Recent Projects: TrafficComplex.com, if you need traffic to your website, this is the place!

Are you a webmaster in need of traffic to your website?

There are many things that you need to do to get your rankings up, and one is increase traffic, this shows your site is more important than a site that gets no traffic, it is that simple

Google and the other search engines rank your pages according to relevance to the keywords on your site, one way that it becomes apparent is of course what people are actually searching for, once your pages get indexed, and the spiders crawl your site a few gazillion times, they then rate it, if you have more traffic, the better your site looks!

If you want to learn more about how a traffic exchange works just do a little research, and you can start here at TrafficComplex.com, just know this, if you have a Google Adsense account, DO NOT join a traffic exchange, they will drop you, and I mean fast!

High Fuel Prices: Do bad things ever cause good things?

First off, I want to tell you that the high cost of fuel, primarily gasoline, but also propane, and the natural gas used to make electricity, are putting a hurt on me!

I have a pickup that I now drive only twice a week, just to haul off the trash, and to visit a buddy down the street! Why? well, I also have a car, a little one that is good on gas! Here is the biggie, I am now spending about 75 bucks on gasoline a month, just on that truck, the car, which takes me everywhere else, I am spending about $160 a month! I have another buddy spending like $350, so yes, we all feel that, but….

Something that I have had to do a lot of in the past, just because I live in the sticks, is order what I need online! Yes, shipping has gone up, but it beats driving across the country!

If there is anything at all positive in this, it is that business owners with websites, have an advantage over those that don’t. This world wide web can offer opportunities to those that use it, and use it wisely. I’m not saying that every Mom and Pop should go crazy getting a website, but, for those that need an advantage in competitive markets, the Internet can be a major tool.

As you have seen, my nickname is CarpetGuy, why? I am a flooring consultant. As we speak, I have a couple of flooring sites that are about to be completely overhauled! These two sites are in the very first group of sites that I built, so it is just time anyway, but, I have already noticed more traffic, and contacts from the websites. This tells me that instead of driving around looking for flooring, people are shopping on the Internet! Now is the time to make these sites stand out so that when the people finish looking on the web, and get in their car to go get a closer look, I will have a better chance of getting that customer!

Now is a good time to get a Web Presence, even if it is just a basic site with your business info and phone number, if it is set up right, it can help you, especially if you are in an industry that has avoided getting a website in the past. If you need a tip or two, just keep checking out this site, or use the contact us form and drop me a note, maybe I can help?

WildWebDesigner: Site updates and Changes, the Pirates are gone!

You may nave noticed that WildWebDesigner has changed, and yes, there are 2 blogs! The old WildWebDesigner.com/blog/ is not going anywhere, this blog is for the articles and such written by others, that some may still find useful, but, the main site, WildWebDesigner.com, will be the focal point of this domain. The sample sites are all gone, well almost all, there is actually a site I built to help out a buddy, that is still part of this domain, Kenny’s Small Engine Repair, and a Blog for Kenny’s as well, this is kind of how it all got started here.

In the beginning, I had all of my sites hosted with Yahoo, and, for the beginner, that is definitely the way to go, but, as times have changed, and the days of the old “Static” website are over! Yes, Yahoo’s Sitebuilder is the easiest of it’s kind and very functional, allowing you to do things that others won’t, I miss using it for simple pages that will always be needed for some things, and yes, you can install a WordPress Blog in the root of your domain with Yahoo, but, Yahoo is very restrictive on what they allow, so modifying that site gets problematic, and, that is what I do, so, by by Yahoo!

There could be some confusion right now, I hope to clear that all up. When this site was first put together, the main focus was on helping DIY webmasters to get the job done, therefore, I had samples of the various things that one could do when building a website. Yes, that was a mistake, I had an old phpBB 2.3 forum, now I know why that has been replaced by 3.0!

This forum got hijacked, by Pirates! Since it was completely empty, only the sample post that is created when installing the new board, I never expected anyone to even look at it, but I was sure wrong!

