Facebook

The world's most popular website has reached another milestone, it now has 175 million active users worldwide.

This is an amazing achievement for a website that was started just four years ago, and it has made it's founder a billionaire, even though he's not yet 25. 

Harvard

Mark Zuckerberg set up Facebook (then known as thefacebook) whilst studying at Harvard in 2004. The original site was only open to students at the University, but this was soon expanded and grew into the multi-million pound business that it is today.

So, you may ask, how did Mark Zuckerberg come up with such an amazing idea it made him a billionaire before his 25th birthday?

The origins of Zuckerberg's billion dollar idea are somewhat clouded. Several former classmates took legal action against him claiming that he had stolen their idea.

His classmates, the owners of ConnectU.com, claimed that they had hired Zuckerberg to make them a dating website for Harvard students whilst they were all studying at Harvard with Zuckerberg and that Zuckerberg used this idea and their source code to create Facebook.

Whether this was the case or not, an out of court settlement this month gave his former classmates $65 million in cash and shares, meaning that Zuckerberg isn't the only Facebook millionaire.

Privacy

Along with the lawsuit, something else had dogged Facebook throughout its development - privacy.

Two MIT students managed to download 70,000 Facebook profiles using a simple script in 2005 and as recently as last year the BBC demonstrated that a simple data mining application was able to gather information on profiles and the profiles of friends.

The more information that is placed in the user profiles and the more accessible it is (i.e. public) the more likely it is that the information could be stolen. Sure, with 175 million users on Facebook the odds may be in the users favour, but security by obscurity is not the wisest option.

Other concerns are highlighted in Channel 4's The IT Crowd's parody of Facebook - friendface.

Sure it's funny, but some of the points raised in the joke advert are very real. Facebook does, for example, state in their terms and conditions:

"We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship."

Your information literally means anything that is uploaded to the website, from profile information and messages through to pictures and video. Like the in the spoof advert, Facebook promises not to hand over information to third parties, at least according to a spokesman:

"Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."

The very fact that such a clause is in the terms and conditions would seem to imply otherwise.

What's more Facebook altered their terms and conditions on 4th February 2009 to make clear that they wish to keep your information, permanently, even after an account had been cancelled!

This caused something of an uproar when spotted by and pointed out by a consumer rights blog and a few weeks later Facebook was forced to back down and revert to its previous terms and conditions.

Beacon

In November 2007 Facebook launched an advertising programme called Beacon, which again raised serious privacy concerns. Privacy advocates main concern with Beacon was that it sent information back to Facebook from partner sites, so that Facebook can better target adverts, all without the users permission.

Even when Facebook made this an opt in only service, it was still discovered that information was being sent to Facebook, even when users had opted out, or were not logged in.

A lawsuit was filed against Facebook and its partners in the Beacon program in 2008, alleging that the system broke several laws.

Income

The concerns about Facebook are likely to be well founded, after all it is a business and businesses are there to make money. At the moment and despite the massive user base and the apparent worth of the business, it doesn't have a clear way of making money.

Facebook had an estimated turnover of $300 million in 2008, but this doesn't tell the full story. Those servers, bandwidth, staff and other facilities do not come cheap, estimated expenditure in 2008 was $200 million, so they are not getting much change from that $300 million.

It is believed that Facebook generates most of its revenue from advertising but with the click through rate apparently at around 0.02-0.04%, its no Google search.

Google itself is having similar problems with Youtube, the site is popular, it has millions of users but it just isn't making enough from advertising, especially when it spends so much on servers, bandwidth and so forth. It isn't enough just to have lots of visitors to a website, you need some way to convert these hits into cash.

Google is also looking at other ways to make money from Youtube. We can expect the same from Facebook, after all they are not running their respective websites for charity. There are only a few ways of making money from a website, even popular ones, so it will be interesting to see what direction both of these huge websites take in order to monetize their user base.

Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft disables automatic IE 8 downloads | The Register

Microsoft will cushion you from the Internet Explorer 8 standards mess with software to prevent automatic download of its next browser to your machine.

Ask any web designer what their least favourite browser is and it's a good bet that Internet Explorer will be their reply. It isn't because of some anti-Microsoft sentiment, or because it isn't as cool or as customisable as other browsers, nor even anything to do with page loading speed, but quite simply because it doesn't follow the official W3C web standards. Microsoft acknowledges this problem and since Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) has been working to bring its browser into line with W3C specifications.

