Since then I have seen a small increase in the rankings, moving up a couple of places from 14 to 12 on Google Ireland.

I do intend, when I have more time, to do some more intensive work and begin to work my way up into the top ten, and, over time into the number on slot. This project does show that competing on a specific and fairly general phrase takes work over a prolonged period, however, it pays off.

While I would like to be further along in the process (my client work has taken precedence and this project doesn’t get as much attention as it should) the results of targetting a specific phrase and having a relevant blogging strategy are evident.

If we look at the last month’s data, search engines make up just over 60% of the overall traffic to the site, and the phrase that is leading the most people to the site is, you guessed it, ‘Web Design Cork’, followed by ‘Website Design Cork’.

So while I will not be entirely satisfied until the site performs even better for the phrase ‘Web Design Cork’ you can see that the strategy is already working.

If you would like to talk to me about a strategy for getting more relevant traffic to your website, please feel free to send me an email.

Normally one might do a lot of what I am doing on this site concurrently, but in order to measure impact I have been doing little tweaks, monitering the search engine placements and measuring the results.

My latest experiment was to check the search engine positioning for the term ‘Web Design Cork’ and then add a page which was optimised for that term and see what impact it had.

On 15th of May 2008, the search engine positioning was as folows:

• Google (Ireland): Position 20.
• Yahoo: Position 16.
• MSN: Position 11.

I then uploaded the ‘web design cork’ optimised page to the site and linked to it from the homepage using the anchor text ‘web design cork’.

The results for May 1st 2008 are as follows:

• Google (Ireland): Position 14.
• Yahoo: Position 37.
• MSN: Position 2.

It has bounced around a little, reaching position 10 on Google Ireland at one point, and also reaching position 8 on Yahoo before being thrown back to 37 for some reason.

I saw a bigger jump in the rankings for the term ’search engine optimisation cork’, for which I performed the same type of test, however that term jumped ten places in Google Ireland from 42 to 32 which is easier to do - once you get closer to the first couple of pages the task becomes somewhat harder.

So what’s next? If I want to get a boost from where I am and begin competing for the no.1 slot I need to roll up my sleeves.

I need to generate more relevant content, which should be fairly easy using the blog, and also generate more inbound links. The best way to generate inbound links for a site like this is to try to provide useful content that people will link to.

Stay tuned for the next update!

That question is too large a question for one blog post, so let’s pair it back to one key question - how wide should you design your site? Here is my answer and how I came to decide on this approach.

Fluid vs. Fixed
The first debate when it comes to presentation of your website is fluid vs fixed width design. Fluid design is one that scales no matter what size your browser is, and fixed width remaines the same width whether you visit with a tiny screen or a massive screen.

Fluid designs tend to be more accessible and have obvious advantages when it comes to being suitable for varying screen sizes, but fluid websites by their nature have to relinquish a lot of design control.

In 2006 Jakob Nielsen recommended fluid (or liquid) layouts, but the reality is that people wanted more control over the appearance of their sites, and while certain sites, like Governmental sites, whose sole purpose is to present information to the public are perfect candidates for fluid layout, most businesses require more control over their design and therefore fixed layouts are much more popular and common.

With a fixed width design you have much more control over how the site will look on all devices and screen resolutions, but you have to play the numbers game because a site designed for small resolutions will look dwarfed at higher resolution screens and a site designed for higher resolutions won’t be entirely visible on smaller screens.

Most Common Resolutions
As you can see from the following table of data from w3Schools.com, 800×600 resolutions are dying out (down to 8% Jan 2008) and 1024×765 and higher acccounts for 86%. This data is from w3schools own log files but it does tally with what I see in log files for sites I maintain, and most other studies I have seen.

Resolution is not browser window size
So now we have an idea of up to date resolutions, but the reality is a little different because people may not browse with their browser window maximised, or they may have various toolbars on the browser installed, or they may browse with things like ‘favourites’ opened, all of which reduce the actual size left for us to design within.

