Category Archives: Web Basics

The New Google Keyword Tool

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Last week I tried using the Google Keyword tool and it wasn’t working the way I expected it to and I thought to myself that this was the end of an era.

How could I survive without the trusted Google Keyword Tool?

Thankfully, when I logged in today it seemed to be back to normal with an improved interface.

For anyone that doesn’t know at this stage, the Google Keyword tool is an indispensable application for anyone who wishes to do keyword research on-line.  The tool allows you to put in a keyword or phrase and it will show you how many people search for this word/phrase and variants of it worldwide and also locally (i.e. your target area) for the previous month.  It also gives an indication of how many advertisers are paying for advertising off the back of these key words and phrases.

This information is critical to anyone who wishes to promote their site online.

From a Search Engine Optimisation point of view it facilitates decision making on what names to give pages on a website, what keywords and phrases to put on them etc.  I mean there’s no point in creating a page with a certain title if nobody is ever going to search for it.

It now also asks for a website address as well as a key phrase, which can be very handy to see what your competitors are up to as regards keyword targeting.

It is an invaluable tool for anyone who takes their on-line presences seriously.

Double Home Page Problem WordPress

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Many of us WordPress users will have come up with the double Home Page problem.

If you are using WordPress to create a website often you want a static home page on the site and not have it default to the latest blog entry.  To do this you must log in to the admin area, go to setttings->reading and set a static page as your homepage.

Often times you will want to create this page and title it ‘Home’ however on most themes if you do this you will end up with two home pages.

To get around this, without editing the theme, you need to create a dummy static page that is hidden from public view.  Once this static page is created you must go back and edit the newly created home page and set its parent to this new dummy page.

And that should be it!

If you want to have your blogs appear on another page, simply create another static page (with no content) and again go to settings->reading and set the posts page to this page. You must do this before you make the dummy page private, however.

What is a Blog???

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I was delivering a presentation to a group of start ups just before Christmas and one of the class members asked the dreaded question…

“What is a Blog???”

Hmmm, I suppose if she asked it then others were thinking it too.

My simple answer was that it is an abbreviation of Web Log, but of course this is just the label and explains nothing.

In a nutshell a blog is simply a website that facilitates the publication of articles.

According to Wikipedia, a blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog).

Blogs are generally organised by date and into user defined categories.  Often blogs present an RSS feed to the web. A RSS feed is a file that contains a synopsis of your latest articles and the links to those articles.  RSS feeds are automatically generated by tools such as WordPress. Other users and sites can then subscribe to the RSS feed in order to be notified of updates to your blog. A podcast is related to a blog in that it presents media to the end user instead of text. I will explain podcasts in greater detail in a subsequent post.

Blogs are a great way to promote your company website as Google likes to check them regularly for updates.  Also, by writing a blog you will get more traffic to your site because you are more keywords and phrases that google can potentially match user searches with. So if you have a company website, you should set up a blog ASAP that you can write about interesting topics that are related to your business.

The best way to learn about blogs is to simply register on wordpress.com and create a blog for yourself to discover all the really cool features inherent in modern blog systems.

What Email Marketing (Newsletter / eZine / Mailing List / Mail shot) Software Should I Use???

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Recently I have had to evaluate several email marketing management tools and two stood out from the crowd for me.

From an open source point of view phplist is excellent. It is a well maintained newsletter application written in the php programming language. It does take a certain level of expertise to install this mailing list software on your server, and then configure it and set up newsletters etc., but should be within the capabilities of most web masters.  Visit http://www.phplist.com/ for download information, demo etc.

The best email marketing product I’ve seen out there for the mass market is MailChimp, which is really easy to set up and unlike phplist, it is managed on mailchimp’s servers and does not have to be installed.  Within minutes you can have  a list set up, imported from your Google contacts or csv file generated from outlook. You can pick from loads of lovely templates and develop your ezine/newsletter campaign online also. One thing I found brilliant was that you can upload your logo or an image and it will analyse the colours in it and develop a template for you automatically… Sweet!!!

You can test emails before sending them to your email lists/groups and after sending you can check statistics to see who has received/opened the emails and how often etc. All in all it’s an amazing little piece of kit and for most small businesses it is free because you get to create a list of up to 500 members and send 3000 mails per month absolutely free!!!

