Rob’s Blog

Tiltviewer, another great picasa template from Airtight Interactive

If you are looking for another spectacular picasa template, check out Tiltviewer from Airtight Interactive. I have blogged about many picasa templates but so far this one is my favorite picasa photo template.
First, it is a free template, customizable picasa template, a 3d picasa template and provides a very fun and intuitive interface for users. According to the Airtight Interactive it can even be called an award winning picasa template, winning a “Favourite Website Award“.

Have a look at the demo Tiltviewer template for picasa album and play around for a while, I am sure that you will enjoy.

Guy Kawasaki “The Art of the Start” @ TiECom 2006

Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures and co-founder of Nononina (the owner of Alltop.com and Truemors.com). He is also a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and has authored eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

In this video Mr. Kawasaki, a passionate and lively presenter goes through various aspects of “The Art of the Start”. If you have a moment and thinking about starting a business or are in the middle of building your company I strongly recommend you watch this video. Thanks to Mr. Kawasaki for making this video available in the public domain!

Google Chrome - New web browser Google Chrome is Released

I guess its time for another post, fresh from a seamless install of Google Chrome.
Well, a Google web browser, what I can I say, some of you will say very cool, Google continues to make my life easier by releasing quality products and others may say, yet another hook for Google into my daily life and begin to quiver.
As I mentioned, I installed Google Chrome this AM and even read through their nice little cartoon that tells the Google Chrome story. The book tells the story being Chrome and emphasizes things like the priority of stability, building for compatibility with today’s web apps, security, and simplicity based on completely open source technology. I think the comic book is a great idea!

Anyhow, I have to get to work, download Google Chrome yourself.

Simple Ways to Increase Traffic from Google - Part 1

I have recently spoken with a couple different small business in the Ottawa area who are looking to increase traffic from Google. While there are many complex ways to increase traffic from Google, there are also some very simple ways to increase traffic from Google that are often overlooked. In a series of blog posts, I am calling “Simple Was to Increase Traffic from Google” I will profile some of these tactics so that you as a small business owner can easily implement to start increasing your traffic from Google.

The first tactic I will profile is getting listed in the “Google Local Business Center“. Any business with a regional location or focus should consider adding a listing to Google through this service. Why, you may ask? It will help customers and prospects find your website, faster and more frequently and the best part is that it is free.

The Google Local Business Center is an opportunity for you to tell Google about your business and link to your physical location. Google will use this information whenever it shows a map of your area.
A searches for “ottawa consultants” in Google. As you can see a Google map was presented with a series of thumbtacks marking the location of various Ottawa consultants as well as more detail about their listing to the right of the map. The second example of how a user may find your local business listing is to navigate through Google maps. As Google maps usages increases more an more users will go to Google maps before the yellow pages or calling 411. Even I have started to use Google Maps on my blackberry as my new source of business information. To see Google maps and local business center in action searching for “Ottawa Consultants” click here.

Ok, so how do you get started? The first step is to create a Google account if you do not have one already.
Next, hit this local business center login page and sign in to your account.
Next, answer Googles basic questions about your business. (Name, Address, Phone, etc)
Google will then ask you to classify you business and then ask you to validate your business via PIN. You can either have the automated system call you and tell you the PIN for instant verification, or choose the SMS or post card options. Once you are validated your listing should begin to show in search results.

Good luck, this is a very simple ways to increase targeted local traffic from Google.

Canadian ECommerce and Online Marketing Networking Group on Linkedin

I have started a new ecommerce and online marketing group on Linkedin to connect all of us who are working in related fields in Canada. If you are working in any of the following areas you qualify for this group:

You qualify for this group if you are working for an ecommerce business, an agency or are an independent consultant.

Joining this group will ultimately allow you to connect with thousands of professionals like yourself. You may be able to collaborate on problems to common problems, stay ahead of new technologies, gain insight into what’s working and what’s not from others and you may even uncover ecommerce employment opportunities.

Click here to join the ecommerce and online marketing networking group on Linkedin today.