The Browser Wars

The browser wars of the 1990s between the now defunct Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer started off this problem, as each browser began following only some standards, or worse, only following their own standards.

Surprisingly, back then it was Microsoft's browser that was the most standards compliant, and Netscape that used its own 'standards'. By the time that IE had won the browser war and was used by 96% of web surfers, it too had moved onto supporting its own proprietary standards. At this point it wasn't too much of a problem, as web designers could simply design for IE, as it was a fairly safe bet that most of the viewers of a website would be using it.

It wasn't all rosy however, the browser war had meant there had been a stagnation in bug fixes and actual development, web designers were stuck designing in lengthy, bloated code as the slicker design method of HTML and CSS didn't work properly with Internet Explorer.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were meant to make the design process far, far easier and also make the viewing of web pages faster and more aesthetically pleasing. Web pages using CSS load faster, are easier to alter and allow more complicated layouts, but for years after CSS was accepted as a standard, web designers were stuck using the older, more troublesome table based designs.

With the decline of Netscape that preceded its eventual demise, it was clear that Microsoft were in the driving seat of website design. From 2002 many web designers created websites aimed only at IE5.5 and IE6,  by this point IE had become mostly CSS compliant. Anyone attempting to design to official W3C standards, was asking for trouble and many headaches.

Then the second browser war started.

Firefox

Firefox was more standards compliant than IE, which meant that website designers had another browser to consider when designing a website, especially as Firefox became instantly popular and standards compliant websites were back in vogue.

Many designers were therefore creating W3C compliant websites, and uncovering the power of CSS. But upon viewing them in IE, they'd discover things like the double margin bug, three pixel bug, float drop problems and also the fact that IE6 doesn't handle transparent PNGs.

More than a few of them were scratching their heads and wishing 'If only IE were like Firefox!' With the popularity of Firefox soaring, accounting for 21% of the browser market by the end of 2008, it seemed that Microsoft heard.

IE7

There are workarounds and so called hacks to get websites to look in IE6 as they do in Firefox but they were a hassle and meant much fiddling on the part of the designer. Firefox and Apple's Safari were far more forgiving and getting more and more popular with users, in response Microsoft released IE7.

Although still not fully standards complaint, IE7 was the most compliant browser yet and Microsoft promised to go even further with IE8.

IE8

IE8 is fully standards compliant, but after a decade of IE only designs, that may not be a good thing. If your website is fully standards compliant, or was aimed primarily at Firefox but with a few IE hacks, you should be OK, but if it was aimed mainly at IE6, you may have problems. It is certainly worth checking out IE8 to see what your website looks like as you may find, particularly if it is a few years old, that is doesn't look as good as it did.

It seems that Microsoft have delayed IE8 to allow businesses to do precisely this. Microsoft did see this problem coming and have added two viewing modes for IE8, the default mode which is the standards compliant viewing mode and compatibility mode, which allows the user to view the website as if viewing with an older version of IE. Sadly though, few people are switching modes, meaning a lot of websites are not displaying correctly in IE8.

Although this may not be too much of a problem at the moment, especially with Microsoft's delaying the release of the browser, it could become a problem very quickly. Although it was released only two years ago, IE7 accounts for 50% of the browser market,  the previous version, IE6 just 20%.

Two events this year are likely to push the uptake of IE8 to be faster than that of IE7.

The release of Windows 7 later this year, which will most likely ship with IE8 as standard and also the fact that mainstream support for Windows XP ends in April 2009. Those buying a new PC will have the choice of Vista, or Windows 7, both of which will likely have IE8 as their default browser.

If you're not sure what your website will look like, you can use this website to preview your website in IE8 (and other versions of IE) for free. Needless to say the Horizon Web Development website and the Horizon Flash Memory website display perfectly.

Others, aren't so lucky.   

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, IE8, Browser, Website Design, Web Design, Web Browsing, Browser Wars

Get the most from your website

Many people see the Internet as a fast track to cash, and while you can make a lot of money on the Internet, it is not the fast track, or get rich quick scheme that many people believe it to be.

That said there are ways to maximise your website's potential, and we'll take a look at them below.

Running a website for profit

Like any other kind of business, running a website for profit, be it an e-commerce website or otherwise, is hard work. If you are expecting to simply create a website, place it on the Internet and have customers beat a path to your door, you are in for a rude awakening.

