28 Great Technology Quotes

Tuesday, 09. September 2008 by Utah Search Engine Optimization

Over the past one-hundred years it is mind-boggling to observe the advancements in technology. It is even more amazing to see how viewpoints have been reshaped by various breakthroughs. Those who have spend most of their lives working with computers and/or the internet, can probably relate to the frustrating, embarrassing and awestricken moments that are oftentimes realized. In our rapidly changing technical times, some of the best companies have looked extremely stupid, while others have amused us with their observations. Here are 28 of our favorite quotes:

1. “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

2. “I think there’s a world market for about 5 computers.”

-Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM, circa 1948

3. “It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology.”

-John Von Neumann, circa 1949

4. “The Internet? We are not interested in it”

-Bill Gates, 1993

5. “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”

-Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

6. “Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM, which is more than any application will ever need.”

-Microsoft, on the development of Windows NT, 1992

7. “If McDonalds were run like a software company, one out of every hundred Big Macs would give you food poisoning, and the response would be, ‘We’re sorry, here’s a coupon for two more.’ “

-Unknown, at least to us

8. Naturally we feel that mentally ill people are not what we are looking for when we hire programmers - although there is no empirical data to support or contradict that view…… Is it appropriate to give tests for mental illness to anyone applying for any kind of job?

-Weinberg The Psychology of Computer Programming

9. “If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.”

-Gerald Weinberg

10. “Software is like sex: It’s better when it’s free.”

-Linus Torvalds

11. “There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’.”

-Edward Tufte

12. “Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”

-Steve Wozniak

13. “UNIX is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.”

-Dennis Ritchie

14. “PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil, perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals.

-Jon Ribbens

15. Real programmers are surprised when the odometers in their cars don’t turn from 99,999 to 99,99A.

-Unknown

16. “The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea.”

-The Wizardry Compiled by Rick Cook

17. “They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction.”

-Janet Reno

18. “Computers are getting smarter all the time. Scientists tell us that soon they will be able to talk to us. (And by ‘they’, I mean ‘computers’. I doubt scientists will ever be able to talk to us.)”

-Dave Barry

19. “There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don’t believe this to be a coincidence.”

-Jeremy S. Anderson

20. “The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less.”

-David Emery

21.If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.”

-Robert Sewell

22. “Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++?”

-Richard A. O’Keefe

23. “First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack.”

-George Carrette

24. Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.

-Putt’s Law

25. These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to “think,” and they do exactly as they are told, no more and no less. This fact is the hardest concept to grasp when one first tries to use a computer.

-Donald Knuth

26. “Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning.”

-Rich Cook

27. “It’s ridiculous to live 100 years and only be able to remember 30 million bytes. You know, less than a compact disc. The human condition is really becoming more obsolete every minute.”

-Marvin Minsky

28. “Can creation ever surpass its creator??”

-Mankind

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10 Ways to improve SEO Conversions

Thursday, 07. August 2008 by Will Atkin

Many SEO’s think that it is necessary to sacrifice usability and basic good business practices for the purpose of achieving search engine ranking. This is a grievous mistake that is not only not necessary but downright foolish. Here are some simple tips you can use to increase your conversion rates and search rankings at the same time.

1. Don’t sacrifice usability for SEO
Sure on-page optimization matters. But a site that ranks well and doesn’t capture customers/visitors is like an umbrella on a sunny day.

2. Call to action
Give your visitors something to do. Adding buttons and links that tell your customers what they need to do and when they need to do it is a great way to engage visitors. Other techniques in this genre are creating time sensitive offers.

3. Design
This is by far the most basic and least utilized aspect of conversion in the SEO world. Humans have a certain way they read things, so cater to that. Create a good, clean and easy to use design and your visitors are sure to stay.

4. Social Proof
Validate yourself by creating proof that other visitors think your product or service is worth investigating. Things like best sellers, customer reviews or recommended items can help you accomplish this.

5. Be available
Customer always want to be able to contact you. If creates trust because you are out in the open and exposed but it also it can give visitors an opportunity to tell you how to improve your operations.

6. Be legitimate
Many sites fail to recognize the importance of security seals, encrypted shopping carts and so on. Having something as simple as an SSL certificate or a “Hacker Safe” certificate can greatly increase visitors trust in you as being a legitimate site.

7. Analytics
Sure SEO’s use analytics to track SERP success but what about improving obvious holes and problems with the site? Tracking bounce rates, exit pages and abandoned shopping carts can help you identify why and where your visitors are leaving your site.
*FYI bounce rates affect your search engine rankings

8. Give freely
The basic theory of capitalism is to create value which in turns brings you prosperity. Give your visitors something that is genuinely valuable and they will continue to visit your site. Promotions, give aways, free resources and tools are great ways to get and keep online visitors. They can create some great backlinks in the process.

