Over the last few months I have been working with the Watertown Wilson County Public Library. We have worked to launch an after school coding club called “Watertown Impact”. Every Wednesday, 7 young women, 6th through 12th grade, spend their afternoons learning to code. This code club for girls helps them develop web design skills.
I am just flying back from the 2016 Joomla World Conference (flying from Vancouver to LA and then onto Melbourne Australia). I figured with 16 hours of flying ahead this would be the perfect time to recap the conference I just attended. As well as share with our clients and friends. It was the best conference I have attended to date. The leadership of Joomla was so much more focused on the end user experience than I have ever seen before. This is very good for our clients (and their web visitors) as the bottom line to any websites success is a great user experience.
So I went to this great coffee house a few weekends ago in Franklin, set in a historic house. It had a gorgeous cottage garden area that surrounded the house that seemed as suitable for a glass of wine as a cup of coffee. When I walked by I could feel it pulling me in. The inside of the house was old but nicely laid out. It had lots of different and colorful rooms as one would expect in a house built in the 1890’s.
So you are surfing the internet on a bright sunny day. The kids are playing in the back yard with Bucky the Golden Retriever. Your wife is in the kitchen baking cookies. All is good with the world. If Norman Rockwell was around, this could have been his next American Classic – “Dad On The Internet.” However, there are new security standards.
About a year ago, I said to an associate, “I think I need to really focus on cleaning up the front of my residence.” The reason being that Google was using the front of our house as the street view when users searched for Bear Web Design. (We have since relocated to an Office on Lebanon Pike but the challenge remains). Google uses street view (called “See Outside”) to show the front street view of each business as part of the Google My Business / Google Maps listing.
If you are reading this blog, you must recognize that Google “Rules The Waves” just like Britannia did once. Unlike when Britannia ruled the waves and everyone got it so many folks simply do not understand or comprehend the control and influence Google has over your business and many of your prospects. Google is all powerful and frankly all confusing. We (Bear Web Design) made a commitment to be Google Centric Company approximately 5 years ago and it has been a good decision for our business and our customers – but man if you don’t like people “Moving Your Cheese” Google probably is not going to be your thing.
As we celebrate Labor Day Weekend (currently on sabbatical camping at Cedars Of Lebanon!) my thoughts as I sit around the camp fire is one of relaxation, refreshment and rejuvenation after a long hot summer but as my mind wanders off into the sounds of crickets and the coolness of the evening I naturally think about work and the upcoming fall. Given the time of year, social media marketing starts now. OK – probably not what you should be thinking about on a camping trip but sometimes your best clarity can come in the most peaceful moments. Not sure why but I feel inspired so time to share!
This week Google has introduced a fully redesigned Google+ that puts Communities and Collections front and center. Now focused around interests, the new system is much simpler. This should encourage more and more businesses to start using it.
While sitting in line last month to get my annual auto emission test, I was searching on my mobile. That was when I noticed a tag in results “Mobile-Friendly”. I had never seen it before and recognized immediately what it meant. “Google is telling mobile users what sites are going to be a good experience to visit on your mobile”. Google’s Search Engine’s aim is to lead you to the best search results but it is now drawing a line in the sand and basically saying if your website is not mobile friendly (no matter how much wonderful content you have on that site) – it is not going to get the all important “Mobile-Friendly” tag. This tag in my opinion will help users decide whether they actually visit your website. And long term I suspect google may even consider listing Mobile-Friendly results first.
This year website content and content marketing are at the forefront of any results focused website. So what is great content? Is it frequency? (how many times you update your website), is it fancy fonts and highlights with every page designed uniquely? Or, is it content copied from a leading competitors website that you know must be good since they are a great company?
In essence there are three basic forms of content on a website.