07.06.2009
FBC Augusta
Client: First Baptist Church of Augusta | PowerServe
Augustinos
Client: Augusta Marriott Hotel & Suites / Augustino’s Italian Eatery and Prime Steaks
Designed while working with PowerServe.
Augusta Mortgage Co.
Client: Augusta Mortgage Company
07.01.2009
Featured in Smashing Magazine
Today, my little business card website was included in a Smashing Magazine article on Best Practices for Effective Design of “About Us” pages. w00t!
06.26.2009
Notes from Jeff Croft’s “Grids, CSS, Standards and Tomfoolery”
This is a collection of links and quotes from last night’s Atlanta Web Design Group meeting. Jeff Croft discussed “Grids, CSS, Standards and Tomfoolery”. While it’s hard to follow along without seeing his presentation, the links are in order from when they were mentioned. View slides here. (more…)
06.25.2009
Again?
The Email Standards Project launched an impressive campaign via Twitter yesterday called “Fix Outlook”. As of this morning, over 21,000 people have chimed in and offered up their support. But Microsoft still doesn’t care. I say ‘still’ because their decision to switch to using Word as the rendering engine for Outlook was isn’t new. (It was actually switched in Outlook 2007.) But the fact that Microsoft went ahead and kept this change in for Outlook 2010 has People were pretty vocal about the switch back then too. (more…)
06.01.2009
Augusta’s Choice
Newly launched, Augusta’s Choice — a business/review directory by locals for locals - is definitely a site you need to check out if you live, work, or play in the Augusta, Georgia area.
05.16.2009
WordPress 2.8 beta1 Released
WordPress 2.8 beta1 was just released.What’s new? Lots, apparently.
If you’re using WordPress 2.7.1 and want to upgrade using Tools > Upgrade all you have to do is open /wp-includes/version.php and change the version number from 2.7.1 to 2.8. Then run Tools > Upgrade. The latest development version will be installed when you upgrade.
Note, before upgrading it’s usually a good idea to backup your files and database. Development versions of WordPress may have problems.
04.30.2009
Disable Javascript in Acrobat
From the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) blog:
“All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat (Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1, 8.1.4, and 7.1.1 and earlier versions) are vulnerable to this issue. Adobe plans to provide updates for all supported versions for all platforms (Windows, Macintosh and Unix) to resolve this issue.”
To protect yourself from possible exploits, disable JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat:
- Launch Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
- Select Edit>Preferences
- Select the JavaScript Category
- Uncheck the ‘Enable Acrobat JavaScript’ option
- Click OK
04.17.2009
Get found.
In the movie “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner’s character heard whispers of “Build it and they will come.” So, he constructed a baseball field in the middle of nowhere, and remarkably the unexpected happened: People came. With websites, getting people to show up to your ballpark requires a bit more effort.
There is often an expectation that if you have a website, people will find you, you’ll have more business, etc. Traffic (and additional business) may come eventually, but it will not happen overnight. In order for your website to get found, people need to know about it. Some of the ways you can make that happen include search engine submissions, social networking, and pay-per-click advertising.
So, you have a website? Great! Now what? Traffic won’t magically come to you. Search engines might eventually crawl your site if others link to it. Here are a few things you can do to make sure your site is found:
Submit your site to the major search engines:
While this is certainly not an exhaustive list, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search represent the “Big Three” search engines. Getting listed on these engines is your first, and arguably best, opportunity for search engine-based referral traffic.
Promote your site on social networks. If you use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, make sure your friends know about your site (Don’t spam them, though!). Go to where your customers are. Engage them. Encourage them to visit your site; to use your services.
Google AdWords: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising. Spend money on targeted, keyword-based advertising when you’re first starting out. It could be a while before your site ranks highly in search engine results. PPC ads guarantee a higher-profile placement on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Let’s say you have an automotive repair business and you’re hoping to generate more traffic to your website. You’d like to buy some ads on Google Adwords to be displayed on SERPs. While getting things set up, you select some keywords that you think people might use to find your business. Generic keywords have greater competition; this is why you want to try and be as specific as you can with your keywords. Someone looking for “Automotive Repair Augusta GA” is more likely to be looking for your services versus someone who might be searching for “Automotive Repair.”
Some other things to consider with PPC:
- You’re only charged if someone actually clicks on your ad.
- You can set a maximum daily budget on Google AdWords. Once you’ve spent your budget for the day, your ad will no longer appear in SERPs. (This helps you budget for PPC more efficiently.)
- The more specific your keyword phrase, the less you’ll pay per click (usually).
- The more specific your keyword phrase, the more likely people seeing your ad might be interested in your services.
Traditional Advertising. Make sure your website address is included in all advertising, such as radio, TV commercials, billboards, business cards, newspaper and magazine ads, and even email signatures. Anytime you have the opportunity to tell someone about your site, do it.
Originally posted on PowerUp!, the PowerServe team blog.