Pixelsilk Blog
Consider Attending SES Conference 2011 in San Francisco
If you’re like most business professionals, you’re looking for ways to utilize the power of the Internet to your advantage. You’re reading search marketing blogs for tips; you’re getting social media ideas from colleagues. The upcoming SES Conference 2011 in San Francisco can provide you with timely search and Internet marketing strategies to help feed your desire to learn more.
SES San Francisco runs August 15-19 and is considered the leading search and social marketing event. It offers tactical advice and best practices from top experts—in their fields—on how to grow traffic and improve business online. The multi-day event draws thousands of marketers and agency professionals and includes basic and in-depth tracks on SEO, PPC, social media, analytics and more.
If you register for SES conference 2011 before July 22, you can save 20%. Just enter priority code 20PIX. You’ll also be able to join Mark Knowles, president of Pixelsilk and two SES speakers for a private cocktail party on August 17 at 7:15 p.m. RSVP before July 30, 2011, at events@pixelsilk.com. Private party is for confirmed conference participants only.
Quick Media and Content Publishing
Publishing made easy is the goal of every content editor. After working hard to research and write a great white paper, produce a compelling video or purchase the perfect photo, the last thing any of us want to do is spend a lot of time and effort to publish it. Fortunately, for those using Pixesilk this isn’t the case.
Pixelsilk offers a handy library where you can easily upload document files, media files and image files. And once loaded, the files can be easily found, placed and published right from the content editor. OK, it may not be as simple as adding bullets to text—but it is close.
Ease of use, for those who are less technically-savvy is best. Thank goodness Pixelsilk developers knew this.
I’m Susan Sano Berado. Thanks for letting me share.
We all need an “Edge”…even our Websites
Not sure about you, but sometimes I look for an “edge” personally. It can come from purchasing a new pair of glasses that are more up-to-date, utilizing some newly acquired knowledge, or just feeling more positive about my contributions in life. Any one of these things can help me function in higher gear.
The same can be said for a website. A consistently high performing and highly available website is one that is functioning in high gear. And one way to get this degree of functioning is with Pixelsilk Edge.
Pixelsilk Edge gives customers an “edge” in performance, speed, and security. It’s an alternate hosting product offered by Pixelsilk and powered by Akamai, the industry network provider who delivers 10-20 percent of all Internet traffic, which is tens of billions of online interactions daily.
If your business is geographically dispersed across the nation or experiences a high volume of traffic, you’ll want to check out this 3-month trial offer: https://www.pixelsilk.com/edge/
Thanks for listening. I’m Susan Sano Berado.
The Value of a List Section
Content organized well on the web is becoming more important. If a page is too difficult to navigate through or too hard to find the information one needs, a visitor usually gives up and goes elsewhere. Having certain pages be created as a “list section” rather than just an HTML page helps you avoid this problem.
A list section is a “page type” that displays structured or record-like information really well. Articles, news items or photo/video galleries can be displayed cleanly—and better yet—can be sorted and searched by your visitors. Numerous book listings, for example, can be sorted and found based on a title or author’s name. The ideal vacation property can be pulled up first based on a visitors’ query.
Most Content Management System’s (CMS) don’t offer a list section, but Pixelsilk does. If your CMS doesn’t, you basically have two options: go research possible plug-ins or go hire a developer to build you the right fields for your list section.
With Pixelsilk, you won’t have to do either because it comes with default property fields that can work for any list section type right out of the gate. Pixelsilk lets you define how you want your list section displayed and used. Personalization can be done on a section-by-section (or page-by-page) basis giving you and your visitors many options.
I’m Susan Sano Berado—here are some samples:
http://www.blackbutteranch.com/accommodations/vacation-rentals/
http://www.blackbutteranch.com/Recreation/Whats-Happening-at-the-Ranch/
http://www.smartz.com/about/testimonials/
http://www.ironhorseprineville.com/Available-Properties/listings/
Partner Portal Creates Sites like Magic
If you’re already a Pixelsilk partner, you know the value of the Partner Portal. It can speed up your development time ten or a hundredfold depending on how many sites you’re creating. For those of you less familiar with the Partner Portal, think it’s time we shared the secret with you.
Webmasters Take Note
A Webmaster, like you, can leverage the work of one site in the Portal for the benefit of 1000 sites simply by clicking a box. Once clicked, themes will automatically transfer; CSS files will also seamlessly transfer; and files containing images, text, and media will transfer. In a matter of minutes, you will have created lots of new websites—and be ready for a coffee break.
Ongoing updates are also easy. Let’s say you, and your team, want to release a new red banner on the homepage that promotes a short-term offer. All you, the Webmaster, need to do is make the “resource” (or red banner) available to site in the Portal. As soon as the homepage reloads, the new red banner will be present on your multiple sites. Not bad for a day’s work.
I’m Susan Sano Berado. More thoughts and tips forthcoming.
Why You Need Flexibility in Your CMS
E-commerce catalog pages can provide search spiders with rich SEO content. However, if one’s cart isn’t well integrated within their CMS, it can block spiders’ access. You can probably guess the result: only some of your site is SEO optimized. Not good for online storefronts looking for new customers.
Pixelsilk’s flexible architecture gives customers seamless integration with BV software. Pixelsilk web developers have ensured that the CMS communicates with e-commerce cart via the API, allowing page layout consistency for branding—and page SEO rendering for spiders.
