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After some years in the internet business I had to figure out that SEO is really important for the succes of your web product. The goal of this post is to give you a quick start to learn SEO. Basic knowledge in SEO is definitely necessary for Web PMs, even if you think about outsorcing SEO services.

The good thing is: there are thousands of SEO guides for beginners available. After searching for some Google queries for sure you will find lots of results…

The bad thing is: there are thousands of SEO guides for beginners available…

or in other words: there exists a bunch of bad stuff as well. To avoid that you waste your time figuring out which ones are good. I have pre-selected some guides that I can recommend.
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Some time ago I started a IE6 survey to figure out how many people still care about this prehistoric microsoft browser. The outcome is pretty clear! Most webproductblog readers think that it is no longer necessary to support Microsoft´s old Internet Explorer 6.

The participants of the IE6 survey had the option to choose between the following 4 Answers for the question:

“Do you think IE6 support is still necessary?”

And this is the outcome:
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In the last blog post “Google Chrome vs. Mozilla Firefox” I explained why I now prefer the Google Chrome internet browser for private use. After more than one month of intensive usage of Google Chrome I want to present my favourite chrome extensions that are currently installed on my Chrome (BTW: I can´t notice any decrease of performance, no matter how many chrome extensions I have activated!)
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There is a browser that gets more and more market shares: the Google Chrome Browser! And even fellow Firefox fans (like myself) are starting to use Google Chrome recently. But why?
Let´s start with the advantages of both browsers.

Things that I really like in Google Chrome:

• It is really fast: loading new pages or opening a chrome browser window is definitely fast.
• It is still fast even after adding dozens of Chrome Extensions!
• The Google Chrome User Interface is very simple and not polluted with unnecessary features that you don´t use regularly

Cool minimalistic Chrome User Interface: Everything that you need in a very small space: Tabs, back buttons, Refresh Button, URL field and Extension Icons on the right.

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Well, it is not the first time this question got asked, but still many people struggle with the question Should I still support IE6 !?! Every webdesigner that has ever tried to develop a cutting edge website that still works with the old Internet Explorer 6 knows: The development of IE6 compatible designs is a pain in the ass!

Facebook has its opinion about IE6...

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The end of the year is always a good time to look back and remember the most special moments of the year. One of this special moments was a strange conversation that I had with a domain registration service.

Email screenshot

Well, registering a domain is not that spectacular…  but this conversation that I had earlier this year with a domain registration service provider sales dude is just too weird!

In theory it all could have been so easy: I send an Email Here is my data - Wanna domain please and an answer alright, here you go: … …2 Emails and that´s all! read more »

You want to upload a bunch of new features and some bug-fixes to your site? Great! You want to avoid nasty side-effects and make sure that it works the same way like it was planned before? …then you will have to do a lot of testing!

Opening new pages with old browsers like IE4 can be fun :-)

Basically this Quality Assurance Phase should take place 2 times:

One time in a test-environment before the deployment to the production server and once again after the new web is live!

To maximize the efficiencies of your testing take care not to do the following mistakes that might lead to wrong observations, unnecessary time-waste or you will end up in overlooking faults:
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There are a lot of recommendations for product management books available in the web, but I think the most valuable pm book reviews are the ones written by product managers.

image by suchitra prints

Before you run to the library or the bookstore to buy your next book I recommend to take a look at the opinions of experienced product managers.

See below my favorite resources for product management related literature. It contains only reviews and recommendations written by very experienced product managers: read more »

I just can´t blog here about everything that might be of interest for Web Product Managers - Yes, I am not omniscient and only part-time blogging here Therefore here goes a list of blogs that recently catched my attention. They all write about for Web PMs relevant topics like User Experience Design, Social Media, Web Analytics, SEO, Online-Marketing and more. read more »

Effective Web Product Management needs to be agile! That can actually be quite hard in practice, but don´t worry the following three presentations will be a useful resource for agile product development teams: read more »

There are some very important interferences of SEO (search engine optimization) with the web product management that you need to know before developing your new product. No matter if you think about hiring (external) SEO consultants once the website is online, there are some aspects of SEO that you will have to keep in mind right from the start of creating an online product strategy. read more »

Some days ago I posted an interesting job. Currently there is also the following Product Management Position in our team available. If you are interested, please send your CV to jobs@migoa.com. read more »

My current employer nuroa is looking for an experienced sales manager and I thought you might be interested. See below the job profile! You are the right one for this job? Then do not hesitate and send us your CV to: jobs@migoa.com read more »

Yes, the PM workdays can be hard sometimes: Somehow the Product Manager is involved in everything and the danger to become more a “Firefighter” than a Product Manager is high! (And in the work contract it says “Product Manager” not “Firefighter“, doesn´t it?) Anyway, whenever you have the feeling that the release cycles get shorter and shorter while the to-do-list gets longer and longer, you should try the following: read more »

Gantt charts are a good way to visualize project plans. To prepare Gantt charts in a quick and easy way you will need the help of specialized tools. (please do not even think about using Powerpoint or Excel for bigger Gantt charts ) My favourite tool for smaller and mid-size project plans is the free software GanttProject:

the gantt charts will look like this in GanttProject

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Icon by Mysitemyway

For some reason people from all over the world are using Twitter like crazy at the moment. Well, actually it is not really surprising, because you can do a lot of cool things with it.  In this post I list and explain my reasons why I use Twitter and why I think every good Product Manager should do so as well: read more »

There are many blogs about product management. Most of them are quite “mainstream“. But some of them have a exceptional style to blog about product management topics and they are all both: useful and fun to read read more »

A good argument to use the Firefox Browser is the huge amount of useful Plugins and Add-ons. Of course the Download is for free and some of them can really make the daily job of a Web Product Manager easier. Here are my favourites:
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Twitter can be a good source of information… if you follow the right people! I think the best thing you can do in Twitter is following other people that have the same job like you! That way you can always stay up-to-date in web product management! I have also created a twitter account for this blog, you can find it here.
Why do I think you should follow these people in Twitter? I think so, because they:

1. all have experience as product managers => you can learn from them.
2. they twitter mainly about product management topics => you will not have to read too many offtopic-tweets

Product Managers in Twitter:

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Working as a Product Manager in the internet world is a very interdisciplinary challenge. So it is not a big surprise that many career changers from other departments come to Web Product Management. For the case you are one of them and got overwhelmed with your new responsibilities: Don´t worry, there are a couple of good guides for Product Managers out there in the web. Some good ones you will find here: read more »