This post is because you don’t have enough to read. Scratch that… you don’t have enough useful stuff to read. These are must-reads for anyone who has or thinks they should have a website out there and gathering eyeballs.

I’m a firm believer in understanding why things are done. I also believe that anyone can understand anything if it’s important to them to understand it. People love to tell me “I’m not technical so I’m not going to understand it” but that’s a cop out. If you find value in what you’re learning, you’ll learn it.

Having a website without knowing what goes into it is like having a car and not understanding your gas tank or oil changes or tire pressure. You can go from here to there but, one of these days, that car is going to break and you’re going to be stuck. With that in mind, I strongly suggest you understand the basics. These should help. Best way to go about getting through these is to read the parts that pertain to what you’re doing, absorb the parts you get, and look up the parts you don’t.

First, of course, a couple posts by me.

• What is Web Strategy?
• 3 Things Every Business Owner Needs to Understand About Their Website
• Making a Technology Taming Plan

Google’s Starter Guide to SEO

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Google and what it does for people. Their free applications are priceless to me and their geeky nature appeals to me greatly. I also love that they would go out of their way to write a guide like this. For people who know little to nothing about search engines, this is the place to start.

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.

MailChimp’s Guide to Email marketing

I am consistently impressed with how much free information is produced from MailChimp. I have not used their product once but I’m still their biggest fan. This awesome guide gives you all the information you need to design, build, and send an email campaign the RIGHT way. A must read for ANYONE doing bulk HTML mailing.

First, we’ll cover all the basics, like how HTML emails work (and why it always seems to break when you try to send it yourself). Then, we’ll get into technical stuff, like how to design and code them. Finally, we’ll run through email marketing best practices, such as for list management, deliverability and measuring performance.

Seth Godin’s Guide to Traffic

I am a big Seth Godin fan. His honest, simple delivery of business and internet common sense is unique, refreshing, and insightful. I’ll read his blog as long as he writes it, no doubt about it. This ebook is yet another example of his pure common sense at work. It’s great advice for those that don’t know and a very important remind for those that do. It’s a quick read and an important triad of concepts.

In other words, the best way is the long way. The long way is to create content that is updated, unique and useful. Again and again we see that sites that do all three manage to get more than their fair share of traffic.

Getting Real by 37 Signals

This is a book written by the folks at 37 signals. It takles about how to build a web application but much of it applies broadly to any bootstrapping operation. This book, available to read for free online, gives you a great mental framework to push your ideas forward.

Underdo your competition; Your passion – or lack of – will shine through; The leaner you are, the easier it is to change; Differentiate yourself from bigger companies by being personal and friendly; Explicitly define the one-point vision; Build something you can manage.

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10 low-cost, high-value Web 2.0 strategies (saved on Delicious )

Some big tips and some small tips but some excellent concepts to think about. It’s very easy to get very lost in the buzz of social technology, mobile applications, and new techniques. This article lists some of the basics of website ROI and how to use it to your advantage. Also provides a handy PDF!

“Clearly there is something very different happening now. The Web is becoming the dominant platform.” Here’s our list of top 10 Web-oriented tools, technologies, and ideas that promise to deliver the most value at the lowest cost

Three Keys To Non-Profit Success In Social Media (saved on Delicious )

I’m working on a web and social media strategy for an animal shelter in Washington state. It’s pro-bono mostly because I believe deeply in what they’re doing but partly because I have a lot to learn about this space. Jason Falls talks about the main things non-profits need to concentrate on to see success online. When I was reading his article, it all sounded like common sense but it defintiely drove the point home. I come back to this article weekly to reinforce what we’re trying to do. For the record, his advice rings true for businesses if you replace “give” with “buy.”

The three keys to non-profit success, in my opinion, are: 1. Have a compelling story to tell. 2. Make a specific ask or establish a specific goal to reach. 3. Make it astonishingly easy to give.

CSS Sprite Generator (saved on Delicious )

CSS sprites help your page load much faster by only accessing a single image (like the Google one above) instead of many. This only works for non-repeating images called as a background in your CSS file. For more info, see this A List Apart article and this Smashing Magazine post.

