A lot of firms are marketing their services for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Often they’ll tell you things like: “we’ll submit your site to 500 search engines for only $50 a month” –or– “we’ll put meta tags in your HTML” –or– “we’ll get you in the top page of search results.”

Optimizing your website for search engines is important. But don’t be conned by these guys who are out to fleece you for a buck.

Here are some SEO myths:

Myth 1: You must submit your site to the search engines

Not true! Search engines don’t need you to submit your site anymore. They will automatically find you. It’s not bad to submit, but don’t pay money to anyone for this, and don’t do it multiple times.

Myth 2: Your site needs to be optimized for 500 search engines

Not true! The only search engines that matter are Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Myth 3: META tags will solve all your website ranking problems

Not true! Although not a bad idea, META tags aren’t even considered for your ranking in Google.

Myth 4: Your site has to be on the first page of results

Not true! It depends on what keyword you are searching for. It would be nearly impossible to quickly get on the first page of results for “toys.” However, your site can rank well for many less-popular (more specific) keywords and do just as well as having one popular (non-specific) keyword.

Myth 5: Pay-per-click ads can replace natural search rankings

Not true! Pay-per-click ads are well and good, but many searchers ignore them. Ideally, you want to use a smart ad campaign in addition to natural rankings.

Finally, remember that just increasing your traffic won’t necessarily increase your sales. There are many ways you can improve your conversion rate and get more customers to buy (enlarge the funnel), rather than just dumping more visitors onto a site with a poor conversion rate (small funnel).

One more thing: don’t try to ’spam’ the search engines with invisible keywords or ‘doorway’ pages or the like. Improve your website naturally for your customers (not for the search engines), and the search engine rankings will follow.

Apple’s much anticipated new device is the iPhone, which combines mobile phone, iPod, email, and Internet. The iPhone will be available June 29 through AT&T, but this Apple fan won’t be buying one.

Why not?

1. Price — Starting at $499, the iPhone is expensive. For all the features, it isn’t a bad price, but I don’t want to pay that much.

2. Music & Video — Who wants to watch a movie on a 3.5-inch display? What happened to the 50-inch plasmas everyone wants for the SuperBowl? I read books when on an airplane. And if I ever decide to wear earbuds instead of using speakers for music, I will buy an iPod and a phone separately and save a lot of dough.

3. The Phone — Getting your voicemail in an inbox is pretty cool. It allows you to see all your messages at a glance, and choose which ones to listen to in whatever order you like. Since I use Vonage for all voicemail (cell phone included), I already get this feature, as voicemail is sent via email as an audio attachment. Vonage will even transcribe the audio into text for 25 cents. This iPhone feature is cool, but not really necessary for me.

4. Instant email — I don’t want to have email following me wherever I go. My life is busy enough, and instant “push” email is not a good way to improve productivity. If someone has an emergency, they will call.

5. Internet everywhere — Surfing the Web is overrated and can easily be a time-waster. If I need to find an address with my cell phone, I can send an SMS to Google or call 1-800-GOOG-411.

The iPhone is very cool and Apple will no doubt sell them like hotcakes. However, for my needs it is overkill, and would cause me to be less productive.

Have you ever looked in your rearview mirror and seen an accident happen in the spot where you were a second ago?

It has happened to me while driving, and just recently I also escaped getting in an Internet accident of sorts, which hurt a lot of people.

When I started working with the Internet, I purchased my first domain name, kingdomdesign.com. Domains were quite expensive back then, and when competition opened up, I moved all my domains to a newcomer in domain registrations, called RegisterFly.

RegisterFly had cheaper prices, and I began using them for all my client domains as well. I also recommended them to friends who needed to buy domains.

A year ago, I selected a new domain registrar for my business, and finished moving all the domains I manage away from RegisterFly to the new registrar. It was a lucky break, because last year RegisterFly began having some customer service problems.

Apparently, things kept rolling for them until this year, when RegisterFly’s ownership had some disagreements. There were accusations of fraud and mismanagement of company funds.

This shenanigan went so far as to cause the breakup of the company, and the loss of their license to be a domain registrar. It is still unclear what will happen to millions of domain names that are registered with RegisterFly. They will probably be saved, but not without much stress on the domain owners.

I am exceedingly thankful that I no longer do business with RegisterFly, as their “accident” surely would have caused great pain to me and my clients.

It is now with great care that I offer domain registration and management services. My domain registrar of choice is EasyDNS, a company who has “been around the block” on the Internet (see: “are you guys going to be around in 6 months?”). EasyDNS understands, like I do, that your domain is the lifeblood of your website, and often your business (read their CEO’s comments here).

