Archive for the ‘website’ Category

An algorithm is an ever-changing formula developed for search engines which decides the order that websites are indexed upon searches. This constantly evolving algorithm uses data collected by actual human ratings of what makes websites trustworthy.

Thousands of websites were rated by experts on the basis of many factors. Some questions that were considered include whether the articles are duplicated, if the content is original and whether the author seems to be an authority on the topics written about.

Grammar and spelling errors are even taken into consideration upon the rating of these websites by the panel of experts. The computer’s program then bases rankings in search engines on these factors.

The Panda Algorithm is the most recent of these formulas that Google depends upon to form the website page ranking order. First developed in February 2011, there have been many more additional tweaks made for search improvements. Taking into consideration what makes a website trustworthy now can help your website achieve better search results.

From a website design standpoint, the new factors taken into consideration gives a basis on which to create website content for my clients. I give thought to the trustability of the content, providing topics that readers would have genuine interest in, and whether I would trust the website with my credit card information. The algorithms are not just beginning to think like website critiquing experts, but have been for a long time now.

Happy Thanksgiving, happy holidays and warm wishes to your family! Bookmark my blog for news, tips and advice in the computer world, and contact me for details on starting a small business website of your own today!

Any of the comments that you make on fan pages or public posts with the Facebook Comments social plugin can now be indexed by Google. Will this affect how you post considering that your comments may be indexed? Although Google isn’t violating any privacy laws by doing this, we may see more censoring on the social media website.

If your profile is private then the Googlebots won’t be able to index your comments, however postings in fanpages can be traced back to you by Google. The content was already public, Google just made it much easier to find.

Had you been cautious of your postings and do not mind having them tied to your name, you probably don’t have a problem with the change.

Not only is Facebook is being watched by Google, but Google can now index AJAX and JavaScript content on websites with Facebook comments built in. This means anything posted in a forum or public page can now be easily found with Google’s search engine.

What this means from a website designer’s perspective is that I see the potential for more non-deceptive means of advertising using social media to promote one’s business. If Google is indexing content from Facebook and other websites forum posts, this is an opportunity to gain more website visitors just by being more active in these online communities.

Google’s all seeing eye is peering into the far corners of the internet, so be careful what you comment and watch what you say. Make some postings about your business and now you just may get indexed for them.

A few months ago Google introduced the Google+ project, a new social networking and real-life sharing website. By keeping up with social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, Google is staying on the cutting edge of social media.

Since yesterday, the Google homepage has had an arrow in the top left corner pointing to the new “You” tab at the very left. If you create a Google+ account and are signed in, that “You” would become your user name.

In order to make a Google+ account you can either sign in with your existing Google account or simply create a new one. Google+ is still in Beta, so concerning the new features that are still in development, you may run into technical issues from time to time.

Once a member, update your public Google+ profile by uploading a photo to help friends recognize you and send them invitations to join your circle. Google Plus connects with Picasa™ Web Albums for uploading entire albums of photos, which is a website somewhat resembling Flickr.

With Google+ you can create circles of people to share with then add more people to your circles by connecting with MSN Hotmail, Android and Yahoo! By creating “social circles”, Google+ allows users to organize their friends into groups. Google+ lets you start a hangout and have fun with all your circles using your live webcam as well.

Take the Google+ project tour, and stay posted on my blog for news, tips and advice concerning internet related topics.

The photos on the left are originals of myself and father and grandmother, taken up in China, Maine near the cottages we were staying in during our stay from August 6th through the 20th. The photos on the right side are richer and more vibrant due to adjustments of some color options with Irfanview. (For larger view click on photo)

For Irfanview, located on the ‘Image’ tab below the ‘color corrections’ option should be a series of color related functions including contrast, brightness, gamma correction, saturation and color balance. Raising the saturation gives photos much more vibrant color. Adjust each function independently in order to get the desired effect. Different photo editing and viewing programs have unique options to apply to the original photo, so discover what effects are available by exploring yours.

Follow my blog for tips and advice dealing with web design and other internet related topics. Bookmark my website for future reference and sharing with friends. Have a look in my resources section for free and safe online programs and websites that may be new to you!

To keep your customers involved in your business online, simple website navigation is an important factor. Imagine a natural flowing positive website experience, and consider these tips for a web design that is easy to navigate your way through.

The sections of your small business website that you want your websurfers to naturally land on should stick out like a sore thumb. Think about which parts of your website you want visitors to be sure not to miss. When someone cannot locate their particular topic of interest, chances are they could bounce off to another website. The object is to keep them digging for more, and eventually bookmark you and refer you to others.

In order for your website visitors to navigate easily, it may be a good idea to add a sitemap to sections with numerous pages. When a single tab grows large enough you may even want to make a short guide list for reference. On my website I created a Resources Sitemap which covers everything under my “Resources” tab on one page.

Consider having tabs across the top so your potential customers can find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Make the custom website design intended for function so everything is simple to find.

Group your most important links together on a sidebar at the left or right. Highlighting the links you think are the most important and using bold appropriately can easily guide your website visitors where they need to go as well.

Visit my blog and website on a regular basis for web design related tips, news and advice, and contact me by email to discuss your own small business custom website design.

