An idea or information represented in visual form is an infographic. It may contain graphics, images, charts (pie, bar, column, etc.), graphs, Venn diagrams or familiar icons. An ideal infographic may scroll to at least two web pages in length. Recently, the use of infographics in the Internet has significantly increased. Research companies like Forrester release data as infographics. The best internet companies like Webs, Volusion use infographics either to communicate company information or to explain their products.

This sample infographic explains activities on the internet in 60 seconds.


The Secret Behind Infographics
Pictures convey more than words: Infographics is the applied engineering of the old Chinese adage ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ A picture can convey more than words. Our human mind is capable of absorbing more from images rather than from words.

Information is made interesting: By a mix of data and images, and attractive colors, complex information is broken down and easily conveyed in infographics. Business milestones, company revenue information are boring reading stuff unless the reader is interested. Here is a company that has used infographics and made it interesting for its readers.

Can be quickly read: One infographic is equivalent to an article of at least 1000 words. Our human brain takes less time to go through an infographic than it takes to read 1000 words. The various histograms and graphics in the infographic provides an overview of the entire information almost immediately.

Infographics Helps Businesses
Improves the company website’s SEO ranking: Back links are close friends of search engine bots. When infographics get shared on the Internet. they generate back links to the parent website. The title can also be used as a target keyword. Another method is to educate the target audience on industry trends and best practices using infographics to make clients/customers keep coming back to the website often. This can be done in the company blog.

Company activities will reach clients/customers: Unless the business is among the top players in the market, we cannot expect clients / customers to eagerly look for the developments in the company. Latest developments in the company, when communicated as Infographics will reach many.

Improvised marketing strategy: Email communication becomes more effective with infographics. This is a good method to bring in more leads. An attractive infographic can allure more business prospects than a dull one with only words.

Expertise Is Required
Just like infographics can deliver more, infographics demands more dedication and hard work for its creation. There are many automated tools available on the Internet. However, we need a designer’s touch to make the infographic a hit. Infographics can be a mess if careful attention is not given to details. A bad infographic will not only devalue the information but also spoil the reputation of the company producing it.

1. Color scheme and layouts are the backbone of any design. A designer geek alone can choose the right color combination for the content of the infographic.
2. Typography may not be important in articles but they certainly play a vital role in infographics. There must be different typography for different sub-titles and all of them need to be catchy. Too much of variety could reduce the professionalism in the infographic. Only a web expert will be able to strike a balance between variety and professionalism.
3. Right words must be used. Words used in infographics are few. Conveying information in few words is complicated. Even the title must be crisp and to the point. Unless a content specialist works with the designer, producing an effective infographic will be difficult.

Explore some of the best infographics in the web and reach out to us for customized solutions.

Ever Thought Of Locating Your Twitter On Your Mobile Phone Even Without a GPRS Subscription?

This concept has become a reality in India with the Shorthand mobile SMS browser introduced by the Shorthand Mobile-India(www.shorthandmobile.in), a subsidary of Smarttouch mobile Inc.. The browser once downloaded will connect you to your desired web content just through a text sms. Yes, it’s that simple!

The desired web contents are stored as SMS Apps and are listed in the Shorthand browser for easy scroll and click. The users have to just scroll down to their SMS App and click the same to access the online network. The web content is located as soon as the browser sends the text message. Hence, it does not require an active data plan.

Main Features
Apart from the general SMS Apps, Shorthand has a rich GUI that makes the platform more interesting and user friendly. Apart from other similar services of accessing web content through SMS and short codes, Shorthand SMS stands apart as there is no need to undergo the complex process of storing and using the “short codes”, “keywords” and “phone numbers” to get connected. Shorthand SMS browser lets you easily select your desired content from the well listed menu in a simple way.

Cost To The User
The users can enjoy the Shorthand browser platform absolutely free of cost. Users do not have to use their data plan while accessing through the SMS Apps. Updates to online contents via SMS Apps are sent as text messages and hence only normal SMS charges apply. However downloading the Shorthand browser for the first time needs a data plan enabled.

