March 17, 2008 by FaithfulWeb
What do you call the crowds jockeying for too few seats at church on Easter Sunday? This year you can call it March Madness. It’s a safe bet that the pews will be packed so here’s your March Madness grid for churches. Keep track of who’s taking up all the room from the Round of XXXII to the Saintly 16, and from the Ecclesiastic 8 to the Faithful Four.
Which worshipers will make
it the the Faithful Four?
Update on March 18, 2008, Part I - This post is part of Catholic Carnival #164 so check it out.
Update on March 18, 2008, Part II - The “real” grid is available as an iGoogle gadget.
Posted in Content Ideas | 5 Comments »
March 12, 2008 by FaithfulWeb
In-house SEOs can learn from The Wall St. Journal’s advice for IT by Amit Basu and Chip Jarnagin.
“Too often, there’s a wall between a company’s information-technology department and everything else. That wall has to go.”
Replace “IT” with “SEO” and you’ll find valuable lessons for in-house SEO. Here are the blueprints from that article adapted for SEO.
- Begin with SEO literacy — and commitment — at the top
In-house SEOs need to make the case and tie SEO directly to performance metrics, particularly in dashboards and management reports. If you don’t, no one else will make the connections.
- Hire an SEO leader who sees the big picture
Sure, it’s important to know what’s hot on Sphinn, but you also need to understand marketing and technology-and to have strong relationships with the staff in those areas. And if aspects of SEO are outsourced, it’s important for you to closely manage those vendor relationships. As the article says, “Outsourcing simply shifts the emphasis of [SEO] management away from everyday operations and toward broader business considerations such as contract, relationship and performance management.”
- Create demand for SEO solutions
Help business areas understand that SEO improvements make their units perform better. Use workshops, brown bag sessions or team meetings to get your SEO points across.
- Make sure nothing gets lost in translation
“A company must have people at all levels who can translate [SEO] for those outside that department and translate the language of management for those in [SEO].” All parties should understand the inevitable trade-offs involved with SEO. Sometimes the brand needs to come first, sometimes Legal wins and sometimes the money isn’t there for the technology, but everyone needs to recognize what is and isn’t at stake.
- Rationalize SEO spending
Review and justify SEO spending as carefully as you do other technology investments and have an SEO disaster recovery plan.
- Create a portfolio by evaluating risks and returns
“There is a myth that IT investments can’t be evaluated because many of the advantages are intangible or can’t be monetized.” Sound familiar? Ensure your results are measurable.
Those are just some of the ways in-house SEOs can take heart in and learn from the challenges their IT colleagues face. What will you add to the list?
Posted in SEM/SEO | No Comments »
March 5, 2008 by FaithfulWeb
Resource Shelf noted a study today about the effects of Web document formatting on user comprehension and behavior (PDF). The University of Washington researchers recreated several different versions of an information site, with one set lacking global navigation (Figure 1 below) and another having tabbed navigation (Figure 2). Other variations included no introductory text (1A, 2A), introductory text followed by bulleted categories (1B, 2B) and introductory text with embedded links (1C, 2C).
Figure 1: Three variations of pages without global navigation.
Figure 2: Three variations of pages containing tabbed navigation.
Some of the findings of how presentation influences reader behavior surprised the researchers:
- Introductory text (B) without embedded links doesn’t increase factual comprehension; nor does it increase total time spent on site
- Tabbed navigation (figure 2) doesn’t influence comprehension of the material, but it does encourage site exploration and increases user satisfaction.
- Introductory text with embedded links (C) increases referential comprehension (understanding how the material relates to other topics), but at the cost of severely reducing satisfaction-particularly in the absence of tabbed navigation (1C vs 2C)
- Link lists without introductions (1A, 2A) generate more page views than link lists with introductions (1B, 2B).
- Tabbed navigation (figure 2) increases the number of pages viewed. While not mentioned in the study, there’s likely an upper limit to how many navigational tabs you can add before this works against you. Just ask Amazon.
So, users like tabs (no surprise), but that introductory text isn’t necessarily going to help comprehension (surprise). Embedded anchor text is good for SEO and reader comprehension, but bad for reader satisfaction. As the abstract states, “structural cues that promote understanding are not necessarily those that promote exploration or enjoyment.” Choose wisely.
Kathryn A. Mobrand, Elisabeth Cuddihy, Edward Galore and Jan H. Spyridakis from the University of Washington published The Effect of Structural Cues on User Comprehension, Navigational Behavior, and Perceptions. Their study involved 282 engineering undergrads from UWA who reviewed Web sites based on the U.S. National Park Service Web site for Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Posted in Usability | 1 Comment »
