Topics

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ARTICLE -- CONTENT AND SEO

First and foremost, the content you have on your site is the most important and most crucial thing over anything else that you can do to your site. What I advise my clients to do is to actually THINK like a search engine or if that is too abstract, think like someone who speaks a different language.

Although search engines are getting much better at figuring out exactly what it is that is on the page, remember it is often impossible for them to decipher Java, Javascript, Flash, and other non-HTML components. This is NOT to say don't use them, just use them when they are to be used appropriately.

Because search engines ARE getting better at figuring out what is on a page, spelling and grammar are also very important. The rule of thumb is no more than three misspellings and no more than three gramatical errors on a page. Sentences should be of short to medium length and paragraphs should also be rather short.

DO NOT COPY OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK. The search engines can penalize a site heavily for plagiarism.

TAGS

Title Tags -- The most important of all tags is the Title tag. This is what shows up on the bars on the bottom of your computer screen. Most people make the mistake of putting their company name in the Title Tag and that is the worst thing to do (other than putting no tag at all). A Title Tag should be short and to the point and tell what the page is about and if you want to add your company name then add it at the END of the title tag not at the beginning.

Meta Tags -- Meta tags were how search engines would know what was on a page... many years ago. However, with that said it is important that Meta tags are still added to your site and more importantly there are new meta tags (more than just description and keywords) that should be added to the web site such as content type and content language.

Meta Description -- Meta description should start out with the SAME thing your TITLE tag says and then go into more detail.

Meta Keywords -- Meta keywords are words used to describe what is in your page. First use keywords that are in the title and the description first. Then use keywords that are in the content of the page. DO NOT try to spam the search engines by using keywords that are not relevant to your content.

Alt Tags -- With the advent of XHTML, ALT tags for images are now REQUIRED. The Alt tag is used for people who have their images turned off so it is important to have in the alt tag exactly what the image is but also expand on what it is. An example would be a HOME button. Instead of just having HOME as the Alt Tag, use Home -- Site Name.com.

I have noticed that search engines love geography and it is good to put that in there whenever appropriate. If your company is in Kansas City, MO then put those in the Content and in the Tags.

LINKS

Having links that send people to sites relevant to your site is always a good practice. People ask me where I get links and how do I get people to link to my site. The answer is very simple. First I ask. I write e-mails (NOT SPAM) to sites asking if they wish to reciprocate links with me and I also have on some of my pages a "Link to this Page" button so that web site owners can do it on their own.

There is great debate as to whether links to other sites that are not of the same category help, hurt, or are indifferent. From my ten years experience I have found that appropriate links DO NOT hurt your web site and could very well help in some instances.

PRIVACY POLICY

I won't go into much detail here but make sure you have one. So many people forget this and it is extremely important. You will NOT find a major web page that does not have a Privacy Policy attached to it.

TRAFFIC

Obviously the more traffic you have coming to your web site the better. Not only are web sites tracking how many people come to your site but where they go within your site and how long they stay on your site. Traffic sounds like a double-edged sword since this is probably what you are looking for to begin with, so use other techniques described above to start growing your traffic SLOWLY. Sites that have an immediate hit of high traffic are usually penalized because of fear the traffic is computer generated. Again don't spam your own site.

ADVERTISING

Advertising with Google Adwords, Yahoo, or other Ad Agencies (Burst!Media, FastClick, CJ, etc...) has shown to boost traffic (that you pay for obviously) but also has spiders (described later) come to your site more often. Advertising can be very difficult to manage and you may want someone who knows what they are doing to get the best ROI (Return on Investment) for your dollar.

SPIDERS

Say you go to the mall and you buy a POLO shirt for $75 at a major department store. In the same mall in a small store there is the same shirt for $20 less. Why did you not buy from the small store? There are plenty of reasons but the MAJOR reason is that you didn't know it was there. The same with your web site. You must let the search engines know your site even exists. Using a free service like HTTPSEND (link below) is a great way to get search spiders to your site to start crawling the good work you have done.

TIME

Remember it will take up to a month or two to even be ranked by the search engines, three months for your results to show up when someone is looking for the content your site has and a year or more for your site to be ranked in the top ten -- and that is if everything is done correctly.

Be patient, do things properly and you will see results.

There are many more things about SEO that I cannot even go into at this time, but visiting many different SEO sites will help you along your journey. Remember though, not everything you read is true.
Source(s):
http://www.zelo.com/blonde
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery...
http://www.zelo.com/firstnames
http://www.httpsend.com

C. Thomas Wright III, author and webmaster of Zelo.com which has brought the web such pages as First Names & What They Mean (#2 Google [first names]), Zelo Nursery Rhymes (#1 Google [nursery rhymes]), and his ever-funny Blonde Jokes (#1 Google [blonde jokes]) is at it again with a brand new web site... Name-Stats.com.

Says CT3 (his nickname), "this site goes beyond the origin and meaning of names and explores the popularity of names from all over the world. A lot of time researching popularity of names, not just here in the United States but from other countries is something I have not seen on the internet before, and thought it was time people had easy access to such information."

Name-Stats.com includes name statistics for first names (male and female) and surnames (last names [US only] from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, Sweden, Scotland, and more are being added every day. Like all of his web sites, this web site is basic in design and heavy on information.

CT3 says he has plans for a site about people's birthdays as well as other ventures he is working on. He can be reached at zelo(at)zelo.com.

FTP Live is a Free File Transfer and Editing from your Web Browser

This service is great for making those quick-but-essential file uploads, downloads, or edits when on the go.  This service is free and you can even include it in your own web pages!