There are many other packages available out there and all of them beat creating your newsletter and trying to manage lists in your email client such as Outlook.  I would definitely recommend giving mailchimp a try.

Why Everyone Should Install Google Analytics

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I’ll admit I was slow to start using Google Analytics myself but it was totally my loss.  I would advise everyone that has a website to go to the bother of installing analytics to get a picture of how well your website is performing. Most hosting companies provide comprehensive tools to allow you to view your web stats to the finest level of detail but Analytics takes it so much further.

Sample Analytics Screenshot

Sample Analytics Screenshot

Here are a just a few things of the things I like about it:

  • You get all the basics, no of visits, unique visits, page views, bounce rate, time users spend on site, traffic sources, keyword searches etc… and all of these are presented in graph and text format, which you can drill down into.
  • You can compare statistics going back as far as when you first installed analytics and you can see percentage changes in practically everything
  • You can set it up to email you (or a client) a summary of the results as a pdf of spreadsheet, at a fixed time period of your choice
  • You can actually overlay the results on you site so that when you browse your site you can see which pages are visited most etc.

It’s just an amazing piece of kit and is something I recommend that every client I work with sets up.  It takes all the mumbo jumbo out of web site statistics and presents it in a human readable format.

Here is an example of a report generated on one of my sites upthedeise.com-stats-november09

If you have an existing site and need to get analytics installed and talk about your SEO then visit http://www.utdwebdesignireland.com

Public Disclosure Requirements: Company Websites Legal Obligations

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With effect from 1 January 2007 the information required to be specified on paper company letters and order forms will be extended to electronic form. In addition every company that has a website will be required to display on its homepage those same particulars or identify on its homepage and make readily accessible a webpage on which the particulars appear.

The particulars are as follows:

(a) that the company is registered in Ireland and the number with which it is registered;

(b) the address of the registered office;

(c) in the case of a company exempt from the obligation to use the word “limited” or “teoranta” as part of its name, the fact that it is a limited company;

(d) in the case of a company that is being wound up, the fact that it is being wound up.

(e) where there is reference to the share capital of the company, the reference shall be to the capital that is subscribed and paid up.

Here is a link to the to the Information Leaflet No. 7, “Disclosure And Publication Requirements In Relation To Companies And Business Names“

Transferring a .ie domain from one hosting provider to another

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Transferring a .ie domain is not as simple as a .com, however you can transfer a .ie domain without involving the web design company that registered it for you.

Generally with .ie domains you need to send in a scanned letter (on company headed paper) to the IEDR (IE Domain Registry) telling them that you want to transfer the domain to a new domain registrar. In order to do this you must be the original domain administrator (which the previous web design company you used should have set). If this person is not working at your company any more you can simply state this in the letter and specify a new administrative contact.

Domain transfer can be a little tricky and generally takes a few days to do, so if you want to do this make sure you give yourself plenty of time. It can take longer and more consideration if you have lots of email addresses that you need to transfer also.

Just take your time and be careful and get professional advice if you are not sure.

UTD Web Design Ireland provides such as service so don’t hesitate to contact them if you need assistance.

Do I need a Content Management System (CMS)?

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The short answer is YES.

A Content Management System or CMS is a piece of software running on a hosting account on a web server that allows the administrator of a site to log in to and edit the site through a web browser interface, without having to delve into the mystifying depths of HTML and CSS code trying to work out how to FTP the files over to the hosting account etc.

Generally a CMS is made up of standard HTML and CSS elements, a MySQL database (or other database technology), a Javascript word processor/text editor and some server side scripts (PHP, ASP, JSP etc.) to execute database operations such as saving and retrieving content and to allow upload and management of files on the server.

Most design companies will give a customer the choice of installing a third party CMS such as WordPress or their own bespoke CMS. However, design companies generally prefer to offer bespoke CMS to their customers because they can be tied into a specific design more easily, and the user interface can be made exceptionally foolproof. With third party CMS applications design can often be very restricted unless the company specialises specifically in that technology.

You should expect to pay a bit less for a WordPress or Joomla website as there is practically no coding involved in the set up of these sites, rather developers will find a suitable template on the web and will then customise it to suit a particular customers needs. If a company has to develop a theme from scratch, Joomla and WordPress sites can become even more expensive then their own bespoke CMS sometimes prohibitively so.

