Alt Attribute & SEO Optimization

SEO Optimization images has become increasingly more essential in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for websites. The ALT attribute is a critical step that is often overlooked. This is often a lost opportunity for better rankings.

In Google's webmaster guidelines, they advise the use of alternative text for that images in your web site:

Images:. Make use of the alt attribute to provide descriptive text. In addition, we recommend utilizing a human-readable caption and descriptive text round the image.

Why would they ask us to do that? The answer is easy, really; search engines like google have a similar problem as blind users. They can't see the images.

Many webmasters and inexperienced or unethical SEOs abuse using this attribute, trying to stuff it with keywords, looking to achieve a particular keyword density, which isn't as relevant for rankings now since it once was.

On the other hand, high keyword density can, on some search engines like google, trigger spam filters, which may result in a penalty for your site's ranking. Even without such a penalty, your site's rankings won't take advantage of this tactic.
This process also puts persons who use screen readers in a greater disadvantage. Screen readers are software-based tools that really read aloud the items in what's shown on the screen. In browsing the net, the alt features of images are read aloud too.

Imagine listening to a paragraph of text that is followed by repetitions of many keywords. The page would be not even close to accessible, and, to put it mildly, would be found quite annoying.
What is an Alt attribute?

An ALT attribute shouldn't be used as a description or a label to have an image, though lots of people utilize it in that fashion. Though it might seem natural to assume that alternate text is really a label or perhaps a description, it is not!

What used within an image's alt attribute should be its text equivalent and convey the same information or serve the same purpose the image would.

The goal would be to supply the same functional information that the visual user would see. The alt attribute text should function as a "stand in" in the event that the image is not available. Think about this: Should you replace the image with the text, would most users receive the same basic information, and wouldn't it generate the same response?
A few examples:

 

Some SEO Optimization Tips

If a search button is a magnifying glass or binoculars its alt text ought to be 'search' or 'find' not 'magnifying glass' or 'binoculars'.

If the image is meant to convey the literal items in the look, a description is suitable.

If it is meant to convey data, then that data is what's appropriate.

If it's meant to convey the use of a function, then your function itself is what ought to be used.

Some Alt Attribute Guidelines:

Always add alt attributes to images. Alt is mandatory for accessibility as well as for valid XHTML.

For images that play merely a decorative role within the page, use an empty alt (i.e. alt="") or perhaps a CSS background image so that reading browsers do not bother users by uttering such things as "spacer image".

Remember that it is the function from the image we are trying to convey. For instance; any button images should not include the word "button" within the alt text. They ought to emphasize the action performed by the button.

Alt text ought to be based on context. Exactly the same image inside a different context may need drastically different alt text.

Try to flow alt text with the remainder of the text because that's how it will be read with adaptive technologies like screen readers. Someone listening to your page should hardly be aware that a graphic image is there.
Please keep in mind that utilizing an alt attribute for each image is required to satisfy the minimum WAI requirements, that are used as the benchmark for accessibility laws in UK and the remainder of Europe. Also, they are required to meet "Section 508" accessibility requirements in america.

It is useful to categorize non-text content into three levels:

Eye-Candy
Mood-Setting
Content and Function

I. Eye-Candy

Eye-Candy are stuff that serve no purpose other than to create a site visually appealing/attractive and (in many cases) satisfy the marketing departments. There isn't any content value (though there may be value to a sighted user).

Never alt-ify eye-candy unless there is something there that will boost the usability of the site for someone using a non-visual user agent. Make use of a null alt attribute or background images in CSS for eye-candy.

II. Mood-Setting

This is the middle layer of graphics which might actually set the atmosphere or set the stage so to speak. These graphics are not direct content and could not be considered essential, but they are important in that they help frame what is going on.

Attempt to alt-ify the second group as is sensible and is relevant. There may be times when doing this might be annoying or detrimental to other users. Then avoid it.

For example; Alt text that is identical to adjacent text is unnecessary, and an irritant to screen reader users. I suggest alt="" or background CSS images in such cases. But sometimes, it's important to understand this content in there for all users.

Usually it depends on context. The same image inside a different context may need drastically different alt text. Obviously, content should always be fully available. How you use this case is a judgment call.

III. Content and Function

This is when the image is the actual content. Always alt-ify content and functional images. Title and long description attributes can also be so as.
The main reason many authors can't understand why their alt text isn't working is they don't know why the images exist. You have to determined precisely what function a picture serves. Consider what it's concerning the image that's important to the page's intended audience.

Every graphic includes a reason behind being on that page: because it either improves the theme/ mood/ atmosphere or it is advisable to what are the page is trying to describe. Understanding what the look is for makes alt text simpler to write. And exercise writing them definitely helps.
A way to look into the usefulness of alternative text would be to imagine reading the page on the phone to someone. What would you say when encountering a specific image to make the page understandable to the listener?

Aside from the alt attribute you have a couple more tools at your disposal for images.
First, in level of descriptiveness title is within between alt and longdesc. It adds useful information and may add flavor. The title attribute is optionally rendered through the user agent. Remember they're invisible and never shown like a "tooltip" when focus is received via the keyboard. (So much for device independence). So make use of the title attribute only for advisory information.
Second, the longdesc attribute points to the Link to a full description of an image. If the information found in an image is essential towards the meaning of the page (i.e. some important content would be lost when the image was removed), an extended description compared to "alt" attribute can reasonably display should be used. It can offer rich, expressive documentation of a visual image.

It should be used when alt and title are insufficient to embody the visual qualities of the image. As Clark [1] states, "A longdesc is a long description of the image...The aim is by using any length of description necessary to impart the details from the graphic.

It would not be remiss to hope that a long description conjures a picture - the image - within the mind's eye, an analogy that holds true even for that totally blind."

Although the alt attribute is mandatory for web accessibility as well as for valid (X)HTML, not all images need alternative text, long descriptions, or titles.

Oftentimes, you are best just choosing your gut instinct -- if it's not necessary to include it, and if you don't possess a strong urge to get it done, don't add that longdesc.

However, if it's essential for the entire page to work, then you have to add the alt text (or title or longdesc).

What's necessary and what's not depends a lot on the function of the image and its context about the page.

The same image may need alt text (or title or longdesc) in a single spot, although not in another. If the image provides absolutely no content or functional information alt="" or background CSS images may be appropriate to use. But if the image provides content or adds functional information an alt would be required and maybe even a long description would be so as. In many cases this kind of thing is really a judgement call.

Image Seo optimization Tips

Listed below are key stages in optimizing images:

Choose a logical file name that reinforces the keywords. You should use hyphens in the file name to isolate the keyword, but avoid to exceeding two hyphens. Avoid using underscores like a word separator, such as "brilliant-diamonds.jpg";

Label the file extension. For example, when the image search engine sees a ".jpg" (JPEG) file extension, it's likely to assume that the file is a photo, and when it sees a ".gif" (GIF) file extension, it's going to assume that it is a graphic;

Ensure that the text nearby the image that's highly relevant to that image.
Again, do not lose an excellent chance to help your site with your images searching engines. Begin using these steps to rank better on all the engines and drive more traffic to your site TODAY.

Website Optimization

OwnLocal is a Y-Combinator bred startup that helps local newspapers survive on the Internet. OwnLocal swoops into small towns sprinkled across America’s less tech savvy plains and puts on quite a clever show. In no way are they grifters; but with their guaranteed promises of success, small town publishers don’t stand a chance.

Lloyd W. Armbrust, II, OwnLocal’s Founder and CEO, puts its technology in the hands of local publications, newspapers or television stations, so that they can then sell successful modern digital strategies like owning a website, blogging, SEO optimization, design, group deals and more to local businesses. In other words, OwnLocal acts like a web development department for local newspapers providing them with simple, sellable products including a white label daily deal product and a white label Yelp-like product.

“In rural America, small businesses would rather the Internet didn’t exist, but it does. We sell a package through their local newspapers that creates a website for them, writes relevant blog posts for them and pushes out media to Twitter and Facebook. So, we manage all of that for them but we do it through their newspaper.”

-Lloyd W. Armbrust

OwnLocal trains local media employees and shows them how to put on a “Web a la carte” presentation for small businesses even though the local businesses may have never heard of Groupon, Yelp or LivingSocial. To date, OwnLocal has powered more than 1,000 small businesses and over 100 publications.

OwnLocal also sells its product, “AdForge” as “the best print-to-digital ad conversion software in the world.” AdForge is designed to take print ads and put them on the web, on mobile and on tablets. AdForge easily converts print ads into clickable, shareable, printable, mappable and sendable digital ads.

Say you’re a lawyer or a plumber, OwnLocal will create websites optimized for search engines and deal with social media elements like blogging, tweeting and Facebooking, saving these small service businesses a lot of time and effort. Businesses can choose from a variety of different websites from simple splash pages to editable, manageable sites. OwnLocal then taps into its network of college students and stay at home moms to write the company’s blog posts. But again, all of this is through the local newspaper.

