Language Translation for Your Web Site

While I'm sure it doesn't translate perfectly, this handy-dandy Google tool uses machine translation to allow those who don't speak your language to translate your pages into theirs.

Spanish speaking? Here's CD WebMaker in Spanish.

This is especially important if you sell or provide ANYTHING to other than English speaking customers. Tourism? Travel? Advertising? Any kind of goods you're willing to ship overseas?

While I know that small businesses can't afford to pay an in-house translator to write separate versions of their site, they can at the least put a link to their Google translated page on their site.That way, 'foreign' visitors and searchers don't have to do all the work of finding your site, then going to the Google tool to translate. After all, perhaps the very next search result will offer mulit-language pages.

mod_rewrite (killing me softly with its code)

Jeez Louise! I've been working on a set of dynamically generated pages for a business directory on the Chamber of Commerce site and while I understand (and love!) them, I've read that maybe the Search Engine gods don't.

I don't want to take any chances that these page won't be indexed, and it will eventually produce a page for each member that I'd like for them to be able to use i.e. www.chamber.com/members/business_name.

Enter the mod_rewrite...On one forum I found some idiot who recommended a handy-dandy tool to right the rule for you to use in .htaccess. I wasted all afternoon yesterday on that stupid, stupid tool. BTW, said idiot touts himself as a web marketer extraordinaire on his own site. If that's true, then I underestimate myself greatly!

Today, I found the REAL solution in another forum. The whole deal with mod_rewrite is that you use a SE friendly URL within your script, then use the RewriteRule to write the dynamically generated URL so that the script works. Thank you, Birdman!!

Here's the PHP code:

<?php
$sql = "select name from TABLE";
$r=mysql_query($sql);
while ($row=mysql_fetch_array($r, MYSQL_NUM))
{
$name=$row[0];
echo "<p><b><a href='members/$name' title='$name'>$name</a></b></p>";
}
?>

And the .htaccess code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^members/(.*)$ members.php?name=$1 [L]

Then, in members.php I can use this code to display that member's page:

<?php
$sql = "select * from members where name={$_GET['name']}";
?>

The browser and SE will see: www.chamber.com/members/MEMBERNAME instead of www.chamber.com/members.php?name=MEMBERNAME and the member actually has a URL they can use on biz cards etc!

Ted Stevens' Internet

I just love a solid example of the moronic depths of our elected leaders.

Here's Senator Ted Stevens' (of "The Bridge to Nowhere" fame) take on that whole Internet thingy:

…the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

This little gem came out of what passes for the Senator's gray matter because he got an email 5 days after it was sent. Here's a very humorous analysis of why the email took so long.

Brilliant, bloody brilliant. And these guys are in charge...in fact Ted Stevens is the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. It's pretty scary considering that the giant phone and cable companies are trying to take control of the Internet away from the public and convert it into their own private, corporate network. Ted Stevens doesn't even know how it works, how can he make any kind of intelligent debate or legislation on it?

If you think the Internet should belong to EVERYONE: individuals, small businesses, schools, non-profits then visit ItsOurNet and let Ted and the rest of them know how you feel.

Podcast Usage Report for Web Marketing

Nielsen//NetRatings published a report yesterday regarding podcast usage that should be of interest to web marketers and podcasters alike.

Here's a perspective of the information on the U.S. Adult Online Population:

6.6% or 9.2 million web users downloaded audio podcasts
4.0% or 5.6 million web users downloaded video podcasts
4.8% published blogs
3.9% participated in online dating
51.6% paid bills online
24.6% conducted a job hunt online

The age demographic looks like most new technology:

18-24 year olds 2 times more likely to download audio podcasts
24-34 year old were more likely to download video podcasts
45+ were the least likely to produce or download podcasts of any kind

And the browsing habits are interesting:

audio/video podcasters were 3 times as likely to use Safari browser (Mac), although they were twice as likely to use Firefox.

***********************************************
Enough numbers already!

Jason Miller of WebProNews writes of the report:

"For now, your podcast target is the geeky, hipster, upwardly mobile dotcom type who likes decent shoes for mountain biking and tennis, when he's not debating Kirk versus Picard.

For everyone else, the "old" route is the best. Think Internet Explorer, AOL, and Netscape users, who've barely heard the term "podcast." These are the ad clickers, much broader in terms of demographics, for whom a mass-market approach suits best."

I say that's crap! Well, mostly anyway. Who doesn't know one of the last people on earth to buy a VCR? You don't want to look like one of THOSE guys do you? I say jump on the bandwagon, cause it's steam-rollin' into town.

Get used to the technology because it's gonna stick around and learn how to use it to market whatever you're selling. You'll have a headstart on the last-minute scramblers who will try to catch up later on. When the 18-24's turn their earphoned heads in your direction, don't be overlooked.

Cool Two Column List in CSS

As a designer/programmer, the frustrating part of that phrase being the '/', I sometimes get my creativity ahead of my technical skills.

Then, I have to go out and find help, learn how to tweak it to my needs and make it work. A Two Column List controlled by CSS is just such a sad scenario.

