Read one Irish entrepreneur's blog as she operates a business in Dublin
How's your Ontological Content?
March 28, 2006
It's something that you need to be aware of for good search engine rankings going forward. Ontological analysis of content is something the search engines are likely to move towards in the near future. Rather than simply picking up your main content keywords, they will also be checking for keywords that relates to them.
For example, if your main keywords are "mortgages", then it's highly likely that words such as "interest rates", "deposit", "property" would also appear on your pages.
In the future, search engines will reward those websites with a higher ranking than those that excessively repeat just "mortgages."
With ontological analysis, websites that speak of not only the main keywords but other relevant words can expect higher rankings. What does this mean for you? Same message as always - write your content for your audience and not for the search engines. The more naturally written content will see greater results. And that's good because it's also great for the site visitor.
This was the main point I picked up from reading an article on how to predict search engine algorithim changes by John Metzler.
Dreaming of Site Maps II
March 27, 2006
I've been known to dream of site maps - long frustrating nights not filled with sleep but featuring me winding my way around site maps in a never-ending maze. Kind of like living in a Pac Man game.
Now my site map dreams have taken on a new level. I've managed to break out of the 1980's arcade game style and live in a list of unending possibility! The latest dream type sees me making lists of functionality that must be included in this big ecomm site I"m building...
The endless possibility that Ruby on Rails facilitates has been on my mind recently. And I get excited when I learn more about Web 2.0 and all the good stuff around that coming out of (mainly for now) the States. I just wish it would leave me alone in the night time and I could go back to Zzzz's.
Want to hear what I've got to say?
March 23, 2006
Well if you're a woman, and you're near enough to Dublin on 10 April, come along to the Dublin City Enterprise Board Women in Business Networking meeting where I will be presenting on how to maximise your website's potential.
You can read more about the event here, but it should be good not only from a content point of view, but also from a networking one too. By the way, the chick in the white on their site isn't me. Unfortunately.
Resultarama!
March 22, 2006
Not being one to brag (ahem!), I'm delighted to report that a pay per click campaign that went live this morning for a client has already generated a first potential piece of business! Campaigns went live around 11am, and I just telephoned the client there to let him know how the first day went, and he told me that someone who he doesn't know who stated they found him on Google called him.
Other good news today is that we signed up not 1, but 2 new clients. Both of them for website redesigns, plus an email marketing campaign for the other. We're delighted to have them on board.
And while we're at it - Heidi is working on a rather cool Flash piece for a site that we're working on at the moment, and it's really cool. I'll of course link to it when it's love, but it's the best Flash map you've ever seen.
Sweet.
(And summertime starts on the weekend. .. oh my I think I'm going to expire with the happiness of it all!)
Happy St Patricks Day!
March 16, 2006
Here's a jolly greeting that we did for a client in conjunction with our new animation partner, Kavaleer Productions.
Happy St Patricks Day. To all the Irish and wanna be's around the world!
Trip to Mars Anyone?
March 14, 2006
Google has just released a Google map of mars. In commemoration of Percival Lowell's birthday (he wrote and sketched a lot of our early knowledge of the red planet), Google launches a new site that allows us to explore Mars in three different ways:
- an elevation map shows colour-coded peaks and valleys
- a visible-imagery map shows what your eyes would actually see
- an infrared-imagery map shows the detail your eyes would miss
Go on! What are you waiting for? Space nerds - take flight!
Brightspark Whitelisted
March 13, 2006
for its use of the email messaging tool. Good news for clients as it means we don't have to build in extra time to have messages approved before send.
The US can-spam law requires multiple email messaging providers to physically check every email that they send out to make sure they're not spam. That's right - a human must read them all.
We have worked with this over the past couple of years since its introduction by building sufficient time into our campaigns to allow for approval cycles. Now, however, we have been recognised as a white listed email sender and can now send emails on behalf of our clients without approval.
It's good news, but it just means that we won't be able to take on any rolex toting, meds marketing companies as new clients!
Where are you from?
March 09, 2006
Rather than who you are.
As readers from yesterday will know, I was hob nobbing it at the Dail bar yesterday evening.
I couldn't help noticing that the question on everyone's lips was 'where are you from?'. It reminded me of being in Oirish bars in Sydney, where certain people latch on to where you come from in this country as a means of finding out if you know people in common. I don't like it. Where I was born and the school I attended were beyond my control. The person I am now is a product of the life I have chosen to lead and the people and places that I have met along with the way.
Instead of where you from, it should be 'who are you?', in which case I could give a long and ponderous answers.
That said though, it was a great evening at Leinster House, and wow, what a building!
200th blog entry
March 08, 2006
Cause for triple celebration actually - 200 entries in this here blog dating back to 2003. Ah yes, the joy of it, back in the early days when I had time to think about the literary style of it, through to hazy days last summer when I was lucky to get 5 mins to post up the miserable "I am tired" style of entry.
Another cause for celebration is that it's International Women's Day and for once, I have somewhere to go! I'm off to the Dail for a tour of its inner workings, then for drinks in the Dail bar and dinner. Not normally the kind of place one would associate with women (more like men in grey suits) but it will definitely have an added splash of colour today as the women of Network Dublin congregate. I am delighted to be celebrating Int'l Women's Day in the first place, and with a group of talented business and arts women, more's the better.
[If you are a woman and you're reading this make sure you give yourself a little kindness today. Stop for just a second and marvel at what a great half of the human race we are....]
The third cause for celebration is the launch of the first website from Brightspark with our new Lead Designer, Heidi Jermyn, on the team! Heidi is an extremely talented designer who joined the Brightspark team only 3 weeks ago. In that time we have produced a gorgeous new website for a Transit Advertising Company.
Check out the Flash! Did I mention that Heidi is the Flash Queen of Dublin? She's so creative and talented, nothing is impossible, great attitude too. How did I find such a gem? Well, whenever I heard any talk or mention of Flash amongst the network of designers that we use, Heidi's name always popped up. Just like Tom Waits is the muso's muso, Heidi is the Designer's Designer! And she's working for us! Expect more wonderful stuff out of us soon.
Writing for a Writer
March 02, 2006
The honour of it. An ex-journalist, with an award-winning screenplay under her belt, has been working with me on her web content.
I met Maggie Butler, the talented lady above, at a networking event. We got to talking and she told me she was experiencing some blockage when it came to writing content for her own site. Sound familiar? Definitely for me it was. It took almost 12 months of editing and re-editing content before the current Brightspark site was deemed fit for your consumption.
Maggie is a personal development consultant who has lots to offer those lucky enough to be her clients. Apart from the literary background mentioned, she also worked for years as a psychotherapist, so brings all of that experience and knowledge into the equation.
We spent an enjoyable afternoon - snow falling gently outside, God bless the Irish spring weather - as I challenged Maggie with questions about who she's targeting with her new site, what services she offers, how she helps her clients work out how to live authentic lives. Maggie has all the answers inside herself already, it was just a case of asking the right questions and putting it into a structure.
That's what coaches do - so I was web coaching a life coach!
It also gave me another opportunity to reflect on what I do for a living. I love the fact that I get to work with people like Maggie and really think about issues facing her clients and how Maggie addresses them. Then, the very next day, I was concentrating on writing content for a transit advertising company.
Diversity is good.
If you would like to know more about Maggie and what makes her world tick, you can visit her blog. Her site isn't up yet, but I'll let you know when it goes live.