Glenn Burks » SEO

Database Driven Websites

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:03:48 +0000

PHP and MySql websites comprise most of what we’ve talked about when it comes to blogs and cms systems. With both of these systems the overhead on the web server becomes and issue.

If the site should become very large and have lots of visitors simultaneously making request it will slow down the entire system.

This is where budget hosting can get you into trouble, but then on the other hand unless your out to produce the next great social site your probably not going to run into any of these problems.

One of the major benefits of a database driven website is the ability to pull information from the database and display it on static html pages.

Another major benefit is the ability to quickly customize a site, sharing data on the pages it is needed and excluding it from other areas of the site.

Drupal which this site is built upon utilizes blocks throughout the site to display various pieces of information such as:

Recent Blog Posts
Todays Popular Content.
Various Advertising etc…

InsiteCreation is another database driven system designed for Windows ASP.net I use this on my site at Perfect-Business-CD.com it is a much easier to use software.

Combination Static – Blog

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:01:57 +0000

What do I mean when I say, static – blog? Since you can install blog software like wordpress into a subdirectory or into a folder making it part of your original website. This allows you to use one domain name which you may already have good ranking with.

Your can see examples of this at my sites network marketing works and nav60. When we look at CMS systems like drupal they also combine some what static pages with a blog.

Why is a CMS system semi static? Well for starters blogs and CMS systems are driven by a database making the setup just a little more difficult then a true static website.

Content Management Systems

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:58:55 +0000

CMS or Content Management Systems are something that is kind of new but really it’s not new.

Generally before you would pay an exorbitant price for a CMS system as they truly are scalable from a simple one person website to large enough for a corporate or news website.

Generally when it comes to CMS systems they have a large learning curve when compared to a static website or a blog website.

This is why you really do not see as many of them being used in a home business type environment.

Yet if you truly want to build a community driven website that can scale to needs you may have in the future then a good CMS system maybe right for you.

When you start looking for Content Management Systems, you’ll find that there are literally hundreds of them.

Finding one that fits your needs can be challenging. When I looked for a cms program I looked for an open source version with a large following and many contributors to both the code and to plugin modules.

For this website I chose the open source software called Drupal. While I cannot say making the transition from static – blog software to drupal was easy, it is a very powerful piece of software that so far has run reliably.

Blogs And Software

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:54:33 +0000

Can A Blog Be Your Primary WebSite?

This is an emphatic yes it can. Todays blog software has really progressed in a rapid fashion as to it’s capabilities.

Setting up a blog website can range from simply easy to well lets say don’t try this at home, yet we should not be afraid of it.

When it comes to blog software we have choices between totally free blog and hosting, free software and our own website hosting, to paid software and hosting. This allows us to build a blog and keep it within our marketing budget.

The first group here offers free blogs and hosting.

Blogger.com
WordPress

This second group is just some of the free open source software which would require your own website hosting account.

Drupal
WordPress
b2evolution

The third group, is paid for paid blog software and hosting.

InsiteCreation
TypePad

I am sure there are others out there but these are the most dominant out there, which means you do have support should you run into trouble.

What Is CSS

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:52:35 +0000

The basic purpose of cascading style sheets (CSS) is presentation. In the early days of the internet, with the advent of graphical web browsers designers ran into challenges with the presentation of web pages.

In the early years control was in the hands of the user – visitors to the websites and the different emerging web browsers.

Even today we still run into challenges between Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and the many different versions.

Thanks to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) a body formed to oversea the technical growth of the internet we have standards today.

(CSS) cascading style sheets is one of the best things in my opinion to come out from this group. Using CSS helps us to generate really clean code and allows our sites to be viewed the way we intended them to look.

One of the big benefits was the ability to eliminate a large portion of the the tables used in the design process. We still keep a few tables around since not all tables are bad.

(CSS) Gives us everything from azimuth to zoom, and knowing how to use it all is a big challenge. Yet, there are many books written on the subject.

One of the few books I keep on my desk and reference often as I work on my websites:

HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS.

The Ultimate Guide Beginners Guide To CSS.

Learn More Download Free Chapters Now!

What Is Html

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:50:34 +0000

Hyper Text Markup Language is instructions give to your web browser so that instead of seeing ones and zero’s you see this page that your viewing. Learning html can really drive you crazy especially when things go wrong and trust me they will.

Often in the beginning I would spend days trying to figure out why something would not display right in the web pages I created. Often just walking away for a few hours then looking at it fresh would reveal the problem.

Here is the resource I recommend for learning the basics of html:

Build your own web site the right way using HTML & CSS.

