InformationArchiTECH

Acropolis Website Management Software v1.0

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:24:45 e

Acropolis v1.0
Website Management Software
Scheduled for Release 6/25/2007

Well folks, its about that time. The long awaited release version of Acropolis^TM, the Web-based e-commerce, content & community management software is almost here. This is the culmination of over a years worth of dedicated work, and several years of programming, internet marketing and web content writing experience. Already seven websites are running beta versions of the software, and several more are waiting in line. With the full release of Acropolis this summer, dozens--if not hundreds more will have the opportunity to experience the incredible power, simplicity and ease of use of this carefully crafted Website management software.

What is Acropolis?

The functionalities included with Acropolis are known by many names. The major components of Acropolis can be broken down into the following:

Content Management - Quickly and easily add, move, edit and delete categories and pages on your website. With Acropolis content management capabilities, you don't have to be an HTML expert to make significant changes to your website, nor do you need to invest hundreds of dollars into desktop software such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. Edit your website from anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection!
Community Management - Successful websites have one thing in common: community. Just like any business, websites require a community of dedicated users in order to thrive. Through the use of newsletters, membership accounts and affiliate marketing, Acropolis makes it easy for visitors to your website to "join the team."
E-Commerce - Many companies have tried, but few have succeeded in building effective, intuitive and affordable online shopping cart software packages that put power back in the hands of the business owner. Acropolis surpasses all packages currently on the market in terms of usability and adaptability. Businesses who require a unique look and feel to their website, and feel constrained by the "cookie cutter" shopping cart software packages of today will be pleased by the template editing abilities, which allow for unlimited customization of your site. Those who have been let down by the inferior internet marketing capabilities of most e-commerce software will be renewed by the custom ROI tracking and search engine friendliness that Acropolis offers.

Can you be more specific?

The following are some of the features and functionalities Acropolis will offer at the time of its release:

Category management with unlimited tiers.
Article management with WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing.
Product management with auto-generated thumbnails. Upload one image and go!
Unlimited custom options and fields.
Basic and advanced product search abilities.
Events calendar.
Full-featured blog with social media networking tools (digg, del.icio.us, trackbacks)
RSS feeds of all content and blogs.
Auto-generated Google sitemap.
Froogle product spreadsheet exports.
One page checkout with live credit card authorization.
Customer registration and live order tracking.
Newsletter tracking.
Affiliate/campaign tracking.
Order tracking with custom reports and archiving capabilities.
Live template editing of all aspects of website.

Ready to try it?

Acropolis will be ready for free online demonstrations and purchase on June 25, 2007. Several options may be available including:

A monthly, all-inclusive package which will include hosting, support, and free updates.
Licensing packages for web development/hosting companies.
One time purchase of complete source code.

In the meantime, please help us spread the word!

About Us

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:59:08 e

Informationarchitech is a Lafayette-based Louisiana web design company specializing in the art of "findability."

Having a website that looks nice can be a fantastic complement to your business, whether you provide a product, service, or simply a kind of knowledge. The question is, how will anyone find it?

Placing your websites URL on a business card is cerainly one way, but it has obvious limitations. No one will be able to find your website unless they have already found you (or you have found them!) Placing your website address on business cards, signs, brochures or other company literature is a great way to complement your existing marketing materials, but it may not attract any new business.

The Internet can potentially bring thousands of new customers to your business, but only if your website is structured in such a way that it will be "findable" by anyone who is looking for you in the search engines. InformationarchiTECH specializes in a special type of marketing called "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO). Using a special set of techniques, we can ensure that your website appears high in the rankings whenever someone enters a search phrase relevant to your business in Yahoo, Google or MSN.

Findability does not end here, however. Once the customer has found your website, you need to be sure you have invested an equal amount of energy in desigining the site in such a way that the particular product, service or information the customer is looking for is easily findable--say, in two clicks or less.

Informationarchitech is a Louisiana web design company specializing in these issues, and we service clients around the globe. Simply contact us to learn more about our services, and how we can help you become "findable" in the vast and ever expanding Web of information.

Louisiana Web Site Design

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 08:59:43 e

Louisiana is a state with tremendous natural, cultural and artistic diversity. It is also one that teems with commercial and technological innovation. From the industrial economy of Lake Charles, to the thriving artistic communities of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana has much to offer the people of its state, and the world at large.

For years, Louisiana and its economy was a world unto itself. As the world has changed, however, Lousiana businesses are having to adapt. More and more Louisiana businesses are searching for ways to bring their unique products and services to the table of the global marketplace.

The internet is the fastest and most cost-effective way to create exposure for the products and services of Louisiana businesses. A presence on the Internet can open previously unimagined markets. Properly designed web sites can place Louisiana companies on a much larger playing field, generating wider interest in local products and services than would otherwise be possible.

Because Louisiana is unique, there is a growing need for Louisiana web design companies with an intimate understanding of Louisiana culture. Louisiana web designers face a two-fold challenge.

Communicate the needs and interests of Louisiana businesses in a way that will be recognizable by Louisiana consumers, and
Communicate this same information to the rest of the world in such a way that it will be universally understood, while remaining true to the flavor of Louisiana culture.

There are many web design companies in Louisiana, but few who are up to the challenge of ensuring their clients information is “findable,” both to individuals in Louisiana and the larger world.

Findability has both internal and external aspects, which a Louisiana web design company must take into consideration. You want people to find your website, to be sure. But once they have found it, you want to also make sure your website is designed in such a way that the person arriving on your site can quickly find whatever it is he or she is looking for, in two clicks or less.

External Findability is accomplished with search engine optimization (SEO), which means getting your site to rank high in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) for relevant key phrases.
Internal Findability is accomplished through the use of easy, intuitive navigational structures, logical category structures, clear web content writing and sophisticated search functionalities.

There are many Louisiana web design companies that can help you present your product or service in an attractive light, but few that are committed to making sure the right people will find what you are offering.

Informationarchitech is one Louisiana web design and promotion firm with an emphasis on findability. Our aim is to make the knowledge, products and services of our State “findable” in the larger, and ever expanding Web of information.

Click here to request a quote.

Louisiana Web Promotion

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:07:00 e

informationarchiTECH is a Lafayette-based Louisiana web design company offering a wide range of Web services including graphic design, category management and content management, custom applications, navigational analysis and design, and web promotion.

What is �web promotion?�

You could have the most flashy, cutting-edge website on the Internet, but if no one can find it, you might as well not have one at all. Many companies make the mistake of focusing their energy entirely on web design, assuming that promotion will take care of itself.

If you are looking for a Louisiana web design company to build a website that can showcase your information, products or services, you are also going to need a Louisiana web promotion company that can ensure that your website is not lost among the thousands, or even millions of other web pages with similar offerings.

Whether you are a Louisiana company with an existing website, or simply are not satisfied with the results of your current one, the following are a few questions you should ask.

What is the purpose of my website?

There are basically two kinds of websites: brochure web sites and dynamic web sites.

A brochure website is essentially a supplement to your business card. They find the address on your card or other promotional materials and go online to read your content, see images/photographs, or view Flash presentations. Successful businesses usually outgrow a brochure website after a short period of time.

A dynamic website is an extension of your business. It should generate revenue on its own, either by procuring new business, or selling your product using an online shopping cart. While not necessary for brochure sites, a dynamic site requires web promotion in order to do its job.

Who am I trying to reach, and how am I going to reach them?

InformationarchiTECH provides web promotion for businesses across the United States. Given our location in Lafayette, however, we focus on Louisiana web promotion in order to enhance the economy and businesses of our region.

Your product or service may be similar. It may be useful to people throughout the world, however you may wish to target your particular region. There are many methods of online web promotion which allow you to target potential clients in your area, while still leaving the door open to expand beyond your regional borders.

How much do I have to spend?

If you are like most businesses in Louisiana, you do not have an unlimited budget for your web promotion campaign. You want to be sure the money you spend is put in the right place, and will continue to benefit you in the long-term.

InformationarchiTECH offers web promotion services for Louisiana businesses that will bring a short- as well as long-term returns on your investment. Utilizing techniques of search engine optimization, we will help your Louisiana web site attain top rankings in Google for the phrases related to your products or services. As we like to say, we will make you #1, by making your website #1.

How can I be sure you will help our customer find us?

You found us didn�t you?

Give us a call at 337.706-7460 or contact us using our online form.

Louisiana Web Design

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:46:34 e

It is not unusual for a web design business to have a global reach. The nature of the medium, the Internet, is in itself global. One is just as likely to reach a clientele in India as New York, or your neighbor down the street.

What is becoming truly unique, however, is a web design company that has sunk its roots deeply into the region in which its offices are physically located, soaking up the culture and creative energy of the region and putting it to work for the development of websites with character and local charm.

