2004 August - MJS Blog

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Monday, August 30, 2004
The Importance of Website Inspection

Hope you had a good weekend.

Mine was great. Yesterday, my girlfriend and I decided to go for a bike ride. The weather was just right – sunny with a slight breeze. The decision to go on a bike ride was the easy part, preparing for the bike ride was a little more challenging.

We pulled out our bikes from their hiding place, dusted them off and began the routine inspection. We inspected the brakes, gear shifts, and tires. We lubricated all the components, added air to the tires, and last but not least filled our water jugs. After all that we still wanted to ride…and did.

Our bike ride consisted of an exploration of Alameda – our home town. It was a very different experience because we didn’t have a particular destination; we just rode for the pure enjoyment. What a great day to have been out on a bike.

Importance of Inspection

I used to do a lot of mountain biking and the thing I remember most was the importance of inspecting your bike before you rode. The last thing any of us wanted was to have our tire fall off because we didn’t check the tension of the tires or the bike wouldn’t stop because we didn’t inspect the brakes beforehand.

Inspecting Your Website

Preparing and inspecting your website before you launch it to the world is just as important as inspecting your bike before you ride. If you don’t make sure your site is in running order you may jeopardize the whole reason you built the website in the first place – getting people to visit. In other words - If your website is full of errors, people will not visit.

During the production phase, we consistently check for errors, but the most important time is just before launch. Below are some of the common inspections we go through just before launching a new website:

Check for spelling and grammatical errors
Validate Code – Make sure all HTML (and other) code is accurate and compliant.
Inspect website on multiple browsers and platforms – Check how the site is rendered in Internet Explorer, Mozilla on Windows XP or MAC platform.
Check hyperlinks – Do they go where they’re supposed to?
Check load time – How quickly does each page load within the browser?
Check forms and any interactive features, such as search pages or database components.

So before you rush out and launch your new website, don’t forget to prepare and inspect it for possible errors. The precautions you take now will determine who visits your website and who doesn’t.

‘til next time.

Posted by: Michael Swartz at 10:55 am

Comments: None | Filed under: Web Design

Monday, August 23, 2004
Cheating the Search Engines

Hope you had a great weekend.

Upon browsing the web, I came across a new (and clever) tactic based on an old technique of cheating the search engines. (I was going to give the website address, but decided I didn’t want to help the cheater advertise). The cheaters are populating phony blog sites with an abundance of links and keywords. The idea here is to load up on words and links to get their website listed higher in the search engines.

Well, it’s only be a matter of time before these deceptive practices are flushed out. Google says,

“We investigate each report of deceptive practices thoroughly and take appropriate action when abuse is uncovered”.

It is Google and other search engine’s responsibility to provide relevant search results. It not, users will go elsewhere. So it is in their (search engine companies) best interest to flush out the cheaters and provide only quality results.

Instead of using deceptive tactics search engines HATE, use some techniques that the search engines LIKE:

Choose a keyword rich domain name - See my blog, “It’s all in a Domain Name” for more info.
Keyword Text Formatting - Add your targeted keywords to Heading tags (H1), bold keywords and Capitalize words. Search engines differentiate between large and small text. The larger the text the more important it must be.
Keyword Rich Links - When creating links, don’t use ‘click here’, add your targeted keywords and phrases to your links. Example: For more information, see our web design portfolio.

With anything, use in moderation. The suggestions above, when abused, can lead to your entire site being removed from the search engine index.

Google has a Guideline section for web developers explaining what techniques are acceptable and not acceptable when creating your web pages.

Google also has a submission form to report any cheaters using any kind of deceptive search engine practices.

Mike Swartz says, “Check it Out.”

Posted by: Michael Swartz at 11:26 am

Comments: None | Filed under: Web General, SEO

Monday, August 16, 2004
Know Your Audience

Hope your weekend was good.

I just got done checking our website statistic reports. Fascinating stuff. No really.

It’s fascinating because you can find out so much about your website visitors: Where they’re coming from, how long they’re staying and where they’re going.

The first three reports I look at are:

Referrals – Referrals will show where your visitors are coming from. With this knowledge you can find out what websites are linking to yours. This is critical in your quest to be higher in the search engines. The more ‘relevant’ sites that link to yours the higher your website will be in the search engines.
Search Engines and Keywords – The Search Engine and Keyword report lists specific keywords visitors are entering into a paticular search engine. Analyzing this information will help you determine which keywords and search engines to target and market.
Requested Pages – This report lists your most popular web pages. It’s nice to know which pages you can improve upon, expand upon or remove.

Other important reports to view include Entrance Pages, Length of Pageview, and Click-Through patterns.

I personally enjoy the Length of Pageview because it shows the average time visitors are actually – spending time - reading this blog.

Check your reports each week or month. You’ll be amazed at what you find.

‘til next time.

Posted by: Michael Swartz at 12:13 pm

Comments: None | Filed under: SEO, Web Marketing

Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Blog Burnout

Wow! It has been a quick week.

I was hoping to write a couple of posts each week, but it looks like I’m falling behind on my wishes. Well not to fear - I am writing once a week.

Speaking of falling behind, I just read an article about how many bloggers are getting burned out. Most bloggers have other responsibilities (i.e. family, job, kids, a life) besides keeping up with their blogs so they’ve begun to retire. I can’t blame them. It takes a lot of work to come up with a meaningful topic to share and write about it without boring your audience. And then, if you have a significant following with visitor feedback you’re responding to, it could easily become a second job. And this second job usually doesn’t pay very well for some.

But I’m still here and I can’t ever imagine giving up this blog.

If you think blogging is for you and want to take on the challenges, check out these sites.

Blogger.com
Live Journal
Type Pad
Moveable Type

P.S. MJS Web Solutions is not affiliated with any of these companies…though we may want to be.

Mike Swartz says, “Check it out.”

Posted by: Michael Swartz at 5:14 pm

Comments: None | Filed under: Blogging

Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Spam - It’s Our Own Fault

The cost of spam has more than doubled for enterprises in the past 10 months and it’s costing companies about $1,934 per employee a year in lost productivity.

Not surprising to me…it’s our own fault.

Nearly 40 million U.S. “consumers” (that’s us) spent $32.5 billion in response to commercial e-mail in 2003. $11.7 billion of those purchases were spent in response to spam. Total e-commerce spending equals $56 billion, so roughly 20% of all e-commerce purchases resulted from a spam message.

So who is to blame…the spammers or the spammee? (Is there such a word?)

It is up to us, the “consumer” to stop it. It is our moral obligation. If we don’t who will?

Listed below are three of the most important ways of eliminating spam from your inbox.

Don’t Feed the Spammers
Don’t ever buy anything promoted in a spam message. Even if the email looks legit, and even if it’s from a company you know other people have done business with. You are providing economic incentive for spammers to continue the practice.
Hide Your True Name
Create a second (alias) email address/account for online purchases, postings and sweepstakes entries.
Don’t Open It
Spammers know if an email has been opened, so when in doubt…don’t open. Also, disable your email program’s preview pane. Otherwise, the spam email will report back to its sender that you opened it. The result: more spam.

You can view the complete Anti-Spam article here.

’til next time.

Posted by: Michael Swartz at 11:46 am

Comments: None | Filed under: Web General