As life, and business grow in the digital world, it is more and more important to take care of your “virtual assets”.

Using the same analogy I used before, would you let someone else, like a real-estate agent, put your house in their name? Or the car salesman to put the automobile ownership in his own name? I’m guessing the answer to both of these questions would be a resounding “NO”.

Then why do it with your online real-estate, your online vehicle?

As a rule, kitestring WILL NOT purchase your domain under our own name. It’s a very simple process to register with a domain name registration company (there are many out there), purchase the domain (I’m assuming you have a credit card – or you can steal your parents’), and then Bob’s your uncle, you are the owner of a brand spankin’ new domain name! From there, if you don’t know what to do, you can hopefully work with your friendly neighbourhood web developer to get things started! Easy as pie.

There are a few things wrong with letting someone else register for you:

1. Who says they will be around next year, at the same company, or e-mail address? The registration and reminders will go to a specified e-mail address, and if that address no longer exists, then the renewal reminders will just float around, laughing at you until your domain expires and you frantically scramble to get things back up and running.
2. Who says the company who registered it will be around next year?
3. What if things go sour between you and the person/company who registered the domain name? They not only hold the deed, but the keys to get in and do anything about it.
4. You may not be warned that your domain will expire, so you won’t know to renew, and inevitably, your website will go down. The reminder will go to whoever registered, then it’s up to them to either let you know, renew themselves, or let it expire. Too often, we see them just expire.
5. It’s cheap and easy to register a domain name, and you’re most likely paying twice that to get someone else to do it for you, which may lead to other problems (see points 1 through 4 above).

Do you actually own your domain name? If not, you really should. Send me an e-mail at brandon@kitestring.ca and we can go over how you can transfer your domain into your own name, and avoid any of the pitfalls we encounter every day.

Some people like the good old “let’s throw it all on the wall and see what sticks” approach, including their life stories, complete history, and in-depth essays on why you should choose them. That may have worked 10 years ago, but the times they are a changin’.

Here is my personal list of things that I don’t think belong on a website. Keep in mind that this is a general list, and there is sometimes a specific need for some of these things.

1. Page Hit Counter – This was huge in the 90′s. You remember, the little ticker at the bottom of the page that bragged to the world that 47 people have been to your site. Not only is this unnecessary information, but it also can show your client something you may not want them to know.

2. Scrolling information or text – If you want someone to read something, maybe making it a moving target isn’t the best idea.

3. Too many words! There is always a shorter way of saying something, no matter how complicated. Try to keep your text down to 35 words. Yes, this is sometimes a difficult feat, but that’s where a professional copywriter may come in handy. They can take a step back, analyze what you are trying to convey, and do it in a way that someone outside of your organization can understand.

4. Don’t make them guess. Keep the navigation and page elements simple, well thought-out, and logical! If it’s a chore for a user to find something on your site, you can pretty much guarantee that they will give up and go somewhere else. Go the extra mile, and get some wireframes done before building a website. This way, it can be tested, proven, and then built from a solid user interface.

5. Flash Intros/Excessive Use of Flash – I don’t think I have to explain this one. Never make people wait to get into your site. Flash, if used tastefully can add a dynamic feel to a site, and draw the eye to a specific area. However, it’s been overused though, and sometimes to sickening, seizure inducing levels.

6. Outdated information – Keep it fresh. If your last news item is from 2004, then maybe it’s time to either update that, or get rid of it all together.

That’s just a small list of things, but as I mentioned in item number 3, keep the words to a minimum!

What about you? Have you started your Holiday shopping yet? We’ll I have a few links for you to help find just the right thing for that little person in your life. And they are all my clients!

Hit the read more button to get-a-shoppin’!

Mudpies and Daisies, is a new creative, children’s boutique, which brings you an assortment of stylish clothing, innovative and educational toys, books, keepsakes, and baby/toddler gear. I was just visiting today. Even if you’re not a kid, your inner kid will love it.