This leads me to two related articles:
Actual Browser Sizes - a study to discover the actual widths and heights of visitors browsers. he took took three months of data gathered from 5 different sites. Until someone like Google begins to gather this information using analytics or something similar this is the best data I have found on the subject.

The study concludes:

if you want to design for 95% of your visitors you need design for no more than 776×424px (fixed layout)

The second site is based on this study:
Size does matter - Actual numbers
And this article concludes:

if you optimize your design for a width of 770 pixels, you’ll be optimizing for 97% of the visitors.

Are the articles still relevant?
Both articles were written in 2006, however the resolution trends we saw above mean that these articles are still relevant, and to further back up these articles I installed FoldSpy on my site to get access to the data it had collected.

FoldSpy gives data on browser viewport sizes from 77,697,453 browser screens measured on 2,782 sites since July 2007. FoldSpy is not exact in explaining how it collects the data, or the nature of sites it collects data from, but as it broadly backs up the findings from the other articles, I think the figures are good guides (I did email FoldSpy to ask them for more details, but I haven’t heard back yet).

FoldSpy tells me that a site designed at 770×400 fixed width will be optimised for 93% of visitors.

My conclusions
I personally design quite a few sites at 770 pixels fixed width which work well and can use design elements to create the illusion of a wider site, but there is a trend toward designing wider sites which can’t be ignored.

If I am working on a site which I feel, or the client feels, needs a wider design I try to ensure that the essential content is contained within 770 pixels in the first columns, with a third or more columns to create width without losing effectiveness to visitors with smaller viewports.

If you have a different view, or some stats to back up or contrast with what’s in this post, please leave a comment!

It was a good idea, one which was the result of various conversations on various blogs - I can’t take credit for the concept, I think lots of people came up with the idea around the same time.

My article was liked by several people and can be seen even today on the site of friend and social media guru Tom Raftery.

Over time I lost sight of the importance of this approach, falling prey perhaps to echo-chamber-itus as RSS usage became standard in the tech industries. People who spend long hours chained to their computers for various reasons are now familiar with RSS, however recent conversations with people who use computers on a more casual basis have reminded me that RSS is still not widely understood.

And so I have updated my article and the buttons, and I am once again encouraging anyone who would like to edit and use them to do so. A link back to this site would be appreciated, but not obligatory

I decided that for the revised edition I would focus on Google Reader. I thought long and hard about this, but since a) it is the reader I currently use, b) it is extremely easy to use and the article is aimed at beginners in RSS, it just made sense.

So please have a look at the new article on subscribing to blogs, and my new buttons, and let me know what you think…

A little while back now, Hugh Macleod, well known cartoonist, blogger and marketing strategist, landed a book deal based on his material on ‘How to be Creative‘

In his blog post announcing the book deal, he attempted to condense his book into a single line, one which I thought deserved to be repeated:

“Work Hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Be nice. Be polite.”

Possibly the best advice I have heard in a long time, whether you are trying to be creative or not!

If you haven’t come across Hugh’s work before, you should browse his blog today.

When I say Wordpress I mean the self-hosted WordPress solution, which ensures that all the value I build up from inbound links and content generation is bound to my domain, if you are blogging for business I would strongly advise you do the same such that your blog address is www.mysite.com/blog or something similar. If your site does not have a blog, and you are wondering if it should, please feel free to contact me to discuss whether, and how, your site might benefit from having a blog.

Here are my tips for improving your WordPress blog once it’s installed:

1. Page Titles.

You used to need a plugin for this, but now you just need to tweak a little code. This is really important as it can make a big difference in your search engine results.

If you are using the default template you will need to open header.php and change this:
<title><?php bloginfo('name'); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> &raquo; Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>

to this:
<title><?php wp_title('&raquo;',TRUE,'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); ?> <?php if ( is_home() ) { ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo('description'); } ?></title>

2. Permalink structure.

Set up permalinks. I am a firm believer that these help with search engine results, and they also look better to humans! I use a simple permalink custom structure: /%category%/%postname%

3. Add description tags to posts.

Add meta tags to your blog posts plugin - this is an absolutely invaluable plugin which allows you to add keyword and description tags to blog posts. While keywords are of limited, if any, value, I find the description tag to be important, particularly for providing meaningful snippets in search engine results pages.

