The quote gadget we will make today has random quotes, random photos, and a nice re sizable border that looks nice that you can add a logo to. Not only does this gadget look better, it also allows for page resizing and different screen resolutions. The earlier quote gadget example didn’t do so hot in those departments.

I will again use “The Princess Bride” quote gadget for this tutorial. Let’s look at the gadget…

Refresh this page and notice that the gadget not only gives a new quote, but also a new photo as well.
To make this gadget you need photos of your quote author and quotes.
The gadget is made using a random quote generator (the same one as in the earlier quote gadget) and a random image generator.
Here is the XML code for this gadget. Note it is a type=”url” gadget which means the gadget code calls a url to display the gadget. I have left the original ModulePrefs in there, take a look at them and make sure your gadget uses each of these as this is an ideal set of them (for more on ModulePrefs see my guide).
The URL this gadget calls displays a random quote and random photo. But if you look at the code of that page, you can not see how the quotes and photos are generated.

Here is how it is done.

The gadget uses two php scripts.
The first one is the random quote generator. This code was written by David Marotz. Thanks! I have included the Princess Bride quotes in this example code so you can see where the quotes go and where the author name goes.
Using this php script by itself will result in a webpage that displays a random quote every time the page is displayed.
But our new quote gadget does more than that. It also displays a random image. This is accomplished by using another php script…
The following php script was authored by Matt Mullenweg and the instructions for it’s use are on his website.

Okay we talked about the two php scripts, but how does it all tie together and how do we get that nice looking border around the whole thing?

To make this gadget requires a few things…

• XML Google gadget file – shown below
• A folder with images of the author / subject
• The folder with the images must have the random image script – shown below
• The main php file that has the quotes on it, and includes the CSS, the call for the random image, etc. – shown below

Instructions

All files for this gadget must be in one folder for it to work.

1. Create a folder and put your photos in it.

2. Create a file and call it “example-photo.php”.

Copy and paste the random photo generator script into it. Do not modify this file. Place this file in same folder as photos or it won’t work. Here is the code:

<?php
/*
By Matt Mullenweg > http://photomatt.net
Inspired by Dan Benjamin > http://hiveware.com/imagerotator.php
Latest version always at:
http://photomatt.net/scripts/randomimage
*/// Make this the relative path to the images, like "../img" or "random/images/".
// If the images are in the same directory, leave it blank.
$folder = '';

// Space seperated list of extensions, you probably won't have to change this.
$exts = 'jpg jpeg png gif';

$files = array(); $i = -1; // Initialize some variables
if ('' == $folder) $folder = './';

$handle = opendir($folder);
$exts = explode(' ', $exts);
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
foreach($exts as $ext) { // for each extension check the extension
if (preg_match('/\.'.$ext.'$/i', $file, $test)) { // faster than ereg, case insensitive
$files[] = $file; // it's good
++$i;
}
}
}
closedir($handle); // We're not using it anymore
mt_srand((double)microtime()*1000000); // seed for PHP < 4.2
$rand = mt_rand(0, $i); // $i was incremented as we went along

header('Location: '.$folder.$files[$rand]); // Voila!
?>

3. Create a file named “example-quote.php”

Copy and paste the “overall quote php script” in it. Here is the code:

<style>
body {font : italics 14px/1.6em Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color : #2a3845;margin : 0;padding : 0;background:#FFFFFF;}
p { margin : 0;padding : 0;}
a:link {color : #0000ff;text-decoration : underline;background:none;}
a:visited {color : #0000ff;text-decoration : underline;background:none;}
a:hover {color : #0000ff;text-decoration : none;background:none;}
h1 { color : #094762;margin: 0px 0px 10px 0px;padding-bottom : 10px;font : normal 24px Georgia, serif;border-bottom : 1px solid #efece7;}
ul {padding:0;margin:0 0 0 17px;list-style: square url(http://www.gadzi.com/images/bullet.gif);}
.gadget {background : #ffffff;border : 2px solid #f0e9eb;padding : 15px;}
</style>

<div class="gadget">
<img src="http://www.gadzi.com/gadgets/quotes/princess-bride/princess-bride-photos.php" width="278" height="75" />
<h1>Princess Bride</h1>

