Dan Harrison

Every once in a while, Google does something a little odd. I was looking up information on “How to grow strawberries” as I have some in the garden that are almost ripe. I wanted tips on insect and bird control so that I get to eat them rather than allowing nature’s creatures to beat me to it.

As I was typing into Google, I got the following suggestions when I got as far as typing “How to g”. These are the results I got:

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Here are my collection of ideas and reasons why Social Media is so damn hard to master.

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I read a great deal about SEO, blogging and small businesses every day. Here’s a compilation of great articles that I’ve found recently that I encourage you to read. Topics include Email Tutorials, Entrepreneurs, Wordpress Performance, SEO Best Practice and Blogging Tips.

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If you’ve got a website that you rely on for your business, having reliable uptime is pretty important. The vast majority of hosting companies are not proactive about ensuring their servers are in tip-top condition. That’s understandable as being proactive is expensive. If a hosting company’s costs are higher, they need to charge the customer more.

Given that many customers choose hosting based on price, you can understand why a hosting company would decide not to invest in being proactive. The hosting company might therefore just react to problems instead. However, just because your hosting company is more reactive than proactive, it doesn’t mean you need to go elsewhere.

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On 21st May, I ran a presentation on how to run a website. I only had space for an audience of 20, but I had over 45 people interested in attending! I filled up the 20 spaces I had available in just 3 days of advertising the event. Therefore I’m running the presentation again on 18th June. However, much to my surprise, the 2nd presentation was filled to capacity in just 12 hours of advertising it!

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I shall be presenting on the topic of “Running a website (for business or pleasure)” at the IBM Hursley Clubhouse on 18th June 2009 (which is a repeat of the previous event on 21st May 2009). The event is sponsored by the British Computer Society (BCS), and so tickets are free to BCS and non-BCS members.

Please note that this is a booking only event. Sorry, but the event is now fully booked!

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When you launch a website or business, having a bold and representative logo can be a huge advantage. For example, can you imaging the logo for Pepsi, Virgin, MacDonalds, Apple, etc? Having such a strong logo helps people to remember your brand. If you have a logo that’s quirky, funny, or clever, then you’ve made it even easier to remember your logo.

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After lots of work, I’ve publically released my first wordpress plugin called WP Portfolio, which is now available directly from the Wordpress Plugin Database.

The WP Portfolio plugin allows you to create a list of the websites you own or developed, which are then published on a page on your website. The plugin automatically generates thumbnails of each of your sites for you too. An example of the plugin in action is on my own portfolio page.

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At the beginning of this month (May), I noticed that the EnviroGadget homepage had disappeared from the Google search results. Most of the other pages were still visible in the index, but mainly the home page plus a few other key pages were missing. At first I thought it was a penalty, but then I wasn’t doing anything to deserve one.

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I shall be presenting on the topic of “Running a website (for business or pleasure)” at the IBM Hursley Clubhouse on 21st May 2009.

The event is sponsored by the British Computer Society (BCS), and so tickets are free to BCS and non-BCS members. However, this is strictly a booking only event, and all places are now reserved.

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