This catchy rap song describes the basics of Search Engine Optimization. Here are the lyrics:

You want to start SEM, well here’s what to do
You focus on the product, then you find a niche too
You want to get the listing, I’ll give you some assisting
SEO and SEM, they are coexisting
To cover all the bases, you must have patience
Research all your keywords and your phrases
They all sound good, but they may not be effective
There are several ways to check it and I prefer word tracker

Very vague phrases should get denied, Long tail key phrases are more qualified
Check the CPC, that’s the cost per click
Make a judgment call, is it worth that hit
If it is then keep it, if it’s not then delete it
Stay within your budget, that’s not a big secret
Track your results, reportin’ is critical
And set your goals right be Google analytical

Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing
If your business local, make sure you do your targeting
The user only clicks on what sounds
Make sure you use very descriptive, antics
It’s a must that you use correct landing pages
If they see what they want, they easily persuaded
And when they convert, then that’s a win-win
When you sight the bookmark, they’ll come back again

CPC will go down, CTR will skyrocket
ROI get better, that’s more money in your pocket
And if you’re smart, you’ll invest in more phrases
But that’s up to you, I’m just giving you the basics
You gotta do fine, if you don’t hit rewind
Pay close attention, play it back another time
But that’s just a start, anymore might cost
I’ll have to deal with my boss, if I tell you the secret sauce

On how PPC can enhance SEO, and revolving antics, that’s the way to go
Uh-oh, that’s too much for you to know
So check the next video, if you want to get some more

Dreampod is excited to announce the acquistion of Adbasis, a search engine marketing & advertising website dedicated to promoting websites online. The acquisition will extend our online services skillset while improving service for existing customers. Our customers can now check their website rankings at http://adbasis.com/web_marketing.html for free and also get a complimentary web promotion diagnostic.

To improve our creative B2B services and develop our team, we joined AIGA in our pursuit to lead the design community, provide inspiration to and cultivate new designers, as well as make a difference in the local community. Being a part of an organization such as AIGA will ultimately help us improve our core business in:

We constantly strive to expand our body of resources in order to become a leading design firm. In addition, AIGA serves as a nexus for thought-leadership and activity for the design industry.

Dreampod’s other awards/organizations:

Hope Initiative’s marketing consultants, 2004-2007
Westwood College Program Advisory Board 2006-2007

Consumers & business have a zero tolerance for spam - software applications and ISP providers now have their settings on “shake and bake” to eliminate all traces of it, with products like Ironport, Sophos and Cisco teaming up to enforce the 2003 CAN-SPAM act.

So with spam outlawed, e-mail marketers have been more sensitive to customer privacy and scrubbed e-mail lists.  It’s not just about traffic and volume, but also about conversion. Good business is about improve ROI, along with traffic.

What’s double opt-in? When you give the customer an option to confirm or deny the initial signup, you are confirming their interest in your sales channel. After securing the recipient’s consent, you then need smart ways to motivate customers. The right lists fuel ROI.

Choose good e-mail software that automates many of the tasks such as unsubscribe, send to friend, and statistics. Sendstudio allows personalization for your customer and rebranding for your website.

Some other services include Constant Contact, which offers a fee-based subscription service based on how many e-mail members subscribe. Both e-mail programs allow you to load templates for easy update and retrieval.

If you’re using Outlook and your list has under 50 members use the BCC tool to add BCC functionality to your POP3 e-mail. (To install, just double click. Outlook disables BCC by default because viruses frequently use this feature to SPAM your contact list).

Go easy on attachments.

Nobody likes to wait for attachments to load or fill up their inbox. Host your own images if possible, and place all the important text on the first page the user will see without scrolling.

*Plus, most e-mail programs block images inside e-mail by default so important copy should be written in text.

Reduce the number of sponsors

A few well-paying sponsors is better than multitudes of irrelevant ones. You risk diluting your message. Don’t leave too many cooks in the kitchen as the old saying goes - If you must squeeze many advertisers into one e-mail, restrict the smaller sponsors to a column on the right where they’re likely to be seen but will not break your main message.

Search engine optimization should be an integrated part of website design as much as the pretty graphics going onto the site. If not, a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude may cause the website to fail.

There are several approaches to getting a website listed in search. Here are the most relevant, based on simplicity, cost, and effectiveness - We’ve prioritized your website marketing & advertising roles based on how accessible they are to the average business owner. Because (3 & 4) - viral marketing & blogging are not standalone SEO tools, we’ll briefly explain their benefit and save them for another topic. Our examples come mostly from our experience with Google, but they apply to other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN.

