Countdown to Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Next Monday (July 7th) the 2008 WPC event kicks off in Houston, Texas.
This is not my first trip to the US, but will be my first time participating in this giant Microsoft event.

I have been to a couple of IT tradeshows/conferences already this year. However, I don't really know what to expect from WPC at this point, apart from meeting a lot of fellow IT professionals, and that sleep is not really on the agenda.

I am very much looking forward to participate, as this is probably one of the most important Microsoft events of the year.

Sitecore is a Gold Sponsor for WPC, so beside being on display at the various WPC marketing material, we also have a huge booth at the conference. To back that up, we will be present with around 30 people from our various offices.

 

Checklist of stuff to bring for my trip to the US:

• Valid passport. Check
• Laptop with no private or confidential information. Check
• A copy of the new Sitecore v6 demo site. Check
• Deck of business cards. Check
• Book to read during 2 x 9-hour flight. Check
• Statement noting that I do not intent to joke about Texas state laws. TBA

 

See you there..?

Sitecore SEO module revisited

It seems like the old-school marketing people (no pun intended) are starting to understand that Search Engine Optimization is extremely important if you want global exposure for your website. This didn't seem like the case just 5 years ago, at least back then, the SEO consultant companies we're few, and using advertising channels like AdWords were uncommon for most non-tech individuals. You may correct me if im wrong.

Nowadays it is all about having "google-friendly" URLs and optimized content.

Having done some of SEO work myself*, I hereby present my list of steps which I find important, logic and fairly easy to comprehend for any marketing person:

• Logik URL's (like www.mysite.com/mycompanyinfo/contact-us/)
  The URL should reflect the content.
• Make sure you are cross linking between your pages.
• Information available in PDF (and other document type) files should also be available on your site, at least as short summaries.
• Search engines doesn't like Flash, so stay clear of using this on your frontpage if you can. If not, make sure the links and bulletpoints within the Flash content is also available on the frontpage. Generally Flash on corporate websites should only contain video demos.
• Get external sites to link to yours! Either exchange links with other sites, or have external blogs pointing to you. Link popularity is key for high ranking on most global search engines. Send out press releases etc with links pointing back to you etc etc.
• And last but not least, make sure to repeat important words that you want to rank well with.

I realize that there are alot more factors to take into consideration, but these headlines cover the basics and are also, given the right tool, quite simple to work with for most online marketing novices.

Search Engine Optimization module overview

With the above input in mind, I can finally start my walkthrough of the SEO module. One of the things I really like about the module, is how it blends into a site. As you can see on the screenshot, you got your actual page (needing optimization) in front of you, with the addition of the SEO tools. These are displayed below the page-layout. Does it get any better?
The information gathered by the tool is of course based on the data for this specific page. When you navigate to any other page, the SEO module will render data from that page and so on.

The tool has 8 tabs of data available: Page Information (overview), Text Only View, Keywords, Search Engines, Headings, Images, Links and Meta Tags.

Page Information

This tab returns some overall data based on the page content. A green checkmark means the bullet is ok, a red x marks an error. Typical erros can be images lacking Alt-tags, links being broken or a missing standard object, faulty html declaration etc. In general make sure your pages fulfill at least the bullets listed on this page. You may not see a need for providing a keywords meta-tag, but remember: You are not making the site for yourself, you are making it for your visitors. A statement which is often forgotten in the pursuit of cool branding and/or over-achieving Flash empowered websites.

Text Only View

This tab returns the page as it looks like to a web-crawler. Everything but the text content is stripped. This is a very important piece of data, since you get a simple overview of how a crawler would rank the content on your page. Important content should be at the top, since most global search engines tend to reward the top content the most. Notice how this view returns the text using the actual styles and headings. Images are represented by their alt-tag values.

