Administrators define the field

Administrators define the field
A panel of deans and directors from Kansas City educational institutions met at the School of Education Monday evening, affording students interested in college administration careers a chance to discuss the field’s challenges and opportunities.

The conversation was sponsored by UMKC’s Career Services Center and featured four panelists with extensive credentials in higher education administration including: UMKC’s Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Mary Lou Hines-Fritts, William Jewell College’s Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life, Ernie Stufflebean, Rockhurst University’s Assistant Dean of Students, Sean Grube, and Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley’s Dean of Administrative Services, Thomas Walker.

LiveScience: Era of Scientific Secrecy Near End
Era of Scientific Secrecy Near End / By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor / posted: 02 September 2008 11:30 am ET

Secrecy and competition to achieve breakthroughs have been part of scientific culture for centuries, but the latest Internet advances are forcing a tortured openness throughout the halls of science and raising questions about how research will be done in the future.

The openness at the technological and cultural heart of the Internet is fast becoming an irreplaceable tool for many scientists, especially biologists, chemists and physicists — allowing them to forgo the long wait to publish in a print journal and instead to blog about early findings and even post their data and lab notes online. The result: Science is moving way faster and more people are part of the dialogue.

[snip]

Open Science

The open science approach forces researchers to grapple with the question of whether they can still get sufficient credit for their ideas, said physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, co-organizer of a conference on the topic set to begin Sept. 8 at the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada.

[BTW: I Will Be Attending This Unique Conference Science in the 21st Century: Science, Society, and Information Technology [http://tinyurl.com/6ll8fb] / Look For Conference-Related Postings on the _Scholarship 2.0_ Blog [http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/] within the next two weeks]

[snip]

Open science is a shorthand for technological tools, many of which are Web-based, that help scientists communicate about their findings. At its most radical, the ethos could be described as “no insider information.” Information available to researchers, as far as possible, is made available to absolutely everyone.

Beyond email, teleconferencing and search engines, there are many examples: blogs where scientists can correspond casually about their work long before it is published in a journal; social networks that are scientist friendly such as Laboratree and Ologeez; GoogleDocs and wikis which make it easy for people to collaborate via the Web on single documents; a site called Connotea that allows scientists to share bookmarks for research papers; sites like Arxiv, where physicists post their “pre-print” research papers before they are published in a print journal; OpenWetWare which allows scientists to post and share new innovations in lab techniques; the Journal of Visualized Experiments, an open-access site where you can see videos of how research teams do their work; GenBank, an online searchable database for DNA sequences; Science Commons, a non-profit project at MIT to make research more efficient via the Web, such as enabling easy online ordering of lab materials referenced in journal articles; virtual conferences; online open-access (and free) journals like Public Library of Science (PLoS); and open-source software that can often be downloaded free off Web sites.

[BTW: Several Of These Innovations Have Been Profiled In My SciTechNet(sm) Blog [http://scitechnet.blogspot.com/] and/or The Scholarship 2.0 Blog [http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/]

The upshot: Science is no longer under lock and key, trickling out as it used to at the discretion of laconic professors and tense PR offices. For some scientists, secrets no longer serve them. But not everyone agrees.

Networked Cyborgs

Just a few decades ago, as a scientist, here is how you did your work: You toiled in obscurity and relative solitude.

[snip]

However, today, more and more scientists, as well as researchers in the humanities, operate like transparent, networked cyborgs. Background research is mostly done online, not in the library. Some data and preliminary research might be posted online via a blog or open notebook. Early write-ups of the work might be announced to the public, or at least discussed online with peers. And these early write-ups might also be posted to an online publication that is not peer-reviewed in the strict sense.

[snip]

“In areas like my own subfields of theoretical physics,” said MIT physicist David Kaiser, “the only constraint [on how rapidly one generates research papers] is, ‘Did you have more coffee that day?’ We aren’t usually held up trying to get an instrument to work, or slogging through complicated data analysis.”Most people think faster is better, but there are other issues.

Is It A Good Thing?