InformationarhiTECH is a Lafayette-based Louisiana Web Design company with a particular connection and commitment to the small and medium-sized businesses of Acadiana and beyond. Anyone who has lived here understands that Louisiana is like a country unto itself, with a history, language and culture that is unlike any other in the United States. A Louisiana web designer must understand these qualities in order to develop websites that speak to the people of this region.

Louisiana is a region of tremendous diversity, teeming with commercial and artistic endeavors. InformationarchiTECH is a Louisiana web design company commited to assisting Louisiana businesses in rising to the top in the global marketplace with attractive and easily navigable websites. Whether you desire an attractive porfolio site for your work, or want to develop a full-fledged e-commerce solution to complement your physical business, informationarchiTECH is ready to serve you.

We offer the following services for Louisiana businesses of all stages:

Search engine optimization (SEO) - Appearing high in the rankings for searches in Google is becoming increasingly critical to anyone wanting a viable presence on the web. More and more people are turning to search engines to find local services, from restaurants to clothes, to art and entertainment. InformationarchiTECH can help your Louisiana based business easy to find by all those who are looking for your product or service.
Turn Key Web solutions - These "out of the box" solutions provide an easy way for small businesses in Louisiana to gain an immediate presence on the web with little immediate investment of capital. Whether you simply want a blog-based website to portfolio your work, or a turn key online store to sell your product, have a look at our selection to determine if one of these packages is right for you.
Category Management/Local navigation - Whether your database-driven system is used online, or internally to your company, informationarchiTECH provides category management services that help streamline the process of storing and retrieving your company's valuable information. We can reorganize existing databases using the most recent technology, whether Windows or Linux-based, and optimize your systems performance to suit your particualar needs.
Web content writing - No website would be complete without persuasive and informative web copy, which fully describes the nature of your product, service, or any message you are trying to communicate. We offer competitively priced copyrighting services for any business, on or offline.

While InformationarchiTECH does serve a global clientele, we are especially commited to serving the people of our community which have made our business and our lives so enjoyable. Louisiana based companies will have the added benefit of meeting with us personally to develop strategies for your online venture, whether streamlining an existing web presence, or building one from scratch.

Your Louisiana web site design company is only a click, or a call away. Contact us for a free consultation using our online form, or pick up the phone and call us at 337-706-7460.

Ascending the Pyramid: Building a successful SEO campaign

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:34:15 e

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques and strategies for building a website (or modifying an existing one) such that its pages will appear in the top, natural results of search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN, for relevant key phrases. If your website sells toy fire trucks, then, an SEO campaign might focus upon getting your website to rank #1 whenever you type "toy fire trucks" in a search engine.

Don't you have to pay for that?

Yes and no. SEO does not refer to paid listings, sometimes called "Sponsored Links," which usually appear in a designated section of the search results page. In those cases, the more you pay the more prominently your ad will appear. It is certainly one way to promote your website, and it is a strategy that has been successful for many people. However, this is entirely different from SEO.

SEO refers to the natural results, in which the search engine has ranked web pages according to relevancy. When you type "toy fire trucks," into Google, about six million results are returned. The first page has ten natural listings. The first web page that appears is one that Google's complex ranking algorithm has determined to be the most relevant for that phrase. The second result is the second most relevant, and so on.

Relevancy is determined by many factors, some known and others still kept secret by the engineers at Google and other companies. The two most important factors, however, are content and back-links. Web site content is the actual "text," or written material that composes the pages of your website. Back-links are all of the instances in which another website links to yours.

So how do I make my website #1 in the natural results?

SEO is not easy. Gaining a high ranking in the search engines is a long process that requires intense commitment and patience. No matter what the nature of the product or servce you are offering, the chances are good that there is a lot of competition out there. My personal rule of thumb is, if you want to rank #1, you must be #1. If you want to rank #1 for lawn mowers, writing one page or even fifty pages about lawn mowers, using all the right phrases with the correct "word density ratio" may not be sufficient to gain that ranking . You must, quite simply, make your website the most relevant, informative and entertaining on the web for that search phrase.

If you want to rank for "lawn mowers," you had better be prepared to "write the book" on lawn mowers, research everything you possibly can about the subject, the history as well as the future, and build a large following of people who agree that, when it comes to "lawn mowers," your website says it all.

Building a successful SEO campaign.

Having said this, attaining a high ranking for whatever search phrases best describe your website is a worthwhile goal, and one that will require planning and some method by which your progress can be measured. The one devised by informationarchitech for our clients (as well as our own websites) is called the "Key Term Pyramid."

To develop a "key term pyramid," and mark your progress, you are going to need two important tools that are staples of the SEO trade.

The first is a key term search tool. These are usually online programs that allow you to search the databases, or portions of the databases, used by major search engines that contain information about the phrases users are actually entering into the search boxes of Google, Yahoo or MSN. For example, if you enter "toy truck" into the Overture Inventory Keyword Selecto Tool, you might see the following results:

Searches done in June 2006
Count	Search Term
5985	truck toy
1601	toy fire truck
833	toy garbage truck
722	hess toy truck
479	monster truck toy
390	toy dump truck
353	collectible toy truck

These results give you some idea of the terms people are actually using when searching for toy fire trucks. You can see that "toy truck" is the most popular phrase, but "toy fire" and "toy garbage truck" are also often used, so you should gear your content towards those phrases as well. Generally speaking, the higher the "count" (which is really just a relative measure of the popularity of a term) the more difficult it will be to attain a high ranking for that phrase.

A key word search tool can be used to be used to construct the key word pyramid you will be using in your campaign.

The second tool you will need is one that helps you gauge your progress in the rankings. Googlerankings.com is probably the best one available. This website will allow you to check your websites ranking for any key phrase within the first 1000 results. Once you have familiarized yourself with these tools, you are ready to begin building your pyramid.

Building your key phrase pyramid

Let us suppose you have decided to start your own web design business. Incidently, this is probably one of the most competitve fields you could choose, but if that is your passion, this fact should not stop you. You decide that you want to eventually rank on the first page of Google for the term "web design." Given the competition, you should be prepared for years of work as you begin building the best, most informative and entertaining site on the Internet about "web design."

In the mean time, however, you have bills to pay, and you cannot wait around for a top ranking for the phrase "web design" before landing your first job. Instead, you should begin by targeting less competitive terms and work your way up.

A key phrase pyramid has your most desirable search phrase at the very top, in this case "web design." Beneath this top level are "secondary phrases." Secondary phrases contain your phrase plus one additional term. Beneath this level are the tertiary phrases, which contain your phrase plus two additional terms. You should build your pyramid as deep as the key phrase search tool can provide data.

You begin your campaign, then, by writing content and procuring links that point to your site using the key phrases at the bottom of the pyramid. For example, if I were trying to promote my own site, informationarchitech for the phrase "web site design company," it would be best to try to find sites that will exchange links with me, and point to my site in this way:

Informationarchitech - web site design company.

It would also be a good idea to write a number of pages that focus on this topic, and use this phrase about 2-3% of the time in the text.

Realistically speaking, however, even the phrase "web site design company" is highly competitive, and could probably use a pyramid of its own. One approach would be to add regional qualifiers. For example, our company is located in Lafayette, Louisiana. Lafayette Louisiana web site design company might be a good place to start, followed by Louisiana web site design company, etc.

You should create an excel spreadsheet containing a list of the terms you are working on, and check your rankings in Googlerankings.com weekly. There is something very encouraging about being able to see the results of your efforts, even if it means moving from position 500 to 490. Given the vast number of websites available, getting in the first 1,000 results can be an accomplishment in itself and is a much more encouraging start than being off the map completely.

If you or your company desires assistance in building and maintaining an SEO campaign, do not hesitate to contact us for a free quote on our SEO services.

Hide and Seek - The dilemma of dynamic content, load time and search engines.

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:55:05 e

In the earliest days of web design, there was no such thing as "dynamic content." What you saw is what you got. This period, however, did not last long as developers learned to use javascript to insert content into the page whenever a user clicked on a link or performed some other action. Even though it may have been encoded in javascript, however, the content was still somewhere in the source code, and therefore still had to be loaded at the time the page was accessed.

The discovery of AJAX took things a step further. By combining javascript with "server side scripting," AJAX gives you the ability to insert content into your page based upon changing variables and requests. You can use AJAX, for example, to retrieve information from your database and display it on the screen without reloading the page.

What does all of this mean?

Let us take a step back for a moment and put this into context for those who may not have programming experience, because the lesson here is relevant for anyone who wants the utmost performance from their website. A concrete example should serve to illustrate the point.

Let us suppose you wanted to put the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica on your website, but you do not want to the user to have to go to different pages. Simple enough, right? You just sit down at your computer one evening and transcribe all the volumes A-Z into a single webpage and give it the address www.yourwebsite.com/encyclopedia.htm.

What do you think is going to happen when someone tries to access this page? Well, the best case scenario is that the vistor would see a blank screen for several hours while all of the content was being loaded. Finally, if the connection was not lost, they would see the encyclopedia contents appear. The content would go so far down the page that the visitor could scroll down all day and not see the end of it. Not a very efficient way of doing things.