Today, OwnLocal announces its “Arcade” partnership with HeyZap, another YC startup, to bring more than 50,000 social and casual games to newspapers and local media. Rather than just having a few puzzle games like crosswords and Sudoku, newspapers will have access to games that reflect what their audiences have come to expect from social networks and social game sites. Initial launch partners include A.H. Belo Corp.‘s The Press-Enterprise and Impre Media, the largest Spanish language newspaper group in America as well as 25 other newspapers. OwnLocal expects that newspapers will see financial benefits, increased time-on-site and more return visits.

In York, Nebraska– a town with a population of 10,000– OwnLocal made The York News Times $140,000 last year. OwnLocal takes 30% and the newspaper gets the remaining 70% of revenues from its tech products sold. $100,000-300,000 is an easy number to make for local papers, says Armbrust.  OwnLocal doesn’t work with media outlets that have circulations less than 1,000. And its sophisticated system tell them exactly how much money they can make just from circulation numbers. Guaranteed revenue reports based on circulation for dying newspapers? Maybe dreams do come true.

“The community newspaper I worked at was purchased and sold to Gatehouse Media. I started thinking, what can we do? Is there a situation where you can make this product that’s all-encompassing that could make these newspapers money? I felt for these guys. Print is declining.”

–Lloyd Armbrust

Armbrust has worked in the newspaper industry for 11 years, including two years working on OwnLocal. His Co-Founder Jason Novack is the hardcore hacker in the pair. Armbrust says their main competitor, ReachLocal charges 5 times as much as OwnLocal because they utilize a network of 1,000 local sales reps.

To date, OwnLocal has received just under a million seed funding from Y Combinator, Baseline Ventures, Lerer Media Ventures, Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter and Alex Moore.

Note the Client companies are based in either the US or Canada and the “percentage of traffic outside key service areas” are based on each client’s target market.

For instance, if a client only services the US only, any traffic outside the US would be traffic outside their service area.

Evaluating Your Own Traffic For Relevance

To use our own web design and Internet marketing business as an example, we service both Canada and the US, but were getting 24% of our traffic from other international countries. Big portions of that traffic were companies looking to sell their services to us.

These international visitors would fill in our web forms and call us to inquire, untimely skewing our website analytics data by not giving us a real understanding of how our website was performing to quality prospects.

A solution had to be implemented to significantly reduce the amount of resources we were dedicating to people outside our service areas.

Ultimately, we didn’t want to be contacted from people we couldn’t help. The four possible solutions we considered were:

1. Create a custom report in Google Analytics to filter out the unwanted data (reporting related)


2. Adjust the content of our website (website related)


3. Block the traffic from specific Countries from viewing our website (server related)


4. Don’t change anything.

Option #1

When evaluating the first solution, creating a custom report to filter out this data in Google Analytics, this would clear up our analytics data. Implementing a filter would provide a more realistic picture of quality prospects we could service in our geographic area instead of those prospects or solicitors in other counties we don’t service.

This option didn’t run the risk of blocking any traffic or robots that we do want. It’s also a simple filter to add in Google Analytics. We set up another Profile with the country exclusions filters. A new Profile was the preferred approach, rather than going through the extra steps of creating Custom Reports.

However, setting up analytical filters doesn’t fully resolve the issue, since these visitors could still access our site, fill in web forms, and contact us, ultimately wasting resources that we could dedicate elsewhere.

It wouldn’t give us a true picture of what was going on. It also wouldn’t resolve the problem – we didn’t want to be contacted by companies from some outside countries.

Option #2

Updating the website content to say you only service a specific area is another solution that we considered.  This would inject more geo-targeted keywords into your site, which would help in local SEO. Adding a graphical map, drop-down options and/or links that allow the visitor to select their country would help qualify visitors.

Some of the downfalls of this option include spending a much higher amount of time to implement versus the other options. The success of this would also be dependent on how honest the visitor is.

Assuming visitors are reading your website content, adding geo-targeted keywords into your site would set a clearer expectation of service area delivery. However, this option still doesn’t resolve the issue of sharing contact information that allows unsolicited visitors to contact us and invalid web form data.

Option #3

How about blocking or filtering visitors automatically based on their IP address? When considering to block website visitors by IP it’s important to first evaluate the reliability of the IP address(es). The accuracy of an IP list is over 99.5% on a country level and 80% on a city level. The smaller the location, the less reliable the IP address.

Internet Service Providers change IP addresses they designate to customers. Some change them more frequently than others, which is why you want to keep the database of IPs updated. Scheduling a monthly update is typically a good routine if city level IP authentication is required. Country level is much more static.

The benefit of blocking the country via IP address would not only clean up analytical data, but also ensure our sales funnel was more efficient and provide a more accurate picture of real prospects in all systems. We needed to consider other issues in this approach.

One concern was the potential for a search crawler coming from an IP in the location we were planning on blocking. For example, there was a possibility that Google’s search crawler would also be blocked if it came from the same country. The implementation of this option is more technical. One would need to obtain a list of IP addresses for the desired locations and update the websites htaccess file.

In our example, the inquiries from some countries became so frequent that we couldn’t ignore it any longer. After much debate, we decided to ban the countries; however, we would only ban one at a time to evaluate the effects.

For instance, one of the largest traffic sources, accounting for approximately 20% of this, was from India, a market we don’t service. These Indian visitors were companies looking to sell their services to us.

We executed the ban in the polite Canadian way. We also implemented the Google Analytics profile with the country filter to monitor future website statistics versus the past.

Those visitors that came from our blocked list would land on a different page that displayed a nice message. It read: “Thank you for visiting. However, we don’t provide services in your area.”

In sum, the tests have gone over very well. Banning the country from our website has significantly cut down the number of unsolicited calls, emails and web form requests. It also gave us a much more accurate picture of how our website was performing within our own target market and service area.

Considerations For Blocking Traffic By Location

If you’re considering this strategy, some factors to consider when filtering visitors include:

• Why do you want to filter website traffic?


• Which locations would you want to filter?


• How much traffic do you currently get from locations outside your service area?


• How important is this traffic?


• How to funnel visitors outside your service areas?


• The accuracy of the IP addresses locations in mind.


• Effects of non-human visitors.

A few months after we implemented this, we received a direct mail package that contained pens with our logo on them from a company that wished to sell us branded pens.

Guess what it said under our logo? “Thank you for visiting. However, we don’t provide services in your area.” We had a good laugh. Someone obviously didn’t read what they printed. It was evidence that our website block was working and a nice souvenir.

The key takeaway, as always, is monitor your traffic and conversions. Track where your quality traffic is coming from and decide for yourself if you should block the traffic of certain countries. Make sure to proceed with caution to ensure that you are not missing some opportunities.

Think outside of the box for other ideas of how you can use that traffic. Perhaps referring the traffic to a partner or creating a unique service for specific markets is another option to consider.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: 100% Organic - Search Engine Optimization Tips | SEO: General

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Bench Craft Company on the subject of jobs

Fewer than 1 percent of website visits come directly from a social media URL according to research just released by customer satisfaction analytics experts ForeSee Results.

The company surveyed 300,000 consumers on more than 180 websites across a dozen private and public sector industries. The referring social media sites covered were not just the usual suspects like Facebook and Twitter, but over 40 sites including Flickr, Foursquare, Scribd, Stumbleupon, Meetup and Youtube.

It’s not all bad news for social media marketeers. 18 percent of site visitors (averaged across surveyed websites) report being influenced by social media to visit a website. However, there was considerable variation in the results for different companies.

The social media budgets of marketers is constantly increasing as the survey data to the right shows. Forsee Results’ research showed that the resources companies put into social media and the results they receive vary wildly. Spending more money does not automatically lead to higher numbers of visits to websites, brand awareness or sales.

Promotional emails are also sometimes neglected in favor of the more glamorous social media, in spite of the fact that such emails influence 32 percent of purchases.

Companies themselves seem a bit confused about their objectives when it comes to social media. Internet Retailer Magazine surveyed 400 U.S. companies (19 percent of them retailers) in December 2009 and January 2010. It found that 74 percent of companies wanted social media to drive traffic to their websites, while only 56 percent wanted it to increase sales. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Next Story: Why mobile app success is more than just download numbers Previous Story: Battle brewing at Microsoft over retail store expansion

There has been a lot of talk as to whether or not social media is the front runner in another inflated internet bubble waiting to burst, leaving users “virtually” friendless and clueless. Will everyone be out of the loop, with no one keeping track of daily deals, happenings or status updates? Warren Buffet confirmed this fear stating that although it’s not as big as the dot com bubble, social media is not long term by any means. However, industry trends and buyer behaviors are stating otherwise.

