Personally, I’ve been playing with the beta for a little bit, and it’s been pretty non intrusive.  When I remember to do it, it’s nice to spread the word about sites and businesses I like.

From a Search Engine Optimization standpoint it doesn’t seem as though Google intends to make this a factor in organic rankings, as the system is somewhat easy to game.  Though it appears Google is taking steps to assure that the results are authentic.  However, dependent upon how Google starts displaying the results it could start to hog up some valuable real estate on the search results page.  Boiled down, this is Google’s answer to the Facebook “like” button.

Do we think it is important?  Absolutely, and you should probably contact us or your web designer to get it up on your site as soon as possible.  These types of things tend to benefit the early adopters if they catch on, and I would not dismiss this as Buzz 2.0.

What are your thoughts?

Contact us at:

Twitter: @JWDMC

Facebook: Jennifer Web Design

or by good old email

Jennifer Web Design Las Vegas is proud to announce the new website for Vegas Elite Basketball Club.

The Vegas Elite Basketball Club is the premier youth basketball program for the development of boys and girls in Southern Nevada.  Founded in 2007, Vegas Elite has quickly become the largest youth basketball organization in the state of Nevada with boys and girls members aged 7 to 17 years old. The primary purpose of The Club is to provide a platform for the youth of Las Vegas to achieve excellence in the sport of basketball.  Through intense training, exceptional coaching, competitive experiences, and educational mentoring, Elite members are given the very best opportunity to maximize his/her potential and reach their basketball and educational goals.

We are proud to add Vegas Elite Basketball Club to our growing list of Clients!

Bodyheat Tanning opened it’s doors in 1997.  The primary reason for opening was that they couldn’t find a tanning salon with consistency in performance. Other salon’s beds were small and they didn’t feel like the value was there to make Customers return.

They now offer a wide range of tanning services to Las Vegas Customers in their 13 locations.

The website includes the custom Jenny CMS (Content Management System) which enables the client to easily make changes to the website without having to wait.  It also has some pretty cool Flash animation elements.

Jennifer Web Design Las Vegas is proud to have Bodyheat Tanning as a client, and encourage you to check out their redesigned website.

She is Ginny DePaso and she has been helping people dress to maximize their strengths and potential, eat healthy and to take care of their body for years.  She has developed a look that gets noticed and complimented.  She shows you how to inexpensively change ordinary to spectacular with my scarf tying techniques and other accessories.   If you want to look and feel fabulous and increase your quality time with family and friends, please visit her website.

Jennifer Web Design is proud to add Ginny DePaso to our list of web design clients.

Maid Brigade’s Las Vegas maid service office is owned and operated by Las Vegas resident Brandon Cross and his family. They are Nevada locals, and know what it’s like to live in Summerlin, Silverado Ranch, Southern Highlands, Mountain’s Edge, and Aliante. They are a great cleaning crew, and we are actually clients.

Maid Brigade Las Vegas came to Jennifer Web Design wanting a way to communicate with existing customers and new customers.  We suggested a Blog, Twitter account, and a Facebook Page for their business.  Check out their blog for great tips, specials, and information about “green cleaning”.

…  and they do a pretty good job cleaning the house too.

There are many web design companies in Las Vegas, and it’s important to ask the right questions when you meet with your potential design company.  At Jennifer Web Design our initial consultations are always free, but to get you started here are answers to some of the most basic questions.

Jennifer Web Design was created by Jennifer Markewich-Jones in 2000.  The business was started and remains in Las Vegas, although we do service Clients all throughout the United States.

To view some of our Clients please visit our Jennifer Web Design Clients page.  To see what they say about Jennifer Web Design visit our Testimonials page.

We have diverse group of people on our team and you can visit our About Jennifer Web Design page to learn more about the core team members and their experience.  Our core team includes a former Web Design educator, a former Vice President of a Fortune 500 company, and a former Microsoft programmer.  We are proud of our diverse experience and the “can do” talents of our team.

We do not outsource our work to overseas companies, and our clients work directly with a local project manager through the entire web development process.  Our Clients are heavily involved during the design process.  We use a sophisticated Project Management tool that allows a centralized hub for communication and development.

While our primary focus is web design we also  provide web hosting, web development, Flash Animation, SWiSH Animation, web site redesign, small business web site design, web animation, e-commerce web sites, custom Content Management systems, blog implementation, and search engine optimization (SEO) services. Our Graphic Design team can create your Logo, Letterhead, Business Cards, Signage, and Advertisements.

All of our website agreements are detailed prior to the start of the project.  We detail the project so that there are no “surprise charges” during the design process.  The only time the price changes is if the client requests additional functionality, and those changes are agreed upon (in writing) prior to any additional billing.  In other words, we won’t send “sneaky invoices”.  All fees are disclosed at the beginning of the project.

Please contact Jennifer Web Design today to learn more about us and to get your website project started.

