From a chance encounter with a reader of my personal blog, Growin' Up in Maine, I recently completed and uploaded a custom audio production to allow readers to listen to this guest storyteller. The narration is by Larry Hall, 91 years old, and he agreed to having me record his story rather than just post it as text.

Visit the blog to hear this humorous tale Roping the Grammar School Bell in 1928, and a bonus story about the local sheriff's brand new Model T Ford. This is a unique piece about growing up in a small town nearly 80 years ago. Listeners are welcome to inquire about custom audio or video production for their small business blog or website, as well.



TAGS: audio custom audio blog audio production small business services

Labels: audio, blogger, examples, websites

                       

The Code Repair website was recently redesigned and turned over to my son, Roger Degerstrom, and the theme has gone from a design advice only website to commercial custom web design. The advice angle is not totally abandoned, as the redesigned site includes an integrated custom blog with web advice.

The CodeRepair.com website was originally launched in 2002, and with my current workload it was time to refocus my energy on loyal customers from this site, blog, and podcast. I will continue to mentor the growth of his website, yet with the gaining momentum of new clients the real focus for me is a higher level of service to new and existing clients.

The slogan for CodeRepair.com is "The next generation in custom website design" which relates to nepotism as well as the quality of advanced code using XHTML 1.1 and CSS2.



TAGS: blog news small business services website design website redesign

Labels: blogger, launch, websites

                       

For small business bloggers unaware of blog and ping promotional services, I assembled a list of blog and podcast pinging websites. These sites will broadcast your blog each time you make a post, and instantly notify a variety of search engines and sites that track blogs. Some offer special services for podcasts, niche blogs, and foreign language blogs.

Visit each to see which one best suits your small business blog. Each has checklists, so take some time on your first visit to review the list and avoid pings to unrelated promotional websites.

The list of sites with blog and podcast pinging services are in alphabetical order:

1. BlogFlux pings plus has a blog directory for registered members
2. FeedShark provides service for blogs, RSS Feeds and podcasts
3. KingPing pings 57 blog search engines, plus a podcast option checkbox
4. MyPagerank pings feeds to 25 networks that track blogs
5. Ping-O-Matic provides a simple and highly ranked pinging service
6. Pingoat easy one-button submission to 26 sites tracking blogs

The process is easy, and free. Select one to handle your promotion each time you make a blog post, and with a few clicks your blog is promoted to up to 57 different websites. This is fast and convenient with just 1 or 2 clicks after entering your blog name and web address, so total time should be less than 60 seconds.



TAGS: advice blog blog and ping blog promotion small business advice

Labels: advice, blogger, general, podcast, websites

                       

The latest episode of the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast was released earlier and includes a bonus SEO Report in PDF for immediate download. The podcast episode Tracking Website Statistics gives a tutorial on setting up an account at StatCounter, and includes the free PDF download with step by step advice to add and track visitor website statistics to enhance SEO benefits.



Visit the podcast to listen to the small business website advice, and then download the accompanying PDF with no obligation. Visitors do not have to register or reveal an email address to receive the PDF report.

The benefits of knowing site traffic behavior, and how it relates to your core business, may allow owners to make adjustments in site content. SEO, or search engine optimization, is an added benefit of adding site visitor statistics.

You may want to read my detailed review of StatCounter services here, also.



TAGS: advice podcast search engine optimization small business advice tutorials websites

Labels: advice, podcast, seo, tutorials, websites

                       

Small business custom website design clients often ask about making page one in major search engines as part of website design projects. My latest podcast episode just released over the weekend with audio advice to Add an Integrated Website Blog helps answer that question. Here's an excerpt from the show notes:

Listen to learn about case studies of new small business website blog integration, and the positive results others have experienced from this advice. The blog of a recent custom small business website launch that I designed made Google page one in 1 week.

Search engine results found in Google page one and Yahoo page one were emailed to me by some of my clients in as little as one week from the time their site launched. Having an integrated blog and posting often helps small business website owners get listed sooner, and obviously some are making page one in major search engines in weeks. Blogs add fresh content often which is one of the methods for search engine optimization that I teach.

My policy when describing my custom website design services is still no guarantee of page one results, yet following my advice and blogging certainly has proven worthwhile. Here's the link, again, to listen to case studies of new small business website blogs in the Small Business Website Mailbag podcast.



