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Wish your site ranked higher in google search results? Wish you knew more about how to make this happen?
Google just released their own SEO report card that grades their own websites on key factors relevant to ranking well in search results. This report highlights the on-site SEO issues that they look at and gives some great insight into how they use these factors within google search results.
If you’re looking for a better understanding of what you can do to improve your on-site SEO, they provide a treasure trove of information… so much so that I copied the SEO Report Card to a google doc so it will load quicker for you’all.
I’ve been playing with Google Buzz for a few days now and I know I must be missing something *big* because the ONLY thing I’ve found interesting about it so far is that by connecting with a bunch more people on the google platform, I now get more articles showing up in my Google Reader.
The whole service feels really kludgy and doesn’t pass the would-my-family-use-this-tool test… and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t use it to share personal stories, organize events, upload photos, etc, like they do now. My gut tells me it has potential to be a popular tool among the tech-crowd along the lines of twitter thanks to slick mobile integration, geolocation features, etc., but it’s missing way too many of Facebook’s “connecting” features like photos sharing/tagging, video sharing/tagging, groups, etc., for it to really be a mass-appeal social network.
However, with that said, David Gibbons obviously has a different take. He tweets:
Hi Dustin, I’m feeling kind of the same way as you. I am not a Gmail user, so I had no existing network to leverage (or expose!). A few things struck me about Buzz initially: the integration with Reader was interesting from a content sharing perspective, but it changes the whole sharing model for Reader, at least for me. I had previously had Reader set to share with only two people on a very private basis. Managing the sharing permissions between Buzz and Reader was clumsy to say the least and it took some time to get the settings right. I would change permissions in Reader but Buzz would not recognize the changes.
The other thing that really struck me was the mobile version of Buzz. To me it seemed to make Buzz as much of a play against Yelp! and Foursquare as it is against FB. Obviously Google wants a good slice of that mobile location-aware ad revenue. The location awareness of the mobile app is pretty nice and I like the notion of the Buzz overlay in Google maps (at least as an idea). I use Google maps on my iPhone and if I could easily drill-down within Maps to Yelp and Foursquare quality user-generated content that could be a bonus…
The thing that really blew my mind was that updates from the mobile app use your exact street address if there is not an existing Place nearby. CREEPY! When I first loaded the app, allowed it to use my location, and clicked “Nearby” I saw a bunch of folks posting updates from the houses around me, including some young looking teenagers. I really doubt they realized that they were publishing their home addresses. There wasn’t much talk about this in the initial “buzz” about privacy issues, but it is something that Google needs to address if they haven’t already.
The general challenge for me with email and social media is my ability to manage it from a time and attention standpoint. There are just too many channels. Perhaps if I was on Gmail and Buzz was functioning as more of an aggregator there might be more appeal, but right now I’m not feeling it. Not to mention the fact that FB, the 800lb gorilla, is still unaddressed. A simple substitute will not get folks to switch from FB. there is going to have to be a really compelling, easy to communicate benefit, and I don’t think Buzz has delivered that.
The idea being I can create my own URL shortener for any site on my domain. Here’s the link to the app using my service: http://z.4realz.net/oyhwh. It’s pretty darn simple, track clicks and appears to have an API architecture. So far, so good…
As far as I know I have no need for my own URL shortener, but it was just so darn easy… I’m now the proud owner of “u.pdat.es” (pretty slick name, huh?). So, now I can use URLs like this: http://u.pdat.es/wemgt to point to any url on the web!
Interesting… There’s been some talk that it’s taking google buzz quite a while to index tweets, but I just notice that it picked up my previous blog post nearly instantaneously. I hit publish on the post, went over to Google Buzz, hit refresh, and my blog post was there. Impressive.
Chad Hallberg mentions 2 things he likes about Google Buzz… I only like one thing so far and it’s related to one of his points. I REALLY like that I’m now following a bunch more folks in Google Reader. I’m finding a constant stream of great posts that I never would have uncovered. I’m sure someone also tweeted many of these posts, but with all the noise on Twitter, I’m finding the “people you follow” to be the best way to find interesting and eclectic posts from around the web.
