It is true that some browsers will try to display them even if the code is not valid. What happens is the browser will make an educated guess about what the web developer tried to do. The problem is, different browsers and browser versions or different software on different platforms will not handle errors the same way.

This can result to the following:

• What you see may not render on another user’s computer.
• slow page loading time and even systems crashes
• Higher maintenance cost because it may take longer to update your website. Using internationally agreed upon codes makes maintaining and expanding your website easier even if it was initially done by someone else.
• Many visually impaired people rely on browsers with speech tools that read pages back to them. These programs cannot interpret pages very well unless they are clearly explained. In other words semantic code aids accessibility.

So even if your site ranks no.1 on Google search for your keywords today, if your page doesn’t load or makes a mangled mess, then what use that it serve? Nothing but big opportunities LOST!

How will I know if my site is properly coded?

There are a number of tools available online to validate your web codes. Among them are W3C Validation service, MarkUp Validator, Link Checker and CSS Validator. But the best way is to simply look at the code and seeing if it refers to colours, fonts or layout instead of describing what the content is.

First of all, what is Twitter?

Wikipedia defines Twitter as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

As a small business owner, we are our brand builders. In many ways, we are the brand. Getting potential customers know you as a person and not just as a business person can make you and your company more likable. This and the opportunity to interact with your buyers with short messages are what make twittering worth-while.

Twitter Safety

Having some personal details exposed to the public somehow gives some of us the creeps. Here is a safety tip to ensure that your twittering doesn’t get you into danger:

Be careful with what information you make public. You want to be sociable without opening up all your personal information. Here are some of the things that you should not divulge:

• Do not tell people where you are going. Instead, if you want to share some insights of your life, you can mention where you just came back from.
• Do not let people know if you are going away for holidays or a business trip. You don’t know who you might be calling attention to when nobody’s home or if the wife is home alone.
• Do not let the world know if you live alone or when you are alone, unless you want to attract unexpected visitors.

Don’t fall victim to spammers and scammers by:

• not logging in when you click a link in Twitter that leads to a page requiring you to log in.
• If you are following Twitter Trending Topics and Twitter Replies from Strangers, be very cautious about clicking any links.

Check it out: www.makeyousmilephotography.com

Apple Agents

Devices that request content from your website (usually) pass a user agent string. This contains information such as its name, OS, browser version, and rendering engine. Apple’s gadgets pass the following user agents, although you may find subtle variations in the version numbers.

iPhone:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3

iPod:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A101a Safari/419.3

iPad:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10

Or, just this handy tool, http://detectmobilebrowsers.mobi/. It is a script that will redirect the website for you.

“This PHP function lets you choose how to manage your mobile visitors, they can be redirected to a page built for mobiles or you can use it to decide which markup language and stylesheet to show that user.”

Modern technology at least is here to help us with such needs. Did you know that you could organize your thoughts and have them noted down for you even if you are not near your computer? Need to send an important e-mail, but you’re busy driving on the road? With the use of online tools such as Jott, you can safely and securely call a toll-free telephone number and speak for up to 30 seconds hands-free. Your voice message is then transcribed to text using a combination of software and human transcribers. The message can be sent back to yourself, turned into a reminder, sent to a contact or group, or sent to a third-party link. Transcribed messages can be sent to recipients via email, text message, or both.

Maybe you liked something you saw? Maybe it gave you some special ideas for a project or a task? Perhaps you have too many notes but have problems fixing them in an orderly fashion? Evernote can help. Evernotecan help you remember things by typing a text note, clipping a web page, snapping a photo or grabbing a screenshot, then safely storing it on a secure database. Everything you’ve captured or noted can be easily searched, organized and labeled.

These two services also can go hand in hand. You can list Evernoteas one of your Jott contacts. When you send a Jott message to Evernote, it’s automatically transcribed and added to your Evernote account. You can then go back and conveniently search for it later.

(By the way, I’m not a sales agent for Jott or Evernote).

Many people spend countless amounts of time on these sites, whether at home, at a café, or even sometimes at work. Some don’t even check their emails regularly but will not a miss a day on Facebook. Social networking sites like Facebook definitely have changed the way the world works. It is a pity not to utilize this tool to your advantage.

How Facebook helps small business owners:

• Get strong online presence- once you have put up a great profile on Facebook, if somebody types your name in Google or any other search engine, your Facebook profile pops up on the first page. By having a well thought-out profile, showing what you can do, who you can help and what you offer, you are giving your business free advertising.
• A good way to publicize your company events and offers.
• Connect with people in your industry – it’s a great way to share the same interests and discuss about common business problems and solutions.
• Reach your target market – due to Facebook’s feature that allows you to see friends of friends, the possibility of reaching out your target market is phenomenal. You can easily start a conversation with someone based on the fact that you have a common friend.
• Use facebook applications such as the marketplace to post your products and services  or little widgets that enables you to syndicate your blog directly on your profile

Safety issues about Facebook and how to address it:

Being a public platform, as much as there is a chance for you to build a good reputation, there is also a chance to damage it. This could be avoided by keeping a professional persona in public and leave those really personal, goofy stuff with your closest friends. This can be done by setting the privacy controls on your Facebook accounts to restrict access to your details to only the people who you want them to be seen.

Here we are discussing the various types of content managements systems available to you. There are several others out there, but these four are the more popular ones with a pretty large public support.

WordPress

This CMS type is a very successful & the most popular blogging system. A lot of effort is being put into constantly upgrading it with focus on presentation, usability and functionality. Even my high school nephew would have no problems using WordPress. And you can download it for free! It also has a wide variety of free plugins that can help extend your website.

Its downside is that it is not the best source for an e-commerce platform.

