Rocket 88 Websites is a small company dedicated to helping you communicate to the world, whether you are an artist who wants to share your work or an organization that wants to spread the word about your new widget, we can help. We offer web solutions of all sizes and types.

As the internet quickly becomes the new medium for connecting to your audience, and becomes more and more populated, getting traffic to your site gets more complex, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We can help you stay ahead of the trends for steering traffic your way. Keep an eye on our blog, where we explore the latest trends and ideas for search engine ranking and attracting an audience from other sources.

We also offer everything you need to reach your web goals from tiered hosting plans, domain management and email programs to secure certificates, traffic blazer, easy do-it-yourself web sites to unique, custom-built sites.

And along with our partner ZZYYZZYX, the last name in domains, we can register and administer domain names for you, or secure that elusive, perfect URL.

Our Blog

Our blog is primarily written by Jeff Gatesman who has more than 10 years of experience creating and designing for the internet. You can contact him here

You’ve got your own website, you’re selling your photography or car club swag, or whatever items you create. You work hard at that business and, if you are like me, just don’t need the hassle of what seems like a daily process of weeding through the online scammers and grifters. Now you can get a free app that identifies email as having been sent from legitimate sources and helps fight against the threat of phishing scams. Read the rest of this entry »

Google has changed the algorithm used to rank web pages over 470 times in the last year! Surely you are not still trying to keep up with Google SEO, are you?

I’ve mentioned it before and until someone proves me wrong, I am going to stick with the adage that website optimization is key to your site being relevant, which in turn will get you good ranking in all the search engines. Relevance to search engines comes in many forms, and age is one of them. What exactly does this mean? Take the city of San Francisco for instance: they have the highest percentage of restaurants per capita in the country. In other words, if your restaurant stinks, it is not going to stay in business very long. Vis-a-vis, a long-standing restaurant in the Bay area likely has pretty good food. In the same respect, if your domain has been under your control and publishing content on the internet for a long time, it is probably going to rank rather well just based on that.

Of course, if you are new to the internet, this little perk is something you are just going to have to be patient for. But there is also the optimistic issue, wherein you register your domain for multiple years which sends the signal that your domain plans on sticking around for awhile. Here is a quote from Googles Historical and Age Data Patent:

Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.

When you consider the cost of domain registration, this is probably the best value in Search Engine Optimization you are likely to come across.

Accessibility is simply good practice in web development, but it also helps with site optimizing for search engine ranking. Adding an alt tag to your images can have a larger impact than simply having a text representation of the image for users who are not seeing your images–it can help to drive traffic to your site.

If you have ever used Google Image Search you know that when you find the image you are looking for and click on it, you are directed to the site that is hosting that image. Chances are good that if your site is about cooking and you have a well-optimized image of an apple pie in your article about apple pies, that user who just arrived at your site from her google image search, may have found a new source for recipes on the web in your site.

Some may argue that the conversion rate on image search (converting browsers to loyal readers) is pretty low, but the reality is that images are becoming increasingly more important in Site Optimizing. Unless you haven’t used Google in a couple of years, you will notice that search results now typically include images and other rich media.

So, let’s start with the Alt Tag which is simply an HTML tag that provides alternative text when an image or other non-textual element is not displayed. This happens, for instance, when a blind user accesses the page using audio-based technology. And since automated indexing programs (the robots that scour the web for search engines) are essentially blind to your page, the Alt Tag is the only thing they can recognize and utilize as part of the page’s content.

Be descriptive but keep Keywords in mind

When you write your Alt Tag, be descriptive for the accessibility factor–a blind person cannot tell that “pie-1″ is really a “scrumptious cherry pie with lattice top crust”, but also keep in mind the keywords for your article and try to include them in the Alt Tag.

You should also try to name your image using the same keywords: If your image is alternatively called “Baked French Toast” you could name the file “baked-french-toast.jpg”. The name of the image files you use should also be keyword-rich to improve the relevance of the image to the search engine. Another trick would be to file the images using keyword-rich directories. For example, if your article is about making baked french toast for breakfast, you might have the image stored here: www.mycookingsite.com/images/breakfast/baked-french-toast.jpg

That is the overview on optimizing images for your web pages. If you are using Joomla to render your pages, optimizing images requires a bit more work, but is well worth the effort. This article covers optimizing in Joomla.

One of the greatest debates in web design has to be between fixed or liquid layouts and the proponents for either side are fierce loyalists. Which is why it is worth bringing up before you plan your perfect site design. If you don’t know the difference then there is even more reason for you to read on.

Fixed Width

A fixed width is constant and unchanging. No matter what size a users browser window is set to, the content area of the page stays the same, or “fixed”. This method affords you more control over the precise look of your design. If the width of the content area of your page is fixed then you can add graphics and text in pixel perfect layouts and be comforted in the fact that your design will look relatively the same on everyone’s computer. You have seen this before: the content area usually “floats” in the center of a simple background either of solid color or a simple repeating texture. This web site, for example, is a fixed-width design.

The big drawback to this method comes with the assumption that all users are browsing with windows open to a certain dimension. If that dimension becomes smaller than the width of your content area, the user is forced to scroll horizontally to see all the content, and if the user has a huge screen and browses with the window open wide, there will be a lot of empty space on your site dwarfing your content.

