Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Affordable Websites
Sunshine Coast web design company, Ion e-Business, is back in Mission Beach. We've been working hard over the past 6 months to come up with affordable solutions for small businesses. Now we've got several products that every small business can afford. Check out our website and see what's going on: www.ionebusiness.com.au.
Friday, 18 April 2008
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tools
I thought I'd share with you a few tools that I use when going about my day-to-day search engine optimisation (SEO) business.
This tool tells you how your website ranks in a variation of Google data centres. Usually, if your ranking results differ through the data centres then this means that indexing is usually taking place.
Link popularity is important because it is a major factor used by search engines to determine a website's position in the search results.
This tool will automatically check the Google page rank of any website.
This tool will query Google's various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL. Usually all data centers will output the same, but if queried during an update, you might get a glimpse of any upcoming changes in your chosen URL's PageRank value.
A website’s age is one of the major factors used to rank it in the search engines. Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase. Older domains may get a slight edge in search engine rankings.
I hope these tools prove useful.
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Domain Registration Made Easy
A note to everybody thinking of registering a domain and having a website developed. Make sure you register the domain yourself. I'm saying this because of some nasty practices used by web developers in the Cairns region. Here are just two recent examples:
1. One client's domain was about to expire, the contact details at the domain registrar were to the previous web developer and even after repeated phone calls to said previous web developer, the client was ignored, the domain expired and was immediately picked up by one of those irritating automated processes that go around finding expired domains - the end result being that the client lost their established domain name
2. The second example pertains to the same previous 'web developer' (note the use of inverted commas for sarcasm purposes) whereby the domain registration was done by them on the client's behalf but the client was never given the domain registrar password. This time the email contact details were the client's email address but since registration the client has cancelled this email address and the previous web developer has lost the password. The mess we now find ourselves in is that we cannot login to the domain registrar, cannot follow the procedures for lost password and subsequently cannot re-host the website.
My advice to people who are thinking of registering a domain is:
1. Do it yourself.
2. Do it with a reputable domain registrar - we at Ion e-Business use www.studiocoast.com.au.
3. If you're an Australian business use a .com.au extension. By all means purchase the .com as well but the .com.au should be your main web address.
4. Make sure that the email you use on the contact details is one you're not going to cancel in the future.
5. Archive all emails you receive from the domain registrar during the registration process and print a couple of copies that you can file away somewhere safe.
Then, when you're ready to have your website developed, give these details to your web developer so they can do their thing.
1. One client's domain was about to expire, the contact details at the domain registrar were to the previous web developer and even after repeated phone calls to said previous web developer, the client was ignored, the domain expired and was immediately picked up by one of those irritating automated processes that go around finding expired domains - the end result being that the client lost their established domain name
2. The second example pertains to the same previous 'web developer' (note the use of inverted commas for sarcasm purposes) whereby the domain registration was done by them on the client's behalf but the client was never given the domain registrar password. This time the email contact details were the client's email address but since registration the client has cancelled this email address and the previous web developer has lost the password. The mess we now find ourselves in is that we cannot login to the domain registrar, cannot follow the procedures for lost password and subsequently cannot re-host the website.
My advice to people who are thinking of registering a domain is:
1. Do it yourself.
2. Do it with a reputable domain registrar - we at Ion e-Business use www.studiocoast.com.au.
3. If you're an Australian business use a .com.au extension. By all means purchase the .com as well but the .com.au should be your main web address.
4. Make sure that the email you use on the contact details is one you're not going to cancel in the future.
5. Archive all emails you receive from the domain registrar during the registration process and print a couple of copies that you can file away somewhere safe.
Then, when you're ready to have your website developed, give these details to your web developer so they can do their thing.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Website Development With Video
I'm currently doing some website design work for Great Barrier Reef diving company Calypso Dive and have been putting together a nice way for them to display a video gallery to their website users. This has involved me trying to find a good tool for shrinking the videos that come off their cameras. Even the smallest clips have been 20MB which is just too much for most people to download. Anyway, I've found a free tool so if you're interested contact me at Ion e-Business and I'll let you know where to download it from.
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Teachers - Are They Really This Stupid?
Teachers have called for websites such as YouTube to be shut down as part of efforts to prevent pupils and staff being bullied. Delegates at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) said bullying can continue outside school and work hours.
They said bullies can send abusive text messages or e-mails to victims.
A spokesman for the website YouTube said the vast majority of people used the site responsibly.
At the PAT annual conference in Harrogate, delegates heard that bullies have posted mobile phone videos on websites, showing teachers as well as pupils being attacked or humiliated.
Read more...
They said bullies can send abusive text messages or e-mails to victims.
A spokesman for the website YouTube said the vast majority of people used the site responsibly.
At the PAT annual conference in Harrogate, delegates heard that bullies have posted mobile phone videos on websites, showing teachers as well as pupils being attacked or humiliated.
Read more...
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Andersons Real Estate
The new Andersons Real Estate website has gone live.
Ion e-Business have incorporated many advanced features into the website such as property finding using a Google Map to pinpoint the location of properties and using SMS as a means of contacting potential clients with regards to property alerts.
Check out the website and see what you think. Andersons Real Estate, the Mission Beach real estate specialists.
Ion e-Business have incorporated many advanced features into the website such as property finding using a Google Map to pinpoint the location of properties and using SMS as a means of contacting potential clients with regards to property alerts.
Check out the website and see what you think. Andersons Real Estate, the Mission Beach real estate specialists.
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
A Decade Of Good Website Design
The web looks very different today than it did 10 years ago.
