YPBCo Holiday Hours

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

YPBCo office will be closed from December 22, 2008 - January 2, 2009.
IF you need something during this time, please leave a voicemail at 773-665-2552 or email jameyb@yourplanb.com (she is monitoring her email).

JameyB, DavidB, Cat and Atalee all wish you the best for the holidays!
And look forward to working with you in 2009.

Thanks for a GREAT 2008 :)

Ever heard of a Micci Bag?

REFRESH of amechegroup.com

Kathy Ameche is the master of her domain(s):
amechegroup.com
kathleenameche.com
womanroadwarrior.com
miccimicci.com

And she is the trusted voice of women travelers. We have been working together since 2004 and decided with her new line of Micci Bags she needed to refresh her websites. Each one got an update or upgrade from animations, blogs and videos to a paypal shopping cart. Visit AmecheGroup.com to get the feel of how you too can be the master of your many domains - give us a call today to get your site refreshed for 2009!

NEW life to Mother and Daughter business - FieldofGreens.us

FIELDOFGREENS.US relaunch

LIGHTEN UP! Detoxification and Rejuvenation Program from the team at FieldofGreens.us
Detoxification is a holistic, natural, gentle process designed to cleanse, rebuild, strengthen, maintain, and balance the body. Whether you struggle with serious health problems or are just not feeling your best, detoxification will make a tremendous difference in your overall well-being. Previous students report changes such as weight loss, less dependence upon medications, lower blood pressure levels, lower cholesterol levels, improved sleep, improved digestive function, freedom from depression, elevated moods, more clarity, alleviation of minor & major body aches & pains, and an abundance of energy.

Your Plan B and FoG worked together to rejuvenate a retired website. By setting up the site on a new, better priced web server, setting up some blogging options and creating a handy, easy to use update guide this Mother-Daughter duo can update their site from anywhere. Giving them the flexibility they need to offer great classes and delicious recipes anytime and anywhere!

NEW website for Ronald Knox Montessori School in Wilmette, IL

RONALDKNOX.ORG LAUNCH

For children from 15 months through six years of age, the answers can be found at the Ronald Knox Montessori School (RKMS), in Wilmette, Illinois. Located just 19 miles north of downtown Chicago and nestled within 23 acres of open property in a quiet residential neighborhood, RKMS provides a nurturing, stimulating environment where curious children flourish.

RKMS approached Your Plan B Company to work as a team with their designer to create a new website for the school to better represent the new building, the playfulness of the learning environment and a secure area for parents to log in and receive classroom information. The result is this colorful (both in look and sound) website that teaches and informs with just the right mix of fun!

NEW website for Greens by White in Lake Forest, IL

GreensbyWhite.com LAUNCH

Respected in the interiorscape industry since 1973, Greens By White provides creative tropical plant rental, imaginative holiday and special events displays and floral designs to clients in the Metropolitan Chicago area. Known for their integrity and attention to detail, they are committed to listening to our clients' needs, designing original installations of plants and flowers, creating a more healthy work environment and establishing a long-term relationship with our customers.

Your Plan B Company worked closely with the Greens by White team to remodel their existing site adding Flash demos, photo gallery and lots of beautiful photos to make them stand out from their competition and on searches.

If your office needs plants, seasonal displays or plant rental - give them a call and let them know we sent you!

We are back from our October adventure!

A GIANT THANK YOU TO CAT AND ATALEE for doing a fabulous job holding down the fort while DavidB and I headed across the pond for some R+R. We have recovered from our jet-lag and editted down the 4K photos we took and popped them up on Flickr to share:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbchicago/sets/


Flickr can be a fun asset to your website or just between you and friends. It's quick and easy to set up. And you can have it automatically update photos on your website. Give us a call if you have any questions about this and any other ways to freshen up your site's content - 773-665-2552

Internet Glossary (part 4 of 4)

PNG: This is another graphic related 3 letter acronym. PNG is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. It is pronounced "ping" or spelled out as P-N-G. PNG images can either use palette-indexed color or be made up of one or more channels (numerical values directly representing quantities about the pixels).