This is no different from running a small shop, sure you may get a passing trade, but to really get your business doing well you have to get the brand out there and well known, normally through advertisements.

The Internet is no different, if you have a website and are looking at making a profit from it, the search engines hold the key.

Visitors

Visitors to your website can usually be broken down into two categories, those who found your website from information in the real world, such as adverts in the local press or word of mouth, and those that found your website via the search engines.

If your business is wholly web based and you do not have any other way of advertising then the search engines are even more important to your business.

Organic

The most common way for visitor to find your website is by searching for your product and services in the search engines, known as natural or organic search results.

The success of your website in the organic search results depends on a number of factors; if your website was built by professionals using modern and search engine friendly techniques, such as XHTML and CSS then it has a good start. A good mix of keywords is also needed on the pages, again this relies on a professional website designer as keywords spamming or writing page content without thought to things such keywords could leave your site very difficult to find.

A simple example is if you want people searching for Acme XL Widgets to find your website, then you must have that phrase somewhere on the website, and not in picture or flash format.

Importance and Relevance

It's not enough just to have the right keywords on the page though, to ensure that your website comes in the top rankings and not on page 506 you have to make sure that the search engines see your website as important (or authoritative) and relevant.

The more links from quality websites that you have, the more important your site will be considered by the search engines. Of course getting quality websites to link to your own site is not easy, but the first step is to have interesting, useful and informative content on the pages that people will want to link to.

To show the search engines and visitors that your site is both important and relevant, you must update it regularly. Google and the other search engines see websites that do not change their content as less relevant and out of date. If Google checks your website every few months and find the same content, neither it nor any visitors are going to be in any rush to return.

A simple way of have useful and regularly updated content is to have a blog.

Blogging

Search engines love blogs and we advise every business to have some kind of blog on their website. Blogs offer a simple way of having regular content and information on your website, even if it is just product reviews or the latest information about your services.

Discussing issues relevant to your industry, giving help and advice or giving something away for free is a great way of getting lots of hits on your website and also some good quality links to it. 

Adverts

The quickest and easiest way of getting people to your website is through Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, such as Google's Adwords program. Those searching for keywords that you have chosen will view your advert, and hopefully click it to visit your page.

Although getting the visitors (or hits) is fairly easy, getting a return on your advertisement investment is not. Unlike other ways of having search engines refer visitors to your website, it isn't free. Moreover as you pay for every visitor, so getting as many visitors as possible isn't the idea, rather getting the right visitors to your website.

People clicking your advert by mistake or visiting your website looking for something that you don't sell all cost money. The trick with PPC advertising is to get only those that are interested in purchasing your product/service to click on your advert. This was covered in more detail in an earlier article, How to get the best from Google Adwords.

If you are already using Google Adwords but have found that you are getting a low return on your investment, lots of impressions but a low Click Through Rate (CTR) and a high cost per click, you should consider our Google Adwords Consultation.

Frugal

Google Product Search (formerly Froogle), offers those with a smaller budget a way of advertising their products for free. Signing up for a Google Base account allows website owners to submit a list of their products so that they appear in Google Product Search.

The ability to localise products and services means that even small, local business can target the right customers.

To get the best overall benefit from the search engines, Google's Product Search and Adwords, you need a fully e-commerce website.

E-Commerce

Once, such websites were prohibitively expensive to all but big businesses. Today however, you can purchase a fully automated, custom designed e-commerce website for one off payment of just £249.

Such a website allows you to add your own products quickly and easily, describing in as much detail as needed your product/service. This of course allows you to cover the keywords aspect of your website as well as the relevant and constantly changing content that the search engines like.

Such websites also allow you to better tailor Google Adwords and Products Search to link directly to a specific product or product category and get a better return on your time and investment.

Our package includes Google Adwords setup, a free blog, optimised website code and text and an excellent hosting package.

There are cheaper e-commerce website packages around, some are also open source and free, but to make sure that all the boxes are ticked; including the vital and often overlooked ones, such as security and usability, you should purchase a professional package from a reliable company.

Remember, you pay for the website not only in the short term, but you will also bear the long term costs of having a website on the Internet, so your best bet is a site that will give you a return on your investment and an advantage in making money online.

Google Adwords,Google Base,Horizon Web Development,Horizon Web,Google,Search Engine,SEO,Blogging,Blog,Ranking,Frugal,E-Commerce,ecommerce,Website Design,Web Design,Hosting

Keeping Passwords Safe

Keeping your information safe and private in today's online, information hungry world is no mean feat. Give your telephone number to one company and within a year or two you find yourself receiving calls about insurance almost every day.

