Recent Blog Posts
Blogs ยป Archive for May, 2005
Search Engines Know More Than You Think
These days, every time I read another oversimplified explanation of SEO, I cringe. In one sense, it really is that simple, but in another, the complexity goes far beyond what any of us can fathom.
The super-simplified version of SEO is:
[list=1]
[*]Build optimized web pages based on your (hopefully well researched) keyword strategy.
[*]Optimize the link structure of the site around them to support the keyword strategy.
[*]Build the external profile of the key pages through link building campaigns.
[/list]
A lot of folks have been very successful by following this very simplified approach, in fact, many have been successful without bothering much with item #2. Building optimized pages and hammering the search engines into submission with optimized text in incoming links still works, although it’s a lot more difficult these days, especially with Google.
But the future is staring us right in the face, folks. Search engines know a lot more than you think. In January of 2004 I released a report on Google’s “Florida” update, then a hot issue for SEOs, which described a “topic-sensitive” variation of PageRank. (If you’d like to read it, follow that link, look for “How to Prosper in the New Google.”)
The search engines today have a pretty good idea what …
Do you suffer from kakorrhaphiophobia?
The above-mentioned term, according to Peter Bowler’s book The Superior Person’s Second Book of Weird & Wondrous Words, means a morbid fear of failure. (He notes the irony of the word, for surely someone who must tell his or her doctor that he suffers from this condition will trigger the condition by trying to pronounce it correctly!).
Fear of failure is something any self-employed web designer/developer must overcome, and quickly. It is hard to do, because most professionals are trained to be perfectionists.
Here are areas where you almost have to fail in order to eventually succeed:
1. Marketing. Some marketing tactics will work, some will not. And most need to be continuously tested and improved. If you give up after getting a poor response your first time, you will not get far.
2. Products. Some products will be in demand, some will not. And it is better to launch a “good enough” product than to wait for perfection.
3. Business ventures. Most entrepreneurs are lucky to get one successful venture. And sometimes it can take 10 tries to get 1 good one. I like the cheetah’s approach to getting prey, as noted in other articles on Sitepoint: If you see an opportunity, go after …
Books
There’s a chicken and a frog talking, and the chicken hands the frog a paperback, and says “Buk? Buk, buk, buk, buk buk.” And the frog says “Reddit, reddit, reddit, reddit.”
All this is by way of saying: the Official Book Of The Stylish Scripting Weblog And Its Orchestra And Chorus, DHTML Utopia, is out. Written by me, tech-edited by Simon Willison, the other half of Stylish Scripting (which of us is the scripter and which is the stylish one I shall leave to your imagination), and whipped into the final product by the masterful hands of SitePoint’s Simon Mackie, the book covers everything you need to know about DOM scripting. And there’s a poster too. It was marvellous fun writing it (and I shall be sending a copy off to my grandma, who won’t understand a word but will be chuffed to bits anyway, ha), and we all really hope that it gives people a good platform on which to build the next generation of web applications. Away with those onclick attributes! They have no place in our better world.
Hope you like it, all.
Once more with Expression 3
A long time ago, a clever little company (Fractal Design) lived happily in the woods creating nifty graphics applications (Painter and Expression). They had a natural talent with creating software that expertly mimicked the attributes and qualities of real crayons, paints and other natural media. Everyone liked their work and everyone was happy.
Then one day they woke up and decided to sell up. Corel ended up with their flagship - Painter.
But what ever happened to that cool vector program they had — ‘Expression’? I remember thinking it looked quite promising and I really must check it out.
Well, after poking around the backrooms of the Microsoft site, I found her again — alone, virtually abondoned and waiting for someone to love her.
Microsoft refuse to talk about her, and, sadly it’s looking more and more like she’ll stay there.
Anyway, if you haven’t checked her out, and you feel like your designs could use a fresh angle, this could be the answer.
At it’s core, ‘Expression’ is a vector program, like Illustrator and Freehand, and it can import and export AI format documents (within reason).
That’s pretty much where the similarities end though. The vector linework …
Take The SEO Quiz!
Rand Fishkin (dude, I hope I got the name right) has put together a fun little SEO Quiz, which is sort of tied to the SEW forums, but fun and challenging for all. You may not do as well if you aren’t up to speed on industry people/gossip, but that’s only 8 of the 32 questions.