TAGS: advice blog podcast small business search engine optimization

Labels: advice, blogger, podcast, seo, websites

                       

Quality photographs for print or online are often a frustration for small business owners. A photo that looks great on an illuminated computer screen may not be suitable for print materials. Let's compare a photo business card design for print as one example with advice comparing dots per inch (dpi) and pixels per inch (ppi).

Standard US card widths are 3 inches. The preferred camera resolution is 300 dpi for print. At 72 dpi a photo will look great in a website design, but cannot be used for print. Graphic artists will usually tell clients they need a 300 dpi resolution photo, or better. Print shops think in terms of lines per inch or pixels per inch, and again, 300 ppi, or better is necessary. High end printing may require 1200 ppi.

To calculate the resolution of a photograph for a 3 inch wide business card, view the dimensions under the size column in My Documents for the photo you intend to use. Divide the card width in pixels by 3 (for the 3 inch width of the card) to see if you hit the magic number. A 300 pixel wide photo divided by 3 yields 100 pixels per inch, so at 100 ppi it would have to be enlarged to fit the card, and at 100 ppi it is not suitable. The enlarged version would be blurry when printed.

This same calculation works for larger print projects, also. For a 6 inch wide post card you can reverse the math to figure you need 6 x 300, or an 1800 pixel wide photo. That same 300 pixel wide photo that looks great on a computer screen would yield 50 ppi for our 6 x 4 post card flyer test.

So despite requests by your graphic artist for 300 dpi photos for print, a 300 dpi postage stamp size photo just won't work on a highway billboard sign, let alone a small post card. A bigger photograph is always better when designing printed marketing materials.



TAGS: advice business card design graphic artwork photographs small business advice

Labels: advice, artwork, photographs

                       

The Safari browser from Apple, Inc. is one of 5 browsers that I now use to test custom website designs for small business clients. The Safari browser received some attention in 2007 as the recommended browser for web developers to create and test website designs for the new iPhone when it was first released. I took another look at Safari after a recent inquiry to review the display of a small business owner's website. I was impressed with the rendering of Safari.

The site mentioned for review had problems because when viewed in 2 out of 5 browsers the layout fell apart with graphics out of place and text overwriting text. The site was designed for IE which looked fine, yet any site with a disclaimer "Best viewed in (insert browser name)" usually points to an amateur designer. The goal should be "Best viewed in any browser you choose" so that no disclaimer is required.

The following graphic compares the rendering of FireFox (left) to Safari (right) using a screenshot from this blog as viewed in each.



The rendering in Safari has enhanced headlines and text that may not be apparent in the reduced size graphic here, but it was impressive and immediately noticeable. The Google search box button was rendered as an oval whereas it was the old standard grey rectangle in FireFox. The layout and default options of Safari take getting used to, yet the experience for casual users should be excellent. As a web developer, my first choice is still FireFox because of third party extensions and tools used for technical reasons.

Pro: Excellent rendering with Safari as tested on a few dozen websites from a desktop pc
Con: Minor - Power users may be disappointed with lack of add-on tools and extensions

My advice to small business owners is testing your website in all browsers as posted previously with links to download all 5 major browsers. You may want to follow this link to download or read about the Safari browser here if you want to try it immediately.

The new Internet Explorer 8 browser, IE8, is due for release in the summer of 2008, so it will be interesting to see the tradeoffs Microsoft makes in IE8 between code standards and backward compatibility which has caused grief in the past with most web developers.



TAGS: advice browsers review safari small business advice website design

Labels: advice, reviews, software, websites

                       

A custom website redesign with matching blog was launched yesterday for The Gourmet Gift Shop, Inc. of Stockbridge, Georgia. The main website is an online store for this manufacturer of custom gift baskets for corporate accounts and individuals. The site meets W3C for valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS2 and features a new logo design, an integrated PayPal shopping cart, and a Gift Basket Expert Advice blog.



In addition, custom pages were created for 404 Error - Page Not Found, a customized thank you page for completed purchases, a cancel page for incompleted orders, and finally a custom htaccess file for 301 permanent redirects of all the old page file names. Key on page content and the streamlined xhtml code was also optimized for seo, search engine optimization.

Visit their new custom website and online store for gift baskets for a wide selection of unique gifts for Valentine's Day, all occasion, or fully customized gifts.



TAGS: blog blog template launch seo search engine optimization small business services custom website design

Labels: blogger, launch, seo, websites