Citizen Kid is a neighbourhood toy store offering a unique shopping alternative to those looking for natural toys of quality, integrity, and lasting value. Take a trip down to Locke. Grab a Starbucks and hit up Citizen Kid. Not only  will you find some really cool play thangs, just being in the store get’s you creative juices flowing.

Mabel’s Labels are customized with a child’s name, favourite mix of colours and an icon (animal, symbol, etc.). This is a great product for any kid in the family, not to mention my Mom who loves to label EVERYTHING!

Luvali Convertible Hats are a great gift for kids. Plus Mom can get herself a convertible hand bag at the same time!

Not only do I love working with all these great people I think they have amazing products. I am proud to be part of their success. I hope I could help with some creative gift ideas this year. Now, I better take my own advice and get shopping!

This is where it gets tricky. It seems that most people who use a browser other than IE tend to actually update their browser more than once every 5 years. This helps keep up with the momentum and progression of web technologies and techniques. This would be kind of like renting a Blue-Ray, slapping it into your VCR, and wondering why things aren’t working properly.

I am very happy to say that more than half the visitors to the kitestring website are using something other than IE! Within the group of Firefox users, only 1.53% are using version 2, whereas for Internet Explorer, 40% are still using version 7, and a painful 12.81% are still using the extremely outdated IE6. Worldwide, IE6 still accounts for 20% of browser use.

How much of the online world has changed since 2001? A lot! And that is just from an end user’s perspective. There have been even more changes from a developer’s perspective, and an outdated (9 YEARS OLD!!!) browser, isn’t helping. The added fact that Microsoft chooses to forego standards within it’s browsers (even version 8 ) is only complicating matters further. The most frustrating thing in almost any developers day is creating a standards compliant website, then finally testing in IE, and the cursing begins.

The big question is, how far back do we go with cross-browser testing? Should a client have to pay for the extreme amount of work that goes into making a modern site work in something as archaic as Internet Explorer 6 and 7?

Web development is hardly just a copy and paste, drag and drop world, it combines the best of design and development, colours and mathematics to make a great, usable, universally accessible website.

So, please, update your browser. Please.

See http://www.bringdownie6.com/ for more information.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about SEO lately, so I thought I would post something about the topic. SEO is a way to OPTIMIZE your site so that search engines can find it properly. Search engines send “robots” out, and if they actually like your site enough to list it where you want them to, they will. Now, the reason I highlighted the word optimize is because there are good and bad ways to do this.

When I think of optimize, I think of making improvements to a site, however, some people take it in a totally different direction and try to trick, or take advantage of the search engine robots that scour your site. This is what we call Black Hat SEO. The reason this is bad is that, let’s face it, none of us are as smart as the people at Google; they are constantly changing their algorithm to look for these types of things, and if they do spot any black hat techniques, your rank can drop dramatically.

So, my advice to you is to avoid anyone who claims that they will get you to the #1 spot on Google for a generic keyword or search. Unless that search is for your exact company name and location, there are no guarantees (and even that can be iffy!).

What you should look for:

1. Make sure your site is optimized on a basic level. There are certain things on a programming level that should be done in order to help your chances at getting ranked higher. Have someone take a look at your site, these things are very easy to spot. Most good web designers will automatically add these by habit.

2. Look for an honest firm to implement an SEO Plan. Again, there is no silver bullet here, and a good SEO plan will take time and tweaking in order to get any true, lasting results. The plan should be monitored, changed, and tested at regular intervals.

3. Pick a couple of terms to start with, and don’t shoot for the stars. A good SEO Plan will be able to help you raise your rank for your industry in your location, but may not be able to get too much traction as just a generic term. If I sold bikes, I highly doubt that I could rank #1 for a search for “Bikes” on Google. Not with all the bike manufacturers that take up the first three pages. However, if I was to focus on “Hamilton Bikes”, there is a much better chance.

4. Don’t rush. This will take time, and more importantly patience, but once you get there, it will all be worth it.

Hope that helped. If there are any questions, make them on this post, or email me at: brandon(at)kitestring(dot)ca.