Our very own Terrence Ou had the grand opportunity to attend a breakfast with Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dr. David A. Sampson on Friday. 

The Dallas-native returned home for a discussion with Dallas businesses about Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative—which encourages American innovation and the strengthening our nation’s ability to compete in the global economy. 

Sampson said the key to surviving in the global competition is to export to India and China.  That’s right—China.  Zunch is already the leading U.S. search engine marketing company in China and continues to gain a great reputation for technology advancement as well as professionalism. 

The Department of Commerce as well as the Consulate General in Shanghai have both been in talks with Terrence.  It is gratifying to know that the Department of Commerce believes that Zunch can provide the U.S. Commercial Service with an search engine marketing solution that is essential for every U.S. business trying to tap into the Chinese market.

We do.

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Our Website design and development teams have been doing some fantastic work. Check out the portfolio.

 Recently, they totally redesigned and developed the Website for Exhibit Store, an excellent resource for trade show booths, components and accessories. 

Some of the features of the design:     

- Colors are set in a style sheet allowing easy editing and customizable color scheme of entire site simply by selecting the colors they want to use.
- Seamless Pay-Pal integration
- Customized e-commerce system with a where users can save multiple sets of products for proposals or later use.

Great job everyone!  Keep up the great work.

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Since Zunch's presence at Ad-Tech Shanghai in November last year, Zunch has become the name of search engine optimization in China. There is a lot of expectations of Zunch's eventual business operation in China from industry peers and from companies thirsty about search engine marketing. According to Laura, marketing manager of iResearch, China's leading search marketing information consulting site, Zunch is the search engine optimization industry leader in China, not just a business to provide quality SEO services, but an organization whose duty is to set up the industry standard of SEO practice in this second largest Internet market in the world.

Localization is the key for every U.S. business who is interested in entering China market. SEO is of no exception. Zunch has made tremendous efforts to get ready to play the ball, a lengthy and highly labor-intensive procedure that no other SEO firm can imagine

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According to a recent study released by Forrester Research, some Internet companies still haven’t realized that Website designs are actually business decisions. 

Analyst Nate Root says companies constantly change their Website designs to keep up with branding changes, add new features and fix problems but they never consider the financial impact of those changes. 

Of web professionals at 89 of the companies that Forrester surveyed, only 13 percent of them measure the ROI of all the changes they make to their Websites.  While 50 percent of them measured the ROI of major changes, the rest of the professionals don’t measure the ROI of any of the changes.

Here at Zunch, our Website design team understands the business value of the design process by taking into account the External ROI as well as the Internal ROI.  We have continued to help companies avoid the damaging costs of bad Web design with our professional service—mainly because we know that usability is key. 

There is simply no use in having a company Website if its design can result in the loss of potential sales and users can’t maneuver and find what they are searching for.

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I wasn’t going to make this announcement until sometime next month…but I can’t hold this exciting news any longer. 

  A powerful, customizable and user-friendly blogging platform is in the making by the talented Zunch team. While only in beta stage and improving by the minute, Sympozeum is sure to provide your business with the many advantages blog marketing has to offer.

Some of these advantages include being able to develop a rapport with your customers, allowing you to participate in their discussions as well as receive feedback and build trust.  Blog marketing allows you to draw your customers and potential customers into conversations, providing your company with an online Interactive forum.  Isn’t this what every company wants? 

It also provides your company with search engine visibility when fresh content is posted regularly and there are natural inbound links from related sites.  Blogs and blog posts tend to receive high search engine rankings because they were built with search engines in mind.  Blogs have search engine optimization written all over them.

Sympozeum will offer you an easier and more effective way of bringing customers and prospects to your site.  A few of the many features this search engine friendly platform will provide include a robust WYSIWYG editor and flexible templates that make for easily updated blogs to which users and site visitors can start posting in no time.  It will also offer the ability to add RSS feeds as a way to summarize and syndicate a site’s blog content. 

There….. It’s in the open now.... I feel much better.

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My roommate is an Olympics junkie. I mean, she is into it… and she’s keeping up with details. She knows the athletes, their hometown and everything about them. Before Chad Hedrick's race, she went online and clicked on what appeared to be an article about him. It was actually the race results! I heard a gasp from the study, and a sad face appeared saying, “They should have warned me.”

