SWD Newsletter
Winter 2010
Happy New Decade! Welcome to the first edition of the Sea-Wing Designs newsletter! We hope to provide some useful tips and hints to help you get the most out of your website. As well as point you to some interesting articles!
You may already be green!
Now, if this makes you really excited (and you think your customers will be too) you can tell the world by adding a green badge to your site to tell everyone!
Getting Noticed
How do your future website patrons find you? The world of search engines is as complicated as it is huge. One of the important ways that Google ranks pages when a search is performed is by counting the number of other websites that have links to yours. The theory behind this is if lots of other people think you are important enough to link to, you must have the most relevant information pertaining to the search. This has created an entire industry (both legal/legit and not) that helps create links for you with claims to bring you thousands of hits per day. Some of the ways these companies work skew the results so much that when you do a search for something the first page of results may look like spam in your inbox. Of course Google has tried to find ways to get past these tricks. They will permanently de-list a site that appears to be involved in this kind of scheme. Also they have devalued reciprocal links, meaning links that seem to have been traded between sites. (I’ll link to you if you link to me.)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) takes a concerted effort for the life of your site. We do not claim that your site will immediately reach the top of the search pages in all of the major search engines, but together we can work toward getting your site found. In the next newsletter I will discuss how I can create page structure and layout to affect your search results.
Please email me to talk about how I can help with your continued SEO.
What is a Favicon?
Most of you have probably seen the tiny little icon that shows up in your bookmark list in front of big name web sites. For example: the multi-color ‘g’ for Google, the green san serif ‘h’ for Hulu, the white crescent moon on a blue background for Dreamhost. Sea-Wing Designs appears with a soaring bird silhouette. This is called a “favicon” (favorite-icon) and depending on the browser you are using, it may also show up in front of the http:// in the address bar or in the tabs (if you use tabbed browsing). A favicon can be an important part of your overall branding.
Favicons are actually simple to install. Most modern browsers don’t even need code in your html to tell them where to find it. They just look for a file with the right name in your top level folder and use it. The trick is getting your logo to be readable at that size. The typical size for a favicon is 16×16 pixels which is not much space to work with and much simplification often needs to take place.
If you are interested in having a favicon for your website or any other logo designs or graphic designs Sea-Wing Designs can help. Give us a call and we can create something that really stands out from the competition!
Become a fan of Sea-Wing Designs on Facebook! 
And that’s it! I hope you have enjoyed this first installment of the Sea-Wing Designs newsletter. May this new year brings you much success and happiness.