Regardless of the technology chosen, the major advantage of a CMS is that you will no longer need to call your web design company every time you need to make a small change to your website, with a CMS you can update the site whenever you have a bit of news, want to add a new link, need to upload a new picture, press release etc. etc. You just simply log in through to the CMS via a specific URL or Web Address and edit your website pages on the fly.

However, with this power there are also caveats. Often designers have a keen eye regarding making content on a site look professional. By transferring this power to administrators, the design of the site can often suffer over time from a design perspective as a result, so if you do go for a CMS try and keep the content true to the design of the site and avoid using your own colour schemes, font sizes etc.

Search Engine Optimisation is also generally supported by good CMS systems. They allow the user to modify the title of the page, the content of the page (encouraging the use of h1 tags) and they also allow the admin to add meta description information. Often with static web sites, design companies do not change the title and description on the various pages on the site which can lead to devastating penalties from Search Engines.

So, if you have an existing site without a CMS, don’t worry, all is not lost. If your site is standard HTML / CSS it should be relatively easy to add a CMS to.

UTD Web Design Ireland can add a lightweight, bespoke SEO optimised CMS to your existing site for as little as €400 depending on your specific requirements, so what are you waiting for, get in to the 21st century and manage your own website content today!

Website technologies explained and terminology decoded.

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Ever since I’ve started putting websites together I’ve had the same basic questions posed to me from clients, here is an overview of the basics put in plain English.

Hosting: The very first thing you need to put a site live on the internet is hosting.  In Ireland there are a good number of reputable hosting companies but blacknight and hosting365 are probably the most popular of these.  Hosting is basically disk space on a server that is shared by many customers (though you can purchase a dedicated server if necessary). A reasonably decent hosting package can be purchased for around 50 euro, which will include several gigabytes of data transfer a month, several gigabytes of disk space. Most hosting packages include PHP, MySql and Email, which I will explain below.

Domain Name: Hosting is not much good if you do not have a domain name that directs users to your site.  Generally Irish businesses should purchase a .ie domain if their target market is Irish, however .com versions of domains are generally the most sought after.  Irish domain names are more expensive than others because there is a body called the IEDR (IE domain registrar), which administers domain names on an application process.  For most .ie domains the domain must be approved before a hosting company can put it live.  Once a domain is purchased it must then be configured to point at your hosting.  This is generally done by changing the name servers that the domain points to.

HTML + CSS: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are internet software languages that describe how a web page looks.  HTML deals with individual elements on a web page such as headings, paragraphs, images etc. whereas CSS specifically detail how these elements look. For example, a heading’s font size, colour, typeface etc. can be set via CSS.

HTTP: This is the means by which pages are requested over the web and delivered to browsers.  HTTP stands for Hypertext Transport Protocol and whenever you type in http://www.whatever… and click go you are starting a HTTP request, which finishes when the entire page is downloaded and displayed by your browser.

PHP: PHP is a common programming language used to process web requests. Every time you type a HTTP web address (URL) into a browser and sometimes when you click a button on a web site, a web request is made to a web server.  Sometimes this web request does more than just return a web page. Sometimes the request activates a program on the server to perform some activity. For example, we’ve all signed up to newsletters on websites. When you click a button to sign up, the web server will activate a program on the server to process the email address and sign them up to a newsletter database, it may then send out an email to the user to confirm that they have been subscribed.  All this can be done via a programming language called PHP. There are many software languages that can be used besides PHP such as C# and ASP.Net, Java and JSP etc.

MySQL: This is a common database technology available on ALL decent server hosting packages. Often databases full of content and users are stored on the server.  PHP and MySql often work together as PHP performs the processing functionality and MySQL provides the storage facility.

CMS: A CMS or Content Management System is a web based software application that you can log into to edit the content on your website, be it simply the text on the site, images or other media files. WordPress and Joomla are two very popular open source CMSs

Blogs: A blog is short for a web log.  Many people out there have decided to write and talk about whatever subject tickles their fancy on the web via blog services such as blogger and wordpress. Blogs are simply content management systems that focus on managing posts by time and date.  So effectively blogs are online diaries, where the diary entries are web pages managed by the blogging software.

