Not all search engines however take GEO tags into consideration within the search algorithms. For example Google may not look at them but Bing (formally MSN) does. Since there’s really no harm in adding them in for location specific optimization to a page then we do suggest you add them in – BUT be careful that you are in fact targeting a location or region on the page that you optimize. We suggest you only use them in GEO optimized web pages or PPC landing pages.

Let’s say you have a product your selling Globally and your company is based in Los Angeles, CA – this is where you might not want to use Geo Tags, we don’t think it will help to use them just to show where your headquarters are.  A good example for Geo tags use would be if you’re, let’s say a dentist office in Washington DC and you want to attract a customer base from Washington DC and your targeting keywords with ‘DC’ in them, then Geo tags may help you pin down your geographical focus and obtain higher search rankings and increased targeted traffic with some of the search engines. Another good use for them is for landing pages. Let’s say you have a PPC campaign running and your targeting a special offer on a product to consumers in the DC region, even though you may provide the product elsewhere, you’re clearly focusing the PPC campaign on a specific area, then use the Geo tags within the landing page code.

Here’s an example of how Washington, DC Geo Tags might look:

<meta name=”geo.position” content=”38.88;-77.02”>
<meta name=”geo.placename” content=”Washington DC”>
<meta name=”geo.region” content=”US-DC”>

As you can see the geo.position is the GPS position of the city (Latitude and Longitude of a Point). The geo.placement is simply your location spelled out. The geo.region is the ISO country subdivision code (ISO = International Organization for Standardization) with the city code. For USA use ‘US’, for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales use ‘UK’, for Canada use ‘CA’ and so on.

While Google may not pay as much attention to Geo tags as other search engines, you can improve your geographical keyword searches in Google by using Google Local Business Center and getting listed for local search. It normally requires some type of address verification via phone or postal mail to be confirmed and you can get listed in Google Maps too.

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The Google Chrome browser (version 4.0) was released today.

The most important changes for web developers are the extensions, see an overview of the extensions at this link.

You can download the latest version of Chrome free here: http://google.com/chrome.   If you want to download the latest beta version, grab it here: http://google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/beta/

As always, we highly advise you use Chrome, IE, Firefox and other common browsers for reviewing your web development work. Cross browser testing of site layouts and functionality is critical these days.

Here’s a quick video showing  Google Chrome’s interface:

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• new web site design and development
• re-design of existing website or code enhancements
• website maintenance and management
• add-on web features, such as custom form development, admin areas, web app. installs
• web hosting and email services (Windows and Linux)
• start-up business consultation and free web quotes
• shopping cart solutions
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• social media marketing (SMM)
• search engine and directory submissions
• blog installations, writing services & seo blog writing consultations
• graphic design and animation
• logo, business card and letterhead design
• print and media design
• domain registration and management
• SSL certificates

Visit www.eNicola.com today to help improve your existing website or to start a new website

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Everyone loves the majestic, unforgettable beauty of the Grand Canyon which is why it is one of the most visited places on the planet! As one of the most awe-inspiring natural areas in the world, Grand Canyon West has just made it easier to find everything you need to plan your vacation, just go to the new website to see: www.GrandCanyonWest.com

The new dynamic, media-rich website, designed and maintained by eNicola.com, invites visitors to experience the very best of the Grand Canyon from the $30 million Skywalk to breathtaking helicopter tours. Visitors to the new website will be able to explore the many fun activities the area has to offer for the whole family.

If you didn’t already know, Grand Canyon West is the closest edge of the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas, you can take a one day tour or go for several days. You can book reservations for their lodging, river rafting adventures, horseback riding tours, helicopter tours, Skywalk, and best of all – immerse yourself  in the rich and full culture and history of the Hualapai Indian tribe and the beauty of the Canyon.

We would also like to thank Vicki Isaac of Edge Media (Grand Canyon West’s media and marketing company) for their input and thoughts on the site design & layout. It’s a pleasure working with Vicki and we highly recommend her for marketing services.

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Of course, having eye catching icon sets for your website or blog is very important too, especially if you want your visitors to connect with you via these social networks. We’ve searched the web and compiled a small list of what we believe to be the best FREE icon sets to choose from:

1. Tydlinka’s Extended Social Media Icon Set in 3 sizes

2. WeFunction’s Social Media Icon Set:

3. Blog Perfume’s Circular Social Media Icons:

4. Utombox’s free icons made in Adobe Fireworks

5. FreeGFX’s hand drawn social media icon set

As you can see these are all outstanding free social media icons sets from which you can choose. They are all eye-catching and attractive. There are so many other sets available on the web, do a search and you’ll see some great icons.

