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The Widgets are Coming!

According to Wikipedia, a web widget is a third party item that can be embedded in a web page.  Widgets can be syndicated and supply many websites with fresh content, entertainment (i.e., games, picture of the day, music), or a helpful web tool (i.e., a mortgage calculator, language converter, site search).

Widgetbox and Yahoo Widgets have 1000s of free web widgets to add to any website.  For example, this blog has several web widgets located on the right hand panel.  AnswerTips, provides a way to double-click on any word within this site to receive its definition and pronounciation. (Check out our post about AnswerTips).  And currently we are testing both the Sphere Blog Search and the Google Site Translator.

If you are unable to find the widget that will work for you, you can have one created and distributed online through RSS and sites like Widgetbox to draw new traffic to your website.

The Best Online Resource for PowerPoint Help

Hands down the best online resource for PowerPoint is the Yahoo Group: PowerPoint.  The community is very active thanks to its membership of over 1,300, including several Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs.     One MVP in particular, Echo Swinford really goes out of her way to answer questions.  She has arguably answered more PowerPoint help questions than anyone else online.  She really goes out of her way to assist everyone.   However, she cannot do it all.  A good rule is for every question that you ask try to answer three questions from other members.  So the next time you have a question about PowerPoint and are not sure where to turn, try asking this terrific free yahoo group.

Double Up Your Website Navigation

Early on, the navigation for a website could be everywhere.  It was a little like a frustrating Easter Egg hunt to get to where you wanted to be.  Today, it has become the norm to have the navigation located at the top or the left-hand side of a page.  However, have you noticed that most sites also include a second set of navigation at the bottom of the page?  My guess it that it began when pages were endlessly long and it was a shorter distance to scroll to the bottom than to the top.  Nowadays, there are two additional benefits. 

The First Benefit:
Most web navigation is graphic in feel.  Some are actually images and some are text with images surrounding them.  Either way, the navigation typically takes up a fair amount of space and may limit the number of inks that are permitted.  Bottom navigation is traditionally created with a much smaller font and additional links can be added into your navigation structure.  Additional links can include: Terms & Conditions, Privacy & Shipping Policies, Site map, or anything else that may not be a primary focus, but you would like included on the page.

The Second Benefit:
Traditionally bottom navigation is text.  This is easily read by search engines.  Search engine spiders can follow the links throughout your site.  It is always encouraged that one of your navigation links is to a site map.  Site maps are considered a gold mine for search engine spiders. Any page that they may not have found through traditional means, if included on the site map page will now be found. 

Whether you add bottom navigation to assist with search engines, to increase the focus of your primary navigation, or as a second set close to the bottom of a page; make sure you add it.  the little bit of space it requires could offer some big rewards.

Trust

Ten years ago I had a terrible experience with a large retail computer chain. Yesterday, I decided to give them another chance and purchased a new laptop. The sales associate was fantastic, the price was good, and they had the product in-stock.

Everything went so well, I paid the extra for their warranty and for them to install all of the software onto the laptop me to save some time. I asked how long this would take. They told me 4 hours and that they would call me when complete. I verified this information several times and each account was the same. The store closed 11 hours later and no phone call.

The next morning up to an hour and a half after the store opened, the automated message still announced the store hours and mentioned that they are currently closed (which they were not) and therefore I had to travel to the store again to find out the status and discovered they only started working on it that morning and it would take about 4 hours. Needless to say it may be another 10 years before I return again.

Although this is a traditional retail experience, online is no different. You can have the most beautiful website, the best information, the leading authorities in you industry, and the best price, however if you do not hold true to what you tell your customers, all of that effort is wasted.

No amount of search optimizing, marketing, or design, will stop the flow of customers who are willing to go elsewhere, pay a little more, get less qualified information, but know that when something will be delivered it will be…guaranteed.

Nothing is more valuable than trust.

PowerPoint and Flash

Since Macromedia Flash v.3 (Now Adobe Flash v.9) there have been questions about when to use Flash and when to use Microsoft PowerPoint. A short time after that someone figured out how to integrate Flash Shockwave objects into PowerPoint. Now you could have the benefit of beautiful Flash animations combined with the extreme edit ability of PowerPoint.

This marriage has always been doomed with bugs and problems: Flash movie clips not rewinding when complete, the first Flash frame appearing upside down, PowerPoint’s embedded feature not always holding true, and if a presenter click on the flash animation instead of the actual PowerPoint screen the slide will not advance to name a few.

Rarely are these bugs addressed and therefore more often than not I do not recommend integrating Flash in PowerPoint. With a little creativity, PowerPoint can simulate a lot of Flash animation shown in PowerPoint.

However, there is a case that I nearly always recommend it. If you are trying to show a half screen animation or larger that loops continuously. For example, a cover slide that has a large rotating logo would be a great use.

Traditional Options Are:
Importing a large animated gif, typically results in poor quality. PowerPoint cannot extrude and rotate a logo on its own. Video file sizes are large and on PC based PowerPoint supported video files cannot be looped (not sure if this is now true with Vista).  When importing Flash, the inability to rewind is irrelevant given the animation loops. The upside-down first frame has been fixed by Microsoft, and the embedded feature has gotten much more stable. However, training may need to be provided to the speaker on where to click for slide advancement or an easy solution is to use a remote advancer (Pickle).

With the newest version of PowerPoint Vista who knows what new bugs may appear. As I mentioned up front I don’t usually recommend integrating Flash into PowerPoint, but there is at least one good use.

