Designer Website Guide

[Clay]

I have spent the last few days writing a guide to help out the designers on Gigposters.com to optimize and promote their websites. This infomation will benefit anyone who runs a website, so if you are not a designer, you still might want to take a look.

The guide is full of useful tips, suggestions and links to information to optimize websites for search engines, promotion and traffic generation.

I hope it helps you out.

http://www.gigposters.com/designerguide.php

If anyone has any questions, just let me know.

[andydiesel]

Thanks Clay.

Once again you've proved that you are the mack daddy.

[Brute666]

Lots of great advice. Luckily I followed a few of the suggestions by reason of not being smart enough to do fancy web stuff (which doesn't help eith the search engine indexing).

Re: DMOZ Submission
As a former editor of the poster category on DMOZ, make sure you write your description correctly. Read the suggestions and rules first. Using phrases like "BEST POSTERS EVER!" is a great way of having the editor re-write your site description for you... usually after only looking at 2 or 3 pages on your site. You know what you want to convey about yourself and your site so do it right yourself. A funny or strange description might seem like a good idea but it won't pass muster with the editors. The editors are all volunteers who take their work very seriously and have rules they must follow also. Submitting to DMOZ is the best advice in this whole article. Follow through people.

Oh and thanks to Clay for the other advice and suggestions. You rock!

[Clay]

Brute666 - I put your quote in the guide now. I hope thats ok with you.

[Brute666]

No problem. Glad to help.

Oh... this is just some more DMOZ misc. info but the major search engines all update from DMOZ at varying pre-set times. If you submit to DMOZ don't expect your site to show up on Google or Yahoo the next day. The volunteers check submissions whenever they want to (remember they are volunteers). If the category is a slow one (like the poster category) they might only check it once a week or longer. After they approve your submission, it could take another day or two for the submission to show up on DMOZ. Once it shows up on DMOZ, it could take weeks or months for it to pop up on the bigger search engines. The DMOZ grapevine puts the Google updates happening every other month. Yahoo supposedly takes 4-6 months. My personal experience had my website showing up on Google 2 weeks after approval. It popped up on Yahoo 3 weeks after approval. Yahoo is supposed to take longer since they have their own workers checking the DMOZ submissions for any needed changes. Don't be too surprised if your Yahoo description varies slightly from your DMOZ. Just try to do it right the first time and cross your fingers.

[porkypigstyle]

sweeeeet. thanks.

[whiteyhouston]

right on Clay!...
hey everybody, Clay rules..
you should all give him a beer bukkake in Austin

[Clay]

right on Clay!...
hey everybody, Clay rules..
you should all give him a beer bukkake in Austin

I'm not gonna be in Austin .. but I'm glad everyone likes the guide.

[zeloot]

wow Clay! this is really being apreciated!..

[ed]

thanks clay, this is really helpful