When it comes to setting up and promoting a new site the key is working Search Engine Optimisation principles into your site from the start.

• URL choice: with most startups the URL is an essential part of the name choice. For SEO I recommend doing a bit of Googling – don’t choose a name that about a million other companies share with you (if you can possibly help it). Hosting sites will tell you if domain names are available in bulk (so don’t spend ages going to a URL then changing the TLD (end bit) from .com to .co.uk to .org etc). Some of the domain name generators can be surprisingly good. Try to find something that sums up your product and is memorable.
• Once you’ve bought your domain it’s time to put something up there. This is the point where lots of new sites often fail – do not put up a page saying coming soon or site under development. Instead you should put some real content – even if it’s just your initial sketch or an extract of a bit of code. You should start telling people about your product right from the start – there won’t be any hype if people don’t have anything to talk about! Google take a while to index sites so putting some keyword/brand name rich content up early on will help cement your site’s position in search engines.
• Even if you only have a small amount of content and haven’t got much time or money you can still upload a free blogging platform with a basic template. People will happily look at your content even if it’s on a plain/boring looking site if you’ve got something interesting to say/show.
• Don’t forget the basics – you really want people to be able to contact you. A contact form isn’t hard to put together but it’s surprising how many sites don’t even have an email address on them!
• Word of mouth is a key part in promoting a new enterprise but it doesn’t have to be hard work (especially not if you’ve got something interesting on your hands). If you’re already on a social network then start by letting your friends and colleagues know about what you’re up to and move on from that and drop a polite email to sites that you think might be interested in featuring you: check out Technorati’s list of popular blogs if you need some help finding blogs in your desired market. If you put effort into slides, publicity, interviews or content make sure you blog about it and if another site is nice enough to write about you then link to their article and give some thanks for their love!

If you have any other comments about SEO on a budget or marketing a startup I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

1. The site is down. Lots. (And by lots I mean almost every day).
2. Lots of programs/sites automatically “update” their Twitter feed (read “spam it to death”). From updates telling you which song your friend is listening to to websites telling you that people are looking at certain products Twitter can be a whole heap of irritating. (Time to Block them!)
3. A metric cartload of Twitter accounts are trying to sell stuff, and a lot of this comes via (automatic) Direct Messages when you follow someone. (Block!)
4. Shortened URLs don’t tell you what site the link is taking you to so you have to click it to see… inevitably you’ll already have seen it or you wouldn’t have clicked it if you’d seen the real URL first.
5. Twitter breaks websites (or, more accurately, if you see a link from Stephen Fry or Neil Gaiman the chances are that the site will be down by the time you click on it).
6. Some people think that the point of Twitter is getting the maximum number of followers. This is not the case. The point of Twitter is to interact with people. (Sucks to be them… block).
7. Some profiles are distincly lacking in profile pictures or bio info – come on… it’s not that hard to write about yourself!
8. Some followers are robots and are just plain annoying. (Block)
9. People expect you to follow them back. You don’t have to! How can you expect people like Stephen or Neil to follow 200,000 people and read all of their Tweets? Seriously?
10. Some people have nothing interesting to say. (That’s what the Unfollow button is for!) Twitter’s interface is severely lacking in some features. No ReTweet button, URLs aren’t auto-shortened when posting, URLs aren’t auto-lengthened when reading, hashtags aren’t links etc.

[Image from Porte Voix where you can also find
some ace illustrations]

Having studied interface design a wee bit at uni it’s still something that interests me and I can’t help feeling that there are going to be some immense developments over the next few years. The more I think about it the more I think that there will soon be a way of accessing all of your Google files through a desktop style interface. Recently someone has made a web simulation of the old System 7 and there is already a version of Linux available through your browser at Cosmopod (and a similar service is available from My Goya). With these sites in mind it’s really only a small step to having your main operating system online and accessible via any browser as a web app. Aside from the fact that you wouldn’t ever need to upgrade software (your online provider would do the server updates for you) the best bit about this is the fact that there is the possibility of a really wide range of operating system “skins”. There are no shortage of interesting interfaces for websites and I love finding new ones from houses to books – each with their own special systems and animations. If your operating system was essentially inside your browser there would be no reason why you couldn’t really break the boundaries and add exciting or unusual layout and functionality. There have already been tons of suggestions as to what applications will be available online in the next wee while and with the use of APIs it’s inevitable that these will be pulled together all in one place (or, indeed, in many places). When that happens people will still want to style their online OS just as with their desktop OS with backgrounds, fonts, shortcuts and other interface tools. Having used Mac OS 7.5.5 at school (and recently having seen it ported onto the PSP) why shouldn’t my online OS interface be able look like that? As soon at the systems are in place people will want to begin customising them… and just as we have Steampunk laptops some people at least will want Steampunk, vintage Mac OS and computer game style operating system interfaces. So… here’s to 2008 when I hope we’ll step a few steps closer to a pixelated retro operating system future.

MP3 (38 MB) or using Gmail’s MP3 player:

This talk is about Google Docs & Spreadsheets and is pretty interesting. It seems to me that the introduction of Google Gears means that we should be expecting an offline version of Docs & Spreadsheets sometime soon. When this happens online documents will be able to be edited in browsers even without an internet connection and Google will be one step closer to taking over the world! Seriously though – Google Docs & Spreadsheets is really good tool and looks like it is going to get even better in the near future.

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