Twitter links

What makes a good logo: Good logos always have this certain feeling to them but it’s more than metaphysics at play.

Virl URL shortening: I love bit.ly and all but these guys have a great service and I made their favicon!

Top 9 Services to Transfer Big Files: Email doesn’t typically work for anything over 10MB. Try one of these sites out for big file transfers.

Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip: Very creative strip explaining XHTML2 and HTML5… I feel enlightened!

Carsonified » How to Make Your Web Design Stand out from the Crowd: Great overview of what makes good web design (hint: don’t follow trends!)

Are there any links you’ve found recently that you can’t live without? Anything you’ve learned from above? Let me know… I’m always looking for more bookmarks!

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10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals (saved on Delicious )

I’ve been reading a lot more about web analytics these days and realizing the power it has in optimizing your website. Getting a website up and running is just the first baby-step towards actually being on the web and finding customers and clients. This ties into my concept of web strategy. Just getting out there is a great start but having a website without understanding how it’s working for you is just shooting from the hip. Having a benchmark and collecting data to understand how people are using your site is critical for every business owner.

10 Steps to Advanced Keyword Research (saved on Delicious )

Oh no, more SEO! Yeah, more SEO.

A big part of getting your site visible and getting people to come from search engines is picking a set of keywords that can perform. I’ve written about the basics of keyword research and even gotten a little philosophical about this keyword thing but this link from SEOMoz goes really in-depth. You might start scanning this article and thing “whoa… this is way over my head” but I would urge you to understand what they’re talking about. People treat picking keywords like it’s just a shot in the dark or just something to get out of the way but it’s hugely important. Improving your search engine rank is the same as moving your store front from behind the mall to the boardwalk. More eyes, more ears, and more mouse pointers means more conversions. The better site owners understand their own SEO, the easier it will be for them to exercise their business knowledge on the web.

15 sites web developers and designers should know (saved on Delicious )

Not everybody out there is going to need this but even if you’re not a designer/developer, there are some great tools on here to help you understand the process. First, try ColorCombos to get a sense of what colors work together and give you a few ideas for that redesign. Lipsum is where that crazy Latin text comes from on sites that aren’t finished… try sending a big block to your significant other and asking “so what’s your answer?” at the end. What the Font can identify fonts from images, a great resource if you need to recreate a logo or graphic but aren’t sure what fonts were used. Also, try Test Everything to see how your website is performing.

Twitter links

IE6 must die for the web to move on: The title says it all: Internet Explorer version 6 is really holding the web back. If you’re using Internet Explorer to view this page, go to Help > About and if the version number is anything less than 7, please upgrade.

Everything You Need to Know About Twitter You Learned from Grandma: Great post on how to use Twitter. It’s totally true: plain old-fashioned courtesy and respect go a long way both in person and online. Who knew?!?!

Swapster digital media trading: I’ve been working with the folks at Swapster to help them do a press release and, in the meantime, starting using their service. It’s a really easy way to list books, CDs, DVDs, and video games to trade with others. Try it out!

9 Marketing Tips from a Six-Year Old’s Lemonade Stand: Really well executed and thought-provoking past on how to approach your marketing.

H&FJ Fonts for Financials : I love REALLY technical posts about design, I’m not sure why. This is a nice long article about the types of fonts that should be used in financial documents… how specific can you get? Sexy fonts too…

Data on Social Media Use: I just found this interesting… quick 30 second read.

That’s all for know… hope you found these helpful. If you want more information about the stuff here or have a question, post it in the comments or find me on Twitter and I’ll be glad to help!

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The more I use Delicious, the more I like it (and the more I appreciate its sparse, utilitarian design). The other day, however, I “discovered” something pretty incredible.

The Search Function

You see, I was looking for a link in my own bookmarks and, being the efficient web browser that I am, I decided to use the search function. I was looking for a privacy policy generator link so I searched “privacy policy.” right at the top was my link but below it was, basically, the best information out there on privacy policies. Not even just the best, the ones people find the most useful. Whoa.