Facebook has proven beneficial to marketing efforts for B2C companies, but B2B marketing has struggled to find its footing on the platform. That’s where LinkedIn has emerged as the go-to medium for B2B marketers.

A recent study done by BtoB Magazine, showed that when asked “Which of the following social media methods does your company currently use for your B2B marketing (i.e. not personal use)” 72% of B2B marketers said LinkedIn. After reaching more than 100 million users, LinkedIn has solidified its niche as Facebook in a business suit, and B2B companies have taken notice.

The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing (an annual report done by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software company) found that 61% of B2B marketers who participated in the survey acquired a customer through LinkedIn. The targeted and measurable aspect of inbound marketing is what makes it so attractive to smart business owners who are tired of spending money on marketing with no proof that it’s working. Former Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald’s, M. Lawrence Light said, “It no longer makes economic sense to send an advertising message to the many, in hopes of persuading the few.”

Continued on the next page


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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said in an interview this week that he would consider returning to an active role at the company he helped start if asked.



During an interview in England this week, Wozniak said, "I'd consider it, yeah," when asked whether he would play a more active role if asked, Reuters reports.



Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer in 1976. Wozniak left his full-time role with the company in 1987, but remains an employee and shareholder of Apple.



Since leaving Apple, Wozniak has been involved in a wide range of entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors. He currently serves as Chief Scientist for storage company Fusion-io.



Meanwhile, Jobs is currently taking an indefinite leave of absence to focus on his health, though he remains CEO of Apple and continues to be involved in strategic decisions.



Wozniak, who has widely been acknowledged as the technical genius behind Apple's early success, believes that he has a lot to offer the company he helped start, which went on to become the world's second-largest company in terms of market value.



"There's just an awful lot I know about Apple products and competing products that has some relevance, some meaning. They're my own feelings, though," Wozniak said during the interview.



When asked his opinion on Apple today, Wozniak praised the company for its track record with recent products. "Unbelievable," he said, "The products, one after another, quality and hits."



Even so, Wozniak admitted that he'd prefer Apple's devices to be more open, so he can "get in there and add [his] own touches." Last December, Wozniak revealed that he had purchased a DIY kit for the iPhone 4 and "modded" the device into the as-yet-unreleased white version.



"My thinking is that Apple could be more open and not lose sales," said Wozniak, while adding, "I'm sure they're making the right decisions for the right reasons for Apple."



Wozniak has been committed to openness since the beginning. In December, Wozniak told reporters that he didn't design the original Apple I to make a lot of money and had given the designs away for free after his former employer HP showed no interest in the computer.

Apple has reportedly become more aggressive in securing components from overseas suppliers, making moves such as upfront cash payments to both ensure supply and block out competitors.



Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities said in a note to investors on Thursday that Apple began "aggressively attacking" the component situation in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country. The iPhone maker reportedly sent executives to suppliers immediately to ensure adequate supply of components, and also began offering upfront cash payments.



Separately, White's contacts in Taiwan also revealed that Apple is allegedly securing component capacity using what is known as a "three cover guarantee," referring to capacity, stock and price. Apple's move is seen as one that could potentially block out competitors and prevent them from building ample supply of devices.



The information comes as a separate report out of the Far East suggested that a one-month delay for Research in Motion's PlayBook tablet was as a result of Apple securing most of the available touch panel production capacity. The delay has forced the PlayBook to go on sale after Apple's in-demand iPad 2.



Last month, it was said that Apple could agree to price hikes in order to secure touch panel supply, particularly in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake. Apple was said to be in talks with component makers about touch panel pricing, and allegedly considered some price increases in negotiations.



In the company's last quarterly earnings call, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook revealed that Apple had invested $3.9 billion of its nearly $60 billion in cash reserves in long-term supply contracts. He declined to reveal what components Apple had put its money toward, citing competitive concerns, but said that it was a strategic move that would position the company well in the future.



Analysts largely believe that the secret investment was related to touch panel displays that are the centerpiece of devices like the iPhone and iPad. One cost breakdown estimated that such an investment could secure Apple 136 million iPhone displays, or 60 million iPad touch panels.



It's a move similar to 2005, when Apple inked a major deal with Samsung to secure longterm supply of flash memory. NAND flash would go on to become a major part of Apple's products, including the iPhone, iPad and new MacBook Air.

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Next, Odeo moved into an office and started hiring more employees – including a quiet, on-again, off-again Web designer named Jack Dorsey and an engineer named Blaine Cook. Evan Williams became Odeo's CEO.

By July 2005, Odeo had a product: a platform for podcasting.

But then, in the fall of 2005, "the shit hit the fan," says George Zachary, the Charles River Ventures partner who led the firm's investment in Odeo.

That was when Apple first announced iTunes – which included a podcasting platform built into every one of the 200 million iPods Apple would eventually sell. Around the same time, Odeo employees, from Glass and Williams on down, began to realize that they weren't listening to podcasts as much as they thought they would be.

Says Cook: "We built [Odeo], we tested it a lot, but we never used it."

Suddenly, says Zachary, "the company was going sideways."

By this point, Odeo had 14 people working full time – including now-CEO Evan Williams and a friend of his from Google, Christopher "Biz" Stone.

Williams decided Odeo's future was not in podcasting, and later that year, he told the company's employees to start coming up with ideas for a new direction Odeo could go.  The company started holding official "hackathons" where employees would spend a whole day working on projects. They broke off into groups.

Odeo cofounder Noah Glass gravitated toward Jack Dorsey, whom Glass says was "one of the stars of the company."  Jack had an idea for a completely different product that revolved around "status"--what people were doing at a given time.

"I got the impression he was unhappy with what he was working on –  a lot of cleanup work on Odeo."

"He started talking to me about this idea of status and how he was really interested in status," Glass says. "I was trying to figure out what it was he found compelling about it."

"There was a moment when I was sitting with Jack and I said, 'Oh, I do see how this could really come together to make something really compelling.' We were sitting on Mission St. in the car in the rain. We were going out and I was dropping him off and having this conversation. It all fit together for me."

One day in February 2006, Glass, Dorsey, and a German contract developer Florian Weber presented Jack's idea to the rest of the company.  It was a system where you could send a text to one number and it would be broadcasted out to all of your friends: Twttr.

Noah Glass says it was he who came up with the name "Twttr." "I spent a bunch of time thinking about it," he says.  Eventually, the name would become Twitter.

After that February presentation to the company, Evan Williams was skeptical of Twitter's potential, but he put Glass in charge of the project. From time to time, Biz Stone helped out Glass's Twitter team.

And it really was Glass's team, by the way. Not Jack Dorsey's.

Everyone agrees that original inkling for Twitter sprang from Jack Dorsey's mind. Dorsey even has drawings of something that looks like Twitter that he made years before he joined Odeo. And Jack was obviously central to the Twitter team.

But all of the early employees and Odeo investors we talked to also agree that no one at Odeo was more passionate about Twitter in the early days than Odeo's cofounder, Noah Glass.

"It was predominantly Noah who pushed for the project to be started," says Blaine Cook, who describes Glass as Twitter's "spiritual leader."

"He definitely had a vision for what it was," says Ray McClure.

"There were two people who were really excited [about Twitter,]" concurs Odeo investor George Zachary. "Jack and Noah Glass. Noah was fanatically excited about Twitter. Fanatically! Evan and Biz weren't at that level. Not remotely."

Zachary says Glass told him, "You know what's awesome about this thing? It makes you feel like you're right with that person. It's a whole emotional impact. You feel like you're connected with that person."

At one point the entire early Twitter service was running on Glass's laptop. "An IBM Thinkpad," Glass says, "Using a Verizon wireless card."

"It was right there on my desk. I could just pick it up and take it anywhere in the world. That was a really fun time."

Glass insists that he is not Twitter's sole founder or anything like it.  But he feels betrayed that his role has basically been expunged from Twitter history.  He says Florian Weber doesn't get enough credit, either.

"Some people have gotten credit, some people haven't. The reality is it was a group effort. I didn't create Twitter on my own. It came out of conversations."

"I do know that without me, Twitter wouldn't exist. In a huge way."

By March of 2006, Odeo had a working Twitter prototype. In July, TechCrunch covered Twttr for the first time. That same summer, Odeo employees obsessed with Twitter were racking up monthly SMS bills totalling hundreds of dollars. The company agreed to pay those bills for the employees. In August, a small earthquake shook San Francisco and word quickly spread through Twitter – an early 'ah-ha!' moment for users and company-watchers alike. By that fall, Twitter had thousands of users.

By this point, engineer Blaine Cook says it began to feel like there were "two companies" at Odeo – the one "Noah and Florian and Jack and Biz were working on" (Twitter) and Odeo. Twitter, says Ray McClure, "was definitely the thing you wanted to be working on."

