A Your Personal Checklist to See If Your Website Is Search Engine Friendly
The following is checklist designed to help you gauge the search engine friendliness of your website. If you are planning a website this checklist will help you avoid the common pitfalls of unfriendly designs.
The popularity of search engine optimization may have slipped with some retailers in favor of paid search, but is still a critical component of any retailer’s search marketing strategy.
Written by Dianne Tzouras June 19, 2008 Welcome to my blog.
Semper paratus. Always be prepared.
After liturgy and fellowship on the last Sunday in March, I stopped at a red light in the left lane and then, when the light turned green, I crashed into the car in front of me.
Word of mouth is a proven way of driving sales. When product buyers give a thumbs-up, the endorsement carries powerful credibility that retailers and manufacturers cannot duplicate in product descriptions. Little wonder, then, that customer reviews can pack the same punch online. Maybe more, because of the Internet's power to distribute consumer comments more widely and rapidly than word of mouth.
Hits would be any request to the server which is logged. This could be both human, as in visitors or other computers, such as search engine spiders or bots. The request can be for anything. It could be for HTML pages, graphics, audio files and more.
What are “Visits” then?
Well if “Hits" are times the files are accessed by man or machine, then visits are when a request is made to the server from a given IP address.
Content writing for the Web might not look too tough, but I promise you it is harder than it looks. Anybody and everybody can write - you learn how to do that in grade school. The problem is not everybody can write well. To hopefully put you back on the right track I thought I would share with you a handful of tips that pros use when doing any sort of web site content writing.
Last month, I was asked for advice on choosing the right payment gateway, specifically for the pros and cons of working with PayPal over the other more expensive options. I’m keeping this list of pros and cons quite short, hopefully this will help you decide if PayPal is the best solution for your online e-commerce website.
As gas prices continue to increase, Congress continues to blame others while ignoring practical steps to stop the pain Americans are feeling at the pump. To lower gasoline prices and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we need real solutions to our energy challenges. http://www.americansolutions.com/ is a site that is petitioning the government
Icons in Sound is a relatively new program on the Orthodox Christian Network. The host, Vlad Morosan, is an expert on Orthodox liturgical music. I feel like this is a show that practically every Orthodox Christian needs to listen to, and listen to every week.
Why? Because we don't go to church except on Sunday.
I'm often accused of being something of a Joomla Content Management System Evangelist. I'll admit it. I am a little passionate. But I think with good reason. This blog is actually a reprinting of a case study I did concerning Maryjean Zarick and her Paradise Music site. I wrote it up to highlight some of the great stuff Joomla can do for a small business person, and I decided to share it as a blog here to help spread the word.
I wanted to reconnect with the seasonal store shopping experience to understand first hand why stores are getting so hammered by online merchants at Christmastime. The stores I visited were nicely decorated and neatly stocked-and hauntingly empty. Parking was easy and checkout was a breeze. I got suitable gifts and prices were good.
Here is a letter I wrote to hopefully make people aware of what is going on in the public school system. I called the superintendent of schools office, the school and school board. As of yet no one has called me back as is the case whenever I have a concern.
Tempus fugit. Time flies as we get older. The Marketing Bootcamp Teleclass I took this year was about preparing the soil for new growth in business and life.
James Carville, the political campaign strategist, hung a sign at Clinton’s Little Rock campaign headquarters that read: “It’s the Economy, Stupid” became ensconced in American political folklore—and helped get Bill Clinton elected President in 1992.
In February 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. This capped off a process which had begun with NATO's airwar on Serbia from 24 March to 10 June 1999. That campaign killed an estimated 5,000 Orthodox Christian Serb soldiers, and wounded an estimated 10,000 more. This is in addition to the estimated 500 innocent Orthodox Christian civilians that were killed by bombs striking non-military targets. The direct damage of the bombing campaign has been estimated at $30 billion dollars in one of the poorest nations in Europe. Serbia is not expected to recover from the U.S.-led bombing campaign for another decade or more.
For optimizing Search Engine Placement and driving referral traffic, getting links to your business or ministry site is absolutely essential. Unfortunately, despite the critical need for this, many Webmasters don't even know how to check the links they currently have, much less how to get more.
My ninety-one-year-old grandmother was in horrible pain. As she lay in the hospital bed, dehydrated and unable to even take her own medicines, she repeatedly cried out to God, "Lord, help me!"
My father and I sat at her bedside watching her struggle. "She's praying for healing," I said to my father, "I don't think God is going to answer that prayer. I think he's already rendered His judgment on this, and she's praying the wrong prayer."
