Here she is, and might I say, she is a beaut'. For the last... say a month, I have wanted to do a site update, but wasn't quite sure what route to take. I had started at least five different designs before deciding to take this route. I'm picky.

Now, a few things to consider with my new design. First of all, I'll probably be tweaking a few things in the next month or so as I'm experimenting. There are a few elements on my website that are definitely not going to work with older browsers. As you could probably tell, the header and other graphics are a bit heftier than my last design. Also, I decided to try a route that uses plenty more CSS than tables. The only places tables are used on this design is a couple asp.net controls that utilise them. Otherwise the skeleton is completely css.

I am also running my full-fledged Europa Content Manager. Complete with document share, blogs, page creation, etc etc. Pretty slick!

Alright, lately I've been feeling the need to get into some serious SEO. Lately, over at Dream In Code, it seems as though there is a spark of interest with optimising sites for search engines. I'm trying to keep up, but man alive, these kids know how to do it. So here's what I have done... an experiment, have you. I have basically started fresh with my site structure (which goes unnoticed by the average viewer) in an attempt to climb in the Google search queries. But before I can climb with such drastic changes, I must fall at the foot of Google. Here's a few steps I have taken so far:

• I moved my entire blogs from Blogger.com and Myspace to a home-brew blogging system I have periodically been working on with my free time. I also resurected blogs between 2002-2004 from old home-brew systems I have made. The MSN Spaces era in my life is all that's left. My Blogger account is slowly diminishing in google (when searching for "Nick Davis")
• I have decided to stick with the domain of  http://www.nicholasdavis.info. For the most part, I was sick of the ".org" look. It's funny and all, having the organization domain, but alas, I'm not an organization. I figured .info was alright, as it is information on me. Unfortunately, I believe it kind of puts me at a disadvantage compared to it's .com and .net brothers.
• I changed all my page titles to something a little easier for google eat up. On Analytics, people do more searches for "Nick Davis" than "Nicholas Davis". I took that knowlege and figured "Nick Davis" was probably better in the title, especially if I want to tackle those keywords more.
• I created an RSS feed for the mass populace to consume, of which I have created a modified version for Google to eat up, using Google Webmaster Tools.
• I submitted my site to Google.
• I reconstructed my blog template so that it will be easier for search engines to pick up on. Technorati seemed to enjoy it a lot.

So far, my Google presence seems to be improving a little since last week. Searching for "Nick Davis", my blog page shows up at the very bottom. I'm hoping the next couple days, it will be my home page and a couple notches higher than the bottom of the first page. I suppose I also need to work on blogging about things that are interesting.

This blog is my personal experience and for the most part very speculative. So if you have any information or tips, please let me know! I'd love to hear from you.

The night before, I read an interesting article written by the editor in the latest Communication Arts magazine we got in the mail a few days ago. From what I understood of the article, the gist of it was about user-end functionality in the ever-evolving career in web design. The editor wrote a couple paragraphs explaining how it is important to not only design the site with the client in mind, but also the end-user that will be interacting with the website. The site could have all of the latest and greatest in web design and look sleek, shiny and new. Or it could be tailored to the client, exactly how they wanted it. However, if it is not easily readable or learned by the user, the user will quickly give up and look at the next search result on Google because they couldn't easily and enjoyably find the information they were looking for on the website.

There's a lot of sweet, innovative ideas out there right now. O'Reilly coins it as "Web 2.0", I simply see it as the natural progression of the Internet. Within the last two years, AJAX, RSS syndication, streamlined video and the blog, have evolved into something amazing (despite all the baby talk). A lot of the technology and ideas behind a handful of the Web 2.0 movement is actually pretty cool and exciting to be a part of. I mean, we are one step closer to 100% interactive websites. With all of this great, revamped functionality, the average web designer has the potential to create  very powerful and interactive websites. It gets me excited and very interested in what's coming up next.

With all the new and awesome technology, however, the very core basics of a website is often lost. When a user goes to a website, they are looking for a product. It could be a physical shelf product, a piece of software, an article, an idea; if they can not easily identify the product on the website, then the site just lost a consumer. It's possible that the product pertained to them, but since it was difficult (or sometimes near impossible) to grasp what the website was trying to portray, they are going to high-tail out of there.

In my eyes, this has always been an issue since the beginning of the Internet. The Internet itself, is a new technology and is still in development. There's no true standards yet. This gives the designer a ton of flexibility, which can be used and abused. It's a fine line, balancing the cutting edge of technology and pursuing an intuitive design. New technology is very important as it expands the functional boundaries of the Internet. Intuitive design is also very important, as it gives the end-user a clear direction on where you want them to go. The bottom line is, the goal of a functional website is to give the consumer the information they anticipated and expect to receive.