Norm's Blog
Norm Douglas is a full time web developer. Here he will share his thoughts on his day to day activities.
How long for Google to index a site?
Monday, 30 August 2010 11:38
So I created a very small site for my neighbour. Nothing very fancy, but really wanted to assist them particularly with SEO.
I've followed all my normal procedure of creating a "Google Friendly Site", and so far, there is no pages indexed.
Therefore I"m going to see what a link from this site might effect on it? Theroretically we should be able to pass a little "page rank" onto the new site. Let's see.
Here is the link to a new site I've just launched that is based on Apollo Bay Property Maintenance and Apollo Bay Holiday House Cleaning.
The site can be found at www.totalpropertymaintenancesolutions.com.au
The Greatest Joomla Template video EVER!
Monday, 23 August 2010 09:38
OK, so maybe I'm being a little over ambitious, but I'm sure you will agree that it's a very in depth Joomla Template video.
What I've tried to do is to create a conversational type video that allows you to "watch over my shoulder", as I build a real template from scratch including the PSD file.
There is over 3 hours of video broken up into 8 parts, and I'm exhausted. Check it out.
My longest Joomla Video yet
Thursday, 12 August 2010 22:24
I'm more than half way through my biggest undertaking yet. I'm completely redoing my popular "Build a Joomla template from scratch" video series. This video will contain as much as 4 hours worth of watching over my shoulder as I create a Joomla Template from scratch.
This is what it will hopefully look like in the end. I've already got about 2.5 hours worth of video "in the can" and I need a break. Back to it tomorrow morning.
My Joomla Template Skeleton
Monday, 09 August 2010 17:06
Well here it is... many of you have asked for it, and I've created an updated one.
Just remember that all this will do for you, is to give you a starting point for your own Joomla Custom Template.
Enjoy.
teachingjoomlabase.zip Joomla Security - What you can do to help
Friday, 14 May 2010 07:31
If someone had the magic formulae that would prevent any hack attempt for the rest of time, then that someone would be a very popular person. Sadly there are people sitting in dark dingy rooms, surrounded by empty coffee mugs, all over the world right now... who are just itching to get to your site.
Why? Well, mostly they want to turn your site into a link farm (hidden links) that they can use to boost their online drug supermarket, or the like. Many times victims of a successful site hack never actually know if they have been comprimised.
Tomorrow there will be a new video that decribes just some of the things I do to a Joomla site, in order to make it a little less "hacker" friendly. This 30 minute video will show you what YOU can do to try to make you site a little safer.
Happy developing.
Melbourne Joomla Day 2010
Tuesday, 09 February 2010 05:41
This weekend coming, I have the honour of once again playing a small role in the Melbourne Joomla Day. JDay's are a bit like a conference, but far more hands on.
There will be some of the best Joomla minds gathered including Andrew Eddie, Sam Moffat, Brad Baker and Azrul Rahim. I will be presenting a workshop on Templating and how to create them from scratch.
Should you be able to get to Melbourne Australia this weekend, it's not too late to register for Melbourne Joomla Day.
Cheers
Joomla SEO strategy - a Study
Saturday, 09 January 2010 09:05
Seems to me, that it's quite embarrassing for a so-called Joomla SEO expert, to not rank very highly in Google for their own targeted keywords. Well I'm here to tell you that this is my predicament.
But I'm not shying away from the fact. This particular keyword term/s is highly competitive, and in a bid to make my Teaching Joomla website a success and play with the big boys, I'm going to give it a crack!
Currently one of the most competitive keyword search terms is "Joomla How To Video". However another very popular term, is "How to install Joomla". As with any SEO strategy that I undertake, it's important to try and work on a search term that you have a chance at. When I analyse the following terms, I find there is .
Search Term - Number of searches per month (USA)
how to install joomla - 49500
how to use joomla - 5400
joomla how to - 3600
joomla templates how to - 1000
Now initially, you might think that we should just target "how to install joomla", being that it is the most popular. However what this also brings is vastly bigger competition. Whereas something like "how to use Joomla" is a much smaller audience, and therefore we might have a chance at having a bigger impact quicker.
So that's what we will do. To target this I will write a few articles based on this search term, and I will also make two new videos on this topic.
I see this type of transparency as vitally important in trying to teach you, my viewer, the finer points of SEO... and also to show that there are no secret hidden methods, but rather just simple facts.
Wish me luck!
An update for Winland Garden Tools
Tuesday, 05 January 2010 07:16
Pruners, Ratchet Secateurs and Loppers... going NUTS!
Seems that you don't need Indian Black Hat contractors, Dodgy Directory Listings or even a "Tag Cloud", in order to improve your Google rank.
Winland Garden Tools eCommerce site is now ranking clearly in the first page of Google for many of our target keywords. We have done this all via traditional methods and following the well documented Google Best Practices.
A few well placed contextual keywords across a number of different sites I have access to have probably helped, however also Google philosophy is simple... they want to provide the best search results. Therefore if you have a well designed site that meets their SEO requirements, AND you have lot's of good content on your site... then Google will find you.
Some very useful tools I always use are:
Winland Garden Tools
Friday, 20 November 2009 09:32
Here's a site I'm currently working on. This site is designed to sell Ratchet Secateurs. These secateurs are awesome, and almost makes me want to take up gardening (almost). I'm trying a number of different SEO related things here, with my WHITE HAT firmly on.
My theory on Search Engine Optimisation is always the same. If it's good for the end viewer, then it should be good for Search Engines. I try never to go down the "latest gimmick" road, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think SEO really is that much of an art.
However in a bid to try and see if some simply honest SEO "tricks" will help the ranking of this brand new site, I'll keep you updated on the progress.
Here's a link to the site Winland Garden Tools - Ratchet Secateurs.
Let's start blogging
Friday, 20 November 2009 09:19
So here I am with a blog on my site. Well I finally gave way to the mounting pressure of why I should have a blog. So let's start one.
This blog will be available freely and I would encourage you to post comments. I will talk about sites I'm building, new stuff I find and my time working with the Joomla core team. Occassionally I might also throw in my other great love... Mountain Biking.
Cheers.