Archive for the ‘What I'm Reading’ Category

Drop Dead British Designer

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m a complete hussy for quality design. I mean honestly, some people like strip clubs and others ogle the fender of a Ferrari but for me? It’s all about the subtle details of quality design.

This week, while I was wildly clicking around looking for something completely unrelated (standards compliant xhtml) I came across a website for Oliver James Gosling, a freelance web developer in Bristol who’s got to have one of the sexiest websites I’ve seen in weeks, if not months. The piece of art came from DropStudio, another Bristol boy named David Robinson. My theory is that the recent snowstorms kept them at the office and if you look at the portfolios for either of them, creating spectacular work.

I don’t know either of them and this isn’t a paid advertisement but and so I don’t mind saying that the two of them (who seem to work together on a number of projects) do a wonderful job combine two very different disciplines, something more web professionals should keep in mind.

Web designers, design. Web developers, develop.

Canadian Job Postings

One of the more interesting things about the web, as far as I’m concerned, is it’s ability to allow somebody designing websites in Fredericton to see what’s going on across the who country, it allows us as marketing people to see the complete spectrum of employment and in this case, learn what different markets across Canada have for work.

Below is a tag cloud (a visual representation of keywords) for 300 different marketing job searches I conduct each day, it’s an interesting way to understand what the country is looking for and how it’s promoting employment across the country.

3 Years Ajax Ambassador Ambassadors Attitude Bonus Budget Business Analyst Calgary Canada Ca Usa Communication Skills Cover Letter Customer Service Cv Developer Developers Downtown Toronto Downtown Vancouver Edmonton Event Marketing Expert Familiarity Fast Paced Environment Female Model Female Models Gig Google Graphic Design Graphic Designer Gta Halifax Hello High Energy Hourly Rate Html Css Illustrator Images Interpersonal Skills Iphone Java Developer London Love Lower Mainland Marketing Marketing Campaigns Marketing Company Marketing Team Microsoft Mississauga Models Money Montreal Opportunity Oracle Ottawa Passion People Phone Number Photo Photos Php Developer Php Mysql Positive Attitude Problem Solving Skills Programmer Promotions Reply Sales Marketing Self Starter Short Film Subject Line Supervision Surrey Team Environment Team Player Toronto Vancouver Vancouver Bc Verbal Communication Skills Web Designer Web Developer Winnipeg Written Communication Skills

Montreal WordPress Designer, Chris Bavota

As I often do, I was looking at my friend Chris Bavota’s website this morning for inspiration to write a post about WordPress and it occured to me, why not share with all of you some of the things that I love about Chris’s WordPress website and do a little “review” of it so that others who might wish to create a blog can see some of the great things Chris has done with BavotaSan.

First off, Chris is an independent website developer and creative type in Montreal Canada, his website is all about how to build and design WordPress websites for small business owners and online marketing types, basically the same audience as mine but with a much more technical and WordPress focus.

His website, BavotaSan.com is packed full of amazing goodies such as his free themes for WordPress and a series of premium themes such as the Stationery Premium WordPress Theme , Illustrious Premium WordPress Theme and a great paid WordPress plugin called Delete Duplicate Posts Pro which surprisingly … does just that. It’s great for auto blogging website in that it scans for duplicate posts and ensures you’re not falling victim to Google’s duplicate post penalties but Chris’s website isn’t just a great resource, it’s a work of interface art. Let’s take a look at some of the features of this great website.

The Footer

I always start with the footer when I review a website, it’s often the last place a design thinks to look but the first place somebody looks when they’re lost … so it’s important. Actually, it’s a little like Walmart I think in that most people never think about customer service until they’re standing in line and really upset. Walmart is one of the few national chains that I can think of who put great thought into this fact, when a customer is trying to return or complain about something … make it easy for them, make it pleasant.

The footer on Chris’ website does just that. Finding things easily is a pleasant experience.

the footer Montreal WordPress Designer, Chris Bavota image

You can easily see the links he wants to promote in his footer, as well as a clearly defined link for Twitter.  His downloads and tutorials are organized to be effective and you’ll see this subtle use of a “Back to Top” option with an icon, a small detail often over looked by web designers in a rush. Ironically, Chris isn’t a web designer, he’s a web developer so his attention to detail is refreshing.

The Header

At the top of Chris’ website he promotes his internal links very well using a process we call deep linking but it’s done subtly and doesn’t interfere with users ability to navigate his website. In fact his menu is designed to accomplish two functions. First, he accommodates the users need to quickly reach content and two gives search engines the ability to easily feature content from his site.

the header Montreal WordPress Designer, Chris Bavota image

Two things that I absolutely love about Chris’ website? First, his use of the Get image from post code (he uses the code as a part of his theme rather than as a plugin, which is very effective) and the great link to his RSS feed on the right.