It’s not such a wonderful time to be a doctor, patient, hospital, health plan or pharma company, but judging by the quality and quantity of entries received for this edition of the HWR, it’s a wonderful time to be a wonk.

A couple weeks ago CMS released draft rules for Accountable Care Organizations. Several bloggers weighed in on that development:

• Mark McClellan and Elliott Fisher at Health Affairs provide some historical context and argue that “those who care deeply about health care reform all have a common interest in the success of ACOs as a way of avoiding more classic fee-for-service payment cuts to providers.”


• On a more downbeat note, The Road to Health concludes, “Dr. Berwick and his colleagues at CMS appear to have taken the ACO concept and made it into a financial program that only delusional practice administrators, or physician organizations bent on financial self-destruction, could love.”


• The Healthcare IT Guy expects ACOs to be “far more lucrative and disruptive than Meaningful Use and likely to yield more patient quality improvements.”


• GE Healthcare puts the emphasis on ACO change management challenges: “Healthcare executives and management teams are left to focus on preparing their organizations for a cultural shift of seismic proportions.”


• HealthBlawg reviews the proposed rules and produces 8 takeaways. #2: “This is the Frankenstein regulation: A Medicare beneficiary must sit on the board of the ACO, CMS must approve all marketing materials before they are used.”

In the midst of the battle over funding the 2011 budget, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan came out with a plan to radically restructure Medicare and Medicaid starting in 2012:

• The Apothecary likes much of what he sees and thinks the proposal may force Democrats to devise a credible plan of their own


• John C. Goodman’s Health Policy Blog contrasts PPACA and the Ryan plan. “Obviously, the path we are on leads to an impossible place. So the only question is whether we are going to get off the current path in a planned, orderly way or whether we are going to let unplanned chaos do the trick.”


• Wright on Health is less impressed and wonders, “if Rep. Ryan is so adamant about reducing the deficit, why is he cutting taxes for the wealthy and cutting programs for the poor and the elderly?”


• Managed Care Matters is decidedly unswayed. “If you were looking for real solutions to the health cost problem, you’re going to be sorely disappointed… Unfortunately, he’s fallen into the same trap his Democratic colleagues did with their version of health reform – the Ryan plan does little to address costs.”


• The Incidental Economist takes issue with Ryan’s plan to convert Medicaid to block grants and cut spending. “Should Medicaid be cut back, more people will be uninsured. Contrary to what some wish you to believe, those who become uninsured will suffer worse health outcomes”

As if the ACO rules and Ryan plan weren’t enough, there’s more on Medicare in the blogosphere:

• The Covert Rationing Blog –always good for a lighthearted pick me up– “asserts that we are one giant step closer to the day when it will become illegal for all Americans to spend their own money on their own healthcare.”


• Dr. Liberty discusses CMS’s deliberations on whether to pay for Provenge, a pricey prostate drug. “Decisions are made on the basis of politics, and the drive is to cover everything, leading to higher costs.”

Amid all the federal policy blogging, there’s still some room for technology talk:

• Healthcare Talent Transformation has had it with Health Net’s repeated goof up’s leading to loss of confidential data. Although it may seem like there’s not much the average person can do, the blog argues, “You can make an impact on the security of your sensitive data by conducting due diligence when it comes to your insurance provider.”


• The Healthcare Blog offers a video collage of the new Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health. “The Center is  a pretty fascinating place–part tech and idea showcase and part meeting room. Certainly no other health care organization that I’m aware of has spent so much on a place designed to stimulate the imagination and enhance conversation–under the nose of the folks on Capitol Hill.”


• Meaningful HIT News features a podcast with mHealth Initiative’s Peter Waegemann, who’s shifted over from EMRs to ride the mobile wave


• Healthcare Economist delves into new papers that, “examined how to develop accurate algorithms to account for cancer stage in studies using claims data.”

It was encouraging to receive a couple submissions about  journalism:

• Disease Care Management Blog asks, “Is the kerfuffle over National Public Radio (NPR) the long delayed comeuppance for liberal bias run amok, or a narrow-minded attack on the inconvenient truths from journalistic excellence?” The blog reaches into the world of medicine and discusses of “framing” and its impact on patient decision making to provide an answer


• HealthNews ReviewBlog cites, “daily evidence of the need for improvement in health care journalism – especially when we see examples like hype of a tiny, preliminary study of strawberries for esophageal cancer.”

We always have room in the Health Wonk Review for some posts on medical ethics:

• Nuts for Healthcare looks at the pharma industry and concludes, “Doctors need to take a more definitive stand against the specter of industry influence. A good target? Industry sponsorship of continuing medical education.”


• Health Care Renewal is concerned that so-called government run programs are more private than we think. “The majority of Medicaid has been out-sourced to private health care insurance companies… We need to have some real discussions about the rise of corporatism in US health care, in other aspects of US society and around the world.”

And finally, a few odds and ends

• Workers’ Comp Insider provides resources for employers concerned about radiation exposure


• Colorado Health Insurance Insider chronicles the decline of bipartisanship in the creation of a health insurance exchange for that state. “Healthcare reform has become such a polarized topic that it’s difficult for lawmakers to have any stance other than for it or against it.  Even though the health insurance exchanges would be marketplaces that sell private health insurance, the word ‘exchange’ has been thrown around so much during the reform debates that many opponents of the PPACA see it as synonymous with ‘ObamaCare.’”


• Last week I went to a health care direct to consumer marketing conference to see former TimeWarner CEO Jerry Levin interviewed by OrganizedWisdom CEO Steve Krein. I also shared my thoughts in the video clip below

Thanks for reading the Health Wonk Review! The Incidental Economist hosts the next edition.

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Roofing Companies Vancouver - 5 Questions to Think about

Roofing Vancouver - Faq's

1. Repair or Replace?

There's no opinion like an expert opinion. Most contractors provides you with a totally free estimate. Get a list of a couple trusted contractors and contact them well in advance of when you wish to obtain your homes roof fixed so you can compare costs and opinions.

2. Beauty versus Practicality?

Discuss this together with your spouse or partner. (The kids could care less...at least the young ones.) Truth is, nobody wants an ugly roof the same as nobody wants to be seen with bed hair. If you've got a good quality roof and you simply need to repair it, it's worthwhile to pay for the cost of the initial shingle rather than doing patchwork. A roof replacement doesn't happen very often (hopefully!) and thus make a decision that best suits you and your family well or it'll stick out like a sore thumb everyday you decide to go home.

3. Must i replace the roof in order to sell the home for additional?

Think about this cautiously before making a decision. With respect to the roofing material you choose, a brand new roof can last anywhere from twenty, fifty, to one-hundred years! This means you need to look into the year of the roof that's currently too deep first. Are you at year 18 of a 20-year warranted roof or year 30 of a 50-year warranted roof? Obviously, the quality is what makes the rooftop keep going longer, but when you're not planning to remain in your present home throughout your lifetime, the larger expense may not be worth your investment. Although a new roof can improve the worth of your value, the rise may not be enough to pay for your investment and that's definitely going to hurt your wallet.

4. Is it advisable for me to repair the roof myself?

Sure it is. Before you need to do, consult a specialist first. You can perform it yourself, however, you shouldn't be considered a complete ‘lone ranger.' Depending on the extent of the repair, you might or might not convince you. In either case, it will help to obtain a professional eye on the problem first and maybe even a free quote to help you do the math later and see if it's truly worth your time and effort, sweat, and cash to become mister or miss fix-it.

5. When is a great time to get the roof replaced?

Weather may cause delays from days to weeks. Most people prepare yourself to have their roof replaced in the summertime when they have a friend is going to be home during the day for a solid two weeks. Once you have this period in your mind, create a call to some trusted contractor months in advance to get a quote. Some companies get reserved fast and chances are, they're the most reputable. Preparing in advance of the summer also gives you time to ask around many compare costs...especially if you need to possess the roof done by a specified date.

 

The very best Roofing Contractor In Vancouver!

It is possible to leak in your home's roof? Have you lost shingles or tiles in a storm? Have overhanging branches caused damage? Is the roof a lot more than Two decades old and showing its age? Are your gutters overwhelmed and draining poorly?

If the response to any of these questions is "Yes" it's time to call the very best roofing contractor Vancouver - Crown Roofing & Drainage.

For more than a century Crown Roofing has been the roofer of preference among our Vancouver neighbors. We offer complete roofing services, from emergency repairs and roof restoration, to complete roof replacement. All using the finest quality materials, installed with precision and the highest degree of customer service.

YOUR Vancouver ROOF DESERVES NO LESS!

