The Word on The Web

Being an IT Manager, I don't often get the opportunity to stretch my creative side at work. Yes, I do the web design for the company as well as things like business cards and some promotional material but that's a rare occurrence, mostly I am doing battle with a server, trying to get stubborn software to work the way the user wants it, dealing with security issues and that kind of stuff. Of course, if it weren't for that "stuff" I wouldn't have a paycheck but I often times myself screaming for a creative outlet.

That's when I color my website orange and blue (ya, I know, I'll be fixing that soon) or buy another domain just to play with a new design or, sometimes, I enter logo design contests.

To be honest, I don't win often. My designs are too complex for the web 2.0 crowd and most times, too realistic I think. People want simple and while I'm out jogging my creativity around the web I can't restrain myself - but I have fun, and invariably learn something along the way.

However, I did recently win a logo contest - apparently it was one of the rare occasions that the contest holder was of a similar thinker, and then went on to do the web design as well. The upside is that I get credited for the design on the site - the downside is that the owner has taken over and, well, quite honestly is making a mess! (I hope he's not reading!)

So, what do you do when you've done a design, handed it over and the owner starts using very large type in a decorative font, or only uses the design for part of the site? The way the content appears on the page is equally important as the design itself and can ruin the look of a page if it's not done well.

There really isn't much you can do.... but I think in this case I might go and change my credit to "Logo by Kaediem" because at least that still looks good.

You can see that logo and others on my Logo Design Portfolio page

In order to announce your presence to the web and start to build your site's popularity, the single most important SEO strategy is building links to your site.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways;

Natural link building is what the search engines like. People see your site and like it or want to reference it because it's related to their site and they link to you voluntarily and in most cases, without even telling you. When you have great original content this happens frequently.

The problem is, how do other webmasters get to see your site? Most would find it in search engines but if you don't have any links to you, it's hard to get found in the searches so it creates a catch 22 situation.

Search engines don't like manipulated engine optimization like link trades and purchases but webmasters don't build sites so that no one will visit so most will resort to some form of manipulated backlinking strategy.

If you are going to go that route then one way to get reasonably good links is to look for directory with a good Page Rank Score with Google or a word cloud site such as Whos4you.com that offers very reasonable placement on a PR5 site.  Your site is shown on the front page in an order based on your bid for the placement.  But, even once your site has drifted off the front page, it's still visible on the past links page providing you a permanent backlink.  A lot of bang for a little buck.

I dabble in SEO. That is to say that I do my own SEO for my own websites. It's hard. I entered an SEO contest earlier this year figuring if I finished in the top 10, it would be a good advertisement for my SEO services. Well, I finished 4th after spending 3 months in the top 3, pretty darned good for an novice SEO dabbler, but it taught me a lot. I know what good SEO is and I know what to look for and I know that I don't want to do it - at least not full time. I much prefer to stick to my web design and logos. So now I give out a little free advice now and again, help people once and a while when the spirit moves me but SEO is nit picky, it's stressful, and it's time consuming - I have to admire anyone who has the stamina to take it on.

Someone who has that stamina is JP Richards who owns and runs Toronto SEO Company. I recently met JP and asked him about his SEO evaluation offer.

JP offers a free SEO site evaluation. That in itself attracted my interest. SEO evaluation isn't an easy process so I wondered how complete this analysis actually was. Have a question - ask. I asked JP what kind of information was included in his evaluation and this is what I learned;

For your hard earned nothing (read free) you get...

• An evaluation and list of Existing Incoming Links as well as an analysis of the corresponding anchor text,
• Existing Meta Tag Overview and keyword analysis including a Top 3 Keyword Competitive Analysis.
• You also get an 8 point "on page ranking check",
• a list of concerns, target keyword research and suggestions, on page and off page suggestions and more.

The SEO evaluation I read was complete, nothing left to the imagination, no stone left unturned. JP Richards is a Google™ Qualified Adwords Professional & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consultant and it shows.

If you're looking for a SEO service, I'd recommend contacting JP, visiting his SEO Company and looking into his services. If nothing else, do the site evaluation - I guarantee that once you see it, you'll be impressed.

Not all web directories are created equal. In fact, with free directory software available, they are almost a dime a dozen.

Submitting to directories can be time consuming and can nibble away at your wallet at the same time so, do your research and save your time and energy by submitting to directories that are in for the long haul and are self improving.

CBravo Directory gives a great list of reasons why you should submit to this seo friendly directory and they are good guidelines to follow when looking for directories to list your site.

CBravo boasts a great life line (they've been around for a year and a half), they tell you about their backlinks, their on site optimization (including sitemap submission to yahoo and google) among other reasons you should submit your site to CBravo.

CBravo is reasonably priced and your listing will benefit from their on site SEO.  Definitely a web directory worth a look

Recently I've seen a couple of articles on the relationship between the location of your web host and how well you rank on certain locale specific search engines.

For instance, if you are a Canadian company looking to sell your product in Canada, you might do well to have your site hosted with a Canadian hosting company. It appears that search engines such as google.ca use the location of the server to indicate relevance on their searches.

Recently I entered an SEO contest and did quite well, spending most of the contest in the top 3 in google.com. However, even though I am a Canadian, and I mentioned the location and even did a blog entry on my contest site about being Canadian, I did not rank in the top 10 on google.ca presumably because of my choice of web hosts.

Canada web hosting can be hard to find though and often times even though you find a Canadian company offering hosting with servers in Canada, you are still billed in U.S. funds and the rates are not terribly reasonable.

I located PrimeHost.ca and found that they not only bill in Canadian funds, accept various payment methods, and have online ordering, their rates are reasonable as well.

Definitely worth a mention.