While the journey has been arduous, we have made it through!

For those of you who didn't know, just two weeks after we moved into a brand new office and launched a virtually "new" Poetic Systems, Hurricane Ike hit Houston and our building.  Wind tore off the building's roof and the next day rain did the rest.  The entire building, including our office space and furniture, were ruined.  We had no option but to go back to designing websites at home.  For about a month, employees worked right off my kitchen table.

We were eventually blessed with an opportunity, and our good friends at Creative Switching Designs took us in.  Meanwhile, we wondered for months when on earth we would ever be back in our office.  Well, we finally have a date!

We have been given February 1st, 2009 as the day our building should be like new.  The wait has been irritating and frustrating, but it has also been healthy.  We now view the hurricane as a mixed blessing, because we have proven just that much further that we can make it through quite a hit.  From mail-forwarding issues to clients thinking we were out of business to some random missing office chairs, these past few months have definitely been a test of patience.

We would like to thank our clients for putting up with us and for being supportive.  We could never have made it through any of this without them.

As of this moment, we are hoping to be back in in the Kirkwood Atrium by mid-February at the latest.  Despite the disaster, we have been growing in knowledge and experience and hope to continue to bring you the latest in web design and search engine marketing techniques for your Houston business!

 

In the beginning Google used "trust" to judge and rank a page. This trust was emphasized by the age of a link or site. Older, more trusted links and sites were ranked higher. This helped combat against new sites spamming links to improve site rankings. The major problem was that this system did not address new content. New pages that were legit were at a severe disadvantage in that they did not have trust built up with the Google algorithm. So users who sought new data about a subject might be bombarded with old irrelevant data. This issue came to its zenith when Google finance was launched and it did not rank for its own name. Enter QDF...

 QDF stands for Query Deserves Freshness and is a new model Google added to reward activity with a certain topic. Freshness is used to describe how many recently created or changed pages are included in a search. This is the center of a huge search debate. Is it better to rank fresh information or a time tested page? In the past Google gave precedence to older pages.

QDF revolves around determining if a topic is "hot". If blogs and news sites are publishing lots of new content about a specific topic QDF will determine if this topic is what users want to view. QDF is basically a measure of global enthusiasm for a topic. The QDF model takes a number of factors into account:

• search volume
• news coverage
• blog coverage
• toolbar data (maybe)

Google has a patent on the QDF methods. It gathers data including a sampling technique that allows them to gather statistically accurate data without having to trawl through all the logs for a particular query. 

QDF rewards those that build high quality sites which present viewers with meaningful and fresh content. This means a site needs to be active with fresh content. You can utilize the QDF model if you write meaningful articles and keep updating blogs. Once a page rank is up then a strong self reinforcing site has been established which ranks highly with trust as well as QDF. 

An example of QDF at work might be a site about Ehud Barak, a Jewish man born in a kibbutz. He might have been high on the search before Barack Obama came along. Then millions upon millions of new sites and articles were flooded on the net during the race for the 2008 US presidential elections. Barack Obama will now beat Ehud Barak if you search for "Barack" on Google. The moral of the story: Do not neglect fresh content or you will be neglected on search queries.
 

You might have found that some of the images that have been inserted have the issue of running up the edges of content or words.

To give the image and content the proper amount of spacing we’ll have to inform the editor that there will need to be spacing placed between these two items.

To do this just follow these steps:

1. Inside a Joomla! article select an image from the files or upload a new image.
2. Once selected you can choose the “edit CSS style” button, and a window with different options will appear.
3. Inside the window click the tab that reads ”Box” and under this tab is a section labeled “Margin”
4. Inside the section labeled “Margin” uncheck the “same for all" box.  Now the other options below this box will become available.
5. Inside these now available sections is where you can put in the spacing that you desire to have between images and content (I find that pixels work best).
6. Once you believe that you have found the correct amount of spacing click the “update" button inside the window. Make sure to apply and save all changes. 

The image will now have a space where the content used to run up against its edges. If you feel the need to take away or add space, you can by repeating the previous steps. Let me know if it works for you.

I learned how to make neat half-tone patterns in Photoshop this week. Here is a step by step guide on how to create neat halftone textures. I will assume you already know how to open Photoshop and make simple operations within Photoshop.

Step 1:  Open Photoshop and make a new document about 600x600 pixels. Create a new blank layer.

Step 2: Select the Brush Tool and make one dot in the center size 100 with 50% hardness 

Step 3: Load Selection of the dot by going to Select>Load Selection> click OK. Then select inverse.

Step 4: Make a new blank layer and then hit Q. The circle should now appear red.

