By guest author Frank Anderson
Letting go of the past and moving on from what once worked but has now become desperately outdated can often be difficult, especially for clients. But, sometimes you as an entrepreneur or a business owner have to bite the proverbial bullet and let them know change is what is best for both them and their businesses.
A prime example of that hesitance to change from what once worked is Internet Explorer 6. But, even Microsoft, which unveiled IE6 a decade ago, is campaigning to stop people from using the outdated version, asking users to upgrade to IE7, 8 or 9. They hope to meet a lofty goal: Ensuring only one percent of Microsoft users in the world use Internet Explorer 6. Click here to check out their campaign.
Based on the success of our first edition of Web Design Suicide, we couldn't help but bring it back for another go around. Spending WAY too much time on the web obviously has its disadvantages - you hurt your eyes, you get out of shape, carpal tunnel sets in, etc - but the benefits of finding websites that simultaneously make you cringe, smile and cry makes it all worth it. Well, at least it does to us.
Ever since I saw a man get an entire shoe box full of eight track tapes at a garage sale years ago for a nickel I've kept an eye out for good deals. In the web design world, it's not often that you can find a great deal or a shortcut that can help you get a job done with less effort. Discovering these gems can make your day/week/month/year, depending on what project you're working on. And if you can find some freebies that do the job, then you have truly struck gold, my friends.
No matter what industry you're in, if you sell a product or service you will undoubtedly run into the occasional client who you just don't see eye to eye with. They communicate too much or too little, they want to micromanage you at your job or there's just a general personality clash. Sometimes you just tough it out and make it work, but if you've ever been in this position sometimes you just can't help but think, "There has to be a better way."
If you have a WordPress site or a blog, try this. Go to Plugins>Add New and search for SEO. I just did this and got no less than 33 plugins. Obviously, the basic WordPress setup doesn't have much in the way of SEO freedom, so you're going to want to add a plugin. I've tried Platinum SEO, All in One SEO and a few others, but I recently stumbled upon Headspace2 and it has some unique features that make it a true contender for WordPress SEO plugin supremacy.
At one point the web was ruled by developers who created custom web designs and content management systems (CMS) that weren’t exactly friendly to the wallets of small business owners and entrepreneurs. Today, however, the explosion of open source software has also exploded into the world of CMS and designers and developers have had to navigate their way through this rather seismic shift in the industry. Even Fortune 500 companies can be seen using open source CMS systems like Drupal, Joomla and WordPress.
Like any art form, web design means many different things to many different people. What constitutes a "good" web design is a far more contentious topic. What might be as beautiful as a sunset over the Pacific to one person can be an outright blight to the creative sensibilities of another.
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