Jump Out of Your Skin

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Simple post this week.

Just because you rank and have traffic doesn’t mean you do business and earn money.

I live in Cork and consider myself to be a website designer.  However the statement is actually flawed.  Its like saying you are a house builder.  Many house builders cannot plaster, install electricity or paint but the have an extensive knowledge of all these trades and know how each of them gets done.  More importantly they can do some of them and know lots of people who can help them get certain specific tasks done.

The same applies for a website designer.  A website design can be a complex or a simple thing.  When complex it can involve flash, AJax docing, PHP forms and lots if interaction  I can do all of these but like the builder I often call in an expert to help with the bigger websites.

From my Cork office I regularly quote sites that I cannot do all the design work for it or more accurately do not have the time.  Gasps of horror.  But I can pick up the phone, send an e-mail and get someone who is an expert to help me within a day.

For example I can do pretty OK graphics in Photoshop but if I am requested to do a very specialised header or logo I call someone else – pay them the money and get it done faster and meet the customer requirements. Task complete, customer happy, my graphics contact happy and I get the business done.

The same applies for many of the other tasks associated with getting a solid working design in place in a certain timeline.  I may have several projects on the go at any one time.  I usually design a site in 2-3 weeks with several versions and every so often I sub-contract some of the work out to meet the timeline.  The use of a virtual team for web site designers is very common and is practical and sensible in today’s economy.

There are so many tools for reading and sending Tweets that it is impossible to keep up with them all. I chose Tweetdeck from the beginning and it suits my needs well. I have some complaints about it suchit’s the fact that the API limit has to be tweaked and from time to time I lose Tweets on the actual interface and have to switch to the web to find the message again but overall I have never felt the need to move to another APP.

Now with version 0.30 they have made some substantial steps forward with the tool that really take up a notch.  Ones that currently I think are really useful are

Auto Shorten URL:  Now instead of a different row for inserting your URL it now has the option to auto shorten the URL.  Great idea as 99% of the time people who insert URLs do want them to be shortened.
Insert Photos / Links:  I sense this may be abused in its initial days for the photo option but you now just drag and drop photos and links into the compose space.  Nice touch.
Facebook/Myspace Integration: Although I have never been a MySpace fan (too old) the Facebook integration is worth exploring as it brings a better integrated tool for the two platforms of Twitter and Facebook.  It now allows you to interact directly with Facebook from Twitter, read your Wall Posts, see your entire stream.  I like this a lot!
Tweetdeck Directory:   The launch of the Tweetdeck Directory provides listings of interesting people to follow in specific areas.  It is a help if you are interested in specific topics and want an easier way of making the selcection.  How I am not there under unread blog posts?

As I explore more I will post more – what do you think of the release.  Is Tweetdeck getting a bit bloated or is the best yet!

I occasionally check out Matts Cutts blog which has some really helpful information on Google and how it treats spam and good white hat techniques.  One of his recent tips is that for posts on blogs you should try and use dashes instead of underscore for your posts.  He also recommends that you use ALT tags where possible as it helps to flesh out the information about posts and and images.

His tips are usually down to earth and tell you what most SEO people will tell you to do with your blog.  Make sure that you have create excellent content at all times and that your keywords are used sparingly and well.  What I tend ot get from him mostly is that we worry too much about a lot of hte techniques and for on page content hte most important thing is solid reliable content and not to drown your content with your keywords.