ARC loans are supposed to help the small businesses which are stuggling due to the economy and thus the fact that there are fewer customers, and the customers are buying less.  ARC loans are to help bridge that gap in income, and help you remain solvent while looking for new opportunities.

Many businesses are turning to the Internet to find new customers, but they are sure how.  Evidence of that is the fact that 90% of small and medium businesses quit using pay-per-click and related on-line ads after only 6 months. If you want to use your ARC funds to help you expand your business, you need to work with someone who specializes in small businesses.

This is because many business owners, while excellent at what they do, do not know how to properly set up and run their website, and many web designers, don’t know how to help clients once the website is launched.  I work exclusively with small businesses to help them be successful, often staying with them months after the launch to make sure the website is doing what it needs to do to help them be successful in getting new customers.

Likewise, some companies try to work with anyone, small, medium, and large, and they treat them all the same.  I only work with small businesses and I am a small business, so I understand the need to be quick to change, cost effective, and how to create that personal experience on-line.

If you need, I can help your business make more money on-line through my experince in Search Engine Optimization, website optimization (both speed and customer experience), pay-per-click campaigns, and more.  Contact me if you need help.

There are lots of interesting theories out there about how one can get there site to rank better in search engines. Unfortunately much of this advice, while it would make since, is wrong.

One example is that correct, valid HTML code is important for search engines to read your website, and thus for you rank highly.

This makes sense for several reasons:

• bad code may not be read by a search engine as it doesn’t know what it sees,
• search engines want to promote good code, to clean the web of garbage, or even
• bad coding appears unprofessional, and therefore is likely to be web spam/fraudulent/etc.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that any of these statements are true.

First, lets consider that it is estimated that over 99% of the web is made up on invalid HTML code [source]. If this is the case, could you imagine being the search engine which cannot read those pages, or which pages you would be able to read. A search engine which only searched valid HTML pages would find so little, that no one would really use it.

Search engines, while many do claim they want to promote good clean HTML pages, also realize search engines need to promote finding appropriate information on the web. While a web designed might find valid HTML important, the common user is more interested in finding out about the new digital camera, how to download a ring tone to his phone, or other related information.

Of course the proof is in the pudding, as they say. So I took several random search queries.  If the given hypothesis is true, then the top search engine rankings will have clean, or nearly clean code.

The first item I searched for was “shoes”. The top three results, in order was:

• Shoes.Com - has 253 errors and 124 warnings on there homepage [source]
• Zappos.com - has 144 errors and 101 warnings [source]
• payless.com/store/ - has 81 errors and 22 warnings [source]

I also checked two other popular search terms “travel”, (expedia.com with 154 Errors and 194 warnings [source]) and doctor (webmd.com/physician_finder/ with 101 Errors and 32 warnings [source]).

Given that these are popular search terms, one would think that search engines code find plenty of valid HTML webpages. However, it decides to rank these.  And as you can see with the shoes examples, the further down in the search results you went, the “better” the web page.  So, based upon this basic information, I would have to say that any boost a search engine gives you based upon valid HTML code is limited or more likely imaginary.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Does this mean we shouldn’t develop valid HTML websites? NO!

Instead, look at developing content which a search engine wants to see. I assume that if my browsers can read it, the major search engines can read it. We should develop new code to be valid, but not worry about fixing old code if it is working. There are clearly other things that we can do to make our sites more search engine friendly.

Optimizing your site for sales isn’t as easy as optimizing your site for speed. When we want to increase speed we know many ways to improve the performance.  We can modify files to be smaller, have files load in a different order, move the server to a faster computer, etc.

However, modifying your site to increase it’s sales requires knowing your users and testing assumptions.

Recently I was helping a client test her website to get more conversions. While using the same traffic gathering methods previously used, she noticed  a whopping 500% improvement in lead generation during the first month alone. Another client saw improvements of over 40%.

So what do you change?

There are several things which you can easily change to find improvements.