The roof of your Vancouver home is the very first line of defence against wind, rain, snow, ice along with other weather elements. Be sure it's up to the task. Among Vancouver Roofing companies, only Crown Roofing has the depth of experience and successful history to make sure your roofing system will be properly designed and installed.

NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS.

One reason Crown Roofing has been probably the most successful roofing company in Vancouver is our resolve for our neighbors. We treat your home as if it were our own and we were building a roof to protect our own family. That's what neighbors do, and you will count on Crown Roofing being here to aid you and back our work. In the end, we've been repairing and replacing roofs in Vancouver since 1902!

Obtain a FREE INSPECTION AND EVALUATION OF YOUR Vancouver ROOF.

Go to the Roofers Vancouver for any FREE inspection and evaluation of the roof. Make sure you get the very best roof for your Vancouver home, at the cost effective. We build roofs to last!

 

Tacoma Roofer: Make your Home Beautiful

Very few people understand the worth of a solid roof, your knowledgeable Tacoma Roofing contractor does. From top notch experience, they'll be in a position to let you know the reason why you need a strong, secure, and leak-free roof on your home.

Your local Tacoma Roofer is well aware how important a financial investment your property is for you personally, especially since it is a lasting one. Your house might have been damaged slowly through the years and you need to take steps to minimize this damage. For a lot of people, keeping their property beautiful is also a matter of pride. You will find those too who'd prefer to turn their property right into a economical and efficient living place. Your homes roof is a valuable part of your house and contributes to each one of the aspects mentioned previously. Because of this, you should employ the services of qualified a Tacoma Roofing company.

Kinds of Roofs installed with a Tacoma Roofer

Among the more prevalent kinds of roofs are asphalt shingles, steel or metal sheeting, fiberglass, slate and terra cotta tiles.

Each kind of roof invites distinct problems, however they can all be easily looked after with a trusted Tacoma Roofing company. It's vital that you nip roof problems in the bud before they become too costly or dangerous. You can schedule a scheduled appointment with the Tacoma Roofer to take a look at your homes roof to determine if there are any issues or potential problems with it. If you will find, they may be able to let you know how to deal with them.

A Tacoma Roofing company Helps to Build Strong Homes

The exteriors of any house, primarily the rooftop and gutters, face the onslaught of bitter and varying weather conditions, every single day. Painting, repairing, and cleaning gutters may be necessary. In some instances you may have to replace them completely. Usually, whenever your gutters show signs of trouble, your roof must also be inspected for problems. Whatever issues there may be, an experienced Tacoma Roofer can examine them at length and suggest the remedy.

If your gutters often clog too often, or there are leaks across the walls of your house, it may mean that there's debris piled-up on the top. Loose branches, piles of leaves, along with other light objects which are swept onto your roof throughout a storm can all contribute towards damaging your homes roof, and these damages can be lasting. A knowledgeable Tacoma Roofing contractor will tell you that birds, mice, and other kinds of rodents often build nest in the debris that collects on the top. While these nests may look rather innocent, they're great at collecting moisture, which can lead to loose shingles, mold, and indoor leaks in your home. Additionally, this may also cause vermin infestation. After a storm, your Tacoma Roofing company will claim that you inspect your homes roof for just about any signs of debris or damage.

Reverse Damages with the Help of a Tacoma Roofing company

However top quality the rooftop might be, it is going to wear out with time. You will find shingles that are referred to as "25 year" or "30 year" shingles, but those numbers are only associated with warranty produced by the manufacturers. They hardly ever require that long. Realistically speaking, "25 year" shingles won't last a lot more than fifteen to twenty years. In an area that is prone to storms, shingles or even the entire roof should be replaced every 10 years. With a Tacoma Roofer, the price is going to be less than what you think.

If there you lose any shingles, or there's some harm to them, a Tacoma Roofer will be able to help you. Damaged shingles can lead to indoor leaks, as the substrate from the roof becomes subjected to the sun and rain. Shingles that are loose or broken can slip off and pose a possible hazard to individuals standing below. Missing shingles create a gap which allows rain, wind, ice, and debris to build up underneath the adjoining shingles, which results in a "domino effect" that affects other shingles plus they become loose or broken. A comprehensive investigation will be produced by your local Tacoma Roofer, should you call them up with your suspicions of loose or missing shingles.

Your Tacoma Roofing contractor come in a position to tell you what the best option is perfect for your homes roof. In case your roof is not in a good shape, it's advised that you have it replaced completely. The Tacoma Roofer can take you thru the various roofing options available to you which will fit your requirements and your budget.

Tacoma Roofing company: Enhancing your Home's Efficiency

Your homes roof shelters you against storms, sleet, and hail. By providing adequate ventilation, your roof protects your house from overheating, and by holding in the heat, it keeps your home warm. That's why you ought to ready your roof from indoors as well as outdoors for any sort of weather emergency. A Qualified Tacoma Roofing company can offer help in this case.

To begin with, inspect your roof thoroughly for just about any and all type of damage, prior to the beginning of a year. The gutters ought to be clear, debris shouldn't be piled on or trapped under shingles, tthere shouldn't be homes of squirrels or birds within the eaves or attic, and the roof ought to be structurally sound. For that last part, you will need the help of the local Tacoma Roofing contractor. It may be quite dangerous to climb to the roof of your house. This is when the contractor from Tacoma Roofing contractor comes in. He will check out the strength and security of your roof and shingles, and do a general inspection of the entire roof structure, to make sure that it's in proper working order. They will be in a position to point to issues that you need to keep close track of and problems you might not have spotted.

You will need all of the help you could possibly get in the Tacoma Roofing contractor. You can help your homes roof by installing a gutter guard or leaf cover to help prevent debris from forming in your gutters. The additional weight of debris prevents the gutters from draining and can even tear them down. Look into the fasteners in your gutters and when they are loose, tighten them. Take steps to alter worn screws and brackets. For those who have a chimney in your home, inspect the bricks and mortar signs of wear. A reliable mason could be recommended by your Tacoma Roofing company, if there are any repairs to be done.

Tacoma Roofing company: Someone You are able to Count On
When you know or suspect that there is a problem, your Tacoma Roofing contractor should be contacted. They are able to use their knowledge and expertise to obtain your home in ace condition by simply focusing on the rooftop. Your homes roof deserves attention. So call them today, so that they can get down to caring for your roof.

 

What is Difference Between Commercial Roofing Companies From Residential Roofing Companies

If you are getting a roofing company to re roof your house or building then you can be wondering what the differences are between residential roofing companies and commercial roofing companies. To start with, the one huge difference is that often times a commercial roofing company might have signed a contract with and become obligated to some roofing union in in a position to work on union commercial jobs.

If this is the situation then their labor costs will prohibit them from focusing on non union residential jobs. Beyond that, if your commercial roofing company hasn't signed an agreement with a union they might be outfitted simply for commercial jobs and that means that their workers and equipment might not be consistent with smaller residential jobs.

Residential roofing contractors generally tend to run smaller companies and therefore, tend to be more in a position to bid competitively on residential jobs, which tend to be smaller than comercial jobs. Actually, often times residential roofing contractors will run one man operations, where the contractor that you simply speak with could be the one which actually does the work about the building.

Also, liability insurance for commercial roofing is more epensive along with a larger bond is needed for any commercial roofing work which can make it not cost effective for a commercial roofing contractor to do residential roofing jobs.

Still an additional factor is that commercial jobs can run on tighter time period for any number of reasons, requiring a commercial contractor to employ a larger crew or crews which again makes smaller jobs not as profitable on their behalf.

 

Difference Between Commercial Roofing and Residential Roofing

Are you aware that the roof of a house or building has a huge effect on the whole structure itself? Damage caused to roofs because of natural or other disasters leads to a considerable lack of property everywhere. The type of materials accustomed to construct the rooftop which should be sturdy and long-lasting, the manner in which the roof continues to be installed and even its timely maintenance are extremely crucial. There's two kinds of roofs that are utilized on all the buildings that we see around us: commercial and residential. Even though it may seem that commercial roofing is performed only for businesses or offices and residential roofing is performed for apartments and houses, in reality the differences are much more complicated than that.

Residential roofing is usually completed just by one hired contractor but commercial roofing typically takes an entire team to complete the task. This is because a commercial roof is commonly larger in terms of sq ft than the usual residential roof.
Commercial roofs need to be made carefully keeping the character and reason for the building in your mind. For example, if there is a cafe or restaurant in the building then external components like ventilation systems, smoke stacks and pipes is going to be required. Residential roofs tend not to have such components apart from a chimney or two at most.
Commercial roofs is commonly flat in design to support further changes at a later period, whereas most residential roofs have peaks and other architectural features like roof gardens.
Commercial roofing is a lot more expensive than residential roofing due to the special tools, materials and safety equipment which are needed onsite. Usually the patching or maintenance work is done in segments unlike for a residential roof in which the repair or replacement work can be carried out a short while. This really is one more reason why the gear used for residential roofs is usually smaller and less costly too.
Commercial roof installations take a extended period to complete compared to residential roof installations and are usually constructed in large sections. In this phase however, it is important to make sure that there aren't any leakages, cracks or other visible deterioration signs as it can certainly cause considerable harm to the whole building.
It is important to install the best roof for any building based on its purpose. Make sure that you hire a construction company that utilizes top notch materials and has the best equipment to do the job or neglect the risk turning out to be considered a huge loss later.