As I was deleting the pages that I didn’t want to use anymore, the samples had to go, and while determining which database went to those samples, I noticed that the one for this old forum was huge! I’ll put it this way, I have a lot of Domains on my host’s server, and when I removed that database, the amount of space I was using, got practically cut in half! I had to see why, so I went to that site, I almost fainted! I logged in to the admin area and it had almost 40,000 members and like 78,600 posts! While looking at the admin control panel, I saw that there were over 200 people logging in at that moment! I didn’t even try to see what all of the posts were, but let me put it this way,the nicest ones were SPAM! Needless to say, that kind of stuff is definitely not what this site, or any of my sites is about, so, I deleted that mess as fast as I could!

I used to have a lot of problems with SPAMMERS on my old phpBB boards, but nothing like that! Even though it is gone, I am still getting hundreds of visitors that are obviously still looking for that mess, sorry folks, you have to go someplace else for that now! The reason I am telling you about this, is that if you have an old phpBB Message board, UPGRADE IT!

If you accidentally stumbled across that mess and were as shocked as I was, I am sorry I didn’t find it sooner, but I had no idea that it was happening!

Recent Projects: PattiMace.com, your choice for Real Estate in the Houston area!

This is one of my favorite sites, since the release of WordPress 2.5, things haven’t been the same. There are so many plugins available to turn a simple Blog into just about anything you want.

Why would you want to do that, you may ask? Affordability is one answer, go take a peek at this site, PattiMace.com, it uses a real estate plugin that allows you to post home listings, and even creates an .xml file for an RSS feed, that can be used to add your listings feed to Google Base and others, so that your listings are available in places like Google Real estate! That will increase the visibility and make it easier for people to find you!

This is the main reason for using the WordPress format, which is highly customizable, through themes and plugins, to get your pages picked up by the search engines! After all, having a website that nobody sees is a waste of server space!

You might wonder why I would tell the world about how easy it is to build a Real Estate website? That is clear, there are way too many “professional” website designers out there, that are just too expensive for the average real estate agent to use, so, they try to do something themselves, or get into expensive hosting contracts that are not always in their best interest. It isn’t that these designers are bad, they just are too expensive for a small business to use. Large real estate brokerages can do this, and rightly so, take a look at the Houston Association of Realtors website (HAR), this is where the properties are listed with MLS, and is a wonderful site, but, as an agent, or even a small brokerage, building something like this is way out of reach.

So, an agent needs a way to stand out, this is Patti’s page at HAR, you would never find her, unless she was to get extremely lucky and someone was to find her using HAR’s Member Finder, in other words, a needle in a haystack! By having her own site, that is also functional, and very visible, she can have the clients find her, and avoid that luck of the draw search process, do you know how many real estate agents there are in Houston?

Using the Wordress Blog, she can write useful posts that help people, even if they have no interest in buying a home in her area! The more she writes, the more her sites page rank will grow, the better that page rank gets, more people will be able to find her even easier.

Helping people, what a concept? I live by the philosophy that “if you help enough people get what they want or need, you will in turn, get what you want or need”, this is the purpose of this site, helping people get a website that will work for them, and be affordable for just about anyone.

For anyone that finds this post, and is looking to relocate to the Houston area, or just wanting to buy or sell a home in the Houston area, I can tell you this, Patti is a dedicated agent, and having a real estate agent that is dedicated to helping you, is a very important thing! So, take a peek at her site, send her an email, and let her help you.

If you are a real estate agent, or anyone needing an affordable website, drop me a note, and I will either build you a website, or help you to build your own.

WildWebDesigner is going for a New Look!

Ok everybody that may be interested, times change and with that, the world wide web is a leader in change, so, we have changed our format, Web 2.0, I believe it is being called, to keep up with what the web is doing. Yes, the main focus will always be the same, helping others get a qualty site at a low cost. No, we are not high priced pro’s, but a guy with a hobby, that loves what he does and works cheap!

After this site is transformed, it will be a much more useful site and easier to maintain, gradually you will find the old links and information that was here before, just with a new look!

If you need help with a website, just use the contact us form to drop me a note.