Is Search Engine Optimization Dead?

Latest news buzz in webdesign world “Is Search Engine Optimization Dead?”.
Short answer:
NO.

Long Answer:
Still no but a few things have changed and a few things have been stopped. You now get penalized for using tactics like Google Sniper. Google bombing, keyword plugging, etc etc. Truth is, that never was Search engine optimization. that was ghetto style pyramid scheme junk.
The team at Google has removed most scams you can pull on Google and just left the actual optimization part in there.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Well let’s look at a book store as an example. Imagine if you have a bunch of great books. An entire book store full of books. Now picture yourself opening this new book store. you came up with this cool idea of hiding all of the book in the ceiling tile, and the signs you purchased were inside out, upside down, and behind the building and just say “Dave’s” on them. What is Dave’s? Why is the sign not where everyone expects it to be? Why is it backward? why is it upside down? For that one guy who rolls his car in traffic trying to read the sign in his rear view mirror? It’s not great forethought. Now a person walks in.. Where the heck is everything? Why aren’t these people listed anywhere? they aren’t in a phone book, they aren’t in a news paper… What the heck is this place? When they figure out it’s a book store, where is everything? and why isn’t it in order? Everything is just chunked about in the ceiling area.
Search engine optimization is so you can fix those issues on the internet. Optimize your website for search engines. Pretty simply stated.
Google is leading the way to fixing it so scammers can’t just jump ahead of people with decent content, well organize easily navigated websites. sites with titles that match the content. Page titles that match that page’s content and a small “card catalog” type section built just for search engines so they know what the main items are that you want people to focus on when they hit hat page, the stuff that the page is about. This is called “Keywords”. Some people believe that keywords are dead. They are far from dead. The people that say that “Keywords are useless”, are people who use heavy searched words that are totally unrepresentative of their content. These people just want traffic to their page, they are of no help to society and are scammers.
Meta tags matter.
Meta tags are fairly simple to understand. These are the important ones.
Title: tells people the name of your page
Description : tells people what your page is about.
Keywords: words associated to your content that people will search for that is relative to your page.

Why would you use meta tags?
This is for search engines. Google needs to display the title of the page in the results. So title is important. Description, well all search engines put a small two or three sentence snippet in the search results, it’d be nice if the person doing the search knows what might be there before he/she clicks. Keywords, when they search for a specific item by one word, Search engines will search for sites with that word in it’s keywords and then highlight it in the search results. If it’s not in your keywords and in your actual content, then your site most likely will not show up in the results.
No you do not want to show up in every single search for every single item on the internet. You want to show up for items related to your content. You are most likely to please the reader that way, and your items will move faster.

What Google has done
Google has stopped people from plugging their meta tags with unrelated items and made Search Engine Optimization exactly what it is. Optimizing your website for better search results and they penalize anyone who is scamming the system. This could mean anything from  bumping them down in importance, all the way to kicking them out of search engines.
This will help you in all search engines, and help your content be better found by people who actually want your items. If you are set to bring anyone and everyone to your website, you are less likely to bring the people who actually want your items. If you focus on your items and products, then you will receive traffic from people who are looking for your products or services.

The better your SEO is done, and the better your content is, the higher a priority you will become for your items.

Facebook Hashtags

HASHTAGIf you haven’t noticed yet. Facebook finally launched their hashtag experiment

What is the function of hashtags in Facebook?
Well. Pretty much the same as on twitter. You make a post, and then put a hashtag next to the word that best describes the #post. This allows people to share content and have it in a specific category for everyone else in the world.

Really this is the very first time I ever saw Facebook actually be a SOCIAL network. because now, you can find people who talk about like minded content.

 

Where this becomes an issue
People will exploit the hashtags. just as they have done in the past when they hack an account, the hackers will soon start making posts with links and a million and one hashtags in the post covering zillions of topics. Reaching more and more people. Along with tagging friends in the friends list of each victim that falls for the scam. Further reaching more and more people.

HASHTAG_facebook

#NOW #none #OF #the #POSTS #will #make #SENSE #ONFACEBOOK #despressedblogger

 

Console Gaming is the Envy Sport

First console out of the gates is the XBox one . They have to make it look beefy. Everyone hates the looks of it. Everyone swears they will jump on the PlayStation because the Xbox looks stupid. Xbox one is rumored to release just in time for early adapters to buy the console for thanksgiving so family and friends will be begging for it by Christmas

They will announce some hardware that we are on the cusp of releasing to the public, but since it is Microsoft (the company long accused of making operating systems built to force you to buy more hardware) they will have some massive machinery in it. That “will never be in computers”. but there will be a version of that hardware on the market one month after the console is released. Then comes a million reproductions. then comes machinery that is better, yet, the existing operating systems identify it just fine.

