In effort to give back a little back to the community of Tulsa we have just completed the design and development of a new site for ALAtulsa.org. This nonprofit met our qualifications and walked away with a very attractive and featured site for very little cost. We used Wordpress as a content management system on this site to allow the organization to blog about meetings and news and also provide a means for discussion within the organization. The site also features a flash header with some nice Oklahoma and Tulsa centric photos. This site also features an ultra wide background to accommodate the increasing sizes of monitors in use, while also displaying on smaller screens.

The mission of the Association of Legal Administrators is to promote and enhance the competence of professionalism of all members of the legal management team; improve the quality of management in law firms and other legal service organizations; and represent professional legal management and managers to the legal community and to the community at large.

Visit their website, below.

Association of Legal Administrators Tulsa Chapter

If your organization is a non-profit and is in need of a website please contact us. We offer discounts to non-profits and in some cases will design and develop them as a charitable donation.

Interesting stats regarding online retail from searchengineland.com, an authority on internet search.

Following up a report that online-only retailers experienced an 11% increase in visits for Black Friday 2008 (over 2007), Hitwise released additional numbers for Cyber Monday 2008, traditionally expected to be a better day in terms of online traffic and sales for e-tailers.

Cyber Monday 2008 snapshot

• Among the top 500 Retail Web sites, the percentage of U.S. visits were down 1% on Cyber Monday 2008, compared to 2007.
• U.S visits to Brick and Mortar store Web sites (100 total) were down>4% on Cyber Monday.
• U.S visits to Online-only Web sites (100 total) were up 5% on on Cyber Monday.
• U.S visits to the Comparison Shopping Web sites were down 21% on yber Monday.
• U.S visits to the Catalog Web sites were down 4% on Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday visits to top retailers

Percentages based on U.S. visits to the top 500 Retail Web sites.

1. Amazon.com - 10.77%
2. Walmart.com - 8.55%
3. Target.com - 4.56%
4. BestBuy.com - 3.81%
5. Sears.com - 2.74%

Amazon.com’s traffic increased 21% on Cyber Monday 2008 vs. 2007. Walmart.com’s traffic increased 6%.

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SEO is definitely hot in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and for good reason. Following is a very insightful post by highly revered Rank Fishkin of SEOmoz. He is a wizard of search engine optimization and very insightful as to the SEO market.

The following post is an excerpt from seomoz.org

Why? What makes SEO more attractive in a down market? While I can’t say for certain, I’ll enumerate the most common explanations and motivations I’ve heard and perceived:

1. The Web Outperforms Other Sales Channel
   When organizations look at the paths leading to sales and income (a critical analysis whenever budgets are under scrutiny), the web almost always comes out with one of two assessments. Either it’s a leading sales channel (especially from an ROI perspective) or it’s deemed to be an area with the greatest opportunity for growth. In both scenarios, web marketing and, in correlation, SEO, takes center stage.
2. It’s the Right Time to Re-Tool
   Established companies frequently use down cycles as a chance to focus attention inward and analyze themselves. Consequently, there’s a spike in website redesigns and SEO along with it.
3. Paid Search Drives Interest in SEO
   Paid search spending is still reaching all-time highs, and when companies evaluate the cost and value, there’s a nagging little voice saying “70%+ of the clicks don’t even happen in the ads; use SEO.”
4. SEO is Losing its Stigma
   Google is releasing SEO guides, Microsoft and Yahoo! both have in-house SEO departments and the “SEO is BS” crowd have lost a little of their swagger and a lot of their arguments. No surprise - solid evidence trumps wishful thinking, especially when times are tough.
5. Marketing Departments are in a Brainstorming Cycle
   A high percentage of companies are asking the big questions - “how do we get new customers?” and “what avenues still offer opportunity?” Whenever that happens, SEO is bound to show up near the top of the “to be investigated” pile.
6. Search Traffic Will Be Relatively Unscathed by the Market
   Sales might drop, conversion rates might falter a bit but raw search traffic isn’t going anywhere. A recession doesn’t mean that people stop searching the web, and with broadband adoption rates, Internet penetration and searches per users consistently rising, search is no fad - it’s here for the long haul.
7. Web Budgets are Being Reassessed
   We’ve all seen the news about display advertising falling considerably - that can only happen when managers meet to discuss how to address budget concerns. Get 10 Internet marketing managers into rooms with their teams and at least 4 or 5 are bound to discuss SEO and how they can grab that “free” traffic.
8. Someone Finally Looked at the Web Analytics
   It’s sad, but true. When a downturn arrives or panic sets in, someone, maybe the first someone in a long time, checks the web analytics to see where revenue is still coming in. Not surprisingly, search engine referrals with their exceptional targeting and intent-matching are ranking high on the list.

This was a site that was linked to in a newsletter from electronic artist Cheb I Sabbah that my wife forwarded to me. I was clicking through and landed on http://www.lepoissonrouge.com/ which is apparently a venue that Cheb I Sabbah is performing at.

I did not realize it but I ran into a killer Flash based website. The user interface is very progressive in that it uses a depth of field page navigation interface to allow the user to navigate the site in a stream of time warp style pages ala Apple TimeMachine, except with a unique spiraling human genomesq infinite spiral.

This site is noteworthy because it is uses a fresh unique dimensional content generation and page delivery schema.

As we get closer to formally closing the books on our Winston Web brand, I wanted to document the evolution of our brand over the last 4 years. As an interesting look back on how our company has changed and grown, but also as a reflection on branding and the process of refinement and perfection that needs to take place in the maturation process of a brand.

It is my intention to assemble the logo concepts and screen shots from the last 4 years of Winston Web Development Inc. For now I just have a screen shot of the interface we used for the last year or so:

In addition to web design and SEO I am into in architecture, in particular modern architecture. As an attempt to both further my interest in this subject and to give back to the community a bit I run two websites devoted to the subject. The sites I have had online for approximately one year now, which are receiving pretty decent viewership (approximately 10k visits per month on average between the two). I have not invested much energey into SEO until recently, of which the results I will share.

Just one month ago I decided to make the switch to Wordpress from the Joomla site I originally created the sites on. Wordpress is a blog platform which we often modify to become a full CMS system. In addition to its ease of use and great presentation, Wordpress is great for SEO. I installed Wordpress, created a custom theme and began with the on-site optimization.

As with all SEO, the process begins with extensive keyword research. I had to understand my market fully and my competitors before I could make an educated decision as far what keywords to target. I looked at “modern architecture” , “modern houses” , “modern” and the like to identify the following:

1. What terms were being searched for?
2. What was the search volume?
3. What sites were being found?
4. Could my site compete? Read the rest of this entry »
   
   

As you well understand having a website is great, but having a website which has up to date information and newly added content is even better.

There are number of different ways to change and update the content on a website. In this article I will go over the different options so that you will better be able to find the correct solution for your budget.

1. Webmaster
The first way to manage, update, change or create new content for a website is to have a dedicated webmaster working as an internal employee for your organization. This webmaster must have a working knowledge of such technologies as HTML, CSS, FTP, Graphic Design and other basic web development and web design methodologies. The webmaster would serve as the primary vehicle through which updates and modifications would be made to the website, through the utilization of professional web development protocol.
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I am currently working on finishing up the UI design for our terrific new blog.

I hope to have it completed within the next few days so we can start blogging our heads off.

Talk soon!