Shorthand Mobile Compatibility
The compatibility of this platform is not at all restricted to high-end smart phones but also works on mid-tier and low-end handsets. The browser supports different platforms including J2ME, Windows Mobile and Pocket PC phones. Below is the list of phones which is currently Shorthand compatible.

Samsung S3310
Samsung S3500
Samsung SGH-L700
Nokia N70
Nokia N82
Nokia 7210 Supernova
Nokia 2700 Classic
Nokia 5130 Express Music
Sony Ericsson G502

The Application support in the server side and website maintenance for Shorthand mobile (India) is taken care by QBurst Technologies.

Upcoming Apps
Shorthand Mobile proposes to add around 15 SMS Apps to be listed on its SMS browser platform ranging from a wide area across finance, social networking and search to transportation and news which are on the pipeline.

Target Market
The parent company, Smarttouch mobile Inc., launches the shorthand mobile sms service in the Indian market with a social networking pack, which includes Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and SMS GupShup apps in the first quarter of 2010. The service would be launched through leading telecom operators on a monthly subscription pattern which is yet to finalize on.

Identifying the right keywords to use is very important for any website’s search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. It is good to know how to come up with keywords to consider in the first place. Here are a few tips that will prove useful.

• Make an initial list of all the keywords you think people might find your website with

These keywords should be a short list of what your website is trying to promote and other words related to your industry. You need to use your imagination and think of words which people will search to find your business online.

• Request your customers to make a list of all the keywords they would try to find you with

The keywords generated from the perspective of a customer may be totally surprising as very often an average customer does not speak the same language that we do.

• Yet another great way to gather keywords is to see what words are being used by competitors

Type one of your keywords into the search box of the search engine of your choice to determine the sites with the top search engine placement for this word. View the source code of your competitor’s page and check their Meta Keywords tag. It is probably best that you check out the top five search engine results.

• It would also be good to identify the keywords that people used in search engines to access your site

To do so, check out the “Entrance Keywords” report in Google Analytics. I find this report very useful as it shows the keywords used by users to come directly to that page from a search engine.

• Once you have prepared an initial list, you’ll want to scan through your site to see how it has used the keywords that you have already chosen

You might even find ideas for additional keywords this way. You must look for specialized words or “phrases” that will deliver qualified traffic.

• After accumulating enough words and phrases, you will need to find out the popularity of each potential keyword

There are three main tools available online to assist you in doing the keyword research, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and the Google Search Based Keyword Tool.  To use these tools, type in the keyword that you want to research and the tools will display other relevant keywords. You can use these suggestions to add keywords to your list. Doubts prevail on the accuracy of the data presented by these tools.  However the data it offers is better than having no data at all.

• From the list of possible keywords, you need to identify the relevant words to the site

You would not want to choose a keyword which not many people search for. However, at the same time, you would not want to choose a keyword which is too competitive.

It would be wiser to avoid the generic keywords since it is going to be extremely difficult to optimize for them. Try to pick keywords that are specific. For example if you are a freelancer based in New Orleans, your ideal keywords would be freelancer New Orleans or web development services New Orleans. Going for the generic freelancer or web development keywords is not going to be beneficial.

After you have gone through your list and taken off words that are not relevant or that your website does not have sufficient content for, you should have a shorter and more relevant list of keywords. Place the keywords strategically in the title, meta tags and content of your website.

Most of the people do not do much research when coining keywords for their website. So just by doing the necessary keyword research and getting some insight into what keywords are being used by people online will help you go a long way in choosing the right keywords and matching your content with what people are looking for. It gives you a very definite advantage over those websites that have not done any optimization.

For most of us finding information on the Internet is synonymous with going to Google.com, typing in a word or phrase and clicking search. In fact Google does account for a major share of the search engine market and with good reason too. check this out if you are still in doubt.

Thus despite new players coming up, Google still remains the leader in information search on the web. That is exactly why it makes sense to understand and develop efficient googling techniques. Mentioned below are few tips which, when practiced while searching the web using Google, will save time and improve search results.

