1. Consolidation

Combine 10 or more servers into one. Not only do you save a bundle in hardware costs but you’ll see tremendous gains in performance easing server management.

2. Energy Efficiency

Less hardware means less power consumption. One of the main reasons many top enterprises have been able to cut their power costs so dramatically over the past few years is virtualization.

3. Resource Utilization

“There are a couple of ways to measure server utilization. There are servers that sit idle waiting for useful work, and then there are servers running applications that are no longer needed or used by an organization and are considered orphaned or abandoned. The abandoned application can be moved to a virtual machine, the server decommissioned, and the space, power and cooling capacity recovered to support additional growth.

4. Management

In order to reduce complexity and risk while improving productivity, an organization should manage physical and virtual environments holistically together in the same way. Management is a key component of a converged infrastructure – ensuring that customers can move beyond server virtualization with confidence – and to extend its many benefits across the data center.

Even though virtualization adds another layer of abstraction between hardware and applications/data, resource management is dramatically simplified compared to the physical environment.

5. Provisioning

Virtualization presents two key challenges as it applies to application management — understanding the impact of resource sharing and ensuring that adequate resources are provided to support existing and new application workloads. The key to streamlining application environments is to first determine how the four core resources — CPU, memory, disk and network — support applications in the context of meeting performance, availability and service level objectives. Next, organizations need to understand the relationships and interactions between all the components in the virtual infrastructure and how the applications leverage them. Finally, with these dependencies understood, IT teams need to monitor the performance of each component supporting the application while correlating that data so that it’s consumable by service owners and others in IT management.” – John Newsom, vice president and general management of application management at Quest Software.

What once took hours can now be done in minutes. Not only can new servers be brought online quickly, but they can be broken down, rearranged, reassigned and redeployed to suit the needs of the moment.

6. Resource Allocation/Load Balancing

“Virtual servers that are well-managed provide customers with a “fluidity” of resource pools that enable rapid response to varying workload requirements. This results in a reduction in operating costs and increased productivity, allowing organizations to focus on services that deliver business value and not just keeping the lights on in the data center.” – Jeff Carlat, director of partner and platform software, infrastructure software and blades, HP Enterprise Business.

The ability to shift virtual machines around opens the possibility to redirect data loads according to business needs rather than IT requirements. Loads can be balanced evenly over multiple physical locations, or concentrated on just a few, so idle machines can be powered down.

7. Automation

“Through a seamless automation platform, companies are able to leverage the benefits of virtualization as well as execute faster provisioning of infrastructure or applications. Automation solutions can replace labor-intensive processes with consistent, automated workflows that can save thousands in workflow costs and reduce the risk of error.” – Jeff Carlat, director of partner and platform software, infrastructure software and blades, HP Enterprise Business

Your ability to automate many of the more tedious jobs of IT management is greatly improved because virtual resources now reside in the more ethereal software realm. In fact, tasks like data mapping, mirroring and backup will have to be automated because the virtual environment is so fluid.

8. The Cloud

Once you’ve gone virtual within the data center, it’s only a matter of time before you extend those capabilities to the outside world. Whether you opt for internal, external or hybrid cloud services, none of it is possible without the ability to virtualize physical resources.

9. Disaster Recovery

A virtual environment can be up and running much faster than a physical one. As long as physical infrastructure is intact, provisioning and automation systems can have service restored in a matter of minutes. Not only does this improve recovery point objectives, but it lowers the overall cost of getting back on your feet.

10. Storage, Networking, the Desktop and Beyond…

Once virtualization has been introduced to the server farm, similar principles can be applied to the storage farm, I/O infrastructure and the desktop. The idea of creating many out of one promises to extend efficiency and boost performance across a wide range of systems, resulting in a leaner, meaner data center.

By virtualizing servers, you can address the problems with underutilized and difficult-to-manage hardware, excessive power consumption, and the expensive space required to house servers in datacenters and branch offices.  To learn how Realmind Technology can help you save money, call us 312-725-9430 or email us realmind@realmind.com today!