Give a company your email address and you'll find your inbox stuffed full of recommendations for cheap medications, Russian/Indian business partners, dating websites and of course porn. (At Horizon Web Development we never pass on your email address).

Unfortunately, short of changing your telephone number and email addresses regularly, there is little that you can do to prevent the two above situations from occurring. 

There is however some information that you absolutely should keep private and safe, no matter what - your Internet passwords.

Memory Aids

We all have them, we all have to in order to access the countless websites that we need to use and we all have our own memory aids to track the countless PINs and passwords, simple memory aids so that we can remember them all.

The simplest is of course to use the same password for every site; this is also the most foolhardy.

Many users, when they set up a new account online, will give their email address and a password, those that use just one password will have therefore given the same password that they log into their email with.

While this isn't in itself to much of a concern, should the website ever get hacked, the criminal would not only have access to the unfortunate users email account, but they wouldn't have to be a criminal mastermind to work out their password for shopping or banking websites too.

A recent example of this is the hack of US political commentator Bill O'Reilly whose website was hacked and a list of users, their email address and passwords was published online.

"A case in point is Carolyn Carpenter, 68, of Henderson, Nevada. The list showed she used a six-letter word from the English language to access her account. Early Friday evening, when told she should change all accounts that used the password, she replied: "Oh damn, I use it all over the place."
The Register | Bill O'Reilly's website hacked

No doubt she spent most of the night changing all of her passwords to another six-letter word from the English language, but hopefully she learnt her lesson and used a different password for each.

Other tricks to remember passwords are to use birthdays, a mother's maiden name, football teams or pet's names.

Sadly this is also bad practice as the first technique a would-be hacker would try is, is to go through all the words in the dictionary.

The experts warn us that to combat this, the best passwords are those that are not found in the dictionary, those that combine letters and numbers so rather than Horizon - H0r150n. It just gets a little tricky to remember what letters were substituted for what. Also after a few words, it becomes impossible to keep track.

Password Manager

Another option is a password manager. There are plenty of them around, such as Keywallet, Passpack and Keepass.

These programs create random passwords for you, and more importantly store them, along with the website and username so that they can be retrieved easily. Such programs make it easy to go from using passwords such as rover, to fS8cSh;o.sPiiMGBuZoqmRgdBotS9N which no one is going to guess, or even crack easily.

The ability to have completely random and also unique passwords for every website is extremely reassuring and one of the best ways to stay safe online. Should one password be compromised somehow, all your others are perfectly safe. You just have to remember the Master Password that accesses all of your other passwords in the program.

There are however downsides to password managers; should you decide that you current password manager isn't for you, well changing it may not be easy. Some like KeePass have the option to import and export passwords to and from other programs, however compatibility between programs is patchy.

Even two programs that import/export in the same formats, won't necessarily understand each other's password lists. Which means if you use one, it is best to use it on all your PCs and laptops.

Portable Use

Another drawback of password managers is apparent when out and about and struck by the need to check your email. fS8cSh;o.sPiiMGBuZoqmRgdBotS9N is not a password that is remembered off by heart, especially when you have 30 or more similar ones.

Some password managers, such as KeePass have portable versions that you can use on a USB memory stick. The safety of this however is debatable. The master password has to be something memorable because if forgotten, there is no way to access all those other passwords.

This of course means that the master password tends to be something like a birthday, a mother's maiden name, football teams or pet's names. Which, as mentioned earlier, is easily guessed or cracked. Carrying around a USB stick crammed with passwords, as well as the corresponding usernames and website addresses, would seem a little risky, especially as they are only protected with a simple password.

Web Based Password Manager

There is however another way of generating random passwords, whilst also getting away with using simple, easy to remember memory aids and passwords. Password Chart offers the ability to create long and seemingly meaningless passwords from simple everyday words.

For example, Horizon Web Development would be:

+7C#S*6C#SHC84nT6h!4C#SKiG8

Easy to remember, whilst also being a strong password. Of course this has its drawbacks too, if the site is offline, or Internet access is not available, you're completely lost unless you printed out the chart.

The best solution is probably to use a mixture of passwords and memory aids, and not rely too much on one product, because if that fails, there will be lots of clicking on Forgotten Password links and waiting for the emails, assuming that you haven't lost access to your email too.

