Design Communication Makakman's blog

Every now and again our mind goes into melt down, either we have too much going or on not enough, causing a creative block!

At this point I like to get away from the run of the mill websites or magazines and find something completely different.

FFFFound is just one place this monkey visits to find random imagery to give me some inspiration or spark to get my mind working.

The best way I've found lately to browse a number of sites is by using the great iPhone app iView which brings up imagery from your chosen website such as FFFFound.

I use it on a regular basis to clear that creative block and get the juices flowing again.

Great news from Adobe is that they are making Flash searchable and have teamed up with Google and Yahoo to make this possible according to ReadWriteWeb.

“Until now it has been extremely challenging to search the millions of RIAs and dynamic content on the Web, so we are leading the charge in improving search of content that runs in Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe.

The main problem with Flash sites are that search engines cannot crawl them for information to determine exactly what they hold. If they can't be crawled, they can't be ranked which means no search engine traffic no matter how good the content.

Adobe Flash Player is now installed on 98% of machines so this development might see Flash appearing on more sites in the near future.

This is good news although we wait and see exactly how this turns out.

Companies that only deal in local business need ways to attract people to their site, not from Outer Mongolia, unless that's your niche market, but from the surrounding area. Other than optimising your website what options do you have?

The first option and most basic is to adjust your Google account in Webmaster Tools and Set Geographic Target. This isn't necessary if your site ends in .co.uk as it's already associated with the United Kingdom, but is required if you have a .com domain.

Next you can utilise the free service from Google called Local Business Center. Here you can provide your business address which is displayed on a map and pin points exactly where you are.

Other information that you can also provide are opening hours, photos, description and most importantly a category which will help Google identify exactly what your business provides.

With summer here, although you wouldn't know it looking out the window, I felt in the mood for some truly summer time web design.

The selection of designs gets me in the mood for some chimping around in the sun and I hope it brings you some fresh inspiration.

All the designs are bright, colourful and cool in their design. Their usability is good and and all have a clear clean layout. See what you think!

Karim Zurita - Creative Design and Development

Oypro Istanbul Commercial Real Estate & Property Management

An algorithm is a set of mathematical equations. The search engines use the algorithm to rank pages to try and show what they deem to be the best results for a particular search.

To explain a little further lets take a good example from the great book by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink.

A must read for anyone interested in psychology and marketing in which he highlights how the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, the inspiration for the hit show ER, used an algorithm to cut down on admissions to its' Emergency Department (ED), saving huge amounts of money and time.

One problem for the build up of patients within this department was down to doctors incorrectly diagnosing symptoms that could lead to a heart attack.

Good luck to my cousin in India who was recently married at a monkey wedding in Ghanteswara village in Orissa state India. As reported on the BBC News site Crowds flock to monkey 'wedding' over 3,000 people turned up for the occasion. I didn't realise he had that many family and friends!

Sadly I couldn't make it due to other commitments but I wish Jhumuri and Manu well for the future. Word from the jungle is that they're planning on a long honey moon before having a family which I think is right for such a young couple.

I'm also glad to hear they have been released into the wild as previously they were chained up. All the best Manu, she looks a feisty one!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the execution of optimising a website to improve its' rankings in the search engines. The primary search engines of use being Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. The end result should see improved traffic and a more accessible page.

Now Mr Confuser would tell you that SEO is a highly complicated matter and should only be attempted by professionals. He would say that, a bit like a dodgy plumber might say "coh this job's gonna take a while, not straight forward this one!" Don't let Mr Confuser do his best to put you off SEO, if he's worthy of your business then you're worthy of a frank explanation.

Makakman is here to help explain Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and the right way to implement it. A real superhero you can actually talk to and get clear simple answers from. SEO can be a complicated matter, mainly because the evil ones out there make it so.

According to research by Nielsen/NetRatings 40% of online Britons receive news feeds, 67% of you do not know that the term for this service is Rich Site Summary (RSS).

Those same people are no doubt getting hood winked by dastardly people trying to baffle them with SEO jargon.

This is where Makakman will help slay those that try to confuse, harm or undermine website users and owners.

His enemies are:

Mr Confuser – his traits include talking very quickly, using jargon instead of plain English and deliberately tricking clients.