why open source can harm your SEO Ranking

I came across a video tutorial and blog post outlining the negative effects a "template," specifically a wordpress template, could have on your search engine ranking.

Something I am very interested in because I have achieved a great page ranking for a specific keyphrase and I am about to launch a new version of my site using wordpress as my back end technology.

Here are my issues.

I need to be able to custom design a website from scratch;

meaning I can design a site to look the way I want it to look,

ahem, or the way the client wants it to look.

Usually, a website from scratch is something very difficult to do with an open source template.

These templates are usually made for people who don't know how to code or don't want to pay a designer to code. So for designers it's difficult to use the "convenient" back end functionality and then "skin" the templates to look the way we want.

I am getting a handle on this challenge and will post the process in a series of you tube videos once I am completed with the project.

But my next issue is this concern with my SEO ranking.

A lot of hard work, time, and energy has gone into my page ranking. Although I would love to have my new sight up and running with wordpress driving the technology, I don't want my page ranking to suffer from the upgrade.

This article that explains what could go wrong, is coming from a company that claims they have the "solution" if you pay the $90 bucks for their template. Which technically I think is a great value, but...

It seems to have the same issues as normal templates, the inability to customize the site the way I need to.

What I learned from the "explanation" is that google loves clean code, so as long as my sight "validates" I should be good.

In addition, I have not yet put the new site's design through my SEO optimizer tool to see if all the SEO techniques are fully functional.

I hope that my original approach works; but, if not, I will probably have to look into this for a solution.

I think now is a perfect time to point out one of the "drawbacks" to using a templated open source solution. Some nopun potential clients lose because they think they can save some dough by using these free readily available solutions. Actually these free templates could be doing more harm and cost more to correct than hiring a professional graphic designer from the start.

check out the demo and great explanation here;

http://www.copyblogger.com/thesis-theme-for-wordpress/

Doing your own SEO work to save money

There is no doubt that having your website show up in the first position on the first page of the website directory is a great way to drive new customers to your business.

Even if your business doesn't do business online you can benefit from an online presence.

I mean, as early as last weekend, I needed to find the address to a pumpkin patch located in River Head Long Island. A pumpkin Patch! And wouldn't you know it, I found it by googling.

Any and all businesses need to be online!

And having a professionally designed website is not enough, you need to have a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place that will help you achieve the first page ranking for your company.

Researching SEO techniques isn't that hard to do and there are plenty of reputable software solutions that can help you achieve a great presence in search engines.

To save money, many businesses would prefer to research how to do this work internally without having to hire a professional company. But I'd like to point out that unless your business is website design or website marketing, you should not waste your time trying to learn how to do it on your own. Instead, focus on what you do best, the money you would spend with a professional will be less than the money you save by trying it on your own. You will save on the cost of the software, save on the time spent researching topics, and save on the time it would take to even see if your techniques actually work or not.

What content management system to use

When choosing a content management system a web developer is faced with a ton of choices.

Lately I have been diving into "wordpress." I think it's a pretty cool platform and seems to be widely used. Also it seems like there is a lot of opportunities for a wordpress developer on twitter. I recently jumped into wordpress with both feet, and I am about to launch a new version of nopun.com using my new-found knowledge.

The challenge I face as a developer and or designer is that it takes quite a bit of energy to learn a new content management system's ins and outs. And I don't want to waste a lot of time learning something that will either; not do what I aim to do, or will be outdated by the time I catch up with the learning curve.

Because of this doubt on which platform to use, I forced myself to learn php which is the programming language a lot of these open source content management systems use. But I cringe at the thought of having to develop every new project from scratch. So using a system like word-press is attractive to me.

However, today, while browsing my articles on website design, I came across probably one of the biggest "recommendations" or "testimonials" I've ever seen for any website technology company.

The White House is now using drupal for its website, The White House!

http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/colin/whitehousegov-goes-drupal-drupal-news

I'm not sure you'll get a better recommendation than this. And, my attention is now looking more into my drupal knowledge. I've played around with it in the past, but can't say I completely understand the ins and outs of it. But, I think it is worth putting on deck as the next piece of technology to look into.

why search engines want your page to be relevant

I have never thought of why a website needs to be relevant from the perspective of a search engine.

But I believe the latest "bing" campaign that showcases the goals of search engines from their perspective. The commercials showcase conversations and possible un-relevant results that could come up.

ie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ZiNkGfUJ0

If a search engine constantly sends people to pages that do not make sense, then these people will stop using that search engine.

Therefore, when you design a site you should be sure to have all of the necessary code added to the sight. This code will make sure search engines can help identify what your website is about, and can help show your site in conversations that make sense to your company.

Can the entrepreneurial spirit live in a temperamental graphic designer.

When I come across fellow business owners, I hear the conflict that many of them feel, I often hear them "complain" that having their own business is a lot of "sales" work. And that's not what they signed up for, they signed up for sharing their passion about their product or service. And in my case I feel I have a similar challenge.

