ElementsDaily

… With Online, Browser-based Image Editing

San Luis Obispo, CA – August 7, 2008. Elements, an interactive marketing agency, today announced that they have added online, browser-based image editing to their ElementsLocal & ElementsConnect software platforms. ElementsLocal is an online local marketing platform for franchise companies, ElementsConnect is a website management system for businesses to manage their online marketing initiatives.

With the addition of online, browser-based image editing, ELEMENTS’ customers can now manage 100 percent of their website without leaving their ElementsLocal or ElementsConnect dashboard. No need to edit a photo before uploading, just upload the image and do almost anything to it with simple little sliders.

“Image editing, mainly re-size and cropping, has always been an expensive, complex and time-consuming hassle for website managers,” said Michael Boyer, Chief Marketing Officer. “With the integration of Picnik, we have solved a problem for our clients that will save them money and time, without any additional charges.”

About Picnik – www.picnik.com

Picnik lets you clean up your pictures without knowing a thing about photo editing. Picnik is photo editing awesomeness, online, in your browser. It’s the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. With Picnik you can do everything you usually do in Photoshop, but it’s so much easier.

About ELEMENTS – www.elementsinc.net

ELEMENTS is an interactive marketing agency, we design and develop online business applications and corporate web sites. Our online business applications provide industry specific platforms which enable companies to harness the power of the internet to streamline their business. Our world-class interactive services provide marketing solutions for mid-market and franchise companies. From conception and strategy to design and implementation we combine masterful creative services and proven technology expertise with forward-thinking business strategies to deliver a successful solution for deployment of enterprise web initiatives.

Choosing a name for anything is daunting. Your kid, your business or website domain, you want to make a good choice. Your domain name is your internet identity and should be a vital component in your overall business and marketing strategy. How do you figure out what your ultimate domain name is?

I Am What I Am

Ideally, the planets will align so that your website name and business name will come together at the same time. The name that you’ve been using in your marketing and branding efforts is the name you want for your website and domain. It’s the first thing users will try to enter into a browser.

If you already have a well-known name or brand, you should obviously get the domain that matches that name. You put a lot of effort into getting that name and branding established in your community. But what if that name is taken? Don’t change your company name because you couldn’t get the domain name.

Look up the current owner on www.whois.net and contact them to see if they are willing to sell it to you. If they are agreeable to selling the name, they will probably up the fee so you could be paying a higher rate than when you buy a new domain.

If your website and/or company is new, you might want to check out domain names first and find one that suits the name of your business. So, let’s say you find that bitsandbobs.com is available and buy it, it could be a perfect name for your Bits and Bobs business with your website being bitsandbobs.com.

Remember, the internet is an extremely fast-paced world and your customers want ease of use, so don’t make them work. A domain name that reflects your business and website is one less piece of information for users to remember. When visitors think of your business and website they’ll know it by name and where to go or what to enter into the browser.

The Long and Short of It

It’s true. Shorter domain names are easier to remember (but it’s harder and harder to get meaningful short names that make sense). Short names are also less apt to give users problems with typos. Todayisyourluckyday.com (sort of an average length) is much easier to remember and use than goandconquetheworldtodayisyourluckyday.com.

On the other hand, if a short name seems confusing or random unless the user is very familiar with you, then stick with something longer. So, tiyld.com is short and sweet, but it’s an odd assortment of letters that aren’t even pronounceable as an acronym. Spelling this out is probably easier to remember and use: TodayIsYourLuckyDay.com. Additionally, search engines will probably not pick up on your randomly-lettered domain name.

Word! What’s the Key Here?

Another point to consider is using site keywords in your domain name. Using keywords are likely to boost your site ranking with search engines. It’s not your business name, but the plus side is that search engines gravitate toward keywords that are also found in domain names. However, in order to make keywords in your domain work for you, you’ll need to know what words people are searching for. There are quite a few tools that will can help you figure out the best keywords to use. See Good Things and Do Your Leg Work below for a more detailed discussion.

