Maki & Brian DeLaet EduCyber founders

Is Search a Snap?

For many years we have been the biggest of Google fans as close competitors were not able to compete with the innovative technologies Google used. Now Snap.com is putting on the pressure with a whole new look. And it's easy.

Snap lets you see not only the results but the actual pages that it finds right from the results screen. This saves you from having to click on the link only to find out that particular result is not relevant. This is about saving time and having an easy to navigate interface. I could spend a couple of paragraphs trying to describe how cool and easy it is but it's faster to just go try it yourself. Go on. Try it.

Billing themselves as “The Other Way to Search” they really have implemented something different. When you start typing in your search phrase, don't be surprised when Snap starts offering you suggestions (through a drop down box). If you've every used Google's suggest a term function, it's not too different but adds the twist of giving you the opportunity to search for news related to that phrase right from the drop down box.

With the dual pane view to show you both the results and the actual page of the highlighted result, you get easy navigation using either your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can also determine the size of the preview window (small, medium or large just like your favorite fast food restaurant). One click of the mouse and you can open the results site in either the same window or a new window.

Type in a location and you can also pull up a map of that location. Yes, the other search engines provide the same kind of functionality but the beauty of Snap is that you can see it right in the results window instead of going to a different page or window.

We haven't yet had time to examine the quality of the links or results you get (does your search get you the information you want quickly?) but the first impression is certainly a friendly one.

Web Page Titles

Do you judge a book by its cover? What about its title? A good title can certainly help you get a feel for the content. In the same way, having good titles for your web pages is very beneficial for helping visitors get to the right content.

One of the biggest reasons to have good, meaningful titles, is it helps the search engines determine what your site is all about. If the titles describe the content of the page, it helps reinforce the key word / key phrase idea that is absolutely crucial to getting ranked well in the search engines.

One of the worst titles you could possibly have for a page on your site is “Welcome to <your business name here>”. A couple of reasons why this is bad. 1) it tells the search engines nothing about what content will be found on the page. 2) if the page title shows up in the search results it provides no context for the searcher to determine if your page has the right information. 3) OK, more than a couple of reasons – Should a visitor actually bookmark your page, their bookmarks or favorites are likely to read “Welcome to” and then run out of room. The likelihood of that bookmark ever enticing them to return to your site is very low.

So what kinds of titles are good? If you own a hair salon and have three pages on your site, the main page, a contact page and a list of services, you might determine that these titles both accurately represent your business and contain the key phrases your customers search for: Main Page –“Hair Styling, Hair Cuts, Hair Care Products”, Contact Page – “Contact Your Hair Stylist or Barber”, and Services Page – “Haircuts, Hair Styling, Hair Coloring: All Your Hair Needs” would be pretty good choices.

Did you notice what was missing? That's right the name of the salon doesn't appear at all in the titles. Why? If you're trying to get more or new customers, they aren't likely to search for your business name but for generic phrases related to hair.

Need more help with the titles for your web site? Call EduCyber at 720-275-4646.

Double your Computer

The new computers have arrived. All the computer manufacturers are now selling the dual core processor computers. Essentially a dual-core processor is like have two processors in one computer. This gives the computer the potential of operating much faster.

Who will notice the speed? Users of office suites like Microsoft Office aren't as likely to notice the difference as power users. If you are into gaming though, you'll notice and appreciate the increase. Graphic designers will really notice the difference as they can easily bounce between programs and have those programs processing images while they work in the next program.

What does all this mean? The cost of newer, single core processors are already dropping and that trend will continue until supplies run out as most new computers will be coming with the new dual core processors.

Another selling point is that the dual core processor uses less energy and as energy of every ilk becomes more expensive, who wouldn't want to do that.

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