<?
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// This is a VERY simple PHP Random Quote generator.
//   I provide the source code for anyone who wants it for free.
//   I also provide NO support for this program as well...
//   Use it at your own risk 
//     If you use the script, please send me an email that says "Thanks"
//     and what the URL is for your website. <quotes_nospam@davidmarotz.com>
//
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

$bgcolor = '#FFFFFF';
$textcolor = 'black';

// Array Structure:  "Quote","Author"

$allqts = array
    ("This is true love... you think this happens everyday?",
        "Westley",
    "You've been chasing me your entire life, only to fail now. I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard; how marvelous." ,
        "Six Fingered",
    "Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.",
        "narrator",
    "Do you want me to send you back to where you were - unemployed in Greenland?!",
        "Vizzini",
    "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.",
        "Inigo",
    "Inigo- You seem a decent fellow, I'd hate to kill you. Westly- You seem a decent fellow, I'd hate to die.",
        "Inigo and Westley",
    "Westley- I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me? Buttercup- Well, you were dead. Westley- But death cannot stop true love... All it can do is delay it for a while.",
        "Buttercup / Westley",
    "Is this a kissing book?",
        "Grandson",
    "Would you please consider me as an alternative to suicide?",
        "Prince Humperdink",
    "You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never to get involved in a land war in Asia. And only slightly less well known is this... never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!",
        "Vizzini",
    "I would sooner destroy a stained glass window as an artist like yourself. However, since I can't have you following me either.",
        "Westly to Inigo",
    "Buttercup... That's the fire swamp! We'll never survive  Wesley... Nonsense! You're only saying that because no one ever has.",
        "Buttercup / Westly",
    "WHo are you? Why am I against this wall? Why won't my arms move? Where's Buttercup?",
        "Westly",
    "Buttercup... You mock my pain! Westley... Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.",
        "Buttercup / Westley",
    "You can't hurt me. Westley and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.",
        "Buttercup",
    "-As Buttercup prepares to commit suicide with a dagger- There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.",
        "Westley",
    "Vizzini... Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya... You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.",
        "Vizzini / Inigo",
    "Am I going mad, or did the word 'think' escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass.",
        "Vizzini",
    "As you wish.",
            "Westley",
    "Vizzini... No more rhymes, now, I mean it!
Fezzik... Anybody want a peanut?",
        "Vizzini / Fezzik",
    "You've been chasing me your entire life, only to fail now. I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard... how marvelous.",
        "Count Rugen",
    "Farm boy, fetch me that pitcher",
        "Buttercup",
    "Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The end.",
        "narrator"
        );

// Gets the Total number of Items in the array
//  Divides by 2 because there is a Quote followed by an Author
$totalqts = (count($allqts)/2);

// Subtracted 1 from the total because '0' is not accounted for otherwise
$nmbr = (rand(0,($totalqts-1)));
$nmbr = $nmbr*2;

$quote = $allqts[$nmbr];
         $nmbr = $nmbr+1;
$author = $allqts[$nmbr];

$space = "<font color=$bgcolor>.....................................</font>";

echo "<center>";
echo "<Font color=$textcolor><i>";
echo "$quote<br>";
echo "</i></font>";

echo "$comments";
echo "</center>";

?>

<div align="center">
<br />
<p>
<form action="http://www.google.com/cse" id="cse-search-box" target="_blank">
  <div>
    <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="partner-pub-9611596420113268:bp0bz09wlb4" />
    <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" />
    <input type="text" name="q" size="31" />
    <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" />
  </div>
</form>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script>
</p>
</div>
<a href="http://www.gadzi.com" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.gadzi.com/images/gad.png" align="right" width="50" height="34" border="0" />
</a>
</div>
<small><a href="http://www.gadzi.com/quotes/quotes.html" target="_blank">More quote gadgets</a></small>

The above code should be modified to have your quotes and your authors (if not this gadget will display the Princess bride quotes already in there.