Shotel Flash Picasa Template Flash Photo Gallery

I am really not sure if this Picasa flash photo template came as a default in Picasa or if I downloaded it somewhere. If anyone knows who developed this flash photo gallery please email me or comment.
Anyhow, this gallery is a very simple mouseover type photo gallery, when you mouse over the navigation icons the photos will slide in one at a time. Its simple and slick. As far as flash photo galleries go, its a good one.
I deployed it as quick as any of the others by exporting the template. Anyhow, I hope this helps you discover yet another Picasa photo gallery. It seems like many users are starting to find the site and are interested in more galleries so I will try to find a new web template photo gallery every couple of weeks and post it.
Click here to see the Shotel Flash Photo Gallery in action.

SimpleViewer Picasa Templates Flash Photo Gallery from Airtight Interactive

In my quest for the coolest web gallery template I have found another Picasa template worth a note. SimpleViewer Photo Gallery from Airtight Interactive was quick and easy to install, I had it up in a few minutes. Similar to other templates its as easy as downloading the template package and putting into the Picasa Web templates folder and then exporting your photos from Picasa.

The SimpleViewer template is the perfect template for an art or photo gallery. It presents users with a simple and easy way to view 9 of the gallery photos and easily page through thumbnails. A simple click on a thumbnail will change the main image to the selected photo.

In my test gallery I have taken a series of photos from the Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo Community Gallery and loaded them into the SimpleViewer.

Click here to check my sample SimpleViewer Flash Photo Gallery for Picasa.

Experimenting with Youtube Adsense Units from Google

I recently discovered that Google has integrated Youtube with the Adsense services. This changes gives Adsense advertiser the ability to distribute Youtube videos with integrated Adsense ads in order to generate revenue. If you are not familiar with Adsense, you should be since this is the service that can monetize your content by presenting Google sponsored ads to your users. When a user clicks on the ad, Google gets paid by the advertiser and you get a percentage of the revenue.

Click here to see a sample of how you can earn money from integrating Youtube video ads to your website.

ECommerce Conversion Rates and Conversion Rate Factors - Part 1

A colleague of mine from a previous company asked me recently…
“How do I raise conversion rates on my ECommerce site by 10%?”
He went on to tell me that if he simply raised conversion rates by 10% it would result in massive revenue growth and how he was convinced that a redesign was the most effective thing he could do to raise conversion. While I agree that this could be a major opportunity we ended up discussing several other factors that should be considered when targeting your conversion rate for revenue growth.
The factors that should be considered are not simply the design and functionality of your shopping cart, they are much more and begin earlier than your checkout. Some conversion rate factors are listed below:

• Targeted Marketing
• Clarity of Marketing Message
• Page Load Times
• Presentation and Feel
• Selection and Shopping Tools
• Pricing and Competition
• Reputation and Brand
• Site Trust and Legitimacy
• Return Policy
• Delivery Times
• Shipping Costs
• Credit Card Processing and Card Validation

With all of these factors it is really hard to pick and prioritize where to spend your conversion rate improvement efforts. It was clear after this conversation that although an important factor, the shopping cart is only one factor affecting your conversion rate.
For more information on conversion rate basics have a look at this article from Bryan Eisenberg written on the ClickZ network.

Converting Videos and Copying Videos for PC and Mobile Devices

I had the chance to test the new version of DVD Copy 6 from Corel today and was surprised by the breadth of features that are packed into the product. Little did I know, with this product you can convert almost any video file format to any other video file format as well as copy your videos to popular mobile devices such as the iPhone, PSP and iPod, and its easier than you think.

See the list of supported file formats and features listed below:
DivX® HD Support - Import and create High-definition DivX® HD video files of up to 1280×720 frame size. Burn 2 hours of High-definition video to DVD discs with the original subtitles, audio tracks and even interactive navigation menus, that plays on DivX Hi-Def DVD players.
AVCHD support – DVD Copy 6 will recognize AVCHD video folders imported from you camcorder, and convert them to the format of your choice. Even import directly from you DVD-based camera.
XVid support – DVD Copy 6 now supports this popular P2P file format, giving you access to much more material.
Support for more portable devices – Convert your video to go! MPEG-4 and H.264 templates are available for the Apple iPhone™, as well as a variety of mobile phones and PDAs, and Zune™. Send video directly to iPod® and PSP® without intermediate steps.
TiVo® Support – Let DVD Copy 6 Plus take care of converting your TiVo Series 2-recorded files to DVD disc or mobile device.

All in all I think the features in this product make this software invaluable to anyone downloading videos and looking to convert and load them on to their iPod, iPhone, PSP and more. I urge you to download the trial and give it a try.

After you do please post your comments here so that others can benefit from your experience.