Sabra Hummus is a new client that sells hummus.  I went the first half of my life under the assumption that I did not like hummus.  At our first business meeting hummus was served.  To be polite, I ate some, and was literally shocked how good it was!  I am now quasi-addicted to Sabra Hummus.  I have tried others, but to my American palate, Sabra Hummus is clearly the best.  It’s lighter, creamier, and comes in several flavors I like.  (Red Roasted Pepper Hummus and Jalepeno Hummus especially!)  You can locate Sabra Hummus in a store near you via this link. 

My agency, in tandem with the Sabra marketing team, launched a new site for them in June 2008.   It is built on web content managed software called Web Creator Plus.  Interestingly enough, I felt the same way I did about CMS as I did about hummus.  Ironically enough, this project and this product changed my mind again!  Web Creator Plus has been counter to many of the frustrating experiences I have had with CMS.  It is very easy to work with. 

It also seems to be a very valuable SEO tool as well.   Because it is designed as shopping cart software, it is designed to index early, and often in the search engines.  And in my case it did.  When I started my Sabra Hummus research several months ago, Sabra was page 7 on the key term; Hummus.  In less then a month with the new Web Creator Plus site, Sabra Hummus is on page 3.  (And that is even considering some serious DNS issues we have had to deal with that brought some visitors, and probably engines, to an older version of the site that is not as optimized.)

Web Creator Plus also has several SEO panels for tagging the site properly.  This is a feature I do not see in the previous CMS packages I have used.  In the coming months we will optimize the pages via this panel, experiment with some Adwords, add some optimized content, some buzz marketing, and hopefully see you on page one or two of google when you search for hummus…

… if not, I plan to recommend to the company that we “Americanize” the name to “LIBERTY PASTE” to play to the North American audience!  I am sure that is an easier road to page 1!!  (just kidding!)

Univest Bank is launching a local Pennsylvania ad campaign called Univest One. The idea is to spread awareness of a long established Pennsylvania bank to people that might not know them. In addition to the scholarships or Live Nation sponsorships they do to hit different audiences, Univest One is running a contest. A $10,000 dollar contest. I worked on this campaign through my agency so I am not eligible, NOR are any of my NJ friends or family. (Not because of me!) This contest is only open to legal residents of Pennsylvania. I have no idea how many people will enter, neither do they quite frankly, …but this will probably be the best odds at winning ten grand you’ll get in a while! I wish I could enter, but I can’t.

To enter, you simply need to open an account via Univest Bank’s, Univest One web site. Opening an account there, between now and the end of summer 2008, automatically enters you to win the $10,000. If you don’t win, you will of course now have a bank account with Univest, but check it out, that’s probably not the worst consolation prize. I am not a “finance guy” as you all well know, but they have no minimum balance, rates almost as good as ING, and lots of local PA branches. (ING is awesome til you actually need a branch, and sooner or later…you do!) So, check it out, and if you win, remember the blog that sent you there! ; )

I learned HTML coding in the mid 90’s by using NOTEPAD and Internet Explorer. I did not know then I’d later become a web designer and that was not why I learned. I was trying to get my weekly football pool, LOCK OF THE WEEK, online and that was really my main motivation. I succeeded in both the short term and in the long term as I really enjoyed HTML, already knew Photoshop, Illustrator and design thus a career of making websites was born. After several years of making a living from what the web looked like, I shifted my attention to WHAT the web said. The marketing aspect of content, the “findability” aspect of content, and the who, what, when, where, why and how of web content was created and set adrift on the world wide web to gain attention and ultimately customers. That naturally led to management and overseeing large web projects. At first I did it in the corporate world where all my resources were in-house and my solutions were tailored by the staff we had - a core group, myself included that all had been in our positions a good while. How we did things was a given based on our technology. On the corporate side it was all about the “if” and “why” we’d do something.

Now I am on the agency side managing large web projects. Much of my technology is outsourced. The result of sourcing those vendors has resulted in a re-education in what I knew of web design and development and in particular the subject of this entry - Table-Based HTML Web Design versus CSS controlled XHTML layout. If it is possible to feel “old school” about a topic concerning the web, clearly this is one. Turns out, in a medium barely old enough to have a Diploma, I am “old school” in my training of HTML table based design. The new kids on the web block are using DIVS, SPANS, and CSS to layout their pages whereas HTML, or XHTML, are being used for content only.

Ingenious, elegant, complaint, web 2.0?

Yes, yes, yes, yes…but very, very time consuming, especially for people that originally learned to make HTML in tables. In the agency world time is of the essence. If we can take a comp from Photoshop/Illustrator, slice it in Dreamweaver (programs that are designed to work together), move it to the web and bill then everybody wins, including our clients. However, if we have to take those same comps and convert them to CSS and HTML, despite HOW good the person doing it is, it takes time. And changes take time. Moving a graphic of some text in a web editor is not the same as moving a DIV in a CSS document, and checking the HTML. Then moving it again in the CSS document and checking the HTML version again. Then moving the DIV back because you moved it too far last time… you get the idea. TIME CONSUMING.