 

Passwords,Privacy,Safety,Online Safety,Bill O'Reilly,Horizon Web Development,Password Manager,Password Chart,USB Memory Sticks,KeePass

Why Flash isn't always good

Many people ask for flash based websites, believing them to be the best way of impressing visitors, having a professional and modern looking website and also giving visitors an interactive, and easy to use, browsing experience.

Whilst some of the above may be true, there are two areas in which Flash based websites lose out - accessibility and rankings.

Search engines

The importance of search engine rankings should not be understated, after all, what use is a website if no one can find it.

This extract from an email from Google explains:

"While our spidering practices may change in the future, we find that Flash is not a very user-friendly experience in a lot of ways. It is wholly inaccessible to the sight-impaired, not renderable on many devices (such as phones, PDAs), and so on. In particular, we hugely frown upon navigation done exclusively in Flash."

I have seen many sites fall into the trap of using flash completely, some do have a HTML site too, most do not. Using flash for the site navigation not only means that Google may not like your website as much non-Flash sites, but it may also mean that Google is unable to find and index anything other than your homepage.

It also means that those using mobile phones, PDAs and screen readers will be unable to view your website, let alone navigate through it. This wasn't much of a concern in the past, but with most mobile phones been web enabled, you could be cutting out a large portion of visitors.

While things have improved regarding search engines, notably Google, since this email was sent, the fact remains that if two exact sites were made, one in flash, the other in CSS and HTML, the CSS and HTML site would be ranked higher.

Small businesses

This is an important point to consider, particularly for small and medium sized businesses. These businesses don't have the kind of income to spend on teams of SEO specialists to get the best rankings, unlike the big companies that they may be competing with.

SMBs are going to be paying quite a bit of money just to get decent rankings, so anything that could count against them should be avoided, and whilst non-Flash website may not look as attractive or as flashy; SMBs need to get the best possible rankings from their content.

The bigger picture

It is probably best to think of Flash like pictures, they may look great but you really wouldn't want a site made up entirely of pictures, unless you're comedian Jerry Sadowitz.

Apart from taking far longer than text to load, even if a picture contains text, it can't be read by the search engines. Jerry Sadowitz's site for instance has only these words associated with it: Jerry Sadowitz - Comedy, Magic and More, and only those words as they are the title to every page. The search engines don't see pictures, they only see text, so an all picture site such as that of Jerry Sadowitz is virtually blank.

Pictures should be used to complement the site content (text), not replace it. The same goes for Flash, it should have a place on a website but should be used sparingly and not as a replacement to a website.

It is possible to get a great looking site through CSS and HTML alone, and then of course any amount of pictures and Flash can be added to complement that.

Although it may change in the future, CSS and HTML is still the best way to tick all the relevant boxes when it comes to your website.

HorizonWeb,CSS,HTML,Flash,SEO,Search Engine,Horizon Web Development,Optimisation,Website Design,Website,Hosting,Web Hosting

Google and the Cloud

Google's launch of a new browser named Chrome this week has been met with a somewhat muted response. Although it was expected that at some point Google would launch a browser, there is still concern as to just where this new browser would fit into the market.

Firefox has for several years been taking chunks out of the dominance of the Internet Explorer, and if Google's Chrome is going to be taking users from anywhere, it will likely be those that use the likes of Firefox, Opera or Safari.

A different sort of browser

However Chrome isn't intended as a direct replacement for Firefox, or even Internet Explorer for that matter. Chrome is aimed at a completely different market. Chrome's primary aim is to give better compatibility and reliability with some of it's other services such as Google Apps.

"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build,"
Mr Pichai, VP Product Management.

Regardless of it's main focus, there are plenty of raised eyebrows at the thought of a Google browser.

Privacy

Google does not have a good record when it comes to privacy, up until recently it kept search data indefinitely, now Google says that it would only be keeping search data for up to two years.

Many have questioned just why the search company needs to keep this data at all, let alone for two years, and the EU and Norway have launched investigations into this type of data retention.

The data kept by Google includes the search term typed in, the address of the internet server and occasionally more personal information contained on “cookies”, or identifier programs, on an individual’s computer.

It is quite worrying the amount of data that Google, and other search engines are able to glean from simple searches, and it is not clear whether after two years the information is in some way randomised, or deleted entirely.

Peter Fleischer, European privacy counsel for Google, has said that the company..

