Top-Ranking Success: Heritage Cattle Company

This is one of our very rare web design make-overs; we don't normally do "SEO work" on existing sites, since it tends to be more of a hassle than just building a site correctly from scratch. You have to go through someone else's code and remove stuff, add stuff, and edit almost everything, which ends up being twice as much work. In this case I knew the owners and did them a big favor.

The result? We turned a site that literally couldn't be found into a top-ranking winner.

The existing site had been up for a few years, yet we spent a hilarious half an hour trying to FORCE it to appear in search results and failed! We tried the name of the company, the town, the owner's names, and all those things combined and in long-string quotes, and still the site wouldn't come up on Bing, Yahoo, or Google.

It seemed the site either wasn't indexed or had possibly been banned (although that would be unlikely across all three of the big search engines). But we did find it indexed in all of them. It was just such poor web design that search engines didn't see anything of value and didn't know how to categorize it.

The first change was a new header on every page, with the company name, address, and phone number in plain text. Next was editing the copy to immediately tell visitors and search engines "We are a cattle farm that sells natural beef", which could have been implied from the original site but wasn't obvious. Then a pile of photos were added, since there were few. After that, tweaking all page elements for clarity.

The intention was to get it ranking well for "natural beef" in the Peterborough and Keene regions of Ontario. But now it actually ranks in the top 5 for "natural beef Ontario", which is substantial. It's certainly a long way from spending half an hour unable to find a site you know exists.

Top-Ranking Success: Discovery Child Care

This is a fun and bright website using the client's selection of green and yellow to match their print material. There are many photos throughout the site, featuring parents and children at the day care.

The target audience is parents seeking child care in Peterborough, Ontario, so there are useful links and documents for them on the website. The parent handbook is one of several forms available to view or download, and links to regulatory and industry groups are prominent on the home page.

Top-10 ranking for this site was achieved by designing the site in the simplest possible way. Four pages with clean and obvious navigation; no ads, scripts, or embedded content; no css or other off-page or off-site calls. Nothing that doesn't directly describe the child care center. All content runs straight out of the root directory. Search engines and visitors have instant access to all content on the website within two clicks from anywhere.

Top-Ranking Success: Robin Walton

Another rewarding top-10 website we designed is RobinWalton.ca, for a freelance illustrator in Ontario Canada. Robin is a true freehand artist, using chalk and pencil. The world is overflowing with computer graphic designers, so it was a treat being able to build a top-ranking website for a traditional artist.

The site is simple, basically a bio of the artist and some of her sample illustrations and drawings.

In terms of the top-10 website ranking, there weren't a lot of elements to add to the site that would have been of value to visitors, so we merely optimized what we had. In her effort to gain new book publishing clients, it was important that we kept the site simple and focused: freehand illustrations by a freelance artist. Paying attention to the basics was all it took. (This site has a broader audience than our typical local sites, being the entire province of Ontario, yet the ranking work remained much the same.)

Top-Ranking Success: Cassel Entertainment

Cassel Entertainment is another of our top-10 ranking local websites, in the category of wedding DJs in the Peterborough, Ontario region.

This is a typical DJ service, providing music for indoor and outdoor events. Dan Cassel, owner and disc jockey, primarily provides music for wedding dinners, receptions, and dances. But he also does graduation dances, office parties, reunions, or any other type of get-together.

Dan wanted the site to be classy, and made a specific request for a vintage '57 Chevy. After several designs, the result was a prominent custom black & white graphic at the top left of each page. He was pleased with the addition of a couple dancing beside the car. His logo was also custom made, as were the spinning music notes in the navigation links.

In terms of ranking, other local DJ sites aren't built very well (many are "home-made"), so getting him ranked in the top-10 didn't require any special effort, other than sticking to the basics of proper web design. During research it was found that DJ websites rarely have backlinks, other than directory listings. DJs tend to serve one-shot clients who don't have their own websites. That could be something to consider in the future if necessary. In the meantime it's already a top-ranking site with good traffic.

Top-Ranking Success: Inside Security

This is an industry-specific site designed for security guards. The province of Ontario Canada has new training and testing requirements for all guards, private investigators, and bouncers, and everyone needs to learn what it's all about, both current employees and new applicants.

The site was designed to provide straightforward facts about the new training course and test, and has tons of specific links to important information (mostly government acts and regulations). The layout is simple, using solid neutral colors for extended reading without eye strain.

There's an Ontario security industry overview, specific security course and test information, and a page explaining private security work for new guards.

This site achieved top-10 ranking because of a huge amount of detailed 100% original information, a very targeted audience, and focused SEO elements. It's getting a ton of traffic. A top-ranking success.

