Kyle Ritter

Looks like google has set up a wireless local search, according to WebProNews. This is simply awesome, I tried to do a similar thing with PDXbars Wireless ( mob.pdxbars.com ). Unfortunately, I don’t have the good search algorithm, and quite frankly, typing on wireless devices sucks. Perhaps with scripting an autofill feature for wireless browsers would help, but I just haven’t seen much of my traffic using it yet. Still, the potential is awesome, particularly once more and more phones take the shape of the Sidekick II. Having a full qwerty keyboard would definitely be a motiviating factor in using wireless web capabilities on your phone.

Before you go decide on a designer based on price or fancy graphics alone, this is a must read.

I wrote this primarily because I deal with clients who are dissatisfied with the results they are getting from their existing site. Many times, they hired an art school student or some kid armed with a cracked version of Photoshop. Often, their sites are pretty to look at, but fail miserably in the context of operating as a business tool.

Step1
Take a look at your business and ask yourself the following questions.

• What am I trying to achieve with my business, and how will a website help this?
• Which is more important? A website that is designed for my customers, or a website that is designed to suit me to congratulate myself on?
• Am I prepared to invest time into creating content, and am I willing to listen to the designer’s advice?

Once you have answered these questions go on to Step 2.

Step 2
Look at a prospective designer’s website and ask your self these questions.

• Does the website load quickly?
• Does the first page you see contain quality information?
• Is the navigation clearly labeled and easy to use?
• Is contact information readily available on each and every page?
• Is the content informative and professional at first glance?
• Does their page NOT crash my browser?
• Is the website free of background sounds and large animated objects? (If it is not, run…FAST!)

If you can answer YES to every single one of these questions, proceed to Step 3. Otherwise, go back and start looking at other companies.
Step 3
Look at their portfolio. Visit each of the sites in the portfolio and ask yourself the same questions as above. Additionally, also ask yourself the following questions.

• Is the website geographically specific (ie, is it for a restaurant in Bangor, Maine)
• If the website is geocentric, is this fact mentioned on every page?
• Are you able to find it in Google/Yahoo/MSN, using various combinations of both the business name, location, niche, etc?

Again, if all the answers are YES, chances are, this is a professional, business oriented web designer who can create a website to be a business asset. If not, go back to Step 1.

Step 4
I call this, the courtship process. Too much information is far better than too little. Prepare as much of your text based content as possible. Gather up photos, logos, and everything else. Make sure you have a legal right to use all of this material. Then, contact the designer.

The designer should look over all of your material, and prepare you an accurate estimate, or may choose to decline at the moment if their isn’t enough material to work with. Usually, a contractual agreement is drafted that states both yours and their responsibilities. Also, limitations should also be set. For instance, a certain amount of mockup changes will be allowed, but perpetual wishi-washiness will not. It will also state a completion date.

Once you have agreed to the terms, be prepared to pay the designer a downpayment of up to 50%. We do this to protect ourselves. It serves many purposes. With money on the line, a client will often be more dilligent about delivering the material requested of them, and more motivated to finish the project. Otherwise, it can go on forever with no real resolution in site.

With both parties understanding that a website’s purpose is to assist your business, then you are already halfway there. Good luck!

Keeping fresh content on your website is vital to both search engine optimization as well as keeping your visitors coming back. Sometimes, the creative juices just aren’t flowing, and sometimes you don’t have the extra cash to pay a writer. This is were free, republishable content comes into play.

Though it might be tempting to simply copy and paste content you find on other websites, I’ll issue you this warning: DON’T! It’s both illegal and unethical to reprint content you find on the internet without permission from the copyright holder, and word travels fast in the tight knit webmaster community.

Do not despair, there are excellent sources of free article type content that you can use. I am quite fond of GoArticles, which has an immense and timely database of articles ranging across a wide variety of topics. Almost daily, I can find an interesting new piece to post on my POS System website.

The key is, make sure you follow their republishing guidelines, never change any of the verbage, and always make sure you post the proper copyright information. Also, it is in good form to link back to both the author’s website and GoArticles as well.

Depending on the goal of your website, using web design templates can be an affordable and efficient way to build up a professional website for your traffic projects. I’m not crazy about using them for professional site identity projects, but for creating a more generic content site, templates can suit you nicely.

Some are rather unweildy in both code structure and graphical elements. You’ll find many that overkill the flash a bit as well. However, if you are in need of something quick and dirty, and have some rudimentary html skills, you’ll be able to build yourself a decent site in a relatively small amount of time.

