Tek Chat with Search Wifey
I'm Linda Moran, and I'm married to Mike Moran. In case you don't know, Mike is a web expert specializing in search marketing. In fact, he's been 
so busy traveling hither and yon speaking about the new book he co-authored that alas—he has no time to build or maintain his own Web site. That's where I come in.
A programmer by trade, I've taken twelve years off to raise our four kids, all the while wondering what re-entering the work force would entail for me, once they were all in school. But the answer is now apparent.
Aside from my hobby of non-fiction publishing (I've written for Parenting magazine, for example) I am now my husband's programmer (aka Mike's Search Wifey). I write in HTML, CSS, Perl, MySQL, and I fake my way through Javascript. All the behind-the-scenes bit-chomping that Mike's site does, plus some of his page design, is mine. I recently installed Movable Type (blogging software) for him. And lastly, I copyedit all his Web page content. Puts a new spin on the antiquated idea of wife as help-mate, huh?
So, in short, I am Mike's Webmaster, which reveals the real balance of power. Continue reading
| Linda Moran's tek chats: |
Movable Type blog Running into problems with MT? See if Linda Moran has found the answer for you. Linda Moran's Movable Type blog |
Movable Type 3.2 RSS Categories Do you blog with Movable Type and have split up your blog into categories? You might like each of those categories to have its own RSS feed. |
Webmaster checklist Are you a webmaster, but you're a little disorganized? I specialize in fixing folks' websites, and this is my checklist. Or maybe you're looking for a web developer to create or freshen up your site. Read my checklist, and find out my process, from consultation to testing and follow-up. |
Do you code your pages with DIVS? Have you tried printing those DIVS? I have, and found out, sadly, that print does a better job with table layout than DIV layout in all browsers but Opera. But there's no need to switch to tables for your layout! Find out what you can do with a little CGI programming. Take over Print with a CGI |
Do you offer your visitors a print version of your page? There's an easier way, requiring half the maintenance, and you can do it with CSS style sheets. Most Web site visitors today still like the printed page. Giving them what they want will bring them back in increasing numbers. Print Style Sheets |
Entice the search spider Make use of DIV layout to entice the spider to crawl more of your page and pick up the keywords you really intend. Find out how to do this while still putting your visitor first. Improve your search rankings with DIV layouts |
Get started on your link campaign! Just like good citations for a book, good in-bound links makes a site authoritative. Here's how to go about getting relevant inbound links. |
Need a style sheet based on which browser your visitor is using? I did. I code my pages using DIVs, and discovered that in Mozilla-based browsers, my print output looks especially egregious. Why? If I have a DIV longer than one page, Mozilla simply cuts it off at the end of the first page of printing. Since my preference is for my visitors to see that DIV, I wanted to suppress it only in Mozilla browsers. Find out how I did it, using a little javascript and an alternate print style sheet. Browser-dependent alternate style sheets |
What about reciprocal links? Are they worth the effort? Find out the pros and cons of reciprocal links and how to make the most of them. |
Everything you'd ever need to know about SEARCH Web developers as a group lack understanding of how search works. Read these Squidoo lenses written by one of the world's foremost authorities on the ins and outs of search engines.
Biznology |
But that's not all. I served as Mike and Bill's copy editor on their book, with an emphasis on turning their technical hoo-ha into plain English. I guess that because I am a programmer and Webmaster, they thought I was their perfect test case. "If Linda understands it, then our readers will understand it," went the reasoning. I choose to take it as a compliment.
I'm here to tell you it was a long grueling road to readability. As a result of that six-month project, I've scrutinized every word in that book at least one time, and in some cases four or five.
You might imagine that as Mike's Webmaster, and having read his book about Search Marketing, I have some opinions about technical solutions that make your site more visible to search engines and in general more palatable to your visitors. You will notice that some of my tips deal with print—often thought of as the hindquarters of Web browsing capability but nonetheless still important to visitors. See the table on this page for my tek chats.
And while you're here, I'd like to unabashedly plug my husband's book. Search Marketing, Inc. is available now on amazon.com. It's already selling like bologna on white at a truckstop.
Oh, and if you'd like to know more about my writing and publications, see Linda Moran, the writer and Linda Moran's magazine publications. My book and magazine publications are not about technical matters. They're about parenting, marriage, self-help, non-dieting, advocacy and disabilities. Heck, Mike and I did have four kids these past thirteen years, and we're still in one piece. That's plenty of material to fuel my part-time writing habit.
Find out more
Want to find out how else to make the most of your Web site? The book, Search Engine Marketing, Inc., by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, is available on Amazon.com. There's something for everyone in this thorough, delightfully written text that covers every aspect of Search Marketing. I know from the inside—I personally ripped it to shreds a few times while it was in the making.
Click on the book cover for more information.
And just who is Linda Moran, and why does she call herself "Search Wifey?" Find out who is Linda Moran?
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Last Modified: Saturday, 12-Jan-2008 21:49:16 PST Linda Moran
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