February 02, 2010

Google stopping FTP publishing via Blogger

Google has recently announced they're stopping the ability of Blogger to publish via FTP to your own domain. So from March 26th, that means no more using Blogger within your own domain (although all the previously published files will stay on your hosting server).

It's a shame - although low-spec, Blogger does (or did) offer an easy-to-use, difficult to get wrong option, and you could use your own HTML template to fit the blog with the theme of your own site.

The reasons they state focus on the resource needed for a small amount of their user base, especially as some Google foundations they use are going offline, hence requiring even more effort. I suspect there's also the matter of making Blogger profitable - and registering domains etc with Blogger (as opposed to FTP'ing to you existing domain) is their only current revenue generator.

But whatever the real reason, the fact remains that soon, it dies. Time to head over to WordPress - even though there's more time needed, probably by shifting your whole site over, as well as the blog - it's worth it in the long run: more flexibility, easier to update all the pages on the site, and plenty of plugins that continue to offer new ways of finding & displaying information.

For those who do go down this route, here's a good place to export your Blogger posts to WordPress

Labels: online-marketing

October 25, 2009

Google Map with tabs & no code

Google Maps are an excellent way to show information - especially case studies. And now, you can create a map that updates from a simple spreadsheet, without even needing to know about AJAX or Javascript.

Here's an example of some information I downloaded in spreadsheet format, and had published in a webpage half an hour later. The markers on this map are members of a certain political grouping, courtesy of a file published by WikiLeaks.

Here's how to do it:

1) Start a new spreadsheet in Google Docs (create a login, if you don't already have one)

2) Create 4 columns (the minimum):

- the first for the title of the marker
- the second for the address
- the third for the information to go in the first tab
- the fourth for the information in the second tab

(The heading you use for the columns of the 2 tabs will be the title of each tab)

Additional Tip: You can use the =Concatenate function to string together information of different cells, as well as include HTML, for example:

If E2's contents are "Uncle Hester" and F2's are "Dunroamin Cottage", you could make this all one sentence, wrapped in a <h2> heading by:

=concatenate('<h2>',E2,' ',F2,'</h2>')

Anything other than cell numbers needs surrounding with quotation marks - between E2 and F2 we want a space, hence the '[space]' in the calculation above

3) Now it's time to publish the data, so that a Google Map can read the data:

- click the "Share" button in the top right hand corner
- choose "publish as a web page"
- select "Automatically republish when changes are made"
- under "Get a link to the published data" choose "Atom"
- copy the numbers in the link that it gives you
(the important bits you'll need are in red in this example - http://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/list/tAArQLUbx2_wKsxzOqyAAAA/od4/public/basic)

4) Geocode the addresses. If you haven't got the geocodes - Google have a Geocode Wizard that'll do it for you

Copy the Lat and Long data that the Geocode Wizard gives you into 2 new columns on your spreadsheet

5) Now - make the map... Again, Google have a Tabbed Map Wizard that does all the hard work for you. Put in the info of your spreadsheet as required, play with the options, and the Wizard will create the necessary code for you

6) Sign up for a Google Maps API key - put the following into the <head> of your web page:
<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=YOUR-API-KEY-HERE" type="text/javascript"></script>

7) Change the opening <body> element to <body onLoad="load()" onUnload="GUnload()">

8) Copy the code from the wizard from the line with CDATA in it onwards, not including the final </script>

9) Paste into a blank .js file and save it - then link to this file, after your API key link in the <head> of your document

10) Copy the code from the top of the wizard, from <div style... down to the closing <div> tag 6 lines down, and paste the into the <body> of your document, where you want the map to appear

And you're done... Now, all you have to do is update the spreadsheet (including the Geocoding), and the webpage that you've created will automatically update

Labels: online-marketing, tutorial, web-design

July 12, 2009

Good content = Good links = Good search visibility

Unique, quality content on your site is important for Search Engine Optimisation - it gets you links, which are the most important factor in good search engine ranking. Here's a quick example to show what I mean:

A couple of months back, The Apprentice UK was in its final weeks. Everyone was talking, writing, blogging & Twittering about it.

The Guardian has a popular TV blog, where they blog live throughout the programme, commenting / laughing at / being amazed by the antics. I'd been experimenting with a map that plots live Twitter comments on a map (the final version was used for a client's site - Musically).

So I set up a version to track people Twittering about The Apprentice, put it up on my personal website & sent an email to the Guardian blogger, telling them they were welcome to let Guardian readers know about it.

The blogger put up a link to the new web page on the Guardian's website. The Guardian site is very popular, and has a high PageRank (9).

So my webpage has only 1 link in the world - but it's on the Guardian website.

Google just updated their PageRank calculations that show in your browser's toolbar. And as you can see, my webpage - only 2 months old - has a PageRank of 3 thanks to this 1 link:

Just one link from one popular website has given my own website much more PageRank. PageRank in itself doesn't tell us how high a page appears for searches, but it is a sign of Domain Trust & Authority, which themselves are factors in high search visibility.

The lesson here - have a content & link-building strategy:

1. think what you & your business can create for your website, that other people will want to link to. Blog posts, how-to's, fact-files, videos, FAQs - the more interesting and unique the better.

2. find popular / trusted / authority websites, and think how to approach them, so that they'll link to you. A more personalised & tailored approach will work better - think "Dear Dave" rather than "Dear Sir"

With 2-3 hours a month dedicated to content & link-building, your site's search visibility will be much improved.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation

June 24, 2009

Google local business listing - opportunity and error

Google does most things well, but its local business listings could be better.

