CitrusKiwi's Web Design, Internet & Marketing blog

We switch on our computers and expect the internet to flood into our room. And, usually, that happens. But are we getting the speeds we deserve, or even, that we are paying for? By the end of this year (2014), Americans will have paid about $400 billion (yes, with a "B") by major players, AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink to "future-proof" our network with fiber optic cabling. Cabling that NEVER materialized! Though varying between states, once all the fees, taxes and surcharges are taken into account, every household would have been fleeced about $4-5,000 from 1992-2014. Back in 1992, state laws mandated that broadband speeds should be 45mbps in both directions. My current Cox connection (in Phoenix) gives me about 65Mbps download, and around 11-12Mbps upload - a far cry from 45 each way. It might be comforting, at least, to know that, poor speed aside, we in America at least enjoy...

It's not often that you get something worthwhile for free. In the realm of internet marketing, many people think of AdWords when the topic comes up. But did you know there are many great opportunities to advertise for free on the net, and quite successfully? The more obvious ones are sites like MerchantCircle, Yelp (though I have issues with some of the less-than-reputable dealings), & your local city business directories. But the one I'm going to mention in more detail is Craigslist. Yes, it has a worse look than a 980's website done by an amateur, but, for many industries, it can yield great results. It also seems to be better in some cities than others. When we were in Citrus Heights, CA (part of Sacramento) we got 1-2 inquiries off it every week. And many of those became customers. However, Arizonans (specifically in Phoenix) web design at least on CL...

There are 3 main learning styles, auditory, visual and kinesthetic. It's hard to do kinesthetic on your website - they're the touchy feely group - offer them a free sample by filling in a SIMPLE form. Visual is what you're already doing (I will assume you have a visually appealing website - if you don't talk to us about a redesign). But where is your site on auditory? If you're at zero, join the club - most are. As many as 60%+ of the population learn by visual primarily. For those people, lack of video seriously underpowers your site!  With the price of video production falling dramatically, it's now easier than ever to add video to your site. And, if a pictures says 1000 words, then a video says 1000 pictures. You now have the ability to showcase your business and your products and/or services like never before. Here's a video...

A coule of weeks back, I blogged about using add-ons/extensions for Joomla that came from warez sites, and the potential security problems associated with that (see "How to get a free lunch on the internet"). A joomla website is just a bunch of images, text, HMTL files, PHP files and CSS files. Whilst it's possivle to attach "nasties" to an image, or embed in text, when it comes to websites, usually the most common is adding code to one of the last 3. And of those 3, PHP is the "best" (from a hackers point of view) as it's the most powerful for wreaking havoc. Templates for Joomla, or any modern CMS, are a collection of HTM, CSS and PHP files, so are just a good a target for hackers as the core website files. When we're doing sites we code our own templates - we don't buy templates, so your...

In the ever-changing world of search engine rankings, Google recently released a major upgrade to their algorithm - the first major release in quite a while. Nicknamed "Pigeon" it promises to be good for local based businesses, which make up a huge percentage of the nation's businesses and covers almost every "Mom and Pop" one. Local business directories - you've all used them before, they're Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc - have received a boost and the long-running fracas between Yelp and Google seems to have been fixed, with Yelp results now showing up properly in searches. So what's in it for me? If you're a local business, that is, you don't try and grab your customers right throughout the nation, you could see a significant improvement in search rankings - depending on the search phrase of course. If someone searches for "Pizza, Phoenix", or "sporting goods, surprise az", then, assuming your site...

According to the latest statistics from the British Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), 60% of small businesses had a cyber security breach in 2013, slightly down from 64% in 2012. I'm doubting that the stats are any better anywhere else. Current statistics show you have a better than even chance of having your website hacked! Often, hacking is just an annoyance, requiring deletion of the existing upload, and reinstalling of a (known) clean backup. Oh, you DO do regular backups right? DON'T rely on your host to do it - mostly they don't care as long as you don't infect their servers. Assuming you have a backup, you can restore. But does your website, or the server it's on, have security holes? An article I was reading this week talked about one such small business from the UK who got hacked. The owner had had a great holiday away...

"There's no such thing as a free lunch". It's a well known saying, but do you know just how it applies to the internet? What IS a "free lunch" on the internet? "Free" download Yes, there are many great genuinely free programs and content you can download. I run a number of free alternatives to paid programs. Though I actually own a legit copy of Photoshop CS3, I have never invested the time needed to learn it, so I use a reasonable alternative called Inkscape - free download. However, a quick Google search will also give you dozens, if not hundreds, or links to sites offering full copies of Photoshop for free. So why not? Well, because it's illegal (plenty of reason on its own), but also because the download has a high probability of containing one or more viruses. What you don't know about website add-ons/extensions So you don't download...