My friend sells several design templates if you are interested in going this route.

I’ve been reading an interesting discussion on WebmasterWorld about how click-throughs significantly decrease when your links are “below the fold”.

In my own experience, I’ve watched page views on my content oriented sites significantly increase when I placed my links on I use a horizontal, 4 column navigation bar at the very top of the page. However, I noticed that people also stayed on each page for less amount of time, which meant they were clicking more and reading less. As a publisher who makes money off ads, this is a good thing, but if the content is being ignored due to not having enough scanable substance above the fold it gives me a shaky feeling that the content is not good enough to be fully considered.

One poster called the linked article “VooDoo Science” and made a comment to the effect of “people who dig deeper into the 2 or 3rd page of the results are more likely to buy”. While I disagree with the writing it off as Voodoo Science, I do subscribe to this same notion on a logical level: Someone is looking for something very specific. If it’s not on the first page, that means they are more desperate to find exactly what they are looking for, and if it’s a product or service, they must really want it, and are therefore more easily sold when it comes time to nail them for a purchase.

I’m seeing mixed results from http://search.msn.com
Some are based on the beta results from their new alogrithm, some are based on the old Inktomi/Fast/Whatever results. This post made on Jan.8th on the official MSNsearch Blog explains a little bit about what’s happening.. Many of my sites are doing well, ranking #1 for my most desired key phrases.

Unfortunately, not everyone is seeing them. Jason, my partner on the Portland Bar site, is seeing old results. I’ve noticed some traffic as a result of these beta tests, I’m curious to see what happens when the full migration is complete.

I’ve been trying for weeks to program a wireless version of Portland Bars. I was originally trying to use WML (wireless markup language), and was met with constant frustration, endless server errors, and basically a bunch of crap that wasn’t gonna work. Then, for some reason, I created an XHTML strict test page. It worked wonderfully on my phone browser, I removed the wml tags from my PHP scripts, and have seen a wonderful result. While there are still millions of WML only phones out there, they are rapidly fading into oblivion, and XHTML seems to be the most streamlined, efficient way to go.

Some of my friends have asked me “Why bother with a wireless version? No one will use that.”

Perhaps not…however, my site offers a ton of useful information. For instance, you are out with friends and you want to go to the Shanghai Tunnel. You don’t quite know where that bar is, and here you are in your friend’s car. All of this information, address, location, and phone number can be quickly accessed from your phone, without the ridiculous 411 fees. In fact, it should eat up no more than 1KB of data transfer to get the information you need. Many providers are now offering a capped amount of data transfer for wireless web rather than charging by the minute, making it slightly more reasonable for a consumer to be inclined to use it.

Additionally, I wanted the ability to comment on bars, especially ones I had never been too via my cellphone. This way, all the information is stored in a central database, and I don’t have to worry about fumbling for scraps of paper at a later date.

Alright, off to code more stuff.

Right now, two of my websites are experiencing growing pains. Portland Bars is exploding, and I can’t program enough features to keep up with it. The problem is, I figuring out how to monetize. I hadn’t really planned on generating this much traffic, nor what I would do when I got it.

I’ve found that Adsense is not performing as well as I hoped vs. the type of traffic I am recieving. Then I realized why: My traffic is coming from search engines, and had ignored the very same PPC ads that were origininally displayed. They want listings.

Now to monetize, now to monetize. I’ve been contacting larger local agencies and trying to work out a Pay Per Click deal, where the first have of the page is overtaken by an MLS form, that is posted through a tracking script. Argh. This came so quick, I wasn’t expecting it.

SiteProNews has posted a wonderful article chock full of information that oughta be common sense about how to get your blog listed.

Give it a read if you are new to blogging…It can help greatly.

I have recently been contracted to help promote On The Farm With Farmer Bob. This has been an exciting project to work on, the animation and art direction are top notch.

These DVDs are faith based Christian cartoons, yet they also have broad appeal to the secular market. The while the underlying theme is to deliver educational messages based on the Bible’s Parables, such as the Parable of the Sower and the Parables of the Pharisee.

I’ll be doing some SEO, as well as some other promotional tactics.

One thing I want to stay away from: Link exchanges. While trading links with sites is a valuable traffic tool, I am searching more for one way inbound links from relevant sites. I believe that the content and message of the product will make generating inbound linking far easier than it is in other industries. I have a feeling that part of this will be due to the “spread the word” nature of faith based organizations.

Off too work.