By Robert Lockard

Twitter is insignificant compared to MySpace. That’s what I learned from comScore’s data on social media. Facebook is clearly the reigning champion of social media. That wasn’t much of a surprise, but the thing that really grabbed my attention is the fact that MySpace is a strong second while Twitter is barely in the running. Take a look at the graph below to see what I mean.

Isn’t that amazing? All we seem to hear about is Twitter this and Twitter that in the blogosphere, but I think the real story is Facebook and MySpace. From all the talk, or lack thereof, about MySpace, I thought the service was practically defunct. But it has three times as many visitors as Twitter and two-thirds the number of Facebook’s visitors.

MySpace doesn’t look weak in my eyes. In fact, it looks dominant compared to Twitter.

I found the above graph in the Chicago Tribune’s Business section on a page simply entitled, “Twitter vs. Facebook vs. MySpace.” The paper offered no commentary on the graph’s startling revelations, so I’m taking the liberty of doing so here in the Submit Solution Social Media Blog.

I would like to focus on three aspects of this graph: 1. Twitter’s and MySpace’s recent stagnation, 2. Facebook’s astonishing rise to the top spot, and 3. Social media’s revenue sources.

1. Both Twitter and MySpace are faltering

Both Twitter and MySpace have stagnated recently. However, MySpace was still above 60 million visitors in August, a barrier it crossed at the end of 2006 when Twitter was just starting out. Twitter, however, barely crossed over the 20-million mark after a meteoric rise in 2009, and then it started plateauing a little bit.

During the same time period in which MySpace has started dropping and Twitter has grown, Facebook has exploded in popularity, reaching 92.2 million visitors.

Facebook and MySpace seem to be performing well and have reached a much broader audience than Twitter. Perhaps over time Twitter will make up the difference, but I don’t see how that explains its disproportionate amount of attention in the media and blogosphere.

2. Facebook’s leap to the top

Over the past 18 or so months, Facebook has added more than 50 million visitors. That’s more than twice what Twitter has ever reached. Twitter added almost 20 million visitors in the course of eight or so months to reach its current level, but that still pales in comparison to Facebook’s rise. I think the real success story here is Facebook, while Twitter still needs to prove itself. That leads to my third point.

3. Twitter has no revenue source

Both MySpace and Facebook have pretty well-defined revenue sources. They depend on online advertising, as well as some clever services available to their visitors. Twitter hasn’t quite figured out how to generate revenue and strive for profitability, yet. It’s working on premium corporate accounts, but it’s still fairly untested and uncertain if that will work.

My point in all of this? Simply that Twitter seems like a new kid on the block that is getting lots of attention, even though it hasn’t really shown itself to have staying power.

What do you think? Is my line of thinking way off? Even though the numbers show Twitter to be small and insignificant compared to the other giants of social media, does it deserve all of the attention it’s getting?

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “Twitter: Social media’s underdog.” The graph is the copyright of Tribune Newspapers. Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Social Media Blog for more interesting discussions like this.

By Robert Lockard

That’s right. Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

Page Load Time

This study measured how long it takes each Web browser to download Yahoo’s main page. The trouble with these results is that they might be affected by how many other people were using the site at the time the study was conducted. Bearing that in mind, it’s interesting to see how close all of the Web browsers are to each other.

Firefox was the fastest with a download time of 1.34 seconds. The slowest time was 1.61 seconds and it was shared by Explorer and Safari. The difference between those two times is so small that it hardly matters which browser you use to download a website like Yahoo.

Browser Cache Performance

The same is true for both Page Load Times and Browser Cache Performance. Browsers often save a cached version of a Web page you have already visited so it can quickly bring it up again when you return to it. The download times of a cached page ranged from 0.72 seconds to 0.89 seconds, which statisticians would say is probably not a “significant” difference. Chrome had the fastest speed, while Safari had the slowest.

Other categories in the study had a wider variety of results, but I thought these ones were the most interesting.

This is all fascinating information, but what does it all mean? Why are fast download times important? If online users have to wait several seconds for one of your Web pages to download, they might just give up after a while and decide your site isn’t worth the wait.