A short time later, she suddenly switched her prayer. She cried out, "Lord, take me on!" She prayed that prayer three times. Then she became very still, as if sleeping. Within five minutes, I noticed she wasn't breathing.
"I guess she finally prayed the prayer that God was willing to answer," I said to my father as we verified that she was gone.
Customer reviews and other user generated content is becoming a "must have" for retailers to compete online. 50% of merchants surveyed have adopted the technology, according to a new report from The E-Trailing Group Inc. Of the merchants who have adopted customer reviews, 58% said improving customer experience was the most important reason for adding the program to there site. We find that
Tune in this week to Come Receive the Light, the national Orthodox Christian radio broadcast, to hear Fr. Stephen Freeman, author of the popular Orthodox blog "Glory to God for All Things", as he speaks with Fr. Chris about deepening our spiritual life through Holy Confession, fasting and prayer during Great Lent.
Click here to listen, and here to download the study guide (pdf).
MIT did a study of 500 International Companies looking to figure out the key ingredients to success in the global economy. The results of this study were summarized in a book by Suzanne Berger called How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today's Global Economy.
The book itself makes interesting reading, if you like this kind of literature, and I highly recommend it. For those that don't go in for that sort of book, let me summarize the key findings.
Modern businesses and ministries run off software. We need it to do everything from sending emails, to preparing presentations, to finding new members/customers online.
In this blog, I would like to take a moment to recommend some great Open Source Applications which can really make your business life easier, and which won't stretch your budget.
What would you say if I told you there was a medication that could help you to relax, make you feel better, and improve your relationships with your family and friends—would you be interested? If I told you there were no side affects, that it was free, and that you could easily get this medication—would you take it?
A few months ago I was working in a soup kitchen. One client—we’ll call her Kathy—had a glazed look in her eyes. I tried to talk with her, but she was in her own world. If you have ever had the joy of working at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, you have met individuals like Kathy; people who, for whatever reason, can’t communicate coherently with others.
The Orthodox tradition recognizes numerous saints of a certain type: Fools for Christ. These individuals, like Kathy, had difficulty relating to others “normally.” Yet the Church in her holy wisdom found it appropriate not only to accept such individuals, it actually recognized them as truly saintly men and women, inspired by God.
This raises the question: what, according to our faith, is “normal"?
Though I rarely have time to watch TV, the other night I did catch a rather intriguing episode of Animal Planet. It seems that in the high dry interior of Kenya, there was rumor of a lioness who was keeping company with an antelope. An animal expert traveled to the game reserve to see if there was any truth to the rumor. She did, indeed, find an adolescent lioness who seemingly had abandoned her
When a European journalist based in Ammam Jordan calls a writer in Central Florida for a comment on church bombings in Mosul, only to end up on a conference call with an Assyrian activist in Beirut - you know things have changed. The world is just not the same.
According to CIO magazine, a recent survey of over 200 CIO's for medium and small enterprises revealed that 83% of them were leveraging some kind of Web 2.0 technology. That is excellent news for those of us who are into the Web design space and don't care much for static Websites.
Unfortunately, many business professionals and Christian ministers will read that statistic and ask, "What is Web 2.0?"
This week I'm starting an 8-week telephone course with Susan Sly called Marketing Bootcamp. Now I never took a business class, unless you count Economics as a senior in high school 46 years ago. Economics comes from the Greek for taking care of your own house. The Church uses economia (economy) in efficiently and fairly solving problems.
One fall evening in 1954, a car sped through dusky Pennsylvania twilight. Headlights off, it careened recklessly towards a blind intersection in a cornfield. In a sickening split second, it smashed broadside into another car.
There were three people in that second car. When the dust and smoke cleared, two bodies lay among the twisted metal. One was my mother, who would remain in a coma for a month. The other, my aunt, was killed instantly. My father escaped with only scratches. Looking up to the sky, he asked “Why us, God? We were on our way to be missionaries!”
Like a lot of other Orthodox Christians who spent time in a Greek parish, I've done my share of festival duty. Several years in the Gyros booth, a couple in the parish bookstore, one doing church tours - been there done that.
In late 2007, Dr. Clark Carlton, author of the well-known five-volumeFaith Series of books on Orthodoxy, published an Open Letter to Orthodox Christians on behalf of Ron Paul. In his letter, published on LewRockwell.com, Dr. Carlton lays out his case for why Orthodox Christians should support Republican Ron Paul for president.
