Let's Get You On The Web!

Searches on Delicious are more powerful than you think

I talk about Delicious.com a lot because I’ve found it very critical for my own web strategy and organization. Saving links is incredibly easy with a Firefox browser plug in, the tag organization works very well for me, the site is easy (for me) to use, and, above all, I LOVE being able to share certain categories of links with people. I left Google Bookmarks several months back and do not regret it.

The more I use Delicious, the more I like it (and the more I appreciate its sparse, utilitarian design). The other day, however, I “discovered” something pretty incredible.

The Search Function

You see, I was looking for a link in my own bookmarks and, being the efficient web browser that I am, I decided to use the search function. I was looking for a privacy policy generator link so I searched “privacy policy.” right at the top was my link but below it was, basically, the best information out there on privacy policies. Not even just the best, the ones people find the most useful. Whoa.

I assume that most people use Delicious how I do: as a bookmarking platform first (because it’s great) and as a social platform second (because the bookmarking is so good). I’m picky about what I bookmark… not because I’m picky about casting a vote but because I’m always wary of information overload. So, what ends up in Delicious is likely something I will want to use again later, not just a nice tidbit.

This means that Delicious is very powerful but certainly not suited for everything. I still use Google 90% of the time because I’m not entirely sure what I want but, in certain cases, Delicious search is an amazing resource. Here are a few scenarios that work great:

• Learning a new skill: I’m trying to learn JavaScript beyond my very basic comprehension. I could Google “JS tutorials” or comb through some great development blogs… or I could type “learn javascript” into Delicious. I get W3Schools (perfect), several beginners guide, and a few advanced options. A perfect place to start!
• Finding tips or tricks: Various lists and tips and tricks find their way into my Delicious account… but only the best ones. Let’s say I was buying a house and didn’t know where to start. Searching “buy a house” gives me an awesome first-time buyers guide, a great WikiHow article, a piece on negotiation, and several other good links. And this is only the first page!
• Getting information about technical topics: It’s safe to assume a lot of geeks (cough) use this service so if it’s a technical thing you’re looking for, this is probably the best place to start. Try a search on “spyware” or “algorithm” or “windows.” You’ll not only find some excellent resources but you’ll probably come across at least one link that will blow your mind.

Web strategy links and Rescources for July 17th

It looks like everyone liked my little collection of links from last week so I’m putting another list together. These are links that I’ve saved on Delicious or sent over Twitter since last Friday that you might find useful. Everything relates back to web strategy in some way or another whether it’s improving your design, improving your code, or improving your technique. I want to help you get the most out of the web and the best way to do that is to keep learning. So, read.

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills (saved on Delicious )

Smashing Magazine puts out an unbelievable amount of useful and free content. This collection of sites and resources is a great example why I would subscribe to a printed version of this website. A big part of web strategy is representing yourself well across multiple profiles, networks, and sites. The best way to do that it to make sure you have a solid grasp on the English language, particularly as it relates to the internet. The better you can write, the better you look online… period.

We collected over 50 useful and practical tools and resources that will help you to improve your writing skills. You will find copy writing blogs, dictionaries, references, teaching classes, articles, tools as well as related articles from other blogs.

The Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials of all Time (saved on Delicious )

There are an unbelievable about of Photoshop (and Illustrator and web design and…) tutorial sites and posts out there that it’s hard to keep up with them all. Well, I can’t either so I don’t. I realized recently that, unless you have tons of extra time to walk through these and nothing better to do, you should look for a tutorial that helps you with the project you’re working on. How does this relate to web strategy? Part of a cogent presence online is how, visually, it represents you. Pick up a few ideas or try your hand at Photoshop… it can’t hurt.

With hundreds of Photoshop tutorial sites around these days it’s easy to forget some of the classic posts that have shaped and inspired the community for years. These kinds of posts are in a sense timeless, and have inspired countless designers (including myself) to begin writing their own tutorials.

12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress (saved on Delicious )

I’m a big, huge, unrelenting, obnoxious fan of WordPress. The more I learn, the more I love. I’m always looking for ways to improve on what’s there and create a strong, secure, easy-to-use web site for my clients. This article covers both back end changes as well as admin panel changes that can be made in WordPress to make sure you keep people out of your installation. Beginners should concentrate on 1, 4, 5, and 7. If you feel comfortable with any of the rest, do it.