4. Create a file called “example-quote. xml”

Copy and paste the XML file into it. This is the Google gadget code. Here is the code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title="Princess Bride Quotes" title_url="http://www.gadzi.com/quotes/quotes.html" author="Gadzi" description="Like Princess Bride? We do. This gadget will show a different random Princess Bride quote and photo from the movie every time you visit your home page." author_email="gadgets@gadzi.com"
author_location="Honolulu, Hawaii"
author_photo="http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104462838893004134091/profile.jpg"
author_aboutme="My name is Patrick Sexton, a consultant for gadget strategies and brand promotion. I discuss Google gadgets at SEOish.com"
author_affiliation="SEOish"
author_quote="Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - Douglas Adams"
screenshot="http://www.gadzi.com/gadgets/images/princess-bride-quotes.jpg"
thumbnail="http://www.gadzi.com/gadgets/images/princess-bride-quotes-tn.jpg"
width="320" height="320" scrolling="false" />
  <Content type="url" href="http://www.gadzi.com/gadgets/quotes/princess-bride/princess-bride-quotes.php" />
</Module>

The above xml file must be modified to the URL where your file resides.

Related posts:

1. How To Make Google Gadgets – Lesson Seven
2. Farmboy, Fetch me that Gadget
3. How to Make Google Gadgets – Lesson Six

Rose ends and the ocean begins and that is where I live now. The view is nice, and I love it here. It suits me well this place.

I love Venice. Where I am at is where the Venice boardwalk ends and Santa Monica begins.

I do not like cars, but everyone told me how you have to have a vehicle in LA so I got one. I love it more than I can say.

I wash it lovingly and when I am about on it, it turns heads and people compliment me on it literally everyday.

My new wheels?

A 1962 Schwinn Panther

Oh yeah, baby.
I smile every time I see it.
I simply love this bike and it has awakened something in me, what it has awakened in me is easy to guess…

Interior decorating

You see, I have lived most of my life out of a backpack. This place in Venice is the first 12 month lease I have ever in my life signed. I decided I might actually put some thought and time into decorating it.
How have I decorated it?

Schwinnish.

I have a Schwinn theme and before you laugh at me, Schwinn accessories are art.
Seriously.
I have 9 fifty year old Schwinn seats on my wall and don’t lie… They look good. They are bright pretty colors and they are unique and they look fabulous.
I also have a ten foot tall fiddle leaf fig tree. How could I not? I also have a very long and tall papyrus plant….

I love plants. I love Schwinns.

In any case, I am in LA now and will be here and in Hawaii on and off but for now I am here in Venice and loving it.

As I was accessorizing my Schwinn…

Shut. Up.

As I was looking for accessories for my Schwinn I found out a very important lesson.

This is the honest advice part…

I suggest you have a fun project, you probably work your butt off on your online projects and try like poo to monetize them.

My honest advice is to have a second project. Something that you probably will make money off of in the future but for now it is just an enjoyment thing.

You can by all means be strategic about it, and you can have your mind on your money and your money on your mind, but the second project (or the third or the forth depending on how much you are juggling) should be something that will be a great resource about something you are into.

I am not going to leave you with vague advice.

I have a specific way to accomplish a great enjoyable project, that is needed on the web and that with your skills you can make great.

Ebay.

Shut. Up.

Hear me out here…

Go to Ebay and search for something you like. Doesn’t matter what it is.

Wait a minute… a sailboat is going by my window as I write this and the sun goes down…

Do not think money. Do not think keywords. If you like dolls search Ebay for dolls, if you like He-man figurines, search for that.

Here is what you will discover…

There is alot of community around Ebay items. Things are just buying and selling like crazy.

The thing that vibrant communities in Ebay often have in common, and I mean a whole bunch alot often, is a lack of a very good reference online.

Ohh, sorry, the sun is going more down and is pretty…

Okay, back to the advice. Make a reference about something you like…

Let’s talk Schwinn baby, let’s talk about you and me.

I noticed that although there were great resources online for Schwinn history and such, they really were not coherent or all inclusive. Much of the information about vintage Schwinn bikes out there was basically piece meal and incomplete.

When I was searching for a Schwinn model and year, I would not get the information I desired. I would get old ebay auction description mostly.

Why is there no Schwinn reference online? I do not know. I do not care.

I will make one.