SITEMAP: This is sometimes confused with a flowchart of a website. A sitemap is a representation of the architecture of a web site. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site. Current SEO thinking is that all websites should have a sitemap - let us know if you need one added to your website!

SWF: Not to be confused with single white female - SWF is a type of file. It is currently the dominant format for displaying animated vector graphics on the web (think Flash files). Based on an independent study conducted by Millward Brown, over 99% of web users now have an SWF plugin installed, with around 90% having the latest version of the Flash Player. It is pronounced "swiff".

If this list of terms just isn't enough, check out some of our favorite web dev spots:
alistapart.com
csszengarden.com
google.com
htmlplayground.com
webworkerdaily.com

Internet Glossary (part 3 of 4)

JPG: In computing, JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg; IPA: /?d?e?p??/) is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10 to 1 compression with little perceivable loss in image quality. We use JPGs for photos (think images with shading and gradients).

META TAG: Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes. These elements are part of your SEO and online marketing arsenal.

PLATFORM: In computing, a platform describes some sort of hardware architecture or software framework (including application frameworks), that allows software to run. Typical platforms include a computer's architecture, operating system, programming languages and related runtime libraries or graphical user interface. The big two that we test on are Mac and Win!

Last set of terms coming next week - let us know if there are any others you have questions about!

Internet Glossary (part 2 of 4)

FLOWCHART: A flowchart is a schematic representation of an algorithm or a process.
We use flow charts to help organize your website content. And when the site is live, use the flow chart as a guide for maintenance. If you are remodeling your site, make sure you have a flowchart as part of your RFP. It can save time!

GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. We use .gif for resizable vector and line art online. There is a "you say gif, I say jif" debate - we fall into the gif category :)

HTML: An initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document — by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on — and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of tags, surrounded by angle brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document, and can include embedded scripting language code (such as JavaScript) which can affect the behavior of Web browsers and other HTML processors. By convention, HTML format data files use a file extension .html or .htm.

Stay tuned for more terms next week!

Internet Glossary (part 1 of 4)

From time to time we stop and listen to ourselves talk about creating websites in the office and just laugh! CSS, broswers, platforms, png, jpg, gif, flash, swf, sitemaps etc. Our language can sound pretty crazy to a non-web person. So we thought it would be nice to share what some of these things are and help you understand our language more. This in turn will help you manage your online presence with more confidence and be able to tell the difference between buzzwords and web design terms! (a GIANT thank you to Wikipedia for help making the definitions even easier)

BROWSER: This is your window to the internet. These applications let you see the images, text and layout of web pages. Popular browsers include: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera. We test your website on the popular versions of browsers to make sure your site looks good from the users end.

CSS (Casecading Style Sheets): Used to define colors, fonts, layout, and other aspects of website pages. CSS improves content accessibility, provides more flexibility and control in the presentation characteristics, and reduce complexity and repetition. We highly recommend if your site is not using CSS to convert over. Many new browsers rely on this code to show your website in the best possible way to your visitors.

FLASH: Flash technology (sometimes called Adobe Flash) is a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications. Flash can be very entertaining, but keep in mind Search Engines are as thrilled with all Flash websites. Ask us how to keep things moving AND keep you listed.

More terms coming next week! Stay tuned!

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2008

TLAPD
Ahoy! Be ye a pirate? Then welcome aboard...
If ye be not - then walk the plank!


View more photos!

Avast mateys! Let your inner pirate loose and celebrate with TLAPD!
Answer one phone call like a pirate!
Give one command in pirate speak
or just use "walk the plank" instead of "whatever".
Arrrghh!

Q: What do you call a happy pirate?
A: a jolly roger!

Comic Con San Diego 2008

We are pleased to announce that we will be roaming the convention floor with press passes to document the adventure that is Comic Con! You can view our photos online through Flickr. (A complete post-event wrap up will also go live once we have set foot back in Chicago.)

