Did you know you can change the default geospatial measurement markup settings within Acrobat Pro?

Not only can you change the default geospatial measurement markup settings within Acrobat Pro from miles to kilometres but from miles to nautical miles, metres or feet. You can even change the Latitude and Longitude readings from degrees and decimals to degrees, minutes and seconds; areas from square miles to acres, hectares etc.

To change the default setting from miles to feet, go to Preferences under Acrobat, then scroll down to Measuring (Geo), select this. Then scroll down to the use default distance unit and select feet from the drop down list, which is accessible by clicking on the arrows alongside the default setting - miles. As shown below, your new choice will then appear highlighted in blue. Just click OK to save.

Similarly, to change the default area unit from square miles to acres, square kilometres etc, simply select your required unit from the drop-down list, accessible from the arrows alongside the current setting and click OK:

We offer a number of bespoke Adobe software training courses all designed to meet your business needs so that you can get the most out of using their creative software. Thus saving you time and money. Contact us TODAY on 01732 833 004 for advice and to discuss your training requirements.

How often to send mailings is a question that every email marketer asks at some point.

Email Marketing

How often to send mailings is a question that every email marketer asks at some point. You may feel hesitant about sending too often because you are fearful of irritating your subscribers. Your first consideration should be to establish regularity. Having regularly scheduled mailings is important for effective email marketing. As a rule of thumb you want to establish a frequency of no less than once a month.

If you mail less than a month you risk being forgotten about by your subscribers. How often you send mailings also depends on the content that you are using. Why are you doing this? Are you promoting goods, updating clients, disseminating propaganda for special interests, selling a politician or a political party, etc.? Ask what’s in it for your readers.

How often does your newsletter’s content change and how long do your readers take to react. The A/B split add-on is a good tool for segmenting your audience to see what content your subscribers respond to. The A/B split add on sends out two separate versions of a mailing which you can use to measure what gets a better response.

Furthermore, you may want to segment your audience based on frequency. Some of your audience may respond to more frequency while others are more comfortable with a monthly mailing. This underscores what we have been talking about all along, know your audience.

You can let readers decide for themselves what they feel most comfortable with. Some newsletters give readers the option to opt-in for daily or weekly delivery during sign up. Which brings up the next question you need to ask yourself. What can you handle? A daily newsletter is very resource dependent when compared to a monthly.

It may be best to start with a monthly newsletter and work from there. You do not want to rush out poorly written daily material when a monthly newsletter that is well written is more likely to captivate your audience. Are you mindful of the latest trends?

This is where it becomes important to look at statistical tracking in your message archive. Check to see that your open reads haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Or, that your unsubscribes haven’t gone through the roof. There are many considerations when choosing a frequency. Remember to use your audience as a guide and the rest should follow.

Many dynamic sites or template based websites use the same title for every page, such as "Companyname.com". This is a total waste of the tag.

Your title tag provides the caption, your meta keywords tag normally provides the scope of the information on the page (and is invisible to humans), and your meta description tag completes the call to action - together, they form the ultra-important 'hook' of your advertising in the search engines. They are the only meta tags you really need at this time because most search engines at least look at them.

Proper Use

Title -

1-12 words max (with page keyword) - Google displays 70 characters in SERPS - I like to keep titles to within this and ensure my important keywords are within the first 55 characters. MOST IMPORTANT!

Description -

5-24 words max (with page keyword) - Google displays 160 characters on normal searches. Descriptions can be larger on long-tail searches. IMPORTANT!

Keywords -

3-12 keyword phrases, individually separated with "," - Although Google does not give a page any visible benefit in terms of ranking for words here

Meta tags -

must reflect page content

Each Page -

should naturally optimise one keyword (with multiple phrases) and be reflected in the meta tags.

Do not -

spam the search engines!

Keep it Simple -

don't obsess about meta tags

Search engines understand one thing: text. They cannot understand graphics or images, and they are still years off properly understanding proprietary technologies such as Flash. Text is the key to accessibility and search engine optimisation - and meta tags offer you a golden opportunity to add a bit more, relevant and descriptive text about your web page into your web page. So, before you even worry about the correct use of meta tags: Write relevant text content for your page! You'll find a good example of meta tags spread at the bottom of this page. Note: Meta tags are hidden in a document's source, invisible to the reader. Some search engines, however, are able to incorporate the content of meta tags into their search criteria.

Watch Out!

If your meta tags don't reflect the text content on the page then you *might* be in trouble, if not now, tomorrow! Though copy writing text to emphasize certain keywords can greatly improve a web page's rankings for those terms, writing lots of relevant content is the most important part. If you're writing useful, quality information on any subject or product, optimisation of certain terms will occur naturally.

What are Meta Keyword tags?

Some information resources on the web will tell you to ignore meta keyword tags, skip them, or they'll scare you into believing using meta keyword tags could damage your rankings.

Using any underhanded tricks on a search engine will undoubtedly damage your rankings in the long term. However, using meta keyword tags properly can help spiders properly index your website and promote it to the world.

When you begin creating your page, think of what you would type into a search engine to find your page. Target those terms, write understandable copy about those terms and summarize this page in your meta tags.

Definitive Use - The Title Tag

Not technically a meta-tag, you should write your title tag at the same time as your other meta tags and cross refer the content. Using a unique, relevant title on every page of your website is crucial. The title is a highly valued aspect of a website in the eyes of assistive software devices and search engines. Many dynamic sites or template based websites use the same title for every page, such as "Companyname.com". This is a total waste of the tag. The W3C states that the Title Tag is the most important element of any quality web page, and the search engines obviously agree. If you're not using this important tag properly, you're either ignorant, lazy, you're building the site for next-to-nothing or your under too much pressure at work!

A good title is generally a 4 to 8 (12 max) word description of the page contents. Try to include the relevant keywords or keyword combinations that occur within the pages subheadings and text. Using descriptive titles not only benefits search engines, but it also makes logical sense, gives the page a more complete feel, and is a huge benefit to users browsing the page using assistive technologies.

Make it readable to visitors, not search engines, and for another hint, check out how they make their titles informative at the Google Directory using special characters, and copy them, like we do!

Remember! Using words in your title that people are searching for can improve your search engine placement. Accessible Website Design Consultant is a better title than Accessibility101. It uses the keywords that people are searching for.

Definitive Use- The Meta description tag

The meta description tag describes your page's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate summary (filled with multiple keywords!). Try to include at least the major keyword(s) in this description, and use 5-20 words for the description. Keep it short and to the point. Remember - this is your advert to the world! Writing good copy is essential - so think about it carefully and don't treat populating this section with text as an after thought.