My Current Favorite WordPress Plugin

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

The beautiful thing about WordPress is the plugins. And my current favourite is “Advanced Most Recent Posts Mod”. If you remember from my home page, at the very bottom is an area that displays my most recent post. Shown here ↓

This area is actually a widget (I created a fifth footer widget area that allowed me to do this).

WordPress already has a most recent posts widget, but it is very limited in it’s functionality. What advanced most recent posts mod allows you to do is specify EXACTLY what you want displayed. I am able to choose how many words you need, or even how many letters. The customization is fantastic. Take a look at the developers website for more info: http://kaileylampert.com/

What I am also excited about is the fact that this plugin allows me to put more text on my home page and have it automatically updated every time I write a new post. So, for example, if I write a post about WordPress and Raleigh and want those key words on the home page, this plugin allows me to do that. In this case, it will help with WordPress, not necessarily Raleigh

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Durham Web Design, I am owning you

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

My work on getting ranked for Durham Web Design is going splendidly. I’m #1 for Durham web design on BIng, #3 on Yahoo, and I’m at the top of page 3 on Google. That’s a pretty big leap in 3 weeks. I started out on page 18 of Google three weeks ago. So I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve changed a lot of the structure of my site and placed key words in strategic places. I’ve worked on my incoming links and removed all errors from my code and optimized it for all the search engines. I’ve done xml sitemaps, registered with all the search engines, registered for maps and local searches and done a million other things. It’s all paying off, literally (I got a phone call today with a new customer in Raleigh, NC).

Need to rank for a keyword? I suppose now, I can tell people I really know what I’m doing. Do a search for “Durham Web Design”, and see where I come. Then do a search for what your customers are searching for, and see where you come up. If you’re not happy with that result, give me a call and I’ll help you out.

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SEO work is paying off

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

I’ve spent the last week or so optimizing my site for the key phrase Durham Web Design. I’ve had some good success on Yahoo, and Bing, and now Google is starting to come around. I went from the bottom of page 18 last week to the top of page 14 this week. Update: as of Sunday morning, I’m at the top of page 9. Google apparently takes 3-6 months to fully “catch up”. But I’m making good progress.

My other key word is WordPress. And now I rank #1 in Google for Durham WordPress design, Durham WordPress help, and Durham WordPress customization. I’m pretty pumped about this. Call me if you need help with your SEO

So far, I’ve been concentrating on doing a lot of rewording of my site and link building. My competition has literally thousands of links coming into their sites. Ya, so pretty tough to compete with that. I’m still showing around 88 links from 8 root domains, which I know is incorrect, but that will come around in the long term. Not sure how long that takes, but it’s an important measurement in determining your Google Rank. One important thing that I’ve changed is my anchor text. I’ve been including the words Durham web design and WordPress in as many of my incoming links as I can. That way, the search engines will associate these terms with my site.

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SEO page one quest… update. Penner Web Design: 1, Yahoo: 0

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

Yup… it took me 5 days, and I’m on page one of Yahoo for the search term “Durham Web Design”. At the very bottom of page one, but I’m there none-the-less. This all happened while I was trying to optimized for Google… not Yahoo! The point is, when you do SEO the right way, all the search engines will find you. Google will take much Continue reading →

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Durham Web Design, Page One on Google

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

I’ve had this site up for a few weeks now, and I’ve decided that one of my goals is to get the site ranking on page one of Google for the key phrase Durham Web Design. Currently, I’m on page 13 18. I’ve dabbled in SEO before, so I definitely know how to do it. The problem is that there is some pretty stiff competition on the first page. Durham web design giants like Fly Wheel Design (Which I admire), On Wired and Design Hammer.

This is going to be a tall order, seeing as how Design Hammer has more than 80,000 links to it (I have around 90 currently). So do I think I will beat them? No, I’m only one man on a laptop. But is there room on page one for someone like me? Yes, most definitely.

So look out for Penner Web Design on page one of Google in the coming months. And in the meantime, if you want to spend roughly triple the amount on your website, feel free to visit the links above.

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The Problem With Durham

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Durham Web Designer

Living and designing websites in Durham, NC has been a blessing and a curse. It’s great to live in a place with great weather, tonnes of business, and large trees shading my little house. But when those large trees drop limbs with an 8 inch diameter on my house when I am away for Christmas, it upsets me. We arrived home from our Christmas vacation to find a limb the size of a regular tree on our roof, and subsequently, a whole in our roof. I quickly patched it up, only to come back inside and find some water damage. Nothing major, but this afternoon, I’m going to have to tear a hole in our knee wall upstairs to make sure it’s dry so as to prevent mold. Not impressed. Thanks Durham. Maybe if I lived in a Raleigh or Cary cookie cutter house in the suburbs with no trees, I could design your website this afternoon. But as it stands, I’m busy.

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Website Design in the Northern Wasteland (Winnipeg)

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Durham Web Designer

It’s the holiday season, and I’m stuck indoors, surrounded by way too much food and family. It’s almost unbearable (but in a good way). If I try to escape the food and family by going outdoors, I’m bombarded by a blindingly white snowy landscape. The snow is nothing short of spectacular, it seems to cover everything that is unimportant and directs your attention to things worth looking at. It focuses my attention on what is truly beautiful.

With so much white space outside my window, it makes me sad to see almost no white space on my computer screen.

Website Design has as much to do with what you put on the page as it does with what you don’t put on the page.

White space on a page directs potential customers eyes to what you want them to look at on the page. It shows them what is important, without screaming at them.

A cluttered, poorly designed site is one of the worst things you can do. If you try to emphasize everything, you’ll end up emphasizing nothing. You’ll have a loud, busy website that is difficult on the eyes. This can’t wait to be a good way to start a business relationship.

Just something to consider when you are thinking about your website design and choosing a web designer.

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