Joomla

Joomla is another popular type of CMS. It has over 4,200 extensions available and some acceptable free templates. You may also download Joomla for free. With this system, you can easily and instantly create simple to moderately-advanced websites even if you don’t have a clue about PHP. Joomla is one of the most user-friendly CMS around.

Its major set-back is that it uses some terms that may be confusing, like “plug-ins”, “modules”, “components”, “categories”, “sections”, etc., which requires some experience to understand. Secondly, Joomla extensions and some of its templates are not free.

Expression Engine

Expression Engine is another CMS that makes the creation of an advanced website attainable. It is a powerful CMS known for its flexibility and for opening limitations that are holding back other CMSs.

One of its set-backs is it requires the user to have a certain knowledge of PHP and can be difficult to design and code. It is free only for personal and non-profit use. If you are a business, it will cost up to $249.

Drupal

Drupal uses a powerful templating system and generally used for very large sites. Any XHTML or CSS template can be easily converted to Drupal. It also has a high flexibility and many high profile companies use Drupal. (e.g.: MTV UK, BBC, the Onion, Nasa, Greenpeace UK, New york observer. )

It’s major flaw is their frequent updates which find programmers finding it difficult to keep up with plug-in development. In addition, there seems to be a lack of a thriving community contributing to plug-ins and themes.

CMS stands for content management system. It is a system used to support the development, management, distribution and publishing of content on your website. But is it CMS suitable for your website?

Like any system, CMS has its pros and cons. Let’s run them down before we come into conclusion if a CMS is for you.

Content Management Systems Pros & Cons

The PROS:

• Simplifies content creation and editing by its easy-to-use authoring environment that works like Word. So no worries if you are not familiar with html or writing codes.
• Can be much less expensive and faster to build if using one of the many templates or themes available (rather than custom designing).
• Allows managing of the structure of the site by simplifying the process. You may even just drag-and-drop to restructure the site without breaking links.
• Allows for multiple users while ensuring that each can only change the section of the site that they’re responsible for. Once content is written, it is sent to a central hub where it is automatically sent for approval and editorial review.
• Ensures consistency across the entire site by featuring publishing engines that allow the page layout and appearance of the site applied automatically during publishing.
• A CMS can also be customized to build template sites, site builder sites or blogs. * Low Cost – some web-based CMSs are free.

And the CONS:

• If Custom Designed can be Higher Cost – to design a customized CMS site will cost a lot more than a static site because it will require a lot more work for the designer.
• Restricted HTML editing. The design can be somewhat restricted after the website is developed.
• It can be difficult to switch web hosts.
• Prone to errors – the fact that it’s open to multi-users, especially if the site contains many files makes it error-prone. It may take the web developer a lot of time to figure out the error and can result to having to get the site offline to fix it.
• Flexibility in design is limited to the templates that CMS sites primarily use.
• The website can tend to look like a CMS website.

So is CMS a good fit for your website?
The answer depends on your requirements like how many times a year do you make updates on your website? How much does your developer charge you for an update? Do you only require regular updates on some parts of your site? Do you have the time and the manpower to sustain your site’s update?

Once you have answered these questions, we will be in a better position to decide whether CMS is suitable for you.

If you need additional recommendations on what system will be most effective for your website, call me on 281-940-7002 or email me.

P.S. If a CMS interests you, look out next week to find out which CMS type is best for you.

As part of your ongoing effort to increase your website’s visitors stats, it is important to include your business to Google Local. If anything, it helps your current customers find you quickly after typing your company name, but it is FREE! Be sure you include all of your locations.

Here is how:

1. Go to www.google.com/local/add. If you don’t already have a google account (such as a gmail or a google calendar), register for an account with google.
2. After logging in, search for your business address to see if your business is already there. If it is, there is a link  Google will ask you to enter things such as address, phone, fax, website, email address and description (see below)
3. If you do not, you’ll be asked to add a business listing.
4. Once google has located your address on google maps, you will need to fill out are the details about your business. Enter your hours of operation, a description of the products you sell, and your category(ies) to help people find you, visit your location, read reviews, and link to your website.
5. The final page will help google to verify that the location is truly yours. You have the option of either verifying your location by postcard or by phone. If you plan to verify by phone, make sure the phone line is open and google will have an automated message sent to your phone with a verification code. Verifying by postcard is much slower, but may be necessary if you utilize a call center. Once you receive the verification code, log into the Google Local Business Center and enter the verification code. Your business will become active after the code is entered.
6. From here you’ll be able to access reports on who came to your location listing and the actions they took, for example, from where did folks get directions?

Social Media Websites:

Social Media Tools:

• TweetDeck – www.tweetdeck.com
• HootSuite – www.hootsuite.com Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Ping.fm accounts.
• Twitter Grader – http://twitter.grader.com
• Add blog to Facebook – www.ehow.com/how_2031202_import-blog-facebook.html
• Add blog to LinkedIn – http:/www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=1500
• Add Wordpess blog to LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=2200
• GoogleWave – wave.google.com (Not live yet) Computing platform designed to bring together social networking, IM, email and wiki
• TwitterFeed – www.twitterfeed.com, add your blog entries to Twitter automatically.
• WordTwit – www.bravenewcode.com/wordtwit, add your blog entries to Twitter automatically.
• Social Mention- www.socialmention.com, real-time social media search and analysis.

Social Media Strategy:

• Mashable: www.mashable.com
• Hubspot: www.hubspot.com/
• Business guide to twittering : business.twitter.com/twitter101
• Business guide to facebook: http://www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf

Blogging:

• WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com
• Blogger: http://www.blogger.com
• Moveable Type: http://www.movabletype.org
• TypePad: http://www.typepad.com
• TextPattern: http://www.textpattern.com/
• Review of Blogging Software: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/blog-software-smackdown-review#