I scored 30 out of 32, which should have been 31 but I didn’t want to show up Mr. Sullivan. Actually, it should have been 31 but I made a mouseographical error on one question. Next time, Rand, use 36 point type and put the radio buttons at least 2 inches apart. I’m pretty sure that’s an ADA requirement to make the site accessible to clumsy people. :D
Managing Open Source Installation and Updates
In the same theme of mixed commercial and free software - LAMP and Java developers and administrators may find a welcome convenience in leanring about blueglue from Open Logic.
blueglue is sold as a commercial solution to deal with the challenge of managing the open source software stack - the combination of several applications making what we do possible on either Linux or Windows servers. For example, maintaining the installation, configuration and updating of an environment running Apache, MySQL, PHP and CVS can be done from a central interface.
The product supports more than 100 well known open source applications including Apache, Perl, PostgreSQL, Tomcat, JBoss and many more.
What I found interesting was the inclusion of more than a dozen sample projects that leverage those open source apps with example configurations and code to jump start exploration and testing.
This can be valuable for the beginner or perhaps more importantly for developers or clients seriously exploring open source that have not yet made the leap.
Open Logic is sold on an annual subscription basis for around $400 US - however - thinking of the dollars and time saved through an automated installation, configuration, testing and patching interface, that cost is quite minimal.
Definitely worth …
How to burn a bridge
Here’s a sad postcript to last blog about sales process:
One finalist in the process replied with a snide comment to me after I informed the firm that I was moving forward with someone else. I thanked him for his time, and he replied with a curt email that read, simply:
“even though you wasted it.”
That’s simply bad form. Yes, the person had to invest time answering questions and scoping out the work. Yes, I’m a bit analytical and probably ask more questions than most. But that’s the nature of the business. You want to win more engagements than you lose, but sometimes you lose.
The sad thing is that I liked this person up to this point, and would have used him for some other work. The firm demonstrated good design skills, and could have been a good resource.
But not now.
Be gracious with prospects, even if they don’t choose you. Stay in touch. You never know.
Certainly don’t burn bridges.
From the prospect’s point of view, how you sell is how you will perform if hired
Well, I finally made a decision about an IT vendor to hire, after going through personal referrals, prosavvy, elance, php-freelancer, rentacoder, etc.
If you recall from a previous blog, I wasn’t going to pull the trigger until someone reassured me that they understood my goals and could do the business.
The winner won because of the way he handled the sales process:
1. He was EXTREMELY responsive. Too many firms took their time responding, getting me a proposal, and answering simple questions. The winning vendor typically got back to me within 30 minutes by email, and always answered his own phone (which by the way was a plus — having someone in my own country rather than having to wait nine hours to get in touch with someone from SE Asia). He also told me I’d have a high-level proposal by 3pm that day, and he delivered (while other candidates were late by as much as a day).
2. He understood my business and connected his solution to my needs. Other vendors had pre-existing solutions, and tried to cram them into my needs. This vendor made a solid, logical case for why his approach was perfect for what I was trying to do (even …
Open Source Commercialization Redux
We have talked many times before on Open Sourcery about the pros and cons of the commercialization of Linux. This has included building a service and support system similar to open source’s proprietary cousins (that the business world is used to), introducing benchmark ratings (already a growing movement) and methods for validating code to protect against both legitimate and rancorous legal action.
Obviously this is something of a movement during the last few years and now several intiatives are coming to fruition for better or for worse. In general, paid support has been available through several manufacturers of Linux distributions, however, more and more start-up companies are surfacing based on a pay to play model with success.
In fact, leading the new factoids in today’s post is the emergence of a venture capital fund dedicated solely to launching six or more open source companies over the next few years. Seeing an operation commit more than $10 million to mentoring new open source products into commercial organizations is a big boost to budding entrepeneurs working with non-proprietary projects.
This certainly should encourage those with projects to go beyond sharing projects at community sites and perhaps teasing the waters to see if some commercial …
Google testing Adsense for feeds
Google and Yahoo have both tested advertising in RSS news feeds. Google’s program, Adsense for feeds, is open for applications during the beta period. Google has also published a document describing best practices for Adsense publishers participating in the program.
I’d love to hear from any publishers who are participating, or have applied to participate, in this program. In particular, how you feel about some of Google’s “best practices,” such as publishing the full text of articles in your feed. Is it more effective to publish a full article in the feed (with ads in the article), or to publish content summaries as a ‘teaser’ to bring visitors to your website?
I’m sure we can expect programs like Adsense for feeds to grow substantially over the coming months, since RSS/Atom/etc. feeds represent a largely untapped channel, and companies like Google and Yahoo are eager to expand the available inventory for their contextual advertising programs.
Syndicated feeds are also a nice method for sites to distribute fresh content and build link popularity for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, although few search engine marketers have really grabbed hold of this concept at this point. It’s only a matter of time, though. If press releases are …
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