So being that you can use up to 63 or 67 characters in a domain name, you could use several keywords…go crazy! But, and try to remember that run-on name and type it into a browser! It’s probably a good idea to avoid a horrendously long name…no one will remember it, much less want to type in out. The key to your domain name, long or short, is that it makes sense and doesn’t cause a lot of confusion for your customers or other potential users.

Spell It Like It Is

A correctly-spelled domain name will help your users find your website easily. It might be cool and fun to use z’s for s’s or even add a few zzzz’s to your name, but opt for simple and easy… kewlgurrrlsurferz.com …huh?

To Hyphen or Not to Hyphen

Some things to think about with a hyphenated name:

Not So Good Things:

• ~ You’ll have a hurdle making people aware of the hyphens in your domain and people don’t usually remember to type them in. Most people would type in todayisyourluckyday.com, not today-is-your-lucky-day.com
• ~ Adding hyphens in your name makes for a potential mouthful when users say your name…verbal marketing will sound clumsy. It would be almost more logical to buy clumsyhyphenandhyphenawkward.com because you’ll be saying “clumsy hyphen and hyphen awkward dot com.” If you aren’t clear about the hyphens, when people recommend your fabulous product or service and site, other users will type in clumsyandhyphen.com, not clumsy-and-awkward.com. Take a cue from most corporations and try not to use them.
• ~ Generally, they are a pain to type, especially several of them within one domain.

Good Things:

• ~ Hyphens help search engines identify keywords more easily. Because they distinguish your keywords better, your site will be better ranked in search results for those specific keywords.
• ~ It’s an alternative when the un-hyphenated domain name is already registered to someone else. If you can limit them, you may still be able to get a not-too-awkwardly-hyphenated domain you want.

Happy Medium Thing:

• ~ Buy both your natural and hyphenated domain names…since typing the name is easier without hyphens, this is the one you use for marketing and everywhere else. Since search engines usually like and rank domains with hyphenated names better and better ranking drives more users to your site, you’ll get the benefits of the hyphen.

What’s the Point?

Registering multiple domain names and pointing each one to a specific page or a few to your general website can help generate higher sales and traffic to your site. When you do this, you give users multiple avenues to your site. So, both customers who know the business name will be able to find you and customers who know your product or service will be able to find you.

Consider purchasing domains that are similar to your domain, contain hyphens or are even misspelled: coolcoffeeshop.com, coolcoffeeshoppe.com, koolcoffeeshop.com, cool-coffee-shop.com, coolcofeeshop.com, kewlcafeshop.com…you get the picture. Registering several domains will cast a wider net when users search for you. A word of caution: don’t point too many multiple domains to the same page because most search engines will dump your site.

Dot Wat?

.com is the most common and widely known extension. Like a good short name, finding your .com domain can be challenging. Most people now recognize .biz, .edu, .org, .net…but these also have certain implications. Be aware that .biz is generally recognized for businesses; .edu is intended for educational institutions; .org is widely used by non-profit and similar organizations; .net was originally for network providers, but it has a general use like .com now. However, there is nothing wrong with buying your domain name with several of these extensions.

iCUGOT12?

Numbers can present a similar problem as hyphens, especially with vocal marketing: is shineything4you.com – 4you or foryou or fouryou or 4u…..?

Shock Value

Using profanity in your domain name is unprofessional and gives you a negative image. Done.

Do Your Leg Work

Getting back to using a keyword or words in your domain name…this will help optimize search engine results, but to make your choices meaningful, you have to know what people are searching for.

• ~ Word Search – www.wordtracker.com is one of the many tools that can help you find good keywords. Enter the words or phrase/phrases you think people would use to search and the program shows you which words are most popular. You can use this information to optimize our website content, generate more keywords and improve your organic or pay-per-click searches. This site gives you a free 7-day tour, beyond that it’s a paid membership. If you search for “keyword tool,” you’ll find other tools to use as cross-reference.
• ~ Trademarks – If you have any question about your domain name being trademarked, do some research to verify you aren’t violating the law. However, if you register domain name and then a company trademarks it, you’re probably safe.
• ~ www.whois.net – You can do various searches on this site, obviously finding out if the domain you want already has a current owner. You can search by domain name, keyword and owner. Using the domain search will help you with trademark research. You can find deleted domains as well.
• ~ www.deleteddomains.com – The name says it all! Do a primary search for deleted and on-hold domains here. The site has a great feature that allows you to choose search parameters like character length or domains that contain specific words. You’ll need to register to get the full benefits of their services.
• ~ www.nameboy.com – This is a playful generator site. You search for words and let the program know if you want your domain to use hyphens or rhyming words. It also has a “who is” search. A cool feature is that you can submit your domain name and they will appraise the words for things like search frequency, terms and keyword advertising values, popularity. Using this tool will help you evaluate your domain relative to keywords.