I bought the domain schwinncruisers.com and started. I am still working on it, but here is the deal…

What ever your subject is, I am willing to bet you will find the same thing as I found with Schwinn bicycles.

You will find images online, maybe even full images of vintage or classic catalogs. But as we know, Google can’t really read images, so there is no way for them to really return results well for queries, even when that info is out there in images.

Example: There is a Schwinn catalog out there for 1933. It has every page of this vintage catalog clear as day…

In images.

What if I took those images and transcribed them? Hmmm.

Here is the 1933 Schwinn catalog for your enjoyment. I cropped the images and wrote out the text.

It is useful. It is needed, and Google does it itself in a little thing called Google books.

What resources are out there for your interest items? Is it readable by search engines spiders?

If not do yourself and the community a favor. Make it so.

Don’t try to make a million dollars, try to make a superb resource. You will be appreciated if you do and down the line a ways you can make money off of it too.

I made a detailed webpage about Schwinn slimline tanks for example. This is not a keyword phrase that is taking over the world, but it was something (an accessory) I needed to complete my Schwinn Panther. I could not find a lick of info about these tanks online. I eventually found some images of old Schwinn catalogs that had the info I seeked. I alsowent ahead and bought some through Ebay and photographed them. I took the info I learned and created and made it into a page that answered the questions I had.

Now there is an excellent online reference for Schwinn slimline tanks.

I even made a video about it…

That one small page that I made for unselfish reasons has had hundreds of visits and I have received thank you emails from France, Sweden, and here in the USA. It has been highlighted in forums and has gotten some great traffic. I made it so my time researching wouldn’t go to waste. If you know something about something it is generally wise to share it.

When you do, your resource will have traffic.

Find something you like. Spend an hour on it a day.

Answer the questions you have or had.

It will do well.

Related posts:

1. If the Internet is the New Yellow Book, Who do I call to Get Listed in it?
2. Video SEO in Google

This post highlights fun and useful Twitter Google gadgets for your iGoogle homepage that you might not know about.

Twitter Trends Gadget

This gadget lists the current real time trending topics on Twitter, but unlike other resources, it also explains why they are trending. The Twitter Trends gadget below is live, just mouse over a trending topic to see it’s full description.
The gadget uses info from WhatTheTrend which is a website where users go in and define current trending topics of Twitter.  Be in the know. No need to search for what a trending topic means anymore, just go to your home page. – Add the Twitter trends gadget to Google here

Twitter Photos Gadget

This gadget displays almost realtime the photos posted on Twitter. Click on any photo displayed and it shows you a bigger version right within the gadget. The live gadget below is displaying current photos from Twitter right now.
This gadget uses Twitpic and refreshes automatically every 30 seconds or so with the latest photos posted on Twitter. You can also search for pictures without leaving the gadget. Be careful though… Who knows what photos people will post on Twitter

- Add the Twitter photos gadget to Google here

Twitter Monitor Gadget

This gadget lets you put in a topic (in the example below it is “kittens”) and then displays real time tweets about that topic. You could put in your favorite place (Paris) or your favorite subject (puppy) or a celebrity name or anything else you want to keep track of on Twitter (like your business name or brand).
A very nice Twitter monitor. Find out who is saying what, also it is sorta just cool to see what people are tweeting, and since this gadget is always displaying new tweets, you don’t need to refresh anything,  just watch. – Add the Twitter Topics gadget to Google here

Twitter Gadget

This gadget is a fully functional version of Twitter in a small tidy box. It is also the most popular Twitter Google gadget out there. I listed this gadget last because it requires your username and password, but over 100,000 people use it so I am guessing it is safe.
This gadget is the best one as far as functionality goes, and it boasts the most users of any Twitter Google gadget. – Add the Twitter Gadget to Google here

More Twitter Gadget Places

An updated list of quality Twitter Google gadgets can be found over at Gadzi on their Twitter gadgets page.

Related posts:

1. Google Gadgets in the Real World
2. Google gadgets and the iPhone
3. Google Gadgets and SEO

The test involved two parts…
1) How many people clicked the “maximize” button (this is the button that wold take a user to the canvas page of a google gadget) without being prompted.
2) How many people would click through to the canvas page when prompted with an image.

