WEB UPDATES : Website Design and Web Marketing blog, Newsletter

There has been an age old debate over which one’s better, a dedicated IP address of a shared one. A dedicated or a static IP address is a unique IP address that represents your website. Whether you type in your IP address or your webpage name it’ll open the same page. A shared IP address on the other hand is the one where you website will reside on a shared server and share the same IP as the ones on the server. On the shared IP you have to type in your web page name. Relying on the definition alone having something personalized is always luxurious than having to share it. With this luxury comes the price. Dedicated IP is more expensive (few bucks extra) than the shared one. But the debate over which ones better is not only about the price but from the SEO point of view as well.

In general, having a shared IP address does not harm your site rank at all. However, SEO experts usually suggest a dedicated server. According to them, search engines give more preference to a static IP. After a bit of research this is what I found out about how search engine spiders like Google bots differentiate between the IP addresses. When these spiders come across your site they divide it with basic html 1.0. With a dedicated IP address the spiders are able to do so with html 1.0 alone and they get indexed as soon as it is parsed. On the other hand with a shared IP these spiders may have to use html 2,3 and so on until they are able to find the address for your site taking as long as 3 months or even more. During this phase the spiders will use the IP of the main site on the server, usually the host’s site. They keep crawling back until they find your site. The links build by you for your site during this phase is accredited on the main site rather than yours. You will get these links back after that phase is through. So the bad thing here is some other site gets all the credit for your hard work, which could be frustrating.

The other advantages of having a dedicated IP are as follows:

1. Less Downtime:
   Even though it’s for a short period of time, every time your IP refreshes your site might experience a downtime. There are chances of losing potential clients if they happen to visit your site at the very moment. With a dedicated address this risk can be eliminated.
2. Anonymous FTP:
   A static IP is usually preferred by those who need to let Anonymous FTP function work properly. With this they can access the files in a special directory. The username used to access these files is anonymous hence it gets the name Anonymous FTP.
3. Private SSL Certificate:
   You can own your private SSL certificate which are used by secure ecommerce websites for online monetary transactions especially through credit cards. 
4. Remote Access:
   Another advantage of dedicated IP is the ability access to your PC from anywhere in the world. You can use various programs for example Remote Administrator. For this you need a fixed address to maintain it to let the program find your pc.
   Hosting your site on a shared server might not be that bad but there are occasions when a shared IP might hurt your website when one of the websites on the shared server gets flagged for spamming or faces other penalty. When this happens other websites on that server might have to suffer as well.

If your website is doing really well on the World Wide Web, as others I would suggest you to host your website on a dedicated server. With the advantages it has to offer and the unlimited opportunities it holds it’ll be clever to book your place now.

Tags: dedicated, ip address, remote administrator, server, shared, static, web development, web hosting, website

Blogs = Mushrooms! Yes blogs are popping out like mushrooms these days. Many companies own blogs but they have the least idea what to do about it. If you happen to be among those who already own a blog or at least planning to get one then well you need to make sure your blog stands out in the crowd, otherwise it’ll be just another blog in the World Wide Web. The best way to let your blog be SEEN is by optimizing it.

Difference between Blog and Website:

There is a difference between optimizing a blog and a website. Following the traditional method, optimizing a website is more about getting links by all means where as a blog focuses more on grabbing attention from people and giving them something to talk about. The enhanced features of blog are what make it better or informative than static sites. The enhanced features include:

1. RSS feed makes it easier to notify and keep the readers updated about the latest posts.
2. Readers can comment of posts. The comments on each posts acts as a unique content giving it better page rank.
3. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and digg lets the readers bookmark and rate your article by voting whether they like it or not. The more like its you get the better traffic there will be.

Why Optimize?

Optimizing your website is so much work, you must be wondering why optimize your blog. Well here are the reasons why optimizing a blog could be a better idea:

• By optimizing your blog you can increase the search engine rankings both regular as well as blog or RSS.
• The other reason to optimize your blog is to get more traffic from social bookmarking sites and social search.

Optimizing your Blog:

1. Domain name, blog hosting and URL structure:
   The first thing you need to check on is the domain name of your blog. There are many services like TypePad and Blogger available that provide hosting for your blog as their subdomain. This applies on websites as well. It is not a good idea to create your site or your blog under these free services. The disadvantages include: limited features and prohibition on placing ads. So it’ll be wise to start off with your own domain name provided by reliable hosting. It is also important that the URL structure of your blog doesn’t contain numbers and extraneous characters. Try to use sensible words that are short and easy to remember. 
2. Page Title and Heading:
   You can use different page title for different post. Try to use the searchable keywords on the page title and relevant to your post. The headline of the post could be different from that of the page title but make sure they make sense. It is better not to stuff your page title and heading with keywords. Sensible, relevant page title and heading will works best for everyone.
3. Keyword Selection:
   You can make use of the free keyword research tools like wordtracker and google adwords keyword suggestion tool to find the popular key phrases. You can include these keywords on your post few times. Make sure the content is readable by humans and sounds natural. This theory applies on website optimization as well.
   Blogs being a bit different from websites, you need to know what is in vogue. You can always keep yourself updated with the help of Technorati, Google News which provides you list of sites that can give you tons of information on the related topic. You can also make use of stumbleupon and bookmark the ones that interest you the most.
4. Categories:
   You can make use of the keywords while creating categories for your posts. Make sure the default category title is general and is relevant to all the post on your blog. If possible choose multiple categories for one post with regards to its relevancy.
5. Comments and Trackbacks:
   It is important that you provide a comment form at the bottom of each posts. These comments as mentioned early can help in great deal to get more traffic.