We want our ecommerce websites to be fast enough for people, no matter which browser they use. But we should definitely focus on the most popular ones. That’s the subject of a whole other blog entry, though.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Which Web browser is the best?” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

By Britnee Nguyen

You might have found a talented designer who can create a stellar-looking website for you. This is a plus when it comes to the actual design of your website, but do they know how to design it so it can be easily optimized with SEO and found by search engines? Web design needs to be made with SEO in mind.

Maybe you’re wondering on how web design affects SEO. Well, it does in several ways. One example is that a web designer may create some good-looking graphics and puts them on your website. When you scroll your mouse over the graphic, usually a little pop-up type box shows with the file name or some other text. This is called the alt text.

It’s important that this text has your target SEO keywords inserted. So if you have a picture of a dog and your website is about an animal shelter in Utah. You don’t want to put your text as just “dog” or a random file number like “495803”. If you’re targeting the keyword “Utah animal shelter”, then put that exact wording as your text of your picture. This gets you moved up higher in the search results, especially in Google Images. Every picture that I have specifically written a alt text for with a keyword, I’ve always found it on the first page of Google Images within just a few days.

It’s these kinds of things that make web design important for SEO. Web design also needs to take into account of using words instead of images. A lot of websites are built as one image instead of a web layout with the content as a separate entity that’s entered in. This typically results in a pretty website, but the search engines can’t read it. If you have each page as one image inserted that had the text pre-inserted, then there really is no “text” for the search engines.

Make sure web designers keep the design and content separate so the search engines can read it and index you. Web design is a very important aspect in succeeding with an on-line business or identity. SEO is just as important also. Web design and SEO go hand-in-hand when creating the best on-line experience for your business and its customers. Be sure that your web design is functional so SEO experts at Submit Solution can optimize it to the most advantageous level.

By Britnee Nguyen

According to a recent study, it was found that women use social media networks more than men. The study used Google Ad Planner numbers to find this interesting conclusion. The majority of social media users are women, but not all the networks are dominated by females. The one exception is Digg which has 64 percent of its users as men. LinkedIn, YouTube, deviantART and del.icio.us have about equal numbers when it comes to genders using their networks.

But in general, the social media world is dominated by women. Facebook and Twitter both account 57 percent of female users and Flickr has 55 percent. What does this information mean? Well, for one thing, if you are a business using social media and internet marketing to get more information out about your company, you’ll want to consider which outlet to use if you’re specifically targeting women or men.

This also shows that women’s stereotypical habits resonate through social media. When I think of social media, think of people who are regularly submitting their opinions and interesting things they found on the web and getting the latest gossip and news. Women tend to do the exact same things in person; they like to get the latest gossip and give their opinions and talk about interesting things they’ve found. It’s a huge generalization I’m making, but it does account to why maybe social media attracts more women than men.

Women being the more dominant force in social media should be a positive for most businesses. This is because 80 percent of women are the decision-making one in their household when it comes to buying power. The more that a business can convince women that they need their product, the more profits they’ll make. If they choose to use social media to reach women, then it is very easy to do so.

When it comes to reaching men it might be slightly more difficult, but still doable since a lot of men still use social media as well. Do your research before setting out on a social media marketing plan. Know who you are trying to target and which networks are the best to reach that target market, whether it’s women or men.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Yes, the title of this post may seem a bit depressing, but just hear me out.

I’m here to talk about the top mistakes that people make in SEO in relation to keywords, which in turn, basically guarantee that they will never reach the top of Google.

Let’s say that I’m starting an online shop focusing on baby products.  The problem that most people encounter in relation to keywords, is that they use terms  like “baby products” without recognizing their popularity or exploring other options.  There are many problems with using generic, short phrases like “baby products” as your main keyword that you would like to market to search engines.  For example, consider online entities like Babies-R-Us and Graco that have hundreds of thousands of dollars to commit to online marketing.  Large companies like these dominate the online marketing world because they have almost unlimited resources while, sadly, you do not.

