If you are doing SEO on a multilingual site, read the above again – but I do have some tips for you.

Tip #1 is always hire a translator or native speaker.

Software-based translation tools will not be sufficient as a standalone solution. I’ve been corresponding with a person in Italy – he speaks no English, I speak no Italian. We are getting by through using a “pretty good” online translation tool at www.systranet.com and Google’s Language tools, but still – they are only good enough for us to understand each other. Absolutely by no means are they good enough to convey a message correctly and professionally. If you’re a website owner who wants multilingual versions of your site pages, then you are asking to be in the big league – expect to pay a translator!

Tip #2 is to take advantage of your own linguistic knowledge to help you improve results you’d get from automated translations.

IF you happen to have at least some background in the foreign language you’re trying to work with, you can work with software or online-based translation tools. It will be better than nothing… but only if you have some working knowledge of the language. You’ll be able to tell when something isn’t quite right, and try something different for a translation that seems to make more sense.

Tip #3 is to cross-check what you’re trying to translate by vising some sites in the other language.

For example: an initial attempt at translating something as simple as “About Us” from English to French might get you “au sujet de nous”.  Though technically linguistically correct, a little surfing around some actual French websites will tell you that they use “A propos”, sometimes with an accent on the A, sometimes not. With the accent appears to be more professional – but the way you find this out is to actually enter the world of your viewers.

Tip #4 is to copy & paste.

If you’re lucky, the pages have been properly translated and your assignment is just to write the Metatags. But what if you’re really up against the wall, and you’re responsible for writing those Page Titles and Descriptions without the help of a native speaker?

Assuming you have no knowledge of the other language at all, you can borrow the text from a header or a sentence at the beginning of the webpage, and use that as your Title. If you leave out Description and Keywords entirely, that’s OK – search engines will display a snippet out of the site page’s copy as a substitute. In fact, if you’re not confident in a machine translation for Description purposes, you are better off leaving it out of your Metatags.

Tip #5 is to sharpen your focus on the keywords and phrases even more than you would in English.

Inherent Problem:  search engines were (apparently) originally designed with English in mind, but other languages often require more words than the ideal minimums.

For example: How you do say “piano humidity control” in German? Well, how about “Klavier Luftfeuchtigkeit Kontrolle” or ‘Klimakontrollsystem für Klaviere”. You see what I’m getting at. We’re used to using abbreviations and the minimal number of characters and words to optimize metatags.  Other languages definitely DO present some challenges in search engine results!

Use the company name on some pages, but not on others. Use exactly the few words you’re aiming at, and tailor that to each page within the site.

Over the years I have built and optimized sites in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese… and I’m working on the Italian I hope these tips will help out site owners, as well as SEO folks who are confronted with optimizing multilingual pages.

Sponge

My first response was, “huh? what ads?”

That’s because I’m an older person and those sponsored listings were literally completely invisible to me – I had never noticed them. And the subject had never come up in any discussion before, not even with other IM professionals.

So, we logged on to my Gmail account, clicked on the latest message, and lo and behold, there they were – over on the right hand side, displayed just as they would be if I had done a search in Google. That’s when the word “creepy” entered into the conversation.

Intrigued, I looked around in Google’s help files and sure enough – ads displayed in Gmail are presented based on the contents of your messages. It’s as if the text in your message had been a search string or a web page.

Google’s full explanation can be found here:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6603

Now don’t start panicking. It’s not as if anybody is actually reading your messages. It’s done automatically in exactly the same way that Google correlates a search string to determine what ads to display.

But the situation brought up another really good Internet Marketing lesson.

People of different generations view the web in different ways.

The Gmail sponsored links made absolutely no impression on me whatsoever – and I am quite confident that’s age-related. I’m in my 40′s and have been spending the better part of the past 20 years online. I’m jaded. You’ve got to work hard to get my attention.

The student on the other hand was college-age or so, and saw her Gmail screen with completely different eyes and attention.

I am thankful to the student for asking me a question for which I didn’t have the immediate answer!

Those of us in the IM business need to be aware of how different people see and interact with the web in different ways. It takes both the experience of the old, and the fresh eyes of the young – as well as people of all stripes.

Sponge

I had recently changed hosting companies, and thought I had done everything perfectly when moving this blog. Apparently not. I did everything right, except for one thing – and I still don’t know what the “one thing” was. All I know is, the fix had something to do with disabling and re-enabling the Permalinks.

So, if you move your blog and everything looks right, except that none of the links work, that’s the solution. But don’t ask me how, I still haven’t found out how to do that!

