Web Design Blog Back Online »

Wow!  What a chaotic few weeks.  We have recently migrated to a new web server to get away from the worst web hosting company on the planet (more on that in an upcoming post) and it has been quite a process.

So, needless to say, posting on the blog was put on the back burner.  Well, I am happy to say that it seems we are back in business (fingers-crossed).

Most importantly - we would not even be nearly this far without the awesome help from Garry Conn.  Garry offers a great WordPress SEO service and he worked tirelessly to migrate not only all the blog posts on our blog but even moved our other web site content for us. If you need assistance with your blog, Garry is the man to contact. He is super thorough and does what it takes to get it done right. Garry – “You ‘da man!”

Blog Action Day 2007 »

Ben from the Instigator Blog alerted his readers to an upcoming event called Blog Action Day. This is one day per year where bloggers everywhere use their blogs to bring attention to a common issue.

This year’s Blog Action Day is set to take place on October 15, 2007 and the theme is “The Environment”.

Since this blog posts on technology related issues, I was particularly interested in that theme. Technology is one area in today’s society that has a tremendous impact on the environment. Landfills contain old computers and computer monitors, cell phones, batteries and all sorts of other electronics that can just as easily be recycled.

So, after reading Ben’s post and the one on Copyblogger, I hopped over to Blog Action Day’s web site and jumped on the bandwagon.

You can do the same and join the more than 2,000 other bloggers.

Blog Comment Issues »

We are still having comment issues with the blog. Last weekend, Garry Conn, who offers plenty of awesome Blog Tips on his blog, was gracious enough to take time from his busy schedule to look into it for me (thanks, Garry!).

Basically, there is probably a single line of code that is causing the problem, somewhere in the thousands of lines of code making up the blog. That problem is preventing readers from posting comments and therein lies the problem.

So, either start over with a clean, fresh install of WordPress OR require readers wishing to comment to login to do so. Personally, I really dislike blogs that require users to login in order to comment. If a reader wants to leave feedback, the blog owner needs to make it as easy a process as possible. Having said that, I also dislike the time involved in loading a clean version of WordPress – mainly because we don’t have the time right now.

Translation – much to my dismay, if you want to comment, you will have to login (moves away sheepishly).

Minimize Your Blog’s Duplicate Content »

Duplicate content on blogs is usually a big issue if left unaddressed. By properly using your robots.txt file, you can significantly cut down on your blog’s duplicate content.

For example, if you make a blog post that is relative to multiple categories, that very same content will appear in multiple places on your blog. Let’s say you make a post titled “SamplePost”. In WordPress, before you upload that post to your site, let’s say you determine that the post fits into 3 different categories on your blog: Category1, Category2 and Category3. That means, when the SE robot crawls your blog, it will find the exact same post with the exact same content in multiple places:

• www.yourblog.com/category/category1/
• www.yourblog.com/category/category2/
• www.yourblog.com/category/category3/
• www.yourblog.com/index.php
• www.yourblog.com/feed
• and the archives section

So, your best bet is to use your trusty robots.txt file and block the robots access to your blog’s category sections. Here’s how you do it:
Disallow: /blog/category/category1/
Disallow: /blog/category/category2/
Disallow: /blog/category/category3/

Add that code to your file and upload it to your server. That way, each new post you create will only show up on the home page, the RSS feed and in the Archives. Then, once that post falls off your blog’s home page and your RSS feed, it will only appear in one place on your entire blog – the archives.

The more times the same content appears on the same site, the more the Search Engine devalues it. By controlling where the SE robot goes and what it sees, you will be making your site more valuable.

Kudos to Ross at stepforth.com for this great tip

Popular Blog Topics »

Most of our blog traffic comes from Google and other Search Engines but, oddly enough, the “Search” function on our blog gets quite a workout. So, I decided to post some of the most popular searches and maybe you will see something that grabs your attention.

For example, topics related to good passwords are always popular. Autocad is another hot topic for the blog. We also get tons of traffic from readers looking to secure a wireless network. Also, the series of posts I did on the TJ Maxx database hack and resulting loss of their customers credit card information has been wildly popular (my wife, who had her information stolen as a result of this event, still has not heard from TJ Maxx).

Identity theft and what to do if you think you may be a victim is another popular topic. I compiled a 4 part series of posts that tackled that issue.

One last example, a post we did on professional web design received a lot of traffic and even resulted in a few new web design clients .

Thanks to all our readers and “happy searching” .