GetCalhoun.com Blog

I must confess, as usual, the things that look the easiest are often the most difficult.
I decided to change the mission of AnnistonAlabama.net a few days ago. I totally changed the look, and it is different than all other community websites now.

Community websites seem to fall into two categories: They either look like they were cloned from all the others in a slick but busy style, or they are really clunky and amateurish. This happens because the designer either either a blog or CMS format like Wordpress, or some kind of beginner page maker that spits out a full site after only a few clicks.
Well...I wanted to do something different... I wanted to do something as sharp as possible using HTML. I think I'm on the correct track.

Whereas GetCalhoun.com is a workhorse, AnnistonAlabama.net is designed to be a showhorse. The ad prices will reflect this philosophy. It's going to be something Anniston businesses ought to want to latch onto. It's a clear departure from what I have done in the past. However, after all is said and done, it is a spinoff of GetCalhoun.com, which is the "everyman's" website. There is absolutely positively nothing like GetCalhoun.com that I have ever seen...and I have looked a lot. It's one heck of a solution for small businesses in the region. Every time another advertiser comes along, he makes it better for all the advertisers. There's just nothing better you can do with your ad dollar!

But, back to AnnistonAlabama.net. It's going to be a fine showcase website for business in Anniston, and businesses who support Anniston. It's going to be fine, because it will be seen by anyone wanting more information particular to Anniston... This means everyone from the little old lady in Arnet, Texas just fooling around to the mega-billionaire looking to escape California or Dusseldorf, Germany and bring his factory to Anniston. It's going to be a fine ambassador.

Oh yes.. about the simple I mentioned up top.... AnnistonAlabama.net is NOT a simple website. One of the simplest looking things about it carried me down coding roads I have never seen before. The slide show which is NOT designed for the platform I'm using to build the site, cost me right at 12 hours to figure out. We're talking CSS, Javascript, and some pestulent bit of stuff called Mootools, none of which I have much to any familiarity with. Sigh. It was fun to see it work, though. Finally. And until the browser boys throw a monkey wrench into the works sooner or later with their revisions, maybe it will keep working! I think the results are pretty darn neat!

Community Alert:
New AnnistonAlabama.net website in building stage. Need photos...

Recently, I picked up a new domain name... AnnistonAlabama.net. After scratching my head for a month, I decided to turn it into a gift for Anniston from GetCalhoun.com. What the heck.
It comes in three parts... past, present and future. I'll be writing the history part. Mayor Robinson will take care of either the present or future, and appoint someone else to write what's left.

It will be neat. Folks from all over the world who are searching for information on the area will land on this site. What the site could use is some old old Anniston photos for the history part. There just isn't a whole lot available around here that I can get my hands on.

If you have historical pics of Anniston stuff, why not contact me here at GetCalhoun.com and let's put them on for everyone to see? The past part will mostly be about the founding of Anniston, so I'm talking really old photos, if you have them, say pre 1920. Jump in!

I confess that I'm a total sucker for a good domain name! Grape Jelly?

The other day, while minding my own business, and not bothering anyone, a program I rely on was being persnickety and not doing like I asked. It's a keyword program I use to explore and define great keywords for pages.

Anyway, the darn thing was acting up, so I decided to make a test. I threw in the first thing that came to my mind, which was...grape jelly.

Sure enough, that word was making the program hum along just fine. In the process, I noticed that there wasn't a whole lot of competition for the word. Hmmn! Grape jelly is like cat and mouse and mustard and ketchup. Everybody knows grape jelly.

Not expecting much, I went to see if the domain name was taken. To my utter surprise, GrapeJelly.org was available! I pounced on it and now I own it.

Ha. Ok, so now what do I do with it? Hmmn! Well, not knowing a whole lot about grape jelly, other than I like it a lot, I went about some research and one thing led to another.

I sat down to compose an article about grape jelly. It was harder than I expected. After all, there is only so much you can say about grape jelly, and most of that has already been said.

So, just for plain doggone fun, I took the grape jelly theme and flipped it around a quarter turn. The result as a LOT of fun! The result? How about Grape Jelly Meets The Twilight Zone?

The serious object of the exercise is to come up with a website that is popular and will generate traffic. The folks who find GrapeJelly.org, in turn, it is hoped, will click on the paid advertising, generating a little income.

The website is finished, more or less. It will still get tweaked from time to time, but it's basically done. I present for you amusement and confundity... GRAPEJELLY.ORG! Click the link for some great grape jelly deliciousness!

I must tell you that developing a website geared for national traffic is a LOT HARDER than building one for local traffic....that is, if it works. A site built for the region hereabouts is much easier to be made successful, if you know what you're doing. And, (scruffing fingernails on shirt, blowing on them... inspecting results) I do...

If you have a couple of minutes, and absolutely nothing better to do, visit GrapeJelly.org. I'll guarantee that you'll never look at grape jelly the same, ever again.

Oh...btw, the site has been active for maybe a week or so, in development. If you go and type in "grape jelly" into Google and Yahoo, as of this writing,you'll find it on PAGE ONE!!! That's not by accident!

I had mentioned ten days or so since the last post here that I was working on a MASSIVE translation of one of my travel websites into Portuguese. I know that sounds a little odd, but the fact is that the folks in Brazil, to which it is aimed at, are great ones to use the Internet.

Well, I finished the site today, but that's not to say I was finished with the project! Far from it.

The finished site is no good if folks can't find it, and that's where SEO comes into play. SEO means, Search Engine Optimization. That's what I do to entice search engines to index it so folks looking for it can find it.

First, I have 30 or so sites in my personal arsenal, so I placed links back to Agencia-de-Turismo.com on each of those sites. The hope and prayer is that when the search engines graze around on those sites, they'll also find their way to the target, Agencia-de-Turismo.com.

The next thing I did was to write a couple of my world famous Persuasive Essay Topics articles with embedded links. The articles will be rewritten to produce ten unique copies, and then farmed out to folks needing content. After all is said and done, with luck, the articles will appear on between 50 and 100 websites...all with links pointint back to the site.

Lastly, I took out some Google advertising. This doesn't help the SEO, but it gives the site a quick introduction to a world thirsty for travel articles in Portuguese. Also, advertising to foreign audiences is a good deal cheaper than going for U.S. traffic.

Of course, this is only the barest description of what it takes to take a website global, because there is a ton more stuff, but it gives an idea of what's involved.

The exciting fact is that to get your business seen here locally is a great deal easier, particularly with the power of GetCalhoun.com at your command. But, there is an art to it, and as far as search engine placement in Alabama goes, I confess, haltingly, and with much umbleness, I AM YOUR Picasso.