I'm sure most people know the old saying, "The pot's calling the kettle black!" and what it means. Recently, search giant Google has been drawing a lot of attention in Europe for "antitrust" matters and is poised to come to a settlement with the EU. However, there has been some very vocal outrage at this settlement from the likes of Microsoft (read Bing). Just recently, Yelp, who has been critical of Google and its practices in the past, has added its voice to the verbal barrage. Yelp's CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, wrote to European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso recently to add its disapproval. Part of his letter says... Upon reflecting on our discussion about the European Digital Agenda, and my company’s historic role as a concerned observer of Google’s anticompetitive actions, I realized Yelp’s current status as a mere witness within the DG-COMP deliberations was inadequate; in order to truly advocate on...

In early web days, back links didn't exist so this was an easy question to answer,, well, it never got asked! The last 4-5 years have seen back links take on enormous weight, which lead to link farms, and link buying. Depending on who you are, this was either good or bad. Today, Google takes a very dim view of either of these practices, and regularly penalizes sites caught doing it - even if they did it a few years ago. So it's not uncommon to receive "link removal" requests from webmasters or SEO people in an attempt to get into Google's good graces again. So, does this mean that all back links are bad? No, but you need to be careful where they're coming from and how. If your site had 5 backlinks yesterday, but today has 500, Google is going to smell a rat. It's about a natural progression....

As a web designer and webmaster, internet security is a huge issue. Not only for myself and my company's site, but for all my clients. Part of my job is protecting my clients from my other clients. It's like this..... For the last couple of months, I've had all manner of high power techs chasing a spamming bot that's very sophisticated and tenancious. As soon as we block one avenue, it morphs and starts using another. We were all convinced it was some sneaky piece of code buried deep in one client's site. But multiple scans and digging revealed nothing. In the end, we've concluded it's very much off-site and, in fact, on my client's computer (one or more of them). Why didn't we go this route sooner, you may ask? The simple fact is, as a host and webmaster, internet security for my clients is my job, and it's counterproductive...

This is one question I'm asked from time to time, and it's a great question. Is phoenixwebsitedesign.com the same as phoenix-website-design.com or phoenix_website_design.com? To figure this out, let's look at how search engines interpret these 3 URLs. Dashes, underscores or nothing? Simply put, according to Google, they look at dashes as a space between 2 or more words, whereas they view underscores as joining 2 or more words. So, for Google, phoenixwebsitedesign.com and phoenix_website_design.com are the same. Bing is slightly different. They look at dashes and underscores exactly the same - a space between 2 words. So, to get the same result from both search engines, you'd be better to use dashes, But does it matter? Aren't search engines getting smart enough nowadays to figure it out? Why it matters- the ongoing debate The SEO community has debated for years, and continues to do so, over this topic. In Google's case,...

With your bottom line getting squeezed every day, maximizing - and tweaking - your advertizing spend is vital. Here are 9 things you can do, or look at, to ensure your spend is getting results. Track your results. One of the most important things you must do. If you're not tracking, you have no idea whether any marketing is achieving a result. So ask every customer this simple question, "How did you find us?" If you're using special campaigns, consider a "hidden" landing page for that so you can more easily track results. Check your form results. Are you regularly checking online form responses? Or do emails from your forms sit in an unchecked email box, or only get check once a week? Response followup. Assuming you're not wasting your responses by not checking, what's your follow-up strategy? Do you have one? How many times will you try to make contact...

SEO has gone through so many changes over the years. When I first started building websites in the mid 90s the term didn't really exist. There were so few site (relatively speaking) that you had be be doing something awfully wrong not to rank OK. Then came metatag stuffing, keyword stuffing, link farms, link building, and it's slowly working it's way round to quality content; which, IMHO, is where it should be. Why should the fact that 10,000 sites, profiles, or whatever link to a certain page make it relevant, good content or even true? We all know that there's an enormous amount of rubbish and misinformation out there on the web. And also a lot of users who don't know right from wrong! In a video published by Google Webmaster Tools (click the image to watch Max Cutts talking about backlinks), Google Webspam team member, Max Cutts, talks candidly about...

Social Media Integration for Websites There's no doubt that social media is here to stay. Early adopters of this trend will remember MySpace, Yahoo 360 and Window Live Spaces to name a few. But, even with a few dying off, there's now more than ever, with even bigger user bases. Which, what, where, who? So should your business be on every social media site? Only if you want to spend all day and night on your computer rather than working on your business. There are just too many. So which ones should you be on? We believe there are 3 main ones that you shouldn't be without - Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They all cater for different areas, but all are important. As part of setting up your website, we can advise on how to go about getting your social media presence started and how to maintain it. Plus we always...