You can come to Chicago in June for a two day conference and spend $800, or you can visit Dayton and get a day for $79 (Everything is cheaper in Dayton OH). We’re proud to have our chief Websitetologist, David Esrati be one of the featured speakers at this conference:

Web Content 2007 – Chicago Business Conference on Internet Website Content June 18 & 19
Know the State-of-the-Art in Website Content Management

Web Content 2007 is for business professionals involved with creating, organizing and maintaining web content. The two-day conference provides three tracks: content design and access,content development and management and emerging tools and technologies. Each track offers attendees a selection of workshops, case studies, and presentations lead by recognized Internet authorities. Attend all sessions in one track or mix-and-match sessions in any track to create a customized program. Held in an intimate setting in Downtown Chicago participation is limited. Registration is now open. Save $100 if you register before May 4, 2007.

If you don’t believe that this Websitetology thing works: think again. We’ve never met any of the people who are speaking, or contacted them- they found us, from our online presence. Same goes for clients in Minneapolis, Austin, Raleigh and Jacksonville. Using the proper Content Management System, utilizing webstats and understanding search and web 2.0 will grow your business.

We’re not a huge fan of buying keywords, but having the right keywords in your posts sure helps you get placement.

If you aren’t sure what keywords you should use, think about what you would use to find your post in Google (or Yahoo if you must) and then try them, see who pops up. But, what about the related words? That’s where the Overture Keyword selector tool comes in handy:

Overture- Keyword Selector Tool
Keyword Selector Tool

• Enter a term related to your site and we will show you: Related searches that include your term
• How many times that term was searched on last month

Or you can use the Google tool:

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Keyword Tool
The Keyword Tool generates potential keywords for your ad campaign and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and seasonal trends. Start your search by entering your own keyword phrases or a specific URL. You can then add new keywords to the green box at the right.

Either tool should help you focus your posts for maximum web search rank.

We’re not a big fan of guestbooks- but a client asked us about having one in WordPress. Right now, the WordPress world is in a tizzy over switching to 2.1 or continuing with 2.0- but here is one that claims to work with WordPress 2.1:

Alleba Blog » WordPress Guestbook Generator Plugin
Plugin Name: Guestbook Generator
Description: Generates a guestbook for WordPress blogs. Once activated, click on Options > Guestbook Generator.
Version: 0.8
Author: Andrew dela Serna
Notice: Compatible only with WordPress 2.1. Support for older versions will continue but updates/upgrades will be focused on the newest versions of WordPress. Scroll down to download Version 0.7 which is designed for Wordress 2.0.X.

Features:

1. No files to edit. Just upload the plugin, activate it then run the generator.
2. Guestbook template seamlessly integrates with your current theme.
3. When changing themes, simply run the generator to create the necessary files.
4. Like a true-blue guestbook, entries are arranged from newest to oldest.
5. Remember the time when guestbooks were the “in” thing? Hopefully this plugin will bring back the ol’ days. Hehe.

I don’t share the authors romantic view of guestbooks- for the most part, I find them silly. Comments are just as effective- and when using the amazing “subscribe to comments” plugin, you can actually carry on a great conversation on your site.

Please note- a lot of themes are behaving badly with WordPress 2.1 right now- so it may not be your plugin that’s broken- it may be the theme. It’s a trial and error world for a bit. If in doubt, stick with WordPress 2.0 if you aren’t ready to invest some time in the upgrade. Always remember to back up your complete database- and all files, before making a change.