Our Major Strategies:

I. Targeted Content

Text-based targeting can include strategies such as link exchange, keywords, and content selection. Every search engine has its own algorithms or ways to compute natural, or organic ranking results - some SEO companies make a science of using keyword density and frequency to obtain rankings. Because the algorithms may change time to time, exacting requirements are difficult to measure. Human behavior is even more complex, but most people generally agree that the goal of optimizing is to get on the first page.

The main factor for calculating rank is based on relevance , or link popularity. The more people refer to your site, the more reliable it is assumed to be. Some other factors are explained shortly.

Link Exchange
Link exchange is a tried-and true method that should be evaluated based on your business. Links to partner websites inside business circles can generate leads, but only if the businesses are somewhat related. By using link exchange to get higher rankings, you may actually dilute your website mission. Instead, select links that complement your business rather than distract.

-Here are some good link choices for website designers:
(graphic design, branding, printing, marketing, copy-editing, copyright, advertising). Portfolio or case study sections are okay to link off-topic as long as they have a mutual incoming link as well. We place a link back to Dreampod on most sites that we do.

To track your incoming links, a statistics package powered by javascript is a good start. We use Cpanel AWstats to track our links, so we can see who’s coming in and what they’re looking for.

Are you capturing visitors?

With so many website designers out there, 21% of our visitors end up bookmarking our site! We know we’re doing something right because most are looking up design topics or heading to our blog. They’re also finding something useful, or they wouldn’t save the bookmark to come back again. We know a few get lost, since they’re searching for Kama Sutra but if it happens frequently we know our SEO campaign needs help.

Quality, not quantity 

Search engines such as Google often prefer natural language as well, so a few keywords placed strategically work better than multiple dense occurences of a single phrase. Apparently, the better you write, the higher your rankings. Consider hiring a marketing company such as Virante do your online marketing. Working with a team of professionals who really know what they’re doing is good business sense, and may equate success or failure.

II. Pay-per-click (Google Adwords)

What is Pay-per-click?

There are thousands of books on writing effective pay-per-click ads; the concept of pay-per-click is simple: you only pay for what you use. The ability to budget resources based on your needs isn’t revolutionary, and it has become a staple of every marketing campaign including website marketing. Google happens to reward organic results through paid inclusion, so there is actually no risk to giving adwords a try. Not only will you receive a few targeted leads from ads, but your organic (natural) results get a boost as well. Pay-per-click ads appear on the right of the screen in Google.

Bidding for keywords

Keywords have different costs tied to them based on popularity. For example, since there are hundreds of thousands of web designers, the bid price for “web design” is expensive relative to other keywords. Your ad will be ranked on your bid price, and if you really want a high ranking badly it may require a higher budget in this category.

How do I get ranked higher than my competitor?

Google will rank your ad if it’s relevant to the search term. If there are a lot of searches run on a particular keyword, it becomes more difficult to get a high rank. So a specific phrase will almost always have better results than a generic one. If your company is local, the keywords “reliable plumber in Houston, Texas” will work better than just “plumber.” Google also allows you to set a daily budget. If you’re Company A , currently ranked #1 in Adwords and Company B wants to take your spot, it must simply bid higher for the click.

“Whoah, there. So if I bid $1 and my competitor bids $1.10 he can take my spot and potentially a customer by spending an extra dime?” Yes, unfortunately. But smart bidding involves budgeting as well. Over a year, if you and Company B both have a budget of $12,500 below is a chart showing sample click conversion activity.

With equal spend, company B will not be ranked above you during much of the holiday season. So it’s typical for many retailers to spend enormous amounts during these seasons to capture visitors. Strategic budgeting during these seasons will help the organic (natural) search rankings as well.

Winning locally

There are several ways to target ads across pay-per-click networks:

Because regional ads can direct to specific websites, a phone company promoting a new long distance service would be able to send ads to families living in the US to a foreign-language website. Google gives users a variety of regional options for adwords. To find ads with the best conversion, you can create an A-B test group to determine the most efficient ads in the target market region. Repeating the A-B test group selection process multiple times should provide good return on investment.

Pay-per-view vs. Pay-per-click

Google will show you how many views, or impressions you got as opposed to how many clicks were made. You can consider impresssions as free advertising, because only clicks cost you money.

Negative Match

Also, you can use negative match to filter bad leads and improve ROI. For example, biomechanical engineers, which specialize in accident research frequently get visits from mechanical engineers. To improve conversion, a negative match specified as “NOT bio” will show the ads only to visitors looking for mechanical engineers, and never to visitors searching for biomechanical engineers.

