Although everyone told me I didn't need to lose any weight,I've recently shed a little over 20lbs and feel so much better for it.  The only downside, is I now need to go through my closet and get rid of a bunch of clothes that are waaaay too big for me!  A good downside I think you'd agree though.

Reducing your website's wait

When Google is presented with a search query, it looks at the pages in its index and applies a test that includes over 200 parameters to it in a bid to serve the user a relevant result.  One of those is page load speed.  There's a temptation now to overlook this vital aspect of page "health".  After all, most of our users have a fast internet connection right?  Who uses a 56k dial up modem anymore?  Interestingly, I was speaking to someone just a few weeks ago who does.  They're in a "black" area where no one can get broadband access.

From Google's point of view, a fast loading site is good - a tick - and a slow loading one is bad - an X.  So it's crucial to make sure your pages load quickly.  Here

This week I got a very timely reminder about the value of backups, and being on top of your internet security.  Despite the best efforts and intentions, if you don't know, don't assume!  When one buys space of a reputable, respectable and established host, it's reasonable, but very dangerous, to assume they would have put into place all the necessary security measures, right?  Wrong!

This week - well it came to a head this week; the actual damage had been done around Valentines Day - our server got hacked.  Not as badly as it could have been, but enough to be more headaches than a mild irritation.  Obviously I've seriously tightened up security - things which I foolishly assumed would have automatically been put in place already.  That was my mistake, and I am grateful only 1 client suffered anything (2 days without a site) due to my mistake.

The great thing was I did have backups of everything, so it was just a time thing to restore the sites that were badly damaged, and then go through and scan, and clean, all the junk that the hacker or hackers had dropped in there.  Yep, we changed logins and passwords

If the answer is more than a month ago, that's too long. And if you have an e-commerce site, updating doesn't just mean adding a few products or changing their descriptions.  Nor does editing a page a bit count.  Updating means substantial additions or editing.

What's the big deal?

Updating your site is important for 2 entities - your human visitors and your robot visitors.  Humans like fresh stuff to read or look at and keeps them returning - that's why blogs are great additions.  It may also get them to bookmark you or, even better, refer you to friends and collegues.  Robot visitors - those are the electronic spiders which search engines send out - also like fresh content, but for a different reason.  Fresh content indicates that the site owner cares about their site, and is putting effort into making it better = authoritive.

What should I do then?

Write - pure and simple.  However, that's not totally helpful, so let's flesh that out a bit.  Here are some easy ways of updating and addign material to your site.

Blog - A blog is the easiest way to keep new material pumping into your site. I recommend weekly,

5 tips for great content

There's a saying in SEO circles that "Content is king!"  That's even more true heading into 2013 as older, traditional SEO methods have become irrelevant or now have less weight in the search engine's eyes. One of the more spectacular demises in the last 12 months has been the backlink schemes, many participants of these finding their sites hit hard by the Panda update earlier last year.

There is no substitute for great content.  Yes, a picture might say a thousand words in some circumstances, but not when it comes to SEO.  They can say a few in SEO through the use of "alt text", but it remains a smaller part of the whole on-page SEO strategy.  Great content, however, is the stuff others link to, and bookmark, and refer others to.  So here's 5 tips for making sure you start in the right direction with your content writing.

1. Make it easy to read.

There will be times, and industries, where the content gets pretty technical.  However, it's important to understand that not all your readers will understand all the ins and outs of your business.  Write for the layman where possible, explaining and

I've recently gotten back into Radio Control modeling after a 35+ year absence. My home club is AMOS RC and you can see their site (which we designed and maintain) here. It's a really fun hobby, cheaper than golf, but it  teaches some hard lessons - like New Years day this year.

Being a novice (I was never terribly proficient in the 70s), it's easy to get confused about your plane's attitude in the air and what appropriate control responses are required.  Such was Wednesday... confused pilot, plane too close to the ground - the inevitable happened!  So it's now waiting for the arrival of some new parts so we can get airborne again!

The point of the story is this.  We all go through various circumstances in life and we have the ability to choose to grow from them or to wither because of them.  Don't let anyone try to fool you - there is no status quo!  Everything changes us for good or for bad.

So, at the beginning of a New Year, all business owners should stop and learn a lesson like I did at the field last week.  Look at what worked and improve on

Here's 5 presents you can give your website this Christmas to  help it work better, work smarter and get more business for you.