Dr. Carlton believes that our unique experiment in self-governance is at a cross-roads, and that only rediscovering Constitutional principles as espoused by Ron Paul can save our Republic.
I got to do something really nice last week. As an Orthodox Christian and Web professional, I'm always thrilled whenever I get to help out new ministries get started. That is why being able to help the online presence of a new ministry dedicated to helping our missionary families was such an honor.
The headline blared from a conservative Website. Supposedly, Wicca and like-minded Paganism is growing in the United States.
The journalists look at this process and see a way to write sensational headlines that grab the readers' attention. Many conservative leaders look at this and immediately start denouncing the sorry state of affairs, while asking for our donations to help rectify it immediately. Theologians of all stripes launch into attacks on the foundations of the new mystery cults.
But, I'm a business analyst. I look at this situation and see a really good marketing opportunity for Orthodoxy.
My Bachelor’s degree is in music, but not just music. Technically I hold a degree in Music Therapy. I am an RMT, BC - Registered Music Therapist, Board Certified.
As part of the process of earning my Board Certification, I served a 6 month internship at a major state mental hospital in Napa California. I later worked for the State of California in two of their other residential facilities.
If I say the phrase, Orthodox author to you, what name comes to mind? Tolstoy? Dostoevsky? Perhaps a Theological writer like Bishop Kallistos Ware or Father Alexander Schmemann?
But, if you searched for the phrase Orthodox author using Google for the first few weeks of December 2007, you wouldn't find any of those famous authors at the top of the search results.
Back in September 2007, a poster on the Website Orthodox Circle wrote an impassioned plea. He and his wife are adult converts to Orthodoxy. They have visited our church in the past, but are now attending a mission closer to their home. The gentleman wanted to know, in regards to growing the Orthodox Church, “How can we inform the masses about our church, so that it doesn't seem so strange to the protestants?”
I heard my wife screaming on the phone. I ran into the room, thinking something major was going wrong. Like a home invasion, or a fire or something.
Turns out, she was yelling at technical support because she couldn't get the Website our umbrella school uses to track grades and attendance to take her recent updates.
Every Web designer has that moment of grace at least once. A moment when you look at the layout, the colors, the text, and the images - and the page just works. Everything is just perfect. I had that happen recently. I remember how ecstatic I was. This was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or at least so I thought.
Once upon a time in a land not so far away there lived a little girl named Rose who had a beautiful rose garden. The little girl loved her garden and all the roses in it. Whenever she needed to get away from the trouble that little girls sometimes have, Rose would walk through her garden, fondly touch the roses and blissfully breathe in their fragrance.
A few years back I was attending a Greek Orthodox parish. At coffee hour one Sunday, I asked a recently Chrismated couple how their Thanksgiving had been the week before.
"It was good," the husband said, "But it was hard eating vegetarian when my family was having turkey."
I laughed, because I'd just spent Thanksgiving at the home of an Orthodox priest with a big, fat turkey in the deep fryer.
Having a first period class in college was bad enough. But, when the class was Russian History during the Middle Ages with an elderly professor nearing retirement, well that was downright torturous. Especially when the professor was a man known for his dry wit.
I remember sitting there one morning, bleary eyed, as he stood in front discussing the Great Schism between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches and its effects on Eastern Europe.
Icons in Sound is a relatively new program on the Orthodox Christian Network. The host, Vlad Morosan, is an expert on Orthodox liturgical music. I feel like this is a show that practically every Orthodox Christian needs to listen to, and listen to every week..jpg)
I wanted to reconnect with the seasonal store shopping experience to understand first hand why stores are getting so hammered by online merchants at Christmastime. The stores I visited were nicely decorated and neatly stocked-and hauntingly empty. Parking was easy and checkout was a breeze. I got suitable gifts and prices were good.
In February 2008, Kosovo 
Tune in this week to 
MIT did a study of 500 International Companies looking to figure out the key ingredients to success in the global economy. The results of this study were summarized in a book by Suzanne Berger called How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today's Global Economy.
everything from sending emails, to preparing presentations, to finding new members/customers online.
When a European journalist based in Ammam Jordan calls a writer in Central Florida for a comment on church bombings in Mosul, only to end up on a conference call with an Assyrian activist in Beirut - you know things have changed. The world is just not the same.
One fall evening in 1954, a car sped through dusky Pennsylvania twilight. Headlights off, it careened recklessly towards a blind intersection in a cornfield. In a sickening split second, it smashed broadside into another car.
I heard my wife screaming on the phone. I ran into the room, thinking something major was going wrong. Like a home invasion, or a fire or something.