Back in 1994, Yahoo had only just launched, most websites were text-based and Amazon, Google and eBay had yet to appear.
But, says usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, some things have stayed constant in that decade, namely the principles of what makes a site easy to use.
Dr Nielsen has looked back at a decade of work on usability and considered whether the 34 core guidelines drawn up back then are relevant to the web of today.
"Roughly 80% of the things we found 10 years ago are still an issue today," he said.
"Some have gone away because users have changed and 10% have changed because technology has changed."
Sites for sore eyes
Some design crimes, such as splash screens that get between a user and the site they are trying to visit, and web designers indulging their artistic urges have almost disappeared, said Dr Nielsen.
"But there's great stability on usability concerns," he told the BBC News website.
Dr Nielsen said the basic principles of usability, centring on ease of use and clear thinking about a site's total design, were as important as ever.
"It's necessary to be aware of these things as issues because they remain as such," he said.
They are still important because the net has not changed as much as people thought it would.
"A lot of people thought that design and usability was only a temporary problem because broadband was taking off," he said. "But there are a very small number of cases where usability issues go away because you have broadband."
Design decision
Dr Nielsen said the success of sites such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo showed that close attention to design and user needs was important.
"Those four sites are extremely profitable and extremely successful," said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have largely defined commercial success on the net.
"All are based on user empowerment and make it easy for people to do things on the internet," he said.
"They are making simple but powerful tools available to the user.
"None of them have a fancy or glamorous look," he added, declaring himself surprised that these sites have not been more widely copied.
In the future, Dr Nielsen believes that search engines will play an even bigger part in helping people get to grips with the huge amount of information online.
"They are becoming like the operating system to the internet," he said.
But, he said, the fact that they are useful now does not mean that they could not do better.
Currently, he said, search sites did not do a very good job of describing the information that they return in response to queries. Often people had to look at a website just to judge whether it was useful or not.
Tools that watch the behaviour of people on websites to see what they actually find useful could also help refine results.
Research by Dr Nielsen shows that people are getting more sophisticated in their use of search engines.
The latest statistics on how many words people use on search engines shows that, on average, they use 2.2 terms. In 1994 only 1.3 words were used.
"I think it's amazing that we have seen a doubling in a 10-year period of those search terms," said Dr Nielsen.
Back in 1994, Yahoo had only just launched, most websites were text-based and Amazon, Google and eBay had yet to appear.
But, says usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, some things have stayed constant in that decade, namely the principles of what makes a site easy to use.
Dr Nielsen has looked back at a decade of work on usability and considered whether the 34 core guidelines drawn up back then are relevant to the web of today.
"Roughly 80% of the things we found 10 years ago are still an issue today," he said.
"Some have gone away because users have changed and 10% have changed because technology has changed."
Sites for sore eyes
Some design crimes, such as splash screens that get between a user and the site they are trying to visit, and web designers indulging their artistic urges have almost disappeared, said Dr Nielsen.
"But there's great stability on usability concerns," he told the BBC News website.
Dr Nielsen said the basic principles of usability, centring on ease of use and clear thinking about a site's total design, were as important as ever.
"It's necessary to be aware of these things as issues because they remain as such," he said.
They are still important because the net has not changed as much as people thought it would.
"A lot of people thought that design and usability was only a temporary problem because broadband was taking off," he said. "But there are a very small number of cases where usability issues go away because you have broadband."
Design decision
Dr Nielsen said the success of sites such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo showed that close attention to design and user needs was important.
"Those four sites are extremely profitable and extremely successful," said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have largely defined commercial success on the net.
"All are based on user empowerment and make it easy for people to do things on the internet," he said.
"They are making simple but powerful tools available to the user.
"None of them have a fancy or glamorous look," he added, declaring himself surprised that these sites have not been more widely copied.
In the future, Dr Nielsen believes that search engines will play an even bigger part in helping people get to grips with the huge amount of information online.
"They are becoming like the operating system to the internet," he said.
But, he said, the fact that they are useful now does not mean that they could not do better.
Currently, he said, search sites did not do a very good job of describing the information that they return in response to queries. Often people had to look at a website just to judge whether it was useful or not.
Tools that watch the behaviour of people on websites to see what they actually find useful could also help refine results.
Research by Dr Nielsen shows that people are getting more sophisticated in their use of search engines.
The latest statistics on how many words people use on search engines shows that, on average, they use 2.2 terms. In 1994 only 1.3 words were used.
"I think it's amazing that we have seen a doubling in a 10-year period of those search terms," said Dr Nielsen.
Sunday, 27 May 2007
Zazz Rocks
For any of you people who haven't yet noticed it, there's a very good website out there which sells one different random item every day at remarkably low prices (well, it appears random to me but I would imagine they put a lot of thought into it). It's called zazz and they are tops. Most of the time they sell technology-based items so you can pick up, for example, cheap LCD screens, computers and the like but occassionally they'll throw in something out-of-character like a bean bag they sold the other day.
Anyway, everybody should bookmark them as their home page because one day they will be selling something you want at a price that you won't find anywhere else.
Anyway, everybody should bookmark them as their home page because one day they will be selling something you want at a price that you won't find anywhere else.
Sunday, 13 May 2007
Google Searches Web's Dark Side
One in 10 web pages scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC. Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to "in-depth analysis".
About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge.
A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report.
To address the problem, the researchers say the company has "started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious".
Courtesy of the BBC website.
About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge.
A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report.
To address the problem, the researchers say the company has "started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious".
Courtesy of the BBC website.
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