1. Write a blog

Many clients I speak to have a real phobia about writing a blog, but it's really simple - it just requires commitment. As a business owner, I have no doubt you know a lot about your business, and the industry you're in.  There, already, are a wealth of topics to cover. Throw in a few, what I call, "human interest" stories (see my blog around June/July this year for my daughter's wedding), and you're good to go.

2. Add or renew some content

For search engines and humans alike, new content is considered good (providing it's unique and well written).  Both see it as an indication of a site that's considered important in the scheme of a business's marketing strategy. If you're hesitant about writing new pages, have a look at some older ones first. Check they're current, have the right information, add a little more, try rewording it (careful with SEO there though) until you get comfortable about writing a whole page from scratch.

3. Check your keywords

I hope that, when

A recent court case Downunder in Australia, found Google guilty of being party to libelous content which tied a man to organised crime.  Did Google write the content?  No, but they "published" it according to the jury, and the judge gave them the proverbial wet bus ticket" with a $200,000 fine - what's that, a minute's worth of income?  A second's?

Understandably, Google is appealing the case (well, they sure can afford to!), but it's not about the money.  It's all about the precedent.  Google claimed that it merely listed the link to the content, and that the view expressed herein do not necessarily, blah, blah, blah!  The jury and judge saw different.

A page of their own making

Part of the reason was that it wasn't just the "link listing", but Google also had the plaintiff listed in their images with not-very-subtle allusions to his crime connections.  This, the judge said, was much more than mere link listing.  This was a sophisticated cut and paste of others' content into a page of Google's own making.

I will agree with Google (something I really DON'T like to do!) that their algorithm just goes out, finds content, then delivers it in

One topic of questions I hear a lot is about linking - no real surprise as this has been the mainstay of off page SEO in the past.  However, Google, with its billions of dollars and a stable full of engineers, is getting smarter.  The old focus of getting dozens of backlinks all with the same anchor text is well dead, yet many companies still consider this relevant.  But it's not just about backlinks anymore.

Is every backlink good?

Short answer is no - not every backlink is good.  Links from known link farms and spam schemes are not good and will generally hurt your rankings long term, even if you do see short term gains.  Worst case is they get your sire delisted and then you're in deep doo-doo.

I get asked (by those with a little SEO savvy) about the worth of getting no-follow links.  The truth is, many sites that you don't even think about post links as no-follow.  Craigslist is one, for example.  So, if they're no-follow (that is, they don't pass any authority - often called link juice) what's the point of getting them.  There's no point in setting out to get them, but get

It's been a busy last couple of weeks. We have started work on a number of new sites and things are ticking along well. While there have been some interesting developments on the internet scene, I just felt like kicking back a bit this morning and letting some other sites show you just how NOT to do website design.

If you Google "worst websites" you can spend hours being horrified at some of the stuff that appears on the internet. Now I don't normally bag other designer's work, as design is so subjective. But there are basic design rules which need following to end up with a nice website. The following fail to follow these rules (some manage to break nearly all!)

Pacific NorthWest X-Ray

Take our first example, www.pnwx.com. Their copyright in the "footer" says 1997 - 2012. While they may have updated and added products since 1997, I don't think their website "theme" (using the term very loosely) has changed since then. The site suffers from poor contrast between background and links. And the background...... where did they get it from? What about that horrible animated gif in the header and the shockingly bad header text?

The

No different to any previous year, Google has continued rolling out algorithm change after algorithm change. Some have a small footprint (the sites they affect) while others are quite widespread. Some of these updates have focused on catching those who are trying to artificially manipulate search results. In that way they've been very successful, and have weeded out many linking systems. Other updates have revised the way Google rates sites for relevance.

Social media bookmarking

This is one of this year's hot Google topics. With the Millennial generation becoming a major buying power, and one connected almost like Siamese twins to their portable devices, it only makes sense that Google would start weighting social indicators more. It's not just the big ones like Facebook, Twitter and Google +1, but they have taken a holistic look at all platforms like Delicious, Digg, Stumble upon, etc. It's now becoming crucial that websites get votes from these platforms to ensure continued good rankings. Backlinking still remains very important, but votes from the social sites are becoming much more important than ever before. This is well evidenced by the number of companies you can see offering some sort of incentive to customers who "Like"