Because your domain name is part of your image and branding, use all the resources available to make a good choice. Sometimes domains come easy and are a logical fit AND are available—the planets aligned for you! It gets tricky when your first choice isn’t available or you can’t find a good combination of words. Your domain should represent your company and product or service in order to better integrate your website into your marketing strategy.

The ultimate domain name does not make an ultimate site…you still need to put some work and effort into great content and design. Go the extra mile with keywords and some SEO work. Otherwise, your website will be all dressed up with nowhere to go.

As an interactive marketing agency, we are always trying to find new ways to save time, provide better quality, or to check in on the ‘Jonses’ and see what they are offering their customers

Widgets

This first tool is a customer service dream. It’s called ‘Jing‘ and essentially, it allows you to take quick pics and videos of your screen and then share it with other people. If you’ve created an image, Jing will allow you to use some general tools to make the image more lively, such as an arrow or text box.

What’s even cooler, is that this tool comes with a very useful feature, a free account at Screencast.com when you give Jing a try. Once you have uploaded your image or video to Screencast, it auto-generates a link for you to send to someone else who can now view your newly created image or video. Screencast even auto-generates embed code…WOW!

Check out this image I created.

And here is a video I created.

For more info, go to techsmith.com, a great company with great ideas.

Lets move onto some real fun. I play a little game here at the office. It’s called, ‘Copy-Mac.’ The rules of the game are simple:
1. Listen to the cool features Mac users say they have that PCs do not.
2. Find a PC tool that copies those features exactly.
3. Show them…

One feature many Mac users love, is the tile-window feature. I have recently come across a tool that lets me continue to play this game. The tool is called ‘Admiral’ created by Mexircus and it’s not only useful, it’s fun to use, especially if you are like me and have tons of windows open at any given time.

Compare: here is the PC view with Admiral; and below that is the Mac version,

PC View:

Mac View:

These are just a couple of tools that I have found to be fun and useful.

Photo Sharing

Flickr – almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world – has two main goals:
1. We want to help people make their content available to the people who matter to them.

Flickr is the WD-40 that makes it easy to get photos or video from one person to another in whatever way they want.

2. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos and video.

Once you make the switch to digital, it is all too easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of photos you take or videos you shoot with that itchy trigger finger. Albums, the principal way people go about organizing things today, are great — until you get to 20 or 30 or 50 of them. They worked in the days of getting rolls of film developed, but the “album” metaphor is in desperate need of a Florida condo and full retirement.

In Flickr, you can give your friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize your stuff – not just to add comments, but also notes and tags. People like to ooh and ahh, laugh and cry, make wisecracks when sharing photos and videos. Why not give them the ability to do this when they look at them over the internet? And as all this info accretes as metadata, you can find things so much easier later on, since all this info is also searchable.

Others:

Webshots
Share your pictures through photo messages, online photo albums, custom prints and gifts. |

Snappages
Fully flash built interface with 3D slideshows and an image editor.

Fotki
Free unlimited photo hosting for blogs, 9 cent prints, and photo contests.

Shutterfly
Free unlimited storage, 12 cent prints, as well as calendars and photo books.

Contacts/Business Network

Linkedin – Your professional relationships are key to your professional success. Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

Others:

BNI International Web Site
BNI – International Website … BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. We offer members the opportunity to share ideas, …

Ryze business networking
Ryze Business Networking, make business connections, make new contacts and … The prospects of social networking sites that focus on business-oriented …

Project Management

Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don’t fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.