There is “no question” that all efforts to make science more open are positive for the progress of science, says open science proponent and chemist Jean-Claude Bradley at Drexel University in Philadelphia, who posts his lab notebook online and started a blog in 2005 called UsefulChemistry where he and his colleagues regularly discuss chemistry problems as well as Web 2.0 tools and the technical and philosophical issues they raise.His online notebook and blog definitely make it easier to communicate with colleagues, he said. Such sharing also makes it easier for others to “replicate” scientists’ work — try it themselves and convince themselves that you are right. And this replication issue is one of the principles behind scientific research. Anyone who has written down a recipe for a friend knows that we all tend to spell things out more clearly when sharing them than we would if we were just taking notes for ourselves in our own shorthand.

Open science also has the potential to prevent discrimination in access to information. Arxiv, the site for posting pre-print physics papers, was started in 1991 by Cornell physicist Paul Ginsparg, then at Los Alamos National Laboratory, to help provide equal access to prepublication information to graduate students, postdocs and researchers in developing countries.

[BTW: Paul Ginsparg will be one of several Major Players attending/presenting at The Conference [http://science21stcentury.org/abstracts.html]]

[snip]

And open science benefits the public, Bradley said. He tries to keep his posts fairly accessible (although this is not the case for all open notebooks and open science blogs).

[snip]

“It’s not clear to me that professional scientists or people in academic institutions have a monopoly on good ideas,” he said. “There are very smart people outside of academia, for example hobbyists or people in industry who could contribute, and having more contributors can only help. The same applies to interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches.”

[snip]

Drawbacks of Open Science

One of the biggest fears of nearly all researchers is that someone else hears what you’re doing and beats you to publication. That means you wasted a lot of time (and most researchers work extremely long hours, so loss of productivity is especially painful and can also harm one’s chances for getting a job or promotion or funding for the next research project). Once you publicly reveal your thoughts, data or experimental results, some say, you lose control over ownership of that information. This topic is covered by an area of law called intellectual property, as well as patent law, and there can be significant money to be fought over when it comes to patents.

Hossenfelder, the conference organizer, says she knows of several examples in which scientists have had an idea for something, talked about it openly and then somebody else has published the fleshed-out idea first without giving any credit beyond an acknowledgment to the original idea-holder. Acknowledgments don’t advance careers.

However there are solutions to this, she said. For instance, the prominent scientific journal Nature encourages authors to include brief summaries of which author contributed what to a project. Some say that online posts provide a time-stamped record of when an experiment was documented. Those stamps can easily be arbitrarily altered after the fact, but it might also be possible to “lock” posts at a certain date after which they could not be changed without some sign-off permission to break the lock, Hossenfelder said. [snip]

Fear of Losing Peer Review

Another drawback of open science can be that results go public before they should. In science, experimental results are frequently proven wrong by subsequent work. Yet even peer review cannot ensure against this, nor can it prevent outright fraud, as proven by a 2005 case involving a South Korean scientist who claimed to have achieved the first cloning of a human embryo. A later examination of his work showed he had fabricated his results.

[snip]

“The social system of science has become so complicated, unregulated and dispersed in terms of geography and disciplines, so peer review has been elevated to a principle that unifies a fragmented field,” Biagioli said.

[snip]

And today, Arxiv, one of the most frequently cited examples of open science, has no peer review for individual papers, but it has begun to add in some constraints on allowable authors. The site used to allow anyone with email addresses associated with academic institutions to post their papers. Now, authors of research papers who post in Arxiv are vetted before they can post for the first time. In some ways, things are tightening up when it comes to openness in physics, Kaiser said. In any case, the function of print journals, in physics at least, is changing.

“Ease of sharing everything prior to peer review is flourishing, and in my opinion very few physicists are reading journals for information these days,” Kaiser said. “Journals have largely lost their information function.”

[snip]

For The Good Of Truth, Humanity, Economies?

Another argument in favor of open science is sort of a big picture issue for humanity, scientific truth and economies, Neylon said.

“Making things more open leads to more innovation and more economic activity, and so the technology that underlies the Web makes it possible to share in a way that was never really possible before, while at same time it also means that kinds of models and results generated are much more rich,” he said.

This is the open source approach to software development, as opposed to commercial closed source approaches, Neylon said. The internals are protected by developers and lawyers, but the platform is available for the public to build on in very creative ways.

