by Drew Hannush
Sep
7
A very interesting question that is posed to me from time to time. Logic would say Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. We’ll if you talk to a lot of my Mac friends, they will tell you that Safari is not their preferred browser. And the stats back that up.
According to W3Counter (as of June 2010), Internet Explorer 8 holds the lead in the market with 26.17% of the market, followed closely by Firefox 3.6 at 23.11%.
The surprise comes from the next 2 browsers in line. Showing their very poor system of providing upgrades (as compared to Firefox), the bug ridden Internet Explorer 7 sits at #3 with 11.41% of the market…and the fourth most popular browser is Google Chrome 5 at 9.45% of the market.
Amazingly, for all the hype around Mac’s, Apple’s Safari 4 is the 8th most popular browser at less than 2% of the market.
As for Internet Explorer 6, it still hangs on at #5 with 6.79% of the market. Hannush Enterprises has finally decided to put IE6 out to pasture as of the end of calendar year 2010. Meanwhile we will now change our focus from Safari to Google Chrome as a 10% market share makes it a viable player in the market.
This does not mean you should give up completely on Safari. If your business targets people who use Mac’s or your server stats show a large group of Safari users, you may still want to pay attention to it. But for the average site, it looks like IE8, Firefox 3.6 and Google Chrome should be your main focus.
by Drew Hannush
Aug
24
For a couple of years now, we have been perplexed as to handle three search engines when it comes to search results. Google likes things that Bing and Yahoo! don’t like so its hard to win in all three (so we pretty much focused on Google).
Today two of those companies combined their results. Yahoo! now is supplied search results from Bing and low and behold…when searching “Web Design Greenville” in both Bing and Yahoo! we finally cracked #1. Persistence pays off (along with a helpful merger)!
It will be a couple of weeks until we get a real handle on how Yahoo and Bing are going to handle search results, but this shows that if you design a website with good clean code, a strong SEO based content management system and you get yourself established, it will all pay off.
by Drew Hannush
Jul
30
Okay, those of you that know me know that I complain endlessly about my iMac’s issues. I think Marley has some competition for the world’s worst dog (if only my iMac lasted in dog years).
So, I saw Steve Jobs telling people that with the iPhone 4 problems…they were looking to make sure every customer was happy. Well, that’s quite a boast. So after I had given my iMac up for dead…I decided to write him a letter to tell him of the extraordinary journey my Mac went on.
My Letter to Steve Jobs at Apple (PDF)
To my surprise, I received a call today from a very nice woman at Apple. She said she called on behalf of Steve Jobs. After we verified all of the problems I had with my iMac, she said she had never heard of anyone having so many problems with a Mac.
Her solution? Why don’t you buy another one? We’ll give you $100 off.
Really? I bought what ended up being an $1800 defective iPod (for all that I could do with it) and you offer me a discount I could get if I just wait for the next sale at Apple.com? Hmmmm. This does not sound like “make every customer happy.” In fact, they might as well have pulled out the gloves and slapped me in the face.
There are a lot of people with iPhone 4 issues that are similar. We are talking about the worst iMac issue a customer service rep at iMac (who apparently has the ear of Steve Jobs) has heard of…and I get a $100 off on another $1800 purchase. Oh yeah, that makes complete sense.
I guess I go on with my crusade against Apple. A note to all businesses looking to make an impression…don’t make bold statements about your level of customer commitment and then spit on customers who actually have issues…offer to send replacement parts to fix the problem…offer to go the extra mile to replace the unit…but don’t ask someone to buy another one of your products and hand them what amounts to a 5% off coupon. Bad form Apple!
by Drew Hannush
Jul
30
If your web developer has been emailing you reports from Google Analytics, you can actually have him add you to his account. Its this simple.
First, sign up for your own Google Analytics account (you must associate it with a @gmail.com address so you might want to sign up for that first).
Next, your developer (or you if you’re sharing with someone else) goes to the “User Manager” highlighted below:
The next screen will have a button that says “Add User”…click on this:
Finally, he or you’ll add the email address in for the person you want to share with. Then choose if you want to let them just view statistics or have full control as an administrator (be careful, they can delete accounts, etc.). The last step is to highlight the sites your want them to have access to. Highlight them on the left and click the “Add” button. Save Changes and you’re done! You should see the reports in your Google Analytics account within 24 hours.
by Drew Hannush
Jul
27
Thanks to all that attended our presentation today at the Henderson County Chamber. It was a nice turn out and a very interactive group.
By request, I have included the slideshow I ran behind me during the presentation. Good luck on your web projects and I hope we were able to give you some food for thought.
Hannush Presentation (PDF)
by Drew Hannush
Jul
22
Have you set up a business page for Facebook and you’ve grown tired of giving out the long URL they provide to you…or sending people through Facebook search or your personal profile to find your business page?
I have just the trick…and it wasn’t easy to discover. I went through about 20 Google links before I finally found accurate information on how to pull this off. Apparently, over the last year the requirements for a custom business URL (web address) for Facebook has dropped from 1000 fans to 100 fans to now 25 fans (as of April).
In a nutshell, here is what you need to do to claim your URL (facebook.com/yourcompanyname):
Make sure you are logged into your Facebook account. Then go to http://www.facebook.com/username (yes, this exact address…not one related to your Facebook account…this is a general Facebook page for updating custom URL’s).
Don’t use the top box in yellow (see below)…this is where you set your personal profile URL. Right below that it says “Set a Username for your Pages”…if you have multiple popular pages, you can set multiple URL’s.
Its that easy…at least when you know where to look. Thanks to Facebook for making this so cryptic as usual!
Visit our Facebook business profile at http://www.facebook.com/hannushweb
by Drew Hannush
Jul
16
Today I was given more reinforcement as to why its good to install a WordPress blog and keep it up to date. With the launch of a brand new website for a brand new business (Gianni Panini in Biltmore), we expect a good couple of months at least of Google’s so-called sandbox (the place where new sites go to live in limbo for months).
But notice the screenshot of Google below. By announcing the new site launch in our blog, within two hours after the announcement, we were able to get the announcement indexed by Google under a search for “Gianni Panini, Biltmore.”
Of course, our ultimate goal is to get the Gianni Panini site winning under searches for Biltmore and Asheville. But it is unrealistic to expect instant Google results, without a lot of money and work. Results in 2 hours is even more unrealistic…but now the company can get some recognition and there is a better chance someone can stumble into the site.
So keep on coming up with things to talk about and get those keywords out there. Your blog can be an extra lifeline to product launches, events, and other timely updates.
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