Source: www.itbusinessedge.com

Do you really need SEO? Let me first address your question with another question: do you want traffic on your website? Do you want highly targeted, highly interested traffic coming to your website? Do you want to experience this traffic day in and day out for a consistently long period of time?  If the answers are yes, then, yes, you undoubtedly need SEO. It is a virtual certainty that somewhere out there in that vast internet world, someone, or many someones, want to read what you have to say or buy what you are selling – you just have to reach them. That’s what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) offers; you are simply reaching your target audience by making your company, your products and services visible for exactly the right people; those that are searching for you but don’t yet know your name.

If you were selling a product strictly through a grocery store, it would make sense that you want your product to be prominent and visible, probably in several locations throughout the store.  As the producer / distributor of the product you need to convince the store manager that the product is deserving and beneficial to the store and its patrons.  So in a sense, you are involved in “product placement optimization.”

Google is actually very much the same kind of thing, just online.  Google doesn’t deal in products, rather in keywords / phrases.  It provides the most beneficial and deserving results based upon the keyword phrase entered and the relevancy of the webpage.  Now consider this:

1. There are 10′s of millions of websites with billions of pages.
2. Only the top 10 web pages are listed on a Search Engine Result Page (SERP) i.e. the 10 most relevant in the eyes of Google for the selected keyword.
3. 68% of all searchers don’t go past the first page.
4. 98% don’t go past the 3^rd page.

Do you really need SEO?  I think the answer couldn’t be more clear.  Without SEO, you really aren’t on the internet because almost no one will ever find you through the search engines.

Being easily found on Google, Yahoo and Bing is obviously important.  But rankings and traffic aren’t everything.  The website still matters a great deal.  So don’t separate SEO and Website Design; they go hand-in-hand.  Your website needs to be structured and programmed in specific SEO-friendly ways.  It also needs to be engaging, interesting and ultimately converting.  The point here is simply not to do one without the other and not to do one “after the other.”  They must be done in unison and by Internet Marketing Professionals that understand the interplay between the disciplines.  Unfortunately, it is not unusual for us at Realmind Technology to have to completely redesign a website because it was programmed in unfriendly ways, both for search engines and humans.

Are you seeking great online visibility?  Contact us for a no-obligation initial consultation.

It is important to ask your web designer questions but it is equally important that they are asking you the right questions.

Frankly, it takes technical skills that are easy to teach to build a web page or even a web site. What separates the best design shops from the rest is how well they can understand your business.

This understanding could spell the difference between a website that brings in new customers and one that does not.

Here are some of the questions that Realmind Technology asks to get an understand of our potential clients:

1. “Can you describe your business in a few sentences?”

By distilling your business into a sentence or two, you are essentially giving your designer your “elevator pitch.” This is great information and can be  used to quickly describe your business on your homepage for instance. After all,  when it comes to writing for the web, brevity is your new best friend, as most  of your users will never read as in-depth as you would like them to. You have to capture their attention right away.

2. “Who are your main competitors?”

By knowing who you are competing against, our team can conduct the  research needed to see how others in your field handle their websites. We can then determine what seems to be working well for some of them, and not as well for others. The intent here is not to copy what others are doing, but  rather to learn from the benefit of their experience, as well as from their  mistakes.

3. “What sets your business apart from your competitors?”

This is your chance to really distinguish your business from the others. If  you have something unique to offer, then your designer should know about it, so  that it can be played up and specifically called out on your site. It does not have to be anything earth-shattering.  In fact, it can be something  incredibly simple, such as offering a complimentary consultation, for  instance.

4. “Can you describe your target customer?”

Knowing exactly who your main audience is affects almost every aspect of the design.  After all, a site that would appeal to teenage boys would not be very visually interesting to women over 60. Other than the visual concerns,  these breakdowns would also make a big difference on search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, as well as social media integration. It is very important to be as specific as possible: gender, age, and annual income are major things to be considered in order to design the most appropriate site for your audience.

5. “What is your deadline for completing the site?”

You have a deadline in mind, right? Well you should! Having a deadline not only keeps your designer on track, but it will keep you focused as well. All too often, website projects start with a bang and fizzle out over a span of months because a timeline was never established. It’s a good sign if your designer asks because in most cases that means he or she respects your time and is interested  in getting the website finished when you need it.

