Entries from March 2008

Who’s running your SEO firm?

March 28, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Being employed by an agency and having my own SEO firm, I talk shop to a lot of individuals about SEO. Often, SEO is very new to people and I end up having to do a lot of talking. I certainly don’t mind though because I love what I do and I could talk about it all day long.

What I don’t understand is when clients want to rule the SERPs, seemingly want to know everything about SEO, hire you to do their optimization, and then they don’t want to implement the SEO that your firm suggests. It’s almost like they like the idea of SEO but not the actual work.
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Home Sweet Home

March 11, 2008 // Jaimee Wolbert

After moving across the country last year, we set out on a mission to find a new house. We had lots of factors working against us: first time buyers in a new town on a strict time frame. Fortunately, we found a cool local real estate site that had more user-friendly and detailed features than your standard MLS. The JournalHOMES website is a pretty handy little resource. In addition to your typical search tools, the site includes tons of tips and information:

Guide to New and Resale Homes - pointers for picking neighborhoods. A nice addition to the site, which has extensive neighborhood profiles.
Greenville, SC Real Estate Guide - some area specific information and general guidelines to keep in mind when house-hunting.
Upstate, SC Homes and Lifestyles - especially useful for new residents, like us. This provided a quick overview of the area’s attractions and community activities.
Strategies for Selling Your Home - although we didn’t have the need for this during our home search, it seems like it could provide useful insight in the future when we are on the other side of the fence.

Although we found a great home and moved in several months ago, I still like visiting the JournalHOMES site to check out some of the more interesting features. Looking at homes for sale in our neighborhood, historic sales prices in the area, and community information for the neighborhoods near us helps me continue to learn more about our new town. Plus, it’s always fun to relive the excitement of your house hunt!

Technorati Tags: moving, homes for sale, JournalHOMES

Zero Out Your Margins

March 6, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Have you ever designed a beautiful website only to find that it doesn’t quite look right across multiple browsers? All browsers are not created equal, and often they have slightly different standards for presenting web pages. Internet Explorer can put a little margin here or Firefox can put a little padding there, and even the smallest differences can make your life a nightmare if you’re not prepared.

Developing websites without using tables can give a designer an extraordinary amount of control when it comes to how you want to style your design. Unfortunately with all that control comes a greater responsibility to make sure that each element stays in place across every browser that a user might open.
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