Author Archive
Short update
Posted by josh in Agency Web News on April 14th, 2010
We have a new website up for AgencyWeb. Still working on a few things to finlaize it but the design is set. Let us know what you think!
Also here are a few links to articles that we have been mentioned in.
Google Super Bowl ad
Posted by josh in Industry News, Local Search, technology on February 9th, 2010
I’m sure many of you saw the Google Ad on the Super Bowl. I have to admit I was rather excited and impressed to see the ad running along side the usual suspects of Bud Light, Doritos and GoDaddy. This was the first time I have ever seen a Google ad and wonder if they will start to showcase more.
1,238,584 people had viewed the ad again on YouTube before the Vince Lombardi trophy was even presented to the Saints! This again only reinforces the power of search – over 1 million people to took time away from the Big Game to search online for an ad they had just viewed.
The ad is simple, almost Apple like in production. It shows the progression of different searches and results as a young mans life starts off traveling abroad to eventually settling down with a family. Google did a great job of adding emotion to something as technical and sterile as search. The ad brilliantly illustrates how these days we truly rely on search for so many different aspects of our lives wither we realize it or not.
The ad showcases many different uses Google has – regular search, spell check, language translation, flight status, and local search. During the 60 second spot they featured local search in 3 of the results.
Cafe’s near the louvre
Chocolate shops paris france
Churches in Paris
Think about it – Google spent millions on this ad and featured local search results 1/4 of the time during their sop. If this doesn’t show how important local search is I don’t know what else would.
What did you think of the ad? Watch the Google ad.
Google displaying Twitter feeds in SERP
Posted by josh in Industry News, Search Engine Optimization on January 11th, 2010
I recently noticed that Google has started to display live Twitter feeds in their search results page. I was surprised at first to see this, but then again Google always likes to shake things up with their results and how they display information.
To me there are pro’s and con’s of this. On one hand it is a way to deliver real time search and information on what is happening. For some topics that are not really “news worthy” it will be a much easier way to find information and to get a pulse as to what is going on. But on the other hand how credible are these results? Most often times people on Twitter post links to other sites, press releases and sources of information, (like a traditional search engine results page) so it’s kind of an extra step.
Either way it just shows how fast and powerful social media has become and how Google is always working on delivering relevant, up-to-date information to their audience. It will be interesting to see if they continue to implement this for more results or only try it for a short period of time. So far I have only personally come across these results twice but will keep en eye out for them in the future. Have you seen these yet?
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EDIT
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I just updated our twitter to notify everyone that AgencyWeb would be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King day, and did a search on Google, sure enough they had the Twitter feeds embedded. A few minutes later our post came up. I have to admit I thought that was pretty cool!
MLB At Bat App
Last year I purchased the MLB At Bat iPhone App. At the time it featured stats, play by play through text updates on the screen and showed location of pitches. It also had a “cool” factor with the option to see video highlights. The thing that amazed me with this feature was the fact that the highlights showed up within a few minutes after the play developed.
So why am I talking about a baseball app as the regular season is winding down and with the playoffs approaching? This app is a great example of making a good thing better by listening to user feedback and not resting on their laurels. Other apps should take note of this and strive for improvements much in the same way MLB did.
The 2009 version of the MLB app has incorporated some amazing improvements. At the start of the season owners of the app could now listen to the Game Day Audio, even choosing which broadcast they want to listen to – home or away. Game Day Audio costs $15 by itself and MLB At Bat only costs $9.99. You do the math.
A few weeks after the all star break they added in Game Day Video. This allowed users to watch games live as the video broadcast is streamed into the phone. The quality on a wifi connection is simply amazing, looking like a miniature HD-TV. When on the 3G network the quality diminishes but still plays real time and relatively unaffected. One game a night chosen at random was available for viewing. I subscribe to the MLB.tv package every season for over $100.00 allowing me to watch any game on the computer and thought to myself it would be cool to have the ability to watch any game on the iPhone since I’m paying for it already. Sure enough a few weeks later this feature was incorporated into the app. Simply entering my login information into the phone I can now watch any game no matter where I am at.