Do you integrate Flash into PowerPoint? Have you run into problems? Where has it worked best for you?

The Benefits of Blogging

When I began this blog, I mentioned that I would share with you all of the benefits of blogging as they occur.  This is part of that ongoing series.

I initially set up my blog with a number of expectations.  Some of these included:

• Drive potential customers to my business site
• Form partnerships with non-competing, yet similar customer-base companies
• Let potential customers know who I am, my beliefs, and understand that I am here to help them
• Create an online directory of useful site add-ons

My blog has been running daily for 3 weeks now and I am pleased to say that I have received mentions on Technorati and MasterViews.  I have received traffic from all of the major search engines. I recently heard from the VP of Marketing at Jaduka, Bill Binnig and the add-on list continues to grow. 

One thing I have found that I did not expect was how much my own personal knowledge has grown.  Each item I write about, I research and test.   If the item fails, I do not post about it, but I still learn. If the item passes,  I seek out the history and background of the product, service, or item and then share it with you.

All of this information has always been available to me, but now I have a reason to explore it.  Much like creating a list or a schedule, my blog keeps me educationally on track.  Now due to my new knowledge, I am finding that my credibility factor with new clients has increased dramatically. 

The benefits of blogging are numerous.  How has blogging benefited your business?

Go Ahead Double-Click Any Word: We Dare Ya

Answer.com's AnswerTips is an easy way for your visitors to find out the definition of any word on your website without leaving it. Many websites use industry language. For a majority of visitors this may be understood. However for some it may not be. This is an easy and clean solution for any site.

The positive and negative is when applied to a website the AnswerTips links are not intrusive. Without thier banner ad describing that you can double-click a word a visitor may not be aware of this feature, at the other hand would you really want every word on your website underlined or highlighted? As time goes on and this service becomes more popular, the banner ad may not be required.

This blog has now been AnswerTips enabled, so go ahead double-click any word. We dare ya.

Custom 404 Pages

A 404 page is an error page that displays when someone tries to access a page on your Web site that doesn't exist.  This is typically either through a broken link or a mistyped url.  Many websites leave the default error page provided by the server.  These pages are typically not branded, offer little information to your visitor as to how/why they got there, and can be intimidating to a visitor.

This is an excellent time to turn a negative into a positive.  Take the time or have your developer set up a custom 404 error page.  This page should:

• Tell the visitor where they are
• Ask the visitor to let you know of the problem
• Support the visitor is continuing to surf your website

If you would like to check how your 404 page looks, simply type in your url, a forward slash, and a few random letters into your browser address bar.  For example, to force an error page to my site I would type www.visualcontentsolutions.com/dffd.

Recently, there has been a number of websites that have made their 404 page humorous.  Plinko.net has created a site dedicated to unusual 404 pages.  One of my personal favorite posed this question, “Do aliens abduct web pages?”

Stop Fearing the 3 Minutes Before Presenting

Every presenter knows that feeling 3 minutes before showtime when you realize your presentation requires a modification, a mistake needs to be fixed, or new information added. These moments can be very trying, especially if you don't have presentation support to assist.

Now take with you the support you need: 24 Must Have PowerPoint Tips for Those Last Minute Edits.

This easy to use visual guide, will show you in 3 steps or less how to solve 24 of PowerPoint's greatest last minute challenges. Some of the these include:

• Aligning Objects
• Cropping Images
• Setting Transparent Colors
• Turning Auto-format Off
• Creating PDFs

To receive your free guide, drop us a line, make us smile, and for taking the time out of your busy day to make ours a bit better, we hope to make your next presentation a bit easier by giving you a complimentary copy of our latest ebook.

24musthave@visualcontentsolutions.com
800.763.0108 (Live Person)

Free Search Engine Comparison

Recently, I have been testing out two free search engine options that you can add to your website:  Google and FreeFind.  Both provide a search field for your website and the service for each is free because they will populate your results page with ads. 

Google search is based on Google.com, the well known and largest search site on the web.  With Google you have the option of integrating the search results into your website or having them displayed on a slightly customized Google page.   Integrating the results into my site really intrigued me until I found out that my site would not be able to hold their results without building a new page dedicated to it.  The settings for width are very limiting.  They provide two size options: one that will require more space left to right (ads will be on the right) and on that requires more space vertically (ads are on top).  The later option nearly fit with my site, but the ads are so unsightly, that there was no way I would integrate this with my site.  This left the option of the slightly customized Google Search page.

I have been using FreeFind for years.  Freefind results cannot be integrated into your site without a fee.  There search field states in small letter below it “powered by FreeFind”.  Google does something similar and in both cases it is free so I don’t mind giving the kudos. The landing page for FreeFind is clean and simple. In some cases I completely missed the ads.  The biggest advantage to me is that I can force an indexing with FreeFind.  In other words, if I update my site today, typically within minutes my search engine knows about the altered information. 

In contrast Google does not have this capability and consequently my site hasn’t been reindexed in over 1 month.  Not finding my most recent information easily is a big concern that FreeFind offers a great solutions to.  Additionally, FreeFind will allow you to set up reoccurring indexing, so your site will automatically be indexed periodically. 

Lastly, FreeFind sends me an email of all my search results each week.  I believe Google offers search statistics as well, but without my site having been indexed, I am unable to test. 

I rave about nearly every product Google has released for online business, however in my opinion FreeFind wins out on this one.