Step 5: Now go to Filter>Pixelate>Color Halftone and change to these settings:

Step 6:  Now exit the quick mask by pressing Q again. Now make an inverse selection. You can then fill the selection and you have a very neat halftone texture.

A big part of SEO is balancing your site to meet the needs of both machines and humans. Using web standards compliant code will make your site truly optimized for both users.

For the most part sites has two main visitors. First, there are machines or robots that scan your site and index your code. These "bots" are used to rank your site on search engine result pages. If code is not written to follow web standards it can confuse robots and hurt your search ranking. Second, there are human visitors that expect to see meaningful well organized content. Websites must be designed for both of these unique users.

It is best to avoid creating a "hostile" environment for human visitors. Create useful and nice looking pages so human visitors return. Avoid spamming links or having content that looks "spammy". Write sentences that make sense and organize your information in a meaningful and logical structure. This means making the main idea of a page in H1 and the sub ideas in H2s and H3s. Place all regular text inside P tags. To improve on this it is important to include B tags around keywords, but remember to not bold too many words. If too many words are bold then your page is not human friendly.

Including meaningful lists also improves ranking using ULs and LIs in your HTML. The bots prioritize the information on these list higher than normal text inside P tags. Here too, you will have to balance for the human visitors. If a site has spam lists with 25 bullet items, human visitors to the site will be quick to hit the back button. Make lists short, keyword rich, and meaningful to your content and visitors.

The frame of mind as a designer is best in a balanced state. Designing and coding for both humans and robots will make your site the best it can be. Neglecting one will leave a site either low on search engine lists and low on visitors. Robots do not care what a site looks like and humans do not care what code looks like (excluding nerds like me). Design for both to achieve a truly optimized sites.

Proper H tags are essential to proper and efficient SEO. With SEO, I like to think that there is a little Zen involved. In Zen it is said enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition. So to, can you apply these to SEO to create "finder friendly" sites.

The "old school" mentality about H1 tags was that they were bad for searchability. The problem was that they had multiple H1s on a page so in fact changing them to H2s helped, but that is because they broke the cardinal H1 rule, only place one H1 tag per page. Designers would say to replace all H1s with H2s to improve your Google searchability.   If you took all those pages where people used nothing but H2s and placed in one carefully thought out H1 with those H2s then your page would be even more search friendly. With even a little thought or mediation on the subject many would have seen the variables that they left out in their H1 and H2 equations.

Like a book, SEO is about self-contemplation.  If you understand what looks good to humans then you will have a good SEO base. SEO is like a book - the title tags are the cover, the H1 tags are the title page inside the cover, H2 and H3 tags are like the chapter headings and the P tags are the content of the book. Books are structured logically for humans to understand. If you understand what is structurally good for yourself and humans then you will know a good sound base for SEO. Imagine opening a book and finding the inside title page is on every page and that there are no chapters and no story or content in the book except the title page.That is a very ugly book (web page).

The above also plays into intuition.  You just have to look at your site and go for proper, well structured content. There is no cheating the system. When people cheat the system they end up cheating themselves because they are not building intuitive sites that are easy for the viewer to use. Real SEO is built on good content and hard work.

So the rule here is to only use one H1 tag per page and make it effective and reflect the content of the page. Then if you need, place H2 tags to help organize content below the H1. Remember to always make your H1 and H2 tags reflect your content. Meditate on your SEO strategy, self reflect on what is proper content structure and make sure your pages are intuitive and you will have a good foundation for SEO.

I have been asked to explain what makes a good blog post, or at least how to effectively blog, write well, SOMETHING to help with bloggers' issues.  What style, format, length, etc. is appropriate? And for which situation?  I intend to touch on a few things in order to point the lost in the right direction.

What to Blog About?

What moves you?  Or what do you think will move other people?  What is useful?  What is relevant? What is interesting?  If you don't know the answer to any of those questions, then don't try.  Fitting any of those categories can be enough to qualify, but without that qualification, you have made your post a burden and an annoyance.  News, tips, and personal thoughts are all perfectly acceptable as long as they fit with one of those questions.

What Format?

Aside from a few exceptions, begin with some sort of introductory paragraph or sentence.  This keeps readers from wasting their time, so they know if they've found exactly what they're looking for.  Whether you make it epic or to-the-point is completely up to you.  Either is fine.

This all depends on the content, but just be logical.  If you are sharing a short story you came up with, write in traditional format.  Most posts, like news will be similar.  Break sections and use headings properly.  Before you begin think about what pieces of the post go together well and clump them accordingly.  If you list features, use bullets.  Number instructions.  If you have a big quote, block it out.

Closing is also completely up to the content and writer.  Most choose to take a final summarizing stand, in a way bringing the post all together.  Some choose not to waste their time closing at all.  No one will rebuke you either way.