 

Commercial Roofing Contractors: How to purchase a Qualified Commercial Roofing Company

If your clients are seeking to have work done on its roof, it is important to use commercial roofing contractors which have an enthusiastic knowledge of any special needs that the business may have. As an example, a roofing job is often disruptive for the operation of economic as always. Because of this, it may be essential for the company to be temporarily shut down, or the roofing to take place after business hours have ended. A roofer that understands these needs can function together with a business in order to make sure that these types of issues are minimized.

First of all , a business must do when it's trying to find commercial roofing contractors is to find out who other businesses in the area are working through. Obviously, this article 't be helpful if it comes as a suggestion from competitors, but there are circumstances in which it is not too hard to find these details from suppliers or retailers. Since roofing isn't an industry-specific service, this post is easily available.

It is a wise decision for just about any business to obtain in touch with a minimum of three commercial roofing contractors to create bids about the price. In this manner, the business could get a better price. It is also vital that you ensure that each one of the roofing contractors is licensed and bonded. This information can be found by getting in touch with the state contractor's board. This also assists you to determine if there has been any claims filed from the company in the past.

When examining bids, it is only as vital to look at what services are now being offered and which products will be used as it is to look at the overall cost. The prices can vary quite drastically, but as tempting as possible to choose the cheapest bid, this is not always your best option. Oftentimes, more costs now will mean fewer costs over time due to an undesirable roofing job. To further investigate the caliber of the job, it's a good idea to check on using the Better Business Bureau in order to see if the business has been accredited, and when it's not, to a minimum of see what its rating is.

 

Picking out a Commercial Roofer

When you're searching for a roofer for the commercial roofing project you have to look for a contractor who understands the special needs of a commercial roofing project. For instance it may be harder to operate on a business during business hours so either the business has to be turn off for the repair or replacement or the job needs to be done after conventional business hours. Is the roofer you are thinking about to do the job ready to operate around your schedule constrictions which might involve working weekends or evenings?

When you begin your research for a roofing contractor not only do you need to answer those questions however, you should also find someone which will perform a high quality job with no great deal of time delays. Going about finding someone can seem like an obstacle in itself but there are some methods to result in the search easier.

Ask people around you for referrals and then try to find a minimum of three contractors to give you written bids on your job. Prior to going any more you have to ensure that the contractors you are thinking about are fully licensed and bonded. A simple search using the state contractor's board will verify if your roofer is licensed and when there are any past judgments or claims against their license.

When you select three or four roofers to put bids, you need to prepare yourself for the bids to be widely varied. Roofers will have brand preferences that will vary and may element in more or less than the next guy for any labor estimate. The more detailed a written bid may be the more helpful it will likely be for you to see where the cost will be incurred. Don't, however, pick a roofer based solely on the bid price. Any low ball bids might be tempting to consider, but when they are low because of low quality workman ship it may not be worth it ultimately.

As they say, you generally get that which you pay for, so if you can afford a mid-priced bid it certainly is a good idea to go up in your price range rather than down. Additionally you ought to decide your roofer depending on how professional these were and how comfortable you anticipate you will be working with them.

Finally your cost will vary depending on what type of roofing material you choose as well as the cost to haul your old roof to the landfill. Should you be looking for places to cut corners in your roof, instead of cutting labor cost you might want to ask about a metal roof option. Metal roofs could be economical and energy efficient making them overall money savers for the long term, as well as on commercial buildings they can be really low maintenance. Plus given that they can be placed along with a current roof, you don't need to have the old one removed and hauled away, which can make a large effect on your cost.

Choosing a comerical roofing company nearer your home, does not have to become a difficult task. For more information, visit http://www.vancouverroofers.net

 

Seattle Roofing Companies - How to locate The Best

In your home of rain and sleet, commercial coffee and grunge, and the famous space needle, you can find a house that will suit you. Seattle, Washington can be a good place to build a home, but you need Seattle roofing contractors to help you out. Your roof is, in the end, the crowning glory of your home, and your strongest type of defense against the elements. You must have something which is not only created to last, but built to attract making your home more beautiful

Harsh Weather

How come roofing contractors so important in this the main country? Because Seattle is often bombarded by rain and other harsh climate conditions, you'll need a roof that may withstand all of the forces of nature. With this thought, you need individuals who be aware of Seattle weather best, and who understand what materials can best go into your homes roof in order for it to last far longer in the area. On top this, you have to blend with the remainder of the houses in your living space, which means you cannot simply get whatever roof you please.

In most these aspects, a Seattle roofing contractors will be able to assist you. All that you should do is search for Seattle roofing contractors online so that you can get the best value for your money without wondering if the contractor will suddenly run away with it and then leave you roof-less.

Why the Contractor Model Works

If you wish to put up your roof on your own, you will have to buy a whole lot of materials, secure permits and licenses, and get materials that are suited to keep you safe against harsh extremes of Seattle weather. Which means that if you are a DIY kind of guy or gal, you'll have to undergo a good deal of legwork to get the task done.

On the other hand, a Seattle roofing company can perform all of the jobs for you and provide you with a package that may save you time and money. Because contractors operate under licenses and purchase materials in large quantities, they are able to get discounts on building materials that you would not otherwise get should you be buying merely for your own personel home.

Roofing Associations

Most roofing contractors also belong to roofing organizations which are bound by strict guidelines and standards. If they do well on their roofing job, they can showcase their roofing contractors association; if they do poorly, they can ruin the trustworthiness of their roofing contractors association and keep other contractors within the association from receiving targeted roofing jobs. There is a lot of pressure to complete well, to help you be reassured that if you need a roofing job done in Seattle, you can aquire a contractor from a roofing association to help you out.

For example, Seattle Roof Brokers operates with more than five hundred roofing contractors in the Puget Sound. This group has over fifty years of roofing experience and experience dealing with Seattle roofing contractors, therefore it will know what kind of roofing you want. The rooftop Brokers group can put you in contact using the contractor that you need so that you do not have to search for contractors individually.

What In the event you Demand from Your Contractor?

When you finally obtain a contractor in the Seattle area, you must do lots of research about the roofing contractors themselves. Request a list of previous companies or persons that the contractor worked with to get a clear look at the roofing contractor's work ethics and roof quality. Your roofer must also have the appropriate working licenses and city licenses required by the Seattle city government.

Select a Seattle roofers that insures its employees, which has courteous workers who will respect your thinking and ensure that your needs are met. Ensure that you get the best value for your money: if you are not satisfied using the job, you have to be guaranteed either money back, or a free, new roof. Moreover, additionally you require the workers to get the job done promptly, so be strict together with your deadlines - and discover a contractor that is as strict when you are.

You need guarantees and warranties on your roof, so look for a contractor that may meet your budget and roofing needs. If you get touching good Seattle roofing contractors, you may be guaranteed a great roof along with a better house right in this fantastic city.

Selecting the Right Roofer Company for Replacing Your homes roof

The shingles inside your roof need replacing and you are minded to find a roofer to replace the them. Perhaps you have already called a few and are evaluating which contractor for your upcoming roof repair. How do you choose the best contractor for caring for your roof? Here are several things you should consider when searching for a legitimate roofing contractor.