“Science was always about mashing up, taking one result and applying it to your [work] in a different way,” Neylon said. “The question is ‘Can we make that as effective as samples data and analysis as it does for a map and set of addresses for a coffee shop?’ That is the vision.”

[http://www.livescience.com/culture/080902-open-science.html]

Thanks to Sabine Hossenfelder For The HeadsUp !

[http://friendfeed.com/rooms/science21]

How SEO and Blogs can help boost real estate sales

How SEO and Blogs can help boost real estate sales

Real estate is big business. You don’t need me to tell you that. Not just online but offline as well. Many real estate agencies fail to use the internet to their advantage. Yes, having a website is great. You can have people browse real estate listings whether buying a home or renting an apartment.

Real estate, being the billion dollar industry it is, can make for difficult optimization.

An real estate agency has a substantially better chance of increasing traffic to it’s website by focusing it’s optimization efforts toward a specific geographical area. Doing so will help in establishing a presence for the site while eliminating the need to compete based on standard industry termed content that will not differentiate an agency in Seattle from an agency in Sarasota. A Blog is a great way to begin achieving results by sticking to this formula. The idea behind a blog is that you can create optimized content that your potential clients would find useful and bring them to your site. Simply include your geographically related keywords and phrases in the content. For example, if you have listings for apartments in NY, a good posting for a blog might be “What to Look For When Apartment Shopping in NYC”. You could discuss what a renter should look for when shopping for an apartment in NYC, the necessity of renter’s insurance in NYC, overpriced areas of NYC, etc… Try to keep the content fresh and exciting to read. Remember, people may come across your article on a search engine and consequently decide to visit your site and use your services.

One thing that has made a blog a valuable tool is RSS. RSS lets us announce information as soon as it happens. How does this help a realtor? Let’s say I am hunting for an apartment. I may not have the time to check your site every few hours for updated listings. If I have a “my yahoo page”, my MSN or any RSS reader set up, I would know instantly that a listing became available.
With RSS, you won’t have to worry about spam filters blocking your emails. It’s beneficial for both clients and agents.

The point is to stand out from your competition. Setting up a blog and utilizing RSS are two ways that can be achieved. Also, try to set the goal of becoming the most valuable resource for information pertaining to your market and specialty.
Whether buying or renting, people need a place to turn to for information. If you can provide it, you will have plenty of traffic and clients to match.

Visit Joe’s site for Affordable SEO His podcast offers Information and tips on SEO For articles on SEOvisit his blog

SEO and Web design. Two birds of a feather…

SEO and Web design. Two birds of a feather…

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and web design go hand in hand. One cannot function without the other. Sure, you could have a well designed website on the internet and pay for traffic and advertising. However, no one will find you while doing a search. The benefits of being found on search engines will cut the cost of paid advertising. Yet everyday there are people who spend a great deal of money to have a site designed but wouldn’t think of having it optimized. Why, you ask? Is it the cost of SEO? Would they rather have a site created and avoid optimization to save a few bucks? If that’s the case…what do they plan to do with this site when it is completed? Advertise? SEO is advertising. It is actually one of the cheapest forms of advertising.
Were they planning on a PPC campaign? Buying banners? Page impressions on some click network? You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would anyone waste their money on those subpar options before optimizing their site?

In the long run, you’ll spend more on those “other” methods and receive fewer results than if you optimized and maintained the optimization of your site. Eventually, you’ll wind up needing SEO anyway. Trust me. If you ever wanted to know anything about something, chances are you’ve searched for it first. You didn’t click on a banner or surf into it from some click through network. Now don’t get me wrong, PPC is great if you know what you’re doing. SEO paired off with PPC is a great combination. You may even do some PPC while your SEO is taking place. Any method is better than none at all.
Unfortunately, there are those who do business on the web who think that spending money on web design alone will help attract business. You can have the most interesting storefront the world has ever seen, but if you open up for business in the middle of the desert, it won’t make any difference.

So, what do you do? Hire a designer and then an SEO guru? That would be costly. Hire a web designer that has some knowledge of SEO to optimize your site? Not a good idea. That may hurt more then help. Search engines today are smarter then they were just a few years ago. You don’t want to be penalized for bad SEO methods or worse yet have no real SEO results from contracting a web designer with only marginal experience in optimization.

