Are you looking for a simpler and safer way of updating your web site, or perhaps you want to do it yourself rather than hire out? Well Macromedia, the creator of the best web design tools in the world, has just released an amazing tool called Contribute. Contribute is a $99 (USD) software program that allows anyone to make updates to their web site with little or no knowledge of web design!

Contribute allows a webmaster to allow non-html users within an organization to make updates to their web site/s with the ease of editing a Word document. The beauty of it is that the Webmaster can still maintain full control over the access that the non-html users have. The Webmaster can make certain elements inaccessible on a page and can even force formatting rules (style sheets) to ensure that the user does not impose a crazy font not supported on the web site. Contribute works with any HTML web site, even ones built in Microsoft FrontPage (now that is amazing!).

Rest assured that StepForth will be embracing this software. From a search engine placement viewpoint, this software is extremely useful. It will allow select clients to actively add additional content to their web sites thus increasing the 'freshness' of their web site. This is an element that is crucial to staying competitive in the major search engines.

For more information go to the Contribute home page.

Google Launches WebQuotes
Well Google now has another trick up its sleeves. WebQuotes is a system that is meant to offer insight into a particular phrase, web site or company by listing descriptions/quotations that Google finds about them online.

Here is Google's description of this service: "Google WebQuotes annotates the results of your Google search with comments from other websites. This offers a convenient way to get a third party's opinion about each of the returns for your search, providing you with more information about that site's credibility and reputation."

Try your own site by typing in the domain
(ie www.princeofwhales.com)

Currently it appears that the main source of WebQuotes are the descriptions associated with various online directory listings. For example, the first such listing for the Prince of Whales link shown above is referenced from the Open Directory Project, which is the main directory that Google references from. We expect this to change slowly as Google finds more sources of information.

Here is a link to Google WebQuotes

Spider Crazy!
If I had a dollar for every time that a client said "I wish the search engines indexed my site more often and more reliably" Christmas would have an added sparkle. Well patrons of the Amazon.com Associates Program are finding out exactly what repeated spidering can do. in a negative way!

Amazon advertises that "if you place links on your site to Amazon.com, you can earn up to 15 percent in referral fees when your visitors make a purchase at Amazon.com. Amazon says it has more than 900,000 such associates." (Article by Beth Cox)
Now this sound great, until you realize that Amazon's web spider will be indexing your site 'often' to make sure you do not have outdated links to books that are no longer available. This is done so that Amazon can be certain that links are fixed and the flow of profit remains steady. One associate noted that the spider visited his site "13,406 times over a period of 17 hours, consuming approximately 200 megabytes of bandwidth." OUCH!

In short, if you are an associate of Amazon's you may now have a better idea of why your bandwidth bill has grown. Amazon is on the record as trying to 'rectify the problem' but insists that the spider is necessary.

Founded in 1998 by a team of young, dynamic entrepreneurs, Dynamo e-Media is now at the forefront of the Montreal creative agency scene. Located in the heart of trendy Old Montreal, Dynamo's boutique atmosphere and excellent design skills have afforded the team a reputable client list including such high profile accounts as Reitmans, the Aldo Group, Air Canada, Esso, Fieldturf and over 50 other top companies. With a focus on delivering stunning visual design, and innovative marketing strategy for a variety of media including web sites, email campaigns, print, corporate identity and brand direction initiatives, we pride ourselves on implementing smart solutions so that our clients can get the most out of their important investment.

Visit Dyanamo e-Media's web site at www.godynamo.com

Improving Link Popularity and Relevancy: In our Oct 30th newsletter we noted the importance of external links to your web site. Now we would like to give you some ideas for expanding your incoming links. The next few issues will be focusing on this issue. This week is Tip#2.

2: Examine Your Competition
Your competition is the simplest place to look for additional links. In conjunction with last week's tip we are now recommending that you take a very close look at the web site of your true industry competition. These are the web sites that you are constantly trying to beat out of the Top 10 on Google. Hunt through their web site and find any links that appear to be external (a 'Links' page is a good place to start). Next determine which of the links on their site would suit yours. For example, which of the links are immediately relevant to yours? Are they complimentary to your site and would you consider approaching them and requesting a reciprocal link? Remember, it is important that you do not make the same mistakes that your competition makes. Don't try to get reciprocal links from sites that are not relevant to your own site, these will just hurt your rankings or do nothing at all.

Stay tuned for next week's Tip #3.

Well the end of the year is nearly here and it is almost time for each and everyone of you with copyright notices on your web site to update them. There is no doubt it is a cosmetic touch, but a site with a fresh copyright notice can make a really strong impression. It is not only an indication of a fresh site but one that is meticulously cared for. It is fairly sad when I come across a web site with a 2001 copyright notice located at the bottom of the page. It is not a task that I necessarily enjoy, however, it will be one that StepForth undertakes in the latter stages of December and we highly recommend that you update yours as well.