WordPress being open source means that the chances of malicious attacks being successful are higher because the project’s source code can be easily obtained and studied for vulnerabilities. This article highlights several tips and hacks that you can use to secure and lock down your WordPress site and to fortify it from attacks.

10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals (saved on Delicious )

I’ve been getting deeper and deeper in to website analytics and having a lot of fun playing around with data and trying to come up with coherent and useful conclusions. I was once told “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” (a Peter Drucker quote). That may not be the best advice for every situation but, for web analytics, it holds true. The more you understand about how people come to your site and interact with what you’re offering, the better you can serve them. If you’re a true beginner with Google Analytics or not sure where to start, check out Smashing’s timely article.

The definition of Google Analytics goals has always been clear to me – a means to measure business objectives, reports and improve on them. Google Analytics has transformed itself over the years from a ‘nice to have’ analytics software to a ‘must have’ analytics software …

Twitter links

Web Do’s and Don’ts: I think this site is great! On one side, you have the “do’s” of modern web design and, on the other, the “don’ts.” People login, add their own, and vote on others. Very simple but some great reminders for people of all skill levels. I’d like to think I’d score pretty well on here…

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To: Another Smashing article… if you’re even flirting with the idea of putting together a web application, start here. Also, if interactivity is your bag, check out a few of the examples they show.

21 Fonts That Shouldn’t Be Free But Are: I’m a sucker for free fonts and I know you are too. It used to be that free fonts were a “get what you pay for” kind of deal but, within the last year, some incredible free fonts have exploded out onto the market.

5 Tasks in the Morning: Chris Brogan shows us the five things he does in the morning. My five would be Gmail, Gmail, TweetDeck, Facebook, and a quick trip to Popurls.

101 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog: Are you getting traffic and not sure what to do with it? This post is almost 2 years old but gave me a lot of ideas to go with for online monetization. Great place to start if you know a little bit but not sure where to go.

12 Ways to Use LinkedIn Today: Great (and succinct) piece on using LinkedIn to stay connected and do a little personal branding.

Are there any links you’ve found recently that you can’t live without? Anything you’ve learned from above? Let me know… I’m always looking for more bookmarks!

Trying to learn Photoshop? Here’s what to concentrate on

A while ago (at this point, a long while ago) I asked a question on the Art & Design forums on VWVortex.com (seems like an odd place to get advice but there are some very talented individuals). I was stumbling through Photoshop and wanted to know what I should learn next. With all the tutorial sites out there these days, the problem isn’t finding something to learn, it’s figuring out which skill to concentrate on.

So I asked the question, if someone was learning Photoshop and wanted to get the most out of their learning time, what should they learn? I left the poll open (hence the lens flare joke) and got a few interesting answers I wanted to share.

I assumed that people would recommend learning the Pen tool and/or advanced path methods but, sure enough, the winner by far was “learn more about what the software is intended for.” Surprise surprise.

If this is interesting, you’ll probably find the whole thread to be useful as well: Most important Photoshop skill to learn and perfect

Josh Can Help: Helpful web strategy links for July 10th

This is a new thing I’m going to be doing every Friday. I bookmark and Tweet out a lot of different links for various reasons. I keep everything generally related to understanding web strategy for small businesses but I’ve been known to tangent a bit. Every Friday, I’m going to collect the best links I’ve saved and sent out and list out the ones I think the are the most useful. If you’re interested in receiving this list every Friday via email, get send me a quick note and let me know… I’m judging interest now!

Saved on Delicious: Privacy Policy Generator

Documents like terms of use pages and privacy policies can be easily overlooked by groups wishing to get their web site live as quick as possible. It seems like a bunch of legalese and who wants to deal with that? Well, I’ll be honest, it’s usually the last step but I understand the importance of putting these together. Your privacy policy tells website users what information you collect and what you do with that information. For most minor websites, the most you collect and use is an email address and a name. Even if that’s it, you should still be telling people both inside and outside of your organization what you’re doing with this information. This handy little form asks you all the important questions and then generates a document that can be posted on your site. It’s so easy now, no excuses!

