those headings, menus, and sidebars. Typkit is just as easy, and expands the font library for a small yearly fee. Cufón and @font-face are a bit more technical, but give you more freedom in the fonts you choose to use. Pick the option you are more comfortable with and implement it on your website.

Of the four options above, all of them are better for optimizing your site than using images of that fancy font. Most often the areas that use images as text are loaded with great keywords, and if the site is coded right, they will appear in headings that have a heavier SEO weight than general text. This is also true of phone numbers and addresses, which in text can be crawled and displayed on Google local listing pages. Overall, you are better off using text, and the options above are currently your best bet to satisfy the SEO team and the design team.

FBML can add Google Analytics tracking to your facebook pages.

You finally have the outer edge offices understanding the need to allocate resources to social media. Now, you want to measure some of your traffic to your faceBook Fan page? Facebook does a fair job of letting you see basic traffic, but for a more comprehensive view of where your visitors are coming from, you can now use Static FBML to add a Google Analytics tracking code to your pages. Excellent! Let’s do this.

FBML is a markup language based on familiar html tags and a few facebook specific calls. It allows applications to be created in separate tabs or static boxes. Friend of Schipul, Beth Kanter, pointed out this Analytics in FBML how to article for a step-by-step process on adding code without having to trigger Javascript. Let us know if you have any problems and we will be happy to help.

Bidding vs. Profits for Google PPC Advertising

Folks over at Search Engine Watch published an in-depth article on the future of bidding for Google CPC advertising and how automation is becoming more prevalent. Efficiency in business is typically a good thing, but we still subscribe to the belief of more information is better when making decisions about where our advertising and ROI are focused. Google has done a great job of opening up much of its data in the past few years (Insights, Trends), but advertising hasn’t always seen that same transparency. Read to see the discussion about transparency and trust.

Analytics App and Analytics HD

Available for the iPhone and the iPad, these two apps give you a preview of your data at a moments glance. Both apps allow you to load up multiple Google Accounts so you can track both work and personal sites. The iPhone app is very convenient for tracking on the go, and the iPad version gives you a bigger perspective and is a bit easier to navigate. One of my favorite parts about these apps are the Today and Yesterday reports which can be useful for checking traffic from recent content. The only downside I’ve seen thus far is the iPad version (Analytics HD) seems to be slower to load. This could be the app, or the fact that I monitor over 200 sites. Hopefully this will be improved in a future version.

Analyticator

This WordPress plugin shows your Google Analytics data within the WordPress back end interface. This is probably a great fit for publishers who aren’t interested in all that the web interface offers while still wanting to know basic things like visitor and pageview counts, keywords, and traffic sources. If you run a WordPress blog (like this one) or a WordPress website, this plugin is a great addition.

Link Tagger

Ever wanted to track downloads or external clicks but didn’t know how to do so in Google Analytics? Link Tagger can help with that. This is a javascript script you can download and include on your site pages that will automate the process of attaching the required Analytics code to track outgoing links and downloaded files. It works across all browsers with javascript support, so that should cover all users that analytics can track.

Ego

This is a personal favorite of mine. Ego allows you to view stats at a quick glance for Google Analytics as well as Mint tracking and other sites like Twitter, Vimeo, Tumblr, Feedburner, Squarespace, and Ember. At a quick glance you can tap through and see your stats for today, yesterday, the week, month, and year. The full iPad app allows you to swipe and load up the full statistics in the middle of the screen. I’ve yet to test that one, but I can attest to the iPhone version.

Be sure to check out the entire Google Analytics Application Gallery to see the other things like phone tracking, reporting tools, and site analytics auditing.

Jen Lampton and Rob Bertholf from Chapter Three gave a basic rundown of SEO in Drupal sites at DrupalCon. You can watch their presentation on the session page if you’d like. Along with the session, they write a quick blog post to bring their holy grail for Drupal SEO (pdf) document. It reviews some of the best practices for common SEO actions and included what modules are needed for those things. I’d like to dive in a bit deeper on some of my favorites from that list.

One of the best features of the document is that it separates out what things benefit Humans (like you), and what benefits Robots (like Google). For instance, alt text for images benefits the Robots by giving some context to images, but it was really designed to benefit Humans that use screen readers or other accessibility aides.

Rob discussed this early on in the presentation and pushed the audience to only make changes that benefit Humans. If it only benefits the Robots, it’s probably a black-hat tactic. I could not agree more, and am thankful he highlighted this distinction. Aside from nofollow links, robot meta tags, and the robots.txt, everything else on their list benefits humans. So Human-only isn’t a hard a fast rule, but it should be the majority of your focus.