• Improve your site speed - whie not directly related, Google  notices a 20% drop in usage for every half a second slower their web page is.  If your users leave early, they cannot buy from you, or contact you for more information.
• Change headers - the client who noticed a 500% improvement, tried three different headers. Her original, and 2 new headers on the conversion page. One header did worse, and was pulled half way through the test, the other blew the first out of the water.
• Change images - pictures can tell a thousand words -  so picking the right one is important. The client with a 40% improvement got it from picking the right images to let his customers know about additional items for sale.

There are of course others, such as the call to action, guarantees, opening paragraphs, etc. When you test these, you can see improvements in how much and how often you sell.

If you need help with optimizing your site, contact me and we can start working on your site.

Yahoo recently updated one of their tools for grading and optimizing websites.  It’s called YSlow, and it checks your site for several different decisions and tools which you (or your web designer) may have implemented.

YSlow is an add on to the Firebug tool which is a Firefox extension - so at this point, you can’t run it in any other browser, however both Firefox and Firebug are free tools so there is no cost to you other than time.

YSlow is nice because it rates things on a scale of A to F, for each of numerous categories.  It also gives a numeric score for the overall grade. By having it calculate where the biggest improvements could come from - it lets you quickly find areas to optimize. With the previous version, I took one website which had a horrible score of 18 (out of 100), and in an afternoon with some minor changes, brought it up to a 32.

Other websites I’ve taken from a 55-60 range and gotten them into the 80s - usually within just a few days, depending upon the complexity of the site.

Users perceive your site partially in how fast it responds - so the faster your site, the more likely they are to make purchases or other related decisions, so optimizing your site’s speed can be very important to the health of your site.

How do you increase the speed and response of your web site? Good question. We’ve talked about it some in the past, but the people at Inside CRM have provided a list of 50 items.

While this can help with the loading of your site, it also takes someone who knows how to implement these changes. One other thing to check on is how will this affect the other aspects of your web site? For example:

• Will modifying your web site affect how users use your site? The usability of your site will directly affect how effective your site is in getting sales or leads. Granted, the speed of your site directly relates to your site’s usability, but it is only one part of many that make up your usability. Especially since some of the efforts is in reducing image use - which might be very important to your site.
• Will your modifications affect your search engine optimization for better or worse? Generally a site should receive anywhere from 35-80% of their traffic from a search engine. If you negatively effect your search engine optimization, you could seriously hurt your ability to be found on-line. So always consult your search engine specialist first.Recently Online Marketing Blog wrote about needing to talk to your search engine person first. You don’t want to make a change to your site, which makes if faster, but harder to be found in the search engines.

If you don’t have someone to advise you on search engine optimization or website usability contact me, and I’ll help you out. I have over 10 years of experience in optimizing websites to get them to run faster for you.

People often want to know how fast to changes occur on-line.  They may be used to traditional print advertisign, such as newspaper and magazine, in which changes to an ad might take weeks or months to be seen.

Even worse, consider wanting to change some text in your phone book ad.  If you see an error (imagine a wrong phone number), or want to make a change the week your book comes out, it will take a twelve long months to update your ad.

On-line, things can occur much faster. We can see errors and correct them at almost the same instant. We can try different lines of text in an ad, or add in products to our catalogs.

Recently, I was working with a client updating their website. They wanted to add a new package to their offerings on-line. They contacted me that morning, I made the change to the website the same day (which is fairly typical of minor changes to a site such as some text, or a new product or service) and within 5 minutes of posting it to the web server, the client had a request for the new service package. You can’t get that quick of turn around in any medium other than the web.

Well I’ve never thought so. When I set up an SEO campaign, one of the things I do, is also set up some form of  website tracking. I want to be able to show the change in website traffic. I will use other tools to show where a site ranks for given keywords, and how many times those key words and phrases are used to find the site.

I send this information to clients because I want to show them what I do, and how it affects their websites, and business. Sometimes, as sites slowly start to rank better over the course of several months, the changes might mean that they don’t recognize the change.

client saves $25000 per year by optimizing his site for Google

All this is good, but when going through several tools I use, I found something more interesting for a customer.  I found a tool on-line which estimates what they save each month by ranking organically (coming up in the regular search listing) compared to if they had to buy those visitors using a pay-per-click type of advertising. See a small sample of this report on the right.

