In website design news, a site that is near and dear to my heart got a redesign — this site. And this included some custom drawn images. It’s very nice. Please check it out. Let me know what you think: https://www.websitesabq.com/
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Top 3 — NOW 4 — sources for Royalty Free Stock photos
Are you wondering where to get photos for your website? Sure, there’s a good chance you haven’t had to think about that before. And now your working on building a website. You need something to help draw in visual attention. Well let’s talk about it.
UPDATE 7/16/18: Probably the new and best site for Free to use images is now Pexels. Check them out below…
https://www.pexels.com/
iStock
https://www.istockphoto.com/
I stock is a good, if pricey, site for all your stock photo needs. If you can afford them, they are about the best for variety, depth of selection, and quality images.
ShutterStock
https://www.shutterstock.com/
ShutterStock is my usual choice for good stock images. They have a large selection, have fair pricing and images are professional in quality.
PixaBay
https://pixabay.com/
PixaBay offers a fair selection of royalty free and free stock images. Their selection isnt quite what the other 2 have and their average image quality isn’t quite as good. But they are free and if you’re on a budget you can probably rationalize the lesser selection and lesser quality.
Thats it. 3 Sites. Most Expensive to Least Expensive. There are tons of other options. But they aren’t in my top 3. So let’s go with this and please let me know if you have questions.
The new paradigm in Link Building for SEO
In order to get anywhere in SEO these days, you need to include a link building campaign. Google frowns on paid links and at the very minimum tries to ignore these links. Non-paid links are the second alternative. You can get these from average sites that you’ve won via simply asking the webmaster to link to you. Building PR around newly created campaigns is the latest and greatest idea in link building. The video describes this new idea in Link Building very well. Check out this video of Laura Crimmons discussing this new link Building campaign idea.
Sitelinks in Search Results. What and How?
What are Sitelinks and how do I get them? Sitelinks are the links you see under some search results that link to more specific content within a website. They make a search result look a lot more interesting by highlighting pages within a website thats listed. How do you get them? According to Yoast, SEO and SEO tool creator, there is no magic sauce. You just need to be a very authoritative result for a specific search query, Check out the video.
Top 5 Questions I get Asked about Web Design Projects
Updated 3/8/18
(1) How Long will it Take to finish my Website?
(2) How much does it cost to build my website?
(3) Who owns my Website? Who’s name is on it?
(4) Can I work on my website myself when you’re done? Is it hard to do?
(5) Now that I have a website, how do people find it?
- How Long will it Take to finish my Website?
Usually from the time I get the down payment — and assuming we have talked through the entire design of the site — and assuming you have provided me all the text and graphics you decided on (I can provide this too or parts of it –if needed) Then if there is minimal back and forth — Best turn around time is a week. That’s if I had no one else ahead of you. Usually my schedule is open enough that this can happen and I get going quickly. - How much does it cost to build my website?
At the moment, I am offering a 3 page website including a year of hosting and a year of domain registration for $299. Customers usually wonder why so cheap. Other shops are building sites for more than $1000 per page. The answer is I’m in the stage of building my business here in Albuquerque, and while I know my work is worth more than what I’m charging, I will do it until my schedule is full. Here is the full run down on what you get for $299.
https://www.websitesabq.com/grab-now/ - Who owns my Website? Who’s name is on it?
From the very beginning – you own the site and your name is on everything. When I’m done I turn all the passwords and login information over to you. - Can I work on my website myself when you’re done? Is it hard to do?
Yes. Included with the 3 page website deal or any web design of 3 or more pages, I include a free 1-hour training session to help you learn how to work on the website yourself. And yes, its pretty easy. I usually build sites in WordPress, which is a free, open source system, that makes working on your site no harder than typing an email or editing a word document. There may be some things you still want me for. But mostly you can do it all yourself. - Now that I have a website, how do people find it?
Getting people to find your website is not automatic. Fortunately, there are lots of ways people can be lead to your site. You can and should put the website on your business card. Word of mouth also helps. Social media is another way to get traffic to your site. Posts about your site on Facebook and Twitter. Pay per click ads on Google and Bing that advertise your website can help. Then there is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – which is the process of optimizing your website so that it appears higher in the Search Engine results for a given list of keywords. I can help your website move higher in Google and Bing. At the moment the service is $300 setup fee and $200/mo. Some people are surprised at the cost. I would tell them that I earn every penny. I do a lot of work for my SEO clients. A lot of work. And this price is generally much much lower than going to any other SEO establishment. If your interested I’m happy to discuss with you all that I do for my clients.
Recent Work – JohnZeuli.com
John found me by way of a Google search. We met and discussed what he wanted for a website. He handed me a multipage document and said that this was his idea for the site. He gave me what he envisioned for the entire site in one well formed document.
John didn’t want to have a lot of pictures on his site. We had one on the home page and that was enough. His vision was about having a conversation with his audience, and I think we managed that very well. The navigation is clear and attractive. Each page answers one or more questions you might have before contacting him for consultation. It works.
Here is the John Zeuli website
Getting rid of malware / spyware / viruses
In my life I’ve removed a lot of malicious software from computers — mostly Windows based. Here is how I remove almost anything… Click on these links and download the 3 programs ( they are all free ). Also download the free Revo Uninstaller if it applies.
Whats the purpose of WWW before a website address?
So why does anyone use WWW in front of a website address (technically website address is called a URL but for simplicity, I’m calling it a website address in this post.) ?
If you’ve used a computer anytime in the past 30 years, you’ve probably asked yourself — What is up with so many website addresses starting with WWW. – The Triple Dub. Well I’m going to tell you. First of all you should know that beginning a website address with WWW is completely unnecessary. And when you set up a website there is nothing that says — nice website, buddy, but the law says you this website has to be accessible both with and also without the W’s in front. That’s just not true.
The WWW is actually called a subdomain of the original domain — a subdomain of the version without the W’s. And what’s more, you could rename the WWWs to anything you wanted and create a whole new website to go with it. Google does this all the time. For instance, maps.google.com is the address that leads to Google Maps. And inbox.google.com leads to your Gmail Inbox.
But long ago when the web was new, people started using WWW in front of a website name to tell people that when they saw something that started with WWW – that this was indeed a website and could be typed into a browser in order to pull up the advertised information, — As In: Find me on the web at www.websitesabq.com — It is expected of web masters these days that no matter what address you advertise, that you should have a subdomain of WWW to point to your web page as well as having the main domain (without the WWW) go to the same page. It just makes it easier to be found. And usually web masters want their websites to be easy to find.
When you set up a website, you decide which version of the address you will use. If you choose to go with the WWW, then when someone goes to websitesabq.com, they will get sent to www.websitesabq.com automatically. And you can see that you have been redirected by looking at your web browser’s address bar.
In my case, I made a choice as the web master of this site to send people to the WWW version. And there is no best choice for this. When I set up this site I did what Google did and decided to include the WWW. So that’s it. That’s the big secret. It’s just a tradition that truthfully has outlasted its usefulness. Web masters are silently sending people to the same location whether they use WWW or not. And a lot like the American penny, its not really very useful anymore, people have just gotten used to it. So if anyone asks you what the W’s are for, now you know.
Websites ABQ video ad
WebsitesABQ has launched its new video ad. Check it out.
WebsitesABQ new logo
Tell me what you think.