The majority of things that you would optimize on the site should make things easier for the user. This includes:

• A Consistent site structure (code and visually) and both XML and HTML Sitemaps
• Use descriptive Headings and Titles for your pages, articles, and other types of content
• Good internal Site Search and helpful error pages
• Alt and title text for images and link title text to add more information

There are a few others on the list, but those above are the most important for the Humans. Those are the basics, and should be used before any other tweaks are even considered.

After the basics are covered, you can start to get more focused on special things like keyword selection, link text (e.g. not “read more” or “click here”), and setting up patterns and defaults for your URLs, Title tags, and Meta descriptions. Much of this can be setup to be automated whenever new content is added, and overridden when you need to make a specific change to something. Finally, you can use some special redirect modules (path redirect and global redirect) to make sure your content has one specific URL.

If you’ve accomplished everything above, you are far ahead of the pack. Remember again that you should be optimizing for the Humans, and not just the Robots. Another recommendation by the Chapter Three team is to use social media sharing embed tools to allow for easy community sharing. This, like many things, is good in moderation. Use you Analytics reports (you installed analytics tracking, right?) to find some of your top referring sites and use those share buttons on your content. We use a ShareThis tool which has several options, but does not display all of them everywhere. It’s not the greatest tool, but it brings some balance.

Finally, I want to discuss the notion of active vs. passive content. Active content is stuff that may change often, and will hopefully be shared and earn linkbacks. A great example of this is a blog. Blog posts give you little bits of content that other people can link to and send traffic to your site. Passive content is generally pages on your site like your About or Contact page. They won’t change often, and while the may get some traffic, they probably won’t get many linkbacks. You will hopefully have a mix of passive and active content on your site. Doing this will give you different types of traffic as well as linkbacks for your site.

Thanks again Jen and Rob for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

At Schipul, we are big fans of learning, learning and more learning. One of the resources we use in the office is Lynda.com. Today, I learned Jill has a set of Getting Started videos promoting her course on Lynda.com. This is a full  set of videos for a nice refresher or to educate a client on the process of the work you will be providing. She uses a case study site she launched and optimized to illustrate what works and what doesn’t.

See some free video excerpts from the course on her SEM-Video page. Nope, we aren’t affiliated, we just like good content when we see it. Thanks Jill, these are great!

SEO News this past week:

• Library of Congress archives ENTIRE Twitter history
• Google begins indexing hRecipe microformat
• Twitter begins a promoted Tweets platform

Google uses site speed in rankings – we’ve known for a while that Google was headed in this direction, and they finally made it official. Site speed is now counted, though it’s more of a tie-breaker than anything. Check out the full article. There, Matt Cutts points out that in addition to helping you in the rankings, speeding up your site will also please your visitors. Win-Win.

Google Analytics browser-based opt-out – Google takes privacy seriously and is working on some browser plugins that will allow people to opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics. As a site owner, don’t let this frighten you. Web users have always had the choice to opt out of many tracking tools by turning off javascript (though many don’t as it affects their overall web experience). Chances are you will not see any major dip in your statistics, and your users will have an additional tool to control their privacy online.

The So What test to Analytics reporting – This is a favorite topic of mine. While Google Analytics and other tools offer you a sea of reporting options, very few of those give you actionable steps to improve your site’s KPIs. Avinash Kaushik offers a few examples of how asking “So What?” can improve your reporting efficiency and save you time, energy, and help move you closer to your online goals. Take some time to read it and then look at the reports you usually review and ask, So What?

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What is Social Search and how does it benefit the social graph?

Brynn Evans is first up. She is a digital anthropologist looking at what people are doing onilne and how we design for social interactions to be integrated with Search. Search is no longer just a question inside a box. But, how can our friends help us. Search is a process over time. She defines three flavors of social search. Collective, Friend -filtered, and collaborative. People exhibit two main social strategies. Some want to ask the network for help and guidance before doing a search on their own. Others distinctly want to embark alone first and see what they can gather. It’s not until they can’t find what they are looking for when they ask friends or networks.

Next is Max Ventilla as a Google zookeeper after his startup Aardvaark was acquired by Google. Subjective questions generate majority of revenue. But and unreliable and there is a social cost of asking a favor. How do you find the best person to answer your question? Each individual’ network is growing exponentially. In queries of subjective nature, average query is 19 words as opposed to Google 3-4 words. Social context is different than the social graph, the context is frequently sufficient. Went to same school, etc. Intimacy (more than authority) facilitates trust.