Now, throw javascript into the equation. You would now have the option of dividing the encyclopedia into many pages that the user could page through by clicking buttons or entering numbers into a form field. However, with this approach the page will still take the same amount of time to load. The scroll issue would be resolved, but not the load time.

Using AJAX in this example, instead of loading the encyclopedia into a web page you would load it into your database instead. Then using javascript and backend "scripting," you could load the content as it is needed without ever reloading the page. The first time the user accessed encyclopedia.htm, the first page on the encyclopedia would appear almost instantly. Then, as they pressed a button paging forward, the content would change without ever reloading the page. It would appear to be lightning fast. However, if the user ever chose to look at the source code, the first page is still all that would appear.

This is of course an extreme, and rather silly example, but hopefully it helps explain the difference between static content, and content generated by javascript and AJAX.

So what's the dilemma?

In the above example, it would seem that the most obvious choice is the use of AJAX. Fast load time, lighting fast changing content, what could be better? Here's the problem:

If you chose to display page 1 of volume A when the visitor accesses the page, that is all that would appear in the source code as well. In other words, that is all the search engines would see. This is a major drawback. If someone were to search for "zoology" in Google, they would never find the zoology entry in your encyclopedia page because as far as any search engine can tell, it is not there.

In some cases, that is a problem. In others, it is exactly what you want.

Another, more real life example may help. Suppose you have a website that sells electronic equipment online. As a comprehensive dealer, you have over 200 categories on your website, which product offerings ranging from car stereos, to TVs and computers. Now it would be nice if the visitor could find any other category on your website from any page. However, it is not practical to load all 200 categories onto every page, both from a user experience and a search engine standpoint.

From the user point of view, the pages would take forever to load. From a search engine standpoint, the "relevancy" of every page would be diluted considerably. With every page pointing to 200 other pages or more, Google would not be able to tell much difference between a page that is about TVs and a page that is about computers. The use of AJAX would be a good approach to this problem.

Sometimes, however, you want the content in your page. If you have a page about TVs, for example, and have 15 other categories about TVs, you would want those links to be in the source code in order to help search engines determine what your page is about. However, due to space requirements, you might have a need to compress the display of that content.

A Working Example

With appropriate use of javascript and AJAX it is possible to strike a perfect balance between content that appears in the source code, and content that is loaded dynamically. Best of all, the appearance of the two approaches will be indistinguishable to your visitors.

The following are two collapsable/expandable trees. The first uses javascript, the second uses AJAX. The source code follows each example to make the distinction clear.

Example 1: Javascript

Category 1
- Element 1
Category 2
- Element 2

Code:

Category 1
- Element 1

Category 2
- Element 2

Example 2: AJAX

Category 1
Category 2

Code:

Category 1

Category 2

You can see that although the behavior of these two lists is exactly the same, what appears in the source code is quite different. Namely, the sublists in the AJAX example do not actually appear in the source code. They are loaded dynamically at the precise moment you click the plus sign to "open" the list.

It is possible to blend these two approaches such that part of your list is loaded when the page is first accessed, while the rest is loaded only as the user requests it. For example, if you had a tree that went five levels deep, you could load the first two levels and load the rest as it is needed. This will keep your code clean and the relevancy of your page intact, while still allowing for ultimate mobility on the user end side.

Informationarchitech is glad to offer assistance to businesses and individuals who wish to integrate dynamic content using javascript and AJAX on the navigational elements of their website. Contact us for a free consultation.

The Beauty of Being Found

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 02:28:30 e

It is a lovely thing to wake up one morning and discover that yesterday your website received ten thousand unique visitors. If your website had real estate, you would need a property as large as a stadium to contain the amount of attention you are receiving. And yet, it is all happening seemingly in the comfort of your home office, as you sit down for coffee one morning and review your website statistics on Google Analytics, or another webstats program.

The internet has in certain ways made the playing field more level. By making information, rather than capital, the primary factor in determining visibility (although we all know this is far from absolute) a cluster of individuals with a fury of ideas can quite easily compete with a large, multi-national corporation, if only in a limited scope or particular region.

The engineers at Google and other search engines are smart fellows indeed, but they have hearts as well. What they have effectively done, and what so many SEO's have observed and shared with their clients, is found a way to write an algorithm that gives preference to the continuous production of original, creative content regarding a particular subject matter. A company of three individuals may find more creative energy to produce such content as a company of ten thousand employees who are there only for a paycheck.

If there is any secret formula to a top ranking in the search engines, it is a quite simple one: content equals traffic. If I had one thing and one thing only that I could pass on to all who wanted to strengthen their presence on the web, it would be this simple rule. A recent client who just began a basic blog website with pay per click ads quickly found that on days he wrote a blog, he made upwards of 3 times the amount he would make on days he did not write.

My impression is that the traffic fluctuations are not so much a result as Google rapidly changing its preferences in the rankings, but the organic spread of information and interest across a million invisible channels ranging from email to chat to telephone conversations. The truth is that creative thought is a rare thing indeed, and when it presents itself, attention upon it follows as naturally as night follows day.

The beauty of being found has more to do with completing this cycle of seeker and sought than it does with beating out the competition that was not, at that time, ready to be found. If the time for you to be found is now, however, then you should seize upon everything you have to rise from the ashes. The ashes could be an unchallenging job, a stagnant company, or a flailing nonprofit organization. No matter what your beginning point, informationarchitech can meet you there and assist you in finding your way up. Being found is what we are all about.

Contact us today to learn more about how informationarchiTECH can help you or your company become more findable in the growing sea of information.

SEO: Science or Alchemy?

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:34:21 e

In the age of Augustus Rex of Prussia, the European world was filled with men who many regarded as tricksters, and some as possessors of a secret art. Calling themselves 'Alchemists,' they claimed to posess the ability to transform one element into another--namely, lead into gold. The recipes were said to be found among the pages of ancient Roman poetry such as Ovid or Virgil. The practitioners include many whose names have been lost, and others, like Sir Isaac Newton, whose names are as known to us as common household words. As secretive in their person as in their art, most alchemists never found themselves in a position where their claims were put to the ultimate test. Johannes Friedrich Böttger was one who did not get off so easily. Augustus "the Strong" had him locked away into a chamber in the Royal Palace until the day that he could successfully transform lead into gold. He never succeeded in his efforts, but made a discovery no less precious--the recipe for porcelain, which until that moment had been a secret of the Orient.

A more complete history of this discovery and its impact can be found on the website for which I wrote all content, which currently ranks #1 in Google for the term "antique china." (#9 for "porcelain") Its current position did not occur by accident, but through the deliberate efforts of myself, who wrote all of the content, and others who were at that time my mentors. The process is called "Search Engine Optimization," a service which is purported to guarantee high rankings in the "organic results" of search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN. An exact search for the term "search engine optimization" returned 76 million results in Google on the day of this blog's writing. Clearly a competitive industry; but with so many companies across the world offering this service, how can their claims all possibly be true?

Questions about the veracity of SEO's claims have given rise to broader questions about whether the "industry" is anything more than another manifestation of the snake oil salesman with upgraded technology. Considering that Google's "ranking algorithm" is a kept secret, consisting of thousands of complex mathematical formulas, can a #1 ranking for any term ever truly be guaranteed? Or even a listing on the first page? With this ranking constantly being updated by the engineers at Google and other search engine companies, can SEO really be considered a science that can be learned? Or will it simply remain in the shadowy, unverifiable realm of the Alchemist until the day its outrageous claims are finally forgotten?

As someone who has had personal experience with the success of certain techniques, such as the one mentioned above, I am partial to the belief that there is a craft possessed by some, but not all, which makes certain guarantees regarding placement in the search engine rankings possible. However, all claims must include specific qualifications. The main qualification is that it will require hard work. The more competitive the industry, the harder you should be willing to work in order to obtain the ranking you feel you should deserve. This second qualification is one rarely heard. You should attempt to attain a ranking, not because you have beaten the system, but because you have made your website the true winner.

This was my approach with Antique, China, Porcelain & Collectibles. My process of Search Engine Optimization began with reading books about antiques. Second, I began writing articles about antiques and posting them on the website. In between research and writing, I sought out other antique or porcelain related websites and requested link exchanges. Soon I was building relationships with other antique authorities on their webs, and websites began to link to us, not because we requested a link exchange, but because they valued the information our website contained. Eventually I noticed that eBay sellers were quoting our website in their listings. One day, we woke up and found ourselves in the #1 position for the term "antique china" in Yahoo, and Google was soon to follow.

It is my opinion that if you want to obtain a top ranking for a term, you must first ask yourself whether your website truly merits that positioning. Is your website the most valuable and relevant resource for the majority of people who would submit that search phrase? If it is not, you then have to decide whether you are willing to invest the energy to turn your website into one that is; or choose a more accurate phrase.