Day of launch comes, the stripped down basic version is the price that Microsoft said the full version is, only reason people accept it is because they wanted to do the camp out thing on launch day and they justify it because the stripped version comes with a free control and 2 gigs more storage than originally stated for the stripped version.

All of the rich console kiddies jump on the Xbox, even though the Xbox now costs $200 more than the already inflated price first announced.
Then Play station announces they will release in a month. So Xbox releases the full extended blown up package, and the first edition stripped version can not upgrade to it. So the kiddies sell their xbox 1 early version for less than half it’s original cost and round up another $700 for the Elite.

Meanwhile kids are playing GTAV on their console calling kids with computers “poor and ignorant”

Then comes the pc release of GTAV and it comes with better graphics. The console kiddies say “so I already played it, it’s stupid ” then they see the new graphics, so they sell their Xbox for not even 25% of initial cost, and they loaded up on “the best parts” that are in no sequence any good for/with each other.

They buy the game and their computer locks up (due to buying the most expensive crap that the salesperson could mesh together) so they scream “MEMORY LEAK IN THE GAME” and throw internet tantrums and scream and cry about how GTA is always Bwoken. Then they pout, show videos of them selves stomping on their “badass loaded computer”. Youtube will be full of them.and then pout away. after several months they run and buy a new xbox.

They get home and unwrap Their newest Xbox after playing six times in the bubble wrap, and reach over and grab their 9 year old little sister’s laptop to run to the internet and tell everyone how they just purchased the Elite pro excelsior version of Xbox one. The one that has spinny wheels and a mounting bracket for your douche.

When they see right there in the advertisement section of their favorite social network.

PS4 basic comes with an extra small motorized fleshlight attached and virtual reality glasses. For just $600.

Remember kids. The console that releases first, is the one with the spoiled brats who complain about everything. Yes that’s right “Early adapters” are spoiled hipster brats.

Fire Alarm Design Made Easier

I have put together a collection of  great homemade tools that I have been building for fire alarm design in Cad since 2007.
Over the years these tools have evolved and gotten better looking with deeper detail, yet increased design speed while keeping a nice uniform appearance to my fire alarm designs.|
The videos and pictures below are some of the earlier on  functions. I have created so much more and still maintain a (better than) fair price for such a large collection of design tools.
Click the link below if you want to just skip right to  the tools, or continue reading the article to get a better understanding. More recent videos are in the link to the  fire alarm design tools website.
Fire Alarm drafting files for sale

Detail

Fire Alarm battery calculationsThis Fire Alarm Template, along with all of the addons mentioned, there are also a few items and hidden gems. Such noting in the printed fire alarm lay out, you will see original date that each specific job is started, and the date it was printed. This protects the fire alarm company and the fire alarm designer. Gives the designer proof of date of file creation and print out, if there is ever any wonder if someone else has messed with the fire alarm design. at the same time, you will also  see the name of the person who printed the drawings. So if Dave grabs Bill’s file and edits fire alarm system and prints this fire alarm system out, Dave’s name will be on the printed file along with that date. If Bill goes back and prints that fire alarm layout, the drawings will now have bill’s name back on the drawings. Where this protects the company, is the date of file creation and date of printout. if you add that to the date your fire alarm drawings are submitted to plans review plus date of notification of acceptance, you have further support of your contract if the customer has any issues with your productivity time.

Titleblock

titleareaThere is also a location with in the fire alarm template, with in a block that allows you to insert project numbers and permit numbers. The intention of this option is permitting purposes. County/City/State project numbers and building permit numbers to be specific. I did this for the occasional issue that would come up when our Plans and permitting department would have the random act of luck, and just not have everything with him. I make sure he has the permit number and project number in the exact same spot every time.
Also there is a spot to type in the AHJ. City/County/State information goes there. There is also a spot to note if the building is fully sprinkled (fire sprinkler existing) or not. Some jurisdictions this is needed. So when Permitting  guy is at the plans review office, the answer to that question is readily available.

For organization efforts, there is a location to add the salesperson’s name. For the occasional moment when no one knows who sold a specific job, and no one wants to claim it. That person’s name is right there on the fire alarm drawings locked in a block. helps prevent many disputes, and possible conflicts of interest.

Candela

candelaThe candela tool is made for ceiling mount and wall mount visual notification devices. So a fire alarm designer can know exactly what candela setting the device should be. This helps with battery calculations and voltage drops.

Also allows you to not have a mess load of full on technicians at a location and allows the chance for a trainee/helper to get his hands on experience with less people standing over him while he works. This was to reduce failure at plan review in the city/county/state. This turned out to have many benefits for the company. This allowed us to work on a lower budget and kept us all free from common errors.

