Google made an announcement today through email that Internet Explorer 6 is no longer going to be supported.  This is a fantastic first step and it’s great that a giant such as Google is making the first step for us all to follow forcing Microsoft to phase out their Internet Explorer 6 on different machines.  Thanks, Google!  Read the press release below:

Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Apps product or account.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

As you are probably well aware, Facebook is growing rapidly every day. It started off as a networking tool for college students and now is one of the largest social media networking sites in the world. Businesses small and large are taking advantage of this accessible source to grow their business. Facebook has given businesses a chance to create a “page” for themselves which allows “fans” to support them.  Any individual that is currently using Facebook can choose to add any business to their profile. When this happens, they become a “fan” and that business will show up on their personal profile.  Every new activity the business creates will show up in the newsfeed on their home page.  This allows businesses to share any information to their supporters that they please. For example, company news, blogs, events, status updates, comments, answers, and photos.

As mentioned, Facebook is growing at an incredible speed.  Last year Facebook reported having over 350 million active users. Web presence is essential for businesses today.  Joining social media networking sites can help your company’s page rank on search engines. The more fans a business has on their page, the higher pagerank and awareness potential customers have about its website.  Be patient, though!  As fans do not join overnight.  A helpful suggestion is to start by asking friends and family to become fans first. By doing this, all of their networking friends will see that they became fans of your business and this may increase the chance of getting more fans. Your fans can also “suggest” your business to their friends, accelerating your business across the social networking world.

Facebook has updated the site a few times since it first launched.  Each change made it that much more user-friendly.  It is extremely easy to join and helps users along the way with helpful hints all over the site. When you join, Facebook offers step by step instructions to help complete your profile, page, any information and settings. Facebook provides so many additional features for businesses, but we’ve listed some of them here:

• Networking with an unlimited amount of fans
• View and create wall posts
• Status updates
• Photo and video uploads
• Notes
• Discussions
• Events
• Reviews
• Join networks
• Create Groups
• Display company information, including website(s)
• Appoint multiple administrators to increase the amount of content faster
• Post a Link
• Promote your business with special offers
• Suggest to Friends

While joining Facebook is free, the site also offers inexpensive ads that can be useful.  Small advertising boxes align the right side of each profile. Facebook allows you to target your marketing audience.  Whether you are promoting your company’s website, or something to do with your Facebook page, you are allowed to choose between the following filters:

• Location
• Keywords
• Age
• Education
• Relationship status
• Sex
• Workplace
• Languages
• Relationship Interests

With all the available capabilities, the question remains of why are there businesses that are not taking advantage of this free social media networking site? Joining Facebook can help your business gain more leads, which will eventually lead to growth in revenue.  Below is a simple list of benefits that every business can enjoy after creating a Facebook page.

• Ability to brand your company
• Showcase your work
• Get your business name out there
• Higher page rank on search engines
• Use your updates as free advertisement
• Use the events page to invite people
• Create a URL and post it on your website or email signature
• Its FREE! FREE! FREE!

If you are a business owner or are looking to expand your company’s outreach through social networking, joining Facebook is the perfect first-step. Other networking sites of note include LinkedIn and Twitter.  AndPlus Design will be blogging on other sites in the near future, but we hope this post has helped inform you a bit about the benefits of Facebook.   Become a Fan of AndPlus Design today!  Visit us at www.facebook.com/AndPlusDesign

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an interesting topic, one that takes years to understand. Nobody has a formula for SEO, even though some people promise to make you #1 on the results. Consulting firms will often have you believe that they are the best at getting you to the top of the results within search engines like Google, or Bing. These same firms will use gimmicky phrases and make claims and promises that are simply impossible to keep. The bottom line is, Google makes almost their entire revenues based on paid links and advertisements, giving site the ability to show up before organic results. What makes any company think they can outsmart Google engineers?

They can’t. And, if they do, it won’t be for long simply because, the way search engines serve results is constantly changing. In fact, big search engines like Google and Bing actually hide the way they serve results, because allowing people to see this formula would actually create a competitive advantage to firms who understand the formula. Since nobody knows the formula, other than those who are contractually bound to secrecy, your website’s success within search engine optimization is based upon one thing, and one thing only – its content.

To show up ranked highly in results organically, you need valuable content. There are other SEO white hat techniques which are supported by Google and other search engines, such as using “alt tags” on images and optimize your META Descriptions, but content is king!

There are times when your website has valuable content but is not being returned in search results.  One of our most recent clients, a restaurant review guide, had fantastic content – organized and community-driven. Despite this, the site was not showing up in search engine results.

We utilized some white hat techniques to make their site show up in the top 5 results organically for a set of 10 keywords. The first was to add descriptions to the images on each page. Search engines are “blind.” That is, they cannot see images, only read text.  So if there is relevant information being shown through images, it should be explained through the use of an “alt” tag.  Secondly, the website’s internal structure was incorrect. What looked visually appealing to the human eye was actually nightmarish and disorganized to a search engine spider. By reorganizing the code, we were able to give the relevant content and code to the spiders in a more organized fashion, without changing the website’s appearance.

Here’s the take-away. If you want to come up highly in search results, make sure your website has relevant content and brings value to the user’s experience. Do this and your website will shoot to the top of search engine results.

The next time you hire an SEO consultant, be sure you ask what they will do and why what they are doing is necessary. Consultants are used to answering questions such as these and understand the difference between white hat and black hat techniques. Ask which white hat techniques they are going to use, and if they are going to use any black hat techniques . . . and why.

DEFINITIONS
Search Engine Optimization – The process of rearranging a website’s code such that search engines understand the pages’ content more easily.

Organic Results – The results for a particular search which the search engine feels matches the search terms most appropriately

Paid Links – Websites which pay to have their links listed before (or on the side of) organic results.

Black Hat – Techniques that are meant to trick search engines into ranking a website highly.  These tricks are found and fixed, and often get your site banned altogether

White Hat – SEO techniques which are approved and encouraged to ensure your site is listed organically for relevant search terms.

Search Engine Spider – A computer program which crawls around the web reading all of the web pages they can, indexing the content so that it can be returned in organic results.

Girls, Inc., a national organization with a strong presence in Worcester, MA, recently held a Wine Tasting event at 55 Pearl right here in the city.  They provided wine and food samples from four different countries, with local “celebrity” servers!  The event had food and a silent auction, and was attended by roughly 75 people.

 Girls, Inc. contacted AndPlus Design to sponsor and attend the event.  Sean Mahoney, President, spoke about the sponsorship, saying “Supporting Girls, Inc. lies at the heart of what we’re trying to accomplish within the city.  Worcester has a very unique business culture – one that supports the community around it.  We hope to be a part of this culture for a long time.”

 AndPlus Design appreciated the opportunity to sponsor the event and be involved in supporting such a fantastic organization doing so many great things.  We look forward to supporting them again in the future.