I've finally found time to finish another project of mine, step 3 of the plan. It's the Sussex Business Network and is an open, free directory for Sussex businesses, large and small, to get listed, post news, job opportunities and business events being run. Being almost a social network, the more you put in the more you get out but the minimum benefit of joining the network is a free link to your website.

I've been working beyond the capabilities of 10 people, have a major web application project I'm working on outside of my 9-5 consultancy contract and am generally flat-out.

The aim is to incorporate/evolve this website into the new application as/when/if I get it running which is planned for Q4 this year.

Please feel free to read on and post comments. If you wish to join the forum, please be advised I may not be able to answer questions due to having less than no time whatsoever, but please do post your thoughts and questions as the forum is getting picked up well in many search engines and the visits are numerous.

If someone wishes to moderate however? ;-)

One of the remits of this site is to look at web design, technology, development, usability and accessibility. I also cover making websites work in the form of a holistic business marketing approach. This article relates primarily not to these elements of a website but to the message contained within.

Always looking for marketing opportunities using the web, I came across a thread discussing advertising in computer games. This isn't a new topic but it's something I hadn't given much thought until I treated myself to a couple of computer games for this seasons holidays.

Being a fan of strategy games and flight simulators, I bought Total War: Medieval 2 and the very latest in the series from Microsoft, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, both of which are fantastic by the way.

I was looking at the advertising concept from two angles, one a potential success and one a massive failure.

In the line of duty, I tend to buy quite a few domain names. As most developers do, I bought a domain that sounds fairly useful and put it in my back pocket for a rainy day. Upon activation of the domain, in other words, the moment it resolved to the host, within 25 minutes, I'll say again, 25 minutes, I received the following email:

A recent discovery (for me) has unearthed a surprising fact about the UK's Disability Discrimination Act 1995 regarding schools. There appears to be an exemption for crown funded education services.

Over the course of 2006 I have been working with SEO and I'm seeing a pattern emerge in Google. It's a pattern in the roller coaster sense and I'm wondering if it's a symptom of too much SEO.

First a web site or page ranks well. This is known as the honeymoon period. I've seen this first hand as it has happened to many of my articles. Once the high rank period has expired, Google scores the page, judging its worth by studying the bounce effect. It's this bounce effect that determines the initial stable ranking position of the site or article. To increase the potential rank of the site, we need to know what the bounce effect is and how we can get some on our sites.

What is the bounce effect?

A recent debate on a forum turned into a lambasting [mine] when I asked another member why he failed to spell a word correctly. The thread was promptly moved by the moderators to an open discussion section and so it began.

I can't be alone I'm sure but I need reassurance I'm not the only one this gets to.

I noticed this trend a while back, mostly on forums, which is forgivable as people use slang, shorthand and other witty phrases and terms that mean something else. This trend is now making its way into publications and more seriously commercial websites' copy.

My public beating was in part my fault because I didn't convey my intentions or expressions effectively in the post. This created a hostile attitude to most posters who then took it as a mark of a lack of their intelligence.

Following on from the previously successful GMail giveaway, They've [Google] decided to give me another 50 invitations to hand out.

Want one?

Promoting websites and pages in Google is relatively straight forward as there's a wealth of information about how to do that including my article on search engine optimisation. Although hard work, there are guidelines and best practice routes to follow to get good, organic listings. But, what about getting images ranked?

#1 Ranked

The often thought interpretation of being #1 is getting listed for a phrase in Google that you've worked towards for a long time. Great! Eventually, you've made it! You're going to be rich!

But, are the sales rolling in? Some. Is that #1?

To begin with, let me inform you that I do have a couple of publications but they're not in the public domain, it's for free consumption within business support services in our area so basically, my writing experience is slim. What I pride myself on is the research into the following steps on crafting an article and generating the cuisine of the bots, good content. This in turn translates to more readers which is the primary objective of the exercise.

As part of the eBiz Centre, I'm honoured to have the opportunity to give a 3 hour presentation to students at the University Centre Hastings about eCommerce. Feel free to download the slides in PDF format [1.7Mb] by clicking the icon.

The topics covered are: