Ipad - a deal breaker for me

My extreme joy at the announcement of the Apple Ipad yesterday was followed by extreme disapointment!

Now don’t get me wrong, I like the iPad. I can see one in my future. It’s cool, and based on the wide range of computers and mobile devices I have used over the years I know I won't be able to resist it.

However...............

The lack of Flash in the browser is huge deal breaker for me, and will be a total deal breaker for many. A lot of the web is driven by Flash, including thousands of websites, embedded YouTube videos and most on-line games. This alone can have a direct impact on my experience of the iPad on the web. It’s easy to understand why Adobe is unhappy with Apple and its refusal to play with Flash and I am just as unhappy.

So while I will probably get my hands on one of these in the future I am going to wait and see if Apple comes to its senses first.

Website makes it easy to follow latest web-buzz

As you know, I am constantly searching for news and new things on the Internet in order to write this blog. Once in a while I find something that I really think is cool. Today is one such day.

I just found a new website that is a one-stop shop for all your internet reads. Popurls http://popurls.com/ is the dashboard for the latest web-buzz! It is a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the Internet.

You can find news headlines, the most popular blogs, recently uploaded pictures on Flickr as well as videos added to YouTube. Also on this home page, you will find top stories from websites catered to particular hobbies, or personal preferences.

You can customize your Popurls home page by creating an account. This allows you to select only certain news feeds, change the format and even customize the display.

Take a minute to visit and bookmark this site. I think you will find yourself visiting it a couple times a day!

Aurora Alert - Please make sure you are "fixed"

As you have probably already heard the last few weeks, in an operation dubbed “Aurora“, Chinese hackers have used a previously undiscovered security hole, existent in several major versions of Internet Explorer, to gain unauthorized access to data belonging to a couple of targeted individuals.

Microsoft has since tried to downplay the significance of the security hole, but it was undoubtedly a serious issue for Microsoft and finally yesterday they have issued a patch to fix the problem.

What this means to you is that if you don't have automatic updates turned on you should go immediately to the micrsoft website and get this update for Internet Explorer (all versions, but you really should be using IE8) http://www.microsoft.com/security/

If you want to read more about this problem and the fix you can find the critical bulletin here
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-002.mspx

And now for something completely different....

My top 10 tips for Search Engine Success

This week I have had a lot of calls and questions about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Remember the movie "Field of Dreams?"
Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is a farmer who lives in rural Iowa with his family. While walking through his cornfield, Ray hears a voice whisper, "If you build it, he will come" (often misquoted as "If you build it, they will come"), and sees a vision of a baseball field. Ray plows under his corn and builds the field. A year passes without incident. So many times I talk to perspective clients who were under the impression that if they built a website they would automatically get visitors and are often disappointed by the lack of traffic to their site. This is because their websites are not optimized or submitted properly to the search engines. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean anyone will come.

SEO is a tricky business and there are never any guarantees. Search Engines are constantly changing their algorithms (the way they evaluate websites). I spend at least 10 hours a week keeping up on the latest needs of the Search Engines and each site that I perform SEO on follows a different strategy based on these changing conditions. As of right now, the top ten things that I can recommend to you in order to get your website found and visited on the Internet are:

1) Make sure that you have good meta-tag programming. This is a part of the website that you cannot see but if you look at the code behind your website, the first few lines of code should contain meta-tags. The most important of these tags is the description tag where you tell the search engines what type of information can be found on your site. This tag should contain keywords that visitors might type in when looking for sites like yours.

2) Make sure that your Title tag is keyword rich. The Title tag is perhaps the most important piece of SEO. This is what appears in the very top of your browser screen and this also tells the search engines what your site is all about

3) Have site owner verification meta-tags - These are also in the programming of your site and you will need to have them programmed separately for each of the major search engines, Google, Yahoo & Bing. This tells the search engines that your site has been verified as a legitimate website and gives them the go-ahead to index your site.

