TP Designs Blog

It's not uncommon during a web design project for a client to ask for a design to “fill the entire screen.” The response to that request is: “Whose screen would you like to fill?” The appearance of a web page in a computer screen, or monitor, is dependent on a lot of things, not the least of which is the screen resolution at which the user has their monitor set. I took a look at the last couple of months of one of my higher traffic blogs, as I do on a regular basis, to see how my visitors are viewing the website.

Here are the results:

	Screen Resolution	Visits	Contribution to total:
1.	1280x800	1,041	14.53%
2.	1366x768	896	12.50%
3.	1440x900	726	10.13%
4.	1920x1080	702	9.80%
5.	1280x1024	670	9.35%
6.	1680x1050	630	8.79%
7.	1024x768	582	8.12%
8.	1920x1200	491	6.85%
9.	1600x900	272	3.80%
10.	320x480	125	1.74%

As you can see, screen resolution widths of between roughly 1300 and 1400 pixels are most common, with larger resolutions coming next, and the old 1024 x 768 standard making up less than 10 percent of the total. 800 x 600 is long gone. And 320 x 480? That's the iPhone, ranking number 10 at 1.74%.

So you can see that filling the user's screen is relative. Elastic designs can be used to some extent to resize the page to fill screens at different resolutions, but this technique has limits. In the end, it is more important to have all of the content visible to users with low screen resolutions. That means that sometimes visitors will see background on the sides of your web content, especially if they have a large monitor set at a high screen resolution.

Gone are the days when Google would update it's ranking algorithm only semi-annually. On those momentus occassions the SEOs (search engine optimizers) would fill the forums with posts about which datacenters the new algorithm was showing up on, and what it was doing to their ranking. Google now updates its algorithm on an average rate of nearly one a day, if you are to believe Matt Cutts of Google. Many of the changes are minor, but some are significant enough, and noticable enough to be name, just like in the old days.

The "May Day" update, that showed up last month, in May of course, reportedly has had a significant effect on "long tail" traffic to some websites. Long tail traffic refers to traffic from search phrases consisting of more than three-words. Long tail searches are less competetive and have historically been much easier to rank well in. That may be changing. Google has been messing around with the long tail for some time, both in their natural search algorithm, as well as their Adwords pay per click algorithm. This is likely a move in the same direction, towards big brands and away from a more "democratic" Web.

I promote a number of Websites on Google and haven't noticed a drop-off in traffic, so "May Day" looks like a change that effects websites that get most of their traffic from the long tail. If it is a change that is truely aimed at improving the quality of search results by minimizing SPAM, I'm all for it. If it's a move designed to somehow push people towards larger companies who tend to provide Google with more income, as have been the majority of their updates recently, then it will result in lower quality search results. That has been the way Google has been drifting in the last couple of years. We'll see how this change plays out.

I received this notice last week, along with all other Google Adwords advertisers:

"Important changes to Google AdWords local business ads

Dear AdWords Advertiser,

We are writing to let you know that we’ll soon begin automatically transitioning the local business ads in your AdWords account. This email gives you an overview of the transition process and how you can enable location extensions, a new and improved way to run local ads and drive traffic to your stores.

What will happen to my account?
Over the next few weeks, any campaign containing local business ads will be automatically enabled with extensions using addresses from your local business ads. This means that any standard text ads in that campaign can show with one of your local business addresses when relevant to the user. You can visit our website to learn more.

In addition, your local business ads will be replaced with new ads that are individually associated with an “address override” to ensure the same behavior as the local business ads they replace. While your text ads in the campaign can serve with any of your addresses, each transitioned local business ad is tied to a single address and will only show to users near that address.

Please be aware that ads with address overrides offer limited flexibility compared to location extensions. Since locations extensions offer many new functionalities in comparison to local business ads, we encourage you to upgrade to location extensions as soon as possible to enjoy the full benefits of this new feature. Visit our website for a step-by-step guide on how to convert your local business ads to location extensions before or after the automatic transition.

We are committed to the success of your local business and value your feedback throughout this transition. Please feel free to share any comments you have related to the process.

The Google AdWords Team"

In short, if you do nothing, the local business ads in your adwords account will be transitioned automatically to "location extensions" with address overrides. The address overrides act to limit the display of your ad to within a 10 mile radius of the ad address. This is the same behavior seen with your local business ad, but it's a better idea to just create a new extension, and then delete the transitioned ad with the override. This effectively removes the display limit for the ad. For businesses with multiple locations (in Google Places) it also makes the address displayed dynamic, so instead of multiple local business ads, you need just one locations extension in your Adwords campaign.

The terms “Social media,” “Web 2.0,” “Twitter” and “Facebook” are saturating the media, and clogging our spam filters. How many emails or ads have you seen that said something like “Millions of people use Facebook every day. Don’t miss out on the advertising opportunity and get left behind?” In fact I regularly get inquiry from clients asking whether or not they should be on Facebook or Twitter. 