I assume that most people use Delicious how I do: as a bookmarking platform first (because it’s great) and as a social platform second (because the bookmarking is so good). I’m picky about what I bookmark… not because I’m picky about casting a vote but because I’m always wary of information overload. So, what ends up in Delicious is likely something I will want to use again later, not just a nice tidbit.

This means that Delicious is very powerful but certainly not suited for everything. I still use Google 90% of the time because I’m not entirely sure what I want but, in certain cases, Delicious search is an amazing resource. Here are a few scenarios that work great:

• Learning a new skill: I’m trying to learn JavaScript beyond my very basic comprehension. I could Google “JS tutorials” or comb through some great development blogs… or I could type “learn javascript” into Delicious. I get W3Schools (perfect), several beginners guide, and a few advanced options. A perfect place to start!
• Finding tips or tricks: Various lists and tips and tricks find their way into my Delicious account… but only the best ones. Let’s say I was buying a house and didn’t know where to start. Searching “buy a house” gives me an awesome first-time buyers guide, a great WikiHow article, a piece on negotiation, and several other good links. And this is only the first page!
• Getting information about technical topics: It’s safe to assume a lot of geeks (cough) use this service so if it’s a technical thing you’re looking for, this is probably the best place to start. Try a search on “spyware” or “algorithm” or “windows.” You’ll not only find some excellent resources but you’ll probably come across at least one link that will blow your mind.

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50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills (saved on Delicious )

Smashing Magazine puts out an unbelievable amount of useful and free content. This collection of sites and resources is a great example why I would subscribe to a printed version of this website. A big part of web strategy is representing yourself well across multiple profiles, networks, and sites. The best way to do that it to make sure you have a solid grasp on the English language, particularly as it relates to the internet. The better you can write, the better you look online… period.

We collected over 50 useful and practical tools and resources that will help you to improve your writing skills. You will find copy writing blogs, dictionaries, references, teaching classes, articles, tools as well as related articles from other blogs.

The Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials of all Time (saved on Delicious )

There are an unbelievable about of Photoshop (and Illustrator and web design and…) tutorial sites and posts out there that it’s hard to keep up with them all. Well, I can’t either so I don’t. I realized recently that, unless you have tons of extra time to walk through these and nothing better to do, you should look for a tutorial that helps you with the project you’re working on. How does this relate to web strategy? Part of a cogent presence online is how, visually, it represents you. Pick up a few ideas or try your hand at Photoshop… it can’t hurt.

With hundreds of Photoshop tutorial sites around these days it’s easy to forget some of the classic posts that have shaped and inspired the community for years. These kinds of posts are in a sense timeless, and have inspired countless designers (including myself) to begin writing their own tutorials.

12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress (saved on Delicious )

I’m a big, huge, unrelenting, obnoxious fan of WordPress. The more I learn, the more I love. I’m always looking for ways to improve on what’s there and create a strong, secure, easy-to-use web site for my clients. This article covers both back end changes as well as admin panel changes that can be made in WordPress to make sure you keep people out of your installation. Beginners should concentrate on 1, 4, 5, and 7. If you feel comfortable with any of the rest, do it.

WordPress being open source means that the chances of malicious attacks being successful are higher because the project’s source code can be easily obtained and studied for vulnerabilities. This article highlights several tips and hacks that you can use to secure and lock down your WordPress site and to fortify it from attacks.

10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals (saved on Delicious )

I’ve been getting deeper and deeper in to website analytics and having a lot of fun playing around with data and trying to come up with coherent and useful conclusions. I was once told “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” (a Peter Drucker quote). That may not be the best advice for every situation but, for web analytics, it holds true. The more you understand about how people come to your site and interact with what you’re offering, the better you can serve them. If you’re a true beginner with Google Analytics or not sure where to start, check out Smashing’s timely article.

The definition of Google Analytics goals has always been clear to me – a means to measure business objectives, reports and improve on them. Google Analytics has transformed itself over the years from a ‘nice to have’ analytics software to a ‘must have’ analytics software …

Twitter links

Web Do’s and Don’ts: I think this site is great! On one side, you have the “do’s” of modern web design and, on the other, the “don’ts.” People login, add their own, and vote on others. Very simple but some great reminders for people of all skill levels. I’d like to think I’d score pretty well on here…

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To: Another Smashing article… if you’re even flirting with the idea of putting together a web application, start here. Also, if interactivity is your bag, check out a few of the examples they show.

