Blog Design Trends for 2009

Rachel Cunliffe at Cre8td Design has a new post on Blog Design Trends for 2009. She says look for tighter integration of social networking sites like Twitter and facebook and for people to migrate back to their blogs from these sites. Also, look for wider formats as screen sizes increase. Read her post here

"Goodbye Web 2.0?

The big-text-shiny-rounded-gradient “Web 2.0 designs” will start to fade in 2009 and seem a little dated. Here’s my predictions for blog design trends in 2009.
Back to the middle

Blogs have been sidelined a little with social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and communication tools like Twitter. Many bloggers spend more time on other sites than on their own blog but as their online identities are spread out further and further, bloggers will re-center their online identity around their blog where they have complete freedom over the site structure, design, features and content. Blogs will be used to pull in social networking data like never before. Blog themes will powerfully integrate these in a meaningful and useful way - and as a permanent record all bundled together in one place."

Feels like a windy March day. Wind is blowing hard.

YouTube to Offer Sponsored Videos

YouTube on Wednesday said it's rolling out a new ad platform called Sponsored Videos. Videos of Ann Arbor homes for sale and neighborhood tours have become very popular and Google will no doubt attract a lot of real estate agent ad spending.

According to YouTube, which held a press conference at its headquarters, Sponsored Videos lets users promote their videos by bidding on keywords.

Here's how it works: First, YouTube users, whether individuals or corporations, decide which of the videos they've uploaded they want to promote through site search.

Google, YouTube's parent company, has created automated tools that help users place bids for the keywords in an automated online auction, as well as set spending budgets.

Wouldn't creating an Adsense-like offering on YouTube have been one of the first things Google did after purchasing YouTube for $1.65 billion two years ago? As one reporter asked YouTube executives: "Wasn't this a no-brainer?"

It's not as easy as it looks, according to Matthew Liu, a YouTube product manager. There are a lot of intricacies involved. We've been integrating with Google AdWords for some time, and now we're at a place where it can be win and win." Sponsored Videos, labeled as such when they appear following a keyword search, are priced on a cost-per-click basis.

So how much could this be worth to Google? It's hard to say, at this point, whether Sponsored Videos will be the answer to YouTube's revenue problems, but consider that the site recently surpassed Yahoo to become the No. 2 Web search provider, behind Google.

For the whole story - source: Cnet.com

See Piperpartners Ann Arbor real estate blog for Ann Arbor, MI area real estate and community updates.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets

27 tips for making your website rock for SEO

Jamie lesouef has a great summary article on what you need to do to make your website rock for SEO. 27 Tips to build a successful SEO website in 12 months He says if you do these things consistently over a period of 12 months or more you can expect 500 to 1000 referrals a day!

How many people are you getting to your website presently? What is your goal for visitor traffic? As an AnnArbor Realtor, I am trying to rank for somewhat competitive keywords such as Ann Arbor real estate, or Ann Arbor homes for sale - your city "real estate" then it is going to take consistent and focused work over a period of time to get results!

Jamie's list is probably for more intermediate players, but some of the suggestions are very simple - like this one -

6. Keyword Density & Position

Simple old fashioned search engine optimization from the ground up. Use the keyword once in the title, once in the description tag, once in a heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italics, and once high on the page. Try to hit a keyword density of five to twenty percent.

The other BIG points that Jaimie drives home are to post a 450 to 500 word post everyday and to keep your website structure simple, clean and quick loading.

Keeping track of what you read

Here is an excellent post on a way of keeping track of what you read, storing good ideas for later retrieval. Google spreadsheets and Microsoft spreadsheets can work great for managing your business and your life!

Also mentioned in the comments is an idea of starting a blog and making a quick post to keep track of a good idea or website/information source. With Blogger you can set your preferences to private and it can be for your eyes only.

As a Realtor, taking this one step further, it would be pretty easy to start a blog for each listing client and set up an rss feed - so every time you post an update they would be notified.

At Piperpartners.com we are using Google spreadsheets and Google calendars pretty extensively to manage our Ann Arbor real estate business. The best thing about them is that you can share them with your team members and you can access them from anywhere.

The options are endless.
I am curious what you are using to track your business and keep track of things. What is working for you?

Technology Tuesdays Keller Williams Realty in Ann Arbor

Technology for Realtors:

Realtors - meet every other Tuesday at Keller Williams Realty in Ann Arbor. It doesn't matter what company you are with, Come on Over! and lets talk Technology and Real Estate.

Feel free to contact me through my website - Piperpartners.com - Ann Arbor Homes and Real Estate