Archive for the ‘search engine optimization (seo)’ Category

“the year in pictures” feature is now available for viewing. to receive a guided tour with anecdotes, please call (202) 494-4326 or email eric.s.townsend@gmail.com. i’d be happy to share a few stories as i outline my services offering.

are you or someone you know shopping to have a website developed? i had an interesting chat today with a partner about a proposal that went south. while you can’t win them all, it looks like there were a few simple misunderstandings that may have led the end client to pass. what they don’t know could end up hurting them! 1 — website design doesn’t usually include search engine optimization (seo). the former is creative, the latter is marketing/sales. 2 — search engine friendly doesn’t mean search engine optimized. it means the website is ready for a real investment, which is what what the seo represents. 3 — a one-time seo investment doesn’t keep you at the top of rankings. google “robots” regularly track what your website is doing (or not doing) and your rankings move accordingly. sounds sci-fi but it’s true. 4 — a “no hostages” approach to website design means a client can muck up a project that launched beautifully using the content management tools they were provided. there’s nothing the designer can do about that! look to the screenshot from launch and converse with the designer about concerns.

wanted to pass along great advice from tony phillips of little rock, arkansas. i played football against the guy several times, and he was always a great competitor. “waiting for things to get better before taking action? things won’t get better until you go ahead and get yourself moving forward. the best time to start is always now. no matter what the outside circumstances may be, the most effective strategy is to get your inner strength revved up and rolling right away. if you’re waiting for things to be perfect, then you could wait forever. instead, grab hold of what is here and now. make positive use of it. excuses for delaying may be reasonable and impressive, but those excuses won’t move you forward. circumstances will improve when you make the effort to improve them. even the smallest effort is better than doing nothing. small efforts that bring results motivate you to take bigger, more effective steps. you know from experience that you can do what you set your mind to do. set your mind on the best of what can be. savor the challenge of making it happen.”

wordpress, my platform of choice for website and blog development, was named #1 open source content management system (cms) at the 2009 open source cms awards this week. this is a huge victory for wordpress. you may remember from one of my blogs this past summer that the cms platform was also patted on the back by apple. wordpress will soon be a standard app in the operating system that loads with each new  iphone and itouch. I am hugely gratified by these developments, as they justify my own commitment to feature the product behind each new website and blog deployment.