This app is a must have for any baseball fan and is well worth the $9.99 price. I must say this is the most expensive app I have purchased though it is clearly my favorite. It would be nice if other major sports copied this model and offered a robust app so fans all over can follow their favorite teams.
Quick Local Mojo Update
Posted by josh in Agency Web News on August 10th, 2009
Just a quick update on Local Mojo. We are working hard on it this week and expect to have most of the major things completed by the end of the week for our launch. Next week we will finish up any loose ends and focus on the little remaining items. We also created a new twitter account for Local Mojo so go ahead and follow us on that!
Twitter program for Mac
Posted by josh in Uncategorized on August 3rd, 2009
I recently came across a program for my Mac that allows me to update and manage multiple twitter accounts. So far I love this program as it makes it easy to update without having to log in and out of twitter with different accounts that I update. The program is called Tweetie and is made by atebits. There is a free and a paid version of the app. The free version is supported by ads but are not annoying so that seems to be the way to go if you want to save a few bucks.
Overall Tweetie is a great application for the mac and I highly reccomend it.
Follow AgencyWeb on twitter.
Godaddy adds Twitter Integration
Posted by josh in Industry News, Social Media on July 9th, 2009
We all know Twitter has experienced tremendous growth over the last several months. It seems as if every day you hear it mentioned on the radio, tv or in print. Now GoDaddy is joining the trend. They recently added the ability to register a new twitter account from your admin panel. By default it searches for your domain name as the twitter name, and shortens it if necessary. The ease of this and integration into their control panel will no doubt add thousands of more twitter users no time. Even though a user can just as easily go to Twitter.com and register it makes it easy to start the process here. Also some users may not know about twitter and GoDaddy is helping to educate them on this service.
We have been recommending twitter to our clients as a way to communicate with their client base and potential customers, as well as an easy way to get into blogging. We found that approach works good, if a client can keep up with their simple twitter account we can graduate them to a blog. If they struggle or don’t have any time to put into something simple like twitter then they will never blog.
Local Mojo Launches!
Posted by josh in Agency Web News, Local Search, Search Engine Optimization on June 15th, 2009
AgencyWeb is proud to announce the launch of our sister company Local Mojo. We have been working hard on this project behind the scenes over the last several months and are excited to finally launch it. We are still in soft launch so some features are still being worked on and fixing any final bugs.
We have had several businesses come to us that just need a simple, small website for their local business. We helped out where we could but often times we were either booked or was not efficient for both parties involved. We like to keep our focus here at AgencyWeb on strategic marketing and really get engaged with our clients on a long term basis. On the flip side one of our other businesses which provides simple directory style listings in over 50 engines was often not quite enough for some businesses who needed a little more. We were unable to serve this huge gap in the middle which most businesses fit in that are too small for an agency, but too big for a simple directory listing. Then came Local Mojo.
Local Mojo provides businesses with a free optimized local site. The small business owner can provide detailed information that potential clients are looking for such as location with maps, hours of operation, services, payment options, and background history. Local Mojo goes beyond the basics with the ability to embed videos from your YouTube account, photos from Flickr, feeds from Twitter. Your local site will not only give customers the information they are looking for, but also help you brand your business as well as your self to help build a relationship with your customers.
For those businesses who wish to go beyond the basics Local Mojo offers simple and affordable ways to increase traffic to your page or existing site. This can be accomplished buy purchasing blocks of targeted localized traffic and adding click to call technology.
What makes all of this even better for the local business is the fact that everything is measurable. The small business owner will now be able to track everything about their local site and online marketing efforts. Local Mojo has high end analytics incorporated into the platform so everything is measurable such as site traffic, geo-targted results, pay per campaign management and more.
So head on over to LocalMojo.com to sign up for a free site for your local business.