WeBlogged

Everyone is excited!! You’re getting a new website! The developer comes up with some really cool ideas and everyone knows it’s going to make a big difference and provide some great solutions for your organization. The website project starts, everyone loves the new design drafts and then things take a different turn … the developer starts asking for things like … quality photos. Text for certain pages. What items you want to ask on a form. Which ones need to be required? What section does this paragraph go in? Wow! There are so many things you still have to do to get this website off the ground — and you don’t see how you can get it all done before the site is supposed to launch. Who knew it would be so much WORK?

Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. From my experience over the years, I’ve found gathering content to be the most time-consuming and underestimated task for most clients. (more…)

Why Move?

Bad Neighborhood Links are Bad News
It is no secret that linking to and from a bad Internet neighborhood can seriously slow, halt or even reverse your SEO progress. However, now, I have first hand knowledge of what can happen when even a single source has cross links with a site in a good neighborhood.

We recently moved my personal blog to my company site - which is where you are reading this. Initially, we thought it might be a great way to get some inbound links with linking text being exactly what we wanted it to be.

We soon found that in actuality, cross links from XPRT Creative to http://jpoyer.wordpress.com began a slow descent of XPRT Creative ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN SERPs. (more…)

Pretty much every web page you look at falls into one of two very broad categories: Dynamic or Static.

What is a dynamic web page?

Dynamic refers to a page being created “on the fly.” This means that the content from that page doesn’t actually come together until someone clicks on a link to that page. When someone views a dynamic page, some or all of the information on that page is pulled into the page from another location, like a database. (more…)

Forbes blog posted about the differences in the MySpace and Facebook audiences. Working class vs. affluent well-to do. Read the post here. I have to say, I do see the discrepancies noted by Boyd’s research. There is also a somewhat amusing C/NET spoof video - stereotypically true?

Interestingly enough, not knowing any of these demographic statistics, or the experts weighing in on the issue, I recently e-mailed Facebook about their account confirmation tactics and my inability to join my alma mater’s network as an alumnae, and how both appeared to be related to a preference for higher-income earners. (more…)

What kind of team would you want to build your website? The battle wages on about the importance of content versus look versus usability. Does it taste great or is it really just less filling?

I recently stumbled upon a post arguing the importance and definitions of the roles involved in the web development process. I feel compelled to weigh in here because I think many are still trying to stand on ground that has already shifted.

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Now that people’s page ranks have dropped for the update in Google’s algorithm, the SEO community in general is speculating that PageRank will be no more. Are the rumors true?

Yes, there are a million different examples of “real good sites” that have dropped in SERPs dramatically, but I guess I’m just having more trouble seeing this as a negative thing in the long run. When you are in the business of manipulating the system, it’s only a matter of course that eventually, the system will manipulate you. As Elton John sang, “times are changing, now the poor get fat, but the fever’s gonna catch you when the [expletive deleted by author] gets back.”

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Well, as I have been writing, you may have noticed (or not), that my blog tagline is missing. It is not that I think a tagline is not needed, in fact, I feel quite the contrary. Of course you can’t be all things to all people and chances are, if you try to, you will fail miserably in all aspects.

It wasn’t until last night that I put serious thought into the goal — the focus of my blog. My 7-year-old son was impressed with my recent post about Seth Godin and Shane Dundas of The Upside Down Show (Just have to say that his reaction was pretty cool) . We were talking about blogs and he became very interested in starting his own blog. (more…)

UC Berkeley is posting lectures online. Wow! What a trend! If anyone is interested in learning more about Search Engine Marketing, these online lectures are a great supplement to your learning efforts. In a video I watched recently, one of Google’s founders Sergey Brin talks about the mindset and decisions regarding Google’s search, tools and future. There were also interesting comments concerning censorship of Google China search.

As far as search engine optimization efforts go, these lectures available from UC Berkeley are just the beginning to a broader understanding and realization of not only Google search but the Internet and purpose of what we do, on a deeper level than increasing profits, selling products or gaining traffic. (more…)

Back in the day — well, not so far back, but within the past couple of years, you did everything you could to keep your site visitors from having to scroll down to find content on the front page of your site.

It was a hard and fast rule that you should only put content on your front page that made it so people didn’t have to scroll. However, with the increased use of targeted landing pages, Search Engine Optimization, and general understanding of the Internet, the rule has become passe, out-of-date, behind the times, dated, old-fashioned. (more…)

I recently was issued a speeding ticket in Virginia; I was on my way home from my grandmother’s living “wake” with one thought on my mind — go to the bathroom and get more coffee. (more…)