Turns out he is saving approximately $2100 per month, over $25000 per year, with how he ranked organically in Google alone. (This doesn’t include savings to be found with other web search tools, such as Yahoo, MSN Live Search, etc.) Now this was a report he could understand.

This customer is a small company, in a niche market, and so they don’t get a lot of traffic (several hundred visitors a day on average), so this ends up be a huge savings to them. Of course in our current economy, any savings can be viewed as good savings.

From now this will be part of the standard reports I send people when I work on search engine optimization for clients.

If you are interested in expanding the reach of your website through search engine optimization, saving money on pay-per-click campaigns, or even finding out about how well your website is performing, please contact walt design and development for more information.

Recently, for one of my clients, I was looking at some of his competitors. I wanted to get a feel for what they were doing, and see how my client compared.

One of them has on their site “No, we do not have a fancy drop-down program that lets you choose from our other showcase designs and mix and match. That would cost lots of money“. Well when looking at the competition field, he is clearly referencing the Options Showcase page for my client.

The fact of the matter is, while I try to provide sites that look expensive, they often are not. The feature is fancy but not expensive compared to the returns on having a well developed website, and the income it can generate for you.

So I’ll take the compliment, and if you want a website that looks expensive, but isn’t necessarily so, let me know.

I gave a session on Free and Low Cost Tools for Developing eLearning Content. In the current economy it helps to find the best resources that you can, at the best prices. And while there are many expensive solutions, there are also many low cost solutions.

I have posted a website as a resource for the session I gave, and am opening it up for everyone else as well. http://www.lowcostelearning.com/ is a free resource  to find out about tools for devloping eLearning content, as well as other content, while not breaking your buget.

It is built upon Wordpress, and using several plugins to allow communication between the readers and myself, as well as allowing users to rate the tools if they have experience with them.

I live in Central Florida where we’ve been hit hard with the recession that is going on. Lots of my clients, and the people near me, are hurting. I know that some of my clients are fighting to stay alive, and I’m trying to help them. However, not everyone is so bright. Here are a couple of examples.

The Good

One of my clients is offering a year of discounts and promotions as he likes to call it. Each month a different promotion has been offered to his clients. This March he is offering free shipping on most of his products (up to $20/per product with no limits), last month, it was a price reduction. And while this means his profit margins have gone down, he is still in business and doing business.

The Bad

Enter our local road toll agency: the Expressway Authority.  Because of the economy, the agency has been seeing a decline in the number of travelers, and thus a reduction in revenue. Their solution is to raise the tolls, which will further price them out of the range of many users.  Does this make sense? No of course not, but how often do we see this.  I’ve seen it happen to several business - now is a time to help your customers not hurt them. Because as you drive up your prices, fewer will be able to afford your products and services.

The Ugly

The ugly news is that everyone is hurting. We can either hurt with them, but help them along, or we can try to act like nothing is happening, and hurt our customers and ourselves. Personally, I’ve been looking for ways to help my customers in ways such as:

• Not increasing my rates - I normally raise my rates about this time of the year to reflect cost of living increases, and productivity increases, however not this year.  I need to remain affordable.
• Adding Services - I’m sending articles which might be of interest to my clients, adding services like website optimization to optimize not only the speed of the site (which I’ve done for years) but also improve the conversion of browser to buyer.
• Helping with Marketing - helping design marketing emails and landing pages to deliver new deals to existing customers, and introduce new customers to their services.

We can choose to keep going as we have, and risk getting knocked out, or we work together to continue to survive and even grow. Because of some of these efforts, I’ve actually seen an increase in the demands for my services as people look for alternatives to grow their business in these tough times.

These times are tough, but they don’t have to be as tough if we stay in touch with our customers’ needs.

