 SEO
News From StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, May 19th, 2004
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| Highlights
of the Week: Worlds 1st Accessible Search Engine
- YouSearched.Com |
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The power
of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless
of disability is an essential aspect." Tim
Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide
Web
StepForth, (working quietly behind the scenes)
is proud to be a part of the team that is introducing the
world's first accessible search engine for people with disabilities, YouSearched.Com.
The search tool was developed by UK based philanthropist and
entrepreneur Khalid Karrar, with technical assistance
provided by StepForth CEO, Ross Dunn.
Developing an accessible search engine means
ensuring that anyone using screen readers or refreshable braille
devices will be able to fully operate YouSearched.Com,
as will disabled users who do not use pointing devices.
The introduction of an accessible search engine opens the
Internet to a growing segment of our society whose use of
the web has been generally limited by non-accessible search
tools. YouSearched.Com also benefits Internet users with older computers and those
in developing countries who tend to use text-only browsers
in a bid to save bandwidth costs.
YouSearched.Com is both a search engine and a directory with topic categories
ranging from Art to Travel & Transport listed below the
keyword text-box. Each directory category has a large 150x150
pastel icon above 18pt. descriptive text. Each category in
the directory has several sub-categories listed, allowing
searchers to drill down from the very general to the very
specific information sites. Each link from YouSearched opens
in a new window ensuring that users do not lose their initial
search results as they move from one site to another.
The site layout has been designed to use
oversized images with bright pastel colours and extra large
font for people who have difficulty viewing pictures or making
out traditionally smaller sized fonts. Visitors using a screen-reader
will have the text on their monitor read to them with an approximation
of the location where various links can be found on the page.
Visitors using a braille device will have the contents of
the site printed for them in braille. Visitors who have less
severe visual impairments should be able to read the oversized
font and make out changes in colour and texture of the large
image icons. Even the keyword text-box is larger than normal
with 24pt, bolded font.
Populating an accessible search engine can
be more difficult than actually creating one. Results are
currently purchased from the UK based paid-placement search
tool E-Spotting,
however most websites are not designed to be accessible. Until
the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C) mandates accessibility as a validation
requirement, site developers and designers may not be aware
of the positive impact of accessible design techniques.
According to StepForth CEO Ross Dunn, "This
experience has been an eye-opener for me. Before this project
began I only had an inkling of what accessibility meant. Now,
however, I can see the importance of accessible web design
and I plan on not only implementing it on StepForth's network
of sites but to recommend it to all our clients. It looks
like our accessibility expert at Rose Rock Design, Lee Roberts, will be getting
a lot of work in the future!"
YouSearched.Com has been in beta testing for about two months and has received
endorsements from the Royal
National Institute for the Blind. By meeting or exceeding
accessibility standards as set out by the W3C, Watchfire's
Bobby Guidelines, and the US Federal Government (section
508 guidelines), the development team at YouSearched.Com has created an extremely useful search tool that may help
bring higher standards to web development in the future and
truly make the web an accessible environment for everyone. |
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Important ©Copyright Note: readers are welcome to republish the content from StepForth Weekly newsletters
but we do require credit in the format that follows: "Article by <author>, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc." |
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Major
Player Updates: Google Going Toe To Toe with
Microsoft and Yahoo |
Google made two major announcements today, both of which are
designed to increase the pressure on competitors MSN and Yahoo.
The first will have the greatest impact in the long-run and is directed
at Microsoft. The second ups the ante in the current Email-offering
battle between GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.
GOOGLE TO CREATE DESKTOP SEARCH TOOL
Google announced the development of a desktop based search tool
that sounds an awful lot like the plans for Microsoft's new operating
system Longhorn. Due to be released in early-mid 2006, the Longhorn
operating system is said to fully integrate search with the O/S,
making any file your computer has ever accessed a searchable document.
These files would include items from your hard drive, corporate
Intranet and the common Internet. The idea behind the move was to
a) create a better operating system that allows users to find information
from a far greater range of documents, and b) to take large amounts
of market share away from other (non-MS) search tools. Google is
trying to counter this threat by introducing its own desktop based
system that will have similar features to those found in Longhorn.
According to today's technology section of the New
York Times which broke this story, the new software is being
code named "Puffin". (subscription to NYTimes
required) As Google made this announcement this morning,
there has (thus far) been no response from Microsoft.
GOOGLE FLOATS IDEA OF OFFERING ONE TERABYTE OF STORAGE
FOR GMAIL
This story sounds too absurd to be true but, from all accounts,
it is. In a bid to be bigger than the next search tool, Google is
considering offering a full terabyte of storage for GMail users.
What users would do with so much room is beyond me, given that a
terabyte is about four times larger than most modern hard drives.
For the record, a terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes. Hard drive sizes in
most new computers tend to range between 80 - 200 GB.
STORY UPDATE (lucky we're late this
week)
Well,
apparently the story was too absurd to be true. According to Google
the buzz was over a bug in their system. Questions remain as to
how buggy the system actually was. Just before the terabyte rumours
started, Lycos announced that it too offered 1Gig of Email storage
space. Perhaps Google was just trying to take a bit of the press
away from Lycos. Whatever happened, it worked as the 'web has been
abuzz with stories about GMail.
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| PPC
Tips : Google and Image Ads |
For some time now Google’s publishing partners
and advertisers have been requesting image based advertising through
the AdSense and AdWords programs, and Google is listening.
Currently still in Beta, Google has introduced image ads into its
AdSense / AdWords program.
