If anyone is planning on attending BarCampOttawa2, make sure you sign up for our session on “Designing Search Engine Friendly Websites”.

Over the next couple of days I will be posting an outline of the workshop here in the blog, but in the meantime, check out who else is coming and what presentations are happening: http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/BarCampOttawa2.

Thinking about investing in SEO for your website but haven’t found an SEO Company to work with yet?

DriveTraffic is offering a contest during the month of November where 3 lucky winners will receive Search Engine Optimization services for $350 CAD!

Prize includes keyword research, one page of your website optimized for search engines and Google Analytics set up along with telephone and video support on “Using Google Analytics to Measure Traffic”!

Get in the passenger seat and come along as we:

• Perform Keyword Research to identify phrases your potential customers may use in search engines such as Google
• Select the best page for optimization based on subject matter
• Provide Information and assistance on how to install Google Analytics as well as confirmation of proper installation
• Offer Telephone and Video Training on using Google Analytics
• Optimize the page using the selected keyword phrases
• Offer any additionally information observed that may have an impact on the relevant traffic of optimized web page

To enter the draw fill out a ballot between now and November 30, 2006.

I heard back from my friend and she decided we should meet at Bridgehead - I LOVE Bridgehead! It’s my office away from home - they have great coffee and free wi-fi! And their sandwiches at lunch are pretty good too ;-)

Now, to compare to a previous post I made about another coffee shop, Bridgehead makes it very easy to find their locations.

Yay Bridgehead - I’m off to have a coffee! Or maybe a decadent hot chocolate :-)

So I have a friend in town and would like me to meet her in “her” end of town for a coffee. I recall there is a Second Cup in the neighborhood where she is staying but I don’t recall the exact intersection at which it is located.

So I go to SecondCup.com (no link) and after enduring the painful flash interface, click on cafe locator. This action spawns a new window which apparently uses MapFusion. One has a choice to search by location using postal code or city, province, etc. and a choice of how many results are to be retrieved.

I can’t get ANYTHING to show up on the map. Either I’m an idiot, or perhaps the site is not Firefox friendly…or perhaps SecondCup fails miserably when it comes to customer interaction on their website. I am going with the latter given that I recently visited the website to determine if they had Christmas gift baskets for purchase…apparently not as there is nothing about upcoming holidays nor does it appear that the site is ecommerce enabled.

No problem. RedEnvelope got my business ;-)

What a fantastic idea from RedEnvelope.

On their home page they have a banner that advertises “Shop Now, Ship Later Service for the Holidays”. Clicking on the banner takes you to a page with the following message:

We are pleased to offer Holiday Shop Now, Ship Later service for many of our gifts. Order now through 8:30 PM ET, December 6, and for no additional charge, we’ll ship your gift to arrive between December 18 and December 22, in time for Christmas and during Hanukkah. To select this service, please choose the Shop Now, Ship Later shipping method during checkout. If Shop Now, Ship Later does not appear as a ship method during checkout, one or more of the gifts you have selected are not eligible for this service. You will not be charged for your purchase until your order ships.

Please note most perishable gifts are not eligible for this service via our website (most flowers, plants and gourmet gifts). If you would like to order a perishable gift for Shop Now, Ship Later; please call Customer Service.

This is a fantastic idea for people who happen to have time to shop now but it is too early to send the gift or for people who will be travelling during the typical shopping window!

Ecommerce sites should take note of this and if they cannot implement it for this holiday season, get ready to implement it for Valentine’s Day!