Small businesses and SOHO’s also benefit immensely from using Adwords as opposed to traditional phone book listings such as Midtown Auto Service . Some of our small business clients literally spend hundreds a month on adwords but it provides ROI on each purchase.

III. Blogging

Blogging has several benefits including establishing yourself as an authority on a subject, as well as providing fresh content for search engines. Blogs also provide a source of knowledge for returning visitors as well as much as “keeping a light on” attracts trick-or treaters during Halloween. Not keeping your light on means you’re A) Either not at home or you: B) Don’t want guests. Blogging is a way of telling the world you’re ready for action…

Some great blogging tools:

Try surfing the blogosphere on Technorati on subjects from real estate, the war in the Middle East, economics, and business.

IV. Viral Marketing

Word of mouth is sometimes the most effective marketing tool. Myspace, LinkedIn (the business social network website), and Mapquest among other web 2.0 sites are some examples of viral marketing success. Some websites seem to sprout overnight, but most startups are the culimination of years of successful marketing until a tipping point is reached. Typically, few ideas take off by themselves so accelerators such as SEO and online advertising are used.

When we built Beyond Partisan a political discussion forum, we started with a small user base, but grew it to a few thousand in just a short time. The student body at Wesleyan University was the first to receive our e-mails, and from there, word spread around the nation. As users raved about its approach to non-partisan political discussion, traffic for BP surged and the website was featured in the Boston Globe, talk shows, and on other blogs on the blogosphere.

Worth Noting

The ultimate goal of SEO is not to bring as many visitors to your site as possible, but to convert them to customers. Good campaigns need not be expensive, but they’ll get the phone ringing, and below are some more ideas to turn visitors into customers. It’s also a good idea to have a good website design to attract and obtain business. Or, proactive tools such as Website Alive with its popular AliveChat software break the monotony of everyday surfing.

We have some great ideas about how you can increase your web traffic. Contact us to talk! Working with a team of professionals can really accelerate your growth, and help you avoid pitfalls.

The bulk of the furniture is moved to the new office, but the good thing was it came mostly furnished thanks to our new partnership with Website Alive. After a 3 month hunt for office space, we finally made our choice to settle down in the Hillcroft & 59 area. The other locations we considered were the Houston Technology Center at midtown, Rice Village @ Times, 6060 Richmond near D&B, and another location on Richmond.

Current Progress: 50% complete

aluminum indoor sign: on order
new brochures: on order
2nd website design station: on order
intern training: in progress

Although we toured and liked some more upscale venues, we made our choice based on value - we get a prime location, vending machines, and the benefit of telling our customers we don’t waste money on frivolous office space.

This is the office at night, several photos stitched together to make a panoramic - I left the lights off to capture the ambient mood of working late. Also, I didn’t have a tripod, so there’s obvious blur. You get the idea.

The tentative open house is from Thursday January 25 to Friday January 26, 2007

Front of building

Entrance… our office is the first door on the left

Monday, January 1 2007

Houston, Texas

For Immediate Release

Dreampod is proud to announce its collaboration with Website Alive to create unsurpassed user interaction and customer service enhancements for its clients. Website Alive’s main product is Alive Chat, which allows operators to manage & monitor queues of website visitors and proactively provide help at the push of a button.
Currently, Website Alive caters to professional sports teams, e-commerce stores, home businesses, and clients in virtually any industry. Our partnership with Website Alive will allow further customization of chat software to integrate with existing websites as well as extend Dreampod’s service set to existing customers.
Dreampod customers now have the option to try Alive Chat for free to improve their customer service as well as bottom-line from no more missed opportunities. Contact us for more information.

“Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a powerful business advantage”       by Pat Fallon & Fred Senn describes the various media used as creative leverage to conquer different marketing challenges.

    They helped BMW revolutionize car advertising using http://www.bmwfilms.com/ with a series of short films featuring Clive Owen and top-of-the line directors for BMW under a small budget, and jumpstart travel to the Bahamas after 9/11 using branding, a daring advertising campaign, and a new website.

