ASR Marketplace
August 13-15, 2010
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA

Buyers looking for the latest products for the upcoming season know exactly where to find them — at ASR. Twice a year the Surf/Skate Lifestyle and Fashion industries invade San Diego to conduct business and preview lines for the upcoming seasons. ASR tradeshow provides an authentic and efficient forum for buyers, sellers, media, and the investment community to conduct business and move the action sports industry forward. It’s the platform that unites brands of all sizes with an unmatched national and international buying audience.

Mike Duncan, Sage Island’s CEO, will be presenting three different seminars during the show.

The Board Retailers Association (BRA) hosts Survival of the Fittest – BRA Retail Certification Programs August 12th, 2010. Retailers are encouraged to take advantage of the trip to the trade shows by attending a full-day of certified retail education focused on current market issues facing specialty retailers.

Strengthening Your Website’s Presence through an Integrated Marketing Plan
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency
10:00 am on August 12th

Your website is a critical component of your business. At a time when online competition has never been so fierce, it’s crucial to have a marketing plan for your website that drives results. This seminar, presented my Mike Duncan, CEO of Sage Island addresses the necessity of a well designed, innovative site, and how to properly market it through a hands on  approach of planning, analysis, and optimization. Mike speaks to the art of  SEO and PPC tactics and how to  expand your brand on the web to drive results.

Ten Ways for Retailers to Improve Website Presence
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency
Saturday, August 14th at 11:00 am

In the ever changing world of retail, competition has never been more fierce. Your website is a critical component of your business. This seminar teaches a fully integrated marketing approach leading you through the basics of a well designed, innovative site, and how to properly utilize e-commerce solutions. Learn how to build and expand your presence on the web to drive sales and maximize your bottom line.

Leveraging the Power of Social Media
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency and Danny Keith, Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop
Saturday, August 14th at 2:00 pm

Over the last few years, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have gone from college networking sites to marketing powerhouses. Businesses today tap into Facebook to reach their audience in more targeted, local, and efficient ways than ever before.  This seminar, presented by Danny Keith, owner of the Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop, and Mike Duncan CEO of Sage Island, teaches the latest tactics and applications that elevate social media from self promotion sites to professional lead generating tools.

If you’re like me, you’re constantly learning something new when it comes to SEO.  Keeping up with the ever changing trends is hard enough, understanding exactly how search engines work can get overwhelming. Recently I stumbled upon what is now my go-to SEO Reference:  The Beginners Guide to SEO. If you haven’t read through this tutorial (which chances are pretty good you have, since it’s the world’s most read SEO guide)  I recommend you visit the site! You can read online or download a copy of this really helpful information.

Recently there has been a backlash in the SEO industry against what is deemed to be a non-scientific approach when it comes to SEO testing or collecting statistical data. Some people argue that you have to treat SEO as part of computer science and be very strict about it. Following this logic you are basically forbidden to do any SEO testing yourself unless you have some actual scientists doing the research.

While I am not sure why some people attempt to push in this direction I can only say it won’t work. SEO is a craft not a science. First off there are far too many variables to determine in SEO to be able to treat it scientifically. Also, if anything, SEO would have to be a social science as most things in SEO depend on human behavior. People writing algorithms, people linking, people creating content.

Read more at http://seo2.0.onreact.com/seo-is-a-craft-not-a-science

Usability is one of the most important (and often overlooked) elements of search engine optimization. If your website is designed for the end user, you’ll reap the benefits in your search engine rankings and your customers will be more likely to interact with your website in the way that you desire.

Keep these usability best practices in mind as you design your website to ensure a good user experience and better search engine results:

Navigation

• Include a clear navigation bar that links to every page on your website and appears consistently on each page.
• Link to pages on your website internally throughout the copy using relevant, keyword-rich anchor text.
• Use breadcrumbs to show users where they are and where they came from.

Accessibility

• File sizes for your pages should ideally be smaller than 200KB to optimize loading time and search engine crawling.
• Place copy in the first 100KB to ensure that your keyword-rich content is being crawled and indexed.
• Keep pages as close to the root as possible. Users and search engines should be able to reach each page on your site from the homepage in two clicks or less.
• Utilize permanent 301 redirects for known deleted pages to land users on a similar page and maintain links.
• Use a custom 404 page to redirect users and search engines that have reached a page that no longer exists on your site back to the most useful content on your site.

Readability

• Don’t use fancy fonts for your body copy. Simple fonts, preferably sans serif, are easiest on the eyes and most likely to display properly on all browsers.
• Write clear, concise content for each page. Web users get overwhelmed with huge blocks of text, so limit the amount of text on each page.
• Break up large blocks of text into bite-sized pieces with headers.

Simplicity

• Keep your on-page code as clean as possible by moving JavaScript and style sheets into external files.
• Use animation and Flash sparingly. Too much animation can be distracting for users, and while search engines are getting better at indexing Flash, it’s not perfect yet.

Optimization

• Focus on one page at a time in your optimization, and optimize it for no more than three highly relevant keywords. This will tell users and search engines what the page is about quickly and easily.

Finally, be sure to test run usability tests with several user types likely to visit your site to catch problems that normal users may encounter. Be sure to run tests on all of the major browsers (Internet Explorer 7 & 8, Firefox, and Safari). What works on one browser may not work on another.