What is Comic Con?
Originally showcasing comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television, and related popular arts, the convention has expanded over the years to include a larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, anime, manga, animation, toys, collectible card games, video games and webcomics. The convention is the largest of its kind in the world, filling to capacity the San Diego Convention Center with over 125,000 attendees in 2007. And it is completely sold out this year!

For more details visit: http://comic-con.org

Three online videos for Chicago History Museum exhibit

Catholic Chicago
March 8, 2008 through January 4, 2009

The first in a series of exhibitions to explore the contributions of the city's religious communities, this exhibition illustrates how the experience of being Catholic in Chicago has transformed over time. Examined through a historical context, several themes-the parish, education, worship, social action, and community celebrations-will introduce and reveal the lives of Catholics, past and present.

Your Plan B Company enjoys a long working relationship with the creative folks at the museum since 1997. This exhibit project was not only fun (if only we could share all of the edits with you) but also a learning experience too! Great job everyone! We highly recommend visiting the museum to see this exhibit in person.

Happy Birthday Cat!

And many more!

May there be lots and lots of cupcakes today :)

It is a pleasure working with you
and a real treat having you as a friend!

Enjoy your day!

Summer Hours (Memorial Day - Labor Day)

Just a reminder that during the summer our hours change to
Monday - Thursday 10am-6:30pm CT

We use the Fridays off as a way to pursue our quest for learning and our need to create :)

JameyB is working on a childrens book about a spider with red socks.
DavidB is working on taking his photography to the next level (be prepared to see more and more photos on our Flickr site)
Cat is working on new art pieces for upcoming shows (more details soon!) and
Atalee is rehearsing for an upcoming performance with her dance company Breakbone DanceCo.

(special note: If you find yourself in a website emergency please email jameyb@yourplanb.com with the subject line URGENT so we can assist you -- as you know we are addicted to our blackberries and will see the email faster than hear a voicemail - thanks!)

Enjoy your summer!

P.S. Happy Anniversary to Cat + John!!

New York Times and Spatulatta.com

On Wednesday, May 14, the New York Times' Food Section featured an article about kids in the kitchen. Kids cooking for their families is a phenomenon that is quickly catching on. Belle and Liv from Spatulatta.com are very proud to be featured in this article!

Check out the article online.

Happy Birthday Dave!

Join us in celebrating the Dave in our life by visiting officialdaveday.com. DavidB will be your host through the coming years of working on getting this "ODD" national holiday officially recognized.

CONGRATS! CHM and YPBCo team win with GreatChicagoStories.com

GreatChicagoStories.com : This two-year project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is the result of a collaborative effort between the Chicago History Museum, Chicago school teachers, a national advisory board, and professional writers. Area educators selected the topics, wrote unit plans, and tested the narratives and resources in their classrooms.

Great Chicago Stories has been honored with three prestigious awards: the 2008 Gold MUSE Award for Teaching and Outreach from the American Association of Museums Media & Technology Committee, the 2008 Award for Excellence in Published Resources, Student and Teacher Category, from the American Association of Museums Committee on Education, and the 2008 Best of the Web, in the Educational category, from Museums and the Web (the annual conference sponsored by Archives and Museum Informatics).

We enjoyed working with the CHM team (Heidi, Barb, Margaret + Enrique) on this super project! Thank you to CHM, AAM, the Museums and the Web!

DNS or Domain Name System

Domain Names are an important tool in your online marketing arsenal. They make your website easy to remember and offer the repetition that assists with sales. Your Plan B Company offers domain name registration along with their Web Design Services.

Your domain name (yourname.com) is the core of your Internet identity, your online brand. Your customers will remember this name and use it to find your website, your products or your services. No two parties can ever hold the same domain name (yourname.com) simultaneously.