You need to find a web design company that has an SEO expert on board. SEO is a full time job. You want to make sure the SEO guru is knowledgeable and is up to speed with the latest algorithms. Check their portfolio and ask to see their SEO achievements. You should be able to contact their present or former clients to see if they are happy with their results. Remember, anybody can spot a great looking website, but SEO experience should be researched before you hire anyone. Ask for a proven track record. If you can find the right combination of an SEO guru and experienced web designers in one package, you can save a lot of time and money while taking care of the first two things every business should: getting customers to your site and giving them a reason to stay.

For Affordable SEO, SEM, website design and more visit Joe’s site. To read the latest SEO News visit his blog.Or, read articles on SEO.

SEO and Web design. Two birds of a feather…

SEO and Web design. Two birds of a feather…

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and web design go hand in hand. One cannot function without the other. Sure, you could have a well designed website on the internet and pay for traffic and advertising. However, no one will find you while doing a search. The benefits of being found on search engines will cut the cost of paid advertising. Yet everyday there are people who spend a great deal of money to have a site designed but wouldn’t think of having it optimized. Why, you ask? Is it the cost of SEO? Would they rather have a site created and avoid optimization to save a few bucks? If that’s the case…what do they plan to do with this site when it is completed? Advertise? SEO is advertising. It is actually one of the cheapest forms of advertising.
Were they planning on a PPC campaign? Buying banners? Page impressions on some click network? You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would anyone waste their money on those subpar options before optimizing their site?

In the long run, you’ll spend more on those “other” methods and receive fewer results than if you optimized and maintained the optimization of your site. Eventually, you’ll wind up needing SEO anyway. Trust me. If you ever wanted to know anything about something, chances are you’ve searched for it first. You didn’t click on a banner or surf into it from some click through network. Now don’t get me wrong, PPC is great if you know what you’re doing. SEO paired off with PPC is a great combination. You may even do some PPC while your SEO is taking place. Any method is better than none at all.
Unfortunately, there are those who do business on the web who think that spending money on web design alone will help attract business. You can have the most interesting storefront the world has ever seen, but if you open up for business in the middle of the desert, it won’t make any difference.

So, what do you do? Hire a designer and then an SEO guru? That would be costly. Hire a web designer that has some knowledge of SEO to optimize your site? Not a good idea. That may hurt more then help. Search engines today are smarter then they were just a few years ago. You don’t want to be penalized for bad SEO methods or worse yet have no real SEO results from contracting a web designer with only marginal experience in optimization.

You need to find a web design company that has an SEO expert on board. SEO is a full time job. You want to make sure the SEO guru is knowledgeable and is up to speed with the latest algorithms. Check their portfolio and ask to see their SEO achievements. You should be able to contact their present or former clients to see if they are happy with their results. Remember, anybody can spot a great looking website, but SEO experience should be researched before you hire anyone. Ask for a proven track record. If you can find the right combination of an SEO guru and experienced web designers in one package, you can save a lot of time and money while taking care of the first two things every business should: getting customers to your site and giving them a reason to stay.

For Affordable SEO, SEM, website design and more visit Joe’s site. To read the latest SEO News visit his blog.Or, read articles on SEO.

URL Random - Breaking Boredom has Never been so Cool

URL Random - Breaking Boredom has Never been so Cool
It happens to almost everyone, almost everyday. You find yourself bored to tears, aimlessly browsing the web looking at the same sites you read 30 minutes ago. You could keep repeating this, or you could check out URLRandom.com, the revolutionary way to break the cycle. Here’s how it works: anyone can go to the site and upon the page loading it will automatically retrieve one of over 2,000

Portable Sothink DHTMLMenu v8.6.80707
Portable Sothink DHTMLMenu 8.6.80707 | 7,4 mb Sothink DHTMLMenu generates DHTML menus with clean codes, which does not include hidden link in your generated menu to raise the PageRank of builder website. Hiding link in the menu is extremely bad for the users! Because the menus include irrelevant information to website, the search engines will analyze [...]

Portable Sothink DHTMLMenu 8.6.80707 | 7,4 mb

Sothink DHTMLMenu generates DHTML menus with clean codes, which does not include hidden link in your generated menu to raise the PageRank of builder website. Hiding link in the menu is extremely bad for the users! Because the menus include irrelevant information to website, the search engines will analyze relationship between these codes and the website, probably they will degrade your PageRank, and even penalize your website.