Maybe this filter of better posts via crowdsourcing (for lack of a better word) on Google Reader will finally get me over the hump of really using GReader as much as I should. I’ve kept myself blissfully ignorant from so much of the noise because I could never quite figure out a way to really bust through the noise and distill things down to just the top stories.
Yeah… Even if someone just used that one feature of google reader, it would only take a few minutes a day and there’s always new and interesting articles in there.
Things have been pretty quiet around here lately as I’ve been just swamped with work. The work is really good stuff and I’ve been getting my hands dirty in all kinds of interesting projects. I’m not ready to say who any of my clients are, but I’ve currently got some really interesting clients (almost none of whom are in the real estate space) and loving the work.
Anyway, for reasons I’m not ready to get into, I’ve been playing with Seesmic for the past few days and having a lot of fun with it. If you don’t know, Seesmic is an online video community where folks get together to chat. The potential is pretty darn high and it really doesn’t take long to connect to other folks.
All of which leads me to the video that I just posted on Seesmic… I called it Geeking with Gmail and spend a few minutes talking about how I’ve been using gmail to keep my email-life organized. Maybe you’ll find it interesting/helpful.
Geeking with GmailGiving some tips… and looking for your ideas.
And because I mention it in the video, here’s a link where you can sign up for the free hosted version of Google App.
By the way, if you have a webcam and want to test Seesmic out, things are set up so that you only need to leave a video comment on this post to take part! (Click on the “Add a video comment with Seesmic” option at the bottom of this post!)
Ah Brad… you look great in your late-night comfortableness… When I recorded the video, I was thinking of it as a blog post, so I didn’t occur to me to put a warning out there… but if I’m breaking some seesmic etiquette, just let me know!
Yes it could but I didn’t like it.
The syncing of outlook/exchange is FAR above anything else out there.
The syncing of outlook/windows mobile/iPhone/blackberry/palm from the exchange server just can’t be matched. When using exchange and syncing to multiple computers/phones it just can’t be beat when everything is on every device you own including a Mac with Outlook or entourage
It just works. Even Jobs himself acknowledges the great job that Exchange can do, thats why it’s on the iPhone 2.0
I tried going to gmail and I just didn’t like it. That doesn’t mean you won’t like it. It just wasnt for me. I’ve been using Exchange for 11 years now. and for the price I pay i will not dump it
I’m gonna have to disagree with Loren here… I’ve been using Google Apps email (the hosted version for business), for a while now and even set up multiple clients on the service and no one has looked back. It’s infinitely easier to customize and google does a great job giving admins access to the backend where you can set up email accounts, share documents, share calenders, and a bunch of other things that you’d have to be a coder to do with exchange.
It really is much easier to set-up and configure and the fact that the price is free makes it pretty darn difficult to imagine that I’d ever go back to outlook.
Also, be weary of comparisons between gmail and Outlook, but instead look towards the google apps version of gmail: http://www.google.com/a/ which gives you just about all the flexibility of outlook with a much easier to manage interface!
Google Apps is good and I have set it up for many of my clients. Google apps works good with blackberry from what i have heard. I do not like having to use 3rd party utils to sync up windows mobile with Google Apps.
Kevin,
Either way to really find out if Google Apps is for you, you have to set it up and try it.
I’m going to disagree too. IMAP pretty much does everything you need for email, but if you’re 100% hooked on exchange, nuevasync does the rest. I use it to wirelessly sync my Google calendar, ical and iphone. It’s fantastic. Add to ical, wait 20 seconds, it’s on the iphone (and the other way around).
I may embarrass myself here but clearly, it won’t be the first time, so here goes…
I use Top Producer. *blush*
I have hated it for years but didn’t know what else to use. This video stream has helped immensely. I was about to start using Outlook but this helped me rethink that just a bit.
I’ve been using Google Apps (thx Loren) and still need to work on the filter process but I’m getting there. I also need to finish moving my contacts into my account.