Technically, a domain name (yourname.com) is an addressing construct used for identifying and locating computers on the Internet. While computers use Internet Protocol (IP) numbers to locate each other on the Internet, people find them hard to remember. Therefore, domain names (yourname.com) were developed to permit the use of easily remembered words and phrases to identify Internet addresses.

For example, the domain name (yourname.com) yourplanb.com represents one of Your Plan B Company's sites. When you type yourplanb.com into a web browser or send e-mail to someone at yourplanb.com, the Domain Name System (DNS) translates yourplanb.com into the IP numbers used by the Internet and connects you to one of our sites.

You can have multiple domain names for your website.
For example: www.awaytravelgear.com and theamiciway.com both direct users to one website about elegant solutions for women traveling in today's world (A-Way Travel Gear).

If you are interested in registering or parking a NEW domain name, please contact jameyb@yourplanb.com

Atalee (our fearless office manager) is performing in Russia!

Atalee and her dance company, BreakBone.com head to Russia this week.
She is excited, a bit nervous and feeling very fortunate to be able to have this experience! The flight from Chicago to Moscow is 13 hours, then they take an overnight train ride for 6.5 hours to Kostroma.

The dance festival that Atalee is performing in is called DiVersia and is hosted by Dialogue Dance Company. http://di_versia.livejournal.com

Atalee will be blogging about her experience while she is there. Check it out at http://breakbone.blogspot.com

We are very proud of Atalee and her BreakBone crew!
Safe travels! And take lots of photos!

Choosing your keywords PART FIVE

OK so you have used http://www.wordtracker.com, completed our Meta Tag Worksheet and we have implemented your new keywords into the site... now it is time to track the results!

We suggest Google Analytics!
Google Analytics can help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. Just send us an email or call JameyB to discuss adding this to your site. After a month or two of watching your visitor statistics we will all have a good idea of new keywords, possible adwords and which pages are getting the most attention - helping you to make the most our of your online marketing budget and time!

Take the Google Analytics tour to learn more: http://64.233.179.110/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html
Or schedule an appointment with JameyB to discuss how to better your online marketing plan.

Catherine received a 2008 Community Arts Assistance Program Grant (CAAP) this week!

CONGRATULATIONS TO CAT!
Catherine received a 2008 Community Arts Assistance Program Grant (CAAP) this week!

We are extremely proud of Catherine, not only for her award winning web design here in our office, but also for her non-web artistic endeavors. Check out her artist portfolio at www.catherinelarson.com

She recently showed her "Iron Upright" at the AAOS 75th Anniversary exhibit in San Francisco in March.

And if you missed it, you can see it at the eMotion Pictures: An Exhibition of Orthopaedics in Art, and Moving Stories: The Exhibit here in Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center, G.A.R. Rotunda:
2nd Floor, 78 East Washington Street
Chicago, Illinois
(Enter at 77 East Randolph Street)

The exhibit runs April 17, 2008 - July 20, 2008

Congratulations Cat!
We can't wait to see what you create with this new opportunity!

For more information on the CAAP Grant, visit www.cityofchicago.org/CulturalAffairs

Choosing your keywords PART FOUR

Resuming our SEO conversation...

6. TEST KEYWORDS: Ideally, before you even start a new Internet Web site (or even after), you should see how many other pages match the keywords people would likely search on to find you. The fewer matches found for your search, the easier it will be to get your name up near the top. Also important are the quality of the matches that appear. Your keywords may only bring up a lot of garbage that your potential audience would have no interest in anyway. Therefore, with the proper strategy, you could be the only site of your type that appears near the top of that search. There may be phrases that people are likely to search for which are much easier to achieve good rankings on than more common words and phrases. This strategy can gain you unexpected traffic.

7. PHRASES: As mentioned, many people will likely use multiple-word phrases to find you--particularly when single words do not provide adequate scope for the search. The syntax for this varies by engine, but phrases are generally searched for surrounded by quotes. Therefore, make a list of 2-3 word phrases people are likely to search for. When placing keywords on your page, make sure you always include them in a phrase that the visitor might use.