The Site Design

The design of the site is completely new, which many people who had visited will notice. However, each of the elements was specifically choosen to make the site easier to use. For example:

• Better grouping of pages in the navigation, so under photography examples one can now find the different types which Any Occasion takes, but then, can also find sub groups to show sections of weddings or sections and types of school photography. We also improved the behavior of the buttons so that they had some simple animations to them, instead of being so static.
• The total number of pages actually decreased. There used to be a page discussing the types of photos they took, then a second page for a sample gallery.  Now that is all combined, so the photo examples are on a page describing the type of photography.
• More prominent contact information on each page, under the main menu. This includes a phone number and e-mail link for people to be able to email the photographer.
• Enhanced homepage buttons - to really get the user to focus on some important pages which we wanted to highlight, such as the top 10 reasons to higher Any Occasion Photography, sample video, and a few other highlights. This helps direct the user to the high impact parts of the page.

Technology Improvements

• Use of CSS Framework - by using a CSS framework, I was able to create a page layout which will be more consistent between browsers, and should work with future browsers as well. I had originally looked at the YUI framework, however found it a little too cumbersome and meant the page sizes were growing.Instead, I opted to use the 960 grid system, and it worked well for this situation.
• Use of a JavaScript Framework - similar to using a CSS Framework, the JavaScript framework allows for development time to be reduced, and stability/sameness among all major browsers. It also luckily allows for faster code since the people who developed the framework work solely on that, which means they can spend the time to develop a robust and fast framework.
• Improved Search Engine Optimization - looked for and improved in several areas the local, on-site, optimization for search engines to improve its crawlability, as well as it’s abilty to rank for key terms.

Speed Improvements

• Faster to Download - By properly implementing the frameworks, and being more efficient in how the coding is processed, I was able to make the overall file sizes smaller. This means that the pages download faster, and consume less bandwidth for the same amount of content.
• Faster to Process - The number of externals which have to be processed compared to before has gone down. This means that the files are sent from the server to the client faster, and that more people can be on the server at the same time, since the server doesn’t require as much processing power.
• Faster to Update - I made several updates to the template engine which is used throughout the site, so that updates to the files, additional pages, and more can be updated and uploaded faster.
• Faster to Display - Taking some hints from the YSlow application, I was able to find a few bottle necks which was slowing down how the files were being processed by the client web browser. By improving its performance, we we able to make the site appear to be faster, without increasing the server, network connection, or any other expensive component. These enhancements will continue through time as the site is used more by more and different people.

Do you need assistance with your website? I provide affordable web design and optimization services to both new and existing websites. Contact me for more information.

Here are a few updates on some client projects in the past 3 months:

• Developed a site with threaded discusion forum
• Redid the Any Occasion Photography website, completely updating the layout, and adding some new features
• Updates to Showcases To Go, including new admin features and the ability for users to construct their own custom showcase.
• Creating a new blog to track my experiences going through the “Personal MBA“
• Currently developing a website to allow people to order a custom air brushed t-shirt. (Still working on this one, but I’ve done most of the heavy lifting to get it done.)
• Worked on using a website optimization process for two different clients to help optimize their web pages to get more conversions. (Email leads for one client to get bookings, and additional and larger sales for another client.)

In addition to the professional projects, I’m still teaching, and I recently gave a lecture at an on-line conference. I will also be speaking at the Guild 2009 Annual Gathering Conference in Orlando, FL in March. If anyone is attending, please stop by my talk and say hi.

Firefox is generally accepted at the browser which caused Mircosoft to have to restart development of Internet Explorer. Rising from the ashes of the former Netscape Navigator project, Mozilla’s Firefox provided improved standards, and new features that are now known as standards in for the modern browser.  This would inlcude things like improved speed of displaying pages, improved support for web standards, tabbed browsing, and others.

However, Firefox’s biggest advantage comes from its extensiblity.  Where some browsers try to add everything in themselves, Firefox has kept it’s core fairly small, and allows third party developers to extend its ability, so users can add features they want, but not have features they don’t want.

The shear number of free extensions is why Firefox is the second most popular browser on the Internet, and the most popular browser that doesn’t come preinstalled with an operating system.