• Asterisks: Clearly one of the most commonly used symbols in search queries; even a novice would need no explanation on its use. Ideally translated to mean “anything”, wild card queries can bring forth an assortment of results.
• Quotation marks: This is another commonly used sign in search. Enclosing a combination of words in quotes results in Google displaying only those sites/pages with the words in the exact order.  Try searching the same group words with and without quotes to see the difference.
• Minus sign: By using “-“ sign we can avoid unrelated search results. For example: Typing Barack Hussein -Obama lists many Barack Husseins other than Barack Hussein Obama. Now do the search with Barack Hussein (hyphen) Obama and you will see my point.
• Plus sign: This gives a result which is exactly opposite to the minus operator. To include a specific word in your search result, add it with “+” in the query. Let’s say you want to know more about the level of scientific knowledge in medieval India. Your query string would be scientific knowledge + medieval India. However, with numbers this will work like the normal arithmetic plus operator.
• Intitle and intext search: Using “intitle:” before a search keyword returns only those web pages which have that keyword in its title tag. Similarly, “intext:” returns pages with the keyword in the content of the web page. To see the difference in results, try out both these functions – “intext:” “HTML Tags” and “intitle:” “HTML Tags”.
• Allinanchor: In this age of SEO, keywords are all important. Use ‘allinanchor:’ syntax to get google to search for the terms you want to find in anchor text. You are sure to get a more content-focused list.
• Filters to choose sources: You can restrict the sources of results by adding special syntax to your query after the search term. Some filters are site:edu, site:gov, inurl:blog, inurl:forum. Type the following into the google search box and check the results – “SEO” inurl:blog.
• Filetype filter: This filter tells google what kind of file to look for while searching. Type your search word followed by filetype:file extension(xls,pdf,doc).

Mix and match the above mentioned operators intelligently and you can further narrow down your search results. Try various options to refine searches and optimize time. If you know of something else worth mentioning, feel free to add to this list. As you know, the list goes on.

While there is no doubt that good SEO consultants can help drive more traffic to your site, many small businesses cannot afford a good consultant.  But you don’t need to despair if you can’t afford an expensive SEO consultant.  If you are one of those DIY type business owners, this article will help you create a fairly decent search-engine optimized site.  Even if you plan to use a web design/development agency and not do it yourself, you can demand that they create a site that complies with basic SEO tenets.

Here is how to go about placing yourself on the right side of search engines:

1. Keyword analysis – This should be done before you start building your site.  If you already have a site, you may have to tweak your content based on the results of this analysis.  Know what keywords are used by your customers to find you.  This may not be industry jargon words.  A good tool to start with is Google’s Keyword Tool.  You need to identify the keywords or phrases that have high volume but less competition.  Once you identify the keywords for a page, mention it a few times on that page.  Do not over-stuff your page with keywords.  Search engines penalize keyword stuffing.  Write naturally, but don’t forget to repeat your keywords a few times.
2. Make sure every page on your site has a proper title tag, meta keywords and meta descriptions.  Again, there is no need to repeat your keywords too many times, but your keyword should be there on the title tag, as it’s the most important tag from a search-engine perspective.
3. Search engine friendly URLs (SEF).  You need to have meaningfully named URLs that accurately describe the page content.  Example: www.example.com/camera/dslr/nikon/D5000 is better than www.example.com?product_id=123.  Carefully choose your URL names and structure.  Now, how do you create search-engine friendly URLs?  You can provide URL rewriting rules in .htaccess if you are using Apache; but it is cumbersome to manage.  Many content-management systems like Drupal and WordPress support SEF, so if you are using these, you’ve got yourself covered.  Most web app development frameworks like Symfony also support SEF.
4. Provide textual description for all non-text elements like images, audio and video.  For example, use alt tag with images.  This will help the search engine better understand your multi-media content.  This has the added benefit of making your site accessible.
5. Search engine bots should be able to spider all your content even if the content resides in a database and are dynamically displayed.  For example, your products may be sitting in your product catalog table in a database, but should create a static looking page for each product.
6. Make effective use of heading tags like h1 and h2 to showcase the relative importance of text.  Your important text should be text and not images.
7. Use ordered lists for creating menus rather than using tables.
8. The anchor text (hyperlink to another page) should contain keywords that describe the target page.  Instead of writing “Click here for D5000 details”, it’s better if you write “check out the D5000 digital SLR camera“.
9. Avoid duplicate content issues.  If example.com, www.example.com and www.example.com/index.php all point to the same page, you should consider one of them as the primary URL.  If you designate www.example.com as your primary or canonical URL, then the other URLs should be permanently redirected to the canonical URL.  You can redirect by using the HTTP 301 code.  Also consider storing the session id or affiliate parameter in a cookie and then redirect the URL with parameters to the canonical version.
10. Never copy-and-paste content from other sites.  You may be violating copyright laws and incurring duplicate content penalty. Likewise, if you are getting your content from a syndication service, check that the same content is not syndicated to other sites.  Do a Google search on your content and if you find that your content has been copied by someone else, file a DMCA request with Google.
11. What if you have multiple top-level domains? Like example.com and example.net?  If you plan to have identical content on all these sites, do a permanent redirect to your primary domain.
12. Multiple language versions of your site – I would say use a different sub-domain for each language.  Example: fr.example.com for French and de.example.com for German.  Using the same URL for different language versions is not a good idea.
13. Block search engines from seeing admin panels, HTTPS content etc by using the robots exclusion protocol.  Password protect those pages you don’t want the outside world to see.
14. How do you know if Google has indexed all your pages?  Search for site:example.com on Google.  It will return the number of pages indexed.
15. Externalize CSS and Javascript.
16. Follow XHTML 1.0 strict standard.
17. Reduce the amount of code in your page, and maintain a good content-to-code ratio.
18. Speed is important.  Your pages should load fast and should not timeout.
19. Use microformats to describe your data.
20. Last but not the least, build quality in-bound links.