4. Caching.

If you happen to get a load of traffic to your blog, and it can happen unexpectadly trust me, you would be well advised to have either the wp-cache or the wp-super-cache plugin installed to keep your blog running smoothly and avoid the wrath of your hosting provider!

5. Highlight author comments.

I realised from reading blogs that often the conversation in the comments is as valuable as the post, and I like to be able to quickly identify author responses, so I always ensure author comments are highlighted on my blogs. Read this post by Max Cutts but be warned, I had to modify the code he gives to get it to work on my blog:

If you’re using the default template, open comments.php and replace this:
<li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

with this:<li <?php if( $comment->user_id == $post->post_author) { $oddcomment = "class='authcomment'"; } else {}; echo $oddcomment; ?> id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

You will also need to modify your css file to include a .authcomment class. In the default template, open style.css and add something like this:
.authcomment{background-color:#000000; color:#FFFFFF;}
Change the colours to suit - the above will make the background black and the text white.

6. Subscribe to comments.

Subscribe to comments plugin - when someone leaves a comment on your blog, this plugin allows them to choose to be alerted via email when someone else leaves a comment on that post.

I find this plugin brings people back and keeps conversation going in the comments, which in turn helps build a community around your blog, makes your blog more vibrant, and generates further content on your blog.

7. Feedburner & RSS prominence.

Feedburner & RSS prominence - it’s a good idea in your design to ensure you have a reasonably prominent link to your RSS feed, which both serves as a reminder to people to subscribe to your blog and provides a link to the RSS feed for them to do so. Feedburner allows you to keep an eye on your RSS stats, how many people have subscribed etc, and also provides links you can use for prominence.

8. Create an archives page.

Create an archives page. I don’t like to clutter my blog sidebars too much, and I don’t believe anyone browses blogs by date, so I hive off my archives into a page called archives. This also reduces the amount of internal links on each page of my blog.

With recent versions of WordPress this really couldn’t be simpler. Assuming you are using a fairly standard template you can create a new page (not post) and call it something like Archives, don’t insert any content into the page, then in the sidebar open the ‘Page templates’ box and select the Archives template. That’s it - once you save your archives will be inserted into that page. You can now delete the archives code from sidebar.php: <li><h2>Archives</h2><ul><?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?></ul></li>

9. Tackling comment spam.

There are two main ways you can tackle comment spam, I use Akismet which now comes with Wordpress, you just have to get a WordPress.com API key to enable it, so do this as soon as you get up and running.

The only drawback is that you can have false positives, which means that valid comments sometimes end up in the spam bin. The other option is to use something like a captcha to deter spam bots, but captchas can deter some users too, however I think captchas are becoming so prevalent it’s becoming less of a deterrent. If you would like to explore using a captcha on your blog, here is the best captcha plugin I have come across for WordPress.

10. Use single categories.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I belive quite strongly that you will get better search engine results if you categorise wisely in WordPress. Before you ever beging blogging try to create a fairly definitive list of categories you would use. I advise trying to limit yourself to in or around ten categories, but this is flexible, and of course you are not prevented from adding to your categories once experience has informed you further.

Once you have your list, add them to your blog - remember category links will only show up in your blog sidebar once they have some content. My strategy is to then assign each blog post a single category. This makes for a very clear information hierarchy both for your visitors and the search engines, which I have found to be beneficial in search engine results.

And just for the hell of it here are two more tips, for once you have built up your blog a little:

11. Recent comments.

Once you have built up traffic to your blog, and begun to have people comment on your blog I recommend highlighting recent comment activity - it can attract more visits to posts that have ongoing conversations, and it can encourage fresh comments. I like the Recent Comments Widget/Plugin for this.

12. Better paging navigation.

Once you have built up a body of content you may find you need better navigation between pages, I like this Paging plugin which uses a fairly standard format of paging, making it easy for visitors to navigate and spreading some internal link love while not adding a gazillion internal links to each page.