     Fallon crafts ”Juicing the Orange” to highlight both the art and science of creativity in marketing. This book is not just for managers, but creative directors as well. While it bridges the connection between market research and creative execution, the underlying theme is to leverage creative resources in order to do more with a lot less. Case in point: BMW approached Fallon with a challenging budget. By studying BMW’s target market for its new Z-series, (men age 25-35), a decision was made to forego traditional TV advertising and produce a series of short films for viewing on the internet in conjunction with a premier in Goldeneye, the new 007. The market research undergone showed that the movies could not feel like advertising, so top-line cast, directors, and production-quality were leveraged. The result was astonishing: the resulting effect was that the internet sites did more with 44% less cost as opposed to traditional media advertising measured by what Fallon refers to as a “brand-minute.”

     Juicing the Orange also turns cliches on their head with research about human emotion and pitching to clients. Of course, risk-taking should be the norm rather than the exception, and improvement of the culture of the company can evolve into a strategic advantage rather than just an asset. Fallon sums it all up with “lessons learned” in growing a business from 5 strong to over 500 and internet’s vast role in getting more for the “branding minute.”

Brand building by design. The logo captures both the geography and the spirit of the Bahamas with this logo.

There are few things more annoying than spyware & popups, and one that comes very close is Adobe PDFmaker, which is installed along with Adobe Acrobat. PDFMaker tries to be helpful by parking at the top of Microsoft Office products such as Outlook and Excel. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult if not impossible to move or remove.

Adobe does not have any tutorials on getting rid of PDFmaker, and as a slap in the face,  instead gives you a tutorial on making sure the tool is available!

A look at the pesky Adobe PDFMaker toolbar, which cannot be removed within office or Adobe programs.

Various tutorials on the internet involve going deep into the Windows folder, deleting files,  and hacking the Windows registry (ick!). PDFmaker will not hide behind your other toolbar menu items. Right clicking on the toolbar to customize your menu doesn’t work either as it always comes back whenever you load the application.

Fortunately, you can still get rid of it, and keep the ability to create PDF files from your Office applications. The following will not damage your installation of Adobe Acrobat.
——————–
Here are the simple steps:
1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click on Add/Remove Programs
3. Click on Adobe Acrobat Professsional
4. Click Change/Remove
5. Click “Modify - Change which program features are installed.”

6. Click Next.
7. Expand the selection tree under Create Adobe PDF by clicking +
8. Select the dropdown box under Adobe PDFMaker, choosing This feature will not be available. If you’d like to change your settings for Office, Visio, Project or other Microsoft Applications you can make your choices here.

9. Click Update. The Acrobat Installer may ask you to close Office applications or browser windows if they’re open. Follow the instructions and finish removing PDFmaker.

10. Presto! The PDFmaker icons will have disappeared.
———————-
Creating PDFs

To continue creating PDF applications from your Office documents, you will need to go into File, Print, and in your list of Printers, select Adobe PDF as your printer. Then, you will have an opportunity to select a filename and the folder to save into.

Adobe uses the PostScript printing engine to render PDF files from popular applications, and by no means will you need to use the PDFmaker tool.

Sometimes resized images look grainy when uploaded to the internet. The following steps, if done properly will preserve colors and quality. Here is the proper way to export .gifs, which are commonly used for logos, text, and lineart.

Original Image:

Original .GIF File, 500 x 158, 15.7 KB

1. Resize the image under Image -> Image Size (or CTRL + ALT + I)

Below is the .gif file resized to fit some hypothetical specifications - Many images on the internet are improperly resized this way, and what are known as “jaggies” are apparent. The same effect can result in JPEG files that are resized to a larger dimension resulting in compression or .gifs resized the same way.

2. Resized .GIF, 200 x 63, 1.80 KB

3. Starting from the original .GIF, go to Image -> Mode, and convert the image to RGB, which breaks the image out of the original color space. When you make edits this way, the resulting mid tones and variations are preserved, unlike in example above.

4. Resize the image as you normally would Image -> Image Size (or CTRL + ALT + I)
5. Select Save for web option by going to File -> Save for Web (OR ALT + SHIFT + CTRL + S). The shortcut keys may require some dexterity!

6. Reduce colors to 32 - limiting the colors reduces file size as well as increases definition. Also experiment with various dithering settings, to get the best results.

Optimized .GIF File, 200 x 63, 1.16KB

The resulting file realizes a 40% improvement while preserving almost all of the original colors. The difference between 1.16KB and 1.80KB may not seem like much, but most websites may contain 50 images per page so the difference adds up noticeably on progressively slower connections. In some places, bandwidth is an extremely valuable resource.

Here is also a comparison of the 2 images, below.

On one game studio website, improvements were dramatic resulting in a 30% reduction in bandwidth costs during heavy load times. Optimized images also play nicely with mobile devices, and over limited connections.