Everybody should take a few minutes to visit Montreal Web Designer, Chris Bavota .

Where I’ve been

Hey all, I know that I’ve not been posting here as often as I used to. Part of it’s the amazing summer that we’ve been having, part is a huge work load that I’ve been trying to focus on to guarantee the success of some amazing projects.

Huge thanks to Dallas Curow for letting me work on her great new website and an equally big thanks to house 9 design for letting me do it! I would love everybody to pop over and see the great new work at Great Chefs, sign up for their Twitter feed to win great prizes, cook books and DVD’s! I also found time to start work on my new portfolio site http://christopherross.ca, comments are always welcome.

Thanks all, I’ll be getting back into a regular posting schedule this week and look forward to hearing from all of you.

A Little Offline Reading This Summer

I’ve been spending a lot more time in the “real world” this summer and enjoying the sun which has given me a new appreciation for why I spend some much time in the air conditioned bliss of my office but more to the point, I’ve been reading a lot of great books (they’re like PDF’s but made with vegetable dye and flat trees).

So far, I’ve reread the great Don’t Make me Think, A Non Designers Design Book and of course the classic All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin. I’ve also got a pile of great books from Guerrilla Marketing to Secret Formulas to plow throw before the summer’s done.

In the mean time, if you have a suggestion for some great marketing reads why not post them below?

5 Free iPhone Apps that I love to play

Last week I started reviewing a whole host of tools to get ideas for the new series of cookbooks that I’m programing and I have to be honest and tell you that I went and got hooked on some really cool, free games for the iPhone:

World War™ – 40 Honor Points FREE!

World War™ - 40 Honor Points FREE! artwork

It’s the year 2010. A nuclear war has broken out. Most countries in the world have fought and many have been vanquished. 5 countries have emerged as the major superpowers in the devastating war. Which one will you be?

Start as a general defending your base from the enemy and fight to become the dominant military presence in the world as you march your way to victory in World War.

Waterslide Extreme

Waterslide Extreme artwork

Feel the speed as you negotiate your way down the serious twists and turns of a massive waterslide in this unique racing game brought to you by Barclaycard. Nine stages await you, as you race against the clock picking up as many points as you can.
Glide through cool modern cityscapes and ride the skies as day moves into night. Twist and tilt your way round tight corners and huge loops, following the natural velocity of the slide. The faster you go the more points you win.
But watch out, the edges are steep and there are some little surprises along the way.

Feel the speed as you negotiate your way down the serious twists and turns of a massive waterslide in this unique racing game brought to you by Barclaycard. Nine stages await you, as you race against the clock picking up as many points as you can.

Glide through cool modern cityscapes and ride the skies as day moves into night. Twist and tilt your way round tight corners and huge loops, following the natural velocity of the slide. The faster you go the more points you win.

But watch out, the edges are steep and there are some little surprises along the way.

Facebook

Facebook artworkFacebook for iPhone makes it easy to stay connected and share information with friends. Use your iPhone to start a conversation with Facebook Chat, check your friends’ latest photos and status updates, look up a phone number, or upload your own mobile photos to Facebook while on the go.

Do Not Press The Red Button

Do Not Press The Red Button artworkAlmost all of us saw this unusual and fascinating application about the “Red Button”

Now you have unique chance to know the true story about the “Red Button”, right on your iPhone/iPod Touch.
There are doors shouldn’t be opened, there are secrets shouldn’t be told, there are buttons shouldn’t be pressed…:-)

TMega Man® II Lite artworkons of options allow you to play Mega Man II Lite your way! Take on Dr. Wily and his robot army in both portrait mode and landscape mode. Test your mettle in Classic mode with all the enemies and action you remember, or toggle it off and enjoy a rebalanced gameplay experience with more forgiving controls, scaled-down enemies and an auto-fire option.

5 Great New Marketing Articles and Why You Should Read Them

A Dozen Video Game Firsts

Ignore the porn quality ads on this site and give it a good read. The article outlines industry firsts for the video game industry. Don’t play games? I don’t care. The video game industry is bigger than Hollywood, learn from them and apply their firsts to your industry.

9 Ways to Ignite Innovation Inside Your Company…and Light Your Way out of the Recession

Innovation is an amazing concept. Simply take something that’s already being done and do it better … who’d of thought? Well here are nine great, simple things that people can do to make their business more successful. Not into real estate? Who cares, read it anyways and learn from it!

