The week of May 4th through 10th was busy and interesting, with more threads of note than I had time to mention here. Don’t take my word for it. Come on into Cre8asite Forums and join the conversation.

While you’re in the Forums, refresh that browser and take a look at our lovely new Mother’s Day logo. Sweet!

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Cre8asite Forums Threads

Here are some of our favorite threads of this week.

  • Anyone On Satellite Internet?
    Are any of you using satellite internet in the work environment? If you offer web site services and are dependent on DSL or cable, would you consider switching over to satellite if if were offered? What are the costs and risks involved?

  • Kim Hits 10,000th post
    The Cre8asite community gathers to congratulate Cre8aste Forums owner, Kim Krause Berg, on her 10,000th post – an amazing testament to her dedication and impact on the web community.

    Thank you for everything that you do around here, and for your dedication and desire to help others learn, so that they could pass along what they’ve learned to others who are just starting out.

    Your dedication, and your humor have had a positive impact upon people visiting the forums, and upon those who have learned and have shared their experiences, thoughts, and suggestions here.

  • A Website (Design) Oddity
    Respree wonders why a billionaire like Warren Buffet would have a website that looks like it was designed by a kid for $100.

    They have nothing to prove, no need to develop, market, sell or service via the web. It needs only be a corporate placeholder with links to sufficient information to minimise office calls.

    I suspect that perhaps 2% of web users are prospective BRK-B investors.
    I doubt that 0.0001% of web users are prospective BRK-A investors.

    Give me one good reason for going beyond a minimalist website?

    Berkshirewear is, however, a giggle on many fronts.

  • Guilty and dumped…
    Kim Krause Berg learned that her host disabled her Cre8pc.com web site and blog by discovering it was gone a few days ago. With no warning or contact from her host, she came to learn she had 72 hours to vacate and find a new host. Why? We’re unsure. They claimed she is a spammer (and we know that’s impossible!) She shares her experience, along with their email correspondence (spelling errors and all).

  • Landing pages, effective marketing or horrible idea?
    Flying Monkeys started a topic with members clarifying and defining what a landing page is, and if it’s ever a good idea to have an orphan landing page.

    …a landing page is defined as:

    The page on which a visitor arrives after clicking on a link or advertisement.

    Which means any page on the site can be a landing page. It may be that you want to track visitors to a particular page. You can do this using an analytics package – there are plenty to choose from. You may want to limit how people get to a particular page and provide a single point of entry.

  • Start New Site From Scratch Or Split Off A Folder?
    New sites often have trouble getting traction in the search engine. They have no reputation, they have no links and as a result their visibility is usually too low to attract links in large numbers – even with great content. This thread explores the idea of starting a new site within a folder on a highly established domain and then spinning it off via a redirect.

    From a marketing/psychological perspective, however, I think making the new site an integral part of the more established site has some serious merit. It might, indeed, be a lot easier to attract links. People trust the familiar, so making your new content more familiar might have real advantages. It would sure be worth a try, I think.

    Of course, later, when and if you’re ready to split the sites, all you have to do is change your navigation and, perhaps, institute a redesign on the new content to help break the psychological ties. You won’t have to wait for 301 redirects to shift links, a process that is never instantaneous and often takes a few months. Push a button and your one site with two domains becomes two sites.

Cre8asite Forum Member Highlights

Our kudos to Cre8asite Forums members.

  • What SEO/SEM Professionals Should Know About Website Usability – Part 2
    Shari Thurow finishes her two-part article by letting Jakob Nielsen and Kim Krause Berg offer their opinions on what SEO’s need to know about usability.

    “I find there’s a bit of tunnel vision toward usability by web designers and SEOs,” Kim said. “You’ll hear SEOs say, ‘Let’s make sure the navigation works,’ or ‘We need to be sure pages aren’t cluttered.’ How many SEO companies ask for user persona or demographic data to help with optimization and targeted marketing? Why are we not user testing during the design phase, especially for rebuilds?”