How to Evaluate an Online Marketing Service
If you’ve got a budget for website promotion, I know about a hundred companies that want your business. Be it PPC, banner ads, link placements, paid blogging, search engine optimization, or any of a dozen other industry buzz words, they all have different strategies for driving traffic. With so many choices, it can be hard [...]
SEO Career Advice for Power Digger Neal Rodriguez
A few weeks ago, my good friend Simon Owens introduced me via email to noted Power Digger Neal Rodriguez. As it turned out, Neal was interested in a career in SEO, and I was more than happy to weigh in with the following advice. Don’t just be an SEO specialist; be an online marketer. SEO [...]
Aside: Working in Moderation
Work to live; don’t live to work. – Steve Povlish Don’t get me wrong; I value a job well done as much as the next person. In fact, I feel unfulfilled at the end of the day if I don’t do something meaningful at work. I don’t have to get everything done, but as long [...]
7 Lessons in Online Copywriting from Stephen King
Yesterday, I finished reading Stephen King’s “On Writing.” I didn’t read it with the intent to write a post about it; after all, Ward on the Web is about better websites. To be honest, I read it in preparation for NaNoWriMo (incidentally, I’ll be taking a hiatus from WotW in November for that purpose). However [...]
Don’t Attack Your Critics; Empower Your Advocates
“If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.” – Malcolm X It’s a fact of life. The more successful your website, the more likely it is to receive criticism. As Malcolm X points out, this can almost be regarded as a good thing. After all, nobody would feel the need to criticize unless [...]
Aside: 7+1 Personal Finance Tips for Web Professionals
I try to keep this blog strictly related to its core purpose: Giving advice on improving your website and your career as a web professional. From time to time, though, I feel the need to talk about something a little further off to the side. This post will be the first in a category I’ll [...]
Output a Snapshot of All Defined Variables in PHP
The following line of code is one of the most useful diagnostic tricks in my PHP coding arsenal: <?php echo ‘<pre>’; print_r(get_defined_vars()); echo ‘</pre>’; ?> Simply input the above snippet of code into any PHP file and you’ll get a browser-friendly snapshot of all variables defined in the current scope. This is especially handy in [...]
7 Keys to Courteous Coding
All too often in my professional career, I’ve been tasked with working on legacy code. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “legacy” in the computing sense refers to old software that has been passed down. Often, legacy programs work just well enough to keep, but not well enough that they don’t require maintenance. [...]
How to Pass the Google Advertising Professional (GAP) Exam
Last year, I managed millions of dollars worth of online advertising, well over a million of which was through Google AdWords. Adding up those numbers for my yearly review brought me to the sobering conclusion that I was long overdue for completing my Google Advertising Professional (GAP) certification. For those who don’t know, the Google [...]
Improve Search Engine Visibility with Xenu Link Sleuth
When you’ve been in the search marketing game for a few years, you tend to add a few interesting tools to your arsenal. Xenu has always been one of my favorites. No, I’m not talking about that Xenu (although the program icon does have an interesting alien motif). I’m talking about Xenu Link Sleuth, a [...]