Before I show you which are the most beneficial pieces of info to add, I’ll first explain what meta tags are and what they do:

Meta tags are HTML codes that are inserted into the header on a web page, after the title tag. In the context of search engine optimisation, when people refer to meta tags, they are usually referring to the meta description tag and the meta keywords tag.

The meta description tag and the meta keywords tag are not seen by users. Instead, these tags main purpose is providing meta document data to user agents, such as search engines. In addition to the well-known meta description and meta keywords tags, there are other useful meta tags, including the meta http-equiv tag, meta refresh tag, the meta robots tag, the meta copyright tag, and the meta author tag, etc. These tags are used to give web browsers and search engine spiders directions or data on various information.

See below how I apply meta info to my clients sites.  For the purposes of this example, I’ll replicate the meta tags used on this website.

Open a new HTML browser or text editor.  The area we’re focussing on is the bit between the arrows.

Then, we come to adding the right info.

This is what I added to my own meta info and it’s exactly the right info I need to guide the Search Engines and inform them as to what my page will be about and where best to index it in their search results:

Looking at each one seperately:

<meta http-equiv=”content-Language” content=”english” />

This informs the default language of the site. Not 100% needed, but can help display your site in a specific language at all times.

<meta name=”description” content=”We are a web design and SEO company based in Stockport with a creative online experience in designing websites that work. Whatever your web requirements, I offer online solutions at affordable prices.” />

This describes your website and is displayed in search results in google:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”web design stockport, web design cheshire, stockport web design, stockport seo,  search engine optimisation, OwenDevelopment, Owen Development, phil owen” />

This meta tag highlights the keywords of your site. Keywords you want your site to be indexed for in Google and other results go in here.

<meta name=”rating” content=”Safe For Kids” />

Some people don’t stipulate this, but I always add it in.  It basically tells Search Engines that your site can be accessed by any audience age and that it shouldn’t restrict users from viewing it.  Obviously only apply this if your site is kiddie-friendly.

<meta name=”Robots” content=”all,index,follow” />

This steers the Google spiders (search engine bots) to various pages.  Some sites like forums and Government sites have nofollow, none etc, to prevent any pages being scanned and indexed.  I believe this meta tag is becoming more obsolete and unused, but it can’t harm to include it just incase.

<meta name=”copyright” content=”OwenDevelopment” />
<meta name=”author” content=”Phil Owen” />

These 2 state your copyright ownership and who designed/wrote/developed your site.  Some sites use it, some don’t.  Personally, I like the credit for the site design and work put in.

<meta name=”google-site-verification” content=”dhqfgH5KvJs5V8M3kOtXU7SjY4EGSlVI5R-5HiM4n5I” />

This is where you can place your Google verification code after submitting it in Google’s Webmaster Tools.

After this, all you need to complete is the Title tag.  It’s best to have different titles for each page to maximise optimisation, and try to add keywords into the titles as well to rank higher for those key search terms.

You can obviously spendmore time on it to perfect the realism, maybe adding some layers of gradients to make the button look transparent and glassy.  This tutorial will show you how to create a button that looks great for any purpose.

So without wasting time, let’s get stuck in.

Step 1:

Create a new workspace and draw yourself a circle.  Any colour will do.

Step 2:

Fill the circle with a gradient.  This can be any colour you want.  For this example, I chose #1a2fcf for the dark colour and #91bffd for the top – where it’s a little lighter.

Step3:

Here, I also added an inner glow (of #023d6b) and a 1px stroke as well.

Step 4:

Add some text.   Open a new layer, and add a text box.  Here, I have put in ‘OD’.

Step 5:

Add a gradient to the text to give it a bit of shading, and I’ll also add a drop-shadow with ‘zero’ distance and size at 3px.    Add Bevel & Emboss with a size of 4 and depth pf 103%  as well.

Step 6:

Your text should now resemble something like below.  You need to aim for something that looks like it has a shadow, and is slightly raised form the surface of the ball itself.

Step 7:

Select the ‘Elliptical Marquee tool’ and create a circle within the ball.  Aim for something that fills the top half of the ball itself.

