A CHEAP HOME MAKEOVER, SPRING CLEANING, CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL, YOUR WEBSITE MIGHT NEED IT

Especially in the current economic climate not everyone can afford to dramatically update their website every year or two. This is true especially for those of us who are self-employed or small business owners. Several of my most recent clients have been very honest. "We just don’t have the money to do what we’d like," said one," what can you do to help?"

Now granted, I’m in the web design business, so there may be more that I can do than our clients, and we do. In the aforementioned case, I did some cleaning up of the page content, streamlined tags and titles, did some SEO, and using some spit, polish and elbow grease gave the site a refresh without a rebuild.

In some cases, I don’t even actually get hired. If I can give a couple of ideas away for free and send the client on their merry way, so much the better.

Anyway, that awfully long-winded introduction leads me to today’s topic: things you can do yourself or have done relatively inexpensively to get or keep your site in good shape…or at least up-to-date.

1. Update the main page content. If you don’t have a lot of time to keep your page updated, at least change the front / main page article. Depending on what business you’re in, it should be current, addressing current concerns or industry developments.




2. Check every page. Do all the internal links work. Does the "about me" link on the menu take you to a working "about me" page? Check the spelling on every page. Better yet, have someone help you. Sometimes we suffer from the "wood through the trees" problem and don’t see simple typos or grammatical errors.




3. Verify and test your contact information. Has your email address or phone number changed? It has? Did you change it on your site? If you have forms on your site that people can fill out and send to you (or somewhere else), test them.




4. Check your links. Do you link to other sites from yours? Have you checked those links recently? Websites come and go. They also change. I’ve seen a previous domain name that someone no longer used assigned to an adult-themed site. That’s great for the new site, but imagine if someone was linking to it…and not expecting that.




5. Check your feeds. Do you have a news feed on your site? Do you have IDX? Anything that brings external data to your site is subject to the same problems as links. Sites come and go. Check all the incoming feeds.




6. Is your site in the main search engines? You can read my ongoing series SEO 101 for more information (here’s a link), but your site should probably be showing up in the "big three" search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN (Bing). How can you tell? Visit each of the sites and type in site:www.jdeltd.com (substituting your domain name for mine). Read the results. Does that look like yours? If not, update your titles and tags.




7. Get some fresh photos. Stock photography is inexpensive (sometimes free) and can make a world of difference. The worst-looking site can be given an "extreme makeover" with some nice photos. Conversely, bad photos can ruin a good site.
   




8. Get some honest feedback. Ask some friends or colleagues for feedback. It may not all be good, but if it’s honest, you can see which of it you can afford to fix now and what needs to be done later. Websites are all about perception.




9. Get that date current! You know the date at the bottom of each page (often with the copyright notice)? Nothing says "not worth visiting" than a site with a date of pre-2009. The information may be more recent, but people do notice that date. Anything pre-2009, in my opinion, makes the site look old.




10. Resolve to repeat 1 through 9 at lease once a month…

Some of this is perhaps a little obvious, but I think it’s rather essential. There’s nothing here that has to cost a lot in terms of time or money, and it’s certainly a worthwhile investment.

When you’ve done your updates, write a quick press release and send it to one of the many free press release companies. Not comfortable writing? Have someone do it for you. A press release doesn’t have to be an editorial, just a paragraph telling people "DAVE’S HOME PAGE MAKEOVER COMPLETE", along with some links to your site. Send some emails out announcing the update, perhaps even some postcards.

Your website is your online store front, accessible by millions. It’s open 24x7x365. It may not be the coolest, trendiest store front in the world, but it’s well-maintained, clean, friendly…and yours.

POWER OF THREE (part iii)

If you’re seeing this subject for the first time, you can catch up with parts 1 and 2:

• POWER OF THREE (part i)
• POWER OF THREE (part ii)

The topic of today is next next part of “TORCH”, the “R” or “Resources”. Thus far, you should have:

• 3 target audiences (“T”);
• 3 objectives (“O”), 1 for each;

Now we need to determine what resources (time, money etc) that need to be applied in order to achieve the objective for each target.

I call this “reverse engineering”. We know ultimately what we want and who we want it from, but in order to get from here to there, what’s it going to take?

Now is the time to put down what you realistically are going to have to spend to get from here to there. I used the term ”spend” a little loosely. A resource is anything that has to be used in order to achieve a goal. This does not have to be money. It could be time and effort. It could be another person or company.

