Evolution Studios

Keep track of your website traffic with Google Analytics

Evolution Studios — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:52:34 +0000

Why is monitoring website traffic so valuable?

Website statistics (or, “traffic monitoring”) applications have gotten very powerful over the last few years. They’ve replaced the old, “website counter” with something far more useful for website owners (and i daresay gets those eyesores off of web pages). What you can view now is a website owner is information, not just about how many people came to your site, but also:

how long they stayed there
what pages they looked at
approximately where they are
what time of day they visited your site
and, probably MOST important: how they got to your website

Taking a look at whether your website visitors and customers are finding you via search engines, or arriving at your site via links from other sites, or just simply typing your URL in to a browser can be of great importance and great value.

With that information, you can leverage your popular points of entry to gain even more traffic and/or purchases, or perhaps you will discover an area where you need to improve, or barriers that your website visitors are coming up against that are literally stoping them from being able to make a purchase or take that action you want them to take.

The website analytics tool I typically recommend is Google Analytics. They have a great product video intro, that you can view here, and get a little bit of a better idea of how it works and what the software can do for you. …best of all, it’s free!

Here at Evolution Studios we make it a point to make sure that every client has some sort of analytics / website traiffic monitoring software package. We typically install Google Analytics for clients, at no charge, and help with questions our clients might have in interpreting the data, or understanding what the reports mean.

Make sure that you have Google Analytics installed, and take the mystery out of understanding your website visitors!

XML Sitemaps, guidelines on their use

Duncan Morris — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:10:10 +0000

Posted by Duncan Morris

Over the past couple of days I have been putting together some internal guidelines on various aspects of our jobs. This should ensure that we are giving consistent information to our various clients. Most of these guidelines have been fairly straightforward with nothing in them to write home about. However, one of the hardest guidelines to write has been the one talking about xml sitemaps. So, rather than horde my thoughts, I'm going to open them up to all of you.

What are xml sitemaps?

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL... http://www.sitemaps.org

On the surface this seems to be a great addition to any website's armoury. However, before you rush away and create your sitemap, there are a number of pros and cons you should be aware of.

Benefits to using a xml sitemap

The first set of benefits revolve around being able to pass extra information to the search engines

Your sitemap can list all URLs from your site. This could include pages that aren't otherwise discoverable by the search engines.
Giving the search engines priority information. There is an optional tag in the sitemap for the priority of the page. This is an indication of how important a given page is relevant to all the others on your site. This allows the search engines to order the crawling of their website based on priority information.
Passing temporal information. Two other optional tags (lastmod, and changefreq) pass more information to the search engines that should help them crawl your site in a more optimal way. "lastmod" tells them when a page last changed and changefreq indicates how often the page is likely to change.

Being able to pass extra information to the search engines, *should* result in them crawling your site in a more optimal way. Google itself points out the information you pass is considered as hints, though it would appear to benefit both webmasters and the search engines if they were to use this data to crawl the pages of your site according to the pages you think have a high priority. There is a further benefit which is that you get information back.

Google Webmaster Central gives some useful information when you have a sitemap. For example the following graph show googlebot activity over the last 90 days. This is actually taken from a friend of ours in our building who offers market research reports.

Negative aspects of xml sitemaps

Rand has already covered one of the major issues with sitemaps which is that it can hide site architecture issues, by indexing pages that a normal web crawl can't find.
Competitive intelligence. If you are telling the search engines the relative priority of all of your pages, you can bet this information will be of interest to your competitors. I know of no way of protecting your sitemap so only the search engines can access it.
Generation. This is not actually a problem with sitemaps, but rather a problem with the way a lot of site maps are generated. Any time you generate a sitemap by sending a program to crawl your site, you are asking for trouble. I'd put money on the search engines having a better crawling algorithm than any of the tools out there to generate the sitemaps. The other issue with sitemaps that aren't dynamically generated from a database, is that they will become out of date almost immediately.

XML sitemap guidelines

With all of the above in mind, I would avoid putting a sitemap on a site, especially a new site, or one that has recently changed structure. By not submitting a sitemap, you can use the information gathered from seeing which pages google indexes, and how quickly they are indexed to validate that your site architecture is correct.

