WARNING TO HOTELS...Don't Use Free Link Shortening Services in Your Marketing

A few months ago we wrote about the many reasons why hoteliers should not be using free link shorting services such as TinyURL and Bit.Ly. While there are numerous free services available, most put your hotel at risk and may cost you dearly in lost business opportunities. The Internet is still a little like the "wild wild west" and our reasons for not using free link shortening services remains true - doing so puts your hotel at risk in many ways.

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The Key To Top Video Rankings On YouTube & Google

Many of us in the SEO community obsess about Google algorithm changes, personalized search, Bing market share growth, and the myriad minutia that affects search engine behavior. But for all of the attention that we give most of the major players in search, it remains a mystery to me why the second largest search engine is routinely ignored. In case you hadn’t realized, in terms of share of search, YouTube remains ahead of Yahoo!, safely in the No. 2 spot behind Google, according to comScore.

via searchengineland.com

Google Tool Shows Where the Eyeballs Go on Your Site | WebProNews

Google has launched a new Google Labs experiment called Browser Size, which is a tool aimed at helping webmasters see how others view their site. Google's official description of the tool says:Ever wondered what parts of your site can't be seen without scrolling? Browser Size shows you what portion of users can see a give spot on the screen. This is not screen resolution but the area available to the browser - as gathered from www.google.com users. Here is what it looks like: "In a newspaper, the most important story is featured on the front page," says Google Senior Software Engineer, Bruno Bowden. "If it's a really important piece, then it's placed 'above the fold,' which means you can find it on the top half of the first page — the bottom half is folded behind and isn't readily seen when you first look at the newspaper." "The same concept applies to browsers as well," he adds. "There's no clear line for "above the fold" on a browser — there are many different sizes of monitors, browsers are not always full screen and other things like toolbars can take up space. Consider a 'Donate' button on a non-profit site. If it's far down the page, you may not see it when you first view the page. You can of course scroll downwards, but many people don't scroll and will miss it entirely." To use the tool, simply enter your URL and it will insert your page into the graph showing the percentage of people who are likely to see each area. Don't be surprised if a lot of websites suddenly start shifting to the left. The tool was one of Google's "20% time" projects. A post on the Google Code blog has some interesting details about how the project came about and grew to what it is. Related Articles:

via www.webpronews.com

Top 10 Reasons Hotels Should NEVER Use TinyURL To Redirect Links

There are numerous free URL shortening and redirect services out there, with the most popular being TinyURL. Using such services puts your hotel at risk and may cost you business and expose your hotel to potential lawsuits. The most dangerous situation is where someone else impersonates your brand or hotel and creates redirect links to malicious websites.

Read the Top 10 (actually 11) reasons hotels should never use TinyURL to redirect links.

Web Design Trends for 2010 | Web Design Ledger

With a new year on the horizon, it’s time to pack away the old, worn web designs and prepare for the brave, new face of tomorrow. Although trends don’t start and stop on January 1st, there is a definite shift from what we craved at the beginning of the year to what we are seeking tutorials for at the end of the year. Most of the time, this shift is subtle. It’s a perfection or re-interpretation of a currently hot trend. Trends help us evolve as designers. As we master the skills of design aesthetic, we continue to push forward to what’s next or what needs to be fully discovered.

via webdesignledger.com

Eye Tracking Without The Eyes - AttentionWizard.com Beta - Search Marketing News Blog - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Eye tracking studies can be a very valuable tool that can help identify significant problems with your website or landing page. Unfortunately eye tracking requires expensive and specialized hardware and software to be used, and live test subjects to observe and measure.

via blog.searchenginewatch.com

Want Better Web Design? Watch Real Users

I’ve been in web development since 1995. For me, and many of you, it’s easy to forget that people don’t have the computer equipment to use the web sites and Internet applications we build. I’ve always found it interesting that TV show web sites are Flash based and loaded with images and video. It’s as if they are built for an elite group of TV watchers and everyone else doesn’t matter.

via searchengineland.com

7 vital questions to ask your web designer - Questions 1 and 2 - iMediaConnection.com

Whether you're talking about a redesign to an existing website or you're launching an entirely new product, you're always going to be working to solve existing business problems. Unfortunately, a lot of clients don't share these problems with their designers, which means that work suffers, solutions remain out of their grasp, and costs can easily go over budget.

via www.imediaconnection.com

SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » 10 Tips For Creating a Brilliant Landing Page

SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » 10 Tips For Creating a Brilliant Landing Page.

Building a great landing page should be on top of your priority list if you want your website visitors transformed into customers. While a great looking website can grab the attention of your visitors, a strong landing page will keep them involved and get them to buy your products/services. Wikipedia defines a landing page as: the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-ngine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » 5 Ways To Convey Expertise In Your Articles

SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources » Blog Archive » 5 Ways To Convey Expertise In Your Articles.

Imagine a potential customer typing your name into Google and being greeted with a lengthy list of your articles, all on your specialized topic, and written in a way that makes the reader think, “Wow–he really knows what he’s talking about!” When a reader sees that type of display of your authority, it builds his confidence in your abilities, your products, your website, and your services.