The next time you are on a Web site, look for a link titled “sitemap” or even “site map.” When you find it, chances are it is at the bottom of the Web site page buried deep in the footer of the page. If you find it prominently at the top of the page, congratulations! You have visited a Web site that wants you to find the information you are looking for.

Sitemaps (I prefer to spell them as 1-word) were originally added to Web sites to benefit not the Web visitor but search engines. On a sitemap page is a link to every page of the Web site. Ideally, when a search engine crawls the sitemap page, it will take in every page of the Web site into its search index. These pages are typically a lot of static links, with descriptive titles to help define the keywords for each link. Sitemap pages have been effective, especially with Google and now Bing allowing you to register a Web site and submit its sitemap page link.

People-Friendly

It didn’t take long for people to realize the sitemap page was a quick way to find the information they were looking for, especially if the Web site does not have a search function. The pages tend to be clear of excessive branding and gives you a quick view to determine if the information you are looking for is on the Web site or not. That is if you were able to find the sitemap page link. Their placement at the footer of the Web site’s pages was for it didn’t need to be that prominently presented for a search engine to find it.

To XML And Beyond

More recently the sitemap page has been accompanied by an XML file which contains all of the links on the sitemap page. This way, a search engine doesn’t have to do too much work to get to the reason it goes to the sitemap – to get the links to all pages of a Web site and nothing else. Many modern content management systems will generate an XML file, or there are 3rd-party services which will create one from either a static sitemap page or by crawling the Web site itself.

If your Web site has a sitemap link, promote it! Place it in your main navigation for all to see. Track the hits to the page to see how effective it is. If you don’t have an XML file to accompany it, create one and register the XML file with the search engines. If you don’t have either, there’s no time like the present to start making your Web site friendlier to man and machine.

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Technology • (3) Comments • Permalink

One of the great features of blogging is comments. Getting feedback from people who read what you write, where not always on your side, is important to having a conversation. Not all blogs allow comments, though, for whatever reason. One reason often mentioned is content spamming, where people who don’t care what you write and are only interested in getting links on your site is their reason for leaving a comment. Where spam is a reality of life, it is unfortunate if it stifles a dialog on your blog. But do methods to prevent spam also stifle conversations?

A medium for some blog owners is to require someone to log into their blog to post a comment. By doing so, the commenter has identified themselves which “legitimizes” the comments they post. The login account a commenter creates may be specifically to that particular site or to a particular blog platform, such as WordPress. There are also many third-party authentication and blog comment services, such as OpenID and Disqus, which some blogs use. And in some cases, you can even use your Twitter or Facebook login to identify yourself prior to posting a comment.

Any type of login or authentication, in general, will prevent people from interacting with you. This doesn’t apply to blogs only, but any other Web application including eCommerce. If you take a look at adding a login to a blog from the user’s perspective, you could be in essence blocking people from commenting on your blog. The need to create yet another login account to add to the burgeoning list they already have will prevent some people from doing so to leave a comment, especially if they are reading your blog for the first time. Even using the third-party services I mentioned previously, some users don’t understand how those work, and by creating an account with them is adding to that burgeoning list even more.

By requiring people to log in, you are blocking anonymous comments. Some people may wish to contribute something to the conversation on your blog, but they may not want to identify themselves. Whether they simply choose not to identify themselves or are concerned with their name being attached to what they are saying, anonymous comments can be legitimate comments. Think in real-life how you may have a chat with someone in passing, whether at a bar or on a subway car? You may never know who they are, but what they had to say was a contribution.

I present this opinion not only to initiate a conversation, but also to easily pass along my opinions on requiring blog login the next time I run into one. Comments are open, no login required.

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Blogging • Technology • (3) Comments • Permalink

There is no shortage of business books available to read. All of them offer some unique perspective on one or many aspects of business. As is shown from an entire category here at The Hot Iron on book takeaways, I enjoying reading a variety of business books and manage to take something away from them. With some books, something resonates with me strongly, even if it is a reaffirmation of something I already know.

This was the case for me with The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It is considered a “classis” small business book as it talks about the dilemma most entrepreneurs (what the “e” stands for) get into, where what they thought was creating a business was more creating a job. Gerber, in a narrative style, takes the reader to the point where they are, and guides them out of it and back to leading a business.

In this description I have oversimplified the details of the book, as there are many to go through, plus I did not want to give too much away as I am hoping anyone who owns their own business reads the book! There is certainly a lot in each step of Gerber’s process, especially as he has developed a consulting firm around helping people do so. I will share with you my takeaways from this book.

My greatest take away from The E-Myth Revisited is to write is down, and write down everything. I am not just referring to to-do lists, rather I am talking about writing everything from a business plan to operation plans to logins and passwords. Many people will confirm with me that if it isn’t written down, it will never happen. This rings true especially for business planning. Why many people don’t write things down is because they believe they do not have to, that it is in their heads and that is good enough. However you will get to a point that you wished you wrote it down, so you have something to look to at all times as a barometer at how successful you are.

