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 running round blaming others unless we're completely sure. At best, it makes one look stupid if you're wrong. So there was a good amount of due diligence.

These 5 simple rules could have saved everyone a lot of heartache, time and money if they'd been followed. Like most webmasters,

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, their algorithm uses over 200 benchmarks to determine a page's relevancy to a search query. Of course, there are more inportant items in that mix, and less important items. Max Cutts tells us not to get too hung up on keywords in URLs, however, a nice, easy to remember

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 - 1, 2, 3....? Don't give up - be persistent!

Wrong target market. Have you clearly identified your target market, and are you pitching to them on their level? There are so many demographics which come into play here; poor choice will result in poor campaign performance.

Not thinking

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  Google Webspam team member, Max Cutts, talks candidly about the future demise in backlink value as Google's algorithm becomes, as he put it, "...more like a Star Trek computer, so, conversational search..." He also says that, while backlinks still have many more years left in them, their value is going to diminish. I, for one, don't see this as a bad thing, as he also explains that

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 put links to your pages on your site so visitors can easily find and bookmark you there.

Ongoing maintenance

Generally we don't offer building or ongoing maintenance services for social media, though we do work closely with a company who does this, and just this. However, part of our

Coming from a nation of DIYers - New Zealand - I can empathize with those who want to do it themselves. Right now, I'm in the middle of a bunch of "honey-do" projects around the house - tiling, baseboard replacement, painting. Even though these projects don't require huge learning to do acceptably, they do require some learning. They also need the correct tools to do it well. For example, I bought a good quality wet saw for the tiling project. I have quite a lot of cutting to do, and getting the cuts where I want them is critical.

So how's this all play into website design? Simple.... you need to know some stuff, and you need the right tools. Without either, your shiny, new, 24/7 salesperson may not be doing you and your company any favors. As I mentioned in a recent blog, the average person makes up their mind about your site in 1/20th second. That's such a tiny amount of time, should you really try and "go it alone" and put your company's reputation on the line with a DIY website? (My apologies to Sir Ian McKellan for using this less than flattering image of him practicing

In 2006, a Canadian research team conducted a study to try and ascertain how short a time it took for human visitors to sum up a webpage. And the results were startling!

1/20th of a second can be a killer

The team began by showing 50 millisecond glimpses (that's 1/20th second) of webpages to the participants, then had them rate the webpages in terms of their aesthetic appeal. Then they let them see the same pages for a much longer periods and had them rate the pages again. Surprisingly, the results were very close. The conclusion is shocking to us as designers (and should also impact anyone with a website as well)...

According to the results in the study, you have 1/20th second before a visitor decides your sites flies or dies in their thinking!

This makes choosing a designer with good design and layout skills so critical. Forget fancy "gadgets" on your site, even quality content doesn't matter at this point. If you site turns off a visitor, then they may not even see your content - they're hitting the back button!

Of course, they will see the page they navigated to, the hand can't move that fast, but

I'm often amazed just how easily the simple, and obvious, things trip us up or cause a disconnect. It's no different with websites. Here are 10 seemingly obvious things that can really stoke the fires of credibility on your website.

1. Easy verification of site information

When you've written articles, invariably there are times, often many times, when you've used a source to help build the content. SO provide your content third party support in the way of citations, references, or links to original content. It's shows YOU have confidence in your material.

2. Be a "real" organization

Ever been to a site trying to find contact info and all you get is a web form? Seems a little shady, right? If I come across this sort of thing, I invariably hit the close button on the window. I figure they can't be very reputable if they have to hide their contact info. So give your phone number, a physical address, perhaps a photo of your offices (exterior), and also include any relevant associations you belong to.

3. Showcase your organization's expertise

If you have experts in your company, or your site contributors are, give their credentials. List any affiliation

Considering how I encourage all my clients to blog, it was with dismay that I looked at my December 2013 last post date! Ouch! I'd plead the 5th, but I'm not sure that covers this. I do have some sort of excuse... really!

At the beginning of January 2014 we moved down to Phoenix, AZ, so most of December was spent packing up, and most of January unpackign what we'd just packed. Except for all the stuff that got stolen... thanks for that whoever you are, I hope my clothes fit...or not!

So we're now settling into a slower paced life in Phoenix than it was in Sacramento. Everyone keeps asking if we like the heat and "You just wait till summer!" We'll see, as we both love the heat.

So that's my excuse for being slack at getting to this. My other part of this little post is something I knew I should do, never got round to myself, but just got done - cleaning up my computer. We all know that, over time, our computers get slower from a build up of all the broken linking, temporary junk, etc, but rarely do we do a good clean up.