"...needed to keep search information for some time for security purposes – to help guard against hacking and people trying to misuse Google’s advertising system."

Even so, two years is a long time to keep information on the off chance of misuse.

Google's advertising system has also come under fire for its privacy issues, with AT & T saying:

Advertising-network operators such as Google have evolved beyond merely tracking consumer web surfing activity on sites for which they have a direct ad-serving relationship. They now have the ability to observe a user's entire web browsing experience at a granular level, including all URLs visited, all searches, and actual page-views.

If this wasn't the case before, with Google having its own browser, it is likely to be the case now. A browser automatically tracks the sites that a user visits, as well as storing cookies. Normally this isn't too much of a concern except on a shared PC, but if Google's Chrome sends this information back to Google....

There are already concerns regarding Google's Omnibox:

Provided that users leave Chrome's auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider, Google will have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser's Omnibox, even before a user hits enter....A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data--and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it....In theory, that means that if one were to type the address of a site--even if they decide not to hit enter--they could leave incriminating evidence on Google's servers.

Quite a surprising feature and again we must ask if this is really necessary. There is an option (Incognito mode) that prevents the sending of information, but it is unclear how well this mode is labelled and whether the average user will be aware of it. As in all aspects of personal privacy the options should be the other way round, Incognito mode should be enabled by default and turned off by users that wish to, as the vast majority of users are likely just to use the browser as is.

The Cloud

There is of course another area in which Google is competing with Microsoft, the cloud. The cloud is where services are provided as web based applications, in other words where no software is purchased or downloaded, the user simply needs a web browser to use the applications. Many companies are moving into providing services in 'the cloud'; Adobe for instance provides a stripped down version of its Photoshop application for free as a web based service.

Google provides Google Apps, also for free - at least for basic use, as a web based service, directly competing with Microsoft's Office program. Admittedly the cloud appears to be a very useful way of using software at first glance. Previously those using multiple computers have to carry around flash memory cards or USB sticks containing their information and documents. Even then they had to make sure that the same software was installed on every PC they were intending to use.

Google Apps, and other services like them, make working on the move much more conveinant and remove the hassle of trying to open an important document on a PC that doesn't have Microsoft Office installed.

Along with the pros, there are a few cons; this move toward providing a service rather than the actual software means that the user has nothing tangible to rely on. Should the internet or even just the service provider fail, they are lost.

Then of course there are the costs, at present many of these services are free with premium paid for subscription services an option, but once the dominance of the likes of Microsoft is broken, what is to stop these service providers charging everyone? Moreover, what is to stop them setting whatever price they want to, once you have become tied in to their services?

Add to this the privacy issues concerning someone like Google, who have access to your search records and information; with GMail, your emails and content; with your browser, the websites you visit and your browsing habits; and with your documents and accounts they may well have filled in the last gaps in your private information.

Of course this is a cynical view, but a slip up the Chrome EULA provided the cynics with quite a bit of ammunition:

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute any Content which you submit, post, or display on or through, the Services."

This was of course later altered when it was pointed out, but it does bring up another important point, few people actually read EULAs and this article shows why perhaps they should do.

The Future

Google envisions a move toward the cloud in most aspects of every day computing, and in fact this view is nothing new. Bill Gates said many years ago that he believed computing would move toward a subscription service, where Microsoft are paid every month, just like other utility providers. Now such a reality is closer than ever.

However a complete move to remote computing is unlikely, what with the prevalence of cheap flash storage and with laptops and netbooks being so cheap and open source software being so freely available, there isn't a desperate need for such a solution.

Should Google resolve its privacy issues, it will be an excellent option for many people, and that of course is what is key - choice. It would give users a variety if options of how to use software, so they aren't tied to just one method, particularly those on the move. The smart people would have a laptop and/or a flash card and perhaps use Google Apps too, just in case one should fail.

Google's Chrome is an interesting move, Chrome isn't yet the answer to anyone's prayers, but it will certainly push forward browser development and open new avenues. If the fears over Google and privacy turn out to be wholly unfounded, then it may help enable a much freer computing environment for everyone.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Adwords, Google Chrome, Microsoft, Office, MS Office, Cloud, The Cloud, Horizon Web Development, Chrome

How to get the best from Google Adwords

Many websites today utilise what has to be one of the most cost effective methods of advertising, Google Adwords. Adwords is simple to set up and gives the user complete control over everything, allowing them to change their keywords and adverts almost instantly and quickly and easily respond to visitor trends.

