Help - we need A WEB PAGE!

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

Alan, since you asked, I don't think much of it. Submit your email to get the download? Hmmm. I'll pass.

OK. You clearly haven’t tried it although you have looked at the home page.

Like many other sites they want your e-mail address when you register because your ID and password together with download links and instructions are issued to your e-mail address. I don’t find anything suspicious or dangerous about that when dealing with a responsible supplier, maybe you do. After the initial download one can opt-in or opt-out of receiving further publicity e-mails.

Of course, one has to careful but after more than 20 years of involvement in IT I am still not inundated with viruses or spam or scam. If one is careful all these “dangers� and "threats" are totally over-hyped, in my opinion and in my experience.

Alan

[Alan Knighting]

Craig,

Alan - had a look at the software, not overly impressed as I am heavily into creating web sites around compliancy and SEO. I don't think this ticks the box.

I wasn't looking at it from the point of view of compliance with the latest "standards" nor was I looking at it from the point of view of SEO. Rather I was looking at it from the point of view of finding a relatively easy way of creating a personal Web Site - a Web Site to which one can direct interested people.

I remain completely convinced that a private individual will never engineer a personal Web Site into a page 1 position in response to a search on “Holiday in France� no matter what they try to do with SEO. I think it is an impossible dream so my response is “dream on�.

Alan

[Garri]

Alan, I don't actually trust the offering rather than a fear of being spammed.

There are no examples of any sites that have actually used their software to create sites. So for me, apart from it being a windows solution, it's worthless.

I'm of the opinion that if people can understand how to use the likes of Dreamweaver, and all other wysiwyg solutions, then they can understand how to code a site using css and xhtml by hand - it's actually easier than people realise.

For what it's worth, a blog project I've been working on recently scored 90 out of 100 in that SEO analyser that Craig found and that was without ANY consideration on my part to actually optimise it fully - that will come later once other technical issues of the blog have been resolved.

I'm using a cms called Textpattern to create the site and it spews out lovely clean, semantically correct code working across platforms and browsers, looks how I want it to look without the use of tables. It's very lean and a breeze to maintain.

I think using a blog or cms is one of the smartest ways to create a website these days but there's an attitude that blogs are only for on-line diary type sites - not true. The technology can easily be adapted for a 'static' holiday rental site - and basic SEO is there right out of the box.

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

I'm of the opinion that if people can understand how to use the likes of Dreamweaver, and all other wysiwyg solutions, then they can understand how to code a site using css and xhtml by hand - it's actually easier than people realise.

I suspect that most people find things like Dreamweaver totally impenetrable and take months to come to terms with. That’s why I’m much more interested in things like StyleMaster but even then the learning curve is a steep one.

I think many are looking for a “simple� solution for “simple� people, People who have something to say and have some pictures to back it up with. People who want to put their text “here� and put their pictures “there�. People who want to drag the bits around and see what it looks like. Why on earth would they want to learn coding at all? Do any of us need to understand the theories of internal combustion to enable us to drive a car?

Alan

[Garri]

finding a relatively easy way of creating a personal Web Site

There is an easy way: learn the fundamentals of html & css and do it by hand, but use a cms/blog to 'organise' your content. It couldn't be any easier and it will pay dividends in the long run in terms of SEO and standards at a canter, without you actually trying too hard.

As far as getting to number 1 (in Google) with the term 'Holiday in France' it can be done, as long as you have some decent content for people when they arrive. I'd much rather visit a private website for Holiday in France, written by the owner, with passion and with tons of good articles, resources, links to stuff other than the usual fare of affiliate links for car rentals, flights and insurance.

What I'm saying is, if you published your holiday rental site along the lines of a blog and frequently 'published' some relevant articles and links to your competitors in the area (yes, your competitors) in case your place is booked for the dates I want, then you'd be half way there to competing for that coveted number one spot.

Alan, I take your point about learning Dreamweaver but personally I think it's a steeper learning curve than doing it by hand.

I had started writing a free ebook on how to use a blog such as textpattern to create and run your rental site, as I can see how it can easily be applied to the job in hand, but my time is spent on other things these days.

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

Alan, I take your point about learning Dreamweaver but personally I think it's a steeper learning curve than doing it by hand.

Speaking as someone who arrived on the scene long before Dreamweaver even existed I have to agree with you.

What I am trying to say is that are ways of creating a Web Site without any knowledge of Dreamweaver or of hand coding.

The results may not be in full compliance with CSS standards; the results may contain verbose coding but if the results display properly in the major browsers does the author care?

SEO can be “flogged� to death or “blogged� to death, but does Joe Bloggs care? All he wants is a Personal Web Site towards which he can point people; or have I got it all wrong?

Alan

[Garri]

SEO can be “flogged� to death or “blogged� to death, but does Joe Bloggs care? All he wants is a Personal Web Site towards which he can point people; or have I got it all wrong?

Alan, if I were Joe Bloggs I would be looking to give myself as much advantage as I possibly could. If the likes of Google is giving brownie points for semantically correct websites, filled with meaningful and valuable content, then I would be a fool not to take heed.

It must be said that Google is not ranking semantically correct websites out of some moral duty. No, it's simply because their robots can make sense of these sites quickly and with less overhead.

Returning to your scenario about holiday in france I did a search and the number one authority according to Google is an outfit called: holidayfrance.org.uk

Interestingly, they score 35 out of 100 in the SEO analyzer, yet they are in number one position. If I were looking to compete with them it would be an encouraging start.