Some of the above items need further explanation.  However, there is a wealth of information available in blogs and online articles.  So start digging and learn more on this interesting topic.

The new avatar of Microsoft’s latest search engine, Bing, is here.  An updated version of  Microsoft’s former search engines, namely Live Search, Windows Live Search  and MSN Search, Bing.com went fully online on June 3, 2009.

Bing Features

Here’s a quick look at some features of Bing that could give other search engines such as Google and Yahoo a run for their money (although it would be a while before Google can be, if ever they are, outsmarted!).

Do note that some of these features are available in the United States version only. You can change your country settings using the toolbar at the top right hand side of the Bing site.

• The background image changes daily.  They are mostly striking images of noteworthy places in the world. You can hover over the images to see interesting facts about them.
• Real-time listing of search suggestions as they are typed.
• Quick response to queries.
• Three-column format with the ‘normal’ results in the center.
• A list of related searches, on the left side of the page.
• Website’s content (of search results) can be viewed in an organized manner, by hovering mouse to the right of the search result.
• Sublinks (within the article) can be viewed for certain search results, as in Wikipedia.
• ‘Save’ search history.
• Preview thumbnail of video simply by hovering mouse over it.
• Video search with changeable setting for length, screen size, resolution and source.
• Image search with changeable settings for size, layout, color, style and people.

We will have to just wait and see if Bing can actually ‘replace’ Google as the next big thing in search engines. That could be ONE big challenge for Bing, given that for many people “Google is Internet”. Whatever the outcome, we can hope that the resulting competition in the search engine market is a only good thing.

We all know that there are a number of search engines on the Net but most of us invariably turn to Google to search for anything and everything we need. Although it often meets up to expectations, there have been times when even Google cannot seem to retrieve what we are looking for.

Here’s a new and useful search engine specially designed to solve this problem. Search3 has recently launched its beta search engine www.search3.com, This search engine allows you to search for an item in different search engines all at once. You can choose among Google, Yahoo, Bing, Twitter and Ebay for web search. For image search, you have Flickr as an additional choice.  The search results are displayed in a three-column format depending on your choice of search engines. The founders plan to add new search engines in the coming days to give users a wider variety of engines to choose from.

Currently, this search engine provides only web and image search. But more categories like health, real estate, etc. will be included shortly.  A mobile version and iPhone app for the service will also be rolled out soon.

With search3.com, users can now compare and decide for themselves which search engine gives them the best results. But the people who are really going to benefit from this tool are SEO professionals who now have a convenient means of comparing page ranking for their websites in different search engines.

Do read up more on search3.com features before you decide to integrate it into your web browser.