The Fedex man came today! This is a big deal around here. No, not because I am THAT starved for company, it’s because he was bringing my new computer system! And it’s a beauty. I finally made the jump to Vista. I thought I would be regretting this, but so far I’ve been very happy with the switch. For someone as visual as I am it is really cool to see the windows fade in and out with the nice ghosting effect. I spent a lot of time picking out my new system and deciding what to add onto it. After all that, I wrote this post the other day and placed it on my personal blog. I felt it was worth repeating here:

I work as a web developer, and in light of this, I’ve been buying top of the line computers for the past 10 years, upgrading every 3 years or so.

As I am sure you can guess, reading blogs is something I spend a lot of time doing. I was running through my normal blogroll the other day, and an article on upgrading your computer at Cash Money Life caught my attention. He recommends not buying the extended warranty on a computer. I beg to differ, and here is why:

My first internet connection was modem based, and something was really wonky with our phone line. I kept blowing out the modem on my system. Because I did buy the extended warranty, Dell sent a guy out to my house to replace that modem no less than five times. Definitely paid for itself on that system.

Next system. Somehow acquired a virus. Wiped out everything. Again, they sent a guy out to repair, wipe clean and re-install all my stuff. Even recovered the data on the hard drive. Cost to me? zilch. Paid for the warranty again.

Next system. Booted up to hard-drive failure. No idea why. The next day the guy came out again with a new hard drive, salvaged my data and I was good to go.

Finally, my laptop. I agonized over whether to get the “accidental if you drop it or if it is stolen we will replace it” warranty. I did, and was kicking myself thereafter for spending the money in a “moment of sales pitch weakness”. Until. Until lightning hit our house. Hit just as I was reaching behind the laptop to unplug it. The surge went through two surge protectors to fry my system, and I felt the “Zap” run up my arm. The computer? Totally dead. Can you guess? Yep, brand spanking new system in two days. Even recovered my data.

I am not here as a sales pitch for the extended warranty although it may look like it. I just felt it was important to maybe get another perspective on this. I never buy extended warranties for anything: cameras, cars, TVs. But, because my computer is my livelihood I made the choice to go that route on the computer every time. So far it has been a good choice.

I run into a very common problem. Lots of times people email images to me that are HUGE. Sometimes several of these HUGE images come in an email attachment at once. This makes for one gigantic email. There are several problems with this.

#1 — it is going to tie up your email server and your ISP is not going to be happy. In fact, you may have the email kicked back to you as “undeliverable”

#2 — it is going to tie up my email. That makes it a little difficult for me to get things accomplished in a timely manner. But don’t despair! Fortunately, there are some very good solutions for this problem. So, let’s explore a few.

If the attachment you want to send me is something that absolutely needs to stay the large size that it is, I recommend the service yousendit.com. I’ve used this with great success in the past. They do, however, charge for this service although there is a free trial.

The best option if you are trying to send images is to compress the images. This can be done very simply with a free program available from Google. You know Google — right? Here at lisadesigns.com we LOVE Google - did you hear that Google? We LOVE you! Keep indexing us as #1!!! XXXOOO

Now where was I? Oh yes, compressing images:

Normally your digital camera will take pictures with a huge megapixel number. This is so your pictures will look nice and pretty and clear when you go to print them. The web doesn’t need to have such a huge megapixel number. In fact, huge megapixels = huge file size = loooonnnngggg download time = unhappy website visitor.

So here we go. Let’s compress those images:

First download Picasa from Google. Here is a handy link that will take you right to it. Picasa

It’s free! Did I already mention that? Install it by clicking on the .exe file you just downloaded. It will install the program and ask you if you want an icon on your desktop. Sure, why not. The icon is very pretty:

Now, put your images that you want to email to me in a folder in My Documents. Name it something fun like: pictures for Lisa.

Go ahead and click on the icon to open Picasa. Picasa will ask if you want to index all your pictures on your computer. Go ahead if you like, although it will take some time. This is a handy tool for organizing your images. It will be nice to have them all organized later. But if you want a shortcut tell it to just scan ‘My Documents Only’

Then at the top you will see a little search box with a magnifying glass. Type in the folder name of your images for me. They should pop up in the large window.

Next, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools > Options > Email.
2. Under Output Options, set the slide bar under ‘When sending more than one photo, resize to:’ I like to have them resized to no larger than 600 pixels. The default is 480 pixels. That works. You can leave it there if you don’t want to mess with it.
3. Set the ‘When sending single pictures, resize to:’ option to 600 pixels, as above (or again, leave it at the default).
4. Click OK.

Next, select your photos by clicking on them in the big window while holding your control key down. You will see them pop up in the lower left hand corner in the “Picture Tray”. Once you have selected the photos you would like to send, look at the bottom for the email button. Click on it. Select your email account from the pop-up window and send me the images.