• Download
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PhD in DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data-NLDA/Delft

PhD in DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data-NLDA/Delft
Ph.D. Research Assistantship to Explore the Potential of DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data at the Netherlands Defense Academy and Delft University of Technology

With today’s digital signal processing capabilities, it becomes possible to optimize the performance parameters of a navigation system for a particular set of intended applications. The Netherlands Defense Academy and the Delft University of Technology are providing an opportunity of a Ph.D. research assistantship to explore opportunities in the field of Terrain Reference Navigation (TRN) by using digital signal processing techniques that were originally developed for the acquisition and tracking of GPS signals.

The goal of the research is to contribute to the creation of a design framework which can be used to match technology and processing concepts to a particular set of navigation system performance requirements. The focus lies on exploring the potential of various digital signal processing concepts for matching a set of distance measurements with a stored database of the environment.

The candidate should hold a Master’s degree in electrical engineering, computer science,
applied mathematics or any other relevant study with substantial knowledge on data
processing. Research will be conducted both at the Netherlands Defense Academy and at
Delft University of Technology. Leaders of the project are established researchers in the
field of applied mathematics, geomatics and electronics. Contact Prof. P.J. Oonincx, Netherlands Defense Academy, at [pj.oonincx AT nlda.nl]. More information about the Netherlands Defense Academy can be found here http://www.nlda. nl

Research Positions Available-NTU
I have currently six research positions available here at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This project involves the conversion of daily objects (table tops, glass panels) into touch interfaces. More information can be found in the attached press release and

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=9tfFMlje33o& eurl=http: //www.idm. sg/2008/09/ singapore% e2%80%99s- interactive- digital-media- sector-poised- for-breakthrough s/

If you want to be part of the team contributing on this next-generation touch interface, positions available are

1) 2 Research fellow positions - for Ph.D. holders/soon to be Ph.D. holders (avail. From Oct 08 onward)

2) 2 Research engineers- for B.Eng/Masters holders (avail. From Oct 08 onward)

3) 2 Ph.D. studentships- for B.Eng. (stipend and fees included in studentship) - Next intake Jan. 09

Applicants should have their first degree in either Electrical/Electron ic/Computer Engineering or Physics. Please see attached the call for application and newspaper article or visit my website at http://www.ntu. edu.sg/home/ AndyKhong for more information.

Alternatively, please would it be possible to assist by disseminating this to someone whom you think might be interested? Many thanks for your very kind assistance.

Best wishes,
Andy Khong

Firdaus Prabowo
PhD student
Div. Physics & Applied Physics
School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Nanyang Technological University

Maybe It’s Time to Upgrade Your Company Website

Maybe It’s Time to Upgrade Your Company Website
Dealing with website development issues can be an overwhelming task. There are many things your marketing team must consider, in fact, there are so many things to bear in mind that many of the most important ones never get dealt with, or are buried under competing interests.

To avoid project paralysis you should focus on certain key areas of concern from which all other issues flow. Whether upgrading your existing website or developing a new webmedia initiative from scratch, consider these four vital questions that need to be answered:

-What content should be included?
-How should content be delivered?
-How is your website going to be marketed?
-What will visitors remember?
-What content should be included?

Content is a function of purpose. Unfortunately many websites don’t have a clearly thought-out realistic purpose; and orders alone, is not an adequate website objective. Obviously every company needs sales, that’s a given, but sales are a result of all the marketing elements you put in place, and the degree to which your presentation distinguishes you from your competition.

There is a prevailing view that traffic translates into sales; this viewpoint may be valid for websites whose economic model is commodity or advertising-based, but businesses that don’t compete on price alone, or are more than an excuse to deliver advertising, must be structured around a purpose that is more meaningful, and far more compelling than ‘give me an order or don’t bother me.’

An over-emphasis on search engine friendly site design ignores the fact that when someone does a search for what you do, they’ll not only find you, they’ll also find many of your competitors as well. And even if you appear first in the search, nothing will stop potential clients from clicking on any of the other organic or advertised listings, or even the numerous Adword links on the side of the page.