Through its tight integration, CMS and product information are under one roof. Bet you can guess the result: your catalog pages rank better and your prospective customers find you. Not bad, I’d say.
I’m Susan Sano Berado. Thanks for listening.
Powerful Rendering Platform
Hi, I’m Susan Sano Berado. Technology and what you can do with it excites me. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Silicon Valley where I had the advantage of seeing amazing technology companies’ blossom as plentiful as the Valley’s former orchards.
Technology makes things better—just look at the semiconductor, computer and mobile device industries. The underlying technology platform of Pixelsilk also makes things better. It uses the most popular and functional programming languages to enhance the user experience. Basically, anything a browser can render is available to layout in Pixelsilk—thanks to how easily it can work with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Most people know that HTML defines the objects of a web page, but not everyone knows what CSS and JavaScript do. CSS is a style sheet language that displays the look and formatting of a web page. Its name to fame is being able to separate document content from document presentation including elements such as layout, colors, and fonts.
And JavaScript is a scripting language that allows manipulation of all types of HTML objects. All three languages are powerful, which makes Pixelsilk a powerful rendering platform.
Cool things to do with Pixelsilk
Welcome to a new feature on the Pixelsilk blog!
My name is Jon and I am one of the “Websters” (web developers) developing sites with Pixelsilk and pushing the boundaries of what Pixelsilk is capable of doing. As you may (or may not) know, Pixelsilk has a fairly extensive front-end Javascript API (application programming interface) and combining that with the popular Javascript “JQuery” library (not to mention HTML, CSS, and judicious use of Flash) there are some amazing things that can be accomplished.
Hence this new “Cool Things to do with Pixelsilk” feature: a series of ongoing articles from me and my fellow Websters highlighting many of these examples and pointing you in new directions and towards new ideas. Feedback, questions, ideas are all encouraged, and you can either leave comments on these posts or email me directly at jon.abernathy -at- pixelsilk.com.
Join us in Portland for 2010 SearchFest, March 9th
Pixelsilk is again sponsoring this year’s annual SearchFest, put on by the great folks at SEMpdx. Another fantastic lineup of speakers to fill their roster this year, keynoted by Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing.
Interested in seeing some of the best speakers in the SEM industry and learning more about Pixelsilk? Swing by Portland, Oregon next week and check out this fantastic one-day event. Whether you’re a beginner or at the advanced level, SearchFest promises to deliver techniques to enhance your customer’s websites.
Interested in coming to SearchFest? Use the discount promo code: SPO-SEMPDXSF1020 for 25% off the regular registration rate.
Pixelsilk is sponsoring the SEO track, so please stop by and introduce yourself to our team!
Details: Full Agenda and Speakers
When: Tuesday, March 9th 2010
Where: The Governor Hotel, Portland Oregon
Time: 8 am (registration check-in at 7:30 am) to 5 pm; reception from 5 pm to 6 pm.
Pixelsilk Sponsored Bend WebCAM – A Search/Social/Creative Success
In the world of the web, it’s a necessity that traditional branding principles and new marketing technologies such as search engine optimization and social media go hand in hand. The Bend WebCAM conference, sponsored by Pixelsilk, offered up an incredible dose of information on these topics – bringing marketing and brand to the forefront of online success. The ad/marketing and design community of Bend (and beyond) was the host and participants of this first-of-its-kind event.
Global caliber speakers including:
Adam Audette (@audette)
Dave Snyder (@davesnyder)
David Mihm (@davidmihm)
Chris Winfield (@chriswinfield)
Rhea Drysdale (@rhea)
Laura Lippay (@lauralippay)
Derrick Wheeler (@derrickwheeler)
Marshall Simmonds (@mdsimmonds)
Scott Polk (@scottpolk)
Todd Friesen (@oilman)
Jim Riswold (Weiden + Kennedy 12)
Tim Girvin (@tgirvin)
Matt Peterson (@creaturesez)
What did you miss? You missed:
- Jim Riswolds inspiring and controversial keynote on creating Hitler figurines. (Presentation Available)
- Rhea’s 101 guide to managing your brand in a world of social media. (Presentation Available)
- Each member of W+K 12’s journey and creative background to join W+K12 – and how they claimed they just never fit in.
- Dave Snyder and Scott Polk’s stellar presentation on the ever popular topic of L-I-N-K-S.
- Chris Winfield asking the Social Expert Panel about which social media profile is a necessity.
- Tim Girvin’s keynote about how everything we brand, every connection we make is basically about love.
- David Mihm’s expertise on getting found in local search, what every small business should be doing. (Presentation available)
- Adam Audette’s breakdown on social media leader and the best business social media case study – Zappos.com
- The ripping, shreading, fun and informative Hot Seat, where sites were critiqued in front of everyone (and they paid for that!)
- The Brew Ha Ha’s killer local beer sampler, hosted by The Blacksmith. Smoozing with the speakers 🙂
Pixelsilk’s Mark Knowles (@markknowles and @Pixelsilkcms) helped secure the lineup of search and social speakers for this hopefully annual event. Thank you to AdFed of Central Oregon, for producing the event as well as all of those that worked on and sponsored the Bend WebCAM.
Through one of the hotbeds of SEO – Bend, Oregon (see History of SEO), Pixelsilk was excited to announce the new SEO-Friendly CMS platform to our local community throughout this incredible event.