Liquid Layouts

On the other side of the argument, liquid layouts are designed to be entirely flexible: as a users browser window expands and contracts, the page layout follows suit, ensuring that the content fills the display at any window size. Liquid layout designs are subservient to the preferences of the user: as a window is resized, the text will flow to follow suit. The danger of this is that if a user browses with a narrow window, text will tend to be rendered in tall, narrow blocks as graphics or pictures squeeze them into smaller spaces and conversely, with the window open wide text can become long, unmanageable lines that are difficult for a reader to scan. Furthermore, the lack of control over the content area’s width can be difficult to balance when placing fixed-width elements such as photos into it.

So which layout do you use? The truth is that both methods have strengths and weaknesses and neither is inherently superior to the other. You can spend a great deal of time arguing over which method is best, but the bottom line is that you will have to make this decision based on the important aspects of the site: will graphic layout play a more important role? or is screen real estate the determining factor? Once you are over that hurdle, the important part can begin because the one secret is that the relative width of a design’s content area is not going to be the determining factor in the success of the site. Don’t get me wrong: a great-looking site can be impressive, even essential if the subject of the site has to do with presentation. Intuitive navigation is ultimately very important as well, but mostly, beyond the design, content is the most important factor in website success. Choosing how to display it effectively should be a consideration in the early stages of planning your site.

Rocket 88 Web is a full service internet provider dedicated to helping you communicate to the world. From Domain Name services to Hosting Solutions, we provide everything you need, We even help you present it all in a professional, web 2.0 compliant manner.

Rocket 88 Web is a company dedicated to creating web identities for individuals and small companies. And we know how challenging it is to compete on such a huge scale as the world wide web; we know because we’re a homegrown company ourselves. If you’re looking for an easily updateable site like one of our dedicated WordPress hosted blogs or a site you build yourself like one of our Website Tonight products, we are your one-stop solution. From turnkey sites for the entrepreneur or individual Rocket 88 Web can deliver.

We also build custom websites. We specialize in small business that want to rise to the top of their field and get noticed. Our clients are typically creative, entrepreneurial minded individuals: Photographers, filmmakers, we’ve even created a line of sites for florists and wedding/event designers. Check out our portfolio. If you are interested in us making that special, one-of a kind site for you, contact us.

Our hosting plans start at as little as $4.25 per month and come with whole host of free value applications to enrich your site with interactive, compelling reasons to draw people to your site and keep them coming back. Create a site that lives up to true web 2.0 standards by adding content management like open source apps Drupal, Joomla or pick from several others we offer. Or do you just want a blog? We offer all the popular ones including WordPress, a comprehensive platform for blogging and more, in fact it may interest you to know that this site is powered by WordPress.

For those who have neither the time or know-how to create a site, we offer WebSite Tonight which includes free hosting. WebSite Tonight makes it fun for ANYONE to create their own site — without spending a fortune! It’s so easy-to-use — we’ve even included Hosting (with 99.9% uptime guarantee) and Email at no extra charge.

or How Do Spammers Get My Email?

Spam can be a frustrating, maddening nuisance: it overruns your inbox and some aggressive email filters can prevent you from actually getting the messages you want or need. So have you ever wondered how Spammers get your email address in the first place? Have you ever hit the “forward” button after receiving one of those viral cute/patriotic/religious/silly-test emails from one of your friends?

If you answered yes to the last question, then you have your answer to the first one.

It’s called email harvesting and it is a well practiced technique used by people to amass huge lists of actual email addresses.

These lists can be sold for big money because they are verified email addresses. If you think I’m mistaken, then look closer at the next forwarded email you get from a friend or family member: you literally have to scroll down through possibly hundreds of bulk email addresses before you even get to the content of the email.

The worst culprits are the ones that don’t even try to hide their nefarious intentions and practically broadcast that they are harvesting email addresses by instructing you to include the original sender in the copies you forward. You know which emails I’m talking about: “make a wish and send this on to 16 of your fiends, but be sure and include the original sender…and within 48 hours your wish will come true” or something to that effect. Imagine the hand-wringing glee on the part of the shadowy figure who started that chain as, in a matter of days he has a list of millions of email addresses.

So What Can Be Done?

Well, the obvious choice would be to not forward any emails, but I know that is not going to happen because it is a fun, social activity, and helps you stay in touch with friends and family (I hope it is not because you believe something will happen if you send it out–or worse; that something bad will happen if you don’t). The best practice is to forward the email as you normally would, but before you hit send, edit the body of the email to remove everything but the message–just delete all the email addresses. But don’t hit send just yet. Use the power of BCC

Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) is the best thing you can do for any email you send out to more than one or two people. The reason is that BCC hides the email addresses from the public which tell’s your recipient you care about their privacy, and more importantly, prevents it from falling into the hands of thugs who would hijack the “known-good” email addresses for financial gain (and there is plenty of money to be had, hence the spam problem).

All email applications have a BCC function, usually a text field below the CC field. You could type into BCC the same way you would the TO: or CC: fields, or cut and paste. It’s good rpactice and your recipients will thank you for it.