Ash Rust is Director of Search Relevance at OneRiot. Advertising is matched with realtime web and focused on indexing what people are talking about in social media. Delivers very realtime both in browser and app modes for a swarming type of distributed tool. Ask the masses for best answer.

Prindle is thinking about social search in the digital marketplace. “Give customers something good to talk about in social media, and they will talk. That conversation becomes content for social search, helping to drive additional traffic and conversation.” This sharing used to happen in email, but is not happening in public. Advertising space for many years has been start in TV ad, then drive other marketing efforts. New model example: Best Buy’s @Twelpforce as example of social search platform. Using TV to extend to wider audience.

Where is Social Search going?

Will these new forms of search overtake the Google Box? 20-40% of queries can be handled by social search currently according to Rust. It depends if they will overtake. Different responses are useful in different search. Brynn comments that we often go to Google for an answer, but still need the next level of social relevance. I have an answer, what do I do with it? Then network can follow through. Rust chimes back in with how to rank in social algorithms based on history of streams and their diversity of content. Inference of smaller groups or networks and may highlight authority.

Brynn biggest problems are who is an authority, how to index them, and how to index friends. OneRiot and Aardvaark answer these in different ways. Aardfavrk is a response to the tremendous social activity happening online. OneRiot recognizes the need for different search. For example, a simple search for “killer whale” might bring up lots of information about whales, Orca, etc. But not necessarily what the ongoing conversation is about social responsibility of killer whales in SeaWorld shows after news item of killer whale attack.

Monetization of Social Search and Advertising

Reverse delivering search information starts with answers, then builds brand. Nash talks about the monetization of Social Search. Traditionally, you draw people coming to you with a clear commercial intent. Then they ask you want they want and you can answer with incentive. New model focuses on not just PPC. First deliver organic answers, then deliver sponsored ads not only at cost of PPC, but discounts on bid based on delivering good responses. Bad responses will not be rewarded. Asking people first if they want a sponsored ad typically is over 50% for opt-in. Social search will allow advertisers to target user intent and not just users.

New model is not about buying keywords, but creating content the social search indexes. Headlines are being tracked more than keywords. Links are still more important than keywords. Anchorlinks and number of people linking to your content is more important than the actual keywords and will continue to drive ranking and indexing.

How do you Measure Social Search?

Finally, in measuring social search, @ventilla on social analytics: “Who you are connected to is more important than how you describe yourself.” True analytics of social search is still TBD. Will be a growing area of research.

What has been successful in accessibility?

WAI-ARIA is a set of accessibility specs that focus on tooling and reporting. One example that is near final adoption and integration is http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/accessibility and is helping understand things like dynamic content. But some of the problems with accessibility still exist in mashups. Example such as a simple Google Map with rapid integration of complex visualizations make usability a problem when integrated with third party Assistive Technologies.

Accessibility and interaction are key. Can simple image mashups be built in tables instead or provided as an alternate render and transcript? Can maps work with geolocated address books to coordinate? Yes, this would be good design/usability for everyone. There is the key point of the day. If it is good for everyone, it stops being about accessiblity. Ex. In HTML 5 CSS media queries, allow selection of embedded styling to turn on the transcript view as set in browser default rendering. It will just work for everyone depending on preferences set. Don’t require alternate interfaces that increase development costs.

What Tools and adoptions are still needed?

On-Demnd Personalization

working within DCO with W3c is a Delivery Context Ontoolgy. Set preferences for alternatives to mapping and On-Demand delivery can deliver the data based on adaptations to the environment.

National Public Inclusive Infrastructure – NPII

NPII is a bigger solution to deliver software enhancements so non-standard interfaces can use broadband information and services available to others. Building accessibility and extended usability directly into the Internet’s Infrastructure including a common set of development tools to lower development costs. If tools are deliverable via cloud, then accessible tools will be available to anyone with licensing when needed on their device. Example: Web apps to have web-delivered content (alternative renderings, captions) delivered as assistance on demand.

Accessibility Resources at:
http://wiki.knowbility.org/sxswi-2010/ with Rich’s PowerPoint deck and NPII

Models to be supported in the NPII

NPII is a resource to learn about the specific models of information delivery.

The NPII will support a number different delivery models in order to address the different platforms, degrees of lockdown, and type of adaptation a person requires. For example a person who is blind may need a screen reader that is integrally tied to a browser (Model 1 or 4) while someone who has colorblindness may only need occasional color shifting of content and could use Model 2 or 3. Any of the 4 models might be used on a computer that allows installation of access software while Models 3 or 4 may be needed on a computer that is completely locked down.