There is a set of circumstances that would lead to me recommending that you use a sitemap. If you have a very large site and have spent the time looking at the crawl stats, and are completely happy with why pages are in and out of the index then adding a sitemap can lead to an increase in the number of pages in the index. Its worth saying that these pages are going to the poorest of the poor in terms of link juice. These pages are the fleas on the runt of a litter. They aren't going to rank for anything other than the longtail. However, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that even the longest of the long tail can drive significant traffic when thousands of extra pages are suddenly added to the index.

One question still in my mind is the impact of removing an xml sitemap from a site that previous had one. Should we recommend all new clients remove their sitemap in order to see issues in the site architecture. I'm a big fan of using the search engines to diagnose site architecture issues. I'm not convinced that removing a sitemap would remove pages that are only indexed due to the xml sitemap. If that is the case thats a very nice bit of information. *Wishes he'd kept that tidbit under his oh so very white hat*.

So I guess let the discussions start, do you follow amazon.co.uk (who does have a sitemap), or are you more of an ebay.co.uk which doesn't?

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Website and Video Integration

Evolution Studios — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:49:24 +0000

This week, I’ve got a guest blogger to write to you about some of the things that he does with us to take websites to the next level. I wanted Brian Norwood, owner of Hollyweb Video here in Tulsa to talk to you a little bit about some of the newer technologies that are being used to integrate websites and video together to create a powerful sales tool for your company.

Hollyweb Video Marketing Solutions has been producing some of the most viewer directed and cost effective marketing solutions in the Oklahoma area as well as within nationwide companies for the past 7 years. Beginning as a source for internet website video, Hollyweb has expanded its services by offering cd-rom and dvd design, hybrid disk creation, live multi-camera shoots, sports broadcasts, green screen studio shoots, disk print/packaging/replication, and of course video production.

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Green Screen Technology: The use of Green Screen Technology partnered with interactive media has become our newest service. The services can be difficult to describe, so will give an example. We are currently working with a doctor who has ordered a cd-rom and website. As you will notice on most cd-rom designs, you have pages of information with various links and buttons to navigate the disk. By using green screen, we can have the capability to film a spokesperson and place that spokesperson on your desktop guiding the viewer through the presentation. The model can also spill out valuable information.

This is as close to a salesman in a pocket as you will ever get. Having a person within the presentation walk around the screen, providing company information verbally and visually, while providing a personal feel to the viewer. Many potential clients can be visually stimulated in learning about the information you are getting to them. The model is filmed in a way to where his background is the background of your cd design. This is often used in infomercials and commercials. Having a spokesperson in your company uniform or shirt helps allow the viewer to feel they are actually working directly with a company representative. The disk remains interactive and linkable… the spokesperson adds personalization and visual/audible information. The doctor is using the interactive spokesperson to provide information and guidance through the disk that may be confusing to some clients. This is also being used within her new website.

Virtu-Model: This is our newest and most popular service for 2007/2008. It has become very apparent that we are driven, as humans, by visual and audible detail. We can effectively bring your products and services to life by having a virtual model walk onto your viewers screen for a personal presentation. Its like having a sales person working 24 hours… and they’ll never ask for a paycheck. This is a great way for your viewers to learn about your team by personally allowing the model or representative to stand on the screen and speak to the client in short detail.

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Thanks, Brian for this great information! Folks out there, I hope this gives you some better understanding about how YOU can use online video in your next website project to help your website be a more powerful sales tool for you.

Learn Search Engine Optimization Basics

Evolution Studios — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:01:58 +0000

One of the questions that we get asked the most often, goes something like this:

“When someone looks in a search engine for keywords related to my business, I want my website to be at the top of the list. Can you do that for me?”

This is a difficult question to answer for most web developers, because, while we understand the technology behind search engines, and we know how search engine optimization works, we don’t control the process of ranking pages higher or lower in a given search engine. Only the search engines themselves determine what website gets listed first, second, third, and so on in their results, and they have specific formulas which dictate who gets listed, where.