Keep the important words chained together in sentences on the page. If the user searches on "KEYWORD1" AND "KEYWORD2" then you only have to have the words in the same proximity on the page. If, however, they search on "KEYWORD1 KEYWORD2" along with the surrounding quotes, then the words MUST be together on your page, preferably multiple times to find a match. Therefore, it's a good idea to create a Mission to monitor your position for both "baseball cards" and just baseball cards as an example.

Sidenote: Several Web site log programs will now tell you which keyword/phrase a user typed in a search engine to find you. This is often helpful in understanding which positions are pulling the best.

8. CASE-SENSITIVITY: If the user types the word Baseball then most engines will search for "Baseball" with an uppercase "B" ONLY. If your page has only "baseball" in it, you'll not be found! On the other hand, if they search for "baseball" and your page has "Baseball" on it, most engines default to finding words of any case when the keyword used was in all lower case. Therefore, it pays to make sure you have at least some of the keywords in uppercase or starting with an uppercase letter if the user might search that way. The easiest place to do this is in the title of the page, in meta tags, and at the beginning of sentences.

9. BAD SPELLING CAN BE GOOD: Search engines don't have spell checkers. Also, product names can have slight variations. For example, MicroLogic has a product called Info Select. However, people could easily search on MicroLogic, Micro Logic, Infoselect, or Info Select. Look for obvious mistakes people are likely to make and then incorporate some of them into one of your pages in some way to pick up traffic you'd otherwise miss.

COOL TECH NEWS: Free Web version of Photoshop launches

So you know how much DavidB loves Photoshop? Well here is a cool tech news headline for everyone who ever wanted to use Photoshop but doesn't have the software on their computer!

The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

Try the BETA version today!

(News from AMANDA FEHD, Associated Press Writer, read the entire article here)

Spatulatta.com Nominated for James Beard Award (Webcast)

CONGRATS TO SPATULATTA.COM!

This is their 3rd nomination!
2006 Winner
2007 Nominee
and now cross your fingers for a win in 2008!



Spatulatta.com
Hosts: Olivia Gerasole and Isabella Gerasole
Producers: Gaylon Emerzian and Heidi Umbhau
Web Design: YourPlanB.com

Visit:
Spatulatta.com
James Beard Foundation

NEW PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT: TrillFilm.com v2.0

Trillium Productions goal is to make the most beautiful and evocative media in the business.
They have more than twenty years of experience in the design and production of films and videotapes. As proof that they deliver as promised, over 80% of their work is repeat business.

Your Plan B Company has been working with Trillium for a couple of years now and when their wishlist included a browser-based admin solution for the new version of the TrillFilm.com website - we granted it. Using the great open source option of Joomla, we were able to redesign and offer an easy way for them to keep their site (and their clients) updated. Joomla allows embeded videos which in turn allows this site to be a great record of Trillium Production's work and an ongoing portfolio for potential clients to view.

Choosing your keywords PART THREE

There are several things to consider when choosing keywords and phrases. The most important is to put yourself in the shoes of the type of visitor you want to attract. Make a list of what kind of keywords or phrases they are likely to search on. This requires you to separate yourself from your product, service or web site and think like the average Joe who might want to find you, but knows nothing about your site.

It's a good idea to ask friends or co-workers what they might type in to find your site, or even have them go to a search engine and tell them to try and find information on the topic your site happens to cover. Watch what words and phrases they use.

Important things you want to remember when picking keywords to target:

1. CONCEPTS: Include concept keywords such as "accounting software" if that's what you sell, but also try and be specific enough so that it's not too broad.

2. BRANDS: Include more specific brand names such as Quicken. If you offer services, then try to use service brand names when possible. Legally, you should put the ® reserved symbol or ™ trademark symbol after the names when mentioning them on the page.

