By Robert Lockard

Submit Solution has four new Squidoo lenses, all focusing on different aspects of the Internet-marketing company’s services. Web pages on Squidoo are called lenses, I suppose because they give you a view into someone’s mind, life or company.

I’ll give a brief description of all of the new lenses below. Be sure to check them out and rate each of them, if you like.

One lens focuses just on Submit Solution’s Internet-marketing blogs. As you can tell, each of these blogs has a different focus: search engine optimization, paid search, social media and Web design. You can find it here: Submit Solution – 4 Internet Marketing Blogs.

Another lens gives you more information about Submit Solution’s services, including Web design, SEO, PPC and website content. You’ll find it here: Submit Solution – The Best Internet Marketing Services.

Submit Solution’s website launch is spotlighted on another lens. It includes the news release announcing the updated website’s release in September 2009 and the company’s new features and services. You can find that news release on Submit Solution’s website under “Press.” It’s entitled, “Submit Solution Launches New Web Site with Web and Logo-Design Services.” The lens can be found here: Submit Solution Online-Marketing Website Launch.

The final new Submit Solution Squidoo lens is short and sweet. It includes some of the newest blog entries from the site’s four ecommerce blogs, as well as Submit Solution’s contact information. If you want to get a hold of a Submit Solution representative, that’s a good place to go. Check it out here: Submit Solution: The one-stop hub for internet marketing.

Don’t forget about our four other Squidoo lenses for Submit Solution, eHarbor, Inc., Magellan Commerce and Real Estate Promoter that we built back in March. I talked about them in the eHarbor Blog back when we created them. Learn more about them in my blog entry, “eHarbor, Inc. launches Squidoo pages.” We recently updated these lenses with additional information about our companies’ history and high-tech services.

You can find them at the following links:

Submit Solution - Search Engine Optimization Tools

eHarbor, Inc. - eCommerce and SEO Experts

Magellan Commerce - Website Design & SEO

Real Estate Promoter - Website Design & Marketing

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Submit Solution’s four new Squidoo lenses.” The Submit Solution logo is the copyright of Submit Solution.

By Robert Lockard

That’s right. Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

Page Load Time

This study measured how long it takes each Web browser to download Yahoo’s main page. The trouble with these results is that they might be affected by how many other people were using the site at the time the study was conducted. Bearing that in mind, it’s interesting to see how close all of the Web browsers are to each other.

Firefox was the fastest with a download time of 1.34 seconds. The slowest time was 1.61 seconds and it was shared by Explorer and Safari. The difference between those two times is so small that it hardly matters which browser you use to download a website like Yahoo.

Browser Cache Performance

The same is true for both Page Load Times and Browser Cache Performance. Browsers often save a cached version of a Web page you have already visited so it can quickly bring it up again when you return to it. The download times of a cached page ranged from 0.72 seconds to 0.89 seconds, which statisticians would say is probably not a “significant” difference. Chrome had the fastest speed, while Safari had the slowest.

Other categories in the study had a wider variety of results, but I thought these ones were the most interesting.

This is all fascinating information, but what does it all mean? Why are fast download times important? If online users have to wait several seconds for one of your Web pages to download, they might just give up after a while and decide your site isn’t worth the wait.

We want our ecommerce websites to be fast enough for people, no matter which browser they use. But we should definitely focus on the most popular ones. That’s the subject of a whole other blog entry, though.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Which Web browser is the best?” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

By Britnee Nguyen

You might have found a talented designer who can create a stellar-looking website for you. This is a plus when it comes to the actual design of your website, but do they know how to design it so it can be easily optimized with SEO and found by search engines? Web design needs to be made with SEO in mind.

Maybe you’re wondering on how web design affects SEO. Well, it does in several ways. One example is that a web designer may create some good-looking graphics and puts them on your website. When you scroll your mouse over the graphic, usually a little pop-up type box shows with the file name or some other text. This is called the alt text.

It’s important that this text has your target SEO keywords inserted. So if you have a picture of a dog and your website is about an animal shelter in Utah. You don’t want to put your text as just “dog” or a random file number like “495803”. If you’re targeting the keyword “Utah animal shelter”, then put that exact wording as your text of your picture. This gets you moved up higher in the search results, especially in Google Images. Every picture that I have specifically written a alt text for with a keyword, I’ve always found it on the first page of Google Images within just a few days.

It’s these kinds of things that make web design important for SEO. Web design also needs to take into account of using words instead of images. A lot of websites are built as one image instead of a web layout with the content as a separate entity that’s entered in. This typically results in a pretty website, but the search engines can’t read it. If you have each page as one image inserted that had the text pre-inserted, then there really is no “text” for the search engines.

Make sure web designers keep the design and content separate so the search engines can read it and index you. Web design is a very important aspect in succeeding with an on-line business or identity. SEO is just as important also. Web design and SEO go hand-in-hand when creating the best on-line experience for your business and its customers. Be sure that your web design is functional so SEO experts at Submit Solution can optimize it to the most advantageous level.