Step 8:

Create a new layer (still with the marquee selection),  and fill it with a white-to-transparent gradient, just like below:

Step 9:

Once the gradient has been applied (as below), reduce the opacity of the ’shine’ down to 62%.

Step 10:

Let’s add the shadow.  Create a new layer and use the circle shape tool to create an oval that it just a little smaller than the widest width of the ball.

Step 11:

Fill the new oval shape with a colour, any colour.

Step 12:

Now this shadow looks lame and too sharp.  Now, sometimes designers fill this with a gradient, sometimes a radial gradient with blur.  But here’s how I do it.

Hit Ctrl + T to ‘Transform’ the selected shadow item

Step 13:

Simply move the new circle up into the main body of the blue glass ball.  You have to make sure this layer is BEHIND the ball layer, so it gets hidden once you’ve moved it.  (I’ve changed the colour of the main ball just to show you).

Step 14:

What we’ve done here, is created an object.  We then add a drop shadow to this hidden oval, and increase the distance of the shadow until it fits where it should to the main blue ball.    The ‘Angle’ should be 90 degrees.  The Distance on my example was 151px, and the size around 32px.

This creates a drop shadow effect that actually is cast from the hidden oval we placed behind the blue ball, but actually looks like the shadow from the blue ball itself.

Step 16:

You’re done!.

Sometimes it takes a little playing around with the levels of each until you get to a ball and shadow that you like.  The more time you spend on it, the better it looks – but don’t overdo it, as sometimes ‘less is more’.  And that’s it, within 5 minutes, you have a nice looking web 2.0 button.

A website without images is dull, colourless and pointless. Readers on your site will get bored if there is nothing to see but words there, and are almost guaranteed to leave. So adding photos is important, but adding high-quality ones is a must. That’s why, I always enhance photos of my own and my clients for their websites to ensure the highest clarity and the most eye-capturing colour.

By having sharp and clear photo’s, you can capture visitors and keep them looking through your site. so how do you enhance photos and images?

Here’s how I do it:

Firstly, I use Adobe Photoshop CS4 which is a professional image editing tool and a must for any graphical or illustrative design (amongst other tools), but for enhancing photo’s and images, all you need in photoshop.  Just a quick mention, that earlier editions of Photoshop will do just as fine as almost all features are fully available in previous editions of photoshop, from series 7, through to the latest CS4.

Step 1. – Choose your image or photo.

For the purposes of this example, I’m using a photo of a bird I took last year in Hawaii.  It’s a good example as you have a nice, bright photo with plenty of detail in it.  Consequently, this was taken with a Nokia N96 smartphone which has a 5.2 megapixel camera.

2. Step 2 -  Sharpen the image.

Now some people choose different ways in photoshop to do this.  Personally, the first thing I do is use:

‘Filter’ –> ‘Sharpen’ –> ‘Sharpen’

This immediately sharpens every line in the image and is similar to doubling the megapixel processing of the original.   Sometimes this is too overkill and you need to opt for ‘Sharpen Edges’ only.  You’ll know, because the sharpness makes everything look too grainy and chaotic.  The Sharpen tool has worked great on this image though.

Step 3 – Enhance the colour and the contrast

From closer inspection of the image above, you can see that the dark areas (in the building behind for example) are washed out grays instead of blacks, so we’re going to fix this with some correction.

To do this, I adjust the hues and saturation of the colours, found in:

‘Image’ –> ‘Adjustments’ –>’Colour Balance’

This takes some playing around with and every image will be different, but try to remove any sepia / yellow washes which are quite common in digital photos.  If you want, you can try ‘Auto colour’ which can emulate it for you, but sometimes you can lose colour during the correction.

Then, open:

‘Image’ –> ‘Adjustments’ –>’Brighness/Contrast’,

Here, I always slightly reduce the Brightness (by 4 or 5), and slightly increase the contrast (again by 4 or 5).  This is normally small enough to not negatively affect the image by making it too dark, nor is it to too little that the blacks in the image could still be darker.

And that’s it!

