Web Design

Please update your WordPress Website

Posted in: Technology, Web Design, Wordpress by Paul McEwan on December 13, 2011 | 2 Comments

This is important information about your WordPress website. If your website runs on the WordPress Platform then you should know that every so often WordPress releases an update. We pass on the information to our clients. We believe you should know because as our client the maintenance of your marketing materials are important to us.

Keeping your website up-to-date is important for a number of reasons. One is security of your database and information and another is usefulness of the latest plugins and the browsers visitors use.

It’s much easier to stay instep with the updates than get behind. If you haven’t updated your WordPress platform for some time, it’s a good idea to check the comparability of your theme first.

The latest WordPress Version is called Sonny Stitt. The Version is 3.3 and it was released yesterday, December 12, 2011. You can update your WordPress website from the site’s back end. Please don’t forget to back-up your database first.

If you need help updating your WordPress Website, please contact us. We will:

• Back-up your data-base and store it in your folder.
• Perform theme compatibility check and report issues.
• Perform update to the latest version.
• Update all relevant plugins

We’re keeping our ear-to-the-ground for you. You keep on doing what you do best!

4 Reasons Your Website Doesn’t Work

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Creative, Design, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on November 7, 2011 | No Comments

“How do I get leads from my website?”

I am asked this all the time. I must sound like a nutty-internet-social-media zealot when I answer  those who have been successfully doing the old school sales thing for years and years without a real online presence. So sometimes my consultation is met with a glazed expression, silence at the other end of the phone or an email response about Mary Poppins; It doesn’t get very far and my creativity is superseded with the client’s own more excellent ideas. There are many reasons a website doesn’t work that are obvious from terrible design to poor content. That list is long. Here is a short basic list of how to hire someone to make a website that doesn’t work.

1. Place little value on creative marketing ideas involving the gain of website leads. Do not take any professional consultation seriously.
   Every business is different and every solution is different. Without an audit the quick answer to “Why isn’t my website working?” is always the same: Do the basics. Want to push past your competitors? Then for the love of all things don’t be just like them.
2. Spend as little as possible on the website marketing budget because it’s supposed to just get found in Google anyway.
   A nice looking store on the corner of a busy city street doesn’t always get the business it deserves if the sign isn’t clear, it looks closed, has no access and no parking. Whether it’s viral marketing or traditional marketing, at least have a plan. If the plan isn’t followed we’ll then know why the site didn’t work.
3. Have the website automated so you never have to touch it. Your phone number on the homepage should work.
   This is taking the view that the internet is not entirely real and a website is just a cost of doing business. Imagine walking into an open house where the agent is a cardboard cut out with a pasted on grin and a motorized arm waving  back and forth. The feature sheets are there with a “please take one” sign and we follow a roped off path through the home. Yea, it would work I guess.
4. Have the site created so it will be all things to all people. Avoid focusing on a target group of search terms.
   Specializing in Vancouver Real Estate is like a lawyer announcing they specializing in legal stuff. Come on. Have some balls and choose a market, geographic, demographic or caged monkeys. Choose it.

This internets stuff is a tough sell for some. Those who don’t like being on line, don’t have time for it or simply don’t care. They have been successfully doing the same thing for years. If they are in sales then it is probably a front loaded business which is to say, they have to jump through hoops, have meetings, drive people around, gathering documents and hold hands to get the sale closed. It’s a lot of free personal time with their clients before they close the deal and see any monetary gain. It’s no wonder the internet seems to contain little or no value to them. I understand this.

Just remember, online marketing is the most scalable choice for the small business. It’s measurable and most eyeballs start their search online for almost everything. Even if it’s something a prospect needs to see and touch in person before a final decision, the search will start online. Social media is getting easier for people to use – we are just at the beginning of what the internet might eventually be, and already is: A real space thick with engagement, communication and networking places.

Do you have a question or something to add? Please do so below or contact me today

3 Ways Video Tours Kill Business

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Real Estate, Technology, Web Design by Paul McEwan on August 14, 2011 | No Comments

Video has become popular in marketing real estate and so has the confusion around all the different offerings popping up all over the place.

I have a number of Youtube channels and a Vimeo Channel so I get your real estate home tour video updates as they are uploaded, if they are uploaded. So I go to your website to see how that same latest video is posted there. I click on the Video Tour Tab and notice that only an external link is offered to the video!!! Holey lost traffic Marketing Man! This blows me away!

Curiously, like a cat smelling it’s own up-chuck, I click the video link to see where it goes. As expected it opens a new window away from your website.  I am now on some butt-ugly video company’s website looking at your listing! Why? What kind of nincompoopish reasoning is behind taking me away from your website? Did you know you can display a video right in the listing’s details without sending people away from your site?