RSS: RSS is a technology used to transfer snippets of a page to subscribed users so that they might come back to a website. RSS is often used with blogs to let people and other websites know that an update has been made. RSS is also used with pod-casts.

Podcasts: Pod-casts are snippets of audio, video that are sent out to subscribers via RSS.  Users subscribed receive a short note on the content and can then download the content via link supplied.

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation is the process by which a websites Search Engine Results Page performance is monitored and improved over time. This is generally a two step process of ensuring the content on a site is readable by the search engine and that the content best matches what potential customers are searching for, followed by a link strategy whereby inward links to the site are actively sought out. Google utilises a ranking system which gives a site a measure of importance between 0 and 10 which is called Page Rank. In general if two sites match a search query exactly, then page rank will decide which page comes back first on the search results page.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing is a combination of SEO and Internet Advertising. To back up an SEO strategy a company may also purchase ads from companies such as Google. With Google users can set up Adwords campaigns, which allow the customer to bid on key words and phrases that they think people might used to find their products or services. Once a Adwords campaign is set up and running, ads will appear on the google search pages and on other websites that have chosen to show ads via the AdSense programme.  Ads are paid for whenever a potential customer clicks on an ad and is brought to the web page.

So that’s the major bread and butter technologies tackled, please let me know via comments if I have omitted something major.

Web Design Dos and Don’ts

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This article presents an overview of the most important things to consider in order to implement the best possible website for your needs.

Professional Design

  • Your website is how the world will view you so you MUST have it professionally designed, just as you would a brochure or booklet.
  • Never get a techie to design your site, they will choose function over form.
  • Use a designer template if you are on a tight budget.
  • If using animations, such as flash, keep them to a minimum

Note: Some websites use Flash extensively; however, it is a bad idea to have too much flash on a site as search engines will always have problems reading the text from such sites and as a result do not yield as much search engine traffic.

Note Also: You should know what sections/features you want before discussing your requirements with a web design agency as often the main sections influence how the site will function and this may affect the design of the site.

Content Management System: Most businesses need to be able to change website content on a regular basis. A content management system therefore is a must for any business website. There are several off the shelf content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla which are comprehensive and well established systems however they can restrict design and can be cumbersome to use from an end users point of view. Most good web design companies will have their own very simple and intuitive CMS that can be tailored for a specific client’s needs and does not hinder the design of the site in any way, if a bespoke system is used make sure you try before you buy to ensure you feel comfortable using it. You should also ask is this system or can this system be Search Engine Optimised.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Contrary to popular belief, SEO is a not rocket science. Your site must be search engine ready to give it the best chance possible of being matched for a particular search term. The name of the site, the title of the page, headings and page content are all factors in this, but none of this work matters unless your site is well indexed by search engines, and that means getting as many inward links to your site as possible.

The responsibility for getting inward links should be taken on by the customer and targets should be set to achieve good results. Some common ways of getting links might include:

  • Direct Link exchanges with customers, suppliers, partners etc.
  • Placing links on free and paid for directories (DMOZ, Yahoo etc.)
  • Placing links on social media such as boards, blogs, youtube, linkedin etc.

Once the site is optimised there are 2 more factors which determine how many hits your site will get:

  1. How many visitors are searching for the search terms in questions.
  2. How seriously your competitors have taken their SEO

Social Networks / Media Websites

Depending on the industry there are various social media sites that should be utilised:

LinkedIn: For creating and expanding your business contacts network

Facebook: For interacting with customers, get feedback, have fun, run promotions. Do not create a Facebook account or group if you are not going to have the time to get involved with it.

YouTube: Promotional, Instructional videos, can apply to most industries

Twitter: Great to offer discounts and give short messages to customers

Bebo: More of a teens social network than Facebook, so depending on your market…

Blogs: Very worthwhile commenting on blogs articles dealing with the particular industry. This should not be spam but a legitimate comment. Most comments allow you to specify your website. It is also worthwhile to creating your own blog on sites such as wordpress, blogger etc.

Boards: Get involved on relevant boards but never post a link to your site, rather have it in your signature, people and more importantly google will use this link.

ISSUU: Great site for presenting booklets etc.

N.B. All sites allow you to link back to your own site so they all increase your SEO which is hugely important.