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As you look at your screen now you may perceive it as a fixed medium, at standard resolution, which never changes and everyone else on the web is seeing webpages the same way you are, however this isn’t always the case. For web designers the monitor screen does not have fixed width or height because these variables change, at times in unpredictable ways. People might have different monitor screen sizes, different screen resolutions, larger or smaller text view settings, larger or smaller browser buttons, additional toolbars to customize their browsers, different browsers, a Favorites page on the left instead of on top, maybe they have added more toolbars to browser and so on. As you can now imagine, the width and height of the screen is different from user to user. Because of this some website owners prefer a Liquid design over a fixed width design to take advantage of every visitors viewing experience by having a liquid web layout expand and adapt itself to the available space of each visitor viewing area.

Other commonly used names for Liquid Web Design are….

* Stretch Width Websites
* Liquid Layout Websites
* Wide Width Websites
* Widescreen Websites
* Stretchy Websites
* Flexible Width Websites
* Dynamic Width Websites
* Stretched Layout Websites
* Full Width Websites
* Expandable Widths WebSites
* Elastic Width Websites
* Adaptable Width Websites
* Extendable Layout Web site
* Jelly Web Layout

Is Liquid Web Layout good for any layout?
In order to make a decision whether liquid web layout design is what you want, factors such as budget, type of content, structure, amount of information must be taken in consideration. Liquid design may be more costly than Fixed width website design because it may take more time and programming to develop and test.

Do you design Liquid Layout (Stretchy/Expandable) Websites?

Yes! I can design either fixed width in any size (common is 800×600) or stretchy flexible liquid width websites, if you would like a quote for a specific website project please use the quote form below (free, with no obligation).

Get a Free Web Design Quote Today

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A larger web design company will have premises, sales staff, support staff to pay for and will charge a much higher hourly rate than a freelance web designer.

You may be concerned that a freelance web designer may not always be around, it’s best to make sure your freelance designer is a full time one and already has an established client base. When choosing your web designer, ask how many years they’ve been around, specifically how many years they’ve been working full time as a designer.

Of course, if you choose to go with a large web company, you may find out later that they outsourced the work to a freelance designer anyway (many do), so you would have essentially paid more when you didn’t need too.

Get a Free Custom Website Design Quote Today! www.eNicola.com

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Since consumers tend to spend less during a recession, businesses can expect a significant drop in product or service demand. This is also one of the crucial times when companies need to market more aggressively. As losses are increasing however, most organizations are not prepared to invest in expensive marketing efforts. The key is to find

Organizations that are serious about finding inexpensive but highly effective means of marketing, can significantly boost their website popularity by employing the skills and knowledge that an experienced professional can provide. Although consumers are spending less, web-related searches remain relatively impervious to the effects of a recession. People are still using the Internet, from making product searches to reading up on reviews.

Both businesses and consumers are looking for less expensive ways to find the products and services they want or need and the internet provides them with fast, relevant results to their searches. It makes sense for businesses to make sure that these consumers and companies can find their products and services online. By using the web as a communication tool, you can help your business swim against the competitive tide and keep it above water. There are two simple ways to get started – set up an SEO campaign and a Corporate blog.

What is corporate blogging all about?

About 80% of online activity is dedicated to web searches. Online users find products through online advertising or through search engine results. Since the majority of web activity is dedicated to search – whether information, product, brand, or service – organizations need to have search friendly content on their websites. Blogging is an effective way to engage your clients and customers and assure that they develop a lasting brand awareness and loyalty for your business.

One of the best ways that you can create content is through corporate blogging. Blogging on your website makes it easier for your customers to find your business when searching online. Search engines typically crawl through websites, searching for web pages that match any related keyword or key phrase search. Highly optimized and unique website content can propel your site into higher search engine rankings, making it more visible to millions of web users. At eNicola.com, we provide a variety of blog writing services and packages that meet the needs of many businesses. These services range from initial blog installation/setup, blog design, blog article content writing, ghost writing (for when you prefer to remain the author), SEO blog writing techniques, to SEO editing of your current blog articles.