The basic strategy for marketing using social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, is to build an appropriate network of fellow users. Once you have that network setup you can post messages that will show up on the homepage of all those you are linked to. This can drive traffic to your main website, build your reputation, or just spread the word about your business.
 
For example a realtor could post something like “I have a 4bdrm house in the mission district for 800K” and then have a link to the listing on their website. You’d assume people following a realtor would be looking for a house, so that’s a convenient way of getting the word out for listings, and driving traffic to the main website.
 
A realtor is a good example of where Facebook and Twitter can be used effectively in the short term. People actively shopping for a house will tolerate, and even want, a lot of Tweets or postings in a short period of time. People looking for a house want that quick, timely information. Once they have made a purchase, however, they are likely going to “unfriend” the realtor, or at least turn his posts off.

Restaurants, bars, night clubs, and entertainment venues are other examples where social media can inform a large group of networked users, and that information will be welcomed. For these businesses, Twitter and Facebook are very appropriate and effective.

The use for promoting professional services is  a little less straightforward. If you just spam your contacts with business promotion, it isn't going to be long before you are unfriended. The use for this type of business is generally going to be creating Tweets on Twitter or posts on Facebook that point to a blog article. That blog article would need to contain useful information and then cross-sell your services. The Twitter stream could be posted automatically to Facebook, or you could create a similar Facebook posting manually, or you could included the blog’s RSS feed in your Facebook account. Which way you use will depend on how much control you want over the individual postings.

If you are selling products, again you would need to write some kind of useful content on a blog, and then cross-sell your product on the article page. 
 
The most common method to get followers on Twitter is to start following a lot of people. A certain percentage will reciprocate. Most of your followers will probably be marketers or other people trying to sell the same product or service as you. You can certainly place a "Follow Me on Twitter" link on your website or blog too. 
 
To get fans of your Facebook page, you can put the link on your website, and people clicking over to that page can become a fan by clicking a link.
 
To get a lot of fans, we would need to “suggest” the page to as many people on Facebook as possible. That could involve setting up a false persona and sending out a bunch of friend requests. Then once you have a good number of “friends,” you send out the invitation to join your business page as a fan. That is spamming, but unfortunately how it’s often done. Unless you have a throw-away business, that kind of practice is going to turn people off and lose you customers.

Actually buying ads on social networking sites is a not effective (link to article if I have it). I’d recommend search engine pay per click unless you are already maximizing your spend in that venue and have excess budget you want to throw at something.

The utility of using Facebook or Twitter to promote most businesses is overemphasized, primarily by SEOs or marketers who see it as a new angle to get some money from unsuspecting business people. The media hype surrounding Twitter and Facebook makes their proposals seem plausible, but in the end, it can end up being a big waste of time.

I’ve been creating websites for over 10 years now, and have had experience with a lot of web hosting companies. Often I get a client who thinks they are saving money by registering a domain and securing a hosting account themselves, before they contact me. Inevitably their hosting company is horrible, and we end up switching hosts at their expense, or I have to charge them a lot more to work around the inadequacies of the host they selected.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about web hosting companies over the years that may save you some pain and suffering:

Selecting a web hosting company:  Review sites are biased. Try to use a search engine to find a good web hosting company and you’ll get a bunch of review sites which rate web hosts and present you with a list of “the best.” The problem is that “the best” just happen to be the companies with affiliate programs the site owner belongs to. They get a cut of each customer who purchases hosting from the affiliated site.

If you want to narrow down your choice of web hosts, just search “[web host name here] sucks” or similar negative phrase. You’ll get a lot of interesting information.

Bundled Web Design / Web Hosting Packages: “Web solution” companies with cheap web design but significant monthly fees for hosting prey on people without a lot of knowledge of websites or the Internet. The cheap website will NOT be customized sufficiently for the business, and will look cheap. By the time the customer has figured that out, they have wasted a good deal of time and money. They are stuck with an ugly, user-hostile website and an overpriced monthly fee, or call it a complete loss and try again.

Hidden Web Hosting Nightmares: These are the things you only find out after you plunk down your money and upload your website.

• Super slow servers/network. 
• Buggy software
• Missing features
• Undisclosed limitations
• Incompetent, non-existent or slow customer support

Tips to Avoid Web Hosting Problems:

• Ask for recommendations. If you don’t have friends or business associates with relevant experience, go to a webmaster board and ask for recommendations. This may have to be offline if posting recommendations is against the board’s policy. Or just ask your web designer.
• Don’t base your decision on price and feature comparisons alone. That won’t  tell you anything. Sure the hosting package must include required features and be within your budget, but reliability and quality of support are the key differences between a horrible web host and a great web host.
• Search for negative comments on blogs or review sites. Keep in mind that people are more likely to complain than praise. There are a good number of people who are technically challenged and will blame a company for something that was caused by their own ignorance or unreasonable expectations. But once you start looking through the comments, you’ll get a pretty good idea about which companies are really rotten, and just out to rip off as many people as they can.