IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice and SEO

There has been a few comments back on our post, from back in March, containing the quote from Ed Bott, who stated that “Any IT professional who is still allowing IE6 to be used in a corporate setting is guilty of malpractice“. One person, who we will not name, offered the comment that IE6 is the basis for a whole developer community, so recommending it’s discontinuance was irresponsible and unprofessional. Besides, the commentator sneeringly pointed out that “hundreds of people had used that expression in web commentary.

Ignoring the obvious response to the “whole developer community” thing, of course we immediately did a quick Google search on the expression, and sure enough there are good number of matches (408 exact matches at time of writing). Does this mean that a large number of people had come to the same conclusion and used the same expression spontaneously, or was there some blatant manipulation of the search ranking by unscrupulous Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts.

This also poses an interesting observation about the way the search engines, like Google, rank pages. If you search for the phrase Any IT professional who is still allowing IE6 to be used in a corporate setting is guilty of malpractice, the original page from Ed Bott appears fourth, and then does not appear again until page two; that is eighteenth in the results set.

At time of testing, the top three results, beating the original post, are as follows:

  1. LessThanDot (a phpBB powered Bulletin board)
  2. Integrity Technology Group (a Joomla powered site)
  3. A Twitter link (with the exact quote verbatim)

This is interesting, and shows just how important your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be. The Bulletin board beat the Joomla entry by having repetition of the phrase “Any IT professional who is still allowing IE6 to be used in a corporate setting is guilty of malpractice” twice in the body, plus a partial reference in the title.

The Tweet came an honorable third by repeating the exact quote, and due to the limited number of characters available had the highest match to “noise” ratio.

Could it be that “IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice” proposition, repeated often enough, could get you a top position regardless of the content of the surrounding article?

By the way to avoid this post jumping immediately to the top of Google simply by repeating the full phrase ad nauseum, we have deliberately shortened it to IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice. However human readers will be able to substitute the full expression unconsciously, and so allow us to sleep at night! The expression we have distilled down to is concise, accurate and meets the requirement for this exercise.

If you want to see for yourself, try the links below to search for the full expression:

As an intellectual exercise, we have dutifully entitled this posting IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice, and at the time of posting Google returns no results for the exact phrase “IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice”. Over the next few weeks we will keep searching for the expression and see how many web sites pick it up. Any that do repeat it in their content will become the subject of extra scrutiny to see if they are brilliant SEO expert who we need to model, or cheap rip-off sites to be added to our SEO blacklist.

IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice
If you are interested in playing the game, and contributing in some small way to the sum of human knowledge, click here to search Google for the exact expression IE6 in a Corporate Setting is Malpractice. Let us know what you think.

The Battle of Fearlessness Is Released

As announced in the Tweet from Aleksandr Orlov, there is a new epic movie on release from Aleksandr Orlov productions in association with Meermax. Called The Battle of Fearlessness, it depicts the struggle between Aleksandr’s great grandfather Vitaly and the Mongis Khan, the evil Mongolian mongoose and his mongoose army.

In his inimitable style Aleksandr himself announces:
“New movie is now launch! For watching of ultimate display of fearlessness click here http://bit.ly/bAOi7P (not suitable for meerkitten)”

We know how treasures from Aleksandr Orlov are so eagerly awaited, so to assure you that this is not a late April fool’s joke, we are providing an embedded direct link to the source for you to enjoy:

Our verdict: the best Aleksandr Orlov film yet, a must see! The sound track also deserves a special mention, for it’s stirring musical qualities and crescendos. We will not spoil the cliffhanger ending, just watch it for yourself and enjoy. However, also check out the official site which provides links to reviews and a downloadable poster. Click here to visit the official site for The Battle of Fearlessness.

Boost Your Web Marketing Strategy

Many self proclaimed gurus of Internet marketing will tell you that there are three main steps to your web marketing strategy:

  • Get More People to Your Site
  • Convert More Web Site Visitors to Leads
  • Convert More Qualified Leads to Clients

The problem with these general steps is that they are unqualified and in need of a reality check. In fact some of the activities recommended by some “experts” can serously damage your credibility, and ultimately your on-line business. As Matt Mullenweg pointed out in his post 6 Steps to Kill Your Community, short term measures to increase your traffic through such means may be short-sighted and harmful.

Take the intention to get more people to your website; you could for example write something controversial on your blog, and then advertise it on all your Social Networking sites. You may well get even more visitors by allowing unmoderated comments and ping-backs, so that your blog becomes the centre of a great debate. However, do you think many of those visitors will be interested in your products or services, and turn into clients? Not likely!

So the first step is not just to drive more visitors to your site. The real objective is to attract people who are interested in your products or services.

Next, in order to convert those visitors into leads, who your marketing machine (i.e. you!) call to chase up, the conventional wisdom is to force visitors to access the good stuff via a squeeze page. While this allows the visitor to get email notifications of new stuff, and targeted special offers, if this is too “in your face”, your conversion rate will be low.