At eNicola.com, we offer blog writing services at reasonable cost. You are assured of getting content relevant to the nature of your business. We submit your blog to the most popular search engines, and we also ping the blog articles out to RSS Networks (something not all blog writers do) – these techniques all result in enhanced visibility. With over a decade of experience on the web, our key services include website design, web hosting, SEO, Coding and Blog services – a perfect mix of expertise all in one.

The Need for Marketing Flexibility

The benefits of corporate blogging are diverse, but these are not limited to customer communications and the posting of product updates alone. It can help your website rank highly in search engines, attain a bigger portion of the online market, and as an outcome, generate better sales for your business. In these complex financial times, it is important for organizations to be creative with their marketing plans while staying within their budget.

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As many of you know, this is held in multiple locations each year, one usually on west coast (California, which is now over) and one on east coast (New York, scheduled for November 16-19). There’s also a Web 2.0 Summit held in October this year too.

Check it out at www.web2expo.com/webexny2009

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There are thousands of shopping cart solutions on the web today. A site owner looking for a solution may find it to be very overwhelming, often business owners select solutions that don’t fit their needs – later to find they need to find another solution. This can be a time consuming and frustrating task at best.

As a web development business, we know that the quantity of choices doesn’t necessarily mean you have lots of quality choices, and we know there’s no ‘one-solution-fits-all’ out there.

Let’s face it – you have to weed out the good and the bad with almost any solution, and shopping cart solutions are no different to this process. Once you’ve gone through the process of having a solid list of good reputable solutions, you then need to see which one will fit your specific goals and needs.

Since 1997, we’ve been in the business of web design and development – and we’ve seen a fair share of eCommerce solutions come and go. Over the years we’ve compiled a list of some fantastic shopping cart and merchant account solutions that can meet the needs of the most basic setups to the most intricate custom solutions. We’ve helped many businesses over the years integrate shopping cart solutions and merchant accounts.

If you’re on the hunt for a user friendly eCommerce solution, whether it be for a merchant account, a shop cart solution (or both) feel free to contact us for advice, we’ll be happy to steer you in the right direction in finding the right solution for you. If you need code integration, setup or customization for a shopping cart solution you’ve already purchased, we provide services for that too.

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For help on time management, we recommend you take a look at ping.fm. Using this site tool allows you to post multiple updates for up to 40 social networks in one place! Best of all, it’s FREE!

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AJAX is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies together.

AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a new way for web pages to send and receive data to and from a web site without forcing the user to wait for a new page to load using any standard web browser like IE, FIREFOX, SAFARI etc.

In a generalized concept, AJAX does not force the user to wait for the web server every time the user clicks a button. This is what “asynchronous” means. AJAX uses standard JavaScript features (including the unofficial XML HTTP Request standard, pioneered by Microsoft and adopted by Firefox and other browsers) to fetch data in the background to display the desired data or information “on the fly” when the user clicks on appropriate parts of the interface.

As per its definition AJAX manipulates data using XML, so it interact easily with server-side code written in a variety of languages, such as PHP, Pearl/CGI, Python and ASP.NET.

What sites are using AJAX?

For an example of a site on the web today using AJAX, take a look at maps.google.com, see how you can manipulate the map with your mouse moving from city to city just by dragging, no page loads to wait for!

Need AJAX elements on your website?

Contact eNicola.com today for a consultation.

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I’m often amazed at how many designers today continue to build sites that are only good if viewed in IE (Internet Explorer). These sites often look completely different if you look at them in a FireFox browser for instance, with Firefox being a commonly used browser (I believe it’s the 2nd most popular browser) it’s a mistake not to consider how your site looks in it, not to mention several other popular browsers and browser versions.

It is very possible, with good design and code techniques, to design a site that is compatible with several browsers, such as Netscape, Opera, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and the new Google Chrome browser.

As a site owner you should always ask your designer to create a cross-browser compatible website. Unfortunately, you can’t presume they will, as many still don’t.

If you’re not sure if your site views well in the most popular browsers, visit our cross browser compatible page for help.

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There are several useful tips for effective web design if you want to achieve the best possible results for your website. First of all think about the navigation of your site, is it easy for your visitors to get where they want to go? Your visitors should be able to check out one webpage from another with relative ease. The use of a navigational menu at the top and bottom of your pages can help. If you have several pages, think about having a 2-tier or 3-tier drop down menu.