YPulse

This is a great website that helps us old folks (anybody over 30) keep an eye on the kids marketing trends. Not into kids? OK, now I’m just messing … sort of, it’s a huge market.

Your pink slip may turn you into an ‘unintentional” entrepreneur

I love positive pieces about getting fired, reminds me of this one I wrote about how great it is to lose your job.

The Meteoric Rise of the App Store

OK I’m back on my kick, don’t have an iPhone or know that App Store is? Then you’re in a lot of trouble. The App Store (from Apple) is one of the best ways to market digital products such as games and books ever created, college students are selling millions of units of software and earning an equal amount of money for their custom apps.

The new WordPress

Just a quick note to anybody who might have missed it this morning, WordPress 2.8.1 was released with a lot of fairly important updates, not the least of which was a fix for Dashboard memory and fixes to the rich text editor, both problems had been causing me some problems.

WordPress or Bust!

Wow, it’s been a busy couple of weeks working on the Great Chefs website and I have to admit that I’ve been delinquent in updating thisismyurl.com as well as a couple of my other properties because of it. Even worse, my RSS reader is packed with literally thousands of unread articles that I’m trying to get to. Speaking of which, check out 20+ WordPress Recipes (Codes), it’s a great collection of WordPress cheat sheet theme codes that any designed would love to have. ThemeShaper has a great tutorial on building WordPress templates and how to start with the index.php file, now that you know how to code it, check out 30 Great Uses of WordPress and  build something equally amazing!

OK, I gotta get back to work and finish a great new website for a jewelry store, a personal coach, a small restaurant and of course more work on the Great Chefs!

Marketing Blogs you should read.

Talk about getting in a rut, sometimes I find it’s great to ignore the 100+ awesome websites that I’ve subscribed to and reach out to the Internet and read something completely different, here are 25 awesome articles that I found this week on websites I’ve never seen before.

  1. The Essential Role of Marketing in Working for Good | Intent.com – call it healing or spiritual or what you’d like but sometimes it’s good to read positive stories instead of bad news all the time.
  2. Cigarette Makers: Major Marketing Changes
  3. Internet Marketing or Search Engine Optimization
  4. 10 Essential Features Of Internet Marketing Courses
  5. Facebook & Marketing Your MLM – I hate MLM but I like this article, go figure.
  6. Marketing your Music with Topspin – This is a cool look at how to use Topspin for bands
  7. Maria’s Art Blog – I like this one a lot because it reminds us that marketing yourself on the Internet should be easy, Maria doesn’t complicate her website but it does exactly what she needs it to.
  8. Why Twitter is a Great CPA Marketing Tool
  9. Search Engine Positioning
  10. Music Business: Starting and Marketing a Music Record Label – I’d always wanted to start a music label but alas, I have no talent
  11. Digital Video Marketing
  12. Quebec is proposing a marketing board for its timber – I’ll admit it’s a good article but it made the list because now I’m whistling classic Montey Python as well.
  13. The Different Types Of Affiliate Marketing – this is why I love searching for random articles. This one actually taught me things I’d never considered
  14. Search Engine Marketing
  15. Barter for Cash
  16. Guide To Effective Internet Marketing Courses
  17. Effective Internet Marketing Video Training
  18. Anyone Can Make Money Online With Internet Marketing
  19. Real Easy SEO
  20. How To Make Money With Network Marketing
  21. How to Use the Power of Article Marketing – Article marketing is one of those areas of promotion that’s often overlooked but always a powerful tool
  22. Multi Level Marketing – the problem with MLM is that it works, frankly I can’t stand it (smells fishy to me) but I do learn a lot from reading about it.
  23. Website Marketing For New Webmasters
  24. The Affiliate Marketing Formula That Works Best Right Now
  25. The Price of Internet Marketing Products is Highly Exaggerated – an interesting look at the market.

What’s new in AdSense?

There’s a great little piece about Google testing new multiple AdSense units (Multiple RSS Feed Adsense Units, Link Ads in Google Reader), I always think it’s important for Web Masters to keep up on this type of news, even if it’s not directly related to the company as most companies rely on their web people for not just technical but also online marketing support. There are 10 great AdSense tips (and some more basic tips) for people just starting out, of course there is also a new post at thingsidoformoney.com that’s worth reading.

Greg Badros has joined Facebook, he’s the crazy cat that build AdSense in the first place so this could spell some significant changes for the Facebook ad system. There’s a nice write-up on alternatives to the AdSense system as well as well as a good summary article on using AdSense.