I love, love the calendar. My assistant can access it and my husband can access it. I just started thinking about setting up my company’s calendar for all my agents to access. It’s color coded and I love that it syncs so easily to my Blackberry. That one feature, accessibility, makes all the difference in the world to me!!
I’m getting a little more tech savvy – one slow step at a time.
So glad you found this conversation useful! If you do transition to a gmail-only email, feel free to stop back by to let us know about any issues you may be having…
I have been on gmail for a couple of years now and I love it. Over the years Google has incorporated everything that you would need when managing your emails and your life. I recently started using it for business, and it couldn’t be easier. Everything is synced, shared, and accessible. There is nothing better!
We’ve been using Google Apps for our team here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It has been seamless in use with our blackberries, and outlook on our computers.
The ability to share calendaring and documents has made this the best decision for our team. And yes, the cost is unbeatable!
This is great information. I just have to say that I love gmail, the Google Calendar, and Google Docs. I also have Outlook at the office, and I do like outlook, but I like the google applications more. I really like how you can share the calendar and the docs with everyone. The docs especially help me for my blog.
Dustin
8:13 pm on September 1, 2008 Permalink
| Reply Tags: browser, chrome, geo, Google, release, spatial
I can’t imagine they’d release Chrome unless they felt they really had something new to offer. Just a thought, but it would be really cool if it replaced the base version of Google Earth so that we really could have a much more geo-spatial web.
Seems like Google needs the default setting to be Google. On IE they have to rely on people setting the default page or installing the tool bar.
A smart move by google. This is something they should have done long ago instead of some of the projects on this page http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/
Despite its Webkit roots, Chrome has a UI that wasn’t beaten with the Apple Human Interface Guidelines ugly stick like Safari for Windows was. If Google gives it a half decent debugger, get a good add-on ecosystem going, and fix more Webkit bugs than Apple has, it could gain some measurable market share.
I think it’ll easily beat Safari & Opera on Windows as the #3 web browser on Windows within 12 months. However, topping IE or Firefox is going to be a long tough slog. Webkit based browsers (both Chrome & Safari) are currently too rough around the edges compared to Firefox or IE to be a real threat in the next year.
If they throw enough engineers at it, it could be major player in a short time. Google has the brand and the engineering talent to compete with the leaders. Should be fun to watch!
Waco Moore 6:48 pm on February 14, 2010 Permalink |
Hi Dustin, I’m feeling kind of the same way as you. I am not a Gmail user, so I had no existing network to leverage (or expose!). A few things struck me about Buzz initially: the integration with Reader was interesting from a content sharing perspective, but it changes the whole sharing model for Reader, at least for me. I had previously had Reader set to share with only two people on a very private basis. Managing the sharing permissions between Buzz and Reader was clumsy to say the least and it took some time to get the settings right. I would change permissions in Reader but Buzz would not recognize the changes.
The other thing that really struck me was the mobile version of Buzz. To me it seemed to make Buzz as much of a play against Yelp! and Foursquare as it is against FB. Obviously Google wants a good slice of that mobile location-aware ad revenue. The location awareness of the mobile app is pretty nice and I like the notion of the Buzz overlay in Google maps (at least as an idea). I use Google maps on my iPhone and if I could easily drill-down within Maps to Yelp and Foursquare quality user-generated content that could be a bonus…
The thing that really blew my mind was that updates from the mobile app use your exact street address if there is not an existing Place nearby. CREEPY! When I first loaded the app, allowed it to use my location, and clicked “Nearby” I saw a bunch of folks posting updates from the houses around me, including some young looking teenagers. I really doubt they realized that they were publishing their home addresses. There wasn’t much talk about this in the initial “buzz” about privacy issues, but it is something that Google needs to address if they haven’t already.
The general challenge for me with email and social media is my ability to manage it from a time and attention standpoint. There are just too many channels. Perhaps if I was on Gmail and Buzz was functioning as more of an aggregator there might be more appeal, but right now I’m not feeling it. Not to mention the fact that FB, the 800lb gorilla, is still unaddressed. A simple substitute will not get folks to switch from FB. there is going to have to be a really compelling, easy to communicate benefit, and I don’t think Buzz has delivered that.