Of course, there are plenty of particular techniques in addition to simply writing good content and exchanging links, and having knowledge of these will certainly expedite your rise to the top. In addition, many people can benefit from coaching and encouragement along the way, and it is in these ways that informationarchitech can help you. However it is important to remember that without personal will and determination, no enterprise, web based or otherwise, can succeed.

We may not be able to turn lead into gold, but with careful study and perseverance, there is no reason why you should not be able to use the knowledge you have to become a valued and prosperous presence on the Web. SEO is not an exact science to be sure, but it is not entirely mysterious either. Combining continuous observation with research, the method by which search engines rank websites can be learned. It is not necessary to understand the precise forumula in order to glean the most significant factors. Like alchemists, however, SEOs do their best work when put to the test!

Click here to request SEO services.

Doors and Windows

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 07:27:11 e

As a personal note, I find the term “information architech” to be so pretentious it hurts.

Posted on 7nights.com by "Adrian L" May 26, 2005 07:03 AM

When I use the term "information architech," I do not mean it to be pretentious. It is certainly has a nice sound to it, but that is not why I chose it. My uncle is an architect and I have always looked up to him. I remember watching with fascination as he sketched incredibly precise line drawings on his large drafting table, or meticulously assembled models of buildings that one day would be. In particular I was interested in blue prints of houses, and I began drawing my own at a very young age. I liked thinking about the pathways that hypothetical visitors would take from the moment they entered the home, to their exiting on the other side. I loved to think about how the placement of doors and windows would affect their experience, and to what extent their configuration would influence their motion from one room to the next.

No matter how much we may advance in technology, the human mind is very rarely able to conceive something entirely new. It is not surprisingly then, that most people "walk into" a website with the same mentality as a person stepping into a home or a building. A website, therefore, has a structure that strongly influences the movement of the visitors moving through it. And like a building, a website has windows, doors and walls. Some windows or doors may be open, others closed. Some websites have few of either, giving the structure an enclosed, almost claustrophobic feeling; while others are so "open," so completely lacking in structure as to give one a sense of agoraphobia. Whether you are trying to sell something or simply convey a message, such a structure will be unconducive to your mission.

I call myself an information architech not because I do not feel the title "web designer" is not interesting enough, but simply that it does not accurately describe what it is that I do. My primary concern is not the colors or the images that make up your website (although these certainly have their place) but where the walls, windows and doors are placed--or how they might be positioned differently in order to make your information more findable, and more easily understood once it is found.

Much of the task of an information archiech is taking the time to form a deep understanding of the content matter you are trying to communicate, whether it is an idea, a product or a service. No matter what the subject matter, everything has a natural order that can eventually be perceived with patient thought and study. It is only once that order is understood that categories can be decided upon, and it is the categories that will determine that basic structure of your websites.

Doors are links or buttons that lead you from one room to the next, while windows are the elements that entice you as to what is "beyond." The pathways that lead from the user to the "goal" (such as making a purchase or requesting a service) have been called "funnels." However, they should be funnels that focus rather than funnels that constrict. Many visitors will go far down a path only to learn at the last moment they had taken a wrong turn. Well designed navigational structures should never "trap" a user; in fact, they should at any point the process be able to find any other page on the website in two clicks or less.

New developments in javascript and AJAX have added an entirely new dimension of navigational structures. Consider the left hand navigation bar on this website. The visitor has immediate access to all of the major categories on the website. However, without moving to another page, one can expand this list to see other subjects beneath this category. Once you click on a link, the content changes but the page remains stable. Entering the site at http://www.informationarchitech.com, you seem to never leave the home page. Every door leads to the same room, but the room never stays the same. However, every page still has an individual entry in the search engines, so there is no danger of any single piece of content becoming "unfindable."

This is only one approach to creative structure, and is not appropriate to every situation. For every site plan, one must take into consideration demographic factors, as well as taxonominal (e.g. "categorical") ones. Some users are accustomed to and even expect highly visual websites with creatively disguised links and navigational elements, while others are just beginning to recognize what is meant by the blue, underlining of certain phrases on a web page. You must know your audience, and if you do not yet know your audience, you must keep it simple.

If you feel that your existing website needs a structural overhaul, do not hesitate to contact us using our online form.

Lafayette Louisiana Web Design

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:00:00 e

Lafayette, Louisiana Web Design Services
Direct: 337-706-7460
Request a Quote Online

With our office located in the heart of the Cajun country, informationarchiTECH is eager to meet the needs of Louisiana business owners, for projects both large and small. As a Louisiana web design firm, we are aware of the unique culture and history of this region, and are poised to integrate this understanding into the development of websites that will enhance the economy and visibility of this region and its people.

InformationarchiTECH can meet your business at any stage of your development. Whether you want a simple blog website containing articles about your business or trade, or a full fledged e-commerce website with online ordering capabilities, we are prepared to suit your needs. Louisiana is a rich state with plenty to offer in terms of knowledge, products and services, and informationarchiTECH wants to be a part of sharing these rich offerings to the world at large.

We offer both turn key solutions and custom design/consultation services. Whether you are starting from scratch, or have an existing Louisiana web site that is not generating the revenue or interest you hoped for, informationarchiTECH can provide the web solution catered to your needs.

Our rates are priced competitively. However, our focus is placed upon building your revenue. You can start simple, and expand your website as your budget and incentives grow. Our philosophy is simple: when you are successful, we are successful.

InformationarchiTECH is proud to be one of the few Louisiana web design companies focusing upon individuals and businesses of this region. While our clientele spans the entire country, there is a special place in our hearts for Acadiana and Louisiana at large. If you are looking for a Lafayette, Louisiana web design company, look no further than informationarchiTECH.

Click here to request services, or call 337-706-7460 for a free consultation.

Turn-Key Web Solutions

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 e

In response to the needs of small business owners and individuals who want to build a presence on the web, informationarchiTECH has developed several turn-key solutions. Prices include free hosting and domain registration for one year!

Basic Blog Website
Recent Examples: Imperial Logic, Comic Book Lounge
Using WordPress blog software, you can choose from a variety of basic templates. We will then assist you in modifying the layout to your specifications, including a custom header design. This package includes 2 free hours of phone/email consultation regarding promotion of your site, assistance with setting up pay-per-click ads, or other special needs.
Category/Content Managed Site
Recent Examples: Austin Bicycle Cabs
Using informationarchiTECH's category and content management software, we will deliver you a website with an online administrative control panel for easy creation of new categories and content, as well as modification to existing data. Price also includes contact form which delivers inquiries to your email, a dynamic footer which adds link to content pages as they are created, and a dynamic navigation bar which includes links to categories. Special effects navigation bars such as the one used on the informationarchiTECH website can be implemented at no additional charge.
Category/Content Managed Site + Blog
Recent Examples: Texas Auto & Home Insurance
Same as above, but with Blog. Online administraive control panel allows you to easily create new blogs which will appear on the blog section of your website. Includes archiving functionality and XML 1.0 syndication capabilities.
Complete E-commerce Solution
Recent Examples: mp3playeraccessories, Organic Fair Trade
Full fledged "architectural" e-commerce package. Web package includes category management, content management, blog, forum, product manager and shopping cart. Integrate into paypal or have orders delieved into a secure online order panel. Web site software is designed for optimal performance in the search engines. Forum postings, blog postings, product listings and articles are integrated into a single category structure and interlinked for a perfect link structure that will help build rankings quickly.

* - Note: price includes basic site layout, including a 2- or 3-column navigational scheme and an attractive header. In some cases our software can be integrated into existing layouts. Advanced layouts such as the one seen on mp3playeraccessories range from $500-$1000.

Of course, we are more than happy to meet special needs or requests, whether they include additional functionalities not described above, or entirely new concepts. Please contact us today to get a quote on your project, or to discuss purchase of one of our turn key solutions.

Category Management

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:35:45 e

"The beginning of all understanding is classification." -Hayden White

Categories are, first and foremost, a human invention. There are no categories in the natural world. Even the worlds we create artificially evade classification. The more complex any collection of information, the more difficult it becomes to invent a structure of categories which can describe the data without contradiction, ambiguity or misrepresentation.

Those who have little experience with the subject dismiss it immediately. After all, how hard can it be to divide information into logical categories? Especially when you already know everything there is to know about the products, services or pieces of information you are trying to organize! Nonetheless, anyone who has tried to sit down and order data in a logical manner has seen the problem all to clearly. For any given set of data, there are multiple ways in which it can be organized, each one as logical as the other.

The trouble comes when it is believed that one scheme must be placed over the other; when one attribute must be considered more important than any other. Informationarchitech refuses to adhere to strict dichtomies, in the belief that information is infinitely malleable, and like meaning itself, is forever in flux.

