My Top Alternative Song Choices from 2011

Posted on December 14, 2011 by john

I have a friend that says all the time “there is just no good music right now”, but he loves Adele. I agree, that Adele is very talented. And I think that he probably gets this perception from the fact that terrestrial radio is just plain terrible. I gladly pay for Sirius/XM because of the great playlists of new music on there. My favorite station is Alt Nation, which plays plays adult alternative music.

So here (after the jump) is my list of favorite songs that were in my favorites playlist from this past year.
Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Magento Ecommerce and 50 Below users are getting sued for patent violations

Posted on November 29, 2011 by john

A loyal customer of mine today told me about a big story that is affecting thousands of ecommerce store owners that are running Magento Ecommerce software (a free, open source solution) and other ecommerce systems. There is a company called Kelora Systems that is suing ecommerce store owners for a patent violation. As you can imagine, this has Magento Ecommerce users scrambling. The patent involves how product searches are done on ecommerce websites.

Continue reading →

Posted in ECommerce | Leave a comment

Google blocking referring URLs with SSL

Posted on October 19, 2011 by john

This is bad news for SEO and analytics, as it will be impossible to see what words your visitors searched on in Google when they leave Google results and come to your website. Google is doing this to “protect privacy”, but my feeling is that they are doing this so that you will only be able to get their referring analytical data from their analytics products, or perhaps if you pay them for the data. For now, the data will be blocked.

http://searchengineland.com/google-to-begin-encrypting-searches-outbound-clicks-by-default-97435

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Google Analytics to Offer Real-Time Traffic Stats

Posted on September 30, 2011 by john

Google just announced that they are going to provide REAL-TIME stats showing users on your website.

details here:
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html

This is LONG overdue and it is great news for website owners because you won’t have to use a separate tool to view who is live on your site. I am sure that it won’t include real-time chat functionality with your web users, so you will still have to use a real-time chat client if you want that functionality for now. There are a couple of real-time chat clients that we use to interact with clients in real-time when they are on one of our websites, and this is a valuable tool as well because you can see new prospects and also competitors as they use your website.

It is about time that Google added new functionality to Google Analytics to make it relevant again. It has always felt as just a gateway drug to purchasing adwords, so adding this functionality is great news.

Since the feature is not rolled out officially, you can pre-register on their site to get access to it quickly. You will need to be the administrator on your analytics account to gain access. The form to sign up is in the Google blog post.

Posted in google | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Just rode the 2011 ZX-10R

Posted on May 27, 2011 by john

My initial impression review of the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10r

One of my passions in life, beyond building websites and running my Internet company, is motorcycles. I’ve been an avid motorcyclist since I was 18 years old, and today I ride on the racetrack, I teach MSF courses at the DMV, I sometimes teach at the Dover Air Force Base, and I also now am certified to teach Riders Edge classes at Mike’s Famous Harley Davidson dealerships. I decided that my blog should be about more of my passions than just web design, so I will enter news, reviews, tips and info on motorcycling that may benefit my friends that ride. My first motocycle-related post will be about the 2011 ZX-10R, a bike that is near the top of the supersport class this year.

I stopped into Diamond Motor Sports in Dover, Delaware to spend my lunch hour checking out the latest bikes that they have, and to talk to the staff at the dealership about some new products. While I was there, they offered to let me take the ZX-10R out for a test drive. Diamond usually doesn’t allow test rides of brand new superbikes by just anyone. I’m lucky because they know that I teach the advanced sportbike classes for MSF, and I have also done some track days at New Jersey Motorsports Park with Stew, the dealership manager. So with a big smile, I took the new black ZX-10R with the optional race ABS out for a quick spin.

Click below for the full story….

Continue reading →

Posted in Sportbikes | Tagged | Leave a comment

Proof that copying content will kill your site

Posted on February 2, 2011 by john

So Google just came out and said that they are more actively punishing websites that copy website content from other websites: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

I’ve long advised my clients against copying content from other websites. This practice, known as “blanding”, makes your website content appear as content that Google has already seen before. A best practice has been to always write your own website content. But people are either too lazy, or too busy, to set aside time to write new website content. We’ve known that this blanded content could hurt your website’s search engine performance for some time. Now it is going to hurt it even more, and this is probably a good thing overall for website owners and those who write their own content. It will also be very bad for those who cheat and copy articles and other content for use on their website. Syndicated sites are now going to be more vulnerable as well.

More after the jump.

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Content Management System, Delaware.Net, Inc., google, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines and SEO, Social Marketing / Networking, Web Development | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

$6000 for Simple Website Updates?

Posted on December 17, 2010 by john


Some straight talk about the costs of updating your website…

Delaware.Net, my company, won a website development project for an insurance company in New Jersey, and we are very excited to get the project. The new client told us a story that we unfortunately hear way too often, about a website design company that they were using that quoted them an outrageous price for pretty much standard website content updates. Imagine getting a quote for $6000 to add a couple of pages to your website, and some new graphics on the home page.

More after the jump…

Continue reading →

Posted in Web Design Pricing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Driving traffic to your website

Posted on November 24, 2010 by john

Probably the most common question that web site owners ask, is how to get additional traffic to their websites. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be the only way to make this happen. Today, however, SEO is just one of several tools that you will need in your strategy to increase traffic.

Article after the jump

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Search Engines and SEO, Social Marketing / Networking | Leave a comment

SEO Realities (Funny Video)

Posted on November 4, 2010 by john

A lot of business owners tend to get the wrong idea about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and how it can help their websites. Years ago, when every web page in your site was built by hand, your web developer had a dramatic impact on the search engine performance of your website. But today, the complete opposite is generally true – Content Management Systems (CMS) tend to have fantastic optimization for search engines BUILT-IN. This puts more of the burdon and responsibility of search engine performance on the website owner/author, and less on people actually coding up your website.

More details after the jump

Continue reading →

Posted in Adobe Dreamweaver, Articles, Blogs and Blogging, Browser, Business Email Hosting, Careers, City Website Design, Cloud Computing, CMS-Logic, ColdFusion, Content Management System, Delaware.com, Delaware.Net, Inc., Domain Names, ECommerce, Email Marketing, Events, Facebook, firefox, Gadgets, google, Hobbies, Ignite Dover, Internet Explorer, Internet Industry, Internet Marketing, Just for Fun, Laptops, Local Delaware, Macs, motorcycles, Municipal Website Design, My Dream Home, My Presentations, Presentations, Real Estate SEO, Real Estate Web Design, Safari, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines and SEO, Server Co-Location, Site News, Social Marketing / Networking, Store-Logic eCommerce, Team-Logic CMS, Team-Logic CRM, Uncategorized, Web Design, Web Design Pricing, Web Developer Tools, Web Development, Web Hosting, Windows | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Mortgage Salespeople and the Web

Posted on October 1, 2010 by john

I recently got this email from a mortgage broker salesperson that wants to build a website to generate mortgage leads:

“I want to design my own web site so I can be on the major search engines and have the ability to have realtors put their listings on my site. I hope to generate leads on a consistant basis. I am working on a limited budget to get started. I have some quotes from national web designers but would like to deal with a local Delaware company.”

My response is after the jump

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Real Estate SEO, Real Estate Web Design, Search Engine Marketing, Web Design Pricing, Web Development | Leave a comment