Some of the most popular free extensions include:

• FoxyTunes - an addon to control and play music within your browser
• AdBlock Plus - tool to block ads from websites.  Also blocks tracking scripts and pop-ups.  I find this one blocks about 95% of all ads.
• NoScript - blocks javascript from running - to speed up pages, reduce ads, and add a layer of security.
• Video DownloadHelper - To help you download FLV video files to your local computer.
• Firebug - for web development
• Foxforecast - for checking the weather in your browser quickly

Add to the list of add-ons, is that Firefox is continuously being updated with security patches as they are found, and new features, and no wonder Firefox is being used so often by so many people.

It has been my browser of choice for a while now (since version 1) and the only browser that comes close to its capabilities in regards to speed and stability if Google’s chrome.

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Happy New Year to everyone today. My the best of the past year, be the worst of the coming year.

People who have used Safari generally fall under one of two categories. They either love it, or hate it. I know several people who own Macs, and use Firefox instead because they feel it is superior to Safari, just as many people use Firefox instead of IE for the same reason on Windows.

Safari has all the standard features you’d expect in a modern browser, tabs browsing, RSS reader, bookmark bar, etc, but nothing that really makes it stand out.

Those who love it, generally can’t explain why, but let me offer a few possibilities:

• It based off the Web-Kit engine, and therefore is a standards compliant browser, which means it runs most web pages without difficulty. the Web-Kit engine is a very powerful and flexible browser engine (what does the work behind the scenes to show you a web page) It is being used in Chrome, and several Adobe products.
• It has an fast JavaScript engine, so rich web apps run quickly.
• They are fans of Steve Jobs- and all that he does.

Now I’ve only really used it on the Windows machines, but it is obvious to tell that it is not written for Windows.

It seems to have been designed not designed for Windows users, but Mac users who have to use a Windows machine. This means someone who has only used Windows machines will have a learning curve as they figure out hw to use the new browser.

Likewise, I’ve found several issues with using Safari on a Windows machine:

• The text isn’t always clear: The font rendering (how the text displays) was designed for the Mac, and ends up not displaying clearly on a Windows machine as it fights with the Windows based system. (Text that is large or small appears blurry for lack of a better term.) As new versions have come out, they have either been improving this, or I am getting used to it over time.
• No plug-ins/add-ons for PCs. I’m told on the Mac there are numerous add-ons, like Firefox has, but on the PC, I cannot seem to figure out how to add them. Firefox makes it easy to find and add new features to the browser – something that all modern browsers should consider.
• Large pages, with complex JavaScript will sometimes give Safari issues. I’ve seen some pages become almost unusable. While they were extreme in nature, one having 4 different rich text editors, other browsers didn’t have the same issues. I first noticed this actually when a client of mine was talking about a section of his website that I had built for him.
• Moving between tabs sometimes is slow. Slow to open new tabs, slow to change tabs…just slow.
• Standard short-cuts for Windows are not available, for example, the ability to go to your home page, add a bookmark etc. These are mainly for doing things like going to your home page, and a few other common features, that doesn’t seem to be so common for Safari.
• Copy and Paste doesn’t always work. And I cannot figure out a common reason for this either. However, when I want to copy a web address or part of a web page’s text into an email, it should be a simple matter, not something I have to check and recheck several times.

After using Safari for a few months, it has been relegated to a few small tasks, and not general surfing for myself.; Ironically I am using Google Chrome more and more, and it is based off of the same web engine.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  Enjoy your time with family and friends this season, and have safe travels.

IE7 was Microsoft’s response to Firefox, Safari, and Opera. With 6 years to develop the next generation of browser, you would expect the new version to have any and every feature under the sun. So let’s look at what it got right vs. what is got wrong during this time.