Keep it simple and the photo’s won’t look to ‘overworked’ but still look vibrant and clear.  See a finished article below:

If you’re looking to get your hands on Photoshop, please see below:

Now usually, when you bookmark a page on the iphone, it normally captures the screen that was last visible before you pressed the ‘+’ button then ‘Add to Home Screen’ buttons.   This screenshot  gets used as an icon  on the iphone – but you can customise this logo in the same way as a Favicon appears on a PC or Mac.

These are the steps to create an icon for your website:

1.   Create a 57px × 57px PNG file (preferably non-transparent) to use as your icon

2.   Name it ‘apple-touch-icon.png’ and place it in the root HTML folder of your site

3.    To apply the icon,  insert this simple code in the <head> tag of the header:

<link  rel="apple-touch-icon"  href="/apple-touch-icon.png” />

The iPhone automatically changes your  icon to fit the style of the other icons including adding rounded corners to the shape and the glossy effect for the glassy-reflection style so you don’t need to do that yourself.

If you notice a slight delay after clicking the ‘Add to Home Screen’ button on your iPhone it is simply that the icon is being downloaded and ’shine’ added.

Here’s the exact image I used for my iphone bookmark icon for this website:

The primary reason for an SEO to be concerned with the Robots.txt file is because search engines like Google use crawlers or “robots” to index web content on the Internet.    The flip-side to the SEO coin is the other reason to be concerned about the Robots.txt file which is because spammers use Web robots to scan Web pages on the Internet for email addresses and other personal information.

In order to understand what the Robots.txt file can and cannot do for you, you must first understand what a Robots.txt is. A Robots.txt files is a text file used by Web site owners to tell Web robots which files it should not include or not include in its Index.  A Web site owner using a Robots.txt file is using The Robots Exlusion Protocol.

Because the Robots.txt file is simply a text file that is publicly available on your Web server, you should note that robots can not only simply ignore it, but they will also see what sections of your Web site you don’t want robots to use. If you are intending to use the Robots.txt file to hide information from spammers or other, more malicious users, you should really rethink the method to your madness.

What good is the Robots.txt file?

If robots can simply ignore the Robots.txt file, you might ask yourself, “What good is the Robots.txt file?”   This is a fair question to ask, but since we are speaking of the Robots.txt file in regards to SEO we need to address those robots that play well with the Robots.txt file.  Search engine Web robots, such as Google’s, use the Robots.txt file to decide which of your Web site Web pages it will Index and which pages it will leave alone.

Where do I put the Robots.txt file?

If you want search engines to use your Robots.txt file then you should make sure it is in the top-level directory of your Web server (the root folder for your Web site).  When a Web robot looks for the Robots.txt URL, it strips the path component from the current URL and puts “/robots.txt” in its place.  This means that if a Web robot is following a link to “http://www.example.com/blog/post.php” it will remove the “/blog/post.php” and replace it with “/robots.txt“, ending up with “http://www.example.com/robots.txt“. Since this is where the Web robot will look for your Robots.txt file by default, you should make certain that your Robots.txt file is in this root directory.

How does the Robots.txt file work?

The Robots.txt file is a text file used to give instructions about a Web site to Web robots. The first line of a Robots.txt file usually contains a row of text beginning with “User-agent: ” and ending with the robot or robots the Robots.txt file is referring to. If “User-agent: ” is followed by an asterick (*) then the Robots.txt file is using a wildcard character to refer to all robots or “any robot”.

The second line and often each line following contains a row of text that refers to those files or directories that the robot should not Index. For example, if you do not want a search engine to Index your /tmp folder because it contains those files that are only temporary and that do not hold significant content then you would use the following convention: “Disallow: /tmp/“. This will, in effect, tell the search engine Web robot to exclude all content contained in your /tmp directory.

If you would like all Web robots to access all of your content you would use the following:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

If you would like to exclude all Web robots from all of your content use the following:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

If you would like to exclude all Web robots from just a portion of your content, such as your /tmp directory, use the following:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /tmp/

There are many other conventions you may use to limit the content search engine Web robots Index.   If you would like to learn more about these conventions you should visit The Web Robots Pages.  It is also worth noting to supply the meta info in the tags to instruct the robots where to go as well as creating a Robot.txt file.  This should look like the following:

<meta name="Robots" content="all,index,follow" />

If you use your PC to acccess the web, you need to make sure that you’re protected – especially as the threat of malware, spyware and general internet virus attacks have never been so prominent.

