Williams Computer Consulting

                                               Software Makes 'em Work!

Our computer consulting company specializes in .Net Framework, Visual Basic, Databases, Access, Excel, Microsoft Office, SQL Server, Web Developer, ASPX and HTML. Put some real management tools to work and stop using your abacus.

Anatomy of a Website.

    On this page we intend to answer the question... 

"Hey Ron & Jason, what do I need to know to have a Website?" and

"How can we improve our Websites performance?

    If you have an ISP Internet Service Provider, you probably already have some space allotted to your User Name and Password for use as Web space. The World Wide Web is nothing more than little packets of information that need to be sent to any computer requesting it. What can you have in these Packets of Information? Anything! It could be a picture, video, song, text, ANYTHING!. 

    All of those packets have a location, a path, an address, an URL like ...

http://www.williamscomputerconsulting.com/images/leroy.JPG 

This picture of Leroy is one example. If you click the hyperlink above your computer will display Leroy's picture. Only the picture. But, here you can see it used in conjunction with the rest of this page. More packets of information. As a page loads you can usually see these pieces loading in from your Internet Explorer. The beauty of the internet is that these individual packets can be delivered via any of the spider web of paths that is available. Each page could fly over the Internet from dozens of paths. Arriving as a piece of the puzzle. The HTML code then reassembles them.

One way that allows a Website programmer to combine all of these things together is an HTML editor. Jason and I use Microsoft's Front Page.  It's an ugly language but efficient.

    The selected text above is the code that gets Leroy's picture included on this page. Ok, let's talk about other types of packets. And I want you to realize that some of these functions require a backend server to do something, not just your visitor's computer. For example add to a page counter, or track hits, or analyze your traffic, or send you an email with an order, or get Pay Pal involved to secure a credit card transaction.  Not all Website Host are equal. Yahoo host http://WilliamsComputerConsulting.com  . It cost us $11.95 per month to register our Dot Com and provide us with tools and space to make our Website function.

    Many Websites display too much text and some pictures, but for a Website to really function you need to get the communications going in several directions. For example...

Submit Buttons. Your visitor needs a way to communicate with you. He fills out some kind of info and presses a Submit Button and the Backend Server sends you an email and it appears in your inbox. We use Yahoo's tool here, but there are many ways to do the same thing.

Buy Now Buttons, Add To Cart Buttons and View Cart Buttons.

We are members of EBay and Pay Pal. Pay Pal has a way for you to add items to your Website. They then give you a little packet of code that you insert into your page (HTML) and boom.

Counters. 

If you go to the trouble of creating a Website, you are going to want to analyze your results. Counters are a part of that. Again, there are many ways to do the same thing. Here, we use Yahoo's Counters. Another little snippet of code and there you go.

Drop Down Lists

  Make None ACURA AMERICAN MOTORS ASUNA(Canadian Vehicle) AUDI BMW BUICK CADILLAC CHECKER CHEVROLET CHRYSLER DANAAXLES DODGE EAGLE FORD GEO GMC HONDA HYUNDAI I.H.C.TRUCK INFINITI ISUZU JEEP KIA LANDROVER LEXUS MAZDA MERCURY MITSUBISHI NISSAN OLDSMOBILE PLYMOUTH PONTIAC STUDEBAKER SUBARU SUZUKI TOYOTA VOLKSWAGEN

This particular drop down list is a list of makes of Light Trucks. It could be anything... categories, date ranges, any kind of default values. The thing to realize here is that each selection can be a link to a unique URL. A unique packet of info. The second drop down does exactly that. If you choose Ford then a order page opens up that only includes Fords Models. If you choose Geo then an order page is displayed that only has Geo's Models.

FTP programs

Programmers usually develop a Site on their home or office computer. Then after they get the bugs out of it they will publish the pages. You can do this through the use of an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. It allows you to copy and paste your pages out on your public web space. It's much like the Window Explorer. Except this folder is out on the Web.

Meta Tags

Meta Tags like the ones selected above, are keywords that Search Engines will use to find your Site. Don't you want people to be able to find your Site? We know how to move you up in the different Search Engines. It's an ART! For example if you type in Computer Consulting into Yahoo's Search Engine, we come up at 163 out of 10,000,000. 4/22/05 update 45 out of 23,000,000.Not bad. Now try Computer Consulting Ohio, we come up 11 out of 800,000. Now try  Computer Consulting Newark. Number 3 and 4.  Software Makes 'em Work has been a phrase that I have included on my business cards for 30 years. And so when we started creating our Website we included that phrase on the top of each page. We're talking around 100 pages now. So, if you type that in we come up 1 and 2. I was telling one of my cousins about our search engine success. He later turned that into a joke in a conversation with my son and said... "I hear your old man is coming up in search engines when someone types abacus." Ok, I am old, but if I want to own a word I can. I have included an Abacus Challenge link off of our Home Page. Well see how long it takes, until I have a respectful search result. I started feeding the Search engines 1/27/05. 4/22/06 update Abacus Ohio in a Yahoo search finds us at 17 and 20. Check out our other results...

You should realize that me telling you our success here, on this page, will improve our search score for every phrase I listed above. It can take 60 days or so to get Websites re-indexed by the search engines. It also depends if you have the Robot Index option in use. And I think that the best way to improve your search engine score is GOOD CONTENT. Not to dismiss the importance of a successful linking strategy. Or the inclusion of a robot friendly site map. Hey there's a bunch of details, but the rewards are many. The most important thing to do is to come up with search keywords you want the public to type in to find your Site.

Web Hosting

We have been really pleased with Yahoo hosting our Website. This is an area that most business people don't even think about. Look at some of the analysis that is provided.

View Page Stats See who's visiting this page.

General Statistics

Activity Statistics

Daily Visitors

Activity by Hour of Day

Access Statistics

Daily Page Access

Most Requested Images

Most Requested Folders

Top Entry Pages

Top Search Engines

Top Search Phrases that got the person to the Website

Most Used Browsers

Most Used Operating Systems

Here's some nice references for you. We have found some really neat tools that allow you to monitor how your Website is doing. Enjoy.

Our Link Exchange Program

RGB color values

Internet Glossary

HTML Reference 

The Abacus Challenge 

Web Site Analyzer

Verify Site Links

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