Keywords

Once again, we get some very important information back from the SEO module. This tab lists all keywords used on the current page, with the number of repetitions next to it. This specific page has the word 'printer' repeated 9 times, and the word 'business' repeated 4 times. To a global search engine a repeated keyword indicates, that a page is emphasising on the specified subject, thus rewarding the page with more points (to rank with). Another nice service provided by this tab, is the option to test your keyword in one of 3 major search engines simply by clicking the icons next to the keyword.

Search Engines

This simple function provides an easy way to check how many incoming links a specific page has in one of the 3 major search engines.

Cross-linking to other relevant sites as well as having many external links pointing to your own site is very important for improved ranking. The paradigm is basically, if many sites are linking to your content, then your site must be important, and deserve higher ranking.

Clicking one of the 3 icons, will return the number of incoming links you have from the chosen search engine.

Headings

Another way of putting weight on specific important keywords for your organisation, is to highlight these in headings on your pages. For that specific need, HTML code have supported "Heading" tags since the dawn of Internet.

These tags (eg. <h1>My heading one tag</h1>) emphasize that the inline content is important. If you have used any of these headings on your page, the SEO module will list them in a hierachy based on their importance (heading 1 through heading 6). The search engines generally put more emphasis on keywords being highlighted by these simple tags.

Images

Do you know how many images is used in the layout on your page? Even so, the module will give you a full overview including related info like URL, alternate text and dimensions. This may not be super important, but at least use this tab to make sure that your image file-names correspond with the alt-text values. Of course the values from the different images are also available as mouse-over information on each seperate image.

Links

Something which quickly gets confusing, is getting an overview of all links and their targets on a page. Links can be to the same page (anchors or querystrings), to different sites, or to other pages on the current domain. Each type is represented by a different icon in the list. Every link also has their inline text value displayed, if any, next to the icon. The target URL is of course also available in the list.

Meta tags

The final tab returns values from all the meta-tags that are defined for the current page. Allthough meta-tags are sometimes considered old-old-old-school and not used directly for ranking anymore, they still serve some purpose. Defining properties for your page using meta-tags can be very useful, if not for search engine ranking, then at least for aiding to other important tools on your website. If you have local site search running, then you can definately benefit from using meta-data on your pages. Web-shops should also make use of metadata.

That ends my presentation of the SEO module for now. But since I realize that action speaks louder than words, I am already planning to provide a screencast of the module in action. This should hopefully give a clearer view of why you should get the SEO module - and use it..

*One of my most noteworthy SEO accomplishments was pushing a site from page #42 on google, into the top ten results for a very competitive keyword (40+ million results on average). Please note, this was back in 2004 before I started working at Sitecore.

New Sitecore version revealed

I hereby interrupt the transmission of
on-the-road stories and module presentations with a special news bulletin:
It is now official, Sitecore will release the upcoming version 6.0 June 30th 2008.

This upcoming release is mainly focusing on simplicity and improved usability. Editors especially will have new tools available such as in-line editing, instant validation and simple layout control. Adding to that is a security enhancement based on the latest .Net security model allowing for roles-in-roles inheritance plus improving the already flexible Sitecore security layer. More information available in the officiel press release.

The current feedback from various sources point out some of these very interesting features:

CMS-Wire mentions the usability, the support for 64-bit systems and more.

Jukka-Pekka Keisala lists some of the overall changes from the previous version including the switcth from .Net 2.0 to 3.5.

Chris Wojciech goes into more technical detail listing many of the new options and features in the Sitecore framework and API.

Personally I really like the new version. It's even faster than the previous one and the UI is, in lack of better words, very sexy. But the biggest plus is definately the improved usability (with patents pending might I add) that will enable editors to create fully W3C (including accessibility) compliant content without even thinking about it.

I'm certain my upcoming posts from the road will contion reactions on these specific features, so stay tuned.

End of transmission.

Round trip to Madrid

Very recently I went to Madrid to participate in a meeting together with Claes Larsson from Guide Market Solutions and a customer prospect (which I for obvious reasons will not name in this post).

