4yourwebsite.com Blog

Website Optimization: Searching on the Internet Isn’t What It Used To Be

September 10, 2005 – 6:42 pm
This does not mean 10 years ago, or even 10 months ago - sometimes it can mean 10 minutes ago! A Website owner that knows everything there is to know about today's Internet technology, who doesn't keep up with the constant changes for even a few months, will be working with an ever increasing proportion of obsolete expertise and knowledge. This constantly changing face of technology, and especially search engine protocol, requires that Website owners do much more than just stay abreast of today's technology and search engine requirements. Optimum Website posturing means more than just keeping pace with the present, it requires the predictive vision and ability to see the very root essence of technological and search engine evolution. It is an art that brings the searcher and the searched together in the most ethical and up-to-date orchestration of art, information and technology. Mike Pires, co-owner of, www.4yourwebsite.com, located in Asheville, North ...

Posted in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | No Comments »

How to Get Your Dell Rebate (Our Trip to Dell and Back!)

September 10, 2005 – 5:55 pm
When all goes well it is as simple as follow the instructions, mail it in and get your check. Just in case it doesn't go smoothly be sure that you keep copies of everything (order numbers, case numbers, names, dates, etc.) and document all of your communications. We ended up too frustrated by email and phone call dead ends, so we made 5 copies of everything that we had (19 pages in all), wrote a 4 page letter to go with it and mailed it all to: Dell, Inc. One Dell Way Round Rock, TX 78682 We sent a copy to: Dell Customer Service Department Technical Support Dell Management Rebate Fulfillment Department And a CC: to Michael Dell just for good measure. Since all is resolved, we won't bore you with the details, but here is the intro to our 4 page letter: Dear Dell: Here's the short version of my ordeal with Dell: You owe me $200 and a hard drive. Please ...

Posted in Computers & Accessories | No Comments »

Spider Food (2) :: Don’t put all of your eggs in one web basket

August 25, 2005 – 5:27 am
This article is the second in a series of Spider Food / Search Engine Optimization / SEO articles. Your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website. Have you heard the story of what Wal-Mart did to Rubbermaid? It is a very good illustration of why you should not put all of your eggs in one web basket. A few years ago, when Rubbermaid needed to raise prices because the cost of a a key raw material had gone up, Wal-Mart refused. Wal-Mart had the attitude that "You might be Rubbermaid, and you might have a great name, but you're not going to tell us what to do, we're not going to take your price increase, and we really don't care what it does to you." Since then, Rubbermaid has shut down many of its US facilities, and laid off more than 10,000 workers, there could ...

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Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware) :: Do Not Count on Receiving Your Dell Rebate!

August 21, 2005 – 2:25 am
Update Published: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 :: This issue has been resolved by Dell, for the rest of the story see How to Get Your Dell Rebate (Our Trip to Dell and Back!) Original Article Published: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 Does Dell actually give those rebates that they promise? We're pretty sure that they do not, based on this response from the Dell REBATE FULFILLMENT DEPARTMENT after SIX months of phone calls (mostly waiting on hold and being transferred, disconnected or told to call other numbers) and emails (mostly canned responses). After finally being escalated to a Rebate Fulfillment Department Manager, who seemed to resolve the problem, all traces of her were gone when we tried to follow up with her six weeks later, as she suggested. We still had not received our rebate at that point - nor at this point either for that matter. Her name is gone from the ...

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4yourwebsite Moves to Downtown Asheville

August 1, 2005 – 12:00 am
As of August 1st, 2005 4yourwebsite´s Asheville Web Design Office is now at 263 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville. Still plenty of convenient parking and hours by appointment. A full-time receptionist is available for pick-up and drop-off of your Web Design materials. Please be sure to note this change of address in your records. Website, eMail Address and Phone Numbers remain the same.

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Spider Food (1) :: Thinking outside of the web box.

June 23, 2005 – 5:05 am
This article is the first in a series of Spider Food / Search Engine Optimization / SEO articles. Your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website. Before we get started with Search Engine Optimization, and learning to feed the Spiders, let's take a much broader look at your business and website promotion. Any truly effective website promotion campaign will also include several offline website promotion strategies. Getting your website online is not enough; having a page one ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN is really fantastic but it is not enough either; you need to promote your website, both online and offline. Think of your website as a new and valuable dimension to your existing business, think of your website as part of your business and not as a separate cost or, hopefully, profit center. Create your marketing campaigns with your website as an integral part ...

Posted in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | No Comments »

Is Google trying to be Yahoo and MSN?

May 21, 2005 – 6:30 pm
Google has introduced a new portal service that makes it much more like Yahoo and MSN. Go to http://www.google.com/ig to try it out. Is it worth it? They still have some work to do to make it as useful as Yahoo and MSN and there are a few glitches, but overall it is great. In true Google fashion, the page looks and feels a lot cleaner and loads a lot faster than its rivals. What's missing? First of all the most important thing that is missing is actually a good thing - there are no dancing bananas or other distracting, flashing graphics and no popup annoyances. On the negative side, I've grown to really like Yahoo's RSS feature that lets me add my own RSS feeds, I'd like to see this feature added to the Google portal. The Stock market ticker will show you delayed quotes of a custom list of stocks ...

Posted in Search Engine News | No Comments »

Gates is going to help make cars crash proof?

May 1, 2005 – 5:52 pm
A 4/30/2005 Associated Press release talks about software that "enables cars to fix themselves and avoid accidents". The article quotes Bill Gates as saying that "Eventually there could be a car that wouldn't let itself crash." This is really scary, don't you think that he should be working on a computer that "wouldn't let itself crash" first? I don't want to ever be behind the wheel of a car that depends on our current state of technology to keep it safe. Sitting at my computer during a crash can be extremely annoying, and is only slightly dangerous to those around me, but hurling myself down the highway at 65 miles per hour in an automobile requires a much more reliable operating system than any that I've seen so far. I'm annoyed enough already about Microsoft forcing it's conventions on me when I'm typing a letter, if they start being able to ...

Posted in Wit & Wisdom | No Comments »

Help Center Live added to 4yourwebsite support services.

January 30, 2005 – 2:21 am
Help Center Live is being implemented on 4yourwebsite.com to facilitate better customer service. Clients can enter service tickets and/or initiate online chat directly with sales and support specialists. To see our Live Help system in action use the "Click Here for Online Support Status" button, Service Ticket entry is also available from the Support Status page and on the Client Tools page.

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Palmer Wahl Instruments goes live with SPOCweb

January 13, 2005 – 7:43 pm
The redesign of the Palmer Wahl Instruments website is complete and the site went live on Monday. There have been rave reviews. The SPOCweb site features trade show schedule, contact list, calibration eMinder, RMA, RFQ, corporate profiles on 4 companies, catalog request or download, shopping cart and many other features. There are thousands of thermal imaging products, process thermometers, pressure gauges, recorders and data loggers, testing and calibration, sensors and other industrial instrumentation. The products span 25 different catalogs from 4 different companies. Catalogs are divided into product lines and can be listed by category or by company. Users can easily find the products that they need with 3 - 5 clicks. Users can also use Model Number Search or Advanced Search to find the products that they are interested in. Some products can be purchased directly from the factory online using the shopping cart. A Request For Quote (RFQ) option is ...

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