Sandra Niehaus visits WebbyConnect 2007 and provides a seriously in-depth coverage - but something that really struck out was the presentation by Vint Cert on internet use and presentation as measured across the globe:
Live from WebbyConnect 2007 - part 3

Approximately 3.6 billion telephone terminal, including 2.5 billion mobiles
Asia has 436.8 million internet users, but only […]

Wordpress offers a potentially great solution for building a CMS.
However, as the site grows, ensuring that search engines and human users can properly find your content can become a challenge.
Luckily, there are a couple of great Wordpress Plugins already available which can help resolve this issue.
When implemented, they should be able to help improve your […]

There are a load of different reasons why you may want to publish a RSS feed on your site.
Commonly you may want to publish specific items to a certain page on your site, or else publish latest posts or similar in your navigation for human users and search engines.
Certainly Platinax uses a couple of different […]

I’m someone who often moves on an ad hoc basis as to whether as project is a good idea or not.
Some ideas seemed like good ideas at the time, but I’m beginning to really appreciate the idea of having a plan of sorts to determine what my actual end goals are, and how I may […]

Paid blog? Protect your site!
Whether you agree with services that pay for blog posts or not, the fact is that these have now become an integral feature of the internet.
The market in paid or sponsored blogging has reached a point that entrepreneurial bloggers can balance earning money while maintaining a valued audience.
What many bloggers taking […]

The Dangers of Social Media manipulation

Over the past year, SEO has increasingly turned its attention to social media, looking for ways to manipulate sites like Digg in order to bring in surges of traffic.
The aim is to present content that appeals to discussion, hoping for a wave of natural links to point to the content […]

Entrepreneur is one of those funny words that can be difficult to define.
When I was younger, I imagined an entrepreneur to be some kind of swashbuckler of the business world.
And in a way, it’s right - unhindered by conventional restraints and bureaucracy, they become a kind of pioneer in their own right.
That doesn’t mean to […]

One of the huge pitfalls of marketing these days is that too many persons and companies are chasing traffic - rather than targeted traffic.
It’s reminiscent of the late 90’s dotcom boom, where the focus was simply on gaining visitors - without worrying about any kind of call to action (CTA) being achieved.
And what’s more worrying […]

‘Life On Demand’ is a term that epitomises the way our personal and business lives are heading in 2007. Today, companies make millions giving people the products and services to do any number of things on demand.
Drugs exist which promise not only to let you sleep when you want, but also wake up at […]

The following is a standard set of guidelines I post up in my forums for new moderators and supermoderators to reference.
The guideline provides specific technical information on vbulletin moderator tools, but the principles can apply to any forum.
Importantly, I always create a private section for staff to access, which comprises at least a Staff Room, […]

Members at Webmasterworld build an excellent set of recommendations and tips on what makes for a great Ecommerce site:
100. Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours, or your customer is gone.
99. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or a easy-to-find ’shipping charges’ page.
98. Make […]

If you’re building websites, you’re publishing.
And if you’re publishing websites whose focus is delivering information first, then you’re effectively an online magazine already.
If you’re a website publishing news, you’re effectively an online newspaper.
One of the great opportunities for news publishing is news syndication - it offers exclusive streams of traffic via news aggregation sites, and […]

All this week I’ve been reading confusion on blogs and forums about what SEO’s actually do.
It seems a common perception is that SEO is simply the following:
i. Title tags
ii. meta tags
iii. h tags
iv. alt tags
And once done, any site can rank for a keyword such as “mortgages”.
Firstly, unless you have a very authoritative site in […]

One of the key mantras at present for marketing and promotional - especially SEO - purposes, is to focus on developing great and unique content on your website.
There are various options available - but all of them are likely to require a significant investment of both time and money.
The question is whether the investment may […]

I do a lot of hands-on webdevelopment work for my own websites. I know my goals, aims, and technical feasibility of implementing different options. It’s a good arrangement.
I’ve done a few webdevelopment projects for clients, including for multi-million pound SME’s. Although more challenging, both myself and the client were usually very clear on objectives and […]

Work schedules can be busy at the best of times, but the Christmas period absolutely underlines it.
I’ve been caught out unprepared for the past two years, precisely because my work routine is normally so involved.
So for next Christmas I’m creating an action plan for business:
1. Local Marketing
I’ve always seen the local market as a key […]

Forum spam - the problem
NOTE: This article was originally written for Security Watch: How to Fight Forum Spamming
Forum spam isn’t simply a problem for forum admins - it’s a rapidly expanding industry for spammers, and scammers.
Forum spamming can be done by human users - often cheap labour from developing countries - but more worrying has […]

Whether used for Public Relations and customer communication, or for marketing your business and website online, blogs can be a useful business and marketing tool.
However, it’s easy to become overwhelmed when faced with promoting your blog.
Here’s a simple guide to other articles which go into detail on different aspects of using your blog for promotional […]

Secure ordering online
When you operate an ecommerce site, the likelihood is that you’ll need to use a secure server to take orders with.
Actually, it’s pretty essential.
Even if you don’t technically need a secure server connection for online payments, your online customers will almost certainly demand one, to ensure that their personal details - not […]

Alright, we’ve told you how to fail a business – let’s look at how to give your business the best possible chance by looking at elements you’ll want to get right to succeed.
1. Planning
Most sources of advice on starting up a business will rightly point out that you need to plan. But you can’t just […]