Secondly, you should also check out the actual layout of your web design, and if the various elements put together actually result in a cohesive effect. The layout must enhance your site and not overwhelm it. Common mistakes in web design is overcrowding your page with too much content, try and space out content so that you leave a decent amount of white space on the pages.

Third, remember that an effective web design is also one that minimizes the use of heavy graphics, too much flash animation, and too many hogging script files. Too many graphics may slow down the loading capacity of your site making visitors leave the site before it even loads. Remember, surfers want everything now, if your site takes too long they will move on to the next one.

Fourth tip to look at are the fonts used on your website, fonts can significantly change the look of your site. Try to keep consistent with one or two fonts only, use a CSS file to help achieve order in font sizes for headings and paragraphs.

If you’re not familiar with designing websites, contact us today for a web design consultation and quote.

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If your website has merely been created by someone you who had less than professional skills in web design, you might find that your site is not attractive to look at or that it’s not as good as your competitor sites. When you realize this, it’s a good time to obtain some web design quotes from other web designers that have strong professional experience in web design and search engine optimization (SEO) for the best results of your site.

Every single day, thousands of websites are being re-created, revamped, or updated. If you want to survive the competition for traffic and recognition you need to have relevant site content and a well structured website.

For more information on website redesign services, contact www.eNicola.com, we have over a decade of experience in both custom web design and SEO.

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By reviewing your online industry neighbors, you’ll be able to recognize what your web business is up against all this time. This will also allow you to recognize if you are keeping up with the trends in the market and if your business products are matching well in the midst of global competition.

If you want to be more aggressive and knowledgeable, you need to compare your website to your competitor sites on an monthly basis.  Need help reviewing the code or SEO methods of your competitor sites? Contact Us for a consultation.

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The word Blog comes from the term Web Log, implying that you can log your views on the web. It’s a very special kind of website, which is mainly run by the individuals or corporations. What can you write in Blogs? Description of events, your views about an incident, Philosophical views, Career concepts, Company news, Special Offers, Sales, Events, articles on topics, tutorials, and even images and videos.

Using a blog as a marketing tool can help to redirect the traffic to convert them as site visitors for your products or services. You can use a Blog for the indirect or direct brand promotion by writing related articles, intelligently gathering public opinion, or posting news and specials all followed by careful placement of link through’s to your internal web pages.

We recommend using Word Press as your blog software. It’s easy for your webmaster to install (or have us install it for you). Wordpress has plenty of compatible templates to match your site design and is widely popular because of the vast amount of features and also for how well you can optimize it for the Search Engines. Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo & MSN give adequate respect to blog content because these engines are always looking for fresh & up-to-date content to index.

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Site Counters can track the IP of each visitor, so the locale information is also highlighted. Sophisticated site counters are ready to give you the entry point of each visitor in your website as well as the exit point of each visitor. Tools like Google Analytics even show data using spectacular graphical representation to make it easier to view stats at a glance.

Site Counters always reveal the true statistics, based on which you can decide your plan of action. As an example, if you find mostly the visitors ignore one particular web page, you can delve into the analysis part and implement rectification/ corrective measures. You may also find out your popular products and services and their level of acceptability by looking at such statistics.

If you define your marketing and conversion goals properly while configuring the site counters, the analysis will generate all necessary data towards the most effective decision of yours.

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The world of open source has opened up the buffet of shopping carts all over the net. Volusion, 3dcart, nexternal, zen-cart, shopfactory, PayPal, are to name a few among the crowd.

The prevailing concept of a shopping cart (for the brit’s a ‘trolley’) for carrying goods around a shop remains almost intact in case of any online shopping cart – it’s simply a virtual cart for consumers to add items they want to buy into it.

Many shopping cart solutions for webmasters vary when you compare features and flexibility. One cart solution may offer one payment gateway or the ability of adding description or keywords in the meta tags, while the other might offer you multiple payment gateways and the flexibility of showing a jazzy profile. Of course, no matter what shopping cart solution you choose for your website, the security should be a major concern when selecting a shopping cart solution.

The significant entry of PayPal and Google Checkout has set a standard in front for others to follow. Nevertheless, you can look for any of them and convert your website to an elegant shopping cart portal.

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