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Articles

What Is SEO, Exactly?

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A Webmaster or someone who does web design/development work has heard this term before… SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” SEO involves optimizing your web pages so that your site will rank higher in search results for keywords related to your content.
Over the years, there have been numerous methods for ranking higher in search engines, like including things such as hidden text, hidden links, redirect pages, doorway pages, link farms, and many others. Techniques that still amount to trickery – be they old or new – can result in lower rankings just for using them. Using these methods can be seen as cheating your way to the top, and can even result in your domain being banned. Once banned, it’s hard to even get back into that search engine, let alone to get a good ranking with them.
Most search engines are looking for just a simple, clean design with a focus on content, easy navigation, title tags, Meta tags, and image “alt” tags that are relevant. Sites like Google require a little more than that. You can review their requirements here.

How to get your site noticed
How do you get your site noticed? Start by reviewing these points:
· Site design. Design your site so that your content reflects your products, services, and who you are.
· Link popularity. Get others who can offer complementary services or products to link to you. Make sure they place a link on their site to yours, and then you do the same with their link. For example, if your business is selling computers, you might trade links on your site with software companies, chip makers, and so on.
· Content and keywords. If you add keywords in your Meta tags, then also repeat them in your content. For example, if you list a word or phrase in your Meta keywords, that represents a certain service or product you provide, or the city you are located in, then you should also provide that information in your content.
· Keyword density. Keywords are used when looking up something at a search engine to find your site. The percentage of keywords for your site that are used in your page text, as compared to the rest of the body text, is important in site ranking.

You’ve optimized your site… now what?
After you have your site optimized, you can start submitting your site by hand to each top search engines like Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, and dmoz. It is not recommended that you submit your site using software or “submit-it-all” services, since those methods are outlined to be unethical practices by all search engines.

If this is something, with which you are not familiar or not sure about, hire an expert to help you with this process. It does sometimes take trial-and-error to learn SEO. You may not get fast results when doing this, because the time after you submit your site to the search engines it takes 4-8 weeks or longer before they index your site. Most do not guarantee to index your site at all. So, be prepared to research and re-submit your site if needed. It is also recommended to re-submit your site every six months or so.

Melissa is a Search Engine Specialist for AlterCube, a design and marketing service firm. You can reach her by visiting the AlterCube web site.

What is RSS?

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RSS is a new wave in publishing content online. Rss stands for Really Simple Syndication and known as Rich Site Summary. It is most commonly described as a format for syndicating news and on-line content. An old technology was started with Netscape. Most Blogs (online journals) started using this method to syndicate the users content. Now it has became a popular medium with news sites, shopping sites like Thinkgeek.com and Amazon.comMost people who run online newsletters run into problems with Spam and email filters. With the rise of Spam it is getting harder to produce a newsletter and get it out to “all” of your subscribers. With RSS newsletter publishing has never been easier since RSS-based news feeds are not e-mailed out to everyone, but online for the subscriber to view, so everyone wins with this method of publishing content.

Another good feature about RSS is it cannot carry viruses or Trojans as an email attachment can. Which is good for any who sends out updates, newsletters, and other news worthy information to friends or clients.
In conclusion, the future of e-mail will still be around for communicating, but as for e-mail, publishing will be dead due to the newly medium called RSS. RSS does have good and bad points just like with any new technology.

 

What is a PodCast?

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You might be saying the same thing I did what is the heck is PodCast. It is a new technology to use RSS to automatically download audio files to iTunes, or Windows Media player via the iPodder software.   This is the works of Adam Curry, which many of you may remember him as a MTV VJ years ago. I have to say I am impressed with this new technology, because I can download my favorite radio programs that I know has a PodCast feed.

 

The feed is in RSS, which will download audio files to your hard drive. For some it is a way of creating their own radio show when at home or on the go to automatically content to your MP3 player. You can go PodCasting .net, which has a small list of feeds you can listen. I have already begun to enjoy this new technology by downloading the radio shows that has feeds so I never forget to listen to them. I hope more of the shows I listen to will have a podcast feed.

Tips for a Mac User, Forced to Use A PC

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I know I been a Mac user for a few months, and I am quite adjusted to the Mac OS system fairly well. I know most people who are Mac users from day one of their first computer experience. They freak out about using a Pc as much I was about using a Mac. As being a partial PC switched Mac user the two systems are nothing alike, but similar in many ways.

 

On a pc you have the left click, but also you have a right click that you can also get on your Mac from doing a control + click. The right click offers a different choice of options for what ever program you are using. In Windows, the bar is not at the top, but at the bottom, which is known as the taskbar. With a little bit of tweaking you can get it back at the top of the screen just like you are used to it on a Mac. When uninstalling programs in windows is more of a hassle than it is in a Mac environment. You cannot just drag the folder over to the trash bin. You must go to the control panel in windows and do an add/remove programs to get rid of your unwanted software.

 

 

Too, get the nice transparent dock like in OSX you must download additional software to get a dock like that for windows. Both have a graphic user Interface also known as GUI.  Everything else in windows and Macs are similar, apple key is control in windows and the windows key will open up the start menu on the windows keyboard.

 

In Windows, viruses and spyware are also something that you have to watch. Luckily for Mac, users do not have to deal with anything like that.

 

Therefore, if you are forced to use a Pc anytime I am sure those tips will help you out.