The biggest website design problem companies have is not the amount of traffic generated from search engines, but rather how visitors react to your content. Are visitors engaged, enlightened, and entertained so that they stay on your site long enough to get your marketing message, and is that message compelling enough for them to remember it?

There are many misconceptions about advertising content, one of the biggest is that people hate it, but the truth is, what people hate is bad ad content; qualified clients actually look forward to good advertising because it presents a relevant problem, and provides a believable solution, in a distinctive memorable presentation.

If your content doesn’t engage your audience with a persuasive, memorable presentation then you’ll never achieve whatever website marketing goals you’ve set.

How should content be delivered?

We know the vast majority of people don’t like to read text on a computer screen, so they scan for relevant information concentrating on bulleted points, captions, and headlines, but does that truncated information really get your message across? Website text is really designed for search engine spiders, which is fine, but how about paying a little attention to people and how they absorb and remember information?

We also know people are impatient and are ready to abandon your website with the click of mouse, often in mid sentence before they ever get to the point you are trying to make. Your clients are sophisticated media consumers raised on video games and television, and are used to making quick decisions on limited information; this kind of leap-of-logic protocol demands a clever focused presentation.

Your audience will be gone in seconds no matter how convincing you think your content is, if it is not presented in a media-savvy manner that holds viewer attention, otherwise your website is nothing more than a glorified Yellow Page ad.

Audio and video has the potential to deliver information in a form and format that attracts and holds viewer interest while it makes a memorable impression. But even audio and video will fail if it is badly conceived, poorly written, and amateurishly performed.

How is your website going to be marketed?

Everyone is concerned with traffic and how to drive it to their websites. Search engine optimization is only one marketing technique, and it’s one that ignores the impact of content on your audience in favor of attracting the attention of search engine robots. By all means, build search engine friendly elements into your site but don’t ignore people-friendly elements as well.

Having text-based articles on your site is an excellent way to provide search friendly information, but presenting that same information as a professionally produced audio option, or a lively video presentation is certainly more memorable.

An entertaining webmedia presentation makes a lasting impression that viewers are more likely to recommend to colleagues, thereby increasing your traffic and reputation. Word-of-mouth is the best way to generate qualified traffic, and the best way to generate interest in your site is to make your site’s presentation a rewarding experience.
What will visitors remember?

In a brick-and-mortar environment, visitors are more likely to make a decision to purchase on the spot, simply to avoid driving halfway across town to save a few dollars, but on the Web jumping from New York to California is as easy as the click of a mouse. People are just more likely to shop-around because it’s so easy.

Of course what people think they want is the lowest price, but providing the lowest price only attracts the least profitable buyers and ignores the biggest obstacle website businesses need to overcome, and that’s credibility. Who are you, and can you be trusted? And after visiting ten different websites all selling the same thing, can they even remember who you are?

Your presentation has to be memorable and establish credibility so that when all the searching and browsing is finished, your site is the one they remember and go back to; your site must be the one visitors can trust to deliver what’s promised.
How to Hire A Web Video Firm

The ability to produce an effective video or audio presentation requires more than the possession of some cool hardware and software. Owning an expensive camera doesn’t make you a producer, and even the technical ability to edit doesn’t qualified you as a commercial marketing expert. When the time comes to hire someone to add video and/or audio to your website what should you be looking for? Below are eight things you should consider when hiring someone to create webmedia.

-Can the webmedia provider deliver a turnkey solution from concept to implementation, or do you have to act as your own producer hiring different people with different skills complicating the project and creating both technical and conceptual implementation problems?

-Can the webmedia provider produce everything from scripts to custom music in-house, or do they have to farm-out some of the work increasing costs?

-Does the webmedia provider understand how to use verbal and visual performance to create a convincing, memorable presentation, or do they substitute expensive production techniques for cost-effective psychological persuasion?

-Does the webmedia provider just shoot video, or do they have the ability to analyze your offering and purpose, and focus it into a consistent, meaningful, branded presentation?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to think strategically as well as tactically? Can they implement and repurpose your investment into your existing website, create a targeted mini campaign site, and provide alternative versions ready for ad implementation?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to create lasting campaigns that can be rolled out and built upon, or are they just interested in making a quick buck from a one-off effort? Are they willing and able to be your ongoing webmedia marketing advisor?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to turn advertising into content, and content into an experience, or can they only produce nondescript infomercials?