Enter Content Management Systems

The CMS world is one which EVERYONE feels they need their content managed. Newsflash: YOU DON’T, you need a static site, and a blog…but I digress. In the CMS world, everything is laid out with CSS. Packages that developers build upon are very “widget,” “extra,” “extension,” etc. driven. That type of design makes adding these already very plug and play type site enhancements even MORE plug and play. Development has never been easier. But design for such sites, has never been more cumbersome.

Maybe the future holds a CMS platform that works in the middle? The long and short of web design and development is you don’t’ want the guy that programs your web and the guy that designs the visuals of your web to be the same guy. It’s tough to be a talented programmer and an adequate designer, unless you are designing only for usability and making a cookie cutter template site which many people are, happily. But what about those clients that don’t want that web 2.0 look? What if they want their site, to be an extension of their packaging or brand? While any design can be sliced into DIV’s and CSS, does it REALLY make sense for those clients that have 10-20 static pages, and maybe one or two form elements? Usability geeks would say yes, compliance geeks and CSS advocates (of which I am one) would say yes, CMS fans would say yes… but dollars and sense/cents? Would say, NO. From Photoshop to the web via HTML tables can, and will always, be FASTER and in the agency world, time is money. The solution would be a CMS that integrates with Dreamweaver that a designer could wrap his brain around or CMS developers that are more inclined to work with table based HTML. Neither exist and I am not holding my breath!

Creta Farms and Creta Farm pose an interesting optimization problem. Creta Farm, www.cretafarm.gr, is a long established Greek company, and long established site. Creta Farms, www.cretafarms.com is a brand new American company that is going to the American market uses similar products and techniques. The site is also brand new. On searches, the Greek site routinely comes up first, whether “Creta Farm“, or “Creta Farms” is placed into the search engine. (For purposes of this article I have used Google.) The sell gourmet deli meat that replaces that animal fats in the meat, (Turkey, Ham, Bologna, and Roast Beef) with extra virgin olive oil, EVOO. While the companies are related, it is desired that in the U.S market, searches of “creta farms” (plural) returns the US site, www.cretafarms.com. Currently the cretafarm.com (Greek Site) comes up first.

As usuaul with sites in the food sector, style is going to take the foreftont over tons and tons of indexable optimized text. Creta Farms has beautiful packaging, and the site uses those same design elements. Those elements however are contructed mostly of gif and jpgs of text that the search engines can’t read. Creta Farm, the Greek site, has more indexable text, but does not use the actual term, “creta farms” plural. Google is making the assumption perhaps that creta farm typed into a search engine could mean either creta farm, or creta farms.

In a perfect world I would have the greek site use greek language tags, as I am not sure Google would let a foreign site outrank an English one. (I do not have any access to the Greek site however.) For that matter, I don’t really have that much say on what the US, Creta Farms site does. I can link to it, and I can add tags to it, but the look and feel is put together by the same designers that make the packaging. In largely the same programs. It’s sliced, it’s made into table based html, and that is what I have to work around. A slippery SEO puzzle to be sure!

The workaround in this case is that I turned what was the Creta Farms main US page, and turned it into a user selected launch page. It follows the same package design as the US products, and allows the user, via a map, decide the homepage they go to. U.S site, or Greek site. Those that control the Greek site have agreed to use the same portal. SO, at the end of the day, the end user will get to the creta site that most serves their needs. Still, I would love for the term “creta farms” typed into Goolge, to yield www.cretafarms.com FIRST, before the Greek site. Maybe this linked blog entry will help? Maybe I will get some great suggestions…

Update: 5-9-2008
After several months, “Creta Farms” entered into Google returns the www.cretafarms.com US site as number one!  Now on to Deli Meat, Deli Meats, Lunch Meat, Coldcuts, or Cold Cuts and working them all into meaningful copy.

Update: 6-9-2008 Creta Farms Store Locator 
I am often asked via this blog, where to find Creta Farms products.  So I have included the link below.  Enjoy!

http://www.cretafarms.com/consumer/locator.html

Results.

It was widely regarded that Google was just way ahead of its competitors, especially directory based search engines like Yahoo. And ahead they stayed for a long time. And they are still ahead. This post is not about me recommending something else, or implying you should. Instead it’s about how the results I am finding in Google these days seem to be changing. Changing a lot.
Blogs for one are pervasive in the results. For a while there, it seemed like NO blogs entered the Google top results. Now? They all do. It seems like NO search can yield a top ten that is free of some sort of blog result. I work in marketing and I search Google for various things over the course of a day way more then the average person. And the blogs that I used to have to use Technorati to seek out, I now find in Google. Even my own blogs! Even my own stupid personal blogs that I have for no other reason then to entertain my family and friends and to take advantage of WordPress’ easy to use formatting tools and free bandwidth come up. Instantly. When I posted a video of my niece and then googled Tony Romeo niece? I came up number one. THAT DAY.