One Major Prediction For 2011

I believe there will be one major sweeping change in 2011 that will drastically affect computers, similar to the disappearance of the floppy drive.

... the disappearance of hard disk drives with moving parts.

Already there are larger and larger USB thumb drives (also called jump drives, flash drives, USB keys, and memory sticks) available, yet they are very expensive. For instance, Tiger sells a 256GB model for $1000 (256GB Kensington flash drive).

Many netbooks have already eliminated hard drives, using flash memory similar to that of thumb drives. Prices will drop significantly in 2011 as more and more of this type of memory is manufactured and it becomes the new standard for more devices like cell phones, laptops, and external drives. It is smaller, faster, noiseless, shock resistant, not prone to wearing out, uses little power, and doesn't get hot. This type of memory will eventually replace today's hard disk drives, and I think 2011 will be the year it begins to be shipped in place of standard spinning drives.

We'll see how much a 256GB thumb drive costs in December of 2011.

P.S. This leads to other questions too, like whether today's HDD manufacturers will shift succesfully into this new media or be left in the dust of the current leaders in flash memory. And whether recordable DVDs will continue to have any purpose at all.

Other Solid State Drives:
- 480GB internal drive, PCIe mounted - $1637.99
- 256GB external flash drive - $749.99

2010 Year-End Look At Email

First, here's my all-time favorite spam email of the year, from early December 2010...


Hotmail
Hotmail is now one big Microsoft Silverlight object, like their Webmaster Tools. Silverlight is a Flash-like plugin used on some sites for playing videos. Some browsers handle it better than others, to put it nicely. Sad. There was a massive Hotmail account hijacking over a few weeks in November, which sent spam to all contacts, with links to malware sites. There may have been password theft from elsewhere. My account wasn't hacked. Hotmail works fine if you are gentle.

Gmail
Google continues to merge every product they have into one. No longer can you just have a Gmail account, you now have a "Google Account" that instantly sets cookies to log you into everything Google owns, from Blogger to YouTube, whether you like it or not. They thrust Buzz right into the mail interface, and insist you create a public "Google Profile" so they can continue brutal attempts at building a "social network" for some reason. Gmail itself is decent, I wish they'd leave it alone. Google already reads the actual content of your emails in order to show you ads. And while they may not directly "rent, sell or share" that data, they don't seem to care about the theft of it. I'll have no problem dropping Gmail in 2011 if it gets any more intrusive.

Yahoo
Yahoo has a simple and fast email system. When Hotmail was redesigned into the current Silverlight interface it basically stole the clean look of Yahoo Mail. Not much to say, other than Yahoo is struggling financially. There are rumors Yahoo may sell Flickr and/or other businesses it owns, but it's unlikely anything will change with their email. It's not like an email platform is worth money in itself.

Excite
I've been using Excite email for many years. It's been through overhauls, outsourcing, and some scary interface changes, but has come through it intact. (Parent company IAC Media also owns Ask, Dictionary.com, Vimeo, and a ton of others.) A bit slow to load, but an acceptable free email service.

Other
Will Facebook messages kill email? Nope.

Five Last-Minute Gift Ideas - Under $50

1) USB stick (thumb drive) - Here's the idea: how about personalizing the gift by pre-loading with music, movies, and/or pictures? 8GB drives have recently been on sale for around $10. Good for backing up data, moving files between computers, or swapping stuff with friends, 8GB is a real bargain for just $10.

2) Webcam - The totally free Skype version 5 now includes 10-way video calling (update - this is a PAID service), and other sites like Ustream and Livestream offer live video broadcasting or private chats with virtually unlimited numbers of people. Most laptops have built-in cameras, but quality webcams go on sale incredibly cheap this time of year as well, around $20 to $30 (regular about $50 to $80).

3) Antivirus - Norton and McAfee internet security & antivirus software has been on sale for around $40, good for installing on three computers. If you know anyone using (horribly slow) free software, do them a huge favor. Or just pitch in with 2 friends and split the cost, a great deal.

4) Car power adapter - Most 12v to 120v car adapters now also have a USB charging port. They can be used for powering laptops, GPS units, and charging cell phones & mp3 players. Not meant for large appliances, but perfect for most electronics. Get a 100-watt or higher model, usually about $30 to $50.

5) Laptop stand - You can get a mesh or plastic laptop stand for around $20 to $50. Overheating is one of the most common causes of laptop failures and crashes. A stand that lifts the laptop off the surface allows better airflow to prevent overheating, because most laptops draw air in through the bottom. For a few extra dollars you can get one that has a fan(s) built in for even better air circulation. Some models are also adjustable, tilting to make the laptop more comfortable to use.

(For any of the above products, compare prices at Tiger.ca, Staples, Walmart, etc.)