She had forgotten that the televised events are a delayed broadcast. Preferring to watch the race unfold before her eyes, she was disappointed to know the outcome in advance. Her guy won, but the experience was tarnished.

The difference is the medium and what users expect from it. Web users are usually information and results focused. We know that, and often maintain sites with that in mind. While, broadcast viewers, like movie-goers, want to experience the emotion, the struggle, the victory. And, we (being a cross-medium species) sometimes get a bit startled by the lack of cohesion between the two.

The Internet is becoming more universal. Podcasting and the like are sure to bridge some of the gap technologically. We can post more info, turn broadcast into podcast, and feed it wherever we want at the click of a button.  But, as technology grows, we have a constant challenge ahead of us; a bigger mission (should we choose to accept it.)

We have to address the user, anticipating what and when they'll want information, and their reactions once they get it. We constantly ask how we can enhance their experience, which doesn't always mean simply throwing EVERYTHING at them. At Zunch, our strategies are more than SEO friendly and functional but also have the user in mind: names of links, where they’re located, where and how content is posted, and now more than ever, timing is a growing factor.  We know that immediate action is often important in beating competition to the punch. However, patience can be a virtue at times, even in our “instant” society. But under any circumstances, clarity is key.

We use the Internet as a tool, somewhat like the nightly news. But there’s a big difference. We forget the Internet is not in the same local bubble with the bulk of our broadcast experience.  As Internet gurus and technologists bridge the gap between the two, industry leaders like Zunch will need to continually consider the user response and our timing in the global community.

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In a new deal announced this week, Dell has announced that Google will begin distributing its Google Desktop Search, Google Toolbar, and a Dell-customized Google Homepage inside of some new Dell PCs.  While Google has been distributing the Google Toolbar inside HP, Gateway, & Apple computers for a while, this new arrangement is a first for Google Desktop Search, a search engine that searches files on your own PC and displays immediate results as you type.

Microsoft has historically used their operating system agreements with PC manufacturers to prevent certain competing applications from being bundled into PCs.  For instance, when Netscape was gaining market share in the late 90’s shortly after Internet Explorer 3.0’s release, they motivated manufacturers to stop bundling Netscape software by offering a discount to those manufacturers.  This is partly what started the anti-trust case against the company by the U.S. Department of Justice back in 1997.  Since then, Microsoft has been disallowed from such practices.  This opens the door for software companies to start making deals with manufacturers to get their software bundled into Windows PCs.

Enter Google.  Users equate to advertising revenue for Google; so of course, they want to make as many loyal users as they can.  Also looming in the ranks is Windows Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system that is to revolutionize the way we interact with computers.  One of the many noticeable enhancements to Vista is its built in search capabilities, both for searching your local files, but also for searching the web via their new MSN Search.  And if the past is any indicator, when Microsoft seriously decides it wants to get into an area of technology, there aren’t many forces that can stop it.  Just ask Netscape, IBM, Oracle, or the many other companies that have been eliminated, or at least squelched, by Microsoft’s intents.

Now, given all this, it seems Google’s quest to gain user’s loyalty is going to be the only way to prevent Microsoft’s search brigade from taking down the recently gone-public company.  A month or two back, Google released the “Google Pack” - a suite of free software, some written by Google, some free or open-source, which combines loads of software goodness into a single, self-updating software package.  Included in the pack is: a web browser, virus scanner, screen saver, two chat/instant message clients, their own Desktop Search & Toolbar, and more.  They’ve even hinted that a Microsoft Office competitor could be an upcoming part of the Google Pack.  If so, Google Pack users would likely be automatically notified that the Office-alternative is now available as a free download.

Investing in desktop users is only one way which Google can help retain user’s loyalty.  The rumor-mill has been backlogged with talks of Google doing many things: targeted digital TV advertisements; a world-wide Wi-Fi network that could allow them to have the home page of every connected user; broadband access over power-lines with integrated digital phone & television services; even building their own operating system for low-priced PCs;  While there is no official word of a plan from Google, there have been investments in various companies that could back any of these ideas.  In the end, though, there is no telling whether Google is looking at any of these options as a serious marketing effort or is simply diversifying investments for financial gain.  We have seen an announcement that Google would be building an in-car navigation system in conjunction with Volkswagen utilizing Google Earth technology, and of course this more recent entry into pre-packaged desktop PC software.

