Posted by ADS on 01/11/2012 at 9:13 am
2011 was sure a busy year for building new sites, but not for updating our own!
One thing I’ve heard from almost all website designers is how rarely we update our own sites… We’re often so busy updating our client’s sites that we neglect our own. ADS is no exception, but with the new year, we finally got around to tooting our own horn… check out the business page for seven or eight new projects listed.
One of the more interesting projects was for a glass company in China that does all of the glass work for a certain computer and handheld devices company that is rather famous (but has very deft lawyers preventing any of their vendors from mentioning their name). If you’ve ever marveled at the amazing glass in this particular series of stores, now you know where it came from!
Posted by ADS on 04/12/2011 at 10:45 am
If you’ve got a site with a blog section, or are considering starting one, this article about finding blog topics should help give you some pointers about where to start.
Blogging is not necessarily the same thing as writing, so pack up your fear in an old shoebox and toss it in the closet and start writing (er, blogging) today!
Posted by ADS on 03/13/2011 at 9:17 am
New site! Cre8tives.org is a creatives blog site has just been launched to provide creative folks of all stripes a free artist blog to promote their work, including tips to get better search engine results.
Everyone needs to attract more content to their site and one of the best ways to do that is post content on other sites, with links back to yours. Even better — when your links are on keywords instead of your name. An example: linking on wedding photographer is much better than www.myphotosite.com. The first will help get you search traffic, the second won’t.
So if you’re a creative person that wants more traffic from Google, get a free artist blog today!
Posted by ADS on 02/11/2011 at 11:35 am
We’re VERY excited about the soft launch for our new service Site Sparker – truly affordable websites. This new service enables customers to get robust sites using the world’s best content management system (WordPress)… installed quickly, efficiently and at low cost.
But Site Sparker is much more than that. If you’re an existing WordPress user, you can also benefit from the extensive WordPress training tutorials, explained in plain English, in text and video. If you’ve ever wanted to dig deeper into using WP, now is your chance with these new tutorials.
Pop on by and let us know what you think!
Posted by ADS on 12/13/2010 at 2:56 pm
Definitely have to rave about this new service we’ve been partnering on — Muuyu online yoga classes. The following video was produced with special thanks to Vahe for the excellent hi-def camera work.
Posted by ADS on 11/08/2010 at 1:05 pm
…and get a lot in return.
We’re really excited about a site we’ve been using quite a lot lately – Hubpages.com. Not only is it a great way to share content online, but it has some special perks. For frequent writers it can be used as a passive income generator as they allow users to share in Google Adsense, Amazon and Kontera affiliate programs.
Even better is the potential for driving traffic to your site. Hubpages has a very high page rank in Google which means that backlinks to your site carry a lot more weight than unknown sites. Exponentially more weight.
As part of our new SEO (seach engine optimization) services at ADS, we suggest writing a few articles with your specially targeted keywords to link back to your site. Need an example? Check out this article about the Best Web Development Tools. Scroll down towards the bottom and look for the link “website design services”.
Why link on that phrase and not our company name ‘Atomic Design Studios’? That topic is explored in more depth in this blog post, but in a nutshell — you need to tell Google what your content is and the best way to do that is through your link text.
The great thing about putting an article on Hubpages that has a nice backlink to your site is that it will get indexed very quickly by Google, increasing your odds of ranking for that particle keyword. Don’t have your targeted keywords yet? Hit the Contact button up above and we’ll find you some juicy keywords to take your site to the next level. In the meantime you can check out more of our hubpages articles.
Posted by ADS on 11/07/2010 at 3:07 pm
Ok, I'll admit, I just wrote that as a cute title. It really should be "what are your links doing" because really, you want your links to stay out all night. You want them to party like rockstar, spreading viruses with whoever they come into contact with–wait, these metaphors are getting muddled. I'll explain.
Most people, when they ask for a link to their site, don't realize that they're killing most of the potential that link could achieve. Why? Because they link to their domain or company name.
Why is that a problem? It's not in the particular instance of someone clicking on the name of your business, but if you want Google to get anything out of it, then it's worthless.
The reason is, Google doesn't care what your business name is. Because if someone already knows the name to your business, they're probably not going to have a lot of trouble finding it. But if they've never heard of you, they aren't going to be searching with your name, they'll be searching for what you do.
A specific example might clear this up.
I just moved a bunch of content to a new domain. A little blog called Organic Evolution. Should I put a link on that name? Heck no. Because no one is searching for that name (unless maybe they're biology students I suppose).
But if I want people searching for a modern life blog then I'll put the link on THAT phrase instead. Because THAT kind of link tells Google what the content is about!
All clear?
Of course, where it really gets sexy is when you know what targeted keywords to use. I just chose "modern life blog" at random, because I don't really know WHAT that blog is about. Actually, there's a lot of stuff there about emerging consciousness and other bits about transforming society.
Have I illustrated my point?
So then, how do you figure out what are the best targeted keywords to use? (Ahh, here comes the pitch…) Give us a shout and we'll explain.
Posted by ADS on 10/05/2010 at 12:40 pm
Reviews of sites and services, interesting trends online, or general gripes when someone drops the ball. Its a mixed bag, Its our blog and we'll cry (applaud) when we want to.
Posted by ADS on 09/28/2010 at 11:57 am
Kudos to the WordPress gurus who have recently released version 3.0 of the popular blog slash content management system (CMS) — it rocks.
In case you weren't aware, you're looking at a WordPress site right now.
Once known primarily as a blogging tool, it has now grown into a fully fledged CMS that is easy to use and administer, especially for newbies. Its easy to set up and get a site up and running in no time. Advanced functions like template customization and plug-in integration are still best left to the pros (hint hint) but if you want to do regular updates to your site and not pull your hair out on the learning curve, then WP is the way to go. (For an overview, see our hubpage How to Download WordPress.)
What's more, WP is a great format for SEO mastery. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and its all about getting a web site gussied up to make Google drool all over it like a teenage boy at the junior prom. (Um, yeah, that's a weird metaphor.)
SEO is all the rage these days, as it should be. Its the only chance your little snowball of a website has to survive the hell of, okay, time out. Gonna drop that metaphor mid sentence, its not going in the right–
How's this? In cavemanspeak — Gork need SEO. Gork need big time web hits. WP's elegant structure and ease of use will help Gork get the web traffic he needs to do whatever it is that cavemen do on the internet these days. (Actually, everybody knows what kind of sites cavemen — oh, brother, there I go again with the bizarre allusions. Think its time to pack it in tonight.)
So to sum up, WordPress good. You need. Google happy.
ADS is helmed by web designer Peter Harris who enjoys the caveat of being able to say his web career started in the 90s.