Saved on Delicious: Sara’s Sanctuary animal shelter

Sara’s Sanctuary is run by an amazing woman who cares for her animals more than anything. I’ve never seen such dedication to a certain cause in my life. If you look at her site, it’s hurting a bit. It’s hard to navigate, poorly coded, overly-complicated, and not geared towards the most important thing: getting help for the sanctuary. Sara’s is 100% donation run and money is tight. I took on this pro-bono project as a way to flex my web strategy muscle and see what I could do to improve her donation income. Stay tuned for a fresh, new design, a new WordPress structure, and some great social networking additions. Also, if you’ve got a few dollars to spare, Sara’s could use it!

Saved on Delicious: Facebook for Business SuperGuide

I think I found this through Twitter but it definitely made it to my bookmarks page. This page has about [insert big number here] links to articles, videos, blog posts, and PDFs on the subject of Facebook. I’m a fan of Facebook (no pun intended) for personal interaction and making sure that my friends and family see a little bit of what I do professionally (I love personal referrals). Marketing my business on there, however, has never been a priority for me. I think Facebook is great for some and not terrible useful for others. If you want to figure out which group you’re in, I’d start on this page.

Twitter links

17 Remarkably Professional Looking Free Fonts: I’m a sucker for free fonts and I’m continually impressed by what’s out there. That’s not to say that I won’t buy one when I need it but a lot of the time you can get by with the free stuff.

Create letterpress text using only CSS: This is a very creative use of CSS to get a certain text effect. A little technical for most (meaning people who aren’t using CSS everyday) but unique to be sure.

Transparency (or Lack Thereof) on Kohl’s Facebook Fan Page: A cautionary tale about using Facebook correctly. If you’re going to post on your own page, that’s fine but BE HONEST.

Building Respect for Usability Experience: For the usability geeks out there, another fantastic article from the Nielsen group about teaching other (stubborn) folks about usability.

Wolfram Alpha for Web Designers: Short and sweet article showing a few things Wolfram Alpha, the new, intelligent search engine, can do for web designers. Fairly basic information but nice to have it at your fingertips.

Five outstanding corporate blogs: very well-thought-out analysis of, well, five outstanding blogs. Chris picked some great examples and showed that corporate america DOES have what it takes to compete.

That’s all for now! Your feeedback is, as always, appreciated. So are your own web strategy links so comment away…

Tooting my own horn – Email marketing presentation

I just recently gave an hour long talk on email marketing titled “6 Questions to Ask Before Sending an Email Campaign [Piece].” This was based on two blog posts I made recently. The posts actually came from the presentation preparation so I got to hype them a bit during the talk. I thought I’d toot my own horn a bit and post the feedback that I got.

I felt good about it because I felt like I had everyone’s attention. I really wanted to add some value to these folks and introduce them to a few things they had never seen or heard about. I was speaking to college admissions professionals which, for the most part, are expected to be jacks of all trades. Great questions were thrown out there and I was pulled aside a few times before and after by audience members which means I sparked something.

Anyways, the proof is in the pudding:

And the comments:

• This was excellent! Lots of great ideas, very concise information.
• Wow! Lots of great info (and thank you for so many outside sources that we can check out later)! I have a lot to learn.
• Great information, clearly communicated. Josh did a great job.
• Even after [bulk emailing software] webinar a lot of useful information and good resources. Informative but humorous- great job!
• Very useful for thinking about ways to make email marketing fit your needs for different purposes and how to best customize.
• A lot of good ideas.
• Would have been nice to see examples of good emails vs. ones that get spammed, landing pages that work with emails (live).
• This is so great! I’ve got tons of new ideas for our campaigns.
• Good as an overall look at email marketing, but would’ve been nice to be a little more [product] specific.
• Interesting content. Presented well. Could have been enhanced by including examples of the six questions (i.e. Good and bad examples).
• Great presenters, good info.
• Updated/learned good information.

I provided a hand-out that summarized what I covered during the presentation which is basically a summary of my two blog posts. Feel free to download it and spread it around!

Download:
“6 Questions to Ask Before Sending an Email Campaign Piece”