Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Geocities Closing Tomorrow

Posted: October 25, 2009 at 7:30 pm by Nathan Driskell

A long time staple of the Internet shuts down tomorrow for good. Geocities, a free online website system, shuts down tomorrow with no intentions to return. All websites being hosted by Geocities will go down, with all data erased forever. Geocities has been around since the beginning of the Internet in 1994, allowing financially challenged individuals free websites. For many, tomorrow will be a dark day.

Posted in Computers, Web Design | 1 Comment »

PHP MYSQL Database Connection Function

Posted: September 3, 2009 at 4:39 am by Nathan Driskell

If you are beginning to work with php and mysql, you may have wondered how to create a connection to a database you can reuse. The best method is to create a file with the database connection function within it, and include it in any page you wish to have database access. This saves you from duplicate code, with less chances of error. It is also rather easy to set up, so that’s get going.

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How to Establish Yourself Online – Part 5: Wordpress SEO

Posted: August 22, 2009 at 12:00 am by Nathan Driskell

Yesterday we customized wordpress with a custom theme, widgets, and plugins. Now that our site is looking the way we want, we need to modify it for search engine optimization. Wordpress does a pretty good job with SEO out of the box, however improvements can be made. SEO is important, as search engines are often a majority of traffic for a blog. Without a good SEO strategy in place, it can be difficult to gain visitors to your site.

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How to Establish Yourself Online – Part 4: Customizing Wordpress

Posted: August 21, 2009 at 12:00 am by Nathan Driskell

After creating the wordpress blog in Step 3, you need to customize wordpress. The theme it comes with is in my opinion ugly and basic, which will detract visitors from coming back to your site. You need a new theme, as well as plugins to enhance your blog’s functionality. We will begin by selecting a theme.

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How to Establish Yourself Online – Part 3: Setting up Wordpress

Posted: August 20, 2009 at 12:00 am by Nathan Driskell

Now that your webhost and domain name has been setup and configured from Part 2, it is now time to install wordpress on your website. Wordpress is a blogging system used by millions of people and is customizable. Setting up wordpress is not a difficult task, however it does take some care.

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How to Establish Yourself Online – Part 2: Domain Name and Web Host

Posted: August 19, 2009 at 12:00 am by Nathan Driskell

If you have read Part 1 of our series, you will know the value of creating a Brand for your online presence. To recap, a brand is a word or series of words that represents your product or yourself. Your brand is important, as you want online users to remember your brand and what it stands for. For this article, we will discuss purchasing a domain name and a web host.

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How to Establish Yourself Online – Part 1: Plan

Posted: August 18, 2009 at 4:55 pm by Nathan Driskell

With billions of people on the Internet daily, it is becoming important for businesses and individuals to become established on the Internet. It is a great challenge, as many Internet users are already established, providing competition for users. Establishing yourself online will be a difficult challenge, but one you can overcome if you have time, patience, and a willingness to learn. It will not be an overnight success story, however within six months you can enjoy many visitors, increasing exposure for yourself or your product.

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Get Listed in Google Faster

Posted: August 15, 2009 at 5:56 pm by Nathan Driskell

f you are running a new blog, one of your first concerns is getting listed in Google, as search engines are very important in generating traffic to your blog. The problem is, out of the box, it may take days or even weeks to get listed in Google, which is damning if you have content that is time sensitive. So, how can you get listed in Google quickly? Below are a few methods I have learned from others established in the industry.

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Blocking Search Engine Bots

Posted: August 7, 2009 at 7:59 pm by Nathan Driskell

When you are beginning a new website, the best course of action is to block all bots until the site is complete. As a new domain is created, Google and many of the other search engines will begin to bring bots to your site and list all content. This is not good, as you are under construction, and may not be ready to be indexed yet. There are two solutions to this problem. The first solution is to create a robots.txt file and tell the search engines to not index your site. The second is a more powerful option: using a noindex meta tag.

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Example robots.txt for Wordpress and PHPBB3

Posted: August 7, 2009 at 7:03 pm by Nathan Driskell

I have just finished retooling the robots.txt file I will now be using. It includes both wordpress and phpBB3. I took wordpress’s suggested robots.txt file, added in a few more directories, added in the sitemap reference, and added in the phpbb3 section. I am not sure how good it will preform, however if changes are made, I will note them. If you have any comments, or suggestions, let me know.

Posted in Computers, PHPBB3, SEO, Web Design | No Comments »

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