My test involved over 10 million gadget views of my example Google gadgets (about three weeks worth).

Just so we all know what I am talking about here, a view of the canvas page happens when a user of a Google gadget clicks the “maximize” button on the top right hand side of a gadget as shown in the image.

When enlarged, the gadget displays the canvas page.

The canvas page for the fox gadget shown looks like this…

The button is the default button for all Google gadgets. It is always there on every gadget whether or not that gadget even has a canvas (or larger) option. I wondered how many people actually used it.

Not many.

There were less than .001 percent of users trying out this button.

That was less than I had expected, but then I tried inserting an image that made it more obvious that the gadget can be enlarged as shown to the right.

Even with the more obvious image promting people to make the gadget larger, there were still a small amount of users doing so.

The numbers were…

Monkey Gadget:

Displayed 1.5 million times, canvas views – 4500

Puppy Gadget:

Displayed 1 million times, canvas views – 3500

Other gadgets:

Displayed 8 million times, total canvas views – 20,000 or so.

The bottom line of this experiment is that as little as .3 to 1 percent of users are seeking out the canvas page, even when prompted with an image.

This means that if you are planning to use the canvas page your call to action needs to be pretty damn strong. For this experiment I used an image, I am now experimenting on how a text link to the canvas page will perform.

Related posts:

1. Intro to the iGoogle Canvas Page View
2. What Does 100,000 Gadget Users Really Mean?
3. Google Gadget Canvas / Portability Strategy

These product ads (Google gadgets ads that display products from a live database) have been around for about a year for larger Google advertisers, they showed different products from a database based upon what was searched for, but this Overstock ad is the first I have seen use history to populate the products within the ad.

I just got a place on Venice beach and I was looking at furniture over the last couple of days at various places. This Overstock ad was displayed on a third party website that had nothing to do with furniture. The products shown were the last three items I had viewed (over a couple of days) at overstock.com…

This ad combines history, database, and personalization.

If your company has a big ad spend, talk to your Google rep about exploring Google gadget ads. Ads that are Google gadgets are usually thought of as flashy, videoesque things, but the most successful Google gadget ads have been the more practical ones that look like other ads, but that display products which are instantly selected based on the person seeing the ad.

This is a well done ad and it works.

I am buying a bed from them now, and I had forgotten that I had even looked at Overstock.

Related posts:

1. Google Rolls out Google Gadget Ads
2. The Google Gadget Directory Changes
3. What’s Popular Google Gadget – A Closer Look

This is the way iGoogle tabs are distributed. A page like this is shown to the user who can then decide which of the gadgets will be in the tab.

If a user presses the blue “Add to iGoogle” button, then they are taken to their iGoogle home page and there will now be a new tab of gadgets there…

By using tabs, you can spread more than one gadget at a time. The above example puts a virtual pets tab with six gadgets on a users iGoogle page with one click. This post will tell you how to do this, but first let’s see why we should use an iGoogle tab at all…

Reasons to use iGoogle tabs

• Ranking – If enough people are using your gadgets under a certain tab, there are ranking benefits. If your virtual pet gadget is included in a tab titled “virtual pets” then that is a great indication that your gadget is useful and has something to do with “virtual pets”.
• Distribution – Let’s say you have popular gadgets already in the gadget directory, but also have some new ones as well. You can mix and match your gadgets to help distribute the new ones off the popularity of your old gadgets. For this example I am doing exactly that. There are six gadgets in this virtual pets iGoogle tab. Three of them are very popular (the monkey, panda and the puppy), and three are new (the lion cub, fox, and turtle).
• Promotion – If you have a service you are promoting you can make a couple of themed gadgets around your subject, put them in a tab, and presto, you have something to promote.

How to create an iGoogle tab

To create a tab go to any of your existing tabs on your iGoogle homepage (most people only have the two default tabs – “home” and “chat”). Click the down arrow next to the tab name as shown in image.

Once you click that you will see an option to “add a tab”. Click that and a window will pop up that looks like this…

It will ask you to name the tab you are about to make. Do so wisely. Name your tab for what you would like your gadgets to rank for. If your gadgets are about cars, name it “cars”. Our example one is about virtual pets, so I named it “virtual pets”.

