Well it’s late once again but I’m still optimizing into the night and wanted to give you guys a heads up as to one of our latest ‘toys.’

URL Availability Checker

Domain Name Availability

With this tool you can search for domain names and see if they are available on .com, .org, .biz, .net, .info, and .us.  BIG WHOOP!

Well it is actually, yes you can do the same thing at GoDaddy or any of the other registrars.

Unfortunately you have to type out what you want to search for, hit the submit button, wait for the page to load only to tell you - NO!  This Domain is Taken!  Well, our tool dynamically searches as you type, so you can make changes on the fly and try different variations all without the hassle of waiting.

Give it a try and give us some feedback!
http://www.eleganceindesign.com/domains.html
Cheers
Mike =)

UPDATE: so we created a little video walkthrough.

m4v version for your ipod

Google Penalization, Top 5 Ways to Prevent “Googlebombing.”

Any of us who make a living off of our website have nightmares about waking up, doing a search for your website, and it not showing up. Being banned from google may not be the death of your website but it is nearly impossible to recover from.

So how does one go about getting banned from google? It’s easy enough…anything that goes against their webmaster agreement or google guidelines can potentially get you banned.

Here are a few easy steps to making sure you don’t become a banned statistic:

1. DO NOT SPAM! For some reason people have attached the idea that the number of links back to your site directly correlates to your website’s Page Rank. People, if it were that easy I’d be out of a job! The algorythm is highly complicated–so don’t spend your time trolling websites and pasting in a generic response in the comments section. You WILL damage your ranking not improve it.
2. DO NOT place hidden text on your website. Placing keywords on your site and them hiding them from the user is not a good idea. The robot is smart enough to spot it and considers this tactic a way of unnaturally increasing your rankings.
3. Multiple domains with identical content is a no no. People have tried this tactic and failed resulting in a ban of all their domains. Keep your content on one site and use other sites to market. But don’t copy and paste, the algorythm is smart enough to pick up on these stypes of tactics. As a matter of fact, a safe bet is NO duplicate content!
4. Buying backlinking. Ah the grey area. Technically paying for tect link ads goes against google’s guidelines. Meaning that if you are caught out you may be penalized. However, with 60+ million sites engaging in it and the industry getting more and more clever it seems if you are clever and keep the links natural and build them natural it’s nearly impossible for the algorythm to catch them out. But remember, it is strictly against google guidelines.
5. If in doubt call them up! A lot of people don’t realize that this is a company that we can actually contact. If you have a question about a marketing technique you want to test give them a call and remember, a generic canned response isn’t exactly a no. ;)

If you have any questions about anything above please feel free to contact me http://www.eleganceindesign.com/contact.html

Until next time,
Mike =)

It’s just time, we’ve been talking about and thinking about blogging for over a year.

The primary use of our blog will be to discuss the goings on within the design community.  Whether it’s new and exciting technologies we’re seeing or putting into practice or just gorgeous designs.

We’ll also use this as a platform to give tips to small business owners looking to add a better marketing angle to their site, or tips on search engine optimization efforts you can easily employ.

You may be asking yourself, why in the world does it look nothing like the current site.  Well, we’ve been working on a new design for over 6 months but it’s been put on the shelf indefinitely due to the high volume of work we currently have.  But we created the blog theme so why not use it. ;)  I mean, I did pay my designer and my programmer to create it!  All joking aside, we’ll probably switch between themes throughout the next 6 months to a year until we decide upon a final look.

So sit back and enjoy.

Here’s looking at you kid!
Mike Farley, Owner
Elegance in Design, LLC