Link to Butt-Ugly Video Tour Website

I know what’s happened. You were sold the full java script enabled video package complete with galleries and mortgage calculators and map views and more; You already have all that available at your own website! Why pay for it twice?

Look, all you need is to embed the video into your website. And here are 3 reasons why…

Water Down your SEO Juice:

If you link to another site with your listing then there are now two website domains with that listing dividing up the Search Engine Optimization. Your website and the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website and I am sure Butt-Ugly Ltd is very happy about all that traffic. Without you, they would have no traffic. Don’t let them sell this the other way. I bet they said something like “we’ll link it to your website so you’ll get more traffic”. No, not the case. I have also seen these sites without a link back.

Allow Your Customers to Drift away:

Many times I notice that the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website offers all the same tools that your website has. Let your buyers discover the tools on your site so they can keep searching there. Don’t let your website visitors think (even for an instant) that your site doesn’t offer these tools. It looks like they are selling the listing and you are their assistant contact person.

Let them Mess up Your Visual Branding:

Your visual branding is completely different on the Butt-Ugly Video company’s website that you just sent your buyers to. Oh sure they add your name and throw up (pun intended) your mugshot but it’s their brand they are wrapping you around and it never works.

A couple of other things to consider

When a customer comes to your website and clicks the video tour tab, they really expect to see the video. No really. They expect that because every site can have video – including yours. If Butt Ugly Videos Ltd tells you their video tours can not be embedded, end the conversation.

Using something like Youtube to serve your video from is terrific because it is a strong social sharing website that is linking into your website. The video can remain after the listing is gone. Also, savvy users and newbies alike expect to see your videos there. The ability for them to comment, “like” and subscribe is very powerful and goes a long way to creating a tribe of followers.

How to solve this

Some video companies have different packages and perhaps they have a cheaper price for not offering the separate Butt-Ugly website.  I know that there are scripts needed to display some of these 360 degree tours that can not be embedded. My answer to that is don’t bother with it because nothing is going to replace seeing the home in person. All you need is a video so buyers will want to schedule a viewing in person and make an offer. I’m not seeing “Buy Now” buttons beside listings yet.

The best thing to do is save yourself some money and find a person who has a camera and some video editing skills. They make a video – you uploaded it to Youtube and simply embed the video into your website. Award winning music videos have been shot with less.

If you need help with any website administration please let me know. We do Web administration also becoming known as Virtual Website Assisting and used to be called Web Mastering.

Comments are appreciated!

Update WordPress to 3.0

Posted in: Blog, Technology, Web Design by Paul McEwan on June 21, 2010 | No Comments

This was an email sent to me from Matt, the creator of WordPress and some of you may have already got it.

You’ve probably already seen the notice in your dashboards, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet:

http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

3.0 is faster, stabler, and more secure, so you can focus on what matters (your audience) and let the rest fade to the background.

Custom post types, MU merge, menu editor, Twenty Ten theme, over 1,200 bug fixes… there’s so much to enjoy in this new release, we’re really proud of it. It’s the best WordPress yet, and available for a limited time for only free ninety nine.

Tell your friends, help them upgrade, write new themes that use the new features, spread the good word.

Please back up you database before updating. You can follow these instructions or contact us to have it done for you.

WTF is HTML 5

Posted in: Blog, Technology, Web Design by Paul McEwan on June 9, 2010 | No Comments

For those of us who learn by seeing, here is what html 5 is, what it will do and what browser works best with it – in a glance.

Featured by myRealPage

Posted in: Design, Real Estate, Technology, Templates, Web Design by Paul McEwan on May 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

When we toot our own horn it’s a week sound indeed. When someone else does it we can hear it for miles and we really appreciate the thought of someone doing so. myRealPage has done just that. Three times in fact. It about time we toot their horn. That is coming in a big way. myRealPage asks for no designer fees or designer sign up to build on their system. Take look at our featured websites on the myRealPage blog. Thanks myRealPage, always glad to help your clients get branded online.

• Ben Chimes website
• Alan M website
• Robert Britch website

Google Goggles and Real Estate

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on March 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

What is Google Goggles?
Imagine taking a picture of a house with your phone, submitting that picture to a Google search and getting all the listing details on it. That’s what Google Goggles will do.

Thanks to the ever advancing Google, you can now search the web by taking a picture of the item you want to know more about. While this technology is in its infancy, in 2 years it will be full blown so the question is: What does this mean for Real Estate?

Image searching. It’s not new and it works by analyzing the image name and alt tags given to the image within the HTML code. What is new is the ability to take a picture and submitting it to a search – That will affect real estate.

What are image names and alt tags?