3. COMPANY NAMES: If you offer products from a well-known company, include that company's name in your keywords.

4. YOUR NAME: Unless you are a well known company/organization such as Microsoft or Hewlett Packard, it's generally less important to emphasize your name as a keyword. You should, however, setup an "About My Company/Organization" page that does repeat your name many times so that someone searching for you will find that page.

5. COMMON WORDS: There are now so many pages and words indexed on the Web, that a search on many common words such as "software" or "Internet" are going to be completely ignored for that search by the engine! Therefore, most people have to search on two or three word phrases to find what they're looking for. Trying to be listed well on every phrase/keyword combination they might search for is next to impossible.

More coming in Part FOUR....

NEW PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT: CHM Catholic Chicago

ChicagoHistoryMuseum.org
Catholic Chicago
March 8, 2008 through January 4, 2009 in the Skyline Gallery

The first in a series of exhibitions to explore the contributions of the city's religious communities, this exhibition illustrates how the experience of being Catholic in Chicago has transformed over time. Examined through a historical context, several themes-the parish, education, worship, social action, and community celebrations-will introduce and reveal the lives of Catholics, past and present.

Your Plan B Company was asked to develop the online photo essays (there will be 3 total) to accompany the in-house exhibit. Each essay includes photos, video, audio and subtitles. The goal is to engross the museum's online visitors and drive them to physically visit the exhibition through the online multimedia component to the current website. And from the results of the attendance - we are helping to meet this goal AND provide an entertaining and informative introduction online to the exhibit.

Choosing your keywords PART TWO

Did you try: http://www.wordtracker.com

If you did, I bet you have a new list of keyword phrases you could target on all of the search engines. The service illustrates what we've told customers for years: not everyone is competing for the exact same keywords! There are literally 1000's of opportunities available for any business. Find YOUR niche, make sure it's one that people are looking for, then pursue it!

Bonus Tip: Some of the keywords are going to be much more competitive than others. For example, ranking well on the single word "travel" will be much more difficult than ranking in the top 10 for "Caribbean cruises." Remember that single keywords usually return the least targeted leads.

We know that the majority of web site owners are targeting the WRONG keywords. How did we reach this conclusion? Easy. A recent study showed that only 34% of web site owners knew enough to include a simple keyword meta tag on their web page! Therefore, just by adding a keyword meta tag AND properly optimizing the rest of the page for your keywords, you'll be doing far more than the 66% of web site owners have ever done! If you take the time to target the RIGHT keywords, we're guessing you'll be ahead of 99% of the world and you'll be generating more traffic with less effort. Work smarter, not harder is what we always say!

Choosing your keywords PART ONE

Keywords and Meta Tags is the most common question we receive. In an effort to answer your questions, we offer a five part blog about this popular topic.

Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain. Choose the right keywords, and you'll see your traffic skyrocket. Therefore, think long and hard on what keywords people are likely to use to find you.

The question to ask yourself is how do you really know if you're optimizing your pages for keywords that web surfers are looking for? There are several good techniques you can apply to determine what people might be searching for:

- Put yourself in their shoes and brainstorm.
- See what keywords your competitors are targeting to spur new ideas.
- Organize and focus your keywords into short phrases, etc.

However, one of the best ways is to stop guessing and actually SEE what people are searching for. That's why we recommend a service which you can try for free at: http://www.wordtracker.com

Something new from the crew at Your Plan B Company!

There is so much information out there that we would like to share with you to help your web project succeed, that we decided it would be best if we blogged it. So add us now to your RSS feed so you can keep up to date on web news, resources, SEO and marketing trends, new technology, print and color trends and sometimes something just for fun!

shhhhhh! this is a sneak peek at the new yourplanb.com

We are redesigning our website from top to bottom to provide you with an easier, more rewarding surfing experience. You'll find a searchable portfolio of over 180 web projects spanning 14 years, new affililates and some fun twists that will assist your online goals with our all-new look. What hasn't changed are our wide selection of outstanding services, experience and award winning design. Next week will be the "official launch" - thanks for stopping by!