Initially the meeting was planned so I could fly in, have the meeting, and return home the same night. But since the only available flights out of Madrid required transfers through what seemed like a random selection of all of the worlds airports, I choose to book a hotel instead and fly back (direct) the next morning.

Soon this solution would prove very convinient and interesting, but before I get ahead of myself I have to start from the beginning.

The trip
On Wednesday morning May 14 I get ready and call for a cab.
Note to self: When cab drivers in your own city try to hustle you on your way to the airport, it may be a bad sign for the rest of the trip...
After taking what seems like the worlds longest shortcut, I finally arrive at the terminal, now focusing on the next important things: check-in and coffee.

My plane arrives in Barajas airport in Madrid fashionably late.
Nothing to declare. I make it to the exit and find myself a cab (this time expecting to be hustled) and arrive at the office in good time for the meeting, even with the detours.

The meeting
Attendees at the meeting includes the resident webmaster, a consultant (project manager), Claes Larsson and myself. The deal in question consists of a handful servers, extranet functionality and a shop.
I start out presenting the editing functionalities, versioning control, device control and language handling before talking about the backend stuff.
They have a userbase with close to one million customers, so scalability and perfomance is key. However, before I get so far, the webmaster interrupts asking about SEO and what we do to support this important marketing issue. A very valid question, and luckily we already have a state-of-the-art module which handles this in a userfriendly and logic way. (More about this specific tool will be available in my next post). Naturally I present the tool right away. The webmaster seem very pleased.

After more chit chat about how to solve specific issues like handling lists, we get into talking about how we deal with that many user accounts and personalization. The answer is quite simple, their existing user database will be integrated and connected into their desired extranet setup, re-using the existing user profiles. We have done this sort of thing many times before, just take a look at bwin.com (an online bookmaking company) with their 13 million user-accounts - all built on Sitecore.

The meeting was scheduled to last 2 hours, but we ended up spending 3 hours talking about the solution and various scenarios, only interrupted by the decision maker taking a short break to postpone some other meetings he had that day. Bottomline, it was a very promising and a most interesting meeting.

Madrid by night
After the meeting Claes and I agree to meet later in the city. I get to my hotel by cab with a driver who both looks a bit like Ronaldo and talks about 'futebol' when we pass some football training facility. I almost throw the Michael Laudrup card but decide not to, since I don't speaks Spanish anyway.
Hotel. Check in. Internet access is 5 Euro for 1 hour. Dang.

I make a few calls, check my mail and get a quick shower. New cab ride back into town, no funny business except for the driver being unable to successfully use his creditcard machinery. He gladly accepts cash however. Sigh.

We have dinner at a nice cosy tapas place with excellent food, but the highlight of the evening has got to be the city-wide party going on. May 15 is the day where Madrid celebrates their patron saint San Isidro Labrador with a holiday. Naturally you use this chance to party the night before, which was indeed the case here. The streets were literally filled with people including a batch of Claes' friends. And the bars served cheap beer and drinks in 1-litre cups. Wow.

Returning to Copenhagen
With 4 hours of sleep and no breakfast at the hotel, I make it to the airport in good time before departrure. 3 hour flight, laptop, batch of dvds. Oh sweet battery life.

Thanks alot to Claes and his friends, and of course to the customer prospect which I hope to hear more from very soon. See you next time Madrid.

Going into uncharted territory

Working in Sitecore as a Solution Architect means quite some travelling around to our many regional partners and customers. Often I present our solutions to prospects along with the involved partner at their location. Occationally I also get to speak on seminars for groups of selected individuals which can be quite a fun challenge.

Bottomline I am most definately meeting a lot of people in need of content management solutions, looking for advice and inspiration. And on this blog, I will be sharing my experiences with you, along with presentations of some of the many cool features that Sitecore provides.

I come from a background working for a Sitecore technology partner, where I among other cool projects improved the visitor experience on the Vatican's website. I have worked with the Sitecore products for 2+ years and counting.

I already have a growing list of things to share, so stay tuned for posts about my recent trip to Madrid, info about SEO solutions and much much more...