I recently discovered a pleasant trend occurring in the statcounter statistics for the traffic on one of the websites I monitor and write for. From the graph on the left, (click to enlarge by the way) we notice the trend remained flat until shortly after I started writing for the website in June.

Before June the number of unique visitors peaked at around 50 per day where now the minimum per day is around 200, even peaking at 1,184 hits on March 21st. The key to acquiring more customers is building website traffic, and in this case I provide proof that blogging on a regular basis does just that.

Add content to your website regularly to provide search engines with more incentive to direct websurfers to your site. Search engines prefer a website that grows, so by adding more pages with blog posts, you offer a healthier online presence. Blogging also offers you the opportunity to advertise your business for free. All you need is some time to write and some ideas to write about.

Do you want to get more traffic to your website online? Inquire about my blogging services for your small business website. Most small business owners who have a blog do not have the time to write on it. Writing about news, tips and advice in your business niche CAN bring you more potential customers. Don’t have a blog yet? I can offer help with that as well. Contact me today for more details.

Upon taking my own advice of “studying keyword analytics in order to find out what keywords your visitors use to locate your website”, I discovered a total of 15% of my website traffic in the last month came from “sidebar” related searches. I thought this was rather coincidental considering just last night I did a sidebar redesign for my stepbrother’s website, Masterson Construction Services located in the Los Angeles, California area.

Some of the terms I was found on Google’s search results were ‘website sidebar ideas’, ‘sidebar ideas’, ‘wordpress sidebar ideas’, ‘web design sidebar’, ‘webdesign sidebar’ and ‘side bar ideas’. There seems to be no problem planning website content, but my readers have a need for website sidebar ideas.

In this recent project the website’s right column had the same two pictures on each tab. By changing them each to the theme of the tab they were located under, the website visitor gets more of a feel of what each tab is about. Feel free to click through the tabs to see how the photos on the right side are unique on each webpage.

If you have a subject you’d like to see a post about, feel free to comment something of interest. Bookmark my blog and website for tips and advice dealing with website design and other internet related topics. Contact me by email for information on custom website design.

You can use Tinychat for video, text and microphone conferencing whether for business or with friends. With no download necessary, Tinychat is a great alternative to Skype, allowing up to 12 broadcasts. Just make a room then send the link to those you want to invite to video conference.

Although the interface is simple, there are a couple steps in order to get started with your video conference room. Name a chatroom and click create, make a screen name, password, enter your email, check the over 18 box and enter the captcha. The “Start Broadcasting” button at the top left gives the option of video camera, microphone or both. You can even import other camera options with an application from manycam.com to change lens options or add a tropical background to yourself.

Tinychat, by allowing multiple broadcasts at once makes communication in real time easy. Change your text color with the command /color= or change your nickname by double clicking on your name. Tinychat supports multiple browsers, but perhaps not the new beta version of IE9. Try out Tinychat to talk to clients or friends and get your video on today!

Some tinychat commands:
/color (changes the color of your chat)
/topic this is the room topic (changes the room topic, if you are a room operator)
/msg nickname this is private (sends a private message to another user in the room)
/ignore nickname (blocks their chat messages from appearing on your screen)
/ban nickname (kicks and bans the user from the room, if you are a room operator)
/banlist (displays the ban/forgive list, if you are a room operator)
/oper nickname (makes that user a room operator like you)
/broadcast nickname (allows that user to broadcast)
/close nickname (closes that user’s broadcast if you had allowed them)

You can make your own GIF files for blog posts and even in web design projects. This is a widely used graphics format for the Internet that allows transparency and animation. By simply adding animation to a blog post or website, you might just spice it up enough to entice your visitors into staying longer.

GIF files, also known as Graphics Interchange Format is a widely used graphics format that allows animation and transparency. GIFs can be created either using software or a website. The limitation of this format is that it the maximum number of colors is 256, but can often give the illusion of more colors. Some GIF creation websites include gickr.com, picasion.com, makeagif.com and loogix.com.

You can usually upload about a dozen pics to use in your GIF animation and have a variety of options to choose from such as speed, size, looping and the number of pics allowed. The size generally spans from 100 to 400 pix and the speed generally goes from slow to fast, with some other customization available. Once you finished creating your GIF, if it’s under 150 kb, you could even use it as an emoticon on your instant messenger.

GIFs are ideal to spice up a blog post or integrate into your web design. You can upload GIFs to enhance your webpage visitor’s experience instead of photos. Use these tips to dazzle your website design or blog with an animated GIF today.

How would you like to add your likeness on a building or a movie theater screen? Perhaps put your image on a billboard or in the clouds. Now you can with LoonaPix Photo Editor. Try this photo graphics website to have some fun and turn your photos into works of art.

Once you finish with one photo effect, the links to change the effect or upload another photo are close by, so navigation on this website is simple. When you are done editing one photo, you can either add a different effect or just upload another one. Rather than using a photoshop program, LoonaPix Photo Editor could prove to be a good option for a photo editing website.

I also found that Photomontage Generator from WriteOnIt had a variety of excellent photograph effects as well, with the main difference being that you choose the photo effect first, then upload a photo.