I have a page on my site with some of my favorite new sites that are showing up on the web. These are not my sites, but they are the kinds of things that I like in a website. There are different reasons that I picked these sites, they all look good and are clear and easy to use. The graphics are good, but not overpowering. Sometimes I just like a picture or the name. Some of them are not in English and I still know what they are about.
The newest one is called Emeril’s Holiday to Go. I haven’t picked a part of a website before, but this holiday section of Emeril’s site looks like a different site. I usually recommend that you make your pages look alike so people know that they are on the same site, but this one works just like an independent site.
Holiday colors and holiday wallpaper makes it look very festive. Navigation if easy to find and use. I don’t know if this site will remain up after the holidays or not.
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Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
There’s something wonderful about the first snow of the season. Of course I enjoy it less and less as the season drags on, but in honor of the first snow here in Pittsburgh today, here is a page to create your own virtual 3D snowflake. Enjoy.
If you came here looking for a snowflake to make out of paper project please see this post from last year.
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I like to read several blogging forums and one of the things that keep showing up in all of them as well as questions from my customers is “How Often Should I Post To My Blog?”
I like to post five or six times a week if I can and several folks have suggested that you should post several times a day. There are a couple of blogs that I subscribe to that do post more than once a day, but once a day seems to be the most popular for the blogs that I subscribe to.
While I do admit that finding something new to write about every day can be a struggle at times, it also makes me much more disciplined and dedicated to this site. Some days when I get an idea that I feel passionate about the words just flow and other days I struggle with every word.
I also believe that sometimes it may be better not to post anything at all if you can’t find something interesting to write about, but that should be the exception rather than the rule.
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Many times my customers are looking for good photos that they can use on their site and there are several good sources of pictures that they can buy.
Recently I found a nice free collection of public domain photographs (government sources) on a wide variety of subjects posted on Flickr. It appears the the images are tagged with keywords that correctly match the photos to make searching easier.
If you are looking for a picture to use on your site this is a good place to try first.
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I have been writing this blog for about a year and a half now. One of the thing that almost every blogger hopes for when they start one is that they will inspire visitors to comment on their posts. I do get a few relevant comments on this blog, but I am always looking for more.
I often recommend to my customers looking for SEO benefits for their site that they find a blog that matches what they are promoting and leave comments. Of course it has to be something relevant to the conversation or it will be treated as spam.
Leaving comments will do two main things:
First most all blogs will allow you to include a link back to your site along with your post. A link to your site, especially a one way link is considered by the search engines to be a vote for your site’s popularity. The higher ranking that the site is that is linking to you the more valuable the vote for your site is.
You may ask if the blog’s owner is giving you a vote for your site, what are they getting out of it? The answer is simple, content. As you may have heard before “Content Is King” and you are providing free content to the blog owner that is adding more value to their site.
It’s a win, win situation.
If you are a blog owner here is a good post on the Wayne Liew Dot Com site called “10 Reasons You Are Not Getting Comments”. I enjoyed it and you will be able to see it here for yourself if it helps.
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I have a page on my site with some of my favorite new sites that are showing up on the web. These are not my sites, but they are the kinds of things that I like in a website. There are different reasons that I picked these sites, they all look good and are clear and easy to use. The graphics are good, but not overpowering. Sometimes I just like a picture or the name. Some of them are not in English and I still know what they are about.
The newest one is called Through A Child’s Eyes. It’s a good mission, to empower individuals who are considered “At Risk”.
The site is made with soft colors, but is still cheerful. The navigation is front and center and can’t be missed.
The rounded corners give it elegance which suggests simplicity and consistency of design.
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I use Verizon for phone and DSL and have for years. I have been very satisfied with them, but I recently got an email from them that bothers me.
Dear Verizon.com customer,
Thank you for taking the time to update security components of your verizon online account. Because security is a top priority at Verizon, we’ll need you to validate your email address at this time. To do this for your Online Account with User ID ######, you will need the following three digit code:###
Follow this link to input the above three digit code and your User ID and Password: Click Here (link removed)
I am almost certain that this email came from Verizon because I had logged into my account to pay my bill and they wanted to update my security information and then let me know that this email would be coming.
Even though I believe this email to be legitimate it bothers me for several reasons:
- Even though I am 99.9% certain that this email came from Verizon there is still that 0.1%. I couldn’t find anywhere on their site where I could go to this page from a link, before or after I logged in.
- They told me that this email would be coming, but it took several days to actually arrive.
- Most every company that I deal with on the web tells me to never click on a link in an email asking for my personal information.
- What happened to all of the previous communication from Verizon where they told me that they would NEVER ask for my password in an email? I guess they were just kidding.
It seems to me that even if this is a legitimate email, Verizon is making their security worse by actually inviting Phishing Scams from people copying this format.
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
With Google Book Search you can look for books just like a regular search, but if the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given permission, you’ll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it’s in the public domain, you’re able to download a PDF copy. There is also much more, like book reviews or where you can buy or borrow it.
One great thing about using Google products on your site is that they give you some wonderful free tools to manage your account. It’s pretty easy to log into your account and look at how many “clicks” that your site has received today or how many you have paid for.
Unfortunately most site owners and advertisers don’t realize just what’s out there to help you manage not just your campaigns, but also your entire site in general. Eric Lander has a very useful post on the Search Engine Journal site called “Google Webmaster Tools: A Comprehensive Guide”.
Google keeps on improving and adding more tools for webmasters. They are free and easy to use, but before you can use them you have to know what they are and how they work. Eric’s list is a very good place to start.
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I have a section of my website called “Starting your own website”. One of the things that I believe is that freely sharing information is one of the best ways to succeed in almost any online venture. So I made a tutorial on how anyone can make their own site and host if for less than $100.00 a year.
The thing that I hear from people who want their own site is that they just don’t have any idea where to start. So lesson 1 is “Where do I start”.
I advise anyone who is just starting their own site is to register their domain name. Most people who are in business prefer a domain name that ends with .com
You can have many other extensions, but .com is the one that most visitors will look for when they look for a business. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it does seem to be the way that it is.
Getting your name is easy and should be the first thing that you do when starting a site. You go to a registrar (I use DoDaddy.com) and find a name that is not already taken and register it. The hard part here is to find one that is still available. GoDaddy charges $8.95 a year so the investment is small.
The way it works is that all Internet addresses are not actually names, but a series of numbers. So when you go to your web browser and type in Lillicotch.com the nameservers at GoDaddy tells it that my website is at IP Address: 209.67.52.207 and sends you there. If something were to happen and I needed to move my site I can simply put the files up at a new host and then tell GoDaddy that. They will stop sending visitors to the old address and to go instead to the new one.
The important thing here is to do this yourself. Many busy business people outsource their site design and there’s nothing wrong with that, but on the web your domain name is what controls everything else and if you give away control of your name you give away control of everything. This way if something happened to your host or if someone hijacked your site as long as you controlled your name you could just move it somewhere else and start over.
