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The Steve Laube Agency

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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Technology » Page 2

Technology

Does Google Like Your Web Site?

By Steve Laubeon May 4, 2015
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In case you missed it, on April 21st Google changed how they rank web site searches. If a site is not “mobile-friendly” it will no longer be ranked higher than one that is “mobile-friendly.” Some were calling this “mobilegeddon” because of the impact it would have.

What Does Mobile-Friendly Mean?

This refers to whether or not your site is optimized for a smart-phone screen. Sites that have what is called “responsive design” will recognize what type of device is looking at the information and change the image that is sent to that device.

This usually means that the menu changes from a bar across the top or side into a button near the top of the page that can be touched with a finger and the menu drops down. Also the page itself reformats itself to fit the screen. (Use your smartphone and type in www.enclavepublishing.com and see what it looks like versus what it looks like on a regular screen.)

To those of us who remember the early days of the Internet and HTML code it seems a bit like magic!

By the way, “mobile-friendly” does not include tablets, laptops, or desktops because those devices have large enough screens that the special responsive design is not needed.

Is Your Site Mobile-Friendly?

It is very easy to check and see if your site is compliant.

Go to the following Google site (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/) and type in the web site you want to check. The page will show you what yours looks like on a smart phone screen, if you didn’t already know.

Out of curiosity I tested about thirty author web sites to see what happened. Over half of them were not mobile-friendly. This means that the Google algorithm will move those unfriendly sites down the page. The sites that are friendly will be given priority.

This may not affect you at all because your topic is unique or your name is unusual enough that there is no danger of another site gaining ascendency.

Mine Is NOT “Friendly” what do I do?

For some authors their web site was designed and put up a long time ago. And it works, so why mess with it? It may be time to invest in a new design.

If you have a web master, talk to them about the cost of converting to a responsive design.

If you already use WordPress, but it uses a non-friendly “Theme” you might be able to convert the content of your site to another one without as much trouble.

Since I’m not an expert I would recommend someone like Laura Christianson over at Blogging Bistro who wrote an excellent article on this question a couple months ago (click here to read it).

Avoid the “I’ll Do it Someday” Syndrome

If you are one of those affected, I’m sorry. But try not to procrastinate. The power of the Internet is critical to you and your work being found. We cannot ignore the fact that Apple sold 74.83 million iPhones…last quarter (in three months). And Samsung sold 73.03 million phones …last quarter. That is equal to 10 phones PER PERSON for everyone living in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City combined.

Investing in your web site is sort of like a retail store investing in a good cash register. It is possible to do business out of shoe box, but it probably isn’t a good idea.

Plus you want to make your site inviting and engaging with everyone who comes to visit. Make each screen feel welcome.

Your Turn

Do you have a web master you would like to recommend?

Is your site mobile-friendly? If so, how hard was it to make yours “responsive”?

 

Leave a Comment
Category: Book Business, Branding, Career, Communication, Marketing, Platform, TechnologyTag: Book Business, Google+, Technology, Web Sites

What Do You Do When Your Technology Fails?

By Steve Laubeon May 12, 2014
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by Steve Laube You may have noticed that our website has been having some trouble these past few weeks. The entire site was down three times, once for 48 hours. And then at other times it was running very slow. We think we’ve traced the problem to the fact that the site is now five years old. (My first blog post was June 24, 2009.) Apparently the infrastructure of the site is starting to …

Read moreWhat Do You Do When Your Technology Fails?
Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, Steve, Technology, The Writing LifeTag: Book Business, Career, Technology, The Writing Life

A Scrivener Flunky Weighs In

By Steve Laubeon January 20, 2014
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A Guest Post by Deborah Raney

I’m probably not the best spokesperson for Scrivener, the popular novel writing software program from Literature and Latte, because I certainly don’t use Scrivener to its maximum capabilities. I don't even actually write my novel in Scrivener. I still use Pages––Mac’s version of Word––to write the manuscript, although I do copy the manuscript into the program once …

Read moreA Scrivener Flunky Weighs In
Category: Book Business, Guest Post, Steve, TechnologyTag: Scrivener, Technology

E-Readers, Tablets and Bears, Oh My

By Dan Balowon November 19, 2013
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The latest data from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project released this Fall and confirmed in solid data what we all know to be true…that e-Book readers and tablets are becoming more prevalent in American society.

In a scientific survey conducted five times since May, 2010, the Pew Research Center concluded as of September 2013 that 24% of Americans age 16 and older have a dedicated …

Read moreE-Readers, Tablets and Bears, Oh My
Category: Book Business, Dan, E-Books, TrendsTag: E-Books, readers, Technology, Trends

J is for Just-in-Time

By Steve Laubeon November 4, 2013
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by Steve Laube

The economics of bookselling are complex and ever changing. There is a method of inventory control called “Just-in-Time” (or JIT) that has revolutionized both the retail and manufacturing industries.

When I began as a bookseller there was no such thing as computerized inventory, at least not in the Christian bookstore business. We used a method call “Stack ‘em high and …

Read moreJ is for Just-in-Time
Category: Book Business, Get Published, Marketing, Publishing A-Z, SteveTag: Book Business, Economics, Publishing A-Z, Technology

HAL 9000 Writes a Book

By Dan Balowon October 15, 2013
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Since most readers of this blog are writers, this might just ruin your day.

A company called Narrative Science started as a research project with Northwestern University computer science and journalism students. (The Medill School of Journalism is arguably the best in the country)  It was called StatsMonkey.

StatsMonkey was a computer program that automatically generated a usable text recap …

Read moreHAL 9000 Writes a Book
Category: Book Business, Dan, Humor, Technology, Trends, Writing CraftTag: Book Business, Technology

One Day at a Time Technology

By Dan Balowon August 6, 2013
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Computers are the perfect example of something we learn about and then must constantly update that knowledge. It’s like we have all had to become scientists or doctors. Just a few years ago, computer storage was measured in megabytes. Then it reached a thousand megabytes and we moved on to gigabytes. When we reach a thousand gigabytes we need terabytes.

As a public service, here is something to …

Read moreOne Day at a Time Technology
Category: Book Business, Career, Dan, Marketing, TechnologyTag: Book Business, Technology

Email Gaffes

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon October 18, 2012
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Do you think what you send across the Internet is private as long as you're careful? Think again. Here are just a few things that have happened over the years to some of my friends, and to myself:

I didn't realize Auto-Complete would send my mail to the wrong person

We've all misdirected mail when we have people with a similar name in our address books. Steve Laube shared a story with me …

Read moreEmail Gaffes
Category: Book Business, Communication, Tamela, TechnologyTag: Email, Technology

It’s A Brave New World

By Karen Ballon March 14, 2012
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I’ve been in publishing for lo, these many years (over 30), so you’d think the work would be pretty much second nature for me. No so! In fact, just this last week I did something completely new!

I edited a book, in four days, using Skype and Dropbox.

The amazing thing about this isn’t that the author and I got the book done so quickly, but that it was SO MUCH FUN! We parked on Skype for …

Read moreIt’s A Brave New World
Category: Book Business, Get Published, Karen, TrendsTag: dropbox, Editing, skype, Technology, Trends, Writing Craft

Fun Fridays – Feb. 17, 2012

By Steve Laubeon February 17, 2012
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If you haven't seen this new Children's book, listen to it today on this book trailer.
Goodnight iPad by Ann Droyd....

Read moreFun Fridays – Feb. 17, 2012
Category: Fun FridaysTag: Humor, Technology
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