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Dental Blog is Sign of the Times

Dennis — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:30:55 +0000

So I recently created a dental blog site for my brother’s business, General & Cosmetic Dentistry (I used WordPress, which is awesome). It’s part of a marketing effort to gain more patients, and in response to the poor economy and people just flat out leaving Michigan, where his dental practice is located. Using Web 2.0 in today’s economy is surely a sign of the times!

Anyway, my brother was very smart by initiating a web-based marketing plan. He asked me for help, so this was a perfect opportunity to exercise some of my Search Engine optimization (SEO) skills! Besides setting up a professional blog, I also suggested these things in order to help traffic to his dental office web site:

Tweak keywords in Meta data, page titles, etc.
Create a dental blog entry (consistently) once a week, and on the same day.
Publish press releases once in a while.
Submit his site to search engines once every 6 months.
Change his Twitter account name from personal to professional, and balance tweets about both sides of life.
Create LinkedIn and Yelp profiles (actually his great idea!).
Put Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, and Blog links on his office web site.
And of course, ensure accessible, semantic HTML markup with web standards!

So far in only a couple weeks, his position on Google search has risen considerably!

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Why You Should Twitter

Dennis — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:08:09 +0000

I was recently asked why Twitter is valuable, or why I do it. So I put together a list of reasons.

It’s a mini blog; can serve as a type of diary.
You can keep up with what your friends are doing.
Make new personal friends and professional contacts.
See another side of your current friends and family.
Follow your favorite bands, celebs, political figures, etc.
You can Twitter from many different applications and devices (such as your mobile phone).
Twitter can quickly become an impromptu info-sharing point (used during San Diego fires).
It can be used for news, marketing, and customer service.
Can connect with Facebook, blogs, etc.
It will make you a better writer.
Faster than texting numerous people at once.
Minimal effort to start (unlike a blog).
Itâ€™s fun and it’s a good source of entertainment!

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Web Axe Nominated in .net magazine Awards

Dennis — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:33:29 +0000

I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that Web Axe, my podcast and blog on web accessibility, has been nominated for .net magazine’s 2008 Best of the Web awards. It’s in the “Podcast of the Year” category, the sixth category down the list. After voting narrows the candidates to three (voting ends October 13), a panel of judges decides on the winners who will be announced in December.

If you listen to Web Axe and like it (or even if you don’t!), you can vote for Web Axe on the Best of the Web site.

Here’s a quote from .net magazine about the contest:

The .net Awards celebrate the best in web design and development. The 14 categories for 2008 range from Design Agency of the Year and Podcast of the Year through to the Infamy Award â€“ a chance to name and shame those ruining your web experience.

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Stats on My Web Accessibility Podcast/Blog

Dennis — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:15:34 +0000

I thought it would be interesting to post some statistical information from Feedburner on my podcast and blog about web accessibility, Web Axe. It had been several weeks since I last checked the stats, and it was a pleasant surprise to see some growth.

The stats are for Thursday, July 10, 2008 and shows one of Web Axe’s highest subscriber rates of 746 (an approximation of how many times your feed has been requested in a 24-hour period). What I find most interesting is the different types of feed readers being used and how popular they are.Â Google and iTunes top the list. Google feed readers (Google Reader or iGoogle) count for 32%, and iTunes for 30% (17% Mac and 13% Windows). Netvibes, my favorite RSS reader, was next at 10%.

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My Favorite Non-Techie RSS Feeds

Dennis — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:36:54 +0000

I read numerous RSS feeds, mostly related to front-end web development. But there are a few that I read that are not tech-related…

Most People Are DJs – music and entertainment podcast
Blaugh – comic of the blogosphere
Word of the Day – from Dictionary.com
I don’t like you in that way – celebrity dirt
My photos on Flickr!

By the way, I use NetVibes, an awesome personalized “home page” which can not only read and organize RSS feeds, but also blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, and game widgets!

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Feedburner Pro now free (thanks to Google)

Dennis — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:28:20 +0000

Google recently purchased the master RSS feed utility Feedburner. In doing so, Google has made the PRO account and services now free to any user; there was previously a fee for the upgrade. This is great news for folks with blogs and podcasts because you can now do more and better statistical tracking of your readers/listeners. I just enabled the PRO service for my podcast/blog on web accessibility, Web Axe, so not all the data is there yet. But I’m looking forward to this great service! Thanks Google!

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Web Axe Topics

Dennis — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 19:07:34 +0000

The idea of my podcast on web accessibility, Web Axe, is to provide “practical web accessibility tips”. The last couple episodes are angled a bit towards theory and ran a bit longer more than my preference, but the topics are essential in the field. Specifically, I’m referring to “Podcast #50: Analysis of WCAG 2.0” and “Podcast #49: AJAX and Accessibility“. Both podcasts I believe went very well, and they cover a lot of good subject matter that may be written about on the web (in blogs, forums, etc), but not talked about. I’m planning more succinct and code-specific podcasts in the near future. Topics may include OptGroup and an accessible slideshow.

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