I recently subscribed to a satellite tv package when I upgraded my DSL account — and I instantly got hooked on that adorable Animal Planet show “Meerkat Manor.” Just in time for the season ending. 🙁 Then I started watching Orangutan Island, and while watching the 2nd episode I idly checked the whois for orangutanisland.com. […]
...Keep reading »Archives for 2007
Bad Hosting Costs $$ and Wastes Time
Poor hosting companies waste time and cost money. I needed to set up a MySQL database for a client recently. The client hosts their website with a large and well-known hosting company, which advertises MySQL available with all hosting packages. It should have taken just a few minutes to create the database and assign the […]
...Keep reading »Correcting Bad Information
The amount of misinformation out there on the web is almost enough to make a person crazy. I ran across a few statements today that were so baldly wrong that I have to correct them here.
...Keep reading »“Crawlability,” Web Design, and SEO
So I got a gentle tweak from Zack Katkin at Unique ID Web Design because I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been busy working on projects for clients, but I know that’s no excuse. I’m breaking the Golden Rule of Blogging, which I drill into my clients when they want to start a blog, […]
...Keep reading »No NoFollow, NoSnitching
The infamous Google spam czar Matt Cutts has fired another round at honest webmasters just trying to go about their daily work. In a recent blog post, He invited readers to report web sites buying or selling links that are not using the ridiculous nofollow tag on those links. Read: Google wants us to snitch […]
...Keep reading »Eight Tips Every AdWords Advertiser Should Know
1. Multiple Campaigns First thing: You want to create multiple campaigns, with each campaign focused around a particular product, category or topic. For example, you could create Campaign A for Product A, Campaign B for Product B, and so forth. But you might also benefit by creating a campaign about Hot New Feature in Product […]
...Keep reading »Pre-Launch Steps for Your Site
Does your host or website developer do these things? Developing a new web site — or re-developing an old one, for that matter — typically involves consulting with the client to determine the site’s target audience and primary objective, creating an attractive and functional design, turning the design into properly coded, valid html, building out […]
...Keep reading »A Search Engine Experiment
I noticed that my web site development site got a visit by someone who found it in a search for “hank hill quotations.” I haven’t put any effort at all into optimizing the site for that search term, so naturally I got curious and had to check it out. It turns out my site is […]
...Keep reading »Don’t judge a book by its pretty face
I’ve never liked to use the term “web site designer” in reference to what I do. Yes, I “design” web sites, but the word design seems to suggest, to many people, strictly “visual design.” I tend to prefer developer, because effective web site development must encompass much more than merely designing a “pretty” or “good […]
...Keep reading »Do you own the #1 SERP for your domain name?
Many, many computer users use “search” exclusively as their primary means of navigation. What I mean by this is that a user, let’s call her Pam, wants to go to a particular web site that she knows of and is familiar with. Pamela knows the domain of the site. But instead of typing, say, example.com […]
...Keep reading »Dumb Error Messages
Microsoft is the master, but many, many programmers and software development companies are guilty. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had the most meaningless error messages pop up on my computer screen. What set me off this morning? A client sent me a Word file. A simple, one-page Word file. I double-clicked it. […]
...Keep reading »Can your site be tweaked?
Many of my clients already have an existing web site when they contact me. Often they’re unhappy with their site’s visual design, or its functionality, or its performance in the search engines. I hate — I really hate — telling a potential client that their site needs to be completely re-developed from the ground up […]
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