Which Style?

The more formal and distant a post can be, the cleaner and easier it will read.  This does become a problem as blogging does have a personal aspect to it, with writers having their own opinions.  First person is perfectly fine if it is relevant.  If you are describing an experience you had, go right ahead.  Your readers may know you personally anyways.  Second person is extremely difficult to avoid and can be a pain because of that darn personal feel.  The key is to be consistent.  Don't switch from "one" to "you" in the middle of a post.

Personal writing style is an issue of its own.  If you represent a company or organization, try to curb it as much as possible.  If you aren't the most eloquent of speakers, please don't write like you talk.  Personal blogs are truly their own animal and can be dealt with however the author deems, with no questions.

No-Nos You May or May Not Know and Other Pointers:

• Don't begin sentences with "and" or "because".
• Plural words that end in an "s" do not use apostrophes.  Correct: "dogs" Incorrect: "dog's".  (See title of this section and refer to proper format of "No-nos".
• "Its" is possessive.  "It's" = "It is".
• When a non-plural or plural word that ends in an "s" is possessive, it looks like these: the puppies' tales, the Smiths' house, Jonas' hat (My friend Jonas has a hat.  It's Jonas' hat).
• Spell and grammar check.  Just do it.  This goes for personal blogs as well; people DO notice, even if you don't.
• The only way to punctuate properly is to just learn.  Do you know how to use semicolons correctly?  If you missed that day in English class, Google it!
• Check your word repetition with Command+F (Ctrl+F on Windows).  Did you use the word "dynamic" in three sentences in the same paragraph?
• "Alot" is not a word.  "A" and "lot" are both words.
• Spell out single-digit whole numbers as well as simple small fractions (like "two" and "one-half", respectively).  Also, be consistent with number formatting.

Writing Effectively

This is important to understand for the sake of readers and that of search engines.  The most important thing to remember is to write for people.  Key-word stuffing to the point that it impairs readability is absolutely unacceptable and actually detrimental to search rankings.  Writing solid, useful content is what makes a blog worth visiting, and readers respond to that.

On a related note, using adjectives in desperation as an attempt to sound smarter or fill in space does not fool readers.  If there is little to say, say little.  Less room for fluff means more room for teaching and/or learning.  This is of course not to say that adjectives aren't cool and don't effectively convey thoughts.  Just please don't abuse them.

Length

To close, I touch on length.  Just get the point across!  If there's a lot to say, go ahead.  If not, don't waste readers' time trying to bulk up.

There are many times when for one reason or another I need to have Internet Explorer on my Mac. For the longest time I thought the only way was to use Boot Camp or Virtualization until recently I discovered IES4OSX.

IES4OSX allows you to install a few different versions of the of Internet Explorer (currently pre IE7) on your Mac and a few popular browser plugins. We have had varying amounts of success with it but for the most part it proves to be a viable alternative to Virtualization or Bootcamp if you just need IE6 for testing designs or for sites that require Internet Explorer.

You might want to add a link to another page or another website inside one of your content items.

To do this just follow these steps:

1. Inside the backend of a Joomla! article, highlight the content that you would like to become a link.
2. Click on the link button; a window with different options will come up.
3. The first empty box should read ”Link URL”. This is where you should type in the address you would like the link to take visitors to.
4. For now we will leave the other options on the window alone. Click the insert button at the bottom left corner and this will make the highlighted content from step one a blue font.
5. Click the save button at the top right of Joomla! Once saved the page should relocate to the Article Manager.
6. Now on the live webpage, refresh and scroll the mouse over where the link should appear.  A fingernail should appear, which means that the content has been turned into a link.
7. Click on the link and it should open up a window with the address that was typed into Link URL in step 4.

Let me know if it works for you.

Every one knows that a picture is worth a thousand words.  But for a webpage an image can turn a bland page into an incredibly illustrated website.  This tip will help with uploading and inserting an image into your webpage.

To do this just follow these steps:

1. Start off in the back end of Joomla! Open the articel manager then open the article you wish to edit.
2. Click the “image” button at the bottom left and a window will come up.
3. Click on the “browse file” button and options such as my documents and desktops will appear.
4. Find the image whether in a folder or on the desktop and choose the “select” button. The browse file box will close. Once closed, click on the “start upload” button. This will place the image into the image directory folder.
5. Scroll through the images, which are in alphabetical order and the uploaded image, will be inside the image directory.
6. Once the image has been located, click the insert button at the top right.
7. The picture will be placed inside the backend of Joomla! From here the image can be aligned, turned into a link and so-forth. Make sure to apply and save.
8. Go and refresh the live page to see the uploaded image.

Let me know if it works for you.