I am very pleased to have you as my web designer. Yesterday I got a new client. She said I have the best looking web site of all the window covering companies she looked at, thanks to you. They purchased products immediately, and I know it is in great part to the wonderful appearance of our web site. I told her I just started a blog site and she said “I saw it”. It’s great to know that you have directly added value to my company especially during these difficult economic times.

Gary Schiestel, Owner Designer Window Coverings

We are pleased that we were able to add value to his website by adding a blog.  Adding a blog is a great way to communicate with existing customers and to help you find new customers.  If you haven’t considered it yet, visit our Contact Us page to set up a free consultation today.  Adding a blog is more affordable than you may think!

To see more testimonials, please visit the testimonial page at our Jennifer Web Design main website.

Using Twitter is a great way to manage existing clients and source new clients. However, managing an aggressive Twitter campaign for your business is not an easy task.

The Twitter home page is designed to be simple.  It’s like a bike with training wheels.  Most “power-user” Tweeple don’t even go to the Twitter home page to manage their exiting Twitter accounts.  Using the Twitter homepage to manage an aggressive twitter campaign can be painful.   Fortunately there are a few tools that can help you to monitor and manage your Twitter account.

Tools to View and Send Tweets

TwitterFox – (Free) Is a great tool for people that use the Firefox Browser.

TweetDeck – (Free) A Desktop clients that allows you to View Multiple columns, and adds in you Facebook account too.

Seesmic – (Free) Similar to TweetDeck

Twitterific – (Free and Not Free) For the Mac Geeks.

Tweetlater - (Free and Not Free) Let’s you schedule Tweets.

Tools to Follow Trends

Twitterfall – A great way to insert yourself in a relevant conversation and find potential new followers organically.

#Hashtags – Works great for people that use the Hashtag, but may be losing some relevance in the age of better Twitter search functionality.

Search Twitter – Works.

Tools to Manage Followers

Twellow – Sort of like the Yellow Pages for Twitter…  great feature is the Twellowhood.  Helps you to find regional followers.

My Tweeple – Manage all your people in one place.  Interfaces with Twitter, the ratios are very interesting to use when making a follow choice.

Quitter – Tells you when people stop following you

Friend or Follow – Lets you see who is sharing your Twitter love, and helps you to quickly identify who is following you.

Of course this is just the beginning.  Jennifer Web Design in Las Vegas offers free initial consultation on how you can use Twitter to promote your business.  Contact Us to schedule an appointment today.

Of course…  this is just a starter list.  There are plenty of other tools as well.  What are your favorite tools?

Kids ‘N’ Caboodle’s founder is a former elementary and nursery school teacher. She owned a successful children’s retail store for over 22 years. While a merchandise buyer for the store, she enjoyed finding unique, adorable, and affordable baby gifts for her customers to select.

Now with the onset of her online shop, she has searched for special, personalized, handcrafted baby shoes and booties. She has chosen suppliers whose products are of excellent quality, have GREAT product reviews from current customers, and above all have EXCELLENT
customer care reports.

We are proud to launch ner new online store!

I was once a Twitter evangelical nerd.  I sat on the mountaintop and preached that if anyone was well positioned to “kill” Google it would be Twitter.  It made perfect sense to me.

To recap:

• Twitter can provide an instantaneous index of the current landscape of the Internet…  Google cannot.
• Twitter can provide user generated filtering of Bull poopy where content that is cream of the crop will float to the top.
• Twitter can contain the verbose and force them to stick to a few good points.

I still believe in Twitter, but just like anything else in this world, once it gets popular and gets under the microscope the imperfections get amplified.  The retweet is a gigantic Zit on the Supermodel nose, and there is no Clearasil in sight.

For those of you that don’t know what a “retweet” is;  a retweet is when one person copies a tweet from someone in their Twitter network and shares it with the people in their own network.  For those of you that don’t know what a “Twitter” is; I would really like to understand how you get your cave wired for cable.

In theory the retweet is the definition of “word of mouth” advertising.  The more people share something with others the more relevant or important it becomes.  It makes sense.  However, there is a missing element in 90% of the retweets that I get from people.  Most people don’t add WHY they are retweeting.  A retweet without context is a sandwich without bread.  Non-contextual retweets fall into the “White Noise” category of information.

It’s gotten so bad lately that I have been “de-friending” the habitual retweeters.  In fact, there have been a few folks that only retweet.  In my opinion, a genetically engineered Gerbil could be trained to only retweet.

I understand that Social Media gurus teach this a way to “get the word out”.  I appreciate the sentiment of the idea, and agree that it might be successful in the short term, but in the long run it is absolutely the worst thing to happen to Twitter.

Why is it so bad?

White Noise retweet posts without context will become the “boy who cried wolf” of the internet, and eventually people will just start tuning them out.  This will kill the potential power of the search tool Twitter has at their fingertips.  It will be ruined by the tribes that can assemble enough people to retweet inane posts, and influence the search capabilities.  It is no longer user-generated content, and now becomes user-manipulated content.

How it can be fixed?

Add context for your retweets.  Tell people why you think they are important.  Without context to our retweets, we are nothing more than social media capable genetically engineered gerbils.