Search Engine Optimization (or, “SEO”) is the process by which a website owner, and/or a website developer (preferably working together collaboratively!) works on various aspects of a website:

the html code
the content
the way the website is constructed and designed
building links from other sites

and others, to continue to improve a website’s ranking in search engines. A couple things to keep in mind is that SEO is an ongoing process. There’s no magic wand that anyone can wave, no instant fix or magic bullet that once you follow steps a), b), and c) then you’re at the top. Anyone who tells you different is trying to pull a fast one on you. Hold on to your wallet.

Also, as a website owner, a lot of the work is on your shoulders. Why? Because you know your product, and your customers, best. You know what makes you stand out above your competition. You are better than anyone else at what you do, and you’ll have a successful website when you can take that knowledge and information in to your own hands and make it work for you.

How to get started?
1) Establish a goal that you would like to reach. This can be a goal to reach $_ more in sales next quarter, or to have _ more visitors to your website, more sales inquiries, more phone calls, more visits to your retail store, more referrals from your existing customers, or whatever you think would improve your business. Make your goal tangible, and one that you can reach within a few months and measure your success.

2) Learn a few basics about SEO, so that when you talk to a website developer (like one of us!), you can let us know what you want to achieve and you can work together as a team to reach that goal. A good place to get started is a guide that I often recommend, published by SEOMOZ, a company that publishes information and tools related to Search Engine Optimization.

Click here to download SEOMOZ’s Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization.

Knowing a little more about the terminology and what goes in to SEO

Would you be able to make sure that my page titles and image alt tags are correctly placed, formatted, and relevant to the keywords that are important to me? I would also like you to make sure that my site follows standards, doesn’t have broken links, and that my website is indexed properly in the search engines. Can you help me with that?

Can you increase the number of inbound links to my website by helping me list my site in online directories, creating partnerships with other sites that are realted to mine, and helping me create an affordable online advertising and marketing strategy?

Are you able to create a news & updates section, or business blog for my website so that I can write an article on a regular basis, increasing the content on my site, the keywords that I’m indexed under, and give others the opportunity to share my information and expertise?

In any of those cases, the answer is, yes we can!
Many of us here at Evolution Studios work on Search Engine Optimization techniques on a daily basis, and have been doing so for many years. We develop websites with code standards, we keep in mind Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices when we design and structure sites, and we are constantly keeping up with the latest tools and techniques in Search Engine Optimization. So let us know what you learned from the guide! …and keep Evolution Studios in mind when you look to do some SEO for your own website.

List yourself in online directories

Evolution Studios — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:42:29 +0000

Clients often ask how to rise above the clutter and get listed higher in search engines. One tride and true rule (especially with Google’s ranking method) over the last few years has been to have as many websites as possible, linking to you. How do you accomplish this?

There are several things that you can do, from asking friends, family, clients, associates and other business colleagues to link to you from their site, and/or write about you in blogs, news articles, etc., to having media outlets publish your press releases, to making sure that you have regularly updating content on your own site. In future articles we plan to cover some of these methods in more detail, as well as other ways you can make sure your company makes it to the top of the list.

There’s one little trick, which is often overlooked that I want to mention today, and that is listing yourself in several online directories. There are quite a few of them out there — Verizon, Google, Yahoo, AT&T’s Yellow Pages, MerchantCircle and Angie’s List are some of the most popular directories that people use to find companies and services in their local area, often as an alternative to picking up a big bulky phone book.

So, where to list?
What I would do to find that out is to use the search engines themselves. Often what you find in the first 15-25 listings for what you might be looking for, are listings in various directories. Let’s say I own a pet store in Tulsa. People who would be my potential customers might do a search for,

“pet store” tulsa

If I search for that phrase in Google, I find Google’s local listings for pet stores, as well as

www.petdogandcatservices.com
petcarechannel.localwin.com
tulsa.citysearch.com
www.dogfriendly.com
www.superpages.com

…all in the first 20 or so listings, some of them huge nation-wide directories, some of them small individual or locally-owned directories. So if I want to increase the chances that my store will show up, and that potential customers would come to my store, I’ll want to make sure that my store is listed in as many directories as I can.

The strategy here is, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. I know I can’t probably beat out www.superpages.com (Verizon’s online phone directory) and be listed above them; they’ve been around longer, are a bigger comapny and probably have a larger marketing budget that I do. BUt what I can do is make sure that I’m listed in their directory. If I can take advantage of the fact that most of these websites allow me to list for free, I can be in, let’s say a dozen directories, all of them pointing to my website. This spreads the word about my business, links other high-ranking sites to mine, and increases the chances that someone will find my store when they want to buy a pet in Tulsa.

‘Sound good?
Try it yourself!
If you’re not already listed in Google’s Local Directory, you can go to: https://www.google.com/local/add/ and fill in their form to be include in, “Google Maps”. You’ll be asked to verify your business location via a postcard that Google will send you in the mail. The next time you ask a new customer where they found your business, see if they say that they found you in a local online directory listing!

SQL Issues

Evolution Studios — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:48:39 +0000

Greetings,

We had a slight mySQL database glitch this afternoon resulting in the loss of all database entries processed since July 9, 2008. We have recovered as much data as possible, but there was some loss that could not be recovered. We apologize for this loss and are working very hard to see that it does not happen again. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Support@evolutionstudios.org.

Thank you,

Evolution Studios

Want to Win?

Evolution Studios — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:32:55 +0000

We hope that you enjoy your service provided by Evolution Studios. We have maintained superior service for very competitive prices, and we hope that if you have had to use our hosting support you have found it extremely responsive and helpful. A lot of money has been put into providing superior services that many of our competitors do not offer, all of this without raising our hosting rates. In anticipation of new services planned for the end of this year and the money it will involve, Evolution Studios is conducting a drive for web hosting clients. Our goal is to gain 300 new hosting accounts by October 1st and we need your help! How? By advertising Evolution Studios, the best thing is, we will do the work for you. If your site currently has a Designed or Maintained by Toydrum logo on it, please let us know and we will update it with our new Evolution Studios logo. If you don’t have a logo on your site, we would be happy to provide a logo for you. With each logo will come a specific link only to be used by you. Each new customer you refer will increase your odds of winning one of these great prizes:

· 2 Premium Tickets to the Tulsa Oilers Opening Game at the new Bank of Oklahoma Arena

· 80 Gallons of Free Gas

· 2 Years Free Web Hosting

Have a website you can’t advertise on? Then send an e-mail to everyone you know and let them know to mention your name on the Referred By box of the order form. We really appreciate your business and hope that our services meet your expectations and needs. If there is ever a time that you have questions or issues with our services, please feel free to contact us. We have a lot of big plans for the future and we need YOUR help to get those dreams to be a reality. Thank you!

Evolution Studios

Coming Soon!

Evolution Studios — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:47:06 +0000

It is our hope to keep our clients and readers educated on the changing ways of the Internet. We will be writing and posting helpful information on topics ranging from eCommerce to Search Engine Optimization. Please check back often as we plan on updating this blog often.

Our New Name

Evolution Studios — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:43:36 +0000

It is my privilege today to share with you some exciting news. Over the last several months, Toydrum Hosting has been looking for a means to offer some top of the line services in both the web hosting and web development fields. We hope that you realize how difficult it is to compete with some of the larger companies where maintaining low prices is easy due to the amount of volume those companies see. Toydrum Hosting has prided itself in providing competitive low pricing while maintaining dedication to its smaller volume of client base. It is because of this goal that Toydrum Hosting has decided to become Evolution Studios. Bringing in experts in web development, marketing, search engine optimization, and web hosting; Evolution Studios hopes to maintain our level of dedication while bringing new and exciting products and services to the table. It is important to note that nothing will change for those of you hosting with us, prices and services will all remain the same. It will be important to update your DNS records for your websites and registrars within the next 30 days. Please point them to ns1.evolutionstudios.org / ns2.evolutionstudios.org. This is very important and failure to do this will result in your website appearing down. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at Info@evolutionstudios.org.

Home

Evolution Studios — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:03:30 +0000

Evolution Studios

Keep track of your website traffic with Google Analytics

XML Sitemaps, guidelines on their use

What are xml sitemaps?

Benefits to using a xml sitemap

Negative aspects of xml sitemaps

XML sitemap guidelines

Website and Video Integration

Learn Search Engine Optimization Basics

List yourself in online directories

SQL Issues

Want to Win?

Coming Soon!

Our New Name

Home

Website Design

Website Hosting Packages

Blackberry Enterprise Server

Microsoft Exchange Email