For State of Search I wrote a blog post comparing two URL shortening services: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls. Each has its pros and cons, and which you should use depends on your situation and resources:

State of Search: URL Shortening Services Compared: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls

URL Shortening services are the lifeblood of Twitter. With short URLs you can share links on Twitter in abundance without having to worry too much about breaking the 140 character limit. And, just like links are branding opportunities, so are short URLs. Yes, you only have a few characters to work with in a short domain, but why not make optimal use of it and make it a branded short URL?

My latest for Search News Central is purely for SEO geeks. I describe several solutions for dealing with duplicate content issues arising fro faceted / layered navigation and conclude with my own recommended approach:

Search News Central: Solving Duplicate Content Issues Arising From Faceted Navigation

I’m a big fan of faceted navigation on ecommerce websites, also known as layered navigation. With faceted nav users can find exactly what they’re looking for with just a few clicks, even on websites that contain tens of thousands of products. A good implementation of faceted nav is a user experience dream come true.

In my new column for the Belfast Telegraph I take another shot at predicting the future, this time for the mobile web. HTML5 might in due time supersede mobile apps, and in my column I explain why this could happen:

Belfast Telegraph: The Future of the Mobile Web

The problem with apps is that they are platform-specific. An iPhone app will not work on an Android phone. Blackberry users need to download different apps that are specifically developed for that platform. Nokia faces the same issue. While some mobile companies such as Apple are quite happy with this business model, others aren’t.

URL Shortening / Duplicate Content / Mobile Web is a blog post from Barry Adams.

For State of Search I aimed my verbal barbs at some of the search engine industry’s greatest myths and misconceptions. There is so much uncertainty, fable, and disinformation about proper SEO out there, it’s time to tackle these issues and ensure we’re all working from established best practices:

State of Search: SEO Back to Basics

I caught a tweet last week of a fellow in Northern Ireland who, in all seriousness, described himself as a ‘seasoned SEO guy’. In this tweet he advocated the use of PageRank Sculpting. Naturally I felt inclined to put the matter straight and educate the poor chap on his dependence on outdated info. Unfortunately this is wasn’t the only case of ill-informed SEOs using outdated practices that I’ve come across recently.

My latest column for the Belfast Telegraph was inspired by a thought-provoking piece in Wired magazine. The Internet is changing and mobile apps are slowly replacing websites as the preferred method of online interaction. This could mean the salvation of professional journalism:

Belfast Telegraph: Can Mobile Apps Save Professional Journalism?

By selling news apps with advanced features a newspaper can distinguish itself from news websites, be it their own site or that of their rivals. Especially for regional newspapers such as the Belfast Telegraph tapping in to the geo-location functionality inherent in smartphones and tablet PCs can open up a whole new way for readers to interact with the news, and can become a cornerstone of a digital revenue model.

SEO Back to Basics / Mobile Apps and Journalism is a blog post from Barry Adams.

Pretty much everyone has a mobile phone these days. Mobile phones have grown into much more than just a way for people to call each other. Over the years mobile phones have become personal devices capable of delivering a wide range of interactive services, from music and movies to route navigation and surfing the web.

That’s why it’s a good idea to keep an eye on mobile developments and to prepare your website for mobile viewing. As more and more people buy web-enabled phones like the iPhone and G1, it’s more likely your website will be viewed on a visitor’s mobile device. Your standard website probably won’t function well on a mobile phone, so you need to make a special, mobile-ready version of your site.

Google, MSN and Yahoo all have mobile versions of their sites, as do Amazon and Ebay. More and more companies are developing mobile versions of their websites, as they realize that’s where the future of web browsing is heading.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind when developing a mobile version of your website:

• Mobile screens are much smaller. The average mobile resolution is 340×200 pixels (compared to 1024×768 and up for PC screens). This severely limits the amount of space you get to work with.
• Mobile data connections are slow and relatively expensive. Every byte of data sent to a mobile device can cost a mobile user money and makes your site slower to load.
• Keyboard functionality is limited on most mobile devices. While smartphones with full keyboards are becoming more common, most mobile phones don’t have a full keyboard and typing out words is often a somewhat laborious process.

This means your mobile website has to conform to totally different parameters than your regular, PC-viewable website:

1. Streamline your content to get to the point as quickly as possible. Eliminate marketing fluff from your copy and focus on the core issues. This keeps your content short and makes it easier to absorb through a mobile device.
2. Minimize the use of graphics as much as you can. No graphics at all is optimal, though you may want to put a small corporate logo on your mobile site. Every image file means more data to be downloaded to the mobile device, which slows down the use of your mobile site and takes up valuable screen space.
3. List your links below your content. Don’t put your links in fancy navigation trees, as mobile users probably won’t be able to navigate them adequately. Instead put relevant links to other pages on your mobile site below your content in an ordered list.
4. Optimize the user experience to eliminate as much user input as possible. Don’t make mobile users fill in long forms (which should be avoided anyway). Don’t make them click on a link six times to get to the meat of your content. Mobile users are limited on time and effort, so you want to make using your site as easy and accessible as you can.

There are several ways of implementing a mobile site. You can ask your website developer to create a separate mobile version that only users of mobile devices will see. If you use WordPress, you can install a plugin like MobilePress to make your blog mobile friendly. The W3 Consortium has a mobile web initiative that sets standards for mobile websites. And with a Google search you can easily find mobile website templates and services that make it very easy to create a solid mobile version of your website.

Mobile is the future, and by making your website mobile ready now, you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Is Your Website Mobile-Ready? is a blog post from Barry Adams.