Static categories are out of date, a leave-over from the brick-and-mortar days in which we had to place particular items in separate aisles of even the most general of stores. Now we must begin to understand virtual categories, which are created or dropped in an instant's notice, according to the needs of a given moment. Whether you have an existing category structure that needs significant pruning, or have just been bombarded with a set of data that you have no idea how to order, Informationarchitech is here to help.

SEO Using CSS

Sun, 21 May 2006 18:24:05 e

If there is anything about the technique used by Informationarchitech to optimize websites that can be considered unique, it is the manner in which we make use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the effort to build or enhance a site for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes. Put another way, we use a particular web design technique (CSS) in such a way that the website will appear in the top 10 results for any user typing a relevant term into a search engine such as Google or Yahoo (SEO).

Since SEO is relatively new, and CSS even newer, there is little discussion to be found online about this topic. One reason could very well be that those who realize the connection to its full extent are hestitant to even mention it. It is one of those ideas that is literally "too good" for one to feel comfortable about sharing freely-especially since SEO is an inherently competitive field. The audiences that the two acronyms attract (CSS and SEO) is probably another good reason the connection has not been explicitly made by the majority of the web design/architecture community.

Anyone would have to admit that a machine (such as a search engine) can never truly find meaning in the same way a human would. For this, a human touch is required. Put simply, CSS allows you to abstract the "textual information" on a web page from its "display information." Therefore, you may be able to fully optimize the text side (which search engines understand) without compromizing the display side (which humans understand.)

Strangely enough, a search engine is in certain ways more similar most humans than a computer. A search engine, for example, cannot read code. A search engine does not understand javascript, much less PHP, ASP or Macromedia Flash. A search engine has a limited understanding of HTML, but an insatiable appetite for words. Most of the interesting "eye candy" that is accomplished with Macromedia Flash can be replicated using CSS, and almost any HTML can be simplified using it.

This means you no longer have to decide between drop down menus and search engine-friendliness. With CSS, you can have both--and more of each than before. Informationarchitech is equipped with the latest in CSS and AJAX technology, which allows us to take your existing site and convert the source code into a format more easily understood by search engines. This is, in many cases, the first and most effective step in making an existing website appear higher in the search engine rankings. The mere re-ordering of the source code is sometimes all that is needed to get an otherwise good website the recognition it deserves in the search engines.

SEO using CSS is the cutting edge of information architecture. Click here to request more information about how we can transform your website with "under the hood" modifications that will significantly enhance its performance in the search engine rankings.

Choose a domain name

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 22:22:24 e

The importance of proper domain name selection cannot be underestimated. And yet, deciding which is the ideal domain name for a particular site is far from straightforward.

On the one hand, SEOs insist upon the importance of choosing domain names with "relevant key terms." On the other, we have the obvious counter-examples of such lucrative institutions as Ebay, Yahoo and Amazon, whose domain name ostensibly has nothing whatsoever to do with the relevant product or service they offer.

In every situation, a proper balance must be sought between a name that is "search engine friendly" as well as "human friendly."

Arguments in favor of "key-term-only" domain names.

This school of thought represents one extreme in the realm of domain name selection. The idea here is that the vast majority of web users find websites using a search engine, not memorized urls such as "amazon" or "yahoo." There is a widely held understanding (though, like anything search engine related, such speculation remains regulated to the realm of theory) that of the many factors that search engines take into account when calculating results ranking, the domain name itself bears the most weight. Why might this be?

Well, one reason might be that a domain name is pretty hard to fake. In order to have a domain name, you actually have to purchase it. On the other hand, one can easily change the wording of a title tag (often considered the 2nd most important factor) to accomodate search phrases that are "hot" this month. Weighing a domain name highly helps protect against the ignoble though common pursuit (benefiting no one) of getting a site to rank highly for irrelevant or completely unrelated terms.

However, there is another, less understood reason why domains with key terms in the URL name rank higher than many of their counterparts. This reason is particularly relevant for Google, although other search engines are known to take similar factoring into account.

At of the time of this article's writing, any person entering the seemingly innocuous phrase "miserable failure" into Google would find the biography of current president George W. Bush (published on the official White House website, no less) returned as the #1 result. How could this be? After all, this phrase appears nowhere in the page itself. The title tags, header tags, content and even meta tags are conspicuously lacking this "key phrase." This manipulation of the search results occured quite intentionally, in a coordinated attempt in which hundreds of web site owners created links to Bush's biography page, using the term "miserable failure" in the link text. (i.e. miserable failure.) This example clearly illustrates the importance Google places upon inbound links (a.k.a. "external content") in calculating search engine rankings.

What does this have to do with domain names? Well, if the domain name of your website is "antique-china-porcelain-collectibles.com," then you can be pretty certain that the key terms you are targeting will appear in any link made to your site. On the other hand, if you want to choose something more clever, like "rarest treasures," you have no way of knowing whether links to your site will tell search engines (or even human users) anything about the actual content of your site.

Arguments in favor of a human friendly URL.

Many of the arguments in favor of a coherent, memorable or "catchy" url are obvious. In fact, this subject could easily be lumped into the much longer history of "branding." (Or, alternately, the very recent marketing concept of the "meme.") Search engines, after all, are built to assist users in navigating through a swamp of basically anonymous data. Make your company/URL name a household work, however, and you are no longer anonymous. These days, a user looking for reading material is more likely to enter "Amazon.com" into the URL field of the browser than to enter "books" into the form field of a search engine.

SEOs would rather ignore this fact. An information architect, on the other hand, is more commited to the findability of information than search engine technology. Although it is unlikely that one will find a URL as catching as Ebay, especially these days, its possibility should never be ruled out. Consequently, an information architect should be prepared to develop a strategy surrounding domain names that may not appeal to search engines, per se.

Choosing a domain name.

The first step, therefore, in any project undertaken by informationarchitech, is to work with you to decide upon a domain name given your available needs and resources. If you are wanting to get your existing site ranked for a niche term in the next two months, chances are you will need to stick to the domain name you have already chosen. If you have a good year or so to work with, we will help you register an optimal name given the findings of our market research. Finally, if you are in it for the long haul and want to promote a brand name on the internet, the next Amazon.com, we can help you transform such a dream into reality.

Choosing Keywords

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:16:48 e

Ask the owner of any company, service provider or educational resource, whether they would like their website to appear in the top rankings of Google and you will receive a resounding "YES." Of course they do! But the question is, for which term?

It would be nice, of course, if your website appeared on the front page of any search term entered. On the other hand, if such a thing were possible, the concept of a search engine would lose all meaning.

This is where relevancy comes into play. More is not always more. A concrete example is in order here...

Let us suppose you own a website that sells landscape lighting fixtures for pathways, trees and fountains. What terms might you consider? According to Wordtracker, on the day of this article's writing, the term "light" was searched for over 2,000 times in the last 100 days (a very high incidence rate.) While this is a very commonly searched term, it would be a mistake to target this as the primary term for your website. Even if you managed to be successful in gaining any kind of ranking (let us say, in the first 50 results) for such a broad terms, the majority of those coming to your site would be looking for something entirely different from what you offer. This wastes your time as much as it does their's.

"Landcape lighting" would perhaps be a better choice, however this is still very broad. A quick search will find that the URL "landscapelighting" and all imaginable variations have been purchased. The availability of domain names is usually an excellent indicator of the level of competition you will be facing for that term. If you just want to sell Haviland teacups online, and find the domain name "Haviland-teacups.com" is available, top ranking (especially with the help of a professional service like informationarchitech.com) is most definitely an attainable goal.

It is important to not be misled in one's market research of good key terms. A common mistake is to search for key terms while allowing one's own personal passion (or obsessions) to distort the meaning of the results. At least half, if not the majority of web surfers are looking for information, and not the direct purchase of a product or service. Certain terms appeal more to one audience more than the other. For example, someone searching for "porcelain history" could be looking to write a research paper, while another searching for "antique china teacup" is probably looking to buy. Being able to tell target the desired audience for any given need is a key facet of an information architect's craft.

If you are embarking upon a new web project, or find that your current website is not getting the attention you feel it deserves in the search engines, contact informationarchiTECH for a free consultation. In many cases only a few minor changes can have a dramatic impact upon the visibility of your website in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

Need help choosing key terms? For free assistance with key term selection, we recommend NicheBot Classic: "search engine ranking and website promotion Uncover your site's true potential with the free set of keyword research tools that will give you all the quick data you need to gain the kind of web site traffic you need in order to get all the visitors to your site."

One Single Irreducible Attribute

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 03:23:32 e

Throughout my discussions of information architecuture, and in particular the articles concerning categorization, I continuously harp upon a single point: any categorization scheme should be based upon one (and only one) single irreducible attribute. Here I will attempt to explain why.

Consider, for example, that we were an online book store. Hopefully most of us have had some experience with buying books online. Let us outline the possibile mentalities with which one might enter an online book selling website.

> I want a particular book by a particular author, and nothing else will do.
> I want a book on a particular topic.
> I want a book written by my favorite author.
> I want a book written in the 3rd century.