Advertising your blog:

Social bookmarking sites are the best place to advertise about your blog. You can also submit your blog on various RSS and blog directories. While reading blogs of others, you can always leave your valuable comment along with your blog address giving other users to link to you. Blogging could be a lot of fun if done in a proper manner. Happy Blogging!!
 

Tags: Advertising, blog, blog optimization, Directories, Google, Keywords, Links, RSS feed, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Social, social bookmarking, stumbleupon, subscribe, Technorati, website

You have probably heard about W3C validation many times or came across its icon on many sites. If you don’t know what W3C stands for, it is World Wide Web (3 Ws) Consortium and was formed in October 1994 by Tim Berners-lee (he is the inventor of the World Wide Web). The W3C validates your website by checking your documents against a formal Standard for HTML, CSS and XML derived web documents or by the WapForum for WML. They oversee internet development and bring standards and practices when designing for the internet. W3C also aims to make websites accessible to handicapped people. You can find more information on their website.

Validation, is it really important?
It is a terror to most website owners to go through the validation process as you need to make your website confirm for these sites which includes following the standard specifications and practices for languages like HTML, CSS and XML. W3C validation might give you better search engine ranking but before the errors in your code can cause big problems Over 90% of websites don’t conform to these standards as so many programs and scripts run on websites these days. Some famous sites like Amazon.com fail W3C Validator.

To be able to pass the validation and fulfill client’s requirements is a huge problem for web developers. While clients might want to add some features in their website, this might fail validation. On the other hand there are so many browsers these days and each might interpret the code differently. It becomes a tedious job to be able to design a website compatible with all these browsers and pass the validation. I personally prefer browser compatibility over W3C validation.

It is important that people focus more on the objective of the website than the W3C validation. It’s always better to let your customer find what they want in your website than just giving them the assurance that your website passes the standardization. It is however good if you can fulfill both, but validation should not be the goal of your website. Your website should focus more on browser compatibility, better traffic and client satisfaction.

NOTE: It is important to note that validation has a very precise meaning. Unfortunately the issue is confused by the fact that some products falsely claim to “validate”, whilst in fact applying an arbitrary selection of tests that are not derived from any standard. Such tools may be genuinely useful, but should be used alongside true validation, not in place of it.

Tags: engine, HTML, information, internet, search, traffic, w3c, website, world wide web consortium

Web Content Management System is a computer software system which can be used by anyone, with or without IT background to create, manage, edit and publish the content of a website. The user can do this without the help of the web master. With CMS you can even generate new pages, manage users, modify the layout, categorize the content and manage many other things. There are two elements of CMS front-end and back-end. The front-end is the one which represents the appearance of the website as viewed by the users like the web pages, images, content, forms and other content. The back-end is the interface with the system’s database that holds the content and the templates that define the outlook of the website. Only the authorized users are able to reach the back-end of the website. These are protected by passwords. The figure below shows the principle elements of the content management system.

Benefits of using WCMS:

• With WCMS you can manage and update the content of your website without having any HTML knowledge. Most WCMS software use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing tools for people without any technical knowledge.
• You can create standard automated templates which could be applied to new or old content.
   WCMS software comes with easy and frequent upgrades.
• You can provide specific or selective content access.
• You can manage the life cycle of a document with the help of WCMS software from the creation time till the document destructions. 
• You can enhance search engine optimization.
• WCMS provides better consistency and security for your website.
• With this there is lesser possibility of duplication of content.
• You can also provide backup with version control with the help of these content management software. read more »

  Tags: cms, Search Engine Optimization, software, web content management system, web development, website design
  

Few days back a friend asked me about Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. She had heard a lot about these terms but wasn’t really sure what they were all about. We were busy packing her stuff and could not really talk about it then. So I decided to write this post to let people know about the growth of the World Wide Web (www). This post is dedicated to my dear friend (who might be reading this from U.S.A) and all the readers who are anxious to know about the web 1.0 and web 2.0.

Web 1.0:

First I’ll start with the definition, “Web 1.0 is the first state of World Wide Web which was in the basic Read Only hypertext system.” According to Wikipedia Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and website design style before the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and included most websites in the period between 1994 and 2004. Web 1.0 pages have the following characteristics:

• They use basic html (hypertext mark-up language) for publishing content on the internet. These are static web pages.
• They have Read-Only content.
• The web master is solely responsible for updating users and managing the content of the website. 
• They do not support mass-publishing.
• Webmaster manually assigns all the hyperlinks to the content of the web page.
• The contact information provided by Web 1.0 is email, fax, phone number and the address.
• They use framesets.
• The Web 1.0 pages can only be understood by humans (web readers). They do not have machine compatible content. read more »

  Tags: blogs, forums, information, interact, internet, Links, networking, podcast, Social, web 1.0, web 2.0, website, wiki