So that’s my list of WordPress tips…

I hope you find this list useful, particularly for newer bloggers, as there are so many plugins and approaches it sometimes helps to see what others are doing, and why they’re doing it to develop ones own approach.

If you are a seasoned WordPress user, what plugins and techniques do you use? Let me know in the comments!

Here’s a link to my Twitter profile - come say hello, and check out Twitter for yourself!

In a nutshell, you sign up for Twitter and find people to follow. You can post short updates to Twitter of 140 characters. Once you follow someone you see all their updates. If they in turn follow you, they can see yours. If you are mutually following each other you can also send direct messages to each other that no one else sees.

Everyone’s experience will differ depending on who they are following, who follows them (and so converses with them) and how they choose to interact with people on Twitter.

It can be used for self promotion, to keep up with others in your industry, or for entertainment. I’ve heard people proclaiming it’s wonderful for keeping up with breaking news, finding job opportunities and even finding romance!

Self Promotion
Self promotion seems to be a popular reason for using Twitter, but in my opinion the vast majority of people get it wrong.

The best way to promote yourself on Twitter is not by constantly linking to your own blog posts, but rather to engage in conversation and have something meaningful or helpful to say. This will result in people checking out your profile page and subsequently your website. Twittering is often referred to as ‘micro-blogging’ and as such the same rules apply in terms of raising your profile and becoming recognised as an expert in your field.

Another way to promote yourself on Twitter is to monitor Twitter for mentions of your company or your name and respond to people who praise or criticise you. Respond in a meaningful and helpful way and you will begin to build a reputation as a company/individual who is listening, available and ready to respond.

What I use Twitter for…
For me, I used it to get an insight into what was happening in the tech & web design industry in Ireland, and to keep my finger on the pulse.

Twitter allowed me to very quickly obtain a window into the Irish tech and web design industries and see who was who and who was doing what.

In order to do that, I found people I knew - such as Tom Raftery or Donncha O’Caoimh - and I checked who they in turn followed, then if I recognised any names, faces or companies I followed them too.

I then watched what they were saying and anyone who cropped up in conversation repeatedly in interesting conversations, I followed.

Soon I had my window into the Irish online world. I found this extremely useful for getting a quick snapshot of what was going on.

The echo chamber effect.
Within a short space of time, I realised I needed to expand my window to peer into more than just the Irish industry - once I had soaked up a good overall idea of who was who and who was doing what, the daily Tweets began to lessen in value.

I have now begun to follow anyone at all who I come across who seems to have something of value to say.

Change is good, don’t let your Twitter experience stagnate.
Despite the fact that I follow a small number of people by general standards, I think in order to address the signal to noise ratio, I will have to begin to ‘unfollow’ people.

Somehow though, it feels rude to stop following someone, as it may be interpreted as an insult. of course, it’s not a personal slight if I unfollow someone, it’s just that their input isn’t currently in keeping with what I am trying to get out of Twitter - the onus is on me, not them.

My instinct is that for Twitter to be of value it must be a shifting experience. Follow the signal, unfollow the noise, and what I perceive as signal today may be noise tomorrow. But do I have the patience and the time to manage a Twitter experience in this way?

Is Twitter a distraction, or a valuable tool?
Already I find Twitter to be another attention drain - does the value to be had from Twitter really justify the distraction it causes?

Hugh MacLeod deleted his Twitter account because he felt it was ‘too easy’ and his time would be better spent doing more productive things - of course he subsequently signed up again and is twittering away to beat the band… what does that say about the Twitter experience?

My experience of Twitter has been positive, because it gives me a much needed quick glimpse of what’s going on in my industry - but then my industry by it’s nature, lives online.

Is Twitter just another attention drain? And what industries other than tech have found it useful, or even just entertaining?

However, there is the chance that you will suddenly find yourself thrown into the deep end of a much more negative experience - something called a ‘blogstorm’…

You suddenly find you have posted about something which seems to have enraged or outraged a section of the blogging community, and you find yourself at the wrong end of a lot of shouting and pointing of fingers online. It’s not a nice experience and can be quite stressful and worrying to someone trying to build an online brand.

