SEMINARS ON NEXT GENERATION WEB SITES
Blogosopher changes name to Websitetology.

Dayton, OH August 21st 2006 There are only three ways that customers find your business website, search, links and advertising. Unless you are spending millions on advertising and people just know your URL, like Sony, Burger King or Chevrolet, they probably are coming to your site through search engines.
An entire industry of “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) consultants has sprouted up, charging hundreds to thousands of dollars to get your site to be on the front page of Google, yet Google re-writes the rules every so often, just to make sure they don’t get “gamed.”
Another option is to pay Google to get listed as a “Sponsored Link” appearing at the top or the right hand side of search results. Studies have shown that 70% of people skip these paid placements- unless they just can’t find what they want in the normal “organic” results.
When clients of Dayton ad agency, The Next Wave, started asking how to get their site to show up in Google, agency Chief Creative Officer, David Esrati began researching how to get their own site onto the elusive “first page.” The answer turned out to not be what the “SEO” consultants were doing, but actually a new business model based on principles of what is commonly known as Web 2.0- or true interactive sites where your customers can be a part of your brand experience online. The common implementation is know as a “blog” (weB LOG) but is really a sophisticated content management system that makes building and maintaining a web site simple.
After spending considerable time explaining the technology to clients one-on-one, the agency launched a 3.5 hour seminar called “Blogosopher” to share this sophisticated yet simple solution for websites that work for business. Eight months after beginning the seminar- it became clear that business people were wary of the word “Blog” so the seminars have been rebranded “Websitetology.” The Intro seminar begins with how the web and search work, and how it is changing business- moving into an introduction of the free Open Source software “WordPress” which works to manage the site. The Advanced seminar is how to get the most out of WordPress and build content that gets the results you need.
Since implementing this solution on The Next Wave site, they have moved to the front page of Google for multiple search terms and seen a ten fold increase in unique visitors to the site in a slightly over a year.
Another benefit of using these tools to manage the site is that site maintenance costs have dropped to almost nothing, with no HTML code knowledge required. Sites that the agency used to have to charge thousands for, are now possible for under $400 including the cost of the seminar and hosting.
The next seminars will be held Aug 21, 2006 at Nehemiah University, 750 S. Main Street, Dayton 45402 from 8:30 am until noon and 1:30 pm to 5 pm. Cost is $49 for each seminar, or $79 for both. More information at www.websitetology.com or by calling 937.228.4433 Advance reservations are strongly encouraged.

It’s one of our favorite “Super Themes” for WordPress- all kinds of added functions- stripped down interface- and a host of possible plugins integrate and play well with it.

There are even pages of tutorials on how to customize it-

So- after a long hiatus- the new version is released:
K2 0.9 Release at K2

We’ve downloaded it- and will have it up and running at www.esrati.com

It won’t look any different to most of you- but, it does some really cool things other themes don’t- for a hint- try typing a search and see how it starts returning results as you type- or look over on the archives page.

We try to install it as an option on every site we host. The only thing we’ve found was it didn’t work well with the Google Map plug-n-play plugin that we used on Gem Real Estate Group’s geographic listings page– so we had to modify a different theme. Might be fixed with this release- but we’re not ready to redo a theme just yet.

I was browsing through an outlet mall bookstore in Savannah GA earlier this year when a book caught my eye- “Son of Web Pages that SUCK” by Vincent Flanders- for 99 cents- I bought a dozen- figuring that they would be great material for doorprizes- or for sending to potential clients that don’t get the web.

Well- Vincent has a website- and here is the link:

Web Pages That Suck learn usability and good Web design by looking at bad Web design

and wouldn’t you know it- he is missing alt text on pictures, and has no RSS feed.

So- if you are looking for answers on how to build a website that doesn’t suck- maybe you need to talk to us instead.

And if you want the book- you can buy it here.