By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

If you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Look at all of the inventions he created. He is the reason we have readily available electricity. Edison, his biggest competitor, wanted to use direct current to power the country, but that way was incredibly inefficient and it could only send power one mile away from a power plant. Tesla’s idea was to generate power through alternating current (does AC sound familiar?). We still use this form of energy transference to power our entire infrastructure in the United States and other parts of the world.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

HTML would have been replaced with a much less complex but more elegant way of designing websites. There would be no need for search engines. Whatever form they would have taken under Tesla’s hand, websites would contain the ability to seek the right viewers rather than viewers having to search for the right sites.

This is a fascinating bit of fanciful thinking. Thanks for indulging my fantasy. I might return to this topic again sometime here on the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “If Nikola Tesla created the Internet.” The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

By Robert Lockard

Talk about a captive audience. The government of Finland says it’s a human right to have access to the Internet, so companies must provide Internet with a speed of at least 1 megabit per second. Doesn’t that seem a little strange? You can read about this in the CNN article, “Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland.”

Apparently, it’s not an unalienable right to own a car or a house, but somehow it is an incredibly important right for every person to be connected to the Internet. To me, that just seems like faulty logic. In reality, we can all work hard to gain access to new tools, like cars, cell phones or the Internet, to make our lives easier, but there is no guarantee we’ll get those things without effort.

Ninety-five percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens are already connected to the Internet. This law makes little difference to the vast majority of the population. However, officials say they are trying to not only bring Internet access to rural areas, but also increase the speed for everyone to at least 100 megabits per second by 2015.

I’m all for creative solutions to problems, but this seems like overkill. Websites are certainly getting more complex and social-media sites like YouTube and Twitter require fast connections to constantly download new information in real time. But the invisible hand of competition can certainly balance supply and demand and lead to better services than a government mandate can.

What if it’s unprofitable for Internet providers to build connections to the 5 percent of Finland not currently covered? Maybe the government would have to subsidize those companies if they were in trouble of going bankrupt. That can create a vicious cycle of companies depending on government funds to stay afloat.

If you ask me, this whole thing is silly. I don’t have the right to a fast Internet connection. I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence. I also have many other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. But luxuries or necessities like the Internet or food, respectively, are not among them.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Is Internet access a human right?” The photo of the dangling cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Al Abut.

By Robert Lockard

In Internet marketing, your website can be your first and best defense against lawsuits or it can be a huge liability. It depends on how strong your disclaimers are and how carefully you check to make sure your statements are all factual and ethical.

I bring this up because I just read an eye-opening article on InfoWeek’s website, entitled “Website disclaimers – yes, they do work.” In that piece, author Guy Burgess describes a recent case in New Zealand where an ecommerce website had given customers the wrong impression about the soundness of some of the companies it advertised.

A customer sued the website owners when he received the short end of the stick on a deal with one of the companies the website advertised. But a judge ruled in favor of the owners because they had included a provision on their website to protect themselves. The judge found the owners to be both negligent in their faulty information and protected by their admission that their site didn’t have all the information customers would want to make a final decision.

We all make mistakes, and it’s unfortunate when others are negatively affected by our errors. If we want strong relationships with our customers, we have to make sure our ecommerce websites are accurate and that our products or services are as good as we say they are.

The InfoWeek article suggests three things every website owner should do:

1. Publish a disclaimer on your website. It can be brief and it should simply suggest customers not just look at your site for credible information on whatever topic is the focus of your business.

2. Be honest. This seems like a no-brainer, but you should try to include the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on your website. Try to make sure you information is as complete as possible and you’re leaving out important details people need to know.

3. Carefully review your website and update it when necessary. It’s hard to catch every mistake, especially as laws change and you introduce new products or services. Make an honest effort and your customers will appreciate your diligence.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “Protect yourself with a strong website disclaimer.” The photo of the zombie warning sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of rchurch74.

By Robert Lockard

The new Submit Solution website is quite amazing, isn’t it? Be sure to take a look at all the great Web design, SEO and other services we provide right here.

In fact, Submit Solution’s new website is so cool that we actually held a launch party in its honor on Monday, September 21, 2009. Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen, the other two writers on the four ecommerce blogs on Submit Solution, and I planned a company-wide get-together in which we enjoyed refreshments and gave out prizes. The refreshments were made up of drinks, as well as orange and white donuts, which were shaped like the new Submit Solution logo. See for yourself below.

That S-shaped group of donuts was one of my favorite parts of the celebration. After that, we held a fun scavenger hunt. Employees had to search the Submit Solution website for clues to lead them to prizes cleverly hidden throughout our eHarbor, Inc. office. We hid clues on Submitsolution.com in the site’s blog tags, image titles and in the text of Web pages.

The prizes people could win by finding and unscrambling the clues included toys, candy bars, eHarbor mugs and Bigler Bucks, which we affectionately named for Oliver Bigler, the CEO and cofounder of eHarbor, Inc. We use Bigler Bucks to buy company products, like pens, mugs and shirts. Our employees enjoyed this friendly competition. Most of them are used to playing foosball, so this scavenger hunt was quite tame in comparison.

You can read more about this website’s great features in my blog entry, “Submit Solution launches updated website with new design features.”

By Robert Lockard

Do you feel lost when it comes to Web design? You don’t need to be an expert on HTML, Ruby or other programming languages to end up with an effective design for your ecommerce website. You can use Submit Solution’s custom-design services to handle the actual design part.

But there are four steps you can take before you go to the experts to make sure your site does precisely what you want it to. These steps come from an Examiner article entitled, “Website design starter plan for clients.” That article has horrible spelling and grammar, but it has a few good ideas I want to share, so I’ll cut its author a little slack.

Anyway, here are the four steps you should take before requesting help from a Web designer:

1. Look at what your competitors are doing. Plagiarism is illegal, but finding good practices and Web-design ideas is perfectly legal. This will give you a good starting point to see which elements of a website you would like to use in your own. Try to stick to general ideas, such as navigation, structure and what subjects are covered in the text.

2. Once you have an idea of what others are doing, start mapping out your website’s outline. Start with the main pages, such as home, services, products, about us, etc. Then add subpages under the main pages to build on more specific topics. Fill in as much detail as you can about what information and messages you want those pages to contain. This will help the designers be more precise in meeting your needs.

3. Write down other tools you want to include in your website. If you want to add tutorials or other videos to your site, you should mention that you’ll need a media player in your site outline. Depending on your needs, you might consider adding any number of specialized tools to your site, such as forums, blogs, audio, etc. Make sure whatever you add actually helps visitors and doesn’t distract from your site’s overall theme.

4. Create an overall theme for your website. This includes color schemes, logo, content placement and more. Like a wedding, a website needs to have its colors chosen ahead of time to make sure everything matches and works well together. Having a strong logo is a good starting point in creating your design and, once again, Submit Solution’s logo-design services can come in handy.

When you’re armed with research and a plan, you can confidently approach a designer to begin building your website. Some of your plans might have to wait because of budget concerns or other reasons, but you will definitely have a much stronger final product than if you went into the design process with no preparation.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “What to do before you hire a Web designer.” The photo of the blue dog is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of lepiaf.geo.

By Robert Lockard

In case you haven’t noticed, Submit Solution just released an advanced new version of its website, submitsolution.com. Doesn’t it look great? The updated site now includes two new services – custom Web and logo design – as well as four ecommerce blogs and free search-engine submission, in addition to its search engine optimization and paid-search packages.

Submit Solution is already an expert at getting qualified traffic to clients’ websites via SEO and PPC campaigns. By adding custom website design and logo design to its services, Submit Solution can now help turn a higher number of site visitors into customers.

Submitsolution.com has a more user-friendly design, allowing visitors to quickly navigate its Web pages. The site boasts free search-engine submission, as well as four new blogs focusing on SEO, PPC, social media and Web design, respectively. It also provides additional Internet-marketing tools, definitions of ecommerce terms and FAQs to help newcomers learn the ins and outs of Internet marketing.

“The new Submit Solution website helps potential clients understand both the intricacies of a successful search-engine marketing plan and what we can do to help,” said Oliver Bigler, chief executive officer and founder of Submit Solution. “Internet newbies can often be drowned in a sea of conflicting information. Our website helps clients navigate their way toward information and services that fit their needs best.”

For 14 years, Submit Solution has worked in the Internet-marketing industry. Its SEO packages were recently updated to add social-media posting and inbound linking to its traditional tactics of optimizing site content, such as adding Meta tags. Other new or improved services include:

- Website design

- Logo design

- Paid-search advertising

- Competitive analysis

- Website consulting

This launch of Submit Solution’s new website makes this the second week in a row in which we’ve introduced an innovative product or service. Be sure to check out my blog entry on Magellan Commerce’s new online merchant service: “Magellan Commerce offers low-cost ecommerce and merchant services.”

By Robert Lockard

With the release of its Magellan Merchant service on August 31, Magellan Commerce has become the first one-stop shop for businesses looking for website, branding and online payment solutions. No company has ever offered both an ecommerce platform and merchant services until recently.

There is a huge demand among online businesses for a simple, low-cost merchant service. That’s why Magellan Commerce combined its expertise at Web design with this new merchant service. Now businesses won’t have to work with several different companies to build their website and then allow customers to pay with credit cards online. It can all be handled by Magellan Commerce for an amazingly low price.

Here are some of Magellan Merchant’s great features:

- No setup fees

- Low transaction rates

- Low, 5-cent monthly fee

- No contracts

- No minimum monthly transactions

- PCI-compliant security protocols to protect against identity theft

Magellan Merchant services are only available to Magellan Commerce customers. Magellan Commerce is an innovative ecommerce platform that specializes in designing websites and logos for small businesses. eHarbor, Inc. is the parent company of both Magellan Commerce and Submit Solution.

To find out more about Magellan Commerce and Magellan Merchant, go to www.magellancommerce.com or call 1-800-925-1647.