An equally important takeaway is to determine what you want out of your business. For most entrepreneurs, including myself, going on your own meant you wanted to do things the way you felt they should be and not how you did them working for someone else. Where this is true, one thing you probably didn’t want to do was work 20 hours a day, every day or balance your business’ books on a regular basis! In E-Myth Gerber calls this your Primary Aim, and defining it even several years down the road is important for you to do. I know, I did it myself.

Note both of these takeaways are not necessarily earth-shattering revelations you could only get from the book. Perhaps it was the style of the book, or when I read it personally, that made these points resonate with me.

The E-Myth Revisited was recommended to me by many people. I purchased my own copy and was personally compelled to write this post. My only regret with reading it is that I wished I read it very early on in the starting of my business. After reading it, myself and a colleague decided to go through defining our Primary Aims and we shared out discoveries. It was a soul-searching experience, not to mention important activity. Needless to say I recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of starting a business or even someone who is already in business who has not read it yet. I consider The E-Myth Revisited a must-read business book, with the likes of Barry Moltz’s You Need To Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business. Note the links to books in this post are affiliate links to Amazon.com.

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Book Take-Aways • Business • (2) Comments • Permalink

The FTC has released new guidelines related to endorsements and testimonials in advertising. What is new and alarming to some in these guidelines is the inclusion of blogging and bloggers. In summary, if a blogger gets something for free or is asked to write about something and does so, they must disclose this in their blog post or face monetary fines.

I say in summary as I have read the 81-page guidelines published by the FTC and I am still digesting it. I am not a lawyer, but fortunately the language in this government edict is relatively straightforward. I am working on a full post and opinion on this, which I hope to complete for next week.

In the meantime, people are obviously talking about this, some citing examples of situations which will require them to state disclaimers about their relationship with whom they are writing about. One such example is from billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who wrote in his blog about having his breakfast comped at IHOP. Where his writing style is tongue-in-cheek, according to the new FTC guidelines he would have to mention he received something for free when he talks about them.

The cost of breakfast at IHOP is under $10 - what about for something of more value, say a trip across the globe to Finland? That happened to me and about 3 dozen others when we attended Nokia OpenLab last September. As part of the trip I got a free round-trip coach ticket, 3 nights in a boutique hotel in Helsinki, meals, entertainment and a loaner Nokia E71 device. I would guestimate the value of all of that was over US$1,000. Does this mean every time I mention anything about Nokia – the company and or its products – I have to disclose this trip, as it could be considered influential to anything I say positive about them? Unfortunately there is nothing I found in the FTC guidelines to specifically address this.

For the bloggers out there, have you looked into these guidelines? What is your take on how it will impact how and what you write? Have you consulted an attorney about this? Will this change the face of blogging forever?

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Business • (2) Comments • Permalink

Today, October 15 is Blog Action Day. According to their Web site, “Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.” I have written posts in the past on the topic of the environment and poverty. This year the topic is climate change, and when I sat back to think about this, all that swirled through my head was a lot of questions.

As I write this, it is about 20 degrees cooler than it normally is at this time of the year in Chicago. But when the meteorologists get into the details, there have been extremes in temperatures over the years. In the meantime, glaciers are melting. Not all of them, as I hear the one on Iceland is actually getting bigger. There are all kinds of opinion both ways on climate change, including from scientists. Though my degree is in business and not in science, but as I consider myself a relatively aware individual, I don’t know how to take such conflicting reports.

Recently on a trip through Wisconsin I saw more conflicting signs what could be impacting climate change. First there were the smokestacks billowing from mills and factories. As much of a scientist I am not, I know in general that is not good. Then there’s a wind turbine farm I went by where none of the turbines were spinning. I don’t know why that was the case, but I have seen them in motion before. I have heard cases where the power grids can’t handle the power being generated by the turbines. Oops. Someone didn’t do their homework.

Take carbon offsets, or as they’re being referred today in the US as cap and trade. This concept doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If you want to keep producing the same amount of emissions, you can buy the right to do so from people who don’t produce the emissions. So not only do you have to pay to change how you do business (or generate power) now you have to pay extra in the interim. To me this is like paying someone else to exercise or lose weight for me as I try to do it myself! Why not just spend the money on a health club and healthier food? The incentive, in my opinion, is lost to improve the environment if carbon offsets can be purchased.

So here I am, watching the cursor blinking on my screen wondering what to write next. Don’t get me wrong, I do my damnest to conserve and protect the environment – a search on the word “environment” on The Hot Iron will give you many examples. And in most of these cases, there were financial incentives from my conservation efforts. Everything from buying a duplexing laser printer for the little I have to print to buying Adobe Acrobat to go as paperless as I can, these are but a few of the steps I take in the normal course of my personal and business life.

As the goal is to “trigger a global discussion” I believe I have contributed something to this – questions. And I’m sure I am not alone! It has always seemed like environmental causes have been out in the fringe of normal, everyday activities. Maybe they need to go mainstream as well, and people will think about them more everyday? Then we’d have to come with something else to write about on the next Blog Action Day.

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Diversions • (4) Comments • Permalink