That’s all there is to it! Now your ISP is happy, my ISP is happy, and Google still loves us!!

Occasionally I may need a larger image from you. It may be that I need to crop or isolate out a tiny part of the bigger picture. But if I do, I’ll let you know. In the meantime smaller is better. Compress away!

Do me a favor? Go to www.google.com. Type in: South Dakota Web Design. Then hit “search.”

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Don’t be shy. I promise I’ll still be here when you get back.

All done? If I’ve done everything correctly, you’ll notice that LisaDesigns.com came up in the top 5 searches. Most likely, LisaDesigns.com is coming up #1. In the FREE listings. Not the ones you have to pay for.

How the heck did that happen?

Well, honestly? I’d like to say I am an internet SEO marketing genius. But, I think you know if that was true I would be a gazillionaire. I would have a horse ranch on 1000 acres that backs up to Custer State Park. With a huge log house, an indoor gym and a swimming pool. And a carbon fiber triathlon bike. Obviously I am not a gazillionaire. But I digress . . .

In reality it is a combination of a multitude of factors:

#1: I’ve owned this domain name lisadesigns.com for over 10 years. Google really likes that.

#2: The focus of my site, with repeated words that emphasize that focus throughout the site, has stayed constant for 10 years. I don’t mean that the actual content is the same. My focus is the same. I’m a web designer, my site is about web design. It’s been that way for over 10 years. Google likes that too.

#3: Lots of different sites link to me. They link to me referencing web design. That makes Google happy.

#4: This one is very interesting. When I first started in this business, I manually submitted my site to yahoo.com. Back in those days Yahoo had to approve each and every site that was submitted before they would index it. I submitted to a geographical region: South Dakota. I didn’t submit my address because I worked from home, I had young children at home, and I was a paranoid new mommy. I didn’t want every crazy on the internet to know where I lived. Because I submitted without an address, Yahoo actually called me up! On the phone! To tell me they wanted an address to verify that I lived in South Dakota. I gave the Yahoo guy, who was very nice by the way (hi Yahoo guy), my sob story about not wanting my address on the ‘net. He agreed to index me without my address listed. In fact, he was such a nice Yahoo guy that he listed me as #1 in the “South Dakota Web Design” search. I stayed that way for a long time. When Google came around they listed me as #1 because Yahoo did. Yay for Yahoo! Yay for Google!

#5: I have a blog. Several blogs in fact. I update them regularly and they all carry a link back to this site. This, I believe, is the wave of the future. Blogs with constantly updating content. Google really, really likes that.

So you see, it doesn’t take genius to index in Google or any other search engine for that matter. It does, however, take time and take patience and a willingness to pay attention to your website on a regular basis. Google likes content that is updated regularly. The more often you can repeat your search terms within that content in a relevant way — google does not like bogus content — the better your rankings will be.

If you don’t want to be patient and wait for the magic to happen, there is always pay-per-click marketing. But that’s a subject for another blog post.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on that gazillionaire thing.

“Running a website without marketing is like winking in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.”

Sound true? I get questions like this all the time – “how will people find my website?”

Of course there is internet search engine marketing, and I will address that particular venue in a future post, but first let’s concentrate on traditional advertising.

A new website is going to take quite a bit of time to be indexed by search engines. While you are waiting for that to happen, and truthfully throughout the life of your website, you will greatly enhance your visibility by using traditional advertising markets to push your site. By this I mean the obvious: make sure every single piece of collateral material that goes out of your office is branded with your web address– your URL. Your www.yourwebsite.com address. Slap that baby everywhere. In fact, if I could talk you into it, I would counsel you to tattoo that URL right to your forehead! Traditional advertising is really that important.

Take a look at what you might be overlooking. What does your “on hold” message say? Your after hours voice mail? Your email signature? Is it directing potential visitors to your site? That’s passive marketing. Passive meaning it doesn’t cost you anything and you don’t have to physically be there to make it happen. Use it to your advantage.

Fax cover sheets, vehicles, billboards, license plate frames, Yellow Page ads — you name it!

All marketing communication materials should emphasize your URL and entice readers to visit your site. Envelopes? Business cards? Invoices? Print that URL in BOLD TYPE where it is easily seen. Is your place of business located in a high traffic area? Invest in a banner. Voila! Instant billboard to direct traffic to your site.

Anything that can handle your URL should have your URL. It’s as simple as that.

Oh, and that tattoo comment I made earlier? I actually know someone who invested in temporary tattoos emblazoned with her website URL. She handed them out in goody bags at a marketing function. Pretty smart if you ask me. Her web traffic stats almost doubled. Imagine that.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave them below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Welcome to the Lisa Designs blog. I hope you enjoy your stay!