A sincere thank you to user RWILSON and unknown perp from Dubai, United Arab Emerites for working so well as a team to get our web sever listed on SpamCop.  Way to go guys!  It really helped to leave the form to mail script wide open in your web space without any password protection at all and allow the form to enter in unlimited number of recipients and any "From" address he pleased.  Hey, now THAT is a SPAMMER's dream come true right there

Took engineers a LONG time (and cost HostNed a lot of $$) to find out who was connecting to our web server to send 100,000+ spam and phishing emails!  Yes, got our server listed by SpamCop and also got the user's site Suspended and our Arab friend blocked and reported to FBI!  WTG guys.

One user FFSPIRA on a shared linux server was found today to have multiple directories full of other directories and files all with universal Read.Write,Execute (777) permissions.  Uh oh! HUGE sucurity NO NO there.  That got his site suspended right away.  SWEET!

[MSG - Slowly Poisoning America]

Do you believe that many of the foods we eat are slowly poisoning us?  In this web site
MSG - Slowly Poisoning America
the author makes the following claims:

The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates...

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance: NICOTINE for FOOD!

The big media doesn't want to tell the public either, fearing legal issues with their advertisers.

Are you a believer or it it just hype?

[Basic RSS]

Get feeds from the forum in RSS format.  Here is the info to use:

Basic RSS
https://my.hostned.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2

Advanced RSS
Limit to certain board
Example: "Domain Names" = board #10 so use the following RSS URL
https://my.hostned.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2;board=14
Also limit number of items
Use the "limit" command so to limit to three items, use the following RSS URL
https://my.hostned.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2;board=14;limit=2

[Here is your initial form:]

Let's say you have a web form and you want to make a couple of the fields required.  To keep this as simple as possible we will involve only three fields, "Name", "Email", and "Message".  In this example, all three fields will be required.

Here is your initial form:

Code Select Expand

<form method="post" action="whatevermailscript.php">
<input maxlength="256" size="35" name="email">
<p>Comments:  <textarea cols="55" name="Comment">  </textarea></p>
<p><input type="submit" value="Send" name="submit">
</form>
You might have noticed I didn't put a Reset button in there.  I think they are stupid, so I dont use them.

Now we need to plug in the validation.  We do this with good old JavaScript!  We will use a function, define the variables (the fields) and call for it on submission (when you click send).  So here we go.

Step 1. Add this in your html form page between the <head></head> tags:

Code Select Expand

<script>
function ValidateContactForm()
{
    var name = document.ContactForm.Name;
    var email = document.ContactForm.Email;
    var comment = document.ContactForm.Comment;

    if (email.value == "")
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (email.value.indexOf("@", 0) < 0)
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (email.value.indexOf(".", 0) < 0)
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (comment.value == "")
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a description or comment.");
        comment.focus();
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}
</script>

Step 2. Add this as an attribute in the form tag:

Code Select Expand

onsubmit="return ValidateContactForm();"

Finished Product

Code Select Expand

<html>

<head>
<title>Form Validation Example</title>

<script>
function ValidateContactForm()
{
    var name = document.ContactForm.Name;
    var email = document.ContactForm.Email;
    var comment = document.ContactForm.Comment;

    if (name.value == "")
    {
        window.alert("Please enter your name.");
        name.focus();
        return false;
    }
   
    if (email.value == "")
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (email.value.indexOf("@", 0) < 0)
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (email.value.indexOf(".", 0) < 0)
    {
        window.alert("Please enter a valid e-mail address.");
        email.focus();
        return false;
    }
    if (comment.value == "")
    {
        window.alert("Please provide a detailed description or comment.");
        comment.focus();
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}
</script>
</head>

<body>
Use this form to leave a comment:
<form method="post" action="whatevermailscript.php"
name="ContactForm" onsubmit="return ValidateContactForm();">
    <p>Name: <input type="text" size="65" name="Name"></p>
    <p>E-mail Address:  <input type="text" size="65" name="Email"></p>
    <p>Comments:  <textarea cols="55" name="Comment">  </textarea></p>
    <p><input type="submit" value="Send" name="submit">
    <input type="reset" value="Reset" name="reset"></p>
</form>

</body>
</html>

I hope you will be able to take this example form validator and use it in your own scripts successfully.  Enjoy 

What FTP program are you using to transfer your files?  Why do you choose that one?  Why do you think it is better?

[charging for web design work]

I am hoping to have a detailed, fun, and informative discussion about charging for web design work.  How much do you charge a client?  Do you charge some clients more than others?  If so, why?  Do you charge by the job or by time (by the hour, etc...)?  How important is a contract?

I do not mean to overwhelm with questions, just want to consider many different factors.

[supplement]

It appears that this forum has the ability to do all that the static site http://www.hostned.com/members/ does.  For examplr the FAQ's can be moved into here as sticky posts and the newsletters can be moved into their own category etc...  So what do you think.  Should this forum supplement or take the place of the members area?

Feel free to ask or answer any questions here in these forums.  Share ideas with others.  Get help with anything from scripting to preventing SPAM.

If posting, just choose the category you feel is most appropriate.  If looking for answers, use the search function or browse by category.

[The default feed is the 5 most recent posts:]

The default feed is the 5 most recent posts:
http://my.hostned.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml
To get RSS or RSS2 out of that [not viewable in most browsers alone], add ';type=rss' or ';type=rss2' to that URL.
There are several 'sub-actions' available to this action, specifying exactly what to display:

We just got the user forums up and going.  How do you like it? 
Thumbs up or thumbs down?