Firstly, let me tell you that a blogstorm always seems bigger than it is when you are at the center of it and secondly, let me tell you that blogstorms blow over - they may feel interminable and insurmountable, but when you’re out the other side of a blogstorm you realise that most blogstorms occur in a flash, and in a teacup.

How you should react to a blogstorm you seem to have initiated will depend on the scale and nature of the issue - there is no single approach which will fix everything, but I hope this article will help newer bloggers weather their first blogstorm.

I’m going to go through five steps that are worth considering when you encounter a spate of negativity aimed at you online.

1. Never argue with a blogger - he’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Generally it is good to respond to negative criticism, but I would warn against getting dragged into long protracted point for point arguments - nobody ever comes out looking well from a public brawl.

2. Take time to consider your position.
If you have posted something on your blog which has resulted in either negative comments or negative blog posts on other blogs, it is crucial to take the time to truly consider your position.

Try to objectively assess whether there is any truth in any of the allegations which may be leveled against you. You may find that the comments or blog posts aimed at you feel personal, or even inflammatory, or just plain get up your nose. It’s a tough one, but you may find that despite not liking the tone or attitude of your ‘attackers’ they could still have some valid points.

3. Don’t go negative.
No matter how personally attacked you feel, remember you don’t have to go negative. Take a deep breath, take the hit to your ego, and remain positive.

After you have tried to look objectively at what’s going on, thank people for their feedback and let them know you are taking it on board.

If you need to defend certain positions, that’s fine - but don’t respond with a counter attack. In the short run a counter attack may make you feel better, but in the long run and from an outside perspective you’re counter attack is likely to look petty and small.

Stay positive and professional. It will stand to you in the long term.

4. Write your response, but pause before publishing.
Once you decide to respond, take time to write a considered response to those you have incensed. Don’t rush into an angry response. It’s not easy, but it’s vital - my advice would be to write your response and save it to review a little later before publishing, give yourself a couple of hours or even overnight if at all possible.

You will most likely find that no matter how calm you thought you were, a second look reveals a more emotional side to your response than you intended. Coming back to your response after a break allows you a second chance to ensure the professionalism of your response.

I would also recommend having your views sanity checked by those you trust. Try to get a few points of view and, if possible, from a couple of seasoned bloggers who have experience in dealing with blogstorms.

5. Walk away (but continue to monitor).
Try to write your response bearing in mind that once you have written it, you will walk away. Your position will only be weakened by constant updates to your response, and you can come across as flustered, stressed and unsure of your position - which may be how you feel at the time, which is why it’s all the more important to take time and wait before publishing a response.

It is difficult sometimes to restrain yourself from responding to every new comment/blogpost on the matter - you may feel you have to defend your position. The fact is, usually, you will be able to respond and leave it at that. Yes, you may have people shouting and wondering why you are not responding to them, but if you have written a considered response addressing the major issues, you should be able to step away from the keyboard.

Trying to defend every single point from every single commenter can result in prolonging the blogstorm and making you look defensive, petty and even desperate.

Of course, you need to continue to monitor the situation, and there are cases where you will need a follow up response - but be sure it’s necessary. Leave time between responses and go through the points above again for each response - if my experience is anything to go by, you will find that responses you felt at the time were urgent, critical and necessary look silly in the cold light of day.

Oh and one other thing… where should you respond?
Where you should respond depends on the nature of the blogstorm. You could respond on your blog with a new post, but it’s not always the best option. You may not wish to add fuel to the fire, or to raise awareness of the blogstorm by devoting a new post to it.

Posting comments might suffice - usually a good old fashioned blogstorm will be happening in comments on your blog and on new posts on other people’s blogs - so you can usually comment your response on your own blog and if necessary comment on the other blogs with a note pointing out your response.

In some cases you may feel it is necessary to address the issue with a new blog post clarifying your position, or changing your position if you feel you have made a mistake or an error in judgement. In this case you can write your post and then trackback or comment on others blogs letting them know you have done so.