This book is the perfect way for the beginner to begin to learn the right way to setup their very first web site using html and CSS the right way.

Click here to download 4 free chapters now!

HTML Editors

I use Dreamweaver CS3 it is pricey though. Retail is $399, but there are many editors out below $50. I would recommend one that has the capablities of uploading your pages to your web hosting company.

SiteSpinner V2.7 – I have not used it, but from what I’ve read, this is a good one at $49

Trellian WebPage Editor – And best of all Trellian WebPAGE is FREE

Coda is one that I personally like for the Mac.

You can do a search through your favorite seach engine and find more html editors.

Graphics Software

Personally I use both Fireworks CS3 and Adobe Photo Shop CS3 both of these are pretty expensive. There are allot of other programs out there, just do a search in google for “graphic programs”

One that is also free is called GIMP

Static Websites

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:46:09 +0000

What is it?

A static website is just that, you write your material just as you would in any word processor upload it as a .html or .htm webpage. Creating pages has it’s advantages and disadvantages. The majority of websites found on the internet fall into this class.

Advantages of Static Sites.

Static sites are simple in nature to create, link together. There are many templates available for static sites, so you can probably find one that fits your personal tastes. This is the way to go in the beginning.

Using a template allows you to get your site online very quickly, yet still it has a learning curve. Yes you will have to learn a little about html “hyper text markup language” At first it seems confusing but hey if I can learn it so can you!

Templates will use either tables or css for positioning, with css being the preferred choice. CSS “cascading style sheet” allow for a much cleaner format with less code in the actual page itself.

Disadvantages of Static Sites.

The only major disadvantage I see in a static site is just that it is static. If we look up static in the dictionary this is what we find:

Static: adjective
1.) static prices unchanged, fixed, stable, steady, unchanging, changeless, unvarying, invariable, constant, consistent. antonym variable.
2.) a static display stationary, motionless, immobile, unmoving, still, stock-still, at a standstill, at rest, not moving a muscle, like a statue, rooted to the spot, frozen, inactive, inert, lifeless, inanimate. antonym mobile, active, dynamic.

Anything that is static on the web looses it’s appeal over time not only with your visitors but also the search engines. This is another reason why we never have to get it perfect to begin with.

Building Websites

Glenn Burks — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:57:24 +0000

Do you really need A WebSite?

If you plan to market both online and offline the answer to that question is an emphatic yes. The next question is should you use someone else’s system or your own? I believe this is where most people run into trouble.

Using someone else’s system take a lot of control away from you as an individual about what is written or not written. When we look at the many different ways that you can get online today, confusion sets in making it difficult to pick a direction to proceed in.

Having a web presence today is not an option anymore, but is a true necessity to the success of your business.

Promoting Yourself First

Is it really necessary? It all depends on your goals, what business your in or what your marketing. If your business is any form of network or multilevel marketing you should be promoting yourself first. A great many individuals promote other individuals as guru’s hoping to capitalize on their names to build their business, this really is dangerous to your financial future!

I remember being in one company in which the owner, not only competed with those within the organization but did so actively. The owner would, take individuals that you had already contacted and sign them up as his own customers!

When it comes to your own websites it’s not about someone else but how you can help your customers etc… Failure to follow this simple guideline will ensure your own failure.

From The Simple to the Complex

It’s been said that what I’ve done on the internet is not duplicatable. Is there any truth to that statement, and what underlying reason would the have for saying such and absurd statement.

Today more then every you have so many options to chose from how do you find the one that is the best fit for you? Here we will explore some of the options, then go into greater detail on them. We will look at the cost factors and learning curves involved with each.

You might even think of outsourcing, something I would not recommend for many reasons.

Lets begin with Static Websites

Has Social Media Killed SEO?

Glenn Burks — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:57:49 +0000

With many of the web sites out there today, you would certainly think so! I’m guessing here but it seems many have neglected this critical aspect of their web sites, blogs etc… or has social media made that totally irrelevant today?

Search engine optimization is not just for the robots it’s also your visitors that come to your site as well. With the explosion of blogs and content management systems, everyone has one today, I have my share of them.

One of the key factors in any web site is the speed in which it loads for the visitor, this is one area that as we’ve moved to blogs and CMS systems seems to have been forgotten or totally disregarded! The more sites I follow from tweets is proving this out daily.

Overload on Plugins & Modules

When we look at the number of plugins we have for WordPress as of today the list 4,245 of them. For Drupal 6 we have 3,546 modules to date and climbing. Of course we will not use all of them but those that we do use creates a performance hit on our sites with increased load times.

