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February 2008: A Little SEO.

The MANOVERBOARD Telegraph, No. 25.

Hope you're staying warm and enjoying the remaining winter months. This month's Telegraph relates the new contact information again and a little about Search Engine Optimization. Oh, and 2008 calendars, too.

New Contact Info

MANOVERBOARD is now incorporated in Canada. It only took me two years to fully pull everything together, in large part because I wanted to make sure the transition for clients was as easy as possible. As I mentioned a few months ago in The Telegraph, our services and website, caffeine consumption, and exercise patterns will not change.

Importantly, as of February 29, 2008, I'll be disconnecting the 718 telephone number.

Current contact information is as follows:

MANOVERBOARD Inc.
Winnipeg MB
Canada

Toll-Free: 866-203-8231
Tel: 204-477-4474
Fax: 204-272-3342

As always, you can also contact us via the website's form.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

A lot of clients recently have asked if MANOVERBOARD, in addition to providing website design and development, also offers specialized Search Engine Optimization services. (SEO is the art and science of improving a given website's search results in online search engines like Google and Yahoo!)

The brief answer to the question is no: We will not take your lovingly crafted, well-coded, and otherwise elegant website and turn it into a 600-pound gorilla that bursts keywords and irrelevant "title" and "metatag" code that most Web professionals now recognize as a waste of time and money.

As my colleague, Michael Barrish, has written, in his Search Engine Optimization and the Tightness of One's Pants, the best practice for getting your website recognized by search engines is good, old common sense.

But here's the good news. Every site that MANOVERBOARD designs and develops is, to some small or large extent, inherently search engine optimized. This is true for a number of reasons:

  1. We use semantic markup with proper header tags and well-formed content (search engines love this).
  2. We never use Javascript or Flash for navigation. Both of these technologies make life difficult for search engines (as well as many website visitors).
  3. We don't embed important website content into graphics (life is too short for this).

We also do a few other things but I won't bore you (unless you're interested—and please contact me if you are).

For a more detailed article on SEO, I encourage you to read Picking an SEO-friendly Web Designer. This piece was written recently by Dave Davies, of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, one of the very few SEO consultancies who I trust and recommend.

2008 Calendars Still

There are still a few printed 2008 Calendars left. With 10.5 months left to go in the year, it's not too late to request one if you didn't receive one. These are made to sit comfortably above your desk without being obtrusive, weird, or otherwise disconcerting, as is the case with most calendars. You can see it online. Call or email if you want a "real" one.

Happy Leap Year to you and yours,

Andrew Boardman, Principal