Additionally, the RegisterFly wreck caused me to rethink my use of private domain registrations. These allowed us to hide the real owner’s name from the public database of domain owners, and eliminated the junk mail problem.

However, I have seen that with private registrations, if we ever needed to transfer your domain registration to another provider, you cannot prove your ownership of the domain, since your name does not appear in the public database.

This realization has led me to abandon private registrations and register all domains as normal public domain registrations for myself and my clients. If we ever had to switch registrars in a worst-case scenario, we can now do so. The junk mail problem can be dealt with, losing a domain cannot be.

We were fortunate to avoid an accident, and I learned some painless lessons. I’ll continue to drive cautiously. Enjoy the ride.

Fraud abounds on the Internet. Many people fall prey to the tactics of fraudulent sites, which try to steal credit card numbers, account numbers, and passwords.

Fortunately for consumers, Microsoft has developed a solution to this expanding fraud problem. A new security feature will change the color of the Internet Explorer 7 web-address bar to green if the site is secure and has been verified as legitimate. Normal secure sites will show white, while suspicious sites will show yellow, and confirmed fraudulent sites will show red.

The green address bar will allow customers to have absolute confidence in the security of their transactions. A white bar, while not discouraging to customers, will not help them feel entirely safe.

This feature is turned on by default in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista. Users of Windows XP with IE 7 will see the feature after visiting a verified secure site for the first time. Other browsers, such as Opera and Firefox, are planning identical features.

Merchants who want to be ranked with the green bar will have to meet strict requirements in the form of Extended Validation SSL Certificates (EV SSL). These new secure certificates have a lengthy validation process and will cost about $1500 per year. At this time, only corporations or LLCs will be able to apply. A solution for unincorporated small businesses is being considered, but no definite plans or timeframe exists.

If your business is incorporated, you should consider the $1500 per year EV SSL certificate. While expensive, it could enhance your trustworthiness to potential customers.

If you cannot incorporate or the certificate is too expensive, wait until sales are noticeably affected. In the meantime, consider displaying other kinds of validation seals to help customers feel at ease, such as verification seals from your merchant account provider.

More information on EV SSL from Verisign

Gary C. Comer, founder of Lands’ End, died last Wednesday at age 78. Mr. Comer worked for 10 years as an advertising copywriter before he returned to his passion for sailboat racing and started Lands’ End Yacht Stores in 1963.

He wrote magazine ads to sell sailing equipment by mail order. Ten years later, Lands’ End became the classic clothing merchant we know today, now one of the world’s largest mail-order clothing businesses.

Lands’ End has always been dedicated to high-quality products and customer service. Salespeople are “urged to take all the time necessary” to take care of the customer. They will visit the warehouse to check the color harmony of garments you’re interested in, and have even given a bride a wake-up call on her wedding day at her request.

Mr. Comer’s edicts for Lands’ End were:

1. Do what’s right for the customer.
2. Do what’s right for the employee.
3. The rest will take care of itself.

Customer service is an important key for any business, as a happy customer becomes a loyal customer. What steps is your business taking to keep your customers happy and loyal?

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” —Mark Twain

Additional Reading:
Lands’ End: In loving memory of Gary C. Comer
Lands’ End Library: On Dressing, Sartorial Origins, etc.
Lands’ End History
For corporate branded clothing, see Lands’ End Business Outfitters

One year ago, the web server hosting this site died suddenly. We got wind of the situation quickly, and asked our web host to reboot the server. A few minutes after the reboot, it crashed again. After an aggravating 7 hours of troubleshooting by the host, they finally agreed to move our data to a new server.

I don’t know the specific problem that caused the web server to crash, but the hosting company added to the problem with their lack and lateness of response. Needless to say, we no longer do business with that web host.

A business should not have to worry about their web hosting. Web hosting should be reliable.

Downtime = lost sales

Having a website can be a great tool for your business. Your website is your all-night salesperson, taking orders while you sleep.

Yet, if your website suddenly cannot be accessed by your prospective buyers, it’s like your salesperson didn’t show up for work. It’s even worse because he has the only key to the store, and all those buyers can’t get in to buy.

You get what you pay for (usually)

Your business needs a reliable website. How reliable depends on how much money it’s worth to you. There are all kinds of website hosts, and the price does not necessarily reflect the quality.

Budget hosts put your website on a server along with lots of other people’s (sometimes thousands). This saves you money, because you only have to pay for part of the server, but it could also cause your website to be slow.

More expensive hosting limits the number of websites per server.

High-traffic sites will usually require a dedicated server for their own use, or several dedicated servers. This is where it really gets expensive.

