Depending on who you ask, some people will tell you that metadata keywords are essential to a website, and no design is complete without proper use.  Other web developers make it sound like metadata is an outdated concept, and that using metadata is a waste of time.

But what is metadata, and why is the debate over its use so contentious?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, metadata is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data.

That’s a very powerful and broad definition, but because it’s so encompassing, it’s not very helpful when trying to wrap …

This is a very interesting question, and one that is not as easy to answer as it might first seem.   What looks like a single question is in reality four.
1)     Is it possible to copy text from another website onto my own site?
2)     Is it legal for me to use text from another website on my own site?
3)     Is it ethical for me to use text from another website on my own site?
4)     Is it effective to copy text from another site onto my own site?
Is it possible to copy text from another site onto my own site?

The first question …

Before asking a site to include a link back to your home page – take a moment to check it out. Remember, your URL is something like your address. You want clients to know where to find you, but you probably don’t want to extend that invitation to online con artists and pushers. Try and make sure you know which you’re dealing with.

What to look for in a legitimate site:

Whether or not someone is a competent professional in the real world, if they do not convey their professionalism online, their site will not be a good place …

As business owners, we all know we need to keep marketing during these tough times. The key is to focus our marketing efforts to yield more results without increasing total dollars spent. One of these marketing efforts should be your website. In my experience developing websites for over 13 years, most businesses do not use the internet to its fullest potential.

It’s easy to decide to invest on your website. It’s more difficult to determine exactly what to do and how much to spend.

First, you need to answer the question: do you have a traffic or a conversion issue to solve?

A …

So you’ve been told that one of the ways to encourage visitors to visit your site is to post comments on other people’s blogs, but you’re not sure how to go about it.

Here are some tips to make sure that you’re neither too timid nor too aggressive.

Start by Introducing Yourself

The main point is to establish who you are and why your opinions are valuable. One or two sentences should be sufficient. After that, people are going to want to see what you actually have to say.

Respond to What Has Been Written

If …

One of the ways you can market your site yourself is by adding backlinks to your site. Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page.

How do you do this?

1. Industry sites/directories
Visit industry sites that list businesses. Click around to find out how you can get your website included in their directories. Some may be free and some may have a subscription cost.

2. Associations/accreditations
Find out if any of the associations or organizations you receive accreditation from have an online directory on their websites. Most …