DOWNLOAD ZIP

Organic links for SEO are those that are offered freely by the webmaster of another site and offered based only on the quality of your content. Google and the other search engines believe that these links offer greater value because they do not require any form of payment in return. In contrast, paid links require financial remuneration and reciprocal links require a link back to the linking page. The search engines believe that these offer less value as an indication of quality because they are conditional on more than the quality of a web page.

SEO Link Building

SEO link building can require the building of a large number of links to a single page and while the search engines do prefer organic links this isn’t always possible. Gaining links is the quickest way to improve rankings but without a decent ranking other websites will struggle to find you in the first place never mind value a page highly enough to link to it. Getting those early links in place using preferred SEO methods can help to generate early search engine traffic.

Viral Content And Link Bait

Viral marketing and viral SEO content are good for building links. Pages that have a lot of link appeal are referred to as being linkbait. Video and multimedia content offer popular content types and pages that include these will feature highly in the rankings because of organic links. Lists, top tens, and guides provide beneficial textual content and these again will often attract many organic links for a single page.

Artificial Links

Artificial SEO linking techniques that most often face the wrath of the search engines do include paid linking. Some link resellers or brokers try to stay as far under Google’s radar as possible so that the links exchanged between members and clients still receive the search engine benefit but if Google discovers a link to be paid for then they will not include it when calculating the value of your link profile.

Organic Vs Natural SEO Links

Links are often used as the currency of the Internet. SEO campaigns do require the building of links but blindly buying and swapping links will not garner the same benefits as strategically planning long term, semi automated link building processes. Social Media Optimisation, article marketing, blogging, and the provision of high quality content will inevitably lead to your pages being awarded with natural links presuming that your site attracts the traffic in the first place.

Article Source: SEO Consult

On an interview I did once I was asked about Call-to-Action buttons. What my thoughts were and what I take into consideration when creating them. Up until that point I didn’t really understand what he meant. At that time I put as much thought into the call to actions as it took to make a button pretty and visually appealing. If I am not mistaken I told him some gibberish about color. Since then I have done a lot more reading and have gained a much better understanding for what he was asking me.

Some tasks on your website are more important than others. A good designer will try to understand the objectives of the website and understand which tasks are really important. The routes to completing these tasks should be given priority by the designer. Dr David Travis calls such tasks red-routes and Gerry McGovern refers to the long neck. I prefer the red-route analogy but the long neck might work a bit better internationally.

View Article Source

Cosmopolitan, Appletini and Chocotini

Download zip of PSDs

View Article Source

Yes, that would be me.  Give me a script to download and play with and I’m all over it.  Sometimes, however, my enthusiasm for the power and function of a script doesn’t always translate well to the user that will have to maintain the site once I’ve packed it up and sent it home to it’s new owner.  I always hope that once they’ve seen it in action, and played with the administration area, that my OOglyness for the site will be catching, and they will fall head over heels in love with it – as I have.Sadly, this is not always the case.  With that said – I am always looking for the simplest solution for the clients that I built websites for.  Keeping in mind that not everybody has the same love for websites as I do.  Keep it simple. Make it functional. And keep -their- future website needs in mind.

I had a conversation not too long ago with somebody about CMS (Content Management Systems), and viability of WordPress for large companies.  I love WordPress - no secret there. But I also understand it does have it’s limitations.  This conversation sent me off looking for other CMS options for companies that require something a bit more robust for their websites.  This comparison done at Top Ten Reviews shows an interesting breakdown of what each CMS does offer, as well as user reviews for 2010.

Joomla!, eZ Publish, WordPress.org (as opposed to WordPress.com) and Drupal are our top-ranked systems. Not only did these systems consistently finish at the top of the side-by-side comparisons, in many cases the gap between these and the rest is significant. Begin here by narrowing the field based on your most-needed features. From there, move to a test phase – spend time on the demos – in the end it will be up to you to determine what the best CMS is for your specific project and skill set. For example, WordPress.org is shown to be one of the best when it comes to scope and purview while Joomla! seems to be the first choice for business and e-commerce sites (for non-developers). But every potential user is searching for a unique set of features.

Download PSD file

But that’s not the case with the experts below. They’re all well-known for their mastery of CSS and all that goes along with it. Read on for their tips and tricks with regards to everything from avoiding hacks to understanding the box model.

Read Source Article
Source: noupe.com

As exciting as it is – the real time information from Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds pulling information & headlines into all of these medias for us to have at our disposal without spending hours searching for it; I can’t help but wonder what that means for those of us that have spent years mastering the art of search engine optimization.  Those that have spent thousands of dollars working so hard to get the best placement for their websites on Google, Yahoo, etc. will now have to re-evaluate their advertising methods online to keep up with businesses that have a more “in your face” presence on the web.

In his article he mentions the delayed results of information in the search engines. Events finding their way to the listings after the fact – as Google doesn’t index websites in real time.  Will this change? Search engines clearly have their work cut out for them if they intend to compete with these new information avenues that have opened up.

What do we do now?  If you haven’t already – familarize yourself with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bebo. Learn how to use them, what they’re capable of.  Also, make sure your website has an RSS feed that these networking places can pick up.  It’s effortless advertising.

A shameless plug for WordPress based websites? Absolutely.  WordPress as a content management system can take care of all of these things for you. With a few simple plugins – each post you make to your site can be broadcasted to all of the above social media avenues, and more, with zero effort from you.  Want to know how? Contact me for information. I’d love to share!

Read Source Article
Source: Smashing Magazine