21 Fonts That Shouldn’t Be Free But Are: I’m a sucker for free fonts and I know you are too. It used to be that free fonts were a “get what you pay for” kind of deal but, within the last year, some incredible free fonts have exploded out onto the market.

5 Tasks in the Morning: Chris Brogan shows us the five things he does in the morning. My five would be Gmail, Gmail, TweetDeck, Facebook, and a quick trip to Popurls.

101 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog: Are you getting traffic and not sure what to do with it? This post is almost 2 years old but gave me a lot of ideas to go with for online monetization. Great place to start if you know a little bit but not sure where to go.

12 Ways to Use LinkedIn Today: Great (and succinct) piece on using LinkedIn to stay connected and do a little personal branding.

Are there any links you’ve found recently that you can’t live without? Anything you’ve learned from above? Let me know… I’m always looking for more bookmarks!

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Saved on Delicious: Privacy Policy Generator

Documents like terms of use pages and privacy policies can be easily overlooked by groups wishing to get their web site live as quick as possible. It seems like a bunch of legalese and who wants to deal with that? Well, I’ll be honest, it’s usually the last step but I understand the importance of putting these together. Your privacy policy tells website users what information you collect and what you do with that information. For most minor websites, the most you collect and use is an email address and a name. Even if that’s it, you should still be telling people both inside and outside of your organization what you’re doing with this information. This handy little form asks you all the important questions and then generates a document that can be posted on your site. It’s so easy now, no excuses!

Saved on Delicious: Sara’s Sanctuary animal shelter

Sara’s Sanctuary is run by an amazing woman who cares for her animals more than anything. I’ve never seen such dedication to a certain cause in my life. If you look at her site, it’s hurting a bit. It’s hard to navigate, poorly coded, overly-complicated, and not geared towards the most important thing: getting help for the sanctuary. Sara’s is 100% donation run and money is tight. I took on this pro-bono project as a way to flex my web strategy muscle and see what I could do to improve her donation income. Stay tuned for a fresh, new design, a new WordPress structure, and some great social networking additions. Also, if you’ve got a few dollars to spare, Sara’s could use it!

Saved on Delicious: Facebook for Business SuperGuide

I think I found this through Twitter but it definitely made it to my bookmarks page. This page has about [insert big number here] links to articles, videos, blog posts, and PDFs on the subject of Facebook. I’m a fan of Facebook (no pun intended) for personal interaction and making sure that my friends and family see a little bit of what I do professionally (I love personal referrals). Marketing my business on there, however, has never been a priority for me. I think Facebook is great for some and not terrible useful for others. If you want to figure out which group you’re in, I’d start on this page.

Twitter links

17 Remarkably Professional Looking Free Fonts: I’m a sucker for free fonts and I’m continually impressed by what’s out there. That’s not to say that I won’t buy one when I need it but a lot of the time you can get by with the free stuff.

Create letterpress text using only CSS: This is a very creative use of CSS to get a certain text effect. A little technical for most (meaning people who aren’t using CSS everyday) but unique to be sure.

Transparency (or Lack Thereof) on Kohl’s Facebook Fan Page: A cautionary tale about using Facebook correctly. If you’re going to post on your own page, that’s fine but BE HONEST.

Building Respect for Usability Experience: For the usability geeks out there, another fantastic article from the Nielsen group about teaching other (stubborn) folks about usability.

Wolfram Alpha for Web Designers: Short and sweet article showing a few things Wolfram Alpha, the new, intelligent search engine, can do for web designers. Fairly basic information but nice to have it at your fingertips.

Five outstanding corporate blogs: very well-thought-out analysis of, well, five outstanding blogs. Chris picked some great examples and showed that corporate america DOES have what it takes to compete.

That’s all for now! Your feeedback is, as always, appreciated. So are your own web strategy links so comment away…

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