6. “What are some other sites on the Web that you like and why?”

This is where your designer can get a sense of your own personal tastes.  Since personal preferences are so subjective, it really helps me as a designer  to know what visual style you respond well to. Again, this question is not  designed in order to copy anything that someone else has already done, but it  serves as a great jumping-off point. If a designer doesn’t ask this, then you  run the risk of them designing a (possibly) amazing site that just isn’t your  cup of tea.

7. “What specific functionalities would you like included on your site?”

This is something that you may not have thought very much about. You may not even be fully aware of all the options that are out there. Many of our web design clients know they want a Web presence, but they are not always sure about what  they want to get out of it. And that’s ok. It is up to your web designer to get to the heart of your business, and suggest new ways to leverage all the  technologies that are available and appropriate to your site. For instance, if  you run a restaurant, you probably know that you want to have your menu, contact info and directions on your site. But what about adding an option for customers to book their reservation via your website?

8. “Who is going to be responsible for the website’s content?”

This is a question that often catches clients off guard. It is a bit easier to answer in the case of a redesign, but what if you are a new business starting a website from scratch? Do you plan on writing the content for your own site?  Also, think about graphis, banners, and images that you would like to include on your website.  There are many stock photos websited available that offer a great amount of images for a small fee.

9. “What key search phrases would you like to be found for?”

Search engine optimization (SEO) is your key to being found on the Web. Your designer should be asking you this because your answers could have a big impact on not only the copy, but the overall site structure as well. Let’s say you run a photography business in Boulder, Colorado. You might want to be found for the terms “wedding photography boulder colorado,” as well as “yearbook photography boulder colorado.” It would be a good idea to design two different landing pages for those different keyword phrases, rather than relying on being found through a more generic homepage.

10. “How much time do you want to put into new content creation per week?”

Another key element to SEO strategy is keeping your content fresh. This means adding brand new content to existing pages, and/or adding new pages altogether on a fairly consistent basis. This can be done any number of ways, including a blog, user generated content if appropriate, or even a podcast. If its only a few hours per week, a blog would be sufficient in most cases. If it is a company that employs someone who can work on content creation full-time, I would start thinking of new areas that would attract users. A video page perhaps? Or maybe a twitter contest? The ideas are endless, but it all comes down to how much time  you are willing to spend on such efforts.

Final Thoughts

There is much more to your new website than just the visual elements.  There are other questions we ask while going through the discovery phase and this list is not meant to be exhaustive. You should use this list as your interview potential designers. If they are not asking you any questions similar to the ones in this list you may want to look at a different designer.

If you have any questions regarding this post or need help with designing or redesining your website, please contact us and we will happily help you!

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com

There are only 7 basic  Google search ranking factors. All of them are a compilation of “second level” factors and / or build by addition of many single signals.

• Backlinks: blogs, forums, directories, news articles, etc.
• Content: page loading time, page title, keyword density, time on site, bounce rate, etc.
• Authority: domain age, outgoing links, and similar articles.
• Trust
• Reviews
• Retweets
• Facebook shares

Source: http://www.tagseoblog.com/google-search-ranking-factors-2012-infographic

The List Of Some Things Search Engines Look For:

