Website Marketing (and more) Books of the Free Sort

Web design books are very useful. Especially when you have access to them for free.
Although many online sources don't allow you to save or print these books, that would be the point: if the book is there, you're more than likely going to keep coming back for access, or purchase a copy of it. Very smart marketing.

But that is a post for another day.

Here is a list of free, useful and relevant web books:

• 101 Ways to Promote your Web Site
• Speed Up your Site: Web Site Optimization
• Web Analytics an Hour a Day
• Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
• Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP
• Professional Javascript for Web Developers
• Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization
• Web Analytics for Dummies
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible
• Website Optimization
• Beginning PHP and MySQL E-Commerce
• Marketing Through Search Optimization
• Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP
  

Keywords Dos and Don'ts

When it comes to keywords, you don't want to be making any false moves that would cause you any trouble. There are good ways to use them, and there are bad ways.
This article shows many of correct and incorrect ways of using keywords, and gives some pretty good advice. Definitely worth a read!

Portfolio Website Major Overhaul Complete!

I have finally finished the redesign of my portfolio website and I am ecstatic! This site is over a years worth of planning. It might not look like much, but so much work went into it.
Everything describes a little bit of my personality, which was my goal. I wanted to find a unique way to display my work that I haven't really seen before, and while the concept itself has been done, the look has not. This would have to be the best site I've made yet, and I am excited to see what other improvements I can do to it as I learn more. I would not have been able to finish it without everything I've learned, and we'll see if the new SEO tips will help at all.

While it's not the greatest plan ever link-wise to create a one page site, I was planning to do more with it later on. Like for instance, I'd like to try out a link page using delicious someday, come up with things that I can share with other designers, that kind of stuff. It may all have been done before, but not by me, and that could bring something different.

Critique and compliments greatly welcomed. I'd like to hear what other kind of things I could do during the alteration time.
And now, back to homework.

xhtml is dead. long live xhtml!

The code wars are over. HTML5 WINS! But don't stop using XHTML 1.1, it's still valid: http://snurl.com/mit78

Intermission: Useless but trippy Javascript

We interrupt your useful reading to show you something either really funny or annoying, depending on your humor.
Go to a page with lots of images. Any page. I'll wait.
...
Ready? Okay.
Insert this Javascript into the address bar:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24;
x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200;
DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img");DIL=DI.length;
function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style;
DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px";
DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5);
void(0);

Enjoy.
Code courtesy of this post.
And now back to our regular design posting.

10 SEO myths debunked - iMediaConnection.com

Not everything you hear about SEO is true. This article will tell is just one of many that will tell you what and why about ranking.View

SEO Barriers - Inadequate Inbound Links

A lack of popular inbound links is a problem when it comes to good SEO. Without a healthy number of high quality links that point back, you'll be at a huge disadvantage. Promoting your site to build inbound links is one of the most important ways to increase page rank. There are many ways this can be done:

1. Use XML news feeds to syndicate content to other sites
2. Register feeds with news aggregators
3. Write articles on topics for other sites and have a bio link to your site
4. Create useful content properly, in ways that work for the web.
   
5. Publicize new content with press releases.
   
6. Get listed in major directories under appropriate categories
7. Utilize social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace
8. Get links from industry websites and discussion forums
9. Use "high end" link exchanges, partner with others, and exchange links

Do these important things and you will be well on your way to a higher search rank, and getting out there. The easier it is to find you, the better your site will be.

Keyword Placement in HTML

After discovering your all important keywords possibly using tools like these to help, you should immediately take advantage of them every way you can on your page. Search engine spiders search code as well as content, and it's important to keep that in mind while creating your site. This is why it's important that you research your keywords in the creation process of your page. Here are some of the most important areas:

1. 
   <title> tag:

   <title>Web Animation and Design - Georgian College</title>

2. 
   Heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>):

   <h1>Georgian College brings education to life</h1>

3. 
   <strong> and <em>:

   <p><strong>Georgian College</strong>
   brings education to life</p>

4. 
   Link Labels:

   <a href="http://georgianc.on.ca/"> Gerogian College
   - Your College, Your Future</a>

5. 
   File Names (images, external css files, etc.):

   photoshop_tut.pdf

6. 
   Alt Attributes:

   <img src="orange_habiscus.jpg" alt="The most beautiful flower
   brought from the gardens in Ottawa />

7. 
   Table Elements (<th>, <caption>, <summary>)
   


8. 
   <acronym> and <abbr>
   


9. 
   The first line of the first paragraph on the page
   


10. 
    Meta description tag
    


11. 
    URL of your pages

Of course it's important to scatter keywords in the content of your page as well, but the more keywords you can fit onto your page naturally, the better your page rank will be later on.

Technorati - is anybody home?

Technorati.com sounds like a great place - in theory. You claim your blog as your own, and you get access to a wealth of helpful tools that will help you be found. Easy access to your site means more people coming in. The site makes it out like you'll be rolling in viewers in no time.
Thing is, what happens if it doesn't work?

My site I'd attempted to "claim" on technorati. What happened? An error message:
"The URL you provided is invalid. Please check the URL and try again."

Invalid. What? How?
I'd tried different combinations to see what the problem could be, and they were all rejected. Considering that this site is up and running (which you can see since you're here and all) I'm pretty sure it's quite valid. I'd looked the problem up. Turns out that the problem isn't unique, and that there are loads of other people like me out there, and all within the past half a year. That makes this quite the new problem. I would email someone at technorati to see what's up, or ask for help in their forums, but apparently that does nothing for anyone else. It seems as if this site was someone's pet project as it's services are free, and they're finally bored of it. And now loads of people are left hanging.

For me, this isn't a big loss. There are other ways I can advertise my blog and I'm quite willing to do these things, but for the owners of technorati they might want to do something and soon, because they're losing people by the boatloads. That site used to be a necessity if you had a blog. Now? Well, what good is a service you can't even use?

UPDATE: Got through! My blog now exists. Huzzah! Still doesn't excuse the problems they've been having, but it's a step in the right direction.

On the topic of "interesting content", be careful what you write

It is really important to make sure your content is interesting to help with findability. Research and make sure it's correct, relevant to the topic at hand, and that it has something to give to the user. And maybe legal would be nice, too.

I came across this article on a Microsoft site of all places about 32 cool things you never knew you your technology could do. One of the things listed was to take Apple's OSX and install it on a netbook, which if you read Apple's agreement, kind of goes against it. Actually, the article also talks about bootlegging to get the os to install, which is kinda illegal. Apple has a history of being really angry with people who use their os like that. So, this article being an interesting topic of conversation would draw many people to it, and it being on a Microsoft site, the gulible people would think it trustworthy. I predict the article will not remain online for long... at least not in the form it's in now. It's already drawing a lot of press to it, and not all of it is good either.

Important lesson: think about what you write.