Where is the roofing contractor located? You should hire a roofer that's local. Then you will get the next step and services information when the roofing company can be found near your home or has an office near your residence.
References. To determine the reliability of the contractor, references ought to be provided of their past clients who are willing to vouch that excellent service was received. This should 't be the only factor in deciding upon your future roofer as some may claim they value the privacy of the clients and don't wish to bother them. If this is the case, request business related references. The locations that provide the contractor with supplies can reveal the amount of materials and regularity of supplying the contractor to help determine their stability.
How does the roofer company handle complaints? There's a multitude of issues that can arise during the progress of the roofing replacement. Ask what their process is perfect for handling complaints if they arise. It is also a great idea to receive a past client reference who had a complaint which was resolved to the satisfaction from the client.
Terms of payment. What are the terms of payment to do the job? What's the deposit and amount due upon completion? Even though it is certainly reasonable that the substantial payment be produced before a contractor begins work on a project, it is strongly advised that full payment is not made until following the entire job is completed.
Written contract. All the roofing replacement ought to be put in a written contract. No part of the contracting job should rely on verbal assurances.
Bonding. There are stuff that can go wrong with roofing installations that end up costing quite a bit of money to fix. Should this happen on your roofing replacement, you'll feel a great deal better knowing that your roofer is bonded. This will supply the funds to fix whatever mistakes were made. Look for a roofer that's bonded.
Manufacturer Warranty. Quality materials for roofing typically come with a warranty. You should verify that there's actually a warranty about the materials being installed. Request a duplicate from the warranty.
Period of time running a business Just how long has the company you are interviewing been in business? A brief amount of time in business may reflect instability. If the contractor has been around business less than three years, verify just how long they have actually been in the market. A brand new contractor may have many years experience working on roofs before they form their own business. Seek a company that has been around for three or more years, or where the contractor has had a lot more years performing roofing replacements. It can shouldn't be the only factor, all of us have to begin sometime. Balance this with referrals and also the other points raised in this article.
Appropriate Permits. A Seattle roofer ought to know what permits are needed for fixing your roof. They should be aware of how to obtain these permits on your behalf. Ask the contractor whether they will obtain the permits necessary to repair the rooftop.
Liability. If a worker becomes injured, who is accountable for the workers comp? When the contractor's equipment damages your home, who is liable for the repairs? A great contractor will give you certificates of insurance for liability and worker's compensation before they start repairing your roof.
Subcontractors. Verify whether the contractor is going to be using subcontractors. If so, it is strongly advised that everything contained in this article for verifying whether the contractor is credible should also be relevant to subcontractors. You should get the names and license numbers of all subcontractors. You need to verify whether each subcontractor can also be insured so you aren't held responsible for their accidents.
Pending Legal Actions. It is important to verify whether there are any legal actions from the contractor. This is not merely essential for verifying if the roofing company is legitimate (credible roofing companies should not need to defend themselves in court), it is also important because a lost lawsuit could cause the contractor to visit bankrupt. If you have made a substantial deposit for services immediately before the company goes bankrupt, you can lose many thousands of dollars and never have your roofing completed.
Material Disposal. Who's responsible for disposing of the waste generated from the roof being replaced? Will your contractor handle all aspects of this? Is there one more cost for disposing of this waste?
NRCA Membership. Membership in local or national roofing associations, such as the NRCA, shows commitment to staying up to date with the very best means of roof replacement and maintenance. Find a roofer with a high standard of education regarding their trade.
Replacing your roof is really a significant investment. Celebrate sense to inquire about serious questions before using a roofing contractor. Here are some more tips that you ought to consider when selecting the very best roofer for your upcoming roofing replacement.

Payment. Don't make a full payment for services unless all work is finished.
Inspection. Don't make a full payment without doing your final inspection of services rendered.
Workers liens. Do not fully purchase the roofing replacement job until worker's lien releases happen to be obtained.
Oral Agreements. No agreement should be made verbally without backing up in writing. Every point that are vital that you you ought to be made in writing.

 

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There is no denying that the worldwide web is just about the biggest financial market nowadays. Practically it is all totally anchored on the net. Currently, there are many than 182 million web sites online whilst still being counting. If all these websites offers opportunities to generate income, consider the limitless opportunities which can be based in the internet. Moreover, using the emergence of internet sites, the need for internet hosting and Search| Engine Optimization is significantly defined.

Seo is actually the process of helping the visibility of your web site. As such, if you want your web site to be visible to visitors, you ought to look for Seo agency. The optimization strategy considers how search spiders work and what folks usually and what keywords they will use. The main objective of Search engine optimization is making sites visible browsing sites with the natural or organic way.

Search engines optimization or natural search engine marketing can be a expression used in describing unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular engine. Put simply, organic SEO uses natural strategies in achieving search engine results ranking. While there are 2 camps that search optimization companies may fall to, and these will be the 'White Hat' and also the 'Black Hat', organic SEO could not come under the 'Black Hat' camp.

Organic search engine optimization is really a highly specialized and complex practice which could literally dictate the failure or success of an online business. Since search sites often modify their algorithms, organic SEO is not quite simple in any way. When search bots modify their algorithms, factors that allow your internet site to look before prospects are decayed also. Thus, in order to cope using these changes, SEO tactics and techniques has to be employed.

It is always ethical to utilize search engines engine optimization since search sites nowadays have grown to be extremely advanced they can easily see whether an internet site is trying to manipulate their search indexes. Thus it's empirical to make use of search engine marketing practices which are done in wherein appear natural.

The approaches utilized by organic search engine optimization and artificial SEO are very significantly different. Basically, organic SEO uses content compared to artificial SEO's technical loopholes. Moreover, natural search engine marketing provides attracting links instead of linking schemes used by artificial SEO. Natural SEO also creates valuable resource as opposed to artificial SEO's algorithm chasing. With all of these, it's possible to clearly see why search engine optimization is preferable over artificial search engine optimization. Although the latter may be more difficult and complicated, it makes favorable results that are beneficial for any site. Fortunately, there are plenty of Vancouver SEO companies today that offer the organic method in affordable rates and packages.

Search engine marketing Appears to the picture

At one time when search engine marketing was actually not essential.

Whilst late being a decade ago, if you made a Web page anywhere, Google indexed it and you also gained visibility in its serp's. Your page might have been in one of the free "estates" where anybody could put in a page and Google didn't mind. It could also provide been a pure affiliate page with no original content and Google still indexed it.

Situations are unrecognizably different now.

Affiliate pages with "cookie-cutter" content duplicated everywhere might never get to the Google index; the same fate is probably for all those pages you toss in on a free-for-all website. And also "proper" websites with your personal website name failed to achieve visibility on the list of proliferating sites in millions.

These wouldn't normally have mattered, except for one thing. It had been Google that provided the bread and butter for your millions of small enterprises which could not afford expensive marketing campaigns. In case your site was among the top few sites the appeared before a searcher's eyes when that person looked for your product or service, you got hundreds and even thousands of visitors, a lot of whom even bought your products.

Search engine optimization (SEO) entered the scene. Internet search engine specialists "reverse-engineered" to recognize the standards that Google consider for showing websites near the top of its serp's pages. These factors were then consciously integrated into your internet pages with the aspiration that Google will show your internet site the primary ten results it showed about the first page.

As more of the competitors adopted seo practices, things became difficult again. Your position began to slip in case your competitors did the SEO better. SEO battles became serious fights with every dirty trick working.

There have been "black hat" SEO practitioners who showed one page to find engines and the other to human visitors. As engines like google were not bothered with readability, you can fill the "search engine" page with pure gibberish, but gibberish designed in wherein the engine dutifully indexed high.

A war of wits followed between unscrupulous SEO practitioners and check engines. Google changed its ranking algorithms regularly to be effective around practices that allowed low value content to seem towards the top of its serp's. In the end, Google's success leaned on providing value to searchers, not merchants. And SEO practitioners came up with new tricks.

We'll look at search engine marketing in a number of articles, starting with an beauty at on-line or Internet marketing.

 

For the SEO needs, you should check out vancouver web site design and Vancouver SEO company.

 

Cedar Roofing: Advantages

Cedar shakes are just about the most great looking shakes on the market today. Frequently designed from red-colored cedar about the coniferous forests of northwestern United states of america, they're just the best roofs materials for proprietors who prefer supplying their roofs a natural look.

Unique cedar shingles are naturally resistant to the weather, this is the key answer why cedar shingles are widely-used generally around various climatic conditions. They're generally obtainable in several specific qualities. A minumum of one will be the shingle crafted from red cedar as the other is produced right out of the bright white variety. Red cedar shakes are designed from tight-grained particles that will be previously saturated with tannic acidity that experts say is definitely an all-natural additive. Red cedar shingles that will be drizzled with creosote to avoid corrosion and so are desirable to homeowners given that they put in a rich and unique look to one's property or home.

It is critical to note that red cedars usually change dark-colored if exposed continuously to seaside weather. Because of this, sea side homes need to have white cedar shakes. Red cedar shingles generally are a much more expensive compared to white cedar types, although cost factor doesn't diminish its reputation in anyhow. They might be preferably perfect for classic Colonial houses while white cedar shingles are image ideal for bungalows and bungalows which were built in Nantucket design.

Over time, classic cedar shakes have lost out in a point to synthetic shingles that emulate the cedar appear. Superior systems are employed in order to make these types of shingles possess a for a longer period life-span in comparison with unique cedar shingles. Most include advanced UV inhibitors and possess about 5 decades of steady guarantee. These shingles in many cases are great insulators and several superior ones provide a chilly inside during summer months and a warmer inside during harsh winters.

Cedar shakes, mostly obtainable in honey, cinnamon, and silvery gray colors, need several amount of repairs and maintenance. They might require initial procedure in front of installation. White cedar shakes by way of example, could be treated with bleaching oil which ought to be done virtually every six to seven years to improve their durability.