Keep the box checked that says “I am feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name.” This will fill your new tab with gadgets that already rank well for the word or phrase you are naming your tab. Seeing what gadgets Google will fill the tab with lets you know a couple of important things.

1. Who your competitors are – The gadgets that show up are doing well, learn from them and use this information to make better and more useful gadgets for your term.

2. If there are competitors – If Google doesn’t find gadgets for your tab then you have found a niche worth trying.

Okay so now we have an iGoogle tab, what next? I would suggest filling it with your own gadgets! Once you have added your gadgets (and perhaps removed your competitors) look at the tab and see if it offers a useful set of gadgets that are a good fit for the term you used to name the tab. Don’t be afraid to include other peoples gadgets as well. A good goal would be to offer a complete, and helpful set of gadgets. If you named your tab “cars” then make sure there are a good group of gadgets that covers what a user would want about cars (car news, car photos, car videos, etc.).

How to distribute an iGoogle tab

How do you let people know about your tab? The first step is finding out what the share link is so that you can link to the “add tab” page.
To do this go back to that little down arrow next to your new tab…

Click it and choose the “share this tab” option.When you do you will see a window like this…

Do not send this to any friends yet, just send the tab to yourself. Enter your email, and hit send (btw if you have a theme, or user preferences that you want the gadgets in the tab to retain check the “save my settings” box).

You will receive an email that links to the page where users can find your tab as in the image to the right. This page lets an user add the several gadgets within your tab with one click. Very nice.

Now that you are armed with the URL of the tab, go visit and make sure everything looks right and that it is working and displaying well. Make sure you have thumbnail images for all the gadgets in your tab so that the “add tab” page looks pleasing and nice (learn about thumbnail images in my moduleprefs tutorial).

Okay we now have an iGoogle tab full of gadgets, and a URL to share it, let’s promote this baby.

How to promote an iGoogle tab

• First thing I want to say about this is that these “add tab” pages actually can rank rather well so do not be afraid to link to this page lavishly. But how do we get people to go to this “add tab” page.
• If you have a website, feature your iGoogle tab somewhere.
• Using our example, I have a virtual pet Google gadgets page and what I did with this new tab was to make it into sorta an ad. It is in the side bar of that page.
• However and where ever you feature it or link to it from your website, make sure that it is somewhat prominent. You want people to go… “What’s an iGoogle tab?, let’s see….. [click]“
• If you have made a useful set of gadgets then your tab can be shared like any other link. I had a Stephen Colbert tab and it hit the front page of Digg.
• If you do submit to a social sharing / voting site then make sure that you enter the “add tab” page as the URL. Do not link to your own site where you are explaining about it. The reason for this is that Google is a trusted domain. If you are simply linking to a Google “add tab” page, then people who lke the subject will actually feel okay voting up, whereas a blog post about how gosh darn nifty your tab is will appear spammy.
• Link to it from within your gadgets. Add a small text link in your gadgets that takes users your “add tab” page.
• Get a little help from your friends. Tell them about it and have them install it.

You basically can use any technique to promote this as you do any other webpage. What makes iGoogle tabs so neat is that they simplify the process a user must go through in order to use your gadgets.

Instead of having six different campaigns for six different gadgets, why not concentrate on just one for all of your gadgets? In many situations this is wise, and associates your gadgets with their search terms.

Related posts:

1. Uses of iGoogle Tabs
2. New iGoogle Themes and Personalization
3. iGoogle Tab Usage Numbers Provided by Google

Related posts:

1. Google Webmaster Help Video Gadget
2. Google Gadgets, YouTube Channels, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. New Stuff From Google for Gadget Developers

This is no good. A quick and dirty solution for this…

If you need to have all links within an iframe or Google gadget use “base target”.

To do this you will need to add a head section to your gadget immediately after the “[CDATA[” part and add the “base target=”_blank”

This will in most cases take care of the problem and make all links inside that iframe or Google gadget open up in a new window.

Related posts:

1. Friendster Announces Open Social and Multi Lingual Mobile
2. Matt Cutts of Google Discusses Links and Widgets
3. Google Gadget Canvas / Portability Strategy

Incorrect or outdated data in the local databases of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Superpages, Yellowpages, etc. costs your business leads, customers, and income.