With all this activity at Google, and the counter-activity of its chief rival, Microsoft, it will certainly be interesting to see how this battle pans out.  In the end, this is nothing more than a healthy, competitive industry that has been churning out new innovations on a pace faster than many folks ever expected.  And, who knows, maybe there will never be a winner.  Perhaps Microsoft and Google will eventually learn to coexist and allow each other a turf of their own.  Or, they’ll be forever enemies like the many Microsoft has already created in its relatively short lifespan.  One thing is certain – right now, the consumer can be declared the winner.

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When people meet, we instantly make judgments on certain factors. We know pretty quickly if we like the look of a car or a pair of shoes. Paintings and drawings invoke instant strong reactions.

So do websites.

You’ve got once chance to make a first impression…and on the web, that time is lighting fast. 50 Milliseconds, according to a study done at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Basically, they flashed websites in front of users for 500 milliseconds and 50 milliseconds. The outcome was virtually the same. Users determined whether a site was appealing in 50 milliseconds.

Whether you like it or not, users are quickly deciding if they want to be on your website. If you can get them to stay long enough to read some of your content, and click through a few pages, you’re off to a good start.

But, if they bounce, all your effort (and your budget) is in vein. It’s true, you need SEO to bring traffic, and if the site doesn’t function properly, it’s useless. But, those are things you can fix. A bad impression is a customer lost forever.

That quick first impression is likely based on organization (layout and hierarchy) and the use of color and or imagery--visual elements that are easily digested. Successful interface designs depend on the balance of simplicity and uniqueness to give the user that good first impression-and quick.

Design seems to be the easiest thing for companies to scrap as they're budgeting for their website. But, it is a healthy, well-rounded approach that really gets the job done right. Don’t shortchange yourself. It is important to build a solid site architecture. Design a memorable, brand-conscious look with a user-friendly layout. Write content that tells the story clearly and with a strong voice. Develop functionality that makes the site really work for you. Then, finish with a knockout SEO strategy that will help you make that great first impression many times over.

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SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (www.sempo.org) has announced that John Sanchez, chairman and CEO of Dallas-based Zunch Communications, Inc., has been nominated as a candidate for the 2006 elections of its Board of Directors.  Sanchez is currently the vice president of the organization whose membership includes search engine marketing professionals from the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

The Full Article

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As if being recently named the Top SEO Company by PromotionWorld.com wasn’t big enough—the talented team here at Zunch has been hit with another outstanding accolade.

Zunch Communications has once again been ranked the top search engine optimization company on topseos.com.  This means Zunch beat out more than 10,000 Internet marketing firms worldwide.  Absolutely phenomenal!

Zunch continues to receive these awards for its search engine optimization work because its team works hard and is totally committed to the success of its clients.  No where else will you find a more experienced team of SEO professionals that is driven by measurable results. 

No where else.

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I want to take some time out of my day and talk about a component we use consistently in various products that isn't talked about much. What am I talking about? WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor or “Word-Link Editor” reused throughout our product line as means to manipulate content. Unfortunately I can not take credit for such a robust and powerful component… Our WYSIWYG is actually a third-party plug-in from FredCK, an open-source programming company, geared towards making web-based applications easier to use.

Click here for more information on FCKEditor.

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AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is the newest means for creating dynamic and interactive web applications, and is currently the most effective way to interact with the end user without causing confusion and/or frustration while using RIA (Rich Internet Application). Even if you are unfamiliar with the terms AJAX or RIA, you most likely use both of these on a regularly basis. Such examples include Google Maps or Google Suggest. Both applications demonstrate the technologies to their fullest.

However AJAX isn’t a single technology, rather it is composed of several cohesive components working for a single goal. This incorporates:

• XHTML and CSS
• Dynamic Display and interaction using the DOM (Document Object Model)
• Asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest (Script Function)
• Data interchange using XML and XSLT
• JavaScript to bind everything together

This makes AJAX programming different from traditional web applications. Instead of loading a webpage at the start of a session, the browser first loads AJAX which prompts one engine to load (the AJAX JavaScript-based file) instead of several that include files or functions. This means the end user doesn’t receive the data until they request it. See example flow below.

Source: Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications

Stay tuned for more news about our upcoming products using AJAX and other cutting-edge technologies used here at Zunch.

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