On their site you can request a brochure from many 'travel' companies, one of which is holiday-rentals

I might try to order a brochure for a laugh...

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

Returning to your scenario about holiday in france I did a search and the number one authority according to Google is an outfit called: www.holidayfrance.org.uk

Spot on! As a two stage way of getting a rating maybe Joe Bloggs should get himself included on that Site.

Alan

[thisfrenchlife]

I had started writing a free ebook on how to use a blog such as textpattern to create and run your rental site, as I can see how it can easily be applied to the job in hand, but my time is spent on other things these days.

If you finish this I would be more than willing to run a review of it on my site, sounds very interesting and using blog software is something I often advise owners to do.

Regards

Craig

[craigkillick]

Alan

I wasn't looking at it from the point of view of compliance with the latest "standards" nor was I looking at it from the point of view of SEO.

Sorry, you asked me for my opinion and I gave it.
I also agree that if someone wants a site to work well, SEO is important, and so is the code behind the site - and to acheive that - hard coding is the only way to go.

Garri,

We have done the same at work with running blog feeds into web sites to create full sections, etc. Just workiong on the SEO side of that for page name creation, etc.

Can see a sample of it with the news section at:
http://www.clarkeandson.co.uk

The news all feeds in from:
http://clarkeandson.typepad.com/news/

I am afraid that level of coding, etc. is way beyond me but I also read that this company is doing an off the shelf version (although still in early buggy stages).

feedostyle.com

[Alan Knighting]

Craig,

Sorry, you asked me for my opinion and I gave it.

Don't get me wrong about my opinion of the importance of SEO, CSS and the avoidance of deprecated elements but that’s only one side of the coin.

There are times when an individual wants to create a Personal Web Site quickly, as a place to which they can point people. They don’t care about SEO or CSS or deprecation; they don’t know what a “blog� is and even if they did they wouldn’t want one; they care that it works and it works straight away. They don’t want to know about the theories of these things and in the circumstances, why should they?

Alan

[Mountain Goat]

Garri
Do you find TextPattern can handle images? I can see it's OK for text.

I've been looking at subdreamer which appears to do both (plus about 1/2 dozen others) varying from £0 to $40,000....

Incidentally, I haven't had time to look around this forum, and I'm sure you grizzled old-timers are familiar with it, but the classified section of www.slowtrav.com is worth a serious look, if one's allergic to cms etc., and in particular for anyone who wouldn't know a blog if they stepped on it.

Excellent search engine positioning, knowledgeable, and communicative site owners, seriously interesting site, highly professional layout, good cms-type upload plus images and, most importantly for us, they allow outgoing links (so a good standby while we spend months producing our own definitive site and I needed something for the Alpine summer season). In addition about 2/3 of its 8500 pages are genuine content (rather than ads), which accounts for its high SE positioning I assume.

Cost is seriously good value for the results they produce - punters so far are mainly interesting, laid-back but highly picky North Americans.

Only downside so far, and I'm working on it, is they don't have short urls, so one's page ref. is a bit of a mouthful.

For our (non-specific) keywords we've been steadily on page 1 of Google etc. within 4 weeks, which for $35 / 6 months has to be something approaching awesome (or $50/year) - how long would that take with one's own site?

(and no, there isn't anything in it for me, but you might mention lay-my-hat if you sign-up and 'we' could get a group special offer i.e. extra images etc. and you might gently nudge Pauline, its founder, about getting short and snappy urls - OK, that's solved, see below)

[A-two]

Only downside so far, and I'm working on it, is they don't have short urls, so one's page ref. is a bit of a mouthful.

Pardon me for butting in, but that's an easy fix. Let me make a suggestion. Go to Godaddy.com and buy a one year registration on ChaletDamami.com (yes, it's available as I write) for $9. Login to your account and click "manage domains". Check the tick box next to your domain name, then in the top menu bar, click "url forwarding". Next, copy and paste your mouthful of a page ref. into the forwarding address box in the right hand column. Check "masked forwarding". Click OK. You're done.

They say it takes up to 72 hours, but in reality you may be able to tell people your new domain name within 6 hours and it will resolve. You never need give anyone the unpronounceable page ref again.... oh happy day!

[Mountain Goat]

Many thanks, Joanna, that's great - all done and fixed and working in 2 hours. Much appreciated....

Incidentally ref. masked forwarding, and using a domain in this way, does anyone know if keywords or title have any effect with a search engine (when setting up a masked domain)? I know meta-keywords are currently considered history on at least Google, but surely a search engine's spider isn't interested in sniffing around a parked domain? I guess this ought to be the subject of another thread.

Goat

[A-two]

Many thanks, Joanna, that's great - all done and fixed and working in 2 hours. Much appreciated....

Incidentally ref. masked forwarding, and using a domain in this way, does anyone know if keywords or title have any effect with a search engine (when setting up a masked domain)? I know meta-keywords are currently considered history on at least Google, but surely a search engine's spider isn't interested in sniffing around a parked domain? I guess this ought to be the subject of another thread.

Goat

Goat,
If you dig around the site, there are lots of posts here about 310 redirects vs. 302 redirects and the pros and cons, but in the situation you're in, which I understand is forwarding to a listing site, rather than to your personal site, you don't have a choice. By the way, if you bought the domain name I suggested, it's not working from here yet.