Antivirus (or anti-virus) software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including computer viruses, worms, and trojan horses.  Such programs may also prevent and remove adware, spyware, and other forms of malware as well.

Surfing the net is one thing, but using peer-to-peer sharing sites and torrents is far more risky as you are downloading files from other people (totally untrustworthy) directly onto your computer.  How do you know if that latest song is actually a song – just because it comes with a .mp3 file extension?   You don’t have to look far into Google to start finding horror stories where victims have literally lost their PC’s/emails/everything.

In times of recession and when every penny counts, not everybody can afford to spend £30-50 for an all-round anti-virus software package.   Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good packages and offers out there, and I have tried most of them; Norton, AVG, Symantec etc.   There may be some slight differences between them, but as long as they block the bad stuff, I’m happy.

Now for my readership, I’m going to make a personal recommendation for a FREE antivirus software package that most people don’t realise is out there (including me until I found it!).  Who makes it? … none other than Microsoft.

I’ve been using this as my only virus protection for some time and I’m really happy with the results.  It runs quietly in the background, doesn’t drain computer performance (unlike most), and hey, it’s FREE.

See more by clicking the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

I also recommend applying the below points to guarantee  total PC safety:

1. Turn on your Internet firewall. The firewall prevents outside sources from accessing your computer. If you’re using a computer with a Windows operating system, go to your Control Panel and click on “Windows Firewall” or “Security Center.” Your firewall should be operational at all times.

2. Enable automatic updates for your computer. For computers using Microsoft Windows, go to the Control Panel and click on “Automatic Updates” to make sure it is turned on.  The patches and programs that are installed on your computer will help to ensure that your system remains current and capable of guarding against new viruses and worms that have been found elsewhere.

3. Install current software. See above, but keep the software current by checking for updates to download whenever you schedule a scan.

4. Do not open email attachments from senders you do not know.  It’s so easy and sometimes purposely curious to open an email that seems to offer something that appeals.  Don’t be fooled and subject lines are written specifically for you to open them.  These attachments can contain viruses or worms that will infect your computer immediately. Even when the sender is known, you should scan their attachment with your anti-virus tool.  People are often unaware that their computer is infected and may send viruses to your email contacts without you even knowing.

5. Avoid websites or programs that require peer-to-peer file sharing.  These sites and programs are often breeding grounds for viruses.  Also do not open pop-ups or websites that seem to be suspicious or that you believe to be unsafe.  Do not click on links provided in emails or instant messages.

6. Make backups of all your important documents and files in the event your computer becomes infected with a virus or worm and is rendered inoperable.

That’s it.   Just be aware and suspicious of everything, get some anti-virus software up and running and it will help you stay safe and happy on the internet.

Are you looking for some effective SEO tips and techniques that will make your site easily available to the potential customers? Consider working on page ranks as they are really important in determining the overall position or ranking of your website on the popular search engines. These page ranks are not only crucial for getting your website the incoming links from trusted and reputable sites but they also contribute tremendously in making your own outbound links valuable to the other sites. This process of incoming and outbound links is also crucial while negotiating with the link exchanges performed with various other sites. The higher the site’s page ranking is, the more the other sites will add your links to their pages.

Page ranks can be easily described numerically ranging from 1 to 10 where 10 works as the highest page rank in the whole chain. It has been noted that a very less amount of pages are featured with the page rank of 10 but any number above the ranking of 6 is taken to be a favorable one.

There are a wide variety of factors that helps in proper determining of the page ranks. However, the major variable appears to be actually based on the number of websites that link to your site’s page. Larger the number of popular sites visiting your site, better is the chances to get high position on the known search engines. So to say, take for example a case in which excellent ranking websites such as Yahoo.com or CNN.com links to your site. In this situation, your site will automatically get popular and this linking of the excellent ranking websites is much better than links from a large number of low page ranking sites.