Getlisted Enterprise is a local search analysis tool which solves this problem (click the image to see more detail) by allowing you to upload an excel sheet of your business locations (and their phone numbers, URLs, addresses, etc.) and compares the data that you provide with what is out there on the web.

An overall accuracy summary of how your business locations are represented on the web can be quite an  eye opener. In initial testing of some brands and partners displayed inaccurate listings to be in the 20-40 percentile range.

For business decision makers, it is hard to know how much time and money to budget for local SEM if you do not know the extent of the problem. On the flip side, businesses and internet marketing firms who service large clients or who pitch to large clients can really get the point across to their clients / potential clients by providing such a report.

The reporting is quite robust, and will tell you individually by business or platform what is wrong with your listings.

Here is a peek of the reports, an overview by platforms (click image to see details)…

This summary tells you at a glance about how your collection of business/locations are represented in each platform.

• Percentage of listings that were found
• Percentage of listings that are accurate / inaccurate
• Percentage of possible duplicate listings

This summary also displays “action items”…

• Number of Listings Not Found
• Number of Inaccurate Business Titles
• Number of Inaccurate Addresses
• Number of Inaccurate City-State-ZIPs
• Number of Inaccurate Phone Numbers

The percentages and the action items all link to a more detailed report that identifies the problem/problems found and highlighted ( click  image to see details).

These reports can be displayed and interacted with by location or by platform.

The enterprise tool is designed to be used by companies with many locations or those who service such companies.

It was made in partnership between GetListed.org and UniversalBusinessListing.org who specialize in the submission and dissemination of business information to search engines, data providers, and mobile directories.

The tool is currently in private beta, but will soon be available in a public beta.

Note: I am keeping mum about some of the features until we release the public beta.

Please send inquires or beta requests to pat@getlisted.org

Related posts:

1. Local SEO Tool – GetListed.org
2. New Local SEO Tool – Address Extractor
3. Call for Local SEOs

Just to the left of the above picture (taken from a kayak) is my house, and just to the right of this pic is where the monk seal comes up in the mornings and if you go a mile up the road you will find the trail to Kalalau.

The picture however is of the restaurant next door to me.

The regulars of the restaurant include Pierce Bronson (one of my neighbors) and Matt Damon showed up as well, both of whom I have talked with in the last couple of days.

I just like to drink here. The view is spectacular as you can imagine and as it is surrounded by ocean, every seat in the house has an ocean view, including my favorite seats…

Those at the bar

In any case, I overheard the owners talking about websites and marketing and I mentioned I might know a thing or two about such things and got them to agree to allow me to use their restaurant as a case study for GetListed.org and a tutorial for other restaurant owners in return for my services.

My goal is to only do things that are free as far as the marketing goes. So I built them a website, and I will be taking advantage of local resources like Google business center, Yahoo local listings, Bing, and other places like Yelp, Trip Advisor, etc.

Long story short, we are going to see what can come of a brand new website and how many diners we can bring to a restaurant using only free techniques. It is one of the most comprehensive guides I have ever made. It will come out soon.

Also of note GetListed.org is about to launch a new Enterprise version which features more platforms, accuracy checking, and things like a one stop place to enter your business info and be listed everywhere, and of course if you have 5000 locations, no problem, we will allow batch uploads and you will be able to get a summary of which locations are listed the best and worse.  Which listings have incorrect addresses? We have that covered. Which listings have inaccurate Business names? We check that too. We check everything and report it. It is impressive, David Mihm and I have been working on it for months. I am really looking forward to the launch of it.

Until then I will sip my beer and look at the sea, and wait for the damn Bing mail verification process so I can finish my guide to marketing a local restaurant.

The guitar and voice of my old friend Anjela is in the background right now, some of her music can be heard here. It is good stuff, take a moment to listen. I have been gone for five years and she is still here. Yum. She plays here at the restaurant.

I live in a good neighborhood.

Related posts:

1. Local SEO Tool – GetListed.org
2. If the Internet is the New Yellow Book, Who do I call to Get Listed in it?
3. GetListed.org Enterprise Tool Preview