Also, consider how search engines like Google rank sites: the shorter the keyword, the more searches you will have.  Therefore, the shorter the keyword or phrase, the harder it is for you to rank number one in Google, for they understand that shorter phrases are more popular, and therefore more desirable for online businesses.

Basically, when people start a site (or start optimizing their site), they tend to choose keywords that are all wrong for them.  In order to avoid this, use the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool to research key terms and phrases.  First, I would make a list similar to this:

baby products

designer baby products

baby items

baby gifts

These are common key phrases that others with similiar online stores will use to generate traffic to their site.  Once I enter in these keywords (and check the “use synonyms” box), Google will generate information on these terms and other similar phrases.  You can use this information to pick keywords that are popular, but not over-saturated with competition, such as “baby products”.

By using what are called “long tail keywords” (phrases of three or more words) you will have a much higher chance of getting a great ranking in Google.  This works to smaller online businesses’ advantage, because longer keyword phrases have less competition and will allow them to rank in Google’s top page.  Although the traffic generated from these words is quite a bit less than the traditional two-word phrase, it’s better to be at the top of Google for “cheap handmade baby products” than on page 24 for “baby products”.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites have become a major tool for bloggers around the world.  These sites help bloggers increase awareness, loyalty and traffic to their blogs.  How do they do this?  By posting tweets that describe a certain blog post and include a shortened link in the update.  Here is an example of a tweet that was in my home stream this morning:

This type of update is called a teaser.  It entices your followers to click on your link to read more about whatever it is you’re talking about.  Your teasers should be carefully crafted in order to create the most effective tweets.

Here are some qualities of succesful twitter teasers:

They ask a question (i.e. “What’s the deal with Twitter Lists anyway?”)

They use strong words that catch the eye (i.e. vampire, CNN, H1N1, bacon… use your imagination!)

They talk directly to individuals (i.e. “Do you have a custom logo to brand your business?”

They’re weird, original, personal and quirky (i.e. anything that @s***mydadsays tweets about–[insert profanity warning here])

Once you start crafting some teasers and trying them out, you should keep track of which links receive the most clicks.  This will tell you how you’re doing and what type of teasers are most enticing to your followers. You can do this by using a third-party Twitter application like CoTweet or HootSuite, which use URL shorteners like bit.ly and ow.ly.

As a final tip, make sure you leave some space leftover in your teasers (including the link) so that your followers can retweet you.  When someone retweets you, your entire username (plus @ and “RT”) will need to fit in the tweet, so make sure your teasers are short enough to allow this!

By Robert Lockard

An excellent blog post on Practical Ecommerce got me thinking about how paid-search campaigns are handled. The blog post is entitled, “Pay-per-click Advertising: Seven Pointers for Smaller Campaigns.”

I was amazed when I read all of the pointers on how people can improve their PPC efforts because basically all of them are easily handled by Submit Solution. I think it’s a great idea to be educated on the best practices of online promotion, so you should definitely read that blog post and take its advice to heart.

After you come up with a plan and thoroughly research your keywords, you can present your ideas to a Submit Solution PPC expert, and he or she will be able to improve upon your ideas and fully implement them for you. Submit Solution offers a number of pay-per-click solutions, including one-on-one support, easily updatable keywords, up-to-date reports and more.

The seven things you should keep in mind when using PPC in your marketing strategies include learning about negative keywords, long-tail keywords and match types. Negative keywords are phrases that include your selected keywords, but attach unfavorable or irrelevant words to them. I’m sure Nintendo wouldn’t want to pay for people who click on its ads when they type in words like “Nintendo Wii defective,” or something to that effect. Those people are more likely to be looking for information or venting rather than hoping to make a purchase.

Long-tail keywords are great because a relatively small number of people search for them and so they used to be less expensive to advertise on. But now that the secret is out that Internet marketers want those targeted keywords more than the general ones, they’re becoming more expensive. A long-tail keyword is a search term with more than one or two descriptive words in it. Terms like “Internet marketing” have a high amount of competition to be number one on search engine results pages. Terms like “Internet marketing solution Orem Utah” will have fewer searchers, but they will be much more targeted.