We could argue, that everyone is moving to high speed internet access anyway so it’s not a problem right or is it? In the early part of 2000 there where quite a few companies involved in fiber-optics networks, many of these companies failed.

The issue then was there was way to much fiber-optic cable in the ground that was not being used. Today we are possibly approaching a shortage, which could be great news in todays economy putting more people back to work to increase the supply and we do need it.

The Traffic Jam Is Here

Take a look at any major city in the United States today and what does it always have traffic issues, well maybe not today with everyone driving less. When it comes to traffic poor engineering can play a huge part in traffic flow, we have the same effect with the internet from poor to nonexistent SEO techniques.

Visit any of the major websites and many smaller sites that pull in advertising content, pictures etc… Most of the time the sites pages never fully load. Some large news services, really are atrocious, as they run multiple ad services on their sites.

Not to long ago, I visited a site that was a re-tweet. At the site the individual was going to critique some else’s website. He did bring up some relevant points about the page in question, a typical landing page. Yet his page took over 8 seconds to load fully, and was over 400kb in size and there was nothing special about the page, it had only 2 graphics on it neither of which was optimized for the web delivery.

So What Can We do?

Track it, look at the third party applications that you include within your site, does it cause performance hit? Last year I wrote about the module for Drupal Addthis Button it did seem like the perfect solution. It wasn’t until later I could often see an issue. The page would not load fully as it was waiting for addthis to load.

Now I’m not against third party applications; some of them are down right useful additions to any website. It is when they become so popular that it begins to detract from a web visitor experience we must make the difficult choice do we keep it or look for another solution.

Often we can find a solution that essentially does the same job, yet resides on our sites server, thereby preventing the third party slow down.

If you don’t have it, get the Firefox web browser, then install Firebug and Yslow plugins. With these simple free tools you can see exactly where your site is taking a performance hit! Some of it you will be able to correct, some you will not.

One area of performance that 99.9% of us will not be able to change is the “CDN” score, otherwise know as the “Content Delivery Network,” which simply is geographically dispersed content, which means the site is not dependent on sending it’s content from just one location.

While you maybe able to get a visitor to your site via social media, give them a good to great experience once they arrive there. And never over look the SEO aspect of your site, the search engines can and will drive targeted traffic to your site.

So back to the original question “Has Social Media Killed SEO?” I don’t believe so; some will ignore it to their detriment!

Which Computer For SEO Work?

Glenn Burks — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:36:47 +0000

I had an interesting discussion today about which computer to use when doing SEO work. I guess the question should really be which software do you need to run? This is what dictates which operating system to use.

Realistically speaking, I think there is way to much software out there today, which essentially does the same thing to a certain extent. Besides we should be writing for our website visitors and not for the search engines anyway right?

Really there is no perfect computer each has it’s own distinct advantages. For years I swore by Windows in it’s many different versions. Windows Xp was probably their finest product. With so much software written for it your bound to find what your looking for.

When it comes to the Apple’s operating system, the choice is fairly limited but still I’ve managed to find the products that I found real value in had in most cases a Mac application as well. With the advent of Parallels for Mac and VMware’s fusion I have the best of both world on one computer now.

I can run Windows Xp in a virtual machine and have access to all of the Windows software that I want, albeit at a slight performance loss. Yet I’ve found that I’m willing to give up this performance loss with the virtual machine in order to have the ease of use that comes with operating both systems at the same time one one machine.

As each version of Parallels that has come out just gets better. You can now copy and paste share documents back and forth between the two operating system seamlessly. So when it comes to which computer to use, I now recommend the Apple Mac.

For the Desktop version, there are a few choices really depending on how much of a power user you are!

I like the Mac Pro for this with two models 4 core or 8 core you have more power then the average person can really use.

The other choice for a desktop is one of the Imac’s, personally my recommendation would be the 24 inch version.

If a laptop is more to your liking then there really is only one the MacBook Pro Laptop. There is the 15 inch and the 17 inch version with plenty of power to do just about any job you can through at it.

Personally I like the 17 inch version, it is light weight compared to others I’ve used in the same size range. One important fact is battery life is very good, well over 3 hours of use.

The choice as to which computer to use is a matter of personal choice, I used to give one of my business partners a hard time, since he used a Mac. Later he switched to Windows and I migrated to the Mac as my preferred operating system and hardware.

The journey has been a fairly easy one as I’ve found most of the software I really need rest upon my shoulders. The majority of Windows software I’d purchased for SEO work, after awhile I found I didn’t really need it. You get to a point just like anything you do in life that when you do enough of it, it really becomes second nature.