9. Keep your visitors in the loop
Make sure to send out newsletters and personal emails whenever possible but try to avoid spamming. Mass e-mails are impersonal and in some cases may damage your reputation more then it helps it. Newsletters are a great way to keep visitors informed and aware of whats going on with your site.

10. Visitors are good for business

Any way you can attract visitors (aside from devious reasons) can help your site. Sure non targeted traffic will not increase your sales however when you use the tips above you will be increasing conversions and attracting traffic. This traffic is key to showing search engines that your site is popular and worthy of a front page ranking.

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Ten Great Moments In Internet History

Wednesday, 16. July 2008 by Utah Search Engine Optimization

Most of us would never know that the 1957 launch of Sputnik would lead us to the Internet. Most of those reading, are probably already thinking. INCORRECT! However, it was the fear of the Soviets that led Dwight D. Eisenhower to develop ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) which would assemble of some of the greatest minds in the United States and eventually create the first internet. This teams first project was to put the first US Satellite into orbit and they accomplished the task in just 18 months. Afterwards, ARPA turned its attention to the need for improved military communications in 1962, with a focus on computer networking. By 1968, ARPA brought a lot of its research contracts to the university level, pulling them from the private sector. Many breakthroughs occured in this time period but none more than:

1. The Creation of the ARPANET

(more…)

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5 most effective ways to write a Blog

Monday, 14. July 2008 by Natalie

There are many different approaches on how to write an effective blog, but there are certain guidelines you should strive to follow in order to captivate your audience and get your message across. Blogs can be written for a variety of reasons: to entertain, educate, inform, receive feedback, podcast, or to promote and market service or goods. Today there are blogs on everything from drugs to politics, celebrities, news, conspiracy theories and more. Blogging is an excellent platform for people to quickly and easily share information and to also create a powerful online presence. (more…)

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Identifying Market Trends

Friday, 13. June 2008 by Will Atkin

Every marketing technique involves, on some level, the understanding and exploiting of ongoing market trends. The reason that this is so vital to marketing is that you must be aware of the desire for your service of product in the current market. If there is no market you may not want to attempt that particular business idea. These tools can help you identify search trends, blog trends and even shopping trends to help you indentify your target market. These tools are especially helpful for niche marketers who want to find an underexploited market.

Google Trends (more…)

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SEO Copywriting- Why it’s harder than some think

Tuesday, 29. April 2008 by Natalie

SEO, Web and Conversion copywriting is quite a challenging task. The main goal of SEO copywriting is to provide structured content-rich writing that both visitors and search engines can easily find on the web. Not only do you have to write extremely compelling and informative content that makes visitors want to read every word and ultimately buy a service or product (which is hard enough alone), but you have to structure your writing in such a way that top search engines such as Google and Yahoo can determine that your writing is genuine and optimized for targeted specific search items. SEO experts know exactly what search engines are looking for to bump your site up higher within the hundreds of thousands or even millions of other sites just like yours.

How SEO Copywriting Works

Search engines have sophisticated algorithms that determine how well your site will rank. You could have the most compelling and well-written text in the world, but if a search engine cannot find major contributing factors in its algorithm, then your site will not rank high. Examples of these contributing factors include: relevant text, strategically placed related keywords throughout the body of text, keyword density, keywords in the title tag and description tag, headers, bulleted lists, the number of internal links on your page, the number and quality of web pages out on the web that are linking to your site, and clean code. If a search engine cannot find these contributing factors, then it will rank your site lower in search engine result pages. Consider that if visitors cannot find your website on the first page of search results, maybe second if you’re lucky, then it’s as if your site doesn’t exist at all. Most people are too busy to search through pages and pages of search results to find your site.

Relevant Content

Now that you know you have to structure your copywriting techniques a bit differently for SEO purposes, you must then consider how to write relevant content to convince your consumers to actually purchase your service or product. First, determine if your site is selling a service or a product. A service is an act or a variety of work done for others, while a product is a tangible object. Paying someone to change the oil in your car would be considered buying a service, but actually purchasing a bottle of car oil would be considered buying a product.

Make sure to gear your content towards your audience. Is it Business-to-Business (B2B)? Or is it Business-to-Consumer (B2C)? An example of B2B marketing would be a company that sells massage table accessories gearing their marketing efforts towards salons and spas. An example of B2C would be a salon gearing their services and products to consumers.

Your content must convince your audience that what you’re selling is the best on the planet, set at the best price, contains all the best qualities and that if they don’t purchase it their lives will be incomplete. Essentially, you become somewhat of a marketing expert to make your service or product stand out. Whether you are marketing your content towards businesses or consumers, remember that relevant content will grab your reader’s attention, present all the facts and benefits, and then create a call to action.