Serious web hosting

Kingdom Design provides web hosting services for all our clients. Because we specialize in e-commerce websites, we know that our clients depend on their sites to generate income.

Our hosting service is outsourced to a dedicated hosting company in Austin, Texas. This allows us to concentrate on building and supporting websites, but it does not prevent us from directly managing this service for our clients.

The datacenter where our clients’ sites are hosted has emergency generators, to keep things running if the power goes out. They also have redundant connections to different parts of the Internet, in case somebody decides to dig a trench without checking for cables.

Should server hardware fail, or data be accidentally deleted, backups are made 12 times a day to a backup provider in Ohio. This also gives us another copy of data if Texas were to be wiped off the map.

Our clients’ email service is outsourced to another company who only deals with email. In addition to providing expert service and tech support, this company employs a guru who does nothing but manage the spam filter.

All these services enable us to provide reliable hosting to help our clients make more money on the Internet.

“While email attachments are a popular and convenient way to send documents, they are also a common source of viruses. Use caution when opening attachments, even if they appear to have been sent by someone you know.”
—Cyber Security Tip ST04-010

The above tip from the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team is a good one. In this day of computer viruses, scams, and spam, you can’t be too safe.

Learn how to protect yourself from email attachments by reading the complete tip at the US-CERT website.

It seems you can’t have an email address for 1 day before you start getting spam. Some spam is harmless, (like getting your university degree from an unaccredited school), but when you start getting the vile stuff, it’s time to do something drastic.

There are two options I recommend for dealing with email spam. However, before we start treating the symptoms, here are a couple steps to cut down on the problem:

1. Never post your email address on a website. Spammers have scripts that harvest email addresses from the web. There’s an exception if your email is encoded, but this is something your web developer needs to do (I use Enkoder).

2. Consider using a free email account at Yahoo! or Google for online purchases. If a vendor starts spamming you, you can get a new account.

Even with these precautions, you’ll still get spam. It is my belief that if someone you send email to gets a computer virus, their address book will be used for spam and other viruses. So now for the spam-killing options:

First is using a spam filter. You can download or buy software that will filter your email on your computer, allowing you to manage how and what it filters. This is the preferred kind of filter, because you have complete control over it.

The other kind of filter is a service that filters your email before you receive it on your computer. We sell a service that does this. I use both the service and software, and now I only see a spam email once or twice a week.

The second option is an approved-sender whitelist. This is something that your ISP or website host has to offer. Earthlink is one ISP that does. With this service, no one can send you email unless they are on your approved-senders list. You can add folks to this list, and for those who are not on the list, they are “challenged.”

The challenge allows them to be approved if they perform some task that only a human being can do, such as clicking on a website and entering a code displayed there.

If they don’t respond to the challenge in a couple weeks — and spammers won’t — their email is discarded.

This approved-sender method is an aggressive solution to canning the spam, and should only be used as a last resort.

When you purchase of a domain name, personal contact information is required. This data goes into the public WHOIS database, which lists the owners of all domain names in existence.

The information required includes your name, address, email, and telephone number.

The WHOIS information has legitimate uses for technical and legal areas, but it is misused by spammers, junk mailers, and telemarketers. A common use of the WHOIS info is for domain name scams (see our article).

In our opinion the ‘bad’ uses of WHOIS for spam and scams outweighs the ‘good’ technical and legal uses. Thus, we’ve made use of private registrations, which allow us to register domain names for our clients that safeguard their privacy.

A privately-registered domain uses a third party’s contact info, who receives all correspondence on your behalf. They throw away all the spam, and forward any legitimate mail to you. Private registrations have eliminated junk mail for owners of .COM, .NET, and .ORG domains.

Unfortunately, .US and some other domains do not allow private registrations. In that case, we will use a second address line with the words: “Dept. Junk”. This makes it easy to identify and discard mail that was addressed with your WHOIS data. Anyone who contacts you legitimately (say, to inquire about buying your domain) should be smart enough to omit the second address line.

We were recently contacted by two clients who had received notices from the “Domain Registry of America.” These letters asked our clients to renew their domain names through them, with a vague note that “this is not a bill.” We also received one here last week.

These unscrupulous companies send letters and emails that look like a bona-fide bill, but in reality, they are trying to trick us to transfer our domains to them so they can charge their domain fees.

If Kingdom Design manages your domain, you can safely throw away these letters. We automatically renew your domain each year, unless you tell us not to.

We also utilize a suite number or second address line on your registration, which says “Dept. Junk” or “Junkmail.” This is a tip-off that someone got your address by “scraping” together a list of domain owners.

We are also moving every domain we can to a “private registration,” which will hide your real address so you will not get on any junkmail lists. Unfortunately, this is not available for .US domains.