1. Title tag – You need a relevant title, not just “Home Page” Use it for 5 key words.
2. Headings – The search engines view <h> tags as being terms of emphasis – they give weight to the words within them. Put key terms in them.
3. Bold – Of lesser importance than <h> tags. the <b> tags still emphasize terms of importance.
4. Alt text – Use descriptive short sentences in your alt tags. If it’s a picture of a rose, and you’re a florist try “Red Rose – Available at ‘name’ Flower Shop” 
5. Email addresses on page – if you put up an address, make sure the domain name in the address matches the web site domain. The search engines look at it as ‘cheesy’ if you don’t.
6. Keyword metatags – Some engines use them directly, some check them as part of a validation process – “do they match the content” If they don’t then is this a spam site?
7. Meta description tag – Most engines look at this tag. Use distinct ones throughout your site, and distinct ones for each page. Make them particular to that page.
8. Key term placement – Terms that are higher up on a page are more heavily weighted.
9. Key term proximity – Terms that are close together are probably related, and thus the site will show up in searches for those terms.
10. Comment tags – Some engines use comment tags for content. Most engines look for them in graphic rich / text poor sites.
11. Page structure validation – proper coding is likely to be of better overall quality, and thus rewarded.
12. Traffic/Visitors – The search engines do keep track of how many people follow their links.
13. Link Popularity (PageRank in Google’s case).
• How may other web pages around the Internet point to your web site?
• Do these other pages relate?
• Are they considered valuable resources?
14. Anchor Text of inbound links ◦Does the link to your web site have relevant keywords in it?  ◦Do the keywords used match keywords in your content?
15. Rating of pages linking to this page ◦Even if it is not directly relevant, a web page that is important that links to your site will still help your web site.  ◦Having relevant links helps more with search engines like Teoma.
16. Presence on marked authority pages. (DMOZ)
17. URL quotation – i.e. when a page mentions the site by URL but doesn’t link to it. This commonly occurs in news articles that mention web sites. While it doesn’t count as a link, it does count as a reference.
18. Number of links on pages linking to this page. If the link to your web site is the only one from a page, it’s viewed as being more valuable than being one link among 100. 
19. Freshness of links on pages linking to your web site. While the engines will count all links, a link from a web site that has not been updated in a year or two will be less valuable than from one that is updated daily. It indicates activity / interest levels.
20. Page Last Modified (Freshness)- just like the last point a page that is updated frequently is favoured.
21. Reciprocal Links- Search engines like to see a closed loop – that a referring site as also used as a reference. So when you are giving away a link, ask for one back. It will help both websites.
22. Keyword frequency across all pages. Does the content really talk to the subject which the page and the web site is supposed to be about?
23. Keywords in the URL
• Using keywords in the url does have an effect for the search engine algorithms.
• You can use keywords in the file name. For example if the page is about ford parts, then call it yourdomain.com/ford-auto-parts.html
• Use dashes “-” and not underscores “_” to separate words in file names.
24. Response Time – If your site is fast, it’s favored.
25. Server Downtime – If the search engine robot comes by and frequently can’t connect sometimes, they penalize your site.
26. Page Size – The engines tend to weigh content at the start of a document more than content further down. If a page is long, look at breaking it into sections. If a page is over 50k, then it’s too long.

Some Factors Which May Affect Search Engine Ranking

1. Domain Extension – New extensions are not always immediately recognized by the search engines. This was a problem for .cc and .biz sites in the early going. 
2. Sub domains – If your web site is ‘mysite.network.com, and ‘network.com’ has engaged in any unsavoury search engine spamming, your site will be affected. ◦Always get your own domain, even if you use a sub domain for your shopping cart, etc…
3. IP Address/Range – This is a bit like the last point. If the search engines have had problems with many sites from one hosting company, they may degrade all the sites from that comapny’s IP range. It makes the hosting companies behave.
4. “Domain in use since” – The longer it’s live the better it’s generally viewed. Kind of a respect thy elders thing…  

Negatives That Affect Your Position Within The Search Engines  

1. Broken links – Internally and outgoing. 
2. Spam
3. Meta tag stuffing
4. Irrelevance – If you use irrelevant keywords, description, etc.
5. Tiny Text – If you use text that is too small for the eye to see.
6. Invisible Text – Text the same color as the background.
7. Meta Refresh Tag
8. Redirects – Where when you try and get to one page, but the address changes to a different one. 
9. Excessive Search Engine Submission – Oversubmitting may get your site banned.
10. Frames – Be careful when you use them. You need to embed key terms in them, because generally, the search engines can only see the frame, and not the primary content that you see as visible.
11. Missing Alt Attributes – This is a mandatory code element for img tags and is viewed as bad coding.
12. Compounded Words in the content, or tags will not help the web site for individual terms – i.e – ‘hammersandnails’ as opposed to ‘hammers and nails’.
13. Excessive punctuation in the TITLE and description tags – wastes precious space, and some characters are ignored or may cause a problem with the spider (the pipe “|” is a great one that should be avoided).

2012 Facebook Stats - The latest on everybody's favorite social network

Source: http://infographiclabs.com/infographic/facebook-2012/