4)Use H1 & H2 html tags when appropriate for keyword emphasis. Again, this is done in the programming of your website.

5)Program alternate image tags using keyword text. For each image on your website there is an option to program alternate text. Make sure that your images contain your keywords.

6)Develop a website sitemap (such as sitemap.xml) for search engine spidering. Once you have created a sitemap make sure to submit it separately to each of the major search engines. This allows them to easily index your pages.

7)Manually submit your website URL to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com & the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). 95% of all Internet searches are done using these engines or other sites that use the results of these engines.

8)Manually submit your URL to industry specific directories that allow free links. This is often the part that takes the most time but this is what will really get your website good results. This is because the search engines place a lot of weight on in-bound links. The number of quality sites linking to your website will increase your popularity.

9)Use Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 services. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to use all the Web 2.0/3.0 services available. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube, etc... The search engines look very favorably on these services and tend to index the content higher than regular web content.

10)Install a good statistics program on your website. Google Analytics is one such service and it is free. This will allow you to track how many visitors you have had, where they came from and what keywords they used to find your website. Analyzing this data can help you tweak your keyword positioning and will let you know if your site is performing well on the search engines.

I am sorry for the length of this post but there is a lot of information to cover and I haven't even scratched the surface. If you feel like your website is an empty corn field please give me a call at 715-377-0233 and we can talk about how we can get you into the major leagues. Also, for more information please visit www.wizedezigns.com Have a great day!

Website Makeover - 2010 Style

I can't believe that Wize Dezigns is on our tenth year of designing websites. Things sure have changed a lot over the years but believe it or not, I still have clients out there using their original websites from ten years ago. That either proves that a simple website can be just as effective as a trendy one or that I haven't done a good job convincing them to re-design.

I always get a ton of questions this time of year inquiring about website re-design... "Do I need a re-design?", "How much will it cost?", "What should I be doing different?," etc...

My response to anyone asking these questions is that if you are thinking that your website needs a re-design, it probably does.

I could write or direct you to many reasons why you should have your website re-designed or what qualities make a good website. We all know that a website needs to be visually appealing, easy to navigate, content rich, etc... but there are 2 huge reasons why your website (if older than 3 years) needs a Makeover. It comes down to the changing standards and technologies that the various browsers now support and the epic emergence of Social Media Marketing.

The development of programming techniques such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and XML (extensible markup language) make any website older than three years old practically a dinosaur. This is because websites that utilize these advanced programming techniques are more easily and accurately interpreted by browsers, smartphones and other browsing platforms. So while your website might look just fine to you, its integrity might be compromised and the code behind its beauty, might just be outdated or plain non-compliant. As for Social Media Marketing, in the last 3 years what is known as Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc.. have began to dominate web content. If your website is not utilizing these mediums, you are way behind the curve.

My advise to you is to talk to your webmaster or web designer and have them evaluate your current website based on what I just talked about. Don't just look at your website's appearance, content or ease of navigation (though this is very important) but really have them look at the code behind your site to make sure that your website is utilizing the very latest in programming techniques. If you are not using the Web 2.0 services, make sure that you make this a part of your re-design and mindset.

I encourage you to think seriously about your 2010 website makeover. If you are unsure where to start or what questions to ask, please contact me. My consultations are always free even if you chose to work with another firm. I look forward to hearing from you and hope you will chose Wize Dezigns as your Website Spa Specialist!

Google to unveil iphone competitor - Nexus One...

Google will reveal its iphone competitior tomorrow.

The Nexus One Smartphone, which uses software designed by google, has been developed to take on the dominant iPhone.

The Nexus, said to have a larger screen than Apple’s iPhone and a more powerful five-megapixel camera.

Its unlocked version will allow consumers to use any wireless internet provider of their choice which is great news for everyone who doesn't want to be stuck with the iphone's exclusive provider, AT&T.

Look for more details to come...