Summary
Blogstorms can feel like personal attacks, and if you respond in the heat of the moment in a defensive mood you can find you have said something you wish you could take back. But it’s the internet, there’s no ‘retract’ button - it’s out there and it’s out there until they turn off the internet.

So that’s my advice, and it’s not always easy advice to follow. The next time I find myself in the center of a blogstorm I will be visiting this post and trying to make sure I follow my own advice:

1. Never argue with a blogger - he’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
2. Take time to consider your position.
3. Don’t go negative.
4. Write your response, but pause before publishing.
5. Walk away (but continue to monitor).

Link building is crucial to any site that wants to perform well in the search engines, so I decided it was time to begin link building, in order to give the site a boost, and my first port of call was the directories. Directories are essentially categorised links to a huge range of websites that people can browse through to find what they are looking for.

There are a huge number of directories out there, so I did some quick research and picked a few that don’t ask for a fee to be listed.

You should be somewhat discerning when choosing what directories you want to submit your url to, particularly with a new site with which directories will form your initial links - you don’t want to your site to start it’s life in Google’s eyes with a high percentage of your links coming from ‘bad neighbourhoods’. One very quick test you can do is to search for the name of the site in Google (& other search engines) to make sure it is indexed - if it’s not, you might want to steer clear.

It will be interesting to watch a) how these new links will impact on the search engine positioning for this site, and b) whether any of the directories send any traffic to the site. Stay tuned for updates!

bear in mind that some directories will list you immediately and other could take months before listing you - often offering a faster service for a fee. If, like me, you don’t feel inclined to pay a fee you should remember submit to directories early as it may take some time to be listed.

Here are the directories I have submitted the url to so far:

Irish Directories:

• SiteFind
• Browse Ireland
• Nice One
• Browse.ie
• Search.ie
• Find it Ireland

Other Directories:

• DMOZ
• Clickey
• ExactSeek
• Web World
• World Wide Wub
• TurnPike
• DirectoryVault
• Domaining.in
• GetListedRightNow
• Visit a Link Directory

So I was surprised to log in to my Google Analytics and find I had 100 visits on April 4th. Curious as to how 100 people had suddenly discovered my site on the same day I looked through the traffic sources and found… StumbeUpon.com.

StumbleUpon is primarily a way to discover new sites, and to share sites you like with others. You can install a toolbar in your browser which allows you to quickly add a site to StumbleUpon, review it, or be served up a random site and give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down - StumbleUpon also has social aspects to it (mandatory these days!) and a host of great features.

As I am signed up with StumbleUpon I was able to discover that afarnsworth had found my blog post on inbound links and had given it a thumbs up.

This was a timely reminder of how useful StumbleUpon is for sites wishing to build up new traffic, something I knew from my experience with BifSniff.com. If we look at the traffic to BifSniff from January 1st 2007 to January 1st 2008 we can see that StumbleUpon is number 4 in the list of referring sites.

Stumbleupon accounted for 9.45% percent of all traffic to BifSniff in that year, and that was with little or no input on StumbleUpon on my part - but what is even more interesting than the volume of traffic is the bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your site, look at the page they landed on, and leave - most sites will want people to stick around, have a look at some other stuff, and maybe even buy something or become a member or subscriber or whatever else the goal of your website might be.

The bounce rate for BifSniff has always been high - it doesn’t have clear goals, it’s a simple blog for fun. The bounce rate for anyone coming to BifSniff through Google is 71.48%, but the bounce rate for traffic from StumbleUpon is 30.91%.

Why the bounce rate from StumbleUpon is lower is something for another discussion - perhaps the focus of the site means that the userbase are simply more open to exploring sites once they find them, or it could be down to how exactly people discover new sites on StumbleUpon - if they are following links from other StumbleUpon users they trust then perhaps they are more likely to explore your site.

I’m not the only one who sees lower bounce rates from StumbleUpon visitors either, Donncha reported similar findings on his blog a while back.

So if you’re not a member of StumbleUpon, I recommend signing up. I know that after this reminder, I will be increasing my activity on StumbleUpon and adding more sites and pages (including my own) to the StumbleUpon database!