new site/gallery

[shughes]

I have been working on my website for the past couple weeks. Just did a rewrite to make the pages more web standard compliant (strict XHTML/CSS2.1) and also integrated an image gallery.

Main site is at http://www.hugheshoney.com/
Gallery wrapper is at http://www.hugheshoney.com/gallery.php

I plan to load up the gallery with more images this week. Would be interested in knowing how it looks in Internet Explorer (IE6 and IE7) as I primarily tested using Firefox and work 95+% of the time in Linux.

[Keith Benson]

I have been working on my website for the past couple weeks.

I think it is spiffy and it worked well in IE.

Keith

[Jeffzhear]

I have been working on my website for the past couple weeks. Just did a rewrite to make the pages more web standard compliant (strict XHTML/CSS2.1) and also integrated an image gallery.

...how it looks in Internet Explorer (IE6 and IE7) as I primarily tested using Firefox and work 95+% of the time in Linux.


My eyes glazed over reading about strict XHTML/CSS2.1 with a little IE6 and IE7 testing with Firefox and Linux....

That's clearly beyond me....I think I will hire someone to set up a web-site for me and teach me what I need to know to work on it....

LOL

As a matter of fact, if there is someone out there that will copy their web site program, put my simple stuff in on it...(in other words tailor it for me) and teach me the rudimentary basics....I'll pay ya! Send me a PM if interested. And you are dealing with a real logger-head so you must have patience! Otherwise, please don't write to me! we'll both hate the outcome! Or if you have a viable alternate suggestion, let me know <wink>

[shughes]

moderator, feel free to bump if this is off topic...

you can learn a lot by viewing the source (x)html from websites you like. In the firefox web browser just do a Ctrl-U or in IE I think you can view the HTML source by going to the View menu and selecting Source. CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is just another file referenced by a web page that helps separate presentation like colors/placement from the actual webpage itself. After you view a few pages source and compare to the actual rendered page, it starts to make sense.

feel free to pm with any questions regarding web technology. I also understand there has been some bumps trying to get images working on this forum. I would be glad to help flush out any issues that remain.

[Budster]

Nice site. Did you use any templates? It appeares that you know how to get listed in the search engines for swarm removal. I noticed your pics had an alternate text of "swarm". Your website also has good "keyword content" to help you get listed in search engines. You also use the signature feature on this website to help increase your search engine placeement. I found that using
"Mycity bee swarm removal" will help get ranks in search engines. You want to use the term "fuquay, Varina, bee, beekeeper, swarm. honeybee, honey bee,etc" quite a bit in your webpages to rank well in search engines. That way, when people do a Yahoo or Google search for swarm removal (they do alot, I get many calls), they will easily stumble onto your webpages. You'll also want to incorporate your "keywords" here:

<meta name="Keywords" content=" swarm, cluster, honey, bees, swarming, swarms"/>
<meta name="Description" content=" Hughes Honey swarm removal service for honeybee swarms"/>

Include your city, state and beekeeper! Most people who want to have a swarm removed do a Yahoo or Google search on (ex.) "Columbus Ohio Beekeeper(s)". And, the search engines use your meta info as keywords.

Go to webceo.com and download a free SEO (search engine optimization) program, it will help you get swarm calls!

Do a search on Yahoo/Google "Columbus Ohio bee swarms" and se if you can find me, I bet you do real easy!!! Honey Run Apiaries is listed as #3 on Yahoo, and #1 on Google for this phrase. HE has somehow ranked well in the search engines.

These all help getting swarm calls!!

Nice website though...

[shughes]

thanks for the comments. I enjoyed reading through your site :)

the first week the site hit google i received three phone calls for cutouts and one phone call for a swarm. using google's sitemap will get you in the database a lot quicker then relying on other links but the external links help at week two and three. yahoo starts picking up around week three. the last two sites I wrote had this pattern in search engine placement. search engine placement is important but also not trying to design your site around search engine is equally important. if i see phrases repeat themselves over 4 or 5 occurrences in the same page then I modify.

having valid html or xhtml as well as making sure your h1 tags are relevant also seems to help with the search engines.

templates...every line is hand written in a text editor based on the look and feel I am after. After I get a static html page or two up and running I break it into your standard header, navigation, body and footer templates using Smarty templates (http://smarty.php.net). Server side scripts are in PHP (http://www.php.net) which call the Smarty templates. Database is MySql. Updates to Google's sitemap is done in Python. Webserver is Apache running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (I work for Red Hat). Basically everything is done using opensource technologies that anyone can download, install and use for free.

gotta go load some more images to the gallery ;)