Sadly the area where many users fall down, is right at the start with the keywords, and this area can be tricky to understand. Many users of Adwords assume that simply adding every conceivable word that someone will search for, such as price or sale, will get the best response, but as any SEO specialist will tell you, this isn't the case. This just leads to visitors finding you by mistake, and of course you pay for every click to your website, mistake or not.

We offer a full Google Adwords Consultation service to optimise your campaign for you, but we've also placed some pointers below to help you get the best from Google Adwords.  

Be Specific

The best way to get potential customers to your website is through specific keywords. If you sell nodding dogs on your website, you may assume that your best keyword is dogs, but you really don't want to use dogs as a keyword. If you do your adverts will be shown to anyone searching for the word dogs, and if you your advert says something along the lines of 'Cute dogs, take one home today..' and doesn't make it clear what the product is, you'll get thousands of clicks from people looking for something completely different. Plenty of clicks and no sales means money down the drain.

The owner of the above site would be much better served with keywords such as nodding dogs or bobbing dogs.

For the same reasons avoid other generic terms like price, sale, or cheap, unless you use them to form part of a phrase, i.e. cheap nodding dogs 

Be Relevant

Google constantly monitors your adverts and marks your adverts down for irrelevance. If your adverts or keywords have been disabled it's because Google decided that they weren't relevant enough for you, i.e. not enough people were clicking on your adverts for that term.

Which means you may have to pay more for a keyword, and this can get expensive if it keeps happening, I have seen people paying £5 per click for some keywords!

Tempting as it may be to go for one of the most searched for terms, you should avoid this, remember it isn't about getting thousands of people to your website in the hope that one of them will buy, but rather getting people who are searching for the product you sell to your website to purchase it.

Having your adverts appear when someone searches for Nintendo Wii, might seem like a good idea as it is searched for 10,000 times a day, but Google will soon realise that your keywords are not relevant to your adverts and you'll either have your ad disabled, your keywords disabled or end up paying more and more to have Nintendo Wii as a keyword.

Narrow your keywords down to make them more relevant to the product that you are selling. Put yourself in the position of someone looking for your product and think carefully about the words that they would use to search for your product.

Using Brackets

Another way of focusing your keywords is to use some of the options available in the keywords tool within Adwords itself. For example for the site mentioned above it is probably not a good idea to have the keyword simply as nodding dog as that will trigger the adverts whether nodding is mentioned or dog. So someone searching for cheap dog food may see your ad and click it before realising their mistake.

A better option would be to have the keyword as "nodding dog" in quotes. This means that only that phrase will trigger your adverts, but it can have words before or after. For example nodding dog toy and brown nodding dog will trigger your adverts but brown dog will not.

Brackets around your keyword, e.g. [nodding dog] means that only that exact phrase with no other words will trigger your adverts. This is useful as you'll know that the people seeing your adverts are definitely looking for that term, however if they add any other words, such as nodding dog car toy, it won't trigger your adverts and they won't see your advert at all, so the brackets must be used wisely.

Another option is the minus sign (-), this can be used to denote a word that you do not want to trigger your adverts, known as a negative keyword. For example if your site sold nodding dogs of every colour but black you would add -black as a keyword, ensuring that your advert doesn't appear when someone searches for black nodding dog.

Use Many Adverts

It is also important to have quite a few adverts to try different things and see what works and what doesn't, you should check your account regularly and see what adverts are getting clicks and which ones are not and work out why, the same goes for keywords. If certain keywords aren't working out, stop paying for them.

Don't be afraid to experiment, if something doesn't work, you can always change it. 

The Landing Page

The landing page is often overlooked, it is vital that this page not only makes a good impression but that contains the product that the person was searching for.

Visitors make their minds up quickly, if they don't see the product that they were looking for, they'll hit their back button and be off to your competitors site.

Remember, the aim is not to get as many people to your website as possible but to get a good return on your investment. You may get thousands of people visiting your website, but if they weren't looking to purchase your product, they are unlikely to do so because you've a nice website.

Target your keywords, make them relevant, you'll get less hits but the people visiting will be the ones looking for your product and therefore far more likely to buy from you.

Technorati Tags: Google Adwords,Google,Adwords,CPC,PPC,CTR,Click Through Rate,Adwords Optimisation,Horizon Web Development,ROI,Adwords Campaign,Pay Per Click,Advertising,Cost Per Click