Much like traditional Google AdWords ads, image ads will be displayed
based on associated keyword targets, however, will only be shown
on content sites. Webmasters participating in the AdSense program
will have the choice to display text ads, or a combination of text
and image ads. Google will automatically determine weather it thinks
an image or text ad is more likely to generate revenue and serve
up according. Currently webmasters do not have the ability to display
only image ads, but as the program grows and more and more advertisers
begin using images, Google will likely allow this option.
Google image ads are available in 4 major, traditional formats,
468x60, 728x90, 120x600 and 300x250. These are only accepted in unanimated
.jpeg, .gif, or .png formats and are limited to 50K in size. (examples)
AdWords advertisers, when creating new ads, have the option of uploading
an image instead of creating text ads. At the bottom of each image
the destination URL will be made visible along with a link to a
Google feedback form on the relevancy of the ad.
Image ads are restricted to contextual ads on content sites and
Google says there are no plans on using image ads at Google.com.
Not long ago the popularity of banner ads slipped with the rise
in text-based advertising. Google image ads are not much different
then the traditional banner ads, with the exception of the lack
of animation. Just how well they’ll do is anybody’s
guess, and I for one, am interested to see the outcome. This just
may trigger a strong comeback in banner advertising.
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Not to Miss! Software Feature |
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| In the Client Spotlight
this Week: Simple Term Insurance |
Affordable Term Life Insurance with NO Medical Exam!
StepForth client, SimpleTermInsurance.Com's mission is to provide
hassle free, cost efficient cheap term life insurance for the protection
of your family or business. Licence in almost every state in the
USA, Simple Term Insurance offers RBC ExpressTerm (sm), providing
coverage for a specific period of time. Depending on age you can
apply for 10,15 or 20 year intervals. Rates are denoted by age bracket,
tobacco status, and gender.
If you have been looking for a fast, affordable, smart, simple
solution to your term
life insurance needs, check out SimpleTermInsurance.Com |
| Weekly
Quick Tip: Big Nets Catch Many Fish |
For the past two weeks I have covered the
topic of keyword research. If you are a new subscriber or
didn’t get a chance to read the last articles they can
be found online. They covered:
In this crucial first step in the optimization there is an
additional aspect of choosing your keywords that has yet to
be covered and that is how to choose multiple keyword phrases
to target in a single promotion.
Let’s take for example a baby shoes company. Having
recently done a review for a fantastic baby shoes manufacturer
I noticed that there were many different phrases that could
be targeted from “baby shoes” and “kids
shoes” to “baby booties” and “booties”.
So how do we choose the phrases to target?
One might start under the assumption that choosing those
with the highest number of searches would be the obvious choice.
There are two reasons why this may not be the case. The first
was brought up the last
week’s article in which it is pointed out that the
various competition levels must be considered. The second
reason is specific to those who wish to target multiple keyword
phrases in a single promotion.
While it is possible to rank for completely separate phrases
(for example: “baby shoes” and booties”)
if you wish to target multiple phrases in a single promotion
you will have much greater success if you choose phrases with
a common thread. What is meant by this is that if you can
choose a single keyword that ties multiple phrases together
(the word “shoes” or “baby” for example)
you will find that you have a much greater level of success.
This is for a number of reasons.
First, the search engines are becoming smarter. They are
looking for common threads among the pages of your website.
If they visit one page that focuses on the phrase “baby
shoes” and find that through the rest of your site there
is little on no mention of either of those words again then
the relevancy of those words (as far as the search engines
are concerned) is very low. If you have targeted phrases with
a common word across your site however (“baby shoes”
and “baby booties”) and keep the word “baby”
mentioned consistently throughout your website this will build
a relevancy for this keyword and also the keyword phrases
you are targeting.
An additional benefit in this approach is in the building
on links to your website. The text that is used to link to your site (called “anchor text”) also builds the relevancy of those specific keywords on your site.Thus, if
the anchor text to your site reads “baby shoes”
and you are targeting “baby booties” on a separate
page the relevancy of the word “baby” is further
reinforced through the links and will additionally benefit
the targets on other pages.
On the other side of that, if you are targeting completely
different phrases the links to your site will have far less
relevancy for the other phrases and you will either have to
additionally build links using different keywords or suffer
the reduced rankings that will be attained.
So do your research, find multiple phrases with a common
thread, and cast a big net. One targeted phrase per page should
be your limit and keep them related. Do this right and you’ll
find a lot of fish jump right into your net. 24 hours a day,
365 day a year.
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| The
Net Reality: Who Wrote Linux? US Think tank
says it wasn't Linus... |
In a report to be issued very soon, the Washington
DC based think tank, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, claims
that Linus Torvalds is not the original author of the open-source
movement's premier software. According to the president of the
Institution, Kenneth Brown, Linux was created on the back of,
"...intellectual property often taken or adapted without
permission from material owned by other companies and individuals."
According to the EWeek
article from writer Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Torvalds' response
to the allegation is,
"OK, I admit it. I was just a front man for
the real fathers of Linux: the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. They
(for obvious reasons) couldn't step forward to admit that they
had gotten bitten by the computer bug and had been developing
a series of operating systems on their own during the off-season.
"But when they started with Linux (which they originally
called Freax—they do feel like outsiders, you know, and
that's a whole sad story in itself), they felt that they could
no longer just let it languish in obscurity.
"They started to look for a front man, and since Santa Claus
is from Finland, and thus has connections to Helsinki University,
and the Easter Bunny claimed, 'He's got good ears, if a bit small,'
I got selected.
"Since then, I've lived a life of subterfuge, always afraid
that somebody would find out the truth. I'm actually relieved
that it's over, and that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
has finally uncovered the lie. I can now go back to my chosen
profession, the exploration of the fascinating mating dance of
the aquatic African frog."
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do not hesitate to call the StepForth staff:
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