Thankfully, ALA has a solution or 5 that can be found here. Be forewarned here and at ALA, there'll be compromises to make.

Believe it or not, I think this is the only page on this site this will be used. I'm a sucker for a challenge! Here's how I ended up getting it to work in IE 6, Firefox 1.0.7 and Opera 8.53:

See the page here.

The XHTML markup:

<ul id='top-index'
><li>Gold Leaf</li
><li>Window Lettering</li
><li>Logo Design</li
><li>Dimensional Signs</li
><li>Magnetics</li
><li>Vehicle Lettering</li
><li>Glass Etchings</li
><li>Full Vehicle Wraps</li
><li>L.E.D.</li
><li>A.D.A. Signage</li
><li>Brochures</li
><li>Business Cards</li
><li>Postcards</li
><li>CNC/3D Routing</li
><li class='last'>Large Format Digital Printing</li
><li class='last'>In House Quick Print Service</li
></ul><br/>

And the CSS:

#top-index {
list-style-type: none;
width: 318px;
margin: 0px 3px 0px 5px;
padding: 0;}

#top-index li {
background: url(../images/bullet.jpg) no-repeat top left;
font: bold small-caps 12px/20px Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
padding: 0px 0px 2px 16px;
width: 150px;
float: left;}

html>body #top-index li {
width: 140px;}

#top-index li.last {
float: left;
width: 100%;}

#top-index br {
clear: left;}

Yes, there's a hack in there that I'm sure I'll hear about, but since this is the first time I've posted actual code, PLEASE be gentle. If you have a better solution, feel free to post it!

Report on Pay-Per-Click Fraud Out

I think the first time I mentioned this issued to a client was 3-4 years ago. It seemed only natural that pay-per-click ad fraud would be a problem.

The way PPC ads work is that you set a dollar amount you're willing to pay each month, and once that limit is reached, your ads no longer display. Your competition could chew up your budget in a day or two and move on to their next victim.

I got a report today by Doug Caverly of WebPro News that says:

"Market researcher Outsell Inc. has determined that click fraud is a big issue-"big" in the sense of a "$1.3 billion problem." Their study also found that the issue has driven advertisers to spend less money with the major search engines.

On that subject, one of the topic headings claims that "On Average, 14.6 Percent of Clicks Are Fraudulent." And as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the study also found that "three-quarters of advertisers said they had been victims at least once." Taken together, these statistics indicate that a lot of money has been wasted on advertising.

The Chronicle also reported that "27 percent of advertisers reduced or stopped spending on click-based advertising." Also, "an additional 10 percent said they intend to curtail spending." And Chuck Richard, the vice president of Outsell, made a comment in the report. "In our opinion, it is not acceptable that advertisers fund the illicit profits of the scammers," he said.

Outsell's statistics are ground firmly in reality. The "survey was based on the responses of 407 online advertisers representing a cross-section of U.S. business. Their spending ranged from several thousand dollars online annually to more than $10 million." Click fraud is obviously a huge problem affecting all sorts of companies."

---

About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews.

Moral of the post is if you're going to use PPC, be sure and track the click-throughs AND the conversion rates/amounts very, very carefully to make sure you're getting what you paid for.

New Web Marketing Campaign

Today I sent the first of a five part newsletter series on ideas for web site content.

I used the Google analytics links in the newsletter and am anxious to see the click-through rates.

Newsletters are one idea for adding content, traffic and incoming links to YOUR site too. Hopefully, the recipients will follow the link(s) in the newsletter generating traffic. Then, since I put the tips on a new page on my site, I've got new content that I'll add to every week when the newsletter goes out.

Lastly, I hope to be found relevant enough to gain some quality incoming links.

That's the plan...we'll see how it all works out!

P.S. If you'd like to subscribe, go to my Subscribe page and sign up. Doesn't matter which list you add yourself to, as the program won't send duplicates.

June Stats

Even though I didn't launch my website redesign until the 15th, I'm very pleased with my stats for June! Here are the numbers:

Number of unique visitors: + 11% in June
Number of visits: + 41% in June
Pages Viewed: +51% in June

That last one is the best because it tells me that visitors to my site are spending some time on it, not just "bouncing" right off like teflon. I've got what's called "Site Stickiness". It's what you want as well.

Number of visits is a great number too, because it says that visitors are coming back more than once. I'm giving them content of interest that's updated regularly so that they return to my site to see what's new.

I had a lot of traffic on the 15th, because of the newsletter announcing the new site I sent out. But two other days actually beat that number, so it's not just that generating the traffic.

BTW - I've been rejected from one blog directory because "We do not allow blogs that are specifically used for the promotion of a business." Oh, really? Well they don't seem to mind sending me all that spam!

My point is this: I'm not giving you these numbers (nor posting to this blog) in the interest of self-promotion or to boast. I'm telling you these things in hopes it will help you with your web site promotion.

See my previous posts for the web marketing I've done in June for the new site. It may give you some ideas, and if you know the success I've had with these techniques, maybe you'll be more inclined to give them a try.