Others:

AceProject.com
Ace Project PM Software website. Commercial.

EasyProjects.net
EasyProjects PM Software website. Commercial.

ProjectInsight.net
ProjectInsight PM software website. Commercial.

People Search

Spock is “Google,” but for people. I use Spock to find out more about other companies or people I interact with. If i know more about them, I can probably help them more effectively. Of course the most relevant use is to find old friends, collegues, or even your boss…

Others:

Wink
Search using the world’s largest people search engine. Find people by name and get their phone number, address, Websites, photos, work, school, more.

PeekYou
PeekYou’s free people search engine allows you to find, contact, and track anyone online. Find photos, links, work, school and family info and much more.

Video Sharing

YouTube
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Break.com
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Viddler
You need to be logged in to use this feature. If you don’t have a Viddler account, you can join Viddler right now. It’s easy and free! …

5min
Find the best how to, instructional and DIY videos.

The list could go on forever…

What are your Favorite online tools?

Last week we began a series about unlocking your businesses’ key performance indicators (KPI) by focusing on a few “key” indicators that will help improve your business. The indicators we discussed were:

• Average Page Views Per Visit
• Average Time Per Visit
• Average Bounce Rate

This week we’ll focus on Average Page Views Per Visit in detail and provide best practices surrounding the decisions you can make from this KPI.

The average page views per visit on your website is also referred to as ‘depth.’ Depth is the average number of page views a visitor consumes before ending their session. It is calculated by dividing total number of page views by total number of sessions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics).

Primarily, this is used as an indicator of two things:

• How compelling your content and messaging are
• How easy it is to navigate your website

Keep in mind that different websites have different purposes. Marketing and E-commerce websites generally want to increase this average, because it shows greater interest from the visitor. However, depending on the goals of the website, more page views can indicate confusion on the part of the visit. For example, if your message is simple and your purpose is to quickly drive a visitor to call you from your website, then your average page views should be low.

When the average number of page views per visit trends against expectations, we recommend examining a handful of common site components that affect page views:

Presentation: First impressions are EVERYTHING. Even if you have a compelling message and the presentation of your website is poor, you may not capture the attention of your visitor. Consider reviewing your competition and analyzing whether or not your presentation is on par with those websites.

Expectation: If presentation and content are strong, however visitors are not engaging with your messaging, then your website may not be meeting visitor expectations. If this is happening, do some research on what visitors are typing into search engines to find you and changing your messaging to match these key terms and phrases.

Content: If your content is poorly written and doesn’t follow best practices for web content, visitors may leave your site prematurely. However, if your content is well written, visitors may be inspired to “keep reading,” driving up the average number of page views.

Navigation: Navigation, or website architecture, are critical to providing ‘depth’ of page views. If it is difficult for visitors to navigate your website, they will not be able to easily flow from page to page and browse the contents of your website.

Search Technology: If your search functionality is poor or you don’t have a search function on your site, visitors who are used to searching to find what they want quickly may turn away or not find the information they’re looking for.

Next we’ll discuss average time spent on your website per visit.

The world wide web of social networking has reached a level of saturation that has far surpassed anyone’s expectation of this outlet’s popularity. Myspace and youtube are the trailblazers of this Pandora’s Box.

Anyone who has joined one of the many social networking sites, or remembers the already dead sites, should ask themselves, “Does this help me?”

I can honestly say, “yes…sometimes.” I know that doesn’t sound too solid, but there are many occasions where I can identify positive reasons for being part of a social networking site.

For example, Myspace can be used very successfully for bands trying to get exposure and establish a fan base without wasting a lot of time or money.

LinkedIn can be used very successfully to find forums, contacts and peers within your industry.

The down fall of this current environment is that there are just too many social networking sites…the choices can be overwhelming.

Because this networking environment is so inundated, my suggestion is to identify one social network that works for you. Joining every possible outlet to connect with people and keeping up with all of these sites could take over your life. So find a niche and connect with the people who are also interested in reaching out.

Here is a comical video highlighting the current downfall of social networking sites.