How then would you create a category scheme for your online book business based upon these questions?

First, you should reduce these questions down to the essential attributes they are desciribing.

> Author
> Title
> Genre
> Time

You must next choose which attribute will constitute the primary category scheme. Genre would be a good scheme to go with, first dividing the fiction from the nonfiction. The remaining attributes are then applied to each product (book) in an auxillary fashion. Author, Title, and Time period are all attributes of your products, and users may use these to sort results when they are looking at a product listing on your website.

Since a website is a dynamic, rather than a static entites, categories can be shifted and rearranged as effortlessly as the segments of a Rubik's Cube. Every visitor enters a website with a different category scheme in mind. If you are selling products, some are thinking of a brand, others are thinking only of price, while others know the precise name of what it is they are looking for. However little or much they know beforehand, your website category scheme should be ready to accomodate them.

Understanding the difference between categories and attributes, then, is essential to any well structured sites. Categories are based upon one, single irreducible attribute, whereas an object may have many, overlapping attributes.

Whether you have a new website and need help categorizing your products or information, or have an existing website whose category structure has become restrictive or convoluted, informationarchitech can help. Simply contact us for a free consultation.

What is an information architect?

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:51:15 e

Put simply: an information architect is a person who designs a website in such a way that any information it contains will be impossible to miss by anyone who is looking for it.

The information may be about a product or service, or it may be completely educational in nature.

For our purposes, when we say "anyone who is looking for it," we do not necessarily mean a person who has already found the website. The person may not even know the website exists. We presume that such a person will begin his/her search by using a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

A website that is properly designed by an information architect will blend seamlessly with these results, becoming a virtual extension of the search engine itself. The purpose is not to drive traffic to your site "no matter what." A truly skilled information architect will design a structure that naturally attracts those whose desires match the information you offer, no matter how narrow or broad your target audience.

Once the target user finds your website, however, the job of the information architect has just begun. Suppose, for example, you offer thousands of products. The user inevitibly has a particular thing in mind--a single product, a particular service, or an answer to a single question. There are plenty of fish in the sea, as they say. The attention span of the modern web surfer will not last for more than a few clicks before moving on in search clearer waters.

The information architect will consider the various paths by which a user might enter the site, and plan in advance what sort of organization should be delivered the moment he/she "walks in the door." Ideally, you want the person to be given precisely what he/she was looking for. Even if this can be ensured in the majority of cases, however, one must design various alternate paths by which the information can be quickly found moving from that point forward.

This is often described as a website's internal navigation. Keyterm searches, navigation bars, footers and even the link to the home page should be designed by the information architect in such a way that the user immediately recognizes a logical structure. While it is important to minimize the number of "clicks" a user will need to make before finding the information he/she was looking for, it is just important to instill a sense of confidence that there is an coherent structure to the information. The more clearly the user understands the structure itself, the more likely the user is to stay for as long as necessary.

An information architect, therefore, oversees the construction of all possible pathways between you and the person that is searching for the information that you have. An information architect's craft is best demonstrated on a project the he/she has overseen from start to finish. However, this is not realistic in many cases. Oftentimes a website is already in place, with a devoted clientele and numerous inbound links, which simply needs a refining of its internal navigational structure, or a reorganization of its content in such a way as to optimize the number of relevant users finding the site through search engines. In this case, the information architect must put his/her best skills to work in building new structures where needed, while still keeping the previous structures intact.

Informationarchitech can do all this and more. Click here to request a quote.

URLs: Cleanliness is next to Google-iness.

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 10:42:10 e

A Proust of the Web would have no need for URL re-writing. If you are part of the .1% of the Web building population that has the time to sit down every day and create a brand new page of unique content from scratch, then read no further. Simply keep your FrontPage or Dreamweaver icon close at hand on your desktop, and go with our blessing.

If, on the other hand, you are part of the much larger percentage of serious web users who deal with database driven websites (regardless of whether the site is product or content centered) then some thought about your website's URLs is certainly in order.

Why?

Glad you asked. For starters, of all of the "static elements" of a page (i.e. the elements that exist independently of external content. These include the title, header, word density ratio, etc.) the one weighed most highly by the search engines is the actual URL.

Try searching for whatever in Google. No, really. Go to Google.com and type "whatever" in the search box. At the time of writing, the first result that appears is the following URL: www.scalzi.com/whatever/ The second result is, of course, whatever.com.

Now one should not confuse this point by thinking that having all the right key terms somewhere in your URL will guarantee you high rankings for that term. It is completely possible to rank in the first 10 results without having a single term appear in the URL of your page. It is only one factor in a very complex equation; however, it is an important one and should not be ignored by those wishing to break into a highly competitive arena.

It should be noted, however, (as in the previous example) that Google and other SE's "count" terms that appear anywhere in the URL. Getting clean URLs, then, goes far beyond simply choosing the right domain name (i.e. the words that come before .com, .net, .org, etc.) In fact, what comes after the slash can be equally if not more important that what comes before.

???

Good point. It should be noted that if you are using any kind of programming on your website, (quickly identifiable by the use of '?' or '&' marks in your URL) you will need to immediately consider URL rewriting if you wish to make your page addresses search engine--not to mention user--friendly.

You can usually tell if your site using programming (also called a "dynamic" site) based upon the URLs of most of the pages. They might look something like this:

http://www.mywebsite.com/badurl.asp?product=123&category=456

If you're lucky, some basic re-writing might be in place, so your URL would look more like this:

http://www.mywebsite.com/PPF/product/123/category/456/badurl.asp

While this second example may look a little nicer, both suffer from major limitations set in place by search engines that want to level the playing field between human verses computer generated web content.

Namely, there are two rules of thumb that show why the following two examples are bad URLs from the search engine perspective.

1. Most search engines tend to ignore anything in a URL that follows special characters such as a question mark or an ampersand. Google DOES keep a secondary index, which it calls the "supplemental results" where such pages may be placed. However, these pages will only appear after the natural (the good 'ol website.com/home.html) pages have been exhausted. If you have these special characters in your URL, however, you really shouldn't count on them appearing in the index in any capacity.

2. Although not as strict as the rule on special characters, most search engines do stop after a certain number of slash marks. The general rule is that you should not go more than five "levels" deep on any URL. (The example given shows a popular technique in which parameters are passed as virtual "directories.") It seems that more weight is given to pages that appear on the "root" directory (after the first slash following your domain name) of a given website.

How can I clean my URLs?

There are several different basic techniques to rewriting the URLs of a website, but all of them must be customized to the structure of an individual website depending upon its specific needs. However, there are URL rewriting options available for any server operating system and can be applied whether your website is written in ASP, PHP, perl or other.

Click here to contact informationarchitech.com. We would be happy to have a look at your website and help you determine how URL rewriting and other techniques can be immediately implemented to improve your rankings in the search engines, as well as user friendliness.

How Wide is the Sea? Information Architects and SEO

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:56:21 e

Richard Wurman once described information as an impending tsunami advancing upon our shores. And yet a tsunami is nothing but a re-ordered sea. What really concerns us is not only the frightfulness of the storm, but the size of the ocean from which it's power is drawn. We are not so much drowing in information as we are gazing upon its vastness with slack-jawed wonder, our eyes searching the horizon in the distance for where, if anywhere, another shore can be found.

The ultimate problem of information cannot be confined to a single area, a particular industry or body of company data. More and more, the problem of information has become an issue of mapping, with the ultimate goal of instant and infinite mobility. Here, on this shore, you have a person in need of information. There, just beyond the horizon, you have the information. In between these two shores is an angry sea of restless, and growing irrelevance. But just how wide is this sea?

All too many information architects have found themselves caught in a narrow chute of understanding about their role. Their informational design begins with the dangerously misinformed assumption that the user has already found his/her website or system. Information architecture is considered in terms of internal structure, very little in terms of external positioning. Where does the typical user go, after all, upon opening a browser?

A search engine. And here is where the challenge begins. No information architectural design is complete unless the findability of the structure itself is taken into consideration. We live in a world of 2 billion websites. Correspondingly, the search engine catalogues (though they describe only a slice of the total available information) are growing at an exponential rate. The real challenge of an informational architect is not simply to attractively or cleverly organize information on a website or system, but to facilitate and expedite the user's journey from oblivion (represented by the empty field of a search engine's search box) to the ultimate goal: your relevant information.

An information architect, then, is an SEO with honor. The information architect does not want swim against the tide of Google's noble mission, forcing his/her client's websites to the top rankings for any term, however irrelevant. This, after all, would be a disservice to the client, the search engine user, and the entire vision of “findability.” The philosophy of an information architect is not to drive massive amounts of traffic to a website by any means necessary, but to attract the specific target audience for which the particular product, service or information was originally intended.