Having Google index something that fast goes against the conventional wisdom I was taught. The whole, “It takes the Google spider weeks, even months” to index new content” is being seriously challenged by how fast Google indexes blogs. Yet my regular html pages I make for client sites, STILL take the weeks that they always have. With the amount of stuff indexing on such an increase however, the rankings are certainly going to change, and possibly be readjusted to make what Google users get, less “garbagey” for lack of a better word. The web is “world wide” by definition so perhaps what I find not helpful, like obscure blog listings or pdfs, others may be really happy to see littering the top results. Maybe I am just spoiled by the Google I have known for years that had the uncanny knack of returning EXACTLY what I wanted based on my term entered. In far too many cases, Google is simply not doing that like it used to.

Sometimes Google is doing it “not like they used to” in DRASTIC fashion. An example that boggles my mind is this one. I recently did a search for “WEB DEVELOPMENT TOOLS” and the first result I got was this page. (I realize these change all the time, but try it yourself!) Anyway, the page went on to tell me all about the NEW development tools like PHOTOSHOP 5.5, Flash 4, GoLive… all from, 1999ish?!?! You mean to tell me no web geek out there optimized a page for “WEB DEVELOPMENT TOOLS” that could beat a page from 1999??? ESPECIALLY for a term like WEB DEVELOPMENT TOOLS? That’s unfathomable, isn’t it?

So with all the changes that are happening in the Google results, it makes it rough on those that make our living on the web. Many of us question why it’s happening. I discussed this phenomenon with a reputable seo firm and the person I spoke with offered interesting insight. We both agreed we have seen major changes and inaccuracies in Google and each offered theories.
He to seemed to think, Google is crazy like a fox, and that they use the world to test stuff, and keep their algorithms sharp. I have two theories. One is the title of this post! That the Google day has come and gone, and they have jumped the www shark. The second, far darker and evil! I think that maybe, just maybe it behooves google to make their regular, or organic results, not as reliable as their PAID results.

It’s estimated the VAST majority of people ignore paid results. We know Google is aware of this. They have tried changing the colors of the paid section, they have tried moving them around, etc. People are paying top dollar for those clicks, but not getting enough return because people ignore them. BUT…if Google slowly makes the organic results sketchy…and the PAID inclusions better…people may slowly migrate to the paid results, and the organic will be looked at the way google ads are on other sites now..

Hmmmmm….. What do you think?

My workaround in this case was to build additional pages and navigation built into the existing footer. The Penn Foundation Recovery Center is a drug rehabilitation facility most concerned with exposure in a geographic radius of their eastern Pennsylvania location. Their greatest organic optimization goal was that terms like “Drug Rehab” or similar abuse phrases, (alcohol rehab, cocaine abuse, heroin detox, etc.) would place well in search rankings when coupled with the towns and cities in a given radius of their drug rehab center (Sellersville, PA).

Their most glaring initial problem was that they did not make mention of specific drugs, or any of these geographies in their copy. The copy read a lot like their printed material that opted for a softer more vanilla language to describe addiction and the circumstances around it. This type of language works great in their beautiful printed brochure. Web searchers however use exact terms, and exact drugs in ways that were not used in the web sites copy. The nuance of this optimization effort would be to leave the text that they liked, as they liked it, but find a way to add the meaningful text that could come up in engines.
I always make an effort to add any copy in a way that is not stuffing keywords to trick engines, but to build on, or build around existing copy, a new web narrative that more accurately tells the web sites story using keywords it might not have used, or might not have used effectively enough. To me, that seamless inclusion of new keywords into the site, without “keyword stuffing” is what good SEO is all about.

In the case of Penn Foundation Recovery Center, my on road to entering the needed text was a program they call, “Rehab at Home.” In addition to being a differentiator for them to most rehabs, this was also why they were eager to come up in searches involving towns near them. They wanted families searching for treatments in towns near them to not only know they existed, but to know that discreet treatment was also available in their homes. To that end, I designed a footer for the site that alerted the user that the PFRC was a Drug Rehab conveniently located near Bucks, Berks, Lehigh and Montgomery Counties in PA. Each of those pages was designed to have a brief overview of the facility, and a blurb that alerted the web visitor that rehab was also available in the home in the “following cities.” The cities of the corresponding counties for each page were listed on four web pages. I succeeded in adding the important text that was missing from the site in a way that was both meaningful, and not keyword stuffing.

The results have been even better then I expected. When I began optimization the site was barely indexed and was getting very few organic keyword searches (11). Now? After only a few months the site gets visits from hundreds of keywords (300+) and places on the first or second page of Google for the vast majority of the time when a web searcher places a geographic term and a rehab phrase into an engine. The bounce rate is a meager 30% and the average visit to the site is over 2 minutes. Good qualified traffic with a minimal impact on the existing site. Not too shabby!