The trick is to provide a reason for visitors to sign up for your mailing list. Give them useful information, even if they are not yet ready to commit their email address, to establish the attitude of gratitude, and when they do sign up, give them loads more. This sets the pattern of action leading to reward, and will make the next step easier.

Finally, to convert your qualified leads to clients, give them tasks to do, such as polls or surveys, to establish a pattern of responsiveness. You can also use open ended blog entries to encourage the responses. This increase your user engagement until they are ready to buy.

Remember, the primary purpose of your web site is to get the greatest number of visitors to email you or call you with their contact information, and ultimately to buy your products and services. The purpose of web advertising is to get people who might be interested in buying to visit your web site.

The three step boost for your Web Marketing Strategy is simply this:

  • Attract people who are interested in your products or services
  • Provide a reason to sign up for your mailing list
  • Convert your qualified leads to clients by establishing a pattern of responsiveness

Get more qualified people to contact you, and your sales could skyrocket within weeks.

More Viral Marketing with Aleksandr Orlov

The latest episode in the viral marketing campaign Compare The Meerkat has aired, and of course has made it to YouTube. This time the advert (a short film called The Journey of Courageousness) even has a trailer!

The film called The Journey of Courageousness, by Aleksandr Orlov, documents the courageous journey of the Meerkats from their home in the Kalahari desert to finally end up in Russia. As usual for this sequence of adverts, the production is excellent, and the storyline is brisk and full of comedic moments. Check out Sergei looking seasick on the ocean crossing!

Compare The Meerkat Film Trailer

The Journey of Courageousness – Compare The Meerkat Advert (Jan 2010)

The Power of Viral Marketing

Everyone has heard about viral marketing right? You know, where a marketing campaign uses social networks to increase brand awareness and boost product sales. Who would have guessed that a man in a gorilla suit playing the drums would have been one of the most talked-about ads of the decade?

The term viral comes from the spread of information, and hence brand awareness, by word of mouth or self-replicating viral processes, which is analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. The power comes through fans downloading and forwarding the ad to friends. Some notable examples are:

Bear Fight – John West Salmon
Released in November 2000, and starting out as a nature documentary, this witty ad quickly turns into a fight between a man and bear over a salmon. The bear was in fact a stuntman in a 7ft-tall bear suit from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Written by Paul Silburn and directed by Daniel Kleinman, this was one of the first ads to use the viral power of the internet.
Click here to watch John West Salmon ‘Bear Fight’

Cadbury’s Gorilla
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk 2007 Gorilla advertising campaign was heavily popularised on YouTube and Facebook. This ad had a massive impact, being viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube, spawning numerous spoofs and winning a string of awards for its director, copywriter and art director Juan Cabral.
Click here to view Cadbury’s Gorilla Advert

The Return of Monkey – PG Tips
When PG Tips wanted to revise the Monkey character and reconnect with its advertising heritage, they called on copywriters Mark Waites, Ben Mooge and Al Maccuish, along with Mother creative directors, Rob Saville and Mark Waites to produce a witty storyline. In the first ad from January 2007, Monkey returns drenched and dishevelled as a mascot on the front of a truck. Ten thousand people signed up to Monkey’s MySpace page within the first few weeks of its launch.
Click here to watch PG Tips ‘The Return’

T-mobile adverts
Real-life aspiring musician, Josh Ward, has been challenged by T-Mobile to put together a band of hundreds or even thousands of musicians, using its free unlimited texts and internet on mobile for life rewards on pay as you go. Josh appeared in the first part of the campaign in September 2009 which saw real people being stopped in the street and asked what they would do with free texts for life. Josh, who was originally filmed on his way to a gig in London’s Brick Lane, said he’d use free texts for life to set up a superband – so T-Mobile challenged him to make his dream a reality. Since he started his quest, over 24,000 people have logged onto Josh’s MySpace profile and his videos have had more than 6,000 views on YouTube .
Click here to view T-mobile What would you do with free internet for life?

Comparethemarket: Comparethemeerkat
One of my personal favorites is the meerkat ads on TV from VCCP. Aleksandr Orlov is an aristocratic meerkat, and the founder of www.comparethemeerkat.com, which is constantly being mistaken for the other site, which is in no way similar! The character is voiced by Simon Greenall, and Aleksandr now has in excess of 600,000 Facebook fans, and 31,230 Twitter followers last time I looked. The insurance site increased its market share of UK insurance comparison site visits by 76% between January and August 2009. Not bad for some cute but simple puppets and a good idea. It even has a great jingle which just goes round and round in your head all day – com-pare-the-meer-kat, dot-com! Simples!
Click here for the Official Compare the Meerkat Advert
Click here for the Official Compare the Meerkat Bloopers

Although marketing experts acknowledge that the basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable, the successful campaigns can be spectacular and have world-wide impact. If you are planning a viral marketing exercise, you just better be prepared for it to be a success!