Google articles in the news

As everybody here knows by now, I spend a lot of time reading about Google to make sure that I can help my clients get the best search engine positioning but what a lot of people might not realize is that not everything I read in a given week has any commercial value at all, sometimes it’s just nifty little notes like the fact that Google has increased the white space around it’s logo, most likely not something the average surfer would notice but it signifies a change at the big G, so it’s worth noting.

There’s a really interesting article about job aggregators, not so much Google but a great piece on how the industry works (and will be working) as well as a neat look at the process of aggregating content. 

Two neat pieces Google’s decision to add images to AdSense, the first at Search Engine Watch and another at WebProNews. I can’t stress how important it is for professional web masters to read both of these websites daily, it’ll save you hours of sifting through less informative articles. MarketingVox takes a slightly different approach to the same story, well worth the read if you’ve got a few extra minutes but as usual, Jordan’s summed it up the best at Marketing Pilgrim (Google Adds Image Ads to AdSense Link Units).

On a slightly less AdSense related kick, Live From Google I/O 2009 will let you see the inner workings of the worlds largest search engine, I love these types of posts because it helps remind us all that Google is about people, not data. The Google Analytics blog exposes Top Ten Myths About Google Analytics while Matt Cutts has a piece on Searchology that makes it sound much less like a cult than the name implies.

Well, that’s me for the week. If you’ve not already seen the new website please take a look at the new Great Chefs website and let me know what you think, also please remember to download and vote for my plugins, it’s an easy way to let me know you appreciate what I write and program. Have a great weekend!

Seven SEO Articles in Seven Minutes

Ann Smarty put together an awesome article called Getting SEO Value from Follow-up Posts that’ll help you rediscover how your old content can help you keep readers interested as well as increase your SEO skills. Susan has ten quick tips that we all tend to forget, but can make all the difference in the world. Musa talks about SEO and customer service, there’s a neat piece on PHP Nuke and social media rather than SEO that’s really worth taking a look at as it helps define the line between people vs. machines in content. Speaking of an evolving form of SEO, organic marketing is big and today had a great guide to organic marketing.

If you’re pegging any hopes on the new Microsoft engine, there’s a great story here as well as the source link here.

WordPress Wednesdays

Are you looking for work as a WordPress developer? Automattic, the makers of WordPress put together a neat little post that’s showing WordPress is now an in demand skill on Elance, the popular freelance marketplace website. It’s also worth noting however that WordPress runs it’s own cool little employment board over at http://jobs.wordpress.net/ where prospective blog owners try to meet up with WP gurus. There’s another wonderful, secret mailing list … OK it’s not a secret but most people don’t know about it called WP Pro  where a dozen or so job requests a week come across your email box.

Here’s a wonderful piece that combines my love of gaming with my love of WordPress,  Peter’s done a great job of making the process of setting up an online gaming community clear and easy.  If you’re running Windows Vista and you’re struggling to get WP to work, there’s a neat piece here.

Darren put together a nice new theme for writers, but more importantly it’s worth checking out his site simply to see what every WordPress website should look like. Back to work now, I’m using WordPress to build a new website for the Great Chefs television program, so be sure to check it out in a few days!

Marketing blogs are awesome

For anybody interested in following the bizarre Intel/AMD legal procedures there’s a funny article on how weird the investigation is getting, as a loyal Apple fan I have to always back Intel but seriously, it’s getting really hard to keep a straight face while doing it.

A handful of great stories this week about social media and marketing including a wonderful piece on reaching smokers, some wonderful recycled icons and  how to deal with skeptics with regards to mobile marketing. I love being right and one of my theories lately in the pubs (where I spend a lot of time) is that unless you’ve dedicated yourself to understanding social media, you just don’t get it if you’re over 35 and there’s a great article in the Birmingham Post about how marketing bosses missing opportunity to use social media, warns survey that’ll drive that point home.

There’s a neat piece on marketing metrics for small businesses that’ll give you a great place to start before you spend a penny on marketing. Speaking of starting, before you venture forward onto the web take a quick look at Digital Apple Juice’s piece that’ll give you some great pointers. When it comes to online marketing, remember that you really do need to have a firm grasp of your ROI (Return on Investment), so take a quick look at this great piece about ROI from social media.

Funny news .. YouTube banned the NHS (National Health Service in Britain) from running an ad campaign directed at teenage pregnancy prevention. I’m not sure that YouTube cared about the subject matter as opposed to the graphic nature of the videos.