-Does the webmedia provider understand business, marketing, branding, and what can and can’t be achieved so that you have appropriate achievable expectations?

Commercial presentation production requires a multitude of skills and talents. Big companies solve the problem by hiring advertising agencies that drive the cost of production beyond what most businesses can afford. By understanding what’s needed to create an effective webmedia presentation, you can look for a firm that possesses all the necessary talents in-house; an approach that keeps costs down, while producing an exciting Web video campaign that achieves corporate marketing objectives.

This post provided by Jerry Bader who is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads
Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Improve Rankings with Effective Web Site Copy

Improve Rankings with Effective Web Site Copy

Have You Noticed What Google’s Been Doing Lately?

Have You Noticed What Google’s Been Doing Lately?
Many people have been asking me about the change in Google results that we’ve been seeing this year. When doing a search for “Amazon” or other leading authority websites, you may notice that Google has a search box embedded with the results. In this scenario, you are directed to the website via search results.

The search button in our Amazon example says, “Search Amazon.com” and the results that are displayed are upon the Google site of different keywords results for the Amazon.com website. The same holds true when doing a search for DMOZ.

But you’ll notice that when searching for DMOZ, Google has an additional feature. Not only is there a handy-dandy site specific search box for DMOZ, but there are also sitelinks listed as well. Google Sitelinks is another feature that is rolling out more broadly for older authority websites tthat serve specific popular pages.

Generally, a website has to be online for more than 2 years, be in the number one position in the SERPs and have many back links to it before Google will generate site links for a website. By offering two methods of searching an authority website, Google is doing both searchers and authority sites a favor.

We’ll have to wait though, on how those in the number two through 10 positions feel about this extra real estate devoted to the website in the number one position. With the added exposure, top search engine results are bound to attract even a larger share of organic traffic.

What can you do about this year’s development? Focus your Internet marketing strategy around a few key sites. Get those sites ranked in the top position and focus on keeping them there. There may require some consolidation of sites and a refocusing of your attention on link building and other off page optimization techniques around a single theme.

Stay posted for more online marketing updates!

How SEO and Blogs can help boost real estate sales

How SEO and Blogs can help boost real estate sales

Real estate is big business. You don’t need me to tell you that. Not just online but offline as well. Many real estate agencies fail to use the internet to their advantage. Yes, having a website is great. You can have people browse real estate listings whether buying a home or renting an apartment.

Real estate, being the billion dollar industry it is, can make for difficult optimization.

An real estate agency has a substantially better chance of increasing traffic to it’s website by focusing it’s optimization efforts toward a specific geographical area. Doing so will help in establishing a presence for the site while eliminating the need to compete based on standard industry termed content that will not differentiate an agency in Seattle from an agency in Sarasota. A Blog is a great way to begin achieving results by sticking to this formula. The idea behind a blog is that you can create optimized content that your potential clients would find useful and bring them to your site. Simply include your geographically related keywords and phrases in the content. For example, if you have listings for apartments in NY, a good posting for a blog might be “What to Look For When Apartment Shopping in NYC”. You could discuss what a renter should look for when shopping for an apartment in NYC, the necessity of renter’s insurance in NYC, overpriced areas of NYC, etc… Try to keep the content fresh and exciting to read. Remember, people may come across your article on a search engine and consequently decide to visit your site and use your services.

One thing that has made a blog a valuable tool is RSS. RSS lets us announce information as soon as it happens. How does this help a realtor? Let’s say I am hunting for an apartment. I may not have the time to check your site every few hours for updated listings. If I have a “my yahoo page”, my MSN or any RSS reader set up, I would know instantly that a listing became available.
With RSS, you won’t have to worry about spam filters blocking your emails. It’s beneficial for both clients and agents.

The point is to stand out from your competition. Setting up a blog and utilizing RSS are two ways that can be achieved. Also, try to set the goal of becoming the most valuable resource for information pertaining to your market and specialty.
Whether buying or renting, people need a place to turn to for information. If you can provide it, you will have plenty of traffic and clients to match.

Visit Joe’s site for Affordable SEO His podcast offers Information and tips on SEO For articles on SEOvisit his blog

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