Government 2.0

I ran across this neologism for the first time while reading an interview by O'Reilly. The man came-up with web 2.0. I figured gov 2.0 had to be another revolution I did not want to miss. According to wikipedia, Government 2.0 is an attempt to provide more effective processes for government service delivery to individuals and businesses. Integration of tools such as wikis, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned. More on this topic as I continue investigating what it actually means for us.

Digital Assets Optimization - how little things such as PDFs can make a big difference in SEO

In a previous post, I discussed how all types of digital assets such as videos, documents, podcasts etc ... can help add relevant content to a company website and increase the web site visibility to search engine crawlers.

One of the things I discovered is Google can ready PDF almost the same way it reads HTML. Companies that have a lot of product sheets, technical documentation, white papers etc should be made available online.

According to Search Engine Land, there are a few tips to follow. Here's a summary:

1) PDFs must be text based

2) Add a title to the document properties

3) Optimize the copy (the same way you would optimize HTML pages, i.e. at least 300 words per PDF and watch out for keyword stuffing)

4) Include backlinks in PDF

5) Ensure the file is no too big so that Search Engine can read it easily. If necessary break the PDF into various elements

6) Have one or two sentences describing what the PDF is abut on the very top of the document

For more information, go to:

Google Adwords for Small Businesses

This insightful article from the New York Times is a great intro to Google Adwords (or paid search) for small and medium businesses. Anyone can create a paid search campaign by bidding on a handful of keywords. The danger is this space is highly competitive and small businesses should be looking at a more comprehensive campaign with thousands of longer, more specific keyword (keyword granularity). This will increase reach and minimize costs. Running a successful campaign takes a lot of time and expertise, as the author pointed out.

Inside Google Adwords

I just discovered this blog from the Google Adwords team. Good stuff.

This is what you can find

• The latest industry trends and information
• Google insights and news
• Relevant product information and updates

It gets a bit technical and for those of you who do not spend a few hours a week on Google Adwords, you may loose patience quickly. For the others, here's the latest article on Google new keyword tool.

Alexa gives you quick web metrics on the go!

From time to time, I receive inquiries from companies that do not have any analytics capabilities (Google Analytics, web trends, Omniture) embedded into their web site. Often, they do not have a good sense of who is visiting their web site, for how long, what are the referring sources and so on ... I found out there was a way to get these analytics without installing any code in any web site. Alexa.com crawls the web and consolidates basics analytics for the majority of web sites. This is what I gathered for the web site hotels.com:

1. About 1,000 visitors researched the web site yesterday (09.12.09)
2. They looked at 4.4 pages on average
3. The bounce back rate (i.e. how many people left the web site after landing on the home page) was 31.3%
4. Visitors spend on average 4.7 minutes
5. There are 2,824 inbound links to hotels.com
6. Keywords used to find hotels.com were: hotels.com, hotels, hotel, cheap hotels etc ...

Alexa.com also gives a set of visitor demographics:

The information is not as robust as let's say an Omniture report but this provides a good proxy to basic analytics. And it does not require installing any code into the web site. This is perfect for individuals who do not have access to companies sets of analytics.

Top 12 blog editing tips

I did some research recently as I wanted to create a blog etiquette for a project I am working on. This is a summary of best practices and personal experience blogging. Hope it is useful:

1. Be transparent. You are not blogging anonymously .

2. Be truthful. Honesty is the best policy when it comes to blogging. Be accurate, and above all, tell the truth.

3. Be yourself. Your personality should show through in your blog posts.

4. Share your excitement. The best blog posts display your emotions. If you are excited about something, don’t be afraid to show it.

5. Be kind. Make sure your criticism is constructive.

6. Don’t cut and paste. Create unique content.

7. Link strategically. You should try to link out to at least one other site in every post. This could be an example of the point you are making.

8. Ask questions. You should try to pose a question at the end of every blog post to encourage dialogue.

9. Check comments. Before blogging, make sure the topic has not been discussed already.

10. Spread the word. Look for ways to talk up our blog (newsletter, conversations etc.)

11. Newspaper test. Make sure your comment passes

12. Appropriateness. Some questions or comments may not be suitable for an open audience

Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens

This great article from the NYT talks about Twitter (and other social media) demographics. Suprizingly, just 11% of Twitter users are aged 12 to 17. The reporter challenges the idea that children are critical to new technology success. It also highlights how Twitter, which was initially built to stay in touch with friends is now becoming a platform to broadcast ideas or questions, or marketing a product.