Cedar shakes and cedar shingles are either CCA treated or not CCA treated. CCA means chromated copper arsenate. CCA is a chemical that stops the increase of mold, mold and fungus so that it helps maintain insects from eating away your own wonderful cedar roof. CCA cedar might make your homes roof stay longer, but CCA just isn't A FIRE TREAMENT. Cedar that has been fire treated can be acquired, but your roofing company have to special order it. CCA treated cedar shingles cost 15 - 20% a lot more than non-CCA cedar. Most cedar roofs are usually not CCA treated.

Cedar shakes and cedar shingles are excellent, plus they are additionally a good purchase. Information of terms such as CCA, advanced quality, Number 1, blue label and black label will allow you to select the right cedar roof for your personal home.

Elite Roofing & Home Improvements, LLC provides more information about shingles, cedar shakes, fiberglass shakes plus more. Elite Roofing & Home Improvements, LLC is affiliated with the National Roofers Association.

Uncover more about cedar shingles, and acquire more articles and resources about cedar shakes at cedar roof shingles and shakes website.

 

Cedar Shingle Roof Vs Asphalt Shingle Roof

A cedar shingle roof remains highly coveted by homeowners. It is one of the oldest roofing products which has stayed constantly being used inside hundreds of years. As much as new roofing materials continue being developed, cedar shakes still endear themselves to numerous. Below can be a comparison research into the cedar roof versus an asphalt roof.

Pros of Cedar Roofing shingles

Cedar shakes give rise to far better air flow within the whole house. The shingles enable the home to breathe well without trapping moisture around. It will help to maintain the structure of the property in good shape for longer. Cedar Shakes are durable and strong. They like a higher resistance to bugs. A cedar shingle roof will fully stand up well on the various weather onslaughts. Storms, hurricanes, powerful winds and flying debris will barely damage the top of your cedar roof. Along with matures beautifully with all the passing years, rendering it much more desirable. A cedar roof adds a distinct charm to your house. Cedar is quickly accessible in lumber yards and doesn't require a large amount of expertise or specialized tools to put in.

Cons of Cedar Shakes

If rot begins, choosing compelled to change the complete lot. It is sometimes complicated extracting only the affected pieces. They may are already nailed down in a manner that each elimination proves difficult. Cedar Shingles don't hold up well to constant wetting. If you reside in a area where rainfall is heavy or frequent, cedar shingles aren't a great choice. Frequent wetting causes mold or mildew setting in. Replacement and repair could be a costly business. Your better protection against constant wetting would be to use wide overhangs. Also, should your property is shaded by many trees or nearby buildings, cedar shingles have a tendency to develop mold. You will be compelled to exchange them earlier than you planned. Cedar Shingles will be more flammable than asphalt shingles. Many areas have a very building code set up that restricts cedar shingles to reduce the chance of fire. To set up a cedar shake roof, you need to have your financial allowance concerning the higher side. Frequent maintenance can also be necessary to keep your roof who is fit. Mildew and rot are ever-constant threats with a cedar roof.

Pros of Asphalt Shingle Roof

An asphalt roof is among the least expensive to purchase and install. These come in various designs and colours, which range from a regular, flat turn to a 3-dimensional look. Asphalt shingles have a superior potential to deal with fires unlike cedar roofing. An asphalt roof can certainly reduce the risk of fires caused by flying embers. Asphalt roofs are easier and cheaper to put in than cedar. They're also low maintenance roofs.

Cons of Asphalt Shingle Roof

Algae is a lot more susceptible to grow on asphalt roofing than cedar shingles. It causes the top to produce somewhat with the stain which spoils the looks. You will get an anti-algae coating carried out your asphalt shingles but this adds to the cost. When it comes to stability, an asphalt roof is much more probably be blown off by strong winds than the usual cedar roof.

You can learn more about cedar roofing materials, and obtain more articles and resources about cedar roofing shakes at cedar roof shingles and shakes website.

 

How to locate Great Vancouver Search engine optimization

The number of internet sites as well as e-commerce websites is actually constantly increasing because everyone knows that it may bring in lots of earnings. This has also brought about another kind of services that really help businesses within achieving their set goals and making them develop. Amongst these are the Vancouver Search engine optimization; because the SEO industry is fairly youthful you will find that any SEO Vancouver organization won't be greater than a 10 years aged. However, you can rest assured that they actually know what they have to caused by get your business developing.

If your company depends on the Internet to get people to your site and to obtain conversions, you certainly need assistance in search engine optimization or even Search engine optimization because it is additionally known. When people place a search within their favorite internet search engine, the most most likely matches come at the top. If you wish to pull traffic to your site or even internet business, you have to take the help of the Vancouver SEO company to help you get up of those search results. The actual SEO Vancouver services supplied is going to be worth the cash you spend and will also be seeing the actual returns not long after.

However, attaining a high position on the internet might not continually be always easy and more therefore if yours is an extremely aggressive business that they often make reference to as a market. It is no wonder then that you require all the assist that you can get. If you do not have the answer to "What is Search engine optimization?" then you need to very first educate yourself on the topic. But your smartest choice is to depart the task to those that know it best; the Search engine optimization Vancouver professionals in the Vancouver SEO company. You'll have to shell out some cash however, you may enjoy the rewards as time go by.

The actual SEO Vancouver experts will start on market and keyword research which is usually the starting point associated with Search engine optimization. You need to know the kind of words or phrases which potential customers would be typing in to Google to get to your website. The Vancouver SEO company is going to do this tiresome job for a person because they possess a much better concept about how exactly people start their own searches. A person, on your part have to provide them with a much better knowing regarding your business and some fundamental key phrases on which they'd do their own research.

In case your SEO marketing campaign starts with key phrases choice, then its backlink building which rss feeds search engine optimization; worthwhile Vancouver Search engine optimization company will tell you this. The optimal way for your site to position high for a given key phrase is to have a great backlink building technique designed for it. The secret would be to leave your hyperlink on high ranked websites. The Search engine optimization Vancouver professionals will explain the most typical way of carrying this out would be to submit articles that contains the desired keywords within the proper percentage to article directory sites with backlinks aimed at your website within the authors resource box.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and take assistance of the actual Vancouver SEO company right here; the Search engine optimization Vancouver professionals will make your company grow so that you will reap higher earnings.

 

Reliable Search engine optimization For Your Business in Vancouver

Professional advanced Vancouver Search engine optimization enable you to come in the top list of the actual search leads to attract visitors. Furthermore, the actual visitors of natural outcomes will be eager to buy items which services will end up being useful when you are your business.

You need Search engine optimization Vancouver to profit your organization by allowing you to make the most visibility from the internet search engine as well as thereby getting good visitors to your web site. By using search engine listings, these services may hugely help your web site get in touch with the world of individuals accessing web and therefore, sketching increasingly more visitors to your internet website. When the web site has started generating visitors to this, your company may reap advantages as your web site will become the most searchable on the top search engines like google.

A business requirements these kinds of services as the SEO experts possess the fundamental understanding and understanding of how to do it. A person as the website owner may spend some time on internet dealing with blogs, forums, along with other materials. However, you need to focus on other aspects of your internet site and Search engine optimization experts focus almost all their initiatives upon Search engine optimization because this is the things they're doing greatest.

The Search engine optimization companies promise to increase increased traffic for your site regularly giving an guarantee that after individuals look for services or products, your internet site occurs the top of most sought after search engines such as Yahoo, Search engines, Windows live messenger as well as America online.

Quite simply, to enhance web visitors and visibility, it is vital that the web site ought to obtain updated continually. The process of search engine optimization is not the one-time try. A successful SEO service consists of marketing, ranking, site marketing, link exchanges and many more. In order to contain the modifications to Search engine optimization techniques and strategies every day, professional SEO services maintain skilled and technically skilled Search engine optimization experts, web site creative designers, copy writers, Search engine optimization publishers, marketing specialists as well as task supervisors.

A professional and result-oriented search engine optimization service includes the following:
. Research as well as report pre-optimization position
. Key phrase selection as well as optimisation
. Competition evaluation statement
. Explanation associated with labels
. Themed hyperlink page creation
. Optimisation of pictures
. Keyword-rich content material creating
. SEO copy writing
. Link strategies
. HTML coding
. Search engine distribution

SEO businesses offer the service of keyword research. These types of organizations will look in the clients' web sites as well as their competition and can search for suitable key phrases. They adopt the best methodology which will make sure online visibility and exposure.

Right now, let us point out the benefits that will assist a good company's site reach the top of the search engines.
• Customized Search engine optimization solution
• Long term top ratings in search engines
• Higher web site traffic and online product sales
• Worldwide company protection
• Business company identification
• Recommendations for business improvement
• Follow-up support
• Optimum results