The Objective Blog

Keep up with what we're thinking, reading, and doing.

SEO Benefits of Using a (Good) CMS

November 20th, 2009 - by Brett Derricott - Salt Lake City, Utah

Google announced another update to the search engine results pages. They’re now including information about a result’s location in a site’s hierarchy, rather than merely showing the page’s URL.

Here’s an example of what the new results will look like. The new feature isn’t yet live for everyone but Google says we’ll all see this feature within the next few days.

So what does this have to do with using a content management system (CMS)?

Well, if your site has many pages, providing the search user with context about the page they’re considering clicking might actually help convince them to click on your listing. Or, they may see that they really want to click on the listing’s parent page or category.

Using a CMS can help you ensure that the websites you maintain and/or build are structured in a way that Google can easily decipher site organization. Tweak CMS, for example, uses a parent-child organizational structure to ensure that your site fully leverages the sitemaps protocol (very helpful for SEO) as well as providing an automated method for generating breadcrumb (crumbtrail) navigation. Google’s announcement indicates that breadcrumb navigation is a key factor in determining whether they can include this new feature on a given site’s listing.

Google’s Operating System: Chrome OS

November 20th, 2009 - by Brett Derricott - Salt Lake City, Utah

Google ChromeIf you’re wondering about future trends in computing, you need to be aware of Google’s Chrome OS. If you’ve ever heard of the concept of the Web as an operating system, this is basically Google’s attempt at delivering on that.

Chrome OS is currently intended for use on netbook-like devices, which are small and portable. Everything you do, when using Chrome OS, is through the browser (the same Chrome browser Google offers now). There are some resulting benefits from this approach, namely speed in doing anything online, but the tradeoff is simplicity. You can’t run Photoshop or Quickbooks or any other “installed” application on Chrome OS.

Here is one critical review of Chrome OS and one positive review.

And here is a blurb that explains one of the benefits of using a Web operating system like Chrome OS:

…the overhead of managing multiple PCs is too high for a home user. Paraphrased, his statement was that if you have five conventional PCs, it’s a pain to keep them all up-to-date and their data synced. The reason, I would add, is that five conventional PCs each presume that they’re either alone in the universe, or that they “connect” to this thing called a “server.” But five Chrome OS portables are five caches for the same cloud-based user and application data, and as such they resemble five netbooks only in their form factor.

And finally, a video:

Excellent Mobile Marketing

November 18th, 2009 - by Brett Derricott - Salt Lake City, Utah

I love this mobile marketing campaign from Editoras, an online bookstore in Brazil! QR codes spread around the city allowed users to take a snapshot with their camera phones and view random messages about love or hate from Twitter.

A hard-copy book featuring the same QR codes on each page, sold-out in a short time. Viewers can flip through the book, take photos of the QR codes, and view new messages about love or hate.

Brilliant.

Watch the video to learn more:

via Mobile Marketing Watch

CEO Speaks to Roanoke Ad Fed

November 12th, 2009 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

Our CEO, Brett Derricott, just returned from a quick, but enjoyable trip to Roanoke, Virginia. The Advertising Federation of the Roanoke Valley invited Brett to present for an hour on the topics of mobile web and viral marketing.

Ad Federations or other groups interested in booking Derricott as a speaker can request additional information by submitting our online contact form.

 

Calling All Carnivores: Buy Windows 7

November 3rd, 2009 - by Brett Derricott - Salt Lake City, Utah

Burger King and Microsoft have teamed up to promote Windows 7 in Japan with…a 7-patty burger. The statistics on this burger are pretty absurd: 2,120 calories, weighing in at 1.7 pounds.

Assuming Microsoft’s objective is publicity, not coronary disease, the stunt appears to be working. But, let’s be honest, this is still coming from Microsoft. What do you think? Would this be more successful coming from Apple or Google (not that they’d ever do this)?

View CNN’s coverage below:

Here’s an ad I can’t read:

The Windows Whopper