I am a graphic designer "a commercial artist," in my industry even though we deal with ads and marketing through our work, we rarely see ourselves as "sales" people. In fact, many designers take a pompous attitude with their careers and feel that they are the 'say all' and 'end all' to anything to do with design. This temperament leads to bad customer service

But something snapped in me since the recession that makes me believe I am an "entrepreneur" more than a designer, being a designer is the "service" I hope to be sought out for. But my effort and energy is to try and train and nurture my entrepreneurial spirit.

Hopefully through a different way of thinking, I will curve my design approach to be more "helpful" to my clients instead of taking offense that they want to change a design I presented to them.

Hopefully this change will head me in the right direction for success. Or at least try and help me get through these troubled waters, and be better prepared for the "next economy."

Free Keyword Research tool from Google

I came across this solution provided for free from Google.

I have used solutions like word tracker, and currently Internet Business Promoter, but I think this is a valuable tool that should either be a part of or replace some of these forms of keyword search term research.

Check it out here and test drive it for your self...

http://www.google.com/insights

5 year business plan

I have read many articles from business experts saying you need to have a long-term and short- term business plan.

With me wanting to make sure I try anything and everything I can to ensure my business will be successful, I set out to try and put a plan in place.

And boy, do I feel like I am missing something? The ultimate goal is to be comfortable, I'd love to get my safety net back, and a nice flow of projects coming through the studio that is fueled by "new" blood. But how does one put that into a plan? Then be able to break that plan down to yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily?

So, I put the plan to the side and focussed on how to get new blood. I realized today that I may have a plan in place that makes me feel confident to say I have a plan! Wo hoo, a plan is better than standing in the dark saying where do I go next?

I have made a marketing-tier strategy for my business. The tier starts with some free (free to me at least because I don't have to pay for my creatives) free in money but not "time." If I charge $80 an hour and I spend an hour on one of my projects that's $80 lost. If no projects are in the studio it's not really a loss, but my challenge is keeping up with my plan while active projects are in the studio. (OK, so maybe it's not so "Free.")

Back to my topic, I start with "low hanging fruit."

1) Website design keeping my portfolio up to date with recent work, monitoring my web analytics every Tuesday, and making tweaks and adjustments to the site trying to address any falling statistic. (Probably 20% of my work week.)

2) Google Alerts, Blogging and blog commenting (2 hours a day)

3) Twittering (I have a schedule to check in with my twitter activity three times a day.

If I am in production mode on a project I let this slide, but if I am in a hunting mode, I can be on this all day!)

4) Press Releases (I'd love to do one a day "5 days a week" but it takes me three drafts to come up with an idea, which is about 2 hours plus take two to three rounds with copy writers helping me put spins on the article and editing my bad grammar, so this is limited to once a week.)

5) Eblasts (They say 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. Sending a bi-weekly eblast to my customers helps me know who the 20% is.)

6) Splash Page (I try and convert the eblast into a targeted landing page that can help convert the casual traffic to a more focussed conversion.)

7) Digg (I am looking for a name to call this concept. All I can think of is "Digg," it's basically a collection of sites like http://digg.com/ and http://www.stumbleupon.com/.)

I submit these landing pages to these social networks, hoping to get some traffic and link popularity from google.

8) Podcasting and Vlogging (I love documenting my work and creative process.) In an effort to help prospects understand where their money goes when they hire me, I have developed a strategy where I document a project as I work on it. Then, I convert this process into a padcast that will launch in itunes, and vlog, and a video version of the process that I publish on my you-tube channel. (This strategy has three distinct benefits to them: a) Increases exposure, new prospects can come from these channels; b) Helps provide some insight to a prospect who is considering hiring me and my company, but does not understand why it costs so much; c) Helps me stay on track. I do so many types of creative projects, by documenting my process as I do it, I can refer to it in the future to save time relearning something that worked and/or to give me an opportunity to figure out a better way to do the project this time.)

This last item is probably the most time consuming part and along with everything else, I am hoping to get a handle on it soon and add it to my weekly task list.

Boy, with all this stuff, when do we have time to do the work? That is my biggest dilemma, but it's important that I keep up with it. This strategy is the source for new blood, and new blood is the only defense, if existing customers decide they have enough design work to last them a while.

Hopefully this strategy will yield enough rewards with new business that I will be able to fund next tiers which would include, banner ad campaigns, google ad words, direct mailers, trade publication ads, Vehicle wraps, SIgnage, and trade shows.

Basically, everything I offer clients but can't afford the production.

The point to this is this: having your own business doesn't mean you get to slack off and call it a half day just because you 'wanna' kick back. To me having your own business means you don't mind making yourself work 60 to 80 hours a week. I am hoping to balance my family and social life a bit more, because I don't want to miss my kids growing up. But, I need to be able to protect them and provide for them, so I am "nose to the grindstone," and determined to make this business work.

At last with this plan I am starting to see "new blood" and I am beginning to see rewards from these efforts. I believe I am heading in the right direction, and can't wait to see where I will be 5 years from now. Like the Adam Sandler movie click has taught me, "I ain't in no rush and hope I can enjoy every minute of it."

Let me know what you think on the subject, I'd love to hear your experiences.