The information architect's mission goes beyond that of an “honorable SEO,” however. Findability is a commitment, as has been stated, that runs the full gamut between the user and the information he/she seeks. Ideally, the IA wants the user to find the exact page on a website that relates to his/her search (the “landing page.”) Where they miss, however, an information architect should design the site in such a way that the information is easily findable, wherever the user lands.

It is here that the more commonly understood and discussed aspects of information architecture come into play—i.e. the “user experience.” Specifically, information architects should be familiar with search technology, category management, metadata, graphic design/layout and link structure. These and other tools should be visibly available to the user and allow for quick access to any information contained within the boundaries of the website.

How wide is the sea? As wide as the distance between you and the information you seek. And if you haven't guessed it by now, the sea is getting wider every day. As this natural process continues to unfold, information architects will become in greater demand by those who wish to part this sea, create an easy and obvious pathway, or to use Wurman's phrase, “making the complicated clear,” from this shore to the next...

Information Architecture Articles

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 21:00:53 e

The articles listed here cover a wide range of topics related to information architecture, ranging from specific issues such as search engine optimization, category management and site search technology, to broader issues such as the the philosophy and ethics of the information architect. Please check back often as these pages are frequently updated.

A Beacon.

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:58:18 e

There is something standing between you and success, and it is getting bigger every day. In recent years, it has revealed itself to be a force as formidable as any known in nature. Like a forest becoming lost in the trees, or an ocean scattered by a tsunami's sudden power, many otherwise lucid individuals are at risk of becoming lost in the increasing complexity of a beast which, ironically enough, is an object of our own creation. I am describing information. Whether part of a profit-motivated enterprise, or the provider of a free educational resource, the challenge is the same. On this side of this storm is you with your product or knowledge, and on the other is your client, consumer, or target audience. The challenge is how to make yourself easy to find. The ultimate goal is making yourself impossible to miss. Information architecture is the art and science devoted to ultimate "findability" in systems and knowledge. Meeting you at any stage of your company's development, an information architect determines the pathways and blockages that exist between your knowledge and your target marget, and provide a solution that will ensure the information you possess will become impossible to miss by anyone who is looking for it. [Click here to learn more.]

SEO+Categories

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 02:53:39 e

If you have a business, or THINK you have one, it can be more difficult than you think to determine the kind of category structure makes the most sense. The following are a few steps you should follow, or questions you should ask, in the consideration of this issue:

1> Before anything else, you should decide what category you fit within. If you expect search engine users to find you among the millions of results available to them, you must clearly define exactly what distinguishes you from the rest. What do you do, and what do you not do? Of the companies that do what you do, what makes you the best?

2> You should next consider the user experience upon arriving at your site. Categories are natural, but they are not static. What does this mean? Any example will suffice. Let us consider the beer in your refrigerator. Is it imported or domestic? Is it a stout, an ale or a lager? Does it come in 12 or 16 oz containers? The answers to these questions describe the attributes of your beer, and each of could be used to create a category structure, should you desire. But any category structure should be based upon one single irreducible attribute.

Information Architecture

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 02:20:14 e

The articles included in this section describe what is meant by the term "information architecture," in order to help business owners and organization heads best determine whether such a service is needed given their current context.

Information architecture is a word with many meanings, depending upon whom you ask. Informationarchitech describes information architecture in the following way:

Information architecture is the art and science of building virtual structures for a new or existing systems, with the aim of minimizing the distance between the user and the information he/she is seeking.

The material equivalent would be a scenario in which a customer walks into a store and is immediately handed the exact product he/she originally intended to buy. If the product is not, in fact, what he/she is looking for, the customer should be provided a clear and attractive menu which will allow him/her to quickly and easily find what he/she originally desired.

IF your store does not have what the consumer was looking for, this should be taken as an indicator of one of two possibilities:

1) one should adjust the external architecture of the site such that users seeking this information will not find your website by mistake, wasting valuable time and resources of all parties involved.
2) one should consider expanding the available inventory of the website to include the information sought, and build additional pathways for the users seeking this information.

InformationarchiTECH brings years of experience helping business owners answer these questions to bear upon every web project we choose to embark upon. If you are unsure whether the target audience is finding your site, or whether your website is servicing the traffic that is, simply contact us for a free consultation.

Request Services

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 01:16:00 e

Internal Link Structure

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:48:14 e

Although a website is a completely abstract entity, it follows many of the principles of material reality. Namely, a website performs best in the outside world if it is able to "hold together" according to its own internal structure. This is a simplified way of explaining the importance of a "tightly-knit" link structure for your website.

Designed properly, a user on your website should, from any page, be able to find any other page on your website in two clicks or less. If your website contains information on a relatively wide range of topics, however, the user should have easiest access to other pages on the site related to the type of information he/she is currently investigating.

The simplest link structure is a hierarchical one. In other words, the deeper you drill down into the larger category structure of a site, the more links you are presented with, which direct explicitly to the type of informaion you are seeking.

Another way to create a link structure is relational in nature. Rather than adhering to a strictly hierarchical structure, a relational structure contains links on every page which are loosely associated with the topic of the page in question. Relational link structures are more fluid in nature, and consequently, more difficult to actualize.

The simplest and least effective technique is the "global link structure." In the extreme case, every page would be exactly the same except for the shifting content. Headers, left/right nav bars, and footers remain the same, linking to the same global categories no matter where you are in the site's architecture.

Getting the perfect link structure for your website is a difficult, though highly desirable goal. If you would like assistance in building a well structured site, or feel that your current one needs improvement, contact informationarchiTECH for a free consultation.

Local Navigation

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:27:32 e

"Local navigation" is a broad concept which includes everything a person can use to find the product, service of piece of knowledge he/she is looking for upon arriving at your site.

The following are the most common elements of local navigation:

Key term search box - Perhaps thanks to the influence of search engines such as Google, a key term search box is quickly becoming the first tool a user turns to upon arriving at a site (assuming that whatever they wanted was not immediately obvious upon their arrival.)

Category search/drilldown - Many users, upon arriving at a site offering a diversity of products, will look for some sort of logical category scheme, much in the same way as a person entering a store will look up for signs designating the different "department" or "aisles."

Header Links - Most sites contain a header with one or more layers of stylized links guiding the user to major sections of the website. Users generally expect to find standard links such as "Contact Us," "About Us," "Links," or a "Site Map" at the top of the page. It is not required, of course, but those diverging from this tradition ought to have a failproof scheme in place for providing the same information.

Home Page - While sometimes not considered in this regard, the home page is actually a vital element in a website's internal navigation. Given current search engine technology, which returns only the most relevant page of any website, it is actually rather unlikely that your home page is the first page a user will find. Many users instinctively look for the home page link, and from there expect to be able to quickly find what they are looking for.

InformationarchiTECH brings years of experience to bear upon the design and development of local navigation for your website. If you are starting a new website, or simply feel that your current one is not getting the results you hoped for, simply give us a call at 337-706-7460. Or, request a quote online.

Search Engine Optimization

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 23:46:21 e

Click here to request a free quote for search engine optimization services for a new or existing website.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of getting a website to appear as high as possible in the search engine rankings.

There are many companies out there that promise to get your website to appear in the first page of search results "no matter what." The attitude is one of "beating the system," that is, exploying various gimicks in the pusuit of top rankings, whether your site merits the position or not.

In my opinion this attitude is short-sighted, not to mention disingenuous. I believe that sophisticated search engines such as Google are an invaluable public resource, which are made freely available to anyone with Internet access, with the goal of helping users find whatever information they are looking for, whether or not they actually want to buy anything.

This is a hard truth to swallow for anyone wanting to make a quick buck. Those who truly have a passion for what they do, whether it be providing a product, service or knowledge, should not be caught in a dilemma. The ideal for all search engines is that, for any search term, the best, most informative and relevant website, will achieve the top ranking.

InformationarchiTech is not interested in helping you get a passionless, mediocre site to the top rankings through sheer, mechanical reverse-engineering of Google's algorithm. What we intend to do is work with passionate clients who truly believe themselves to possess a unique product, service or piece of information that merits a corresponding rank in the search engine. Whatever it is you have to offer, we will help you write the book that will become the standard for other relevant sites to follow.

InformationarchiTech will get you the #1 ranking, by making your website #1.

Click here to get started.

Information Architecture Case Studies

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 23:17:38 e

The following are a few examples of extensive site work I have done, which demonstrate a number of principles I have learned about information architecture in the last few years. Each of these serve as solid "real world" examples of the challenges of information architecture, touching upon the big topics of search engine optimization, category management, internal navigation as well as web content writing. I attempt to give an honest description of each project, describing what I did well, in addition to discussing what I would have done differently given the 20/20 vision of hindsight.