Legend
fire alarm legendThe legend has a space to show device count for new,existing and relocated devices. Helps with ordering. If there are certain devices in the legend that you are not installing with this design, you can just look for this symbol’s name in the layers menu and just click the light bulb to the left and turn that device off. This also helps if you have to make major edits( but the “already placed” fire alarm symbols will be fine where they are), you just turn them off for a moment, make your edit, then turn them back on.
If you made it this far here’s some free samples
Cad blocks

Gimp Brushes

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***THERE IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF THIS FIRE ALARM TEMPLATE
and here is the fire alarm template version from 2015 (Videos showing function) <– NEW***
Also please notice I added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template with symbols.
Please like and share this post.
Fire Alarm Cad

2009 , I created this post about a fire alarm autocad file I was giving away. I was steadily making changes to the cad file. Adding blocks, different fire alarm symbols, legend, battery calculation spreadsheet, Candela measuring tool, smoke array tool and many functions that just made the job easier. Every time I would get a new idea, I would add it to my template. After much time, I decided that I have way too much work in the thing to just give it away. So if you were not here through the beginning phases, Sorry.
(Here is the 2015 version of the fire alarm template)
Along with a fire sprinkler template and an access control template.

The fire_alarm.dwt file is no longer on the server for free, but here is where you can purchase it. Fire Alarm drafting files for sale.

The Importance of Alexa Ranking For SEO

Alexa.com is a web information company. A site to get detailed traffic information about other websites on the internet. To me, this is the most important ranking system on the internet.

How Alexa works

Alexa judges your site’s traffic and locates other sites with the same traffic, then measures the length of time that the user spend on your time and how deep they go into your website, The rank is given at that point. as your traffic increases, you are now placed into a better category, and sometimes, you are the worst in that category, so your rank can suddenly look worse. as you level out, your rank will level out. If you finally hit a a solid rank, now is the time to make your articles worth reading longer, and your interior pages worth navigating to.

What good is Alexa?

Alexa tells you what you are worth on a local and worldwide scale. If you desire advertisements on your website, then a good rank in Alexa is helpful in getting affiliates to purchase space on your website. The better your score, the higher the value.

How do you get a better Alexa score?

Traffic. You need traffic. You need lots of people knowing that you have great content and are a great resource for specific information. You don’t need to be Wikipedia, but being Snopes.com wouldn’t hurt. You have to get better rank. You need to be found in search engines for everything your website is about, so that all of your content is easily found under the right category. Your target area is under 100,000 worldwide. and this is very hard to achieve. My Alexa rank is not quite close enough to that but after a good long time, It will be. I plan to be here a while doing this.

Simply put, you can look at the effectiveness of your search engine optimization and content value.

Why Defend Internet Freedom?

If you saw a video of police beating a man, and a video of an army in another country killing it’s own people, if you saw a man walk into a store and get refused service because of his skin color.

All via the internet

and then one day you were told “the internet will now be regulated and controlled”. Even after we “won against the sopa act” and the others that popped up just like sopa in other countries, seemingly simultaneously.

Would you fight that?

Or would you sit on your hands and not do a thing?

 

Sure you can sit back and refuse to notice the freedoms you have now. And you can argue how useless it is to defend such a frivolous item. As freedom.

With the freedoms we currently have on the internet, we can record video footage of people committing an injustice on others, and have no fear of persecution for showing the world , what the “protectors of society” refuse to take notice to.

Clear Wireless Internet Review

Considering Clear?
Wondering how fast Clear wireless internet is?
The trick to Clear is to locate where the nearest towers are in yoru area, and find a window closest to that tower with a good clear aim in that direct, and put your modem or external antenna in that window aimed at that clear wireless tower.

I am with in three blocks of the nearest tower to me and I receive at 10mbs.
there are a few more towers in different directions and I can connect to each one by just moving my modem from room to room and aiming the clear modem to the tower. So I only get good speeds in one room.

The wireless connection from modem to wifi adapter on laptop, not as great. Even in N mode, the signal is very weak. You can’t get a signal 20 feet away. and you lose signal when you have a curvy hallway.

The price, isn’t fair at all. Considering how spotty the connection can be for some, and how low the bandwidth is,the price is a bit high. I mean come on. People are achieving 28-35 mbs for the same cost as their 10mbs plan. $59 a month. Though there is no contract, the payments are automatically withdrawn from your account. That is frustrating. because the whole thing they sell you on is that you don’t even need to think about it. but…. when you don’t think abut something, you forget it…..

but on a scale of 1/10
I still have to give clear a good 7/10