Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the new kid on the web development block. People with SEO skill sets help to build and market your website so that it gets high search engine rankings and maximum traffic; after all, traffic = conversions = profits.

Apogee Search, one of the world’s largest Search Engine Optimization firms, has lots of great resources on their site for both new and seasoned SEO professionals. One of my favourite resources is their very in-depth Search Engine Marketing Glossary. The glossary introduces SEO-specific terms - both technical (301 redirect, alt tag, etc) and non-technical (link farm, keyword density). This portion of the site is extensive, highlighting a few terms that even I’ve never heard of (and SEO is one of my day jobs)! Read the rest of this entry »

Plastic surgeons are one of the few groups of professionals who can, nearly across the board, afford to have an awesome website for their business. So while we’ve all seen sub-standard, FrontPage-crafted sites for mom and pop shops, B&Bs, and other family establishments, there’s no excuse for plastic surgeons.

Here are five features that are essential for a great plastic surgery website, using Dr. Philip Miller (rhinoplasty Manhattan New York) and his excellent website as an example. Follow along on his first-class site as we go through the list. Read the rest of this entry »

Blogging passed silently into the mainstream years ago, showing us the wonderment that is a cryptic Rosie O’Donnell poem or the company messages of a big name CEO. Everybody blogs now; even my computer-confused mom has a LiveJournal account.

Need further proof? Here are a few of the strangest bloggers we’ve come across to prove that Everybody Blogs.

• The much-maligned United States Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) blogs.

• A dead World War I soldier blogs.

• Scottish police dogs in training blog (in first person!). A few of them, actually.

• Iranian president (and American adversary) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blogs.

Blackle.com creator Toby Heap is earning thousands of dollars per day with his purported energy saving “black Google”. Does it matter if his calculations are wrong?

Blackle, a search engine powered by Google, was launched following a blog post by environmentalist Mark Ontkush, who conducted research to show that monitors draw more power to display white than black. Because the highest trafficked site on the web, search giant Google, is an all-white design, Heap decided to create a black Google, which would save an estimated 750 Megawatt hours per year.

Since then, Heap has been criticised by the media for cashing in on “eco-guilt” (he makes money from AdSense ads displayed on his site) and techies who argue that black draws more power for modern LCD monitors, and has a negligible effect on older CRT monitors. Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody has a website now, and gone are the days of glitter text, animated GIFs and MIDI files playing in the background. A quality website is no longer just a “homepage” but a multi-million dollar corporate marketing campaign available, at the click of a button, to a global audience.

Everyone wants that low-cost professional edge - but they don’t need it to be delivered in the same way. “Corporate” websites are fine for accountants, law firms and - dare we say - large corporations. However, not everyone needs this uber-professional presentation; it just doesn’t represent most industries. In fact, it doesn’t represent most industries.

Here are our Top 5 Signs Your Website is “Too Corporate”: Read the rest of this entry »