Since I’m not really a blog expert, if you ever have to move your blog all I can say is “don’t try this at home.” Get professional help

Sponge

I moved this site to a new server and “thought” I’d done everything correctly. Apparently not – all the links to other pages and posts stopped working.

“Please Stand By…”

Sponge

We all struggle with ways to save time and with finding ways to stay on top of our to-do lists without actually spending more time to do it.

So here’s the idea: Instead of using your computer, smartphone, or a long & depressing list written down with pencil & paper that you can’t find when you need it, use greeting cards!

Write down those “forget ye nots” on the inside of greeting cards. (Or cut off the back half of the card, and just use the front half.) Try to get a batch of cards that are the same size, and have attractive & interesting designs on the front. If the inside of the card is blank, even better. Then put them in a small box like a recipe card box… standing up… so you can quickly flip through them, prioritize them, and yank them out when the task is done. Of course, if you’re on a tight budget you can re-use them until you’ve run out of space.

The reason this will work better than a digital or written to-do list is because of the visual impact of the card’s design. The colors, pictures, and artwork will help to create a mnemonic in your brain by connecting the visual cues with the idea of the thing that needs to be done.

For fun & giggles, you can even mail those cards to friends and family when the task is done. Not only does it tell them what you’ve been up to… believe me.. they’ll appreciate getting any card from you.

I got this inspiration from two thinks percolating in my head. I recently attended a presentation about being more efficient, especially at work and especially when dealing with the flood of digital information we receive. The presentation was given by Corey Creed of Hippo Internet Marketing Consulting & Training … the most efficient person I have ever known. But he finds useful and fun ways to do it.

Then, I met with a greeting card designer/supplier – Masala Greeting Cards – to go over their site for SEO and tackle online marketing. Folks who design and produce unique, creative, beautiful, funny & quirky greeting cards are in a very competitive market. It’s hard to find buyers when you’re up against e-cards and mass-market distributors.

My brain put the two problems together and came up with this new way to use cards. It benefits the smaller independent card makers, it benefits you, it puts a piece of paper to use at least twice (before you recycle it, right?)

The icing on the cake? A new, fun way to connect with the people you know and love.

So go out there and buy a half dozen cards from a boutique card company, put them to good use AND have fun!

NPR – I am disappointed in you!

Oscar Night, March 7th. I don’t usually watch the Oscars but there was (is) a rumor that folks from one of my absolutely favorite radio shows, “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” would be doing some sort of live coverage of the Oscars beginning at 7:30. This was (is) guaranteed to be a hoot.

IF you can find it. Whatever it is. Apparently they didn’t hesitate to not tell me.

Is it “live” radio? Is it live radio on MY local public radio station? Is it a podcast… streaming audio… streaming video maybe?

Almost 8:00 and I still don’t know WHAT it is, and I still don’t know WHERE it is.

So far all I’ve found is a “live-blog” by Linda Holmes. What’s a “live blog”, you might very well ask. Apparently it’s an annoyingly-embedded comment feed with no discernible difference to Twitter and it’s hogging my bandwidth and clogging my browser. Not to mention what it’s doing to my last thread of patience.

8:05 and I finally find the “live” coverage by the witty & friendly folks at Wait Wait. And what is their “live” coverage? A snails’ pace slideshow of still pics accompanied by friendly & witty captions.

Don’t get me wrong – I like the captions added to the pictures.

But let’s get back to the journalistic basics, my friends – the Who, What, Where, When ought to be in the headline. (We won’t bother with Why. It’s the Oscars, and there’s not a good Why that I can think of.)

A word to the wise, NPR – if you’re gonna go all high-tech & social on my butt, don’t begin with Oscar night. And if you’ve actually done this before and STILL managed to perform this poorly, don’t do it again… OK?

LANGUAGE WARNING: This video is not for minors or those with otherwise sensitive ears. So don’t come complaining to me if you watch it and get offended, OK? Consider yourself notified.

Credits: I found this video by Markham Nolan on YouTube. His website is www.expad.ie.

Normally I’d have just done a quick Facebook link or tweet on this, but that was insufficient… and it took me HOURS of hunting to find enough information, explanation and links to pass on to you. Almost everything I found is in Italian, with the exception of the BBC radio broadcast – see the link below. (The bit about Partenope is about 20 minutes in, but the entire podcast is worth listening to anyway.)