What IE7 got right

• IE7 includes an decent RSS reader.  IE6 didn’t support RSS at all, and Firefox’s and Safari’s built in readers are adequate for those who only check a few feeds.  IE7 actually has a useful RSS reader that remembers what you have seen.
• Tabs - every other browser had them, and now IE does as well.
• Improved security - built in security features help you determine, and protect you, if a site is potentially unsafe or might try to steal your information.  The protections tend to fall into three separate categories:
  • unsafe JavaScript and active X controls.  By limiting the ability for these to run, it protects you from both bad & nefarious programmers.
  • phishing sites - these are sites which try to steal your information, usually by masquerading as another site (eBay, your bank, PayPal, etc)
  • checking for security certificates - while this isn’t new, they present the danger of a site which has a bad or out of date security certificate more prominently, to increase the chance of you noticing this error
• Improved compliance with web standards.
• Support for PNG - now transparencies work.  This is a huge improvement which can allow smaller, yet better looking, images to be displayed on web sites.

What IE7 missed

• The interface. How you use your software is important, and IE7 changed/moved many of the menus and buttons.  This makes if difficult to use until you get used to it.  After using IE7 for over 9 months, I can honestly say, I’m still not that used to it. And while some elements were moved to take up less space, the over all feel for the browser is that the buttons are larger, and have large soft rounded edges, which ends up taking up more space.
• Tabs - While IE7 has them, they seem to be thrown in as an after thought.  Launching a new tab takes longer in IE7 than any other browser.
• Compliance with web standards - IE7 is the second least compliant of the major browsers when it comes to web standards, only after IE6. While it made great strides forward, it still has a ways to go. This main affects web developers and web site owners as they have to craft work arounds to make a site work correctly in all the browsers, but this does lead to larger sites that take longer to download, and sites which are harder to maintain over time. The fact that IE6 and IE7 are not standards compliant, leads many websites to not fully utilize the web as they could.
• Tight Integration with Windows - the part which Microsoft argued about bundling IE6 with Windows, still exist.  This tight integration, makes it a little faster (supposedly), however, it also puts you at higher risk of being affected by malicious code.
• Their security model - IE security in many ways has two modes, off and on. These limitations cause major issues if something needs to run, but is blocked.  Unblocking that one site can often open the door for many more sites and/or operations.  The same features which make IE easy to integrate with back office applications, also allow your system to be hacked, and without an easy way to block sites and/or operations, users get limited to either not being able to run all of the features of a site, or risking getting hacked.
• Lack of performance - many performance test show IE to be one of the slowest browsers on the market.

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Image via Wikipedia

I’ve recently been talking about Google’s new browser, Chrome, looking at why you might want to and not want to use it. So I thought I’d recap other browsers as well.

One which can’t be ignored is Internet Explorer 6 (IE6).

IE6 is probably the longest surviving web browser of all time, and is both loved and hated.

Ye old Browser

It came out in August of 2001, over 7 years ago at this point of this writing, which in Internet years means it might as well be over 700 years old.

While IE6 was highly touted as the most advanced browser when it was released, 7 years makes those features “old hat” . Newer browsers and versions have been released with even newer and better features since IE6’s initial release.

Why Upgrade

So why should you upgrade to a newer browser? Glad you asked:

1. Newer browsers have built in support to protect you from phishing attacks. These include displaying prominent messages when dealing with a potentially dangerous site.
2. Reduced chance of being hacked. IE6’s security model lends it self to being easy to hack your computer.
3. Improved support of web standards. - IE6 is the bane of web developers because of incompatibilities with current web standards, which provide an inconsistent experience compared to other browsers. Modern browsers tend to support standards more consistently.  This means that what you see on the screen is more likely to be correct, and web applications are more likely to work correctly.
4. Improved stability. IE6 is known to be a bit flaky, and crash when dealing with intense websites.
5. Improved User Interface. Most modern browsers have improved the user experience, including things like easier ways to organize your bookmarks/favorites, built in search box, etc.

Image via Wikipedia

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween today. Don’t forget to eat lots of candy.

More posts will be coming soon - I have been busy working on several projects which I will get to share with everyone soon, and will explain the absence of writing I hope, and provide some good case studies of web projects.

I’m also glad to note that I met several personal goals I had set for myself to reach before this birthday. Now we just need to see what goals I need to set for next year’s birthday.

photo credit: brunkfordbraun