A good starting point is verifying that you have a a standards-compliant Web site that is search engine optimized (SEO). This makes is easy for search engines to crawl and index your Web site pages. Web standards are simply best practices to follow when creating a Web site, and ensure that your site will be easy to maintain in the future. It also makes updating more efficient. Optimize your site by creating content that sends a consistent message about who you are and what services you provide.

Content is the most important part of your Web site. Search engines sort their results by content relevancy, so you want your site to be a relevant authority for your speaking topics. Many speakers write articles, so it’s important to create a clear, concise list of 15 to 20 keywords or key phrases and use them consistently throughout your pages and articles to increase your topic relevancy.

When the search engines see that most of your pages relate to a series of specific topics, they will begin to recognize your site as an authority in those areas. The best advice comes from an expert, right? (ed: Be an expert!) Having links to your site from other Web sites in the same topic categories also increases the significance of your content. Trade links with other speakers who focus on a variety of topics and everyone will benefit from the exchange.

When visitors come to your site, you want them to stay (ed: as long as possible). Keep your site fresh by offering some tasty media snacks on a regular basis. Entertaining and informative blog posts, tutorials, downloads and podcasts will increase your traffic. Images from a recent conference and video will also attract and keep visitors.

Humorous and instructional videos are very popular right now, and leveraging free video hosting sites like YouTube.com or Blip.tv will keep your marketing costs down. Utilizing social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also help create a network of contacts that can spread the word.

Dwight Maskew is owner of carbonBased Media, which builds Web sites that highlight the important parts of your company’s services. For more information, visit www.carbonbasedlife.com

Read the original article in NSA’s Speaker Magazine for October 2009, Fresh Insights on Web Site Design, page 33. 2 other web developers also offered great information on web site design. Check it out!

When completely branding a website with flashy graphics, don’t overlook the favicon and iPhone dock icons.

Favicons are super quick and easy to generate online using the favicon.ico generator. FTP into your website and save the created file on your web server.

Here’s my favicon: 

You can also display a custom iPhone icon that displays if your website is saved as a bookmark to the dock (home screen). Create a 57px by 57px image and save it in the root of your web directory as “apple-touch-icon.png”. Mobile Safari looks for that file and if it exists, will use it by default. I prefer to be more explicit and define it with a LINK element along with the favicon.

Here’s how mine looks on my iPhone dock. Not bad.

Now for the code. Add these two LINK elements to the head of your document:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="relative/path/to/favicon.ico" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="relative/path/to/apple-touch-icon.png" />

This is a really simple way to add some nice detail to your branding efforts.

Idee seems to be on the forefront of color technology these days. They’ve also released a tagging app that return combinations of photos and another app that allows the user to upload or point Idee to a photo and they’ll tell you what it resembles. Very cool, folks. Check it out.

Tag Galaxy – A Flash-based web app. Allows you to search for a tag on Flickr, the app then overlays the photo results on a sphere. Click and drag the mouse left or right to spin the sphere. Click a photo to zoom.

Wrapr – Flickr panoramic images can be wrapped into an interactive panorama. Also available is the option to embed the interactive pano. Looks like panoramas can only be accessed through existing Flickr groups. Some are better than others.

I’ve got a few big projects on deck at the moment. Highest priority is getting my portfolio whipped into shape so it’s presentable to the public. Getting close.

Also on deck is a forthcoming web site for The Longevity Doctor promoting healthy living and wellness. Development is moving right along and Dr. Mayer Horensten is a great client. He’s provided plenty of content and and imagery and is very good about getting back to me with feedback. This allows me to maintain momentum and keep the ball rolling. Current release date for this website will be July 5, 2008. Look for it.

Current weather: Mostly Cloudy 81°F. Tonight we can expect a Low of 54° with Isolated Thunderstorms and a 30% chance of rain.