Latest Articles
International SEO – Two Tips To Consider…
February 28, 2008 By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
I was reading an associated press piece this morning and it brought up a good point about names with dashes, apostrophes, and other characters that me non-standard to many English based web sites. Most customer relationship management apps (CRM), databases for credit card applications, hotel reservations systems, and more usually require name fields that allow only for a standard first and last name. Non-standard names may cause problems or even shut down your systems.
If you haven’t read it already, check out the associated press piece of at Wired.com called: Apostrophes in Names Stir Lot O’ Trouble. Then head to your web site and register with names that include the various dashes, apostrophes, spaces, and other characters. How does your site handle items like this? What is the cost to fix an issue like this rather than leave any problems to remain in the system?
Another item to consider… If you are marketing internationally, it may not always make sense to have a toll free line that is toll free internationally. In fact, depending on the cost of your service or good and the size of your international customer base, it may be quite unprofitable to have a toll free 800 line. So how do you get around this stumbling block?
In speaking with some of my international customers, they say that using a voice over IP service (VoIP)is quite common when calling between countries like the UK, Germany, France, etc. Services like Skype can help businesses who may find an international 800 number too expensive. You can buy blocks of time, set up conference calls, and they have other options to explore.
Hopefully these two ideas help you to consider some of the factors related to marketing your site for international success.
Yahoo “Open Search” Sound And Fury, But Nothing Yet…
February 26, 2008 By Webposition SEO Team
Interesting post from Yahoo yesterday. They intend to make their search results a bit more “open”. They say that eventually you’ll be able to add reviews, small photos, and other data to your Yahoo listings.
You can take a look at their announcement as well as a before and after example of a Yelp.com listing over on the Yahoo Search Blog. It looks promising but as many others have noted, this doesn’t sound like something that they are going to roll out tomorrow or the next day, but more of a long term plan. If you want to keep an eye on this, follow the terms Yahoo Open Search and Yahoo.com “Search Monkey”.
You can also read more about this at:
Techcrunch, and at Wired.