Image Names
If you upload an image with a name DC0023854.jpg blind luck will produce any search results. Changing the image names to something like 103-548-main-st-vancouver.jpg has a much better chance of being indexed by search engines and found by someone, which hopefully leads back to your website

Alt Tags
Alt tags are descriptions written into the HTML. You don’t need to know HTML to add Alt tags. When you upload images to Facebook, flickr or Picasa (and almost any image hosting site), there is an area to add tags and many times a description.

Surprising how many images from the MLXchange describes itself as “exterior front” (the default). Please change this to the appropriate room at least. Add to the description in the MLX to help yourself further. Put the address or who it’s listed by or even your website in that additional description area. The question remains whether or not the MLXchange is adding these descriptions into the HTML as Alt tags. We know for sure that it renames the pictures. For now, who cares, let’s get used to doing this and hope the MLX will change.

Here’s the result
When someone (anyone using Google) types in a particular address of a house to get info on it, the idea is to have your listing images show up first. In the future, (a few years away), when someone takes a picture of that house for information on it, your information will show up.

It’s important to note: Adding text on the image via Photoshop (or image editing software) does not help at all.

If you feel like geeking out on this subject, read more about it here:
http://www.realestateseopros.com/blog/seo-news/google-goggles-for-real-estate-coming/

Don’t forget to contact us if you need any help with this or anything else.

Handling duplicate content

Posted in: Blog, Hosting News, Web Design by Paul McEwan on March 10, 2010 | No Comments

Trying to increase search engine relevance by duplicating content within a website is an old trick that search engines figured out a long time ago. In those days some SEO people went so far as to duplicate and publish the website hundreds of times with links all point ot one final landing page at the real site. If you try that today, it will not only fail but it will set you to the back of the SEO bus. When building a new website or signing up to a template site where all the content is provided (and therefore duplicated hundreds of times), sooner or later handling the duplicate content needs to be dealt with. How do we do this? Let me count the ways.

If you are signing up to a site where all the content is provided then please edit it all. Every last bit. No time? Hide the pages you will come back to later.

If you have a high traffic web site receiving most of the visits and another one you are planning to move to as a new re-designed website, (giving it a new URL and a fresh new look),  then you don’t want to lose all that traffic from that old site. But you can’t keep both sites online because they will have duplicate content and that is something often penalized by search engines. How do you proceed?

The best practice is to do a 301 redirect. The 301 message on the Internet is handled by the search engine as: moved permanently. Here is how you can make a 301 redirect for your web page:

With PHP:

The code needs to be placed in the Header section of the website, so that the search engine can read it first.

Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );

With .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^old\.php$ http://www.domain.com/new.php [R=permanent,L]

The code above will direct all the traffic from the old.php to the new.php page.

With the rel=”canonical” directive:

If you run an online store and want to sell a custom made handbag, which is available in several colors, and decide to dedicate a separate page on your site for each color, then you have about 3 or 4 identical pages. You can use the rel=”canonical” element to direct all traffic to the page with the most popular color.

This will lead a search engine to point all the traffic from the similar pages to the page you have specified. This code needs to be placed in the header section of all the web pages you wish to lead somewhere else.

With the URL Redirection Manager in the Web Hosting Control Panel:

If you don’t like to meddle with code, or with new file creation, or anything like that, you can use the handy URL Redirection Manager available with all our shared web hosting plans, where a simple web interface will allow you to choose which pages to be redirected and what redirection code to be used.

Don’t forget to contact us if you need any help with this or anything else.

Click here to add SEO

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on January 6, 2010 | No Comments

Adding Search Engine Optimization [SEO] to a website isn’t as simple as pushing an “Add SEO button“. If there happens to be anything like “click here to add SEO” on your website you can rest assure it’s a marketing thing. Even if it works, developing a website so that the SEO can be turned on or off is all about up-selling. It gives third party sellers something to give away as incentive.

From a marketing point of view it’s smart but it feeds on what people don’t know about SEO.

It would be like an electrician wiring your house but wanting more money for the light switches to work.

We Host WordPress Websites

Posted in: Blog, Web Design by Paul McEwan on January 2, 2010 | No Comments

We host websites, in particular, WordPress websites. We’ve been hosting for some time but have kept it under our hat because it’s an added service we provide. Not a money making venture we want to market. If you design for a living then the websites you design better have a good place to live.

When a client comes to us with a need for a website we have our own place to publish it, support it, renew it and look after it. Our hosting is one of the best out there with 24/7 support 365 days of the year, video tutorials and free scripts including Worpress which works correctly without any server configurations.

We are so happy with our hosting we just couldn’t keep it under our hats any longer and have even started a new news section for it at http://tribalyell.com/category/blog/hosting-news.

We are so happy with our hosting we’re going to open the doors for self serve sign-ups. Stay tuned for the public sign-up section.