• Model 1: Downloaded user agents
• Model 2: On-Demand Web Services
• Model 3: Proxy-based transcoding
• Model 4: Web-based user agents
• Hybrids

Stop talking about accessibility

The great take away from this panel session comes from Sharon Rush again. Sharon is a huge advocate of stopping the talk about accessibility and design. The hope is one day to stop talking about accessibility as a separate thing and move the development toward good design that incorporates everyone.

Ads in search on the two partners will be powered by Bing, and their combined audience is estimated at 150 million Americans and over half a billion people worldwide. All of the ads will be served from Microsoft AdCenter.  The two companies are currently working out the technology details, so all of your ads on either network will stay the same for the time being. The hope is to have everything running off of the Microsoft AdCenter by Q4 2010 to capture the valuable holiday season.

What this means for advertisers

If you manage or use either Yahoo! or Bing search advertising, then nothing will change for a few months. The new merger should reach out to all advertisers with ample notice and instruction on moving over accounts, or possibly have everything moved over automatically. We will see how this works out in the Fall or possibly later. There is no hard deadline set for the transition, but it is coming.

The combination of the advertisers may end up affecting your campaigns in more ways than just an interface change. With the combination of searchers, there will also be a combination of advertisers. Currently if you run campaigns in both search engines you are competing in separate auctions for your PPC ads. This split can keep the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) lower because the number of advertisers (bidders) is lower. With this new merger, the combined pool of advertisers may cause the CPC to go up for some of your keywords.

Currently we see the cost of keywords in Bing and Yahoo! to be between 40%-60% of the cost of the same words in AdWords for similar position. These cost savings are a primary motivator to advertise on the Yahoo! and Microsoft platforms. While this new paring will grow the number of searchers it could also increase the bottom line. We won’t know for sure until the move is completed, but it may be a good idea to start planning for an increase in the cost of keywords.

The major benefit to advertisers is the consolidation of advertising. Search Alliance will become a one-stop-shop for PPC advertising. The alliance will instantly become the #2 search advertising platform, so advertisers that run ads on Search Alliance and on Google AdWords can easily capture a large percent of the overall search market.

The bids for keywords will probably go up, but they are still not likely to be more expensive than AdWords. Google currently maintains about 80% of the search market, but that extra 20% can be the difference for some online advertisers. The new Search Alliance between Yahoo! and Microsoft will make capturing that audience easier than it has been before.

You can subscribe to The SEM Blog to stay up-to-date with the changing landscape of Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click Advertising online.

IPED and IPEDS are acronyms that have quite a few results in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. But, the other spelling brethren to the iPod do not have much meaning. Because of this, all three search engines show spelling corrections for those words and typically include “iPod” search results as well. Today, we still see this for iPud and iPid. And, immediately after the Apple announcement, we saw it for iPad, too.

This was soon corrected, whether naturally or through intervention, in Yahoo and Google. Bing is still showing results for iPod when you search for the new iPad. This instance appears to show a small flaw in the search engine algorithms. How do you quickly add a new term when it had been written off as a typo?

The iPad announcement is the most recent example of this, but many web 2.0 companies experienced the same problem. When companies began to emulate Flickr’s naming convention of adding an ‘r’ to the end of their name, it also confused search engines. Is Snappr a service, or is someone looking for a lawn mower. This is especially apparent when services first launch, which is exactly what we witnessed with the launch of the iPad.

What does that mean for Search Engine Marketers? It means that Google may have a bit more to say about brand names then we would like to think. Is the new product you are launching or marketing a typo for something else? Then you may want to think about a name change. Of course, a strong product can overtake the ‘typo’ designation as they iPad has done in Google and Yahoo, but you may not have the marketing gusto and hype power that Apple carries. If you have flexibility in the name, then do your homework.

It may be time to add “Googleability” to the traditional product naming guidelines. Not only do you need to distinguish your brand from others, but you need to have a brand that isn’t even a close spelling of another product. If I sold a product called a “pespi,” I would be in a world of pain trying to market it online.

We would like to keep the search engines out of these types of processes, and they want to stay out of them as well. Google’s vision is to “organize the world’s information.” No part of that says anything about governing or changing that information. The unfortunate truth is that online marketing is growing rapidly, and to keep up you need to capitalize on the traffic that Google and the others can drive. So, pick your product names carefully, and market the heck out of them.