For those of you in a hurry, links to more info: Citta di Partenope (at http://comunedipartenope.it) is a virtual city of, by, and for the real people of Naples (Napoli) Italy. It was created by Claudio Agrelli of http://www.agrelliebasta.it . They are on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Napoli-Italy/Citta-di-Partenope/29939687062 . Look up the channel for “agrelliebasta” on YouTube. Even if you don’t understand Italian, just looking at and listening to Claudio Agrelli is worth it I first heard about it on BBC (radio) and you can find a podcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/science/2009/03/000000_digital_planet.shtml , look for the February 23 2010 program.

Update March 11 2010: You can join Partenope City no matter where you live. There are people in over 100 countries who are online citizens. I will join it myself to get a better feel for the place… and maybe learn some Italian!

Here’s how it works, why it is so different from other virtual worlds and why I think it’s so brilliant.

Like any other virtual world, you can join and participate in many activities. But there’s more. Lots more.

Real merchants of Naples can join too – and interact with their real live customers when they walk through their brick and mortar doorway – with discounts, personal greetings, specials, etc. In addition, the real live citizen knows that when they visit a real live merchant who is also a member of Partenope, they will be treated with respect and a code of ethics the merchant has signed on to.

Partenope also provides ‘real’ news, as well as many ways for citizens to discuss civic issues in the Town Square and Town Hall. Citizens can ‘flag’ problems they see in their ‘real’ city of Naples. Discussions, issues, problems, and ideas are passed on to the ‘real’ government and managers of Naples.

And of course, the citizens, businesses and politicians of Naples can communicate with each other in true Social Networking style.

Citta di Partenope goes a couple of steps further.

It is an E-DEMOCRACY.

The philosophy of the entire project is to create a BETTER Naples through direct participation by its citizens. With this goal in mind, when you join, you must agree to abide by a code of ethical behavior. Nothing big brother about it, just simple things like when you’re in the virtual world you don’t double park and you actually put money in the parking meter. You use crosswalks instead of jaywalking. You don’t litter, and take care of your trash and recycling properly. You don’t swear & shout at people. In short, this is an effort to build the ‘real’ city that everybody of Naples would LIKE to live in.

It is E-BUSINESS.

This code of ethics extends into the real business world as well. As mentioned above, participating merchants have also agreed to a code of ethics. They don’t put their thumb on the scale, overcharge, or underserve. They treat their customers with fairness, friendliness and respect. So, visiting customers know they are patronizing “good” merchants. And, the business owners have an opportunity to offer specials to their fellow Partenope citizens.

The way this is accomplished is by using something similar to “discount cards” that most of us in the States are familiar with. You know, you pay $100 for a card to get discounts and specials at various local restaurants and other types of businesses. When you join Partenope you have the option of applying for a special card that, when presented to a merchant, identifies you as a Partenope citizen. Since my Italian is elemental at best, I am not sure if there is a fee (I don’t think so?) and I don’t think it includes any private personal information. Even if they did do it that way in Partenope/Naples, I am sure the same concept could be adapted to not include any info the ‘citizen’ doesn’t want it to.

THIS WOULD BE PERFECT FOR ASHEVILLE.

The Partenope world might not work in every city or town, but Asheville NC has exactly the right mix of atmosphere, citizens, businesses, technology, and hope for a better world – both local and global – that could really make this idea work here.

If you agree, please spread the word. Help me out here. Are you fired up by this idea? Do you know anybody else who might be? Anybody who could help make it happen?

This year it’s FREE thanks to the sponsors (see below).

Visit http://blueridge.edu/business_person/events/prosper2010.php for more details and registration.

The day-long conference provides expert help and professional advice on marketing of all kinds… including Internet marketing.

Each year we focus on certain types of businesses. This year, we’ll be addressing marketing trends and providing tips & advice for those in: Real Estate, Construction/Landscaping, Design (Architects, Interior Designers, Landscape Designers), and Renovation businesses.

I’ll be on the panel answering questions about SEO, PPC, e-mail (permission-based) marketing, and broadening your business ‘presence’ on the web. Other panel members – Barbara Donithan and Paul vanHeden – will address Social Media Marketing, using podcasting/online radio/video, Mobile Marketing, Blogging, and how to use coupons and discounts effectively.

Even if you’re not in real estate or construction, these conferences are well worth the time for any businessperson. You’ll learn a lot of “essentials” that any business owner will find useful and valuable… for FREE.

Sponsors of this event: Blue Ridge Community College/Blue Ridge Innovation Network, AdvantageWest Economic Development Group, Wheeler & Marks, Land of Sky Regional Council, Mountain BizWorks, SCORE, and Smoky Mountain Development Corporation.