You've probably found recently, when doing a search, that a map & local listings will appear above the usual listings. A lot of businesses have registered, and from a Search Engine Optimisation point of view, I recommend doing so for any business with an actual address - for certain searches, you can usurp well-established businesses who have a traditional page 1 Google ranking.

But it isn't all good news. Google doesn't wait for you to register your business - their systems pull data from online listings like Yell and Thomson Local. This causes problems - locations are sometimes wrong, phone numbers often incorrect.

This week I was asked to help a large local hospital - Google has started showing a map listing at the top of search results, and the phone number shown is for A&E, rather than the general reception. This means everyone's calling A&E, the switchboard is swamped and urgent calls can't get through.

A quick look at Google maps' help forums shows that many hospitals, and businesses, are having this kind of problem. And Google doesn't seem to be doing much to sort any of it out - many cries for help on the help forums go unanswered.

So what can you do?

If your business isn't listed yet - be proactive, create a Google account and create your own listing in Google's Local Business Center.

If your business is listed, but not by you - see if it says "unverified listing". If it does, you're in luck. Create a Google account and go to the Local Business Center, where you can claim the unverified listing and update the details.

Both of these require you to prove you're the business being listed. You get three options - by post, by phone or by SMS. My advice - don't go for By Post, as many people don't receive anything. Many big organisations have difficulty getting the postcard Google send to the right person. SMS is easiest, but this will mean your mobile is shown on the listing.

So go for the automated "by phone" option. Find a quiet time for inward coming calls on your main line, and activate the "call now" feature. With your listing verified, you're free to put in all the details you want.

If the listing isn't claimable, but the details are wrong - try searching other online directories to find where Google is getting the data from. The hospital I helped was incorrectly listed online at ThomsonLocal.

As the organisational challenge of getting Google to physically alter the listing is huge, we also approached ThomsonLocal to update their listing. So, either Google will make the change, or the data it pulls from will update - either way, we're making progress.

In the meantime, some simple changes to the Title element of the homepage gives more prominence to the main reception phone number, to mitigate the problems of the errant map listing.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation

June 18, 2009

Blogging for Search Engine Optimisation

For a small business, it could be difficult to see the value of blogging. There are plenty of other calls on your time - getting out to see clients, doing the day to day work, keeping on top of finances.

So finding half an hour for an interesting and relevant blog post seems a lot.

This week I have been reviewing three of my clients' Search Engine Optimisation progress - one established blogger who imported their blog onto their main site earlier this year; one who started blogging a couple of months ago; and another who gave up blogging pretty quickly last year.

The established blogger now has 100+ extra pages indexed by Google on her site. Non-paid search visits have gone up by just under 5x, and although not getting the same level of conversion to buyers of Paid Search, it's not far off.

The new blogger is already ranking on page 2 of Google for a generic search of their profession, with their blog page, and is already seeing non-paid search traffic coming directly to their blog.

The given-up blogger has fairly flat traffic from non-paid search, even though they've spent a lot of time (and money) getting directory listings.

For businesses in many industries, blogging makes sense for a number of reasons:

1. Reputation - visitors to the site see their expertise in action
2. Activity - visitors see a 'fresh' website from an active business
3. Search Visibility - reaction to industry news & changes often generates new search patterns, and even a relatively new blog page can rank well

In addition, more pages on a site means more internal "link juice" - every page indexed by Google can give other pages a search ranking boost by linking to them, and internal links count, too.

So, if you're a blogger who wonders if it's worth continuing, or a business that thinks "I hear a lot about blogging, should we be doing it?", the answer is usually "yes" - for your online (and offline) reputation, for the user experience of your site visitors, and for generating more potential business through non-paid search traffic.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation

June 12, 2009

Using Blogger as FTP for your own site

-- UPDATE 2/2/2010 --

Google has announced that they're stopping the FTP option for Blogger. See this post on Google stopping FTP for more details

-- END OF UPDATE --

Google has made Blogger much harder to use for publishing a blog to your own, existing website - but only by 'hiding' the options you need. Here, I'll show you how to set up Blogger to publish via FTP to your own site.

(Why have Google changed things? Probably because they're now pushing the 'register your own domain with us' option, to make some more money, but that's only supposition)

Blogger doesn't have the reputation of the likes of WordPress, which is much more customisable and now with myriad, and high quality, free templates on which to base your whole site, rather than just a simple blog page.

But that's where Blogger still fits in - if you've already got a website and want to integrate a blog, but don't want to pay someone to rebuild the whole site, Blogger's the quickest and simplest way of doing it.

Blogger runs on even the simplest of hosting, and writing posts is easy, if a little dull, using the post editor. You can get a web designer to set up a blog that fits into your own, existing site in a couple of hours at most, giving you a blog that's exactly the same in format as the rest of your site (because you aren't tied to Blogger templates, you can simply use the code from your own site as a template).

Anyway, here's what to do (this assumes you've already got your domain name and hosting package bought, and just want to use Blogger to publish to that site):

1) Sign in to Blogger using your Google account (create one if you need).

2) Choose 'create a blog', and fill in the 'blog title' and 'blog URL' with whatever you like (it doesn't matter with what - the title can be changed later, and the URL won't be used)

3) Choose any template, and click continue - it'll tell you 'your blog has been created', so click 'start blogging'.

4) Go to the 'Settings' tab, and chose 'Publish', where you'll see that the 'FTP' option is no longer visible. But don't panic - click where it says 'use a Classic Template'.

5) This takes you to the template screen - scroll to the bottom, and click 'Revert to Classic Template' (you might get a dialogue box - don't worry, it's OK to say yes)