Website development
The chestnut leaf breakout
Sunday, 20 November 2011 My workstation here in the Gers overlooks a magnificant horse-chestnut tree, aesculus hippocastanum (the conker variety, not the sweet chestnut one). It provides shade from the blasting sun and in April it transforms itself with countless bunches of pink-tinged white blossom. Bit by bit it has etched itself on my imagination to the point where part of it has figuratively found purchase on the masthead on this website.
Tags: Tagliatelle - a tag too far?
Thursday, 17 November 2011 Occasionally some of my clients ask me if it's a good idea to add a block of tags beneath a blog article or a web page. Note that this isn't the same thing as including what are called metadata tags or meta tags. (For an explanation of these, see blow.)
The website evolves once more
Wednesday, 17 February 2010 This website first started life in 1999 and it's interesting - if geeky - to look back at its evolving design (and underlying technology). (This burst of nostalgia has been provoked by version 7's launch last Thursday.)
Intelligent web publishing
Monday, 15 February 2010 Of all the reasons to move your static website to a dynamic content-management system (CMS) website, I believe the most potent is what I call 'intelligent web publishing'.
Business is an activity and websites need to reflect the details and direction of that activity. Enabling the publishing of this information - often in small chunks - is what a good website should do.
Search engine optimisation examined
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 Most people start an internet search with Google, so let's begin this blog article there. Here's a screenshot of page 1's results for “sports car sales” on Google UK:
Things that search engines look for
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 People in other professions perhaps wouldn't put up with this, but we should remember that this is how it has to be: the day someone knew what Google, for example, was really looking for, would be a day when the rest of us would be at a disadvantage!
Billable hours? Not to be sneezed at!
Wednesday, 3 June 2009 One of my UK clients came to me with an interesting problem: he wanted changes made to one of his websites, but the agency that originally built it for him wanted to charge him £80 an hour plus VAT.
He wanted to know what I could do...
Advances in web technology: what this means for you
Sunday, 31 May 2009 The detail of this may not interest you that much, but it’s offered on the basis that the better informed we are, the better the chance that we can make good decisions. So here’s a simplified run-down on the different approaches to building web pages, and how these have changed and improved over time.
Tuning in to clients
Friday, 27 March 2009 Spending plenty of time working with potential clients is important. Note the word potential: this is before a client has decided to sign up for a website designed and developed by me.
Search engine experiments
Tuesday, 10 March 2009 From time to time I run some simple search engine tests, both on my clients’ sites and on my own. This helps me get some insight into how well these sites are being tracked by the SEs. I did this again yesterday – and the results are interesting!