The Health Problems of a Website
Over the years I have launched many websites. My favorite part is watching the statistics when that thin blue line begins to pulse like a line on a EKG monitor. The anticipation relieved as your website is no longer flat-lining, your website now shows a steady heartbeat as each user flows in.
I think relating a website to the human body is very fitting. None of the parts really matter without a steady flow of healthy website users to feed the body. This may seem like common sense but let me diagnose the web health problems that affect the website user: Advertisements, Security and Over Regulation.
Displaying advertisements on your site is not always toxic. I also enjoy the idea of earning money as my website sleeps. 
Beware: Ads are like junk food - eat in moderation. The average website user will tolerate one or two modestly placed ads per page. Avoid ads that will interrupt or cover your content; it will go straight to your thighs! Pop up ads? That is a heart attack waiting to happen.
Of course if your website users are healthy enough you can afford some extra calories as many larger established sites enjoy. Just keep your diet balanced between the amount of website users and the obtrusiveness of your ads.
Website security is the endless battle between virus and immune system. Most security measures are very much a necessity, I won't argue that, although some precautions applied to a site are like a hypochondriac with a stolen prescription pad.
The most commonly used prescription is CAPTCHA, the hard to read letters in an image used to make sure you're not a robot. This system is great for preventing most of the viruses from taking over and filling up your site with spam, but this system is also great at annoying and clotting your website users. I'd rather spend time as a website administrator cleaning up the spam then risk losing blood, but if it does become a full time job then by all means write that prescription!
Over regulation is the leading cause of website death. It is cancer. Let's say your website has a great service which will attract many users. The absolutely wrong thing to do is to require the user to fill out a lengthy registration form to use it. Treat your website users with care and only make requests when it is necessary. Remember the only reason they are visiting is because of the service your website provides. They owe you nothing.
Always remember: Your website user is the life's blood of your website. Be your own site doctor; analyze and treat these web health problems or your site may end up in the emergency room!
Kyle Robinson Young
Search Engine Irony
I was pulling together some information today for a client's Adword program, and happened across a dandy bit of irony. Appearing in the list of Adwords on Google was an Adword for...Bing! Yes, Microsoft is using Google to advertise its own new search engine! This is (a) the ultimate compliment, or (b) the height of irony, perhaps both. In actuality, Bing will most probably bring some added attention by Google to its own offering and features; they've had the field to themselves for so long the folks at Google may have forgotten what real competition looks like. Not that FireFox is bad, but MS has tons of cash and is clearly throwing plenty into Bing, including a mass-media push.
The new Google Adwords interface is not without its bugs and problems. The Bing Adwords interface is actually a real pain to use. It's not intuitive at all, and getting the hang of perfectly ordinary activities takes too much time. It in most respects replicates Google's functionality, but it's clunky. Over time, it may improve. I'm testing ads to compare cost per click and may move more activity to Bing if the cost per click is lower, after all, "all clicks are equal." Unless, that is, they are made by a competitor. So the question arises, will Google advocates or MS haters click on the Bing ads on Google? Oh, the irony.
The great SEO rip-off
I recently reviewed an SEO proposal one of our clients had received and was reminded of how wretched and unscrupulous some web-related service purveyors are. This particular proposal was for $3,500 per month, or over $40,000 per year. The specifics of the proposal were vague, of course, and buried within a lengthy, technical-sounding discourse that made it appear that SEO work requires a PhD. in computer science.
Only the most elaborate and complicated websites would could support a strategy of spending $40,000 on SEO; the ranking and placement algorithms used by Google and Yahoo simply don’t change that much or that often. Moreover, important factors such as incoming links from highly ranked websites are beyond the control of an SEO contractor, and once properly named and formatted, a page title does not need to be changed often.
Despite the basic simplicity of most SEO work, so-called “specialists” continue to play upon ignorance in the marketplace and prey upon unsuspecting businesses that think SEO is rocket science. They make SEO sound complicated and arcane and charge exorbitant monthly fees for work that takes generally only a few hours time. They make work where there is none and produce billings based upon it. Most of the time is spent formatting custom reports that do nothing more than what’s available for free through Google Analytics and other web tracking tools. Such near-fraud is profitable to be sure, but also is highly unethical. Such behavior darkens the reputation of all legitimate web service companies and increases the suspicion of customers who could really use some SEO work.
When Epiphanet is asked for a quote for SEO, we bill for a review of the website and issue a set of recommendations; this is usually one to three hours of work. As part of that, we provide a quote for the implementation of the recommendations, which varies with the complexity and size of a website. For the client project noted above, our honest quote was less than one-tenth of that of the other company. Go figure!
Larry Barnett
Welcome to the Epiphanet Blog!
Hi Everyone! Our team is excited to begin sharing some helpful and interesting knowledge about the web. So please bear with us as we get this blog rolling.
Kyle Robinson Young