Enhancing the page ranks of your site is not only described by the total number of back links you possess and use. Even article marketing with targeted titles, content and keywords, is an important factor that helps in taking the page ranks to higher heights. Equally essential is the site’s content. The actual content of the website requires to be the details that the users can read and use in the best possible manner. Having the right kind of content that suits the keywords is one of the other factors as well that contributes a lot in deciding the overall page ranks. There are various inquisitions in the minds of website owners about whether there are some ways that can actually help in generating good page ranking and that too without involving any expenses or costs. The exact answer to these inhibitions is actually “yes”. There are a few things, however, that needs to be considered wisely in order to generate great page ranks.

The first and foremost thing that needs to be kept in mind while looking for better page ranking at no cost is that of creating internal back links. It is necessary to make links to your website whenever applicable. Take for instance a condition where you mention the online payment system on the introductory page. In such a case, it is not only good to add the service provided of online payments, it is always a better option to hyperlink the specific payments page so that the customer can easily get to the payments system and enjoy the facilities. By doing this, not only your website is creating another back link for the spiders, it is making it easier for the visitors to get to the specific payments page right there and that too without wasting their precious time.

The second aspect that needs proper consideration is that of avoiding the usage of dead-end back links. In case you have worked day and night on creating around 7 relevant pages. Your page rankings have the ability to be a rank of 7. But if by chance some of those pages are basically not providing any relevant results, they you really need to consider and figure out the main problem. Whenever the search engine spiders crawl on a site, they wish to move from one web page to the other. You may be featured with a really fantastic and informative page but in case it is not equipped with other page pinks, the spiders will take that particular excellent page to be a dead-link one thereby reducing the chances of enjoying high page ranks. It is necessary to ensure that each web page is added with an external door apart from the back button. You can easily add an index link or maybe a site navigator on each page in order to add that extra convenience for your site visitors.

Boost your Wordpress SEO and security with my pick of essential plug-ins for your wordpress site.   Remember that Wordpress plug-ins are all free and very easy to download and install.  It can be accomplished manually by FTP access to your server and dragging the plug-in files across into the plug-ins folder which is found at:

www.yourdomain.com/html/wp-content/plugins

Or the even easier way, from the admin back end of your site.  Simply log into your site from www.yourdomain.com/wp-login.php.  You can then choose ‘Add New’ from the plugins menu on the right, search your plug in from the search box, and click ‘install’.  Plugins will then automatically install into your site.  Some add-ons will require settings to be changed to your requirements, but most are ready to use straight out-of-the-box.

See my list of essential plug-ins here for helping your Google search rankings and overall site security.  These are installed as standard with every OwenDevelopment project anyway, so if I build a site for you, you’ll already have them installed and confgured!.

Recommended Wordpress SEO Plugins:

• All-In-One SEO Pack*
• Google Sitemap Generator*
• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer*
• Permalink Redirect*
• Permalinks Moved Permanently*
• Top Level Categories*
• HTML Page Sitemap*
• Google Analytics Plugin*

Recommended Wordpress Social Media Plugins:

• Sociable (All in One Syndication)*
• ShareThis (All in One Syndication)*

Recommended Wordpress Security Plugins:

• Akismet*
  • Wordpress.com account needed for API Key (OwenDevelopment customers don’t need to as already done)
• Wordpress Database Backup*
• WP Security Scan*
• Simple CAPTCHA*

* Add all these from Backoffice of Wordpress (yourdomain.com/wp-admin etc)

Specialty Plugins (optional):

Internal Link Building by SEOROI.com

Free Traffic Getting SEO Plugin by Jeff Johnson

New Year is considered as one of the happiest celebrations in the world as million of people are exchanging Happy New Year greeting messages through text and even in internet through facebook, friendster and myspace.

New Year is the time to send our wishes and greetings to our families, friends and loved ones through. So celebrate the New Year 2010 now and start greeting your families, friends and loved ones and let yourself share your love and care with them.

OwenDevelopments are now including the application of Google Analytics  into their sites from Package 3 upwards.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way.  With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

See our pricing page for more info on this package.