What makes an organic search marketing campaign a success? This is a question that continues to cause confusion. For each client, the answer seems to be a little different. The success of an organic search campaign needs to be measured in a way that supports the business goals of each client. Let’s look at a few important measurements of SEO progress and what these metrics do and don’t tell you.

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I recently heard a story of a guy who went to an interview. The entire interview went great until the employer asked him one last question: “What’s your MySpace page address?” Right there in the interview, the employer took a peek through this individual’s MySpace page. Seem outrageous? Yeah, but this type of snooping has become common, even if it doesn’t happen right during the interview.

More and more, employers are ‘Goggling’ prospective employees to learn more about them. And for a while now, consumers have done the same thing before purchasing a product or doing business with a new company. As a business owner, do you know what your prospects find when they search for you on the web?

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I guess everyone out there has a list that is used by many. a top ___ (fill in the blank) list of some resource you use. Well why not me? I compiled a list of some cool jQuery plug-ins I found that have been used in our web development here at THAT Agency.

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I’m a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts. They help me multitask and every program lets you use them. It’s a great feeling to discover one on your own.

For me keyboard short cuts started with Photoshop. I can work on an entire project without once touching the top navigation bar or selecting something I need. I know just about every shortcut, test me. My favorite would have to be ctrl + alt + shift + s (save for web) I think I like it so much because I use it the most. Then of course you have to move to the Tools. Using Tool shortcuts makes image editing a breeze. You can manipulate the image and it’s so fast. The Tool short cuts are a hit of just one letter. Let’s say you need to type something, press T and your new tool is the Character tool, start typing. Need the Magic wand? Press W. How about Zoom, press Z. See the pattern, most of the shortcuts are the first letter of the tool you need. If it’s not a tool but a part of your page setup it’s simply ctrl + the first letter of what you need. Like Ruler ctrl + R. If you need to change the color of your image slightly try Levels, ctrl + L (that is one of the first shortcuts I learned) I also like to close my docs by hitting ctrl + W, don’t forget to save it though… just press Y when it asks if you’d like to do so. The list of shortcuts goes on, try them out and discover new ones, that’s the best part.

A great thing about mastering a programs keyboard short cuts is that it will be the same in their sister programs. For instance all Photoshop shortcuts are the same in Illustrator, In Design, Fireworks, and the other programs use simple shortcuts. Simple shortcuts are ctrl + s (save), ctrl + p (print), ctrl + w (close) you get me gist. Oh design program short cuts are different than development short cuts. I am learning the shortcuts for Dreamweaver. I only have the most important down pat. Like ctrl + shift + U, will Put the file. F5 will refresh your url so you can see the change you made. Then there are different ways of saving your files. So I have found those most helpful. I can’t imagine how many more there are. It will be exciting to find them out.

Many times as a designer I've found myself lost in a sea of client feedback and design changes. Most times it's best to step back and ask yourself (and sometimes the client) "is this going to achieve the site's/home page's goal?". When designing a home page it's best to stick to the program and have definite goals in mind. Without that initial direction the home page really has no other purpose than to look good and possibly give the user the right impression. Having conversion goals, whether it's a phone call, an email form or an online purchase these goals are important.

Often times as a designer we'll have several goals for the home page and organizing them in a logical hierarchy is the best and most practical solution. The best way to get this done is to sit down with the client up front, before design even starts and lay out exactly what the client expects to gain from the home page. What does it need to "do" and which items are more important than others. Direct a user to specific conversion page, incite a user to pick up the phone or inform them of the latest special offer.

Once this is accomplished keeping to that goal should be just as important to you in design as it is to the client in conversion. When you or clients find yourselves lost in a sea of changes and ideas take a step back and make sure you're not watering down the message/goal and you'll have a much more enjoyable design/conversion experience.

Google, MSN and Yahoo have offered location-targeted campaigns for as long as I can remember. This feature allows advertisers to select the zip codes, cities, states, countries and continents to show their ads in.

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I heard a quote floating around the internet a ways back. At the time I didnt fully understand his point.

"Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign"

What hes trying to say here is that anybody can redesign a website. Its easy to add a mirror reflection and some drop shadows to make a site look "slick". Sure it may look cool, but does it work better? does it convert browsers into buyers? Did the redesigned site post better results than the original?

On the otherhand a realignment will take the existing content and reposition it to gain results. A good approach is to step back and ask why the site was built in the first place. Is it to sell watches? If so, the most available path should guide me to where I can buy a watch. Paths that guide me away from buying the watch should be removed. In other words a well designed site will guide me towards buying a watch and nowhere else.

This concept seems obvious but for whatever reason people have a tendancy to add things. Often these additions become distractions which comprimise the sites effectiveness. Next time you set out to redesign a site think about your goal, Are you trying to make it look better or work better? A good looking site is cool, but a site that works better is way cooler.

What was a source of incessant press and speculation over these last few weeks, the decomposing dog/shell-less turtle/water rat/monster that graced the shores of Montauk, New York also found its way to this office, and materialized a tiny home for itself within each of our hearts.

I like to believe that Monty inspired us to pause, step back from our present selves, and reconsider who we are and where the rickety tracks of our lives were leading us.

To watch this awkward little mound of death be cast into a slow news day and paraded along various media outlets; well, it made us feel as though we, too, were the pun of office ridicule and the subject line for billions of e-mails. Something needed to change; if not for our own smug self-satisfaction, then for the sanity and welfare of others. So we blogged about it.

We assigned everyone in the office accounts and let them vent. Any and every post published after the 25th of July—an elaborate metaphor for how the exploitations of Monty was, in effect, an exploitation of us.

- THAT Agency

P.S. Our mural of Monty after the jump.

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Google offers several useful tools for webmasters. These tools have a variety of functions but generally help webmasters optimize websites so that the search engines can access and understand their content. One such tool is the keyword research tool. For a long time, Google has offered a keyword research tool intended to help website owners select keywords for pay per click campaigns. Unfortunately, the tool wasn’t very helpful because users weren’t given complete data.

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Sooner than you think.

Sheese, you're argumentative aren't you? I'll tell you now though, despite your fervent vocal objections that this very thing will happen. All other compiled hardware will become merely legacy, as legacy as logging on to a Renegade hosted BBS via your 300 baud modem firing up the ANSI colored text power of LORD, TRADEWARS, and the many, many flavors of MUD you still have active accounts on. Just as they were indispensable utilities that made the very corporate world turn, provided the light for it to see, filled it's lungs with their life giving rich air. Shortly following suit will be our current incarnation of super crutches like "Word", "Photoshop", "Quark", "Dreamweaver".

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