Turning Lead (ColdFusion) into Gold (WordPress)
If anyone out there has any thoughts or ideas about how to import ColdFusion coded pages into a WordPress template page, I’d really like to know. Can it be done or is it impossible? The more I have researched it, the more I am beginning to think it would be easier to find Noah’s Ark.
I did find a post here that provides a roundabout inkling that it may be possible to integrate the two technologies, but there is nothing forthcoming or any new ideas posted to the website. I have contacted several of the top ColdFusion experts about this but even they are not sure because they’re not attuned to the WordPress coding side of things. So, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know so I can either keep digging around or put this beast to rest once and for all.
Social Media and Why You Should be Using it
Social media is here to stay and even though many of us are a bit reluctant to jump into it, it is very clear that your website growth and success, hinges on the proper utilization of social media.
From Website Magazine:
Technologies change so rapidly that they create the need for new ideas and improved strategies virtually overnight. You may be tired of hearing about social media, for instance, and you hardly consider it a new development. But if you employ the same social strategies in 2012 as you did in 2010, and fail to account for the changes coming in the next year, your business will suffer the consequences. To ensure that your website stays ahead of this trend, direct your focus on providing continually fresh and useful content that matters in real time — content that addresses the current needs of your audience. There is no better way to achieve this than by engaging with your customers on social networks.
Create and distribute helpful blog posts and informational videos on which users can comment and share with one another, and invite them to write reviews about your products, services and business. Build an application or optimize your website to ensure that users can access your business on their mobile devices and get the information they need right away.
To monitor the engagement, explore some real-time analytics solutions to determine how visitors are interacting with your site — while they are on-site. Optify provides just one of the solutions in this rapidly growing space, giving website owners instant analysis that allows them to immediately address the needs of their visitors.
The Accuracy of Google Analytics…or not
Usually one of the first things a new client will ask me about is adding Google Analytics tracking to their website. There seems to be a lot of hype about Google Analytics which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best website statistics program to use. It’s free, so like anything else, you get what you pay for. As a matter of fact, I compared Google Analytics results head to head with the actual web server statistics from one of my client’s websites and the sever logs reported twice the amount of visitors than what Google served up. So what gives? An excerpt from an article below explains in a bit more detail:
From a mathematician’s perspective it’s not that good at all. All professional web analysts know that Google Analytics significantly underestimates traffic in the overwhelming majority of cases. Anyone who has ever compared the stats from their web server with the stats from Google Analytics knows that the two sets of numbers rarely match up.
There are several reasons why, but the most significant factor is that the GA tracking code only fires if the person loading the page has Javascript enabled. That means that search engine crawlers and other automated web crawlers don’t get picked up, which is great- for the most part, web analytics is only concerned with the activities of real people- but it also means that anyone browsing with Javascript disabled will be completely invisible.
After my own research into this, I have come to the conclusion that although Google Analytics is still a useful tool, I would not rely on it entirely for accuracy. I would, as always, tend to believe my actual website server log statistics first. Any good web hosting company will provide access to your website server statistics so why not play it safe and compare your actual server statistics with what Google provides?
What Google has to say about all those SEO “Experts”
It seems like every day, our company which is a web design agency and offers it’s own SEO services gets calls and e-mails from so-called search engine optimization experts offering to “improve your SEO and get you a top page ranking in Google, blah, blah, blah“. Our customers are also bombarded by this junk but unfortunately most of them are unaware that most of these SEO experts are scammers (or at the very least spammers). Most of the offending companies originate from India, totally ignoring the United States “no call list” laws and regulations. However, some companies are right here in the USA and call and email their shady offerings too. I find it particularly hilarious, and apparently Google does too as you will see below, that they do not “research” your website at all. You’re simply receiving automated spam messages, designed to trick you into believing that they actually evaluated your website, which they clearly have not done.
The following is what Google itself had to say about all of the above. SEO isn’t all that difficult. Google provides a great SEO document here that explains the core process.
While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:
- Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
- No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Alpine Web Media for Mobile Devices
We have just added new functionality to the Alpine Web Media, LLC. blog especially for viewing on mobile devices such as the iPhone. Now you can view all of our posts in an easy to read list format with your mobile device, so check it out!