Match types help you get even more targeted traffic to your website by adjusting how precisely you want people’s search terms to match your selected keywords and phrases.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my discussion of PPC campaigns. This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Submit Solution offers PPC solutions.” The photo of the bad advertisement is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Unlisted Sightings.

By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

If you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Look at all of the inventions he created. He is the reason we have readily available electricity. Edison, his biggest competitor, wanted to use direct current to power the country, but that way was incredibly inefficient and it could only send power one mile away from a power plant. Tesla’s idea was to generate power through alternating current (does AC sound familiar?). We still use this form of energy transference to power our entire infrastructure in the United States and other parts of the world.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

HTML would have been replaced with a much less complex but more elegant way of designing websites. There would be no need for search engines. Whatever form they would have taken under Tesla’s hand, websites would contain the ability to seek the right viewers rather than viewers having to search for the right sites.

This is a fascinating bit of fanciful thinking. Thanks for indulging my fantasy. I might return to this topic again sometime here on the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “If Nikola Tesla created the Internet.” The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

By Britnee Nguyen

Search engine optimization tends to have a lot of different aspects about it that businesses need to be aware of in order to see results. There are so many things that can be done when optimizing a website that it’s important to let experts in the field work on the SEO for your business.

Google is the search engine that most businesses want to be top ranked, but Google is regularly changing their search results formula which makes it more difficult to stay on top. Internet marketing experts who work with SEO everyday, such as those at Submit Solution, stay up-to-date on these changes.

There are several things that need to be kept up on an updated basis for businesses to succeed on Google. For example, the local results feature on Google helps target certain areas for results. So if your business wants to do more in a local geographical area, Google can get you more traffic from those in that area. You just need to make sure you write some local information when optimizing your website. To boost your local ranking, use local keywords when you’re writing directions on how to find your business with a map included.

You also want to take advantage of recent results. Some of those who use search engines only want to read about the most recent and updated information. This means you should be constantly updating the content on your website or blog to make sure you’re fresh to show up on recent results. Google also offers searchers to look for related results to their original search. This is where variations of your target keywords will benefit you. Your website will be more likely to show up if you have more related keywords on the niche you are in.

Google has been one of the top search engines for many years and businesses have continually found success when they’re ranking high on it. There are many other ways to strategize your SEO to get ranked high on Google, but hopefully the above tips will help you get started.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

In web design, especially for blogs, the header is extremely important!  This is the place where your readers will look first, the place where your logo is displayed, where your site navigation and other information can be.  One should not underestimate the power of a well-designed header to increase reader awareness and visitor loyalty.

This is especially relevant for blogs, whose primary goal should be to generate subscribers and loyal readers.  For e-commerce and other websites, the header is still important, but will most likely cater to a different feeling or need than a blog header.

Here are some things to think about when designing your blog’s header section:

1)  What’s the point of your blog? What do you usually write about in your blog?  Are you focusing on creativity, technical skills, or professionalism?  Your header should reflect your niche and should inspire your readers accordingly.  For example, if your blog is about something creative, your header should also be creative, and should inspire your readers, for lack of a better word, to create something!  Likewise, if your blog is about something technical, your blog header should reflect a crisp, clean and modern design to show this to your readers.

2) What is your blog about? Now that your header’s style reflects the type of mood you want to create around your blog, you need to think of a creative and effective way to communicate what your blog is about.  This can be done with a smart, memorable slogan displayed in the header, or creative graphics.  Either way, your header should show your readers immediately what your blog is about, and should do so in a way that will be memorable!

3) What do your readers need to know? Now that your readers are inspired by your header and know what your blog is about, what else do you need to convey to them through the header?  Use the rest of your header space wisely in order to display the most necessary information about your blog.  For example, you should consider site navigation, categories, pages, search bar, social media icons, etc.  What option would best suit your blog?  What would contribute to the ease of use and ingenuity of your blog?

Once your header is redesigned according to these simple guidelines, you will see the difference it makes with how your readers become more involved in your blog.  Remember, the header is the first place your readers will look… make sure you give them a good first impression!

The good example of blog header web design in this post are from Vectips and Web Designer Wall.