Antique China Company Case Study

Antique China Website

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 23:01:46 e

Background In the early Spring of 2003, I answered a job posting at my University for a temporary position unpacking boxes of antique porcelain for possible photographing and posting on a website. At this point I was a recent graduate with a degree in History, and had sent my resume out to dozens of companies with little or no response. I was hired immediately, and began learning of my employer's ambitions to create an online web business based upon the vast inventory he inherited from his mother. I began working with the company he had already hired to build an e-commerce website for him, and my temporary position quickly developed into the full-time one of general manager of an emerging online company. The website company he hired provided all the infrastructure I needed. Everything from an interactive database administration interface to the front-end website template were provided for me. It was up to me to decide upon what sort of category structure made the most sense given the products in the warehouse, and to write relevant content for the site accompanying these categories. It was then that I first learned of the concept of "search engine optimization," and slowly the company began educating me in these techniques as I handled the day-to-day task of building the site according to their instructions. It was with this project that the foundation for my career as an information architect were laid. Category Management The tsnumai of information I encountered upon first being showed the warehouse where the antiques were stored provided me a vertiable meditation in the art of category management. There were literally hundreds of boxes filled with about the same number of distinct patterns of antique china, lined in rows along the concrete floor of this approximately 2000 square foot warehouse. The dinnerware pieces were completely mixed up, meaning that any one box could contain several different patterns. Our first task, then, was to consolidate the hundreds of patterns into distinct boxes. This had to be done manually, as the owners and I wandered about the warehouse with plates and saucers in hand, playing a massive game of 'Memory' as we matched patterns and moved endless stacks of expensive, fragile dinnerware into their proper places. And yet, the dinnerware patterns themselves represented only one level of organization. Other attributes included the types of dinnerware (dinner plate, lunch plate, soup tureen, etc.,) as well as manufacturer (Haviland, Meissen, Dresden, etc.) However, it was not just dinnerware my employers had inherited, but figural scenes as well. These could also be categorized by manufacturer (which sometimes corresponded with dinnerware manufacturers, sometimes not) as well as whether they were a singe "figure" or "figurine," or a "figural scene." Besides all this, there was also a good amount of cut glass and silverware, which we basically ignored. My technical understanding at this time was rather limited, although I have always had a natural ability with computers. (I wrote my first computer program in BASIC at age 7.) What I ultimately decided was to have one category which represented the majority of the total inventory: Haviland dinnerware. And beneath this were a couple of hundred categories named partly according to Haviland's own category scheme, but mostly according to the Schleiger system which I learned was the industry standard for this line of China. I then created separate top level categories, based upon manufacturer and product type. Thus there was a top category for Meissen Dinnerware, as well as categories for Meissen Figurines and Meissen Figural Scenes. The same was true for Dresden and "Dresden-style" manufacturers. Admittedly, the scheme I ultimately decided upon was not perfect, but it was the best I could do given my level of technological understanding at that time. Combined with the search engine optimization of the site, however, the products were ultimately very easy to find and I do not recall very many calls where a user could not find what he/she was looking for, if in fact it existed on the site. Search Engine Optimization From the very beginning, the search term we were targeting was "antique china,"which was sought by search engine users hundreds of times each day. I spent most of my time, however, researching and writing copy on each of the manufacturers represented in our inventory. Each day I brought home books that had also been passed down to my employers from the original proprietor, and wrote extensive histories of the different manufacturers as well as some general history of the discovery of porcelain in Europe. After writing histories of all the manufacturers, I set about writing product descriptions for all of the products we had uploaded to the site. (Of course, I also spent a good deal of time photographing these products and determining pricing, which are other topics altogether.) Soon we were getting calls about our china, and we were gaining the attention of other websites which were happy to link to us. Looking at our webstats, I watched the traffic grow from a handful to a hundred a day, then to hundreds a day. Finally, after only a few months, we hit one thousand unique visitors in a single day. It was around this time that I came to work one day to find my boss in a fury of excitement. "We're #1 in Yahoo for 'antique china!'" he told me. And sure enough we were. He had a huge blowup of the results page printed and mounted on his wall. (We soon gained a #1 ranking with Google as well, and I have only recently fully understood why we attained this ranking with Yahoo first.) Conclusion Needless to say, this was an exciting and largely successful attempt at information architecture, though at the time I did not even know such a term existed. What I lacked, however, was a strong technical understanding of the technology we were borrowing from the web design company; specifically ASP and SQL. Afraid to touch the code, much less the database calls and procedures, I was left with the standard interface they provided all of their clients, and the few minor adjustments I was able to convince them to make. Were I to do it over again, I would do a good number of things differently. The most significant difference, however, would be the manner in which I categorized the products. It is my belief that static category structures, if they must exist at all, should be based upon a single, irreducible attribute. In this case, I would have probably chosen "type." "Tea cup," "soup bowl," and even "figurine" or "candleabra" would be product types. Every other attribute such as "manufacturer" or "pattern name" would be entered at the product level. Had we chosen to fully incorporate the glass and silver merchandise, an additional attribute of "material" could have been used. The value of such a scheme is that it would have given maximum flexibility to the user based upon what he/she actually knew about his/her own wants or needs. This is important for all types of products, but in the case of antique china it was particularly cogent. While some people knew they wanted a dinner plate by Haviland in the Schleiger 322 pattern, there were others that just knew they wanted a pretty cup and saucer for their curio cabinet. A fluid scheme that made use of dynamic "virtual categories" would have been extremely helpful for this website.

What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimization)

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:50:12 e

Search Engine Optimization is the art and science of getting your website to appear in the top rankings of search engine results for relevant search terms.

If you had a website that sold antique china, then “antique china” would probably be a targeted search term for your type of business. If your website was search engine optimized, then, your website would appear at least in the top 10 results whenever “antique china” or a related term was entered into Google's search box.

(Note: by results I mean the natural results provided by the search engine, according to it's own ranking algorithm. I do not mean the “sponsored links,” whose positions are purchased directly just like one might purchase a billboard along a certain highway.)

How does this happen? There are at least four major factors that determine where your website will appear in the search engine results.

Web Content Writing
Key term selection, density & page structure
Site architecture, information & link structure
Inbound Links (the quantity and quality of other websites that link to yours.)

It is difficult to say which factor is most important for a number of reasons. First, each search engine assigns varying weights to each factor. For example, Google rates inbound links (“external content”) very highly; whereas Yahoo assigns more weight to the web content writing (“internal content.”) Second, the importance of each factor will depend largely upon the nature of your website, and particularly, the sophistication of your competition.

As an extreme example, suppose your website offers the service of “search engine optimization.” Obviously you are going to be up against the stiffest competition imaginable. In this case your website will need to be impeccable in all of these aspects.

At the opposite extreme, if your website offers a local service of a non-IT nature, lets say a clothing retail business in Houston, Texas, then you may do fine by simply focusing upon having a good amount of web content with the proper word density/ratio.

In most cases, however, at least some attention will need to be given to all of these aspects of search engine optimization; and the likelihood of this will only increase over time as practically every industry will realize the importance of a strong web presence and high search engine rankings.

If you are serious about becoming competitive and staying competitive by using this marketing strategy, Informationarchitech is the answer. Click here to request SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services.

Web Content Writing

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 17:03:13 e

One major entry point through which I began learning the craft of SEO (search engine optimization) was the field of web content writing.

Web content writing is more or less a synonym for online copywriting. “Web content” refers to all of the text that appears on your website, whether informational, descriptive or persuasive in nature. In terms of SEO, however, web content writing has one important, additional feature. Namely, web content is optimized.

Web content is the single most important factor in ensuring that your website will achieve the highest rankings in search engine results for relevant key phrases. The more competitive the key phrase, the more web content writing you will need. Most search engines ascribe significant “weight” to the sheer volume of information a website contains. In addition, good web content writing will be infused with a strategic key word density. This is the optimal number of times a search term should appear in your page in proportion to the total number of words. Use a phrase too few times and the search engines will give you a low ranking; use a phrase too many times and you will be penalized as a "spammer."

In order to make the most of your web content writing, it is a good idea to run a full analysis of highly-searched phrases which relate directly to your products, services or information. The most popular phrases should be targeted first, followed by the secondary and tertiary search phrases. (For more information about key term selection, click here.)

In an ideal situation, you would have at least one page of content on your site for every possible relevant phrase a person could enter into the search engine. In the real world, of course, you will have to make decisions according to your immediate needs and available resources. While gaining high search engine rankings through the use of web content writing is important, it would be a mistake to view this as the only purpose the content should serve. Once again, getting a potential client or other member of your target audience to your site is important. But once that person finds you, it is important to consider how the web content writing (which will then be read by a human, not a search engine) will translate into action on the part of the user.

“Action” may mean the purchase of a product, a request for services, or a change in attitude; whatever it is your web site is trying to accomplish. If you have a need for good web content writing for your site, informationarchiTECH can help. We will work closely with you to determine exactly what needs to be communicated to your audience, and do it in such a way that your website will become more “findable” in the search engine results.

We have written content for a wide range of clients, including retail, educational & service oriented companies. (See Examples.)

Click here to request web content writing services.

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