Call to Action

A call to action is telling your reader exactly what to do: Click here! Purchase now! Learn more, Call this number, etc. Although there is no rule of thumb about what the best call to action is, they are nonetheless important to include in your text. You may feel as if you are dumbing down your writing by doing this, but it is critical that you make it extremely obvious what you want people to do. If readers cannot easily find the link to click on to tell them what to do, or how to purchase your product, then they may click right out of your website and into someone else’s.

Final SEO Copywriting Tips

:
• Research, research, research! Research everything you can about the topic you’re writing about. Become an expert, or at least have enough facts to sound like one.
• Try to make your writing as clear and to the point as possible.
• Use related keywords throughout your writing, but don’t overdo it. http://www.quintura.com/ is a great site to find related keywords.
• Create attention grabbing titles, bulleted lists, and calls to action.
• Know the type of audience you’re gearing your writing towards.
• Stay up-to-date on ways you can improve your Utah SEO copywriting/marketing techniques. A great site is http://www.copyblogger.com/. It has many informative articles on what works and what doesn’t.

The more you can learn about what search engines are looking for and how to better market your service or product to your audience, then the easier SEO, Web and conversion copywriting will become and the higher search engines will rank your site.

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Why Businesses Need To Build A Community

Wednesday, 09. April 2008 by Brian Utley

The traditional methods of getting a message across to potential customers are growing more and more ineffective with each passing day. Radio commercials are reaching fewer people since the onset of satellite radio and the iPod. Music lovers no longer have to wait for their favorite song to play. Radio stations can no longer hold listeners at bay, flooding them with advertisements, as they wait for their favorite song. People quickly turn the page with print ads, and TiVo has all but made tv commercials a thing of the past. I’m no longer held captive by Fox, or NBC, or even HBO. There are other ways to view their programming. Simple ways that not only spare me the boredom of commercials, but also save me time as well. And I don’t need TiVo to do it. All of us can avoid the interruption of traditional marketing.

Even online, advertising to your target audience is getting harder every day. Punching the monkey no longer works, banner ads are being ignored, and sites with popups are being totally avoided, or stopped by the latest browsers. Any smart internet browser knows that ads on the right side are transactional based, and that the information contained on those pages comes with a price. We stick to the left side. (more…)

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SEO Benefits of Data Feed Optimization

Monday, 07. April 2008 by Will Atkin

What is Data Feed Optimization?
Data feed optimization is the process of modifying product feeds to rank highly in one box results and shopping comparison websites. Similar to an RSS feed, data feeds can be used in several different ways. Many companies make data feeds but SEO experts have paved the way for data feed optimization. A data feed for something like Google Base may contain things like product description, name, price, SKU, color etc. A huge advantage of data feed optimization is that onebox results for products appear before all organic search results. Additionally a well optimized feed takes much less time to see demonstrable results. Few SEO companies specialize solely in data feeds but there are a select few.
(more…)

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Yahoo! Buzz takes the Social out of Social Media

Wednesday, 26. March 2008 by Jordan Kasteler

Yahoo! Buzz is a new social media news site currently in Beta. With Yahoo! Buzz you can vote up stories to the homepage. A story is ranked based on its Buzz Score. The score is derived from search term popularity, the number of times a story is emailed from Buzz, and the number of votes a story receives.

Yahoo Buzz Logo
Yahoo! Buzz

I’d imagine Kevin and Jay of Digg.com may be shaking in their boots right now because this means huge competition for other social media sites like Mixx and Reddit. Jay recently stated that Digg is not in a bidding war with Microsoft and Google but I’m sure many companies have their eyes on Digg.com and will pownce on it when opportunity arises.
(more…)

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Why The National Financial Crisis Makes Local PPC Smarter Than Ever

Thursday, 20. March 2008 by Jenn Weeks

Utah currently has one of the most stable economies in the entire nation. Much of the reason for this seems to be largely based on a strong real-estate market. Utah has thus far avoided the subprime banking issues that have plagued even well-established financial institutions. The housing market in Utah is stable, unemployment is low, incomes are up, and according to Wells Fargo economist Kelly Matthews, Utah is not feeling the squeeze as much as other states, and faces little threat of falling into a recession. Utah’s economic situation is a model for the nation.

So what does Utah’s economy have to do with PPC? Think about how consumers are being affected by the national financial downturn. The general advice from analysts is to spend a little less and save a little more. Marketers in other states have to deal with this reality when they consider marketing budgets for the coming quarter. The economic squeeze will inevitably affect their bottom line. However, if you are a business that markets goods and/or services to the local Utah market, you’ve got potential customers with more stable jobs and more money to spend than those in other metro markets whose prospects are crumbling under the burden of bad loans and rampant foreclosures.

Are you in Utah Real Estate? Do you provide other local services such as legal consulting, chiropractic or other health care services, child care, food delivery, etc? Professionally structured and managed PPC marketing should be a no brainer for you right now. A strategic search marketing partner will help you to maximize opportunities to gain a competitive advantage even in difficult times.

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