In order to really understand what resources you’re going to need, you’re probably going to start formulating your plan or “how”. This means jumping around a little between the “R”, “C” (Calendar) and “H” but that’s okay.

WIDGET INC

I’m going to continue to use “WIDGET INC” as my example, but so as not to run on forever, I’ll focus on just one of their three items. If you remember, WIDGET have decided on:

Target: plastic dinosaur factories

Objective: $100,000 in new income

So, they now have to ascertain what it’s going to take to generate $100,000 in new income. They figure that every five leads turns into an actual paying client. The average paying client spends $5,000 in a given year. So, to apply the reverse engineering strategy, this means they would need 20 paying clients (20x$5,000=$100,000) in a year to meet their target.

In order to get 20 paying clients, they’re going to need five times as many prospects (1 in 5 becomes a paying client). So, they’ll need 100 prospects. A “prospect” in WIDGET’s case, means someone who has made contact, whether by phone, email or in person.

WIDGET’s marketing team determines that they’re going to use a three-pronged approach: a mailer, coupled with a blogging campaign and email incentive. They figure that if they can get email addresses then they will have an audience they can marketing to repeatedly. However, in order to get these email addresses, they’ll need to do something a little different, so they’re going to do an old-fashioned mailing to all the plastic dinosaur factories in the US (1,000).

They’re also going to set up a blog to discuss elements of their widgets aimed specifically at plastic dinosaur manufacturing called “AGE OF THE DINOSAURS”.

Money at WIDGET is tight, so they don’t have a lot to spend, but:

• The blog is free to set up, it’s just going to take some time to write the content;
• If they do a clever postcard mailer, they can hopefully grab attention enough to get people to visit their website and sign up;
• The website is already in place, but they’re going to set up a separate page with domain name so they can track respondents to the mailer more accurately.

POWER OF THREE

As you can see, a lot of the “how” is covered in the “resources”, so you’re doing some work ahead of time, but in order to accurately develop a plan, you need to know what’s going into the recipe.

Also, in your case, like that of “WIDGET”, you’re going to have three different plans. Hopefully you can see the benefit of spreading your resources and risk around.

HOMEWORK

The next assignment is to begin developing your plans. If you find that three plans are a little too much, start with one. You can always repeat the exercise for other plans.

What you’ll need at the end is a good idea of how much time, effort and money is going to be needed to achieve the goal.

• Be realistic and honest with yourself. If it takes more than you first thought, at least now is a good time to find out.
• Don’t allow the process or resources intimidate you. You’ve still got to do the “how” in full, and you’ll probably be surprised.
• Consider all resources, paid and otherwise. What “freebies” are there out there?

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Please let me know if I can be of any help.

POWER OF THREE (part ii)

In my last post(part i) I began discussing the “Power of Three” and TORCH, a marketing acronym (Target / Objective / Resources /Calendar / How). I left you with step one homework, selecting three different “T”s or target audiences for your marketing program.

I’m going to use WIDGET INC as my imaginary clients. WIDGET INC makes…you guessed it! They’ve decided they’re going to market to (1)factories, (2)construction companies and (3)janitorial companies. My first question would relate to number 1 – “factories”. That is a potentially vague market segment. After all, there must be thousands of different types of factories. It may very well be that WIDGET INC has a product or service that spans every conceivable industry, but they don’t, so I’m going to ask them to narrow the first item down. The second and third are just fine. So instead of “factories”, they’re going with “Factories that make plastic dinosaurs”.

STEP 2 : OBJECTIVE

The objective has to be measurable. “Making money” is not terribly measurable. How much money? $10? Okay, that’s more measurable. Remember, we’re picking an objective for each of our three targets. Things to consider as measurable objectives might include a certain number of sales, or a monetary return. It should be tangible and achievable. While I’m all for “the sky’s the limit”, I firmly believe that the easiest way to eat an elephant is “one bite at a time”.

WIDGET INC has decided on the following:

Target: plastic dinosaur factories
Objective: $100,000 in new income

Target: construction companies
Objective: 5 new clients (possibly with income)

Target: janitorial companies
Objective: $100,000 in new income

The second objective, “5 new clients” is a big deal for WIDGET. The construction industry is a new one for them, so there’s going to be some learning time. Their goal is 5 new clients in the first 6 months, something that’s realistic to them.

POWER OF THREE

Another reason we pick THREE different targets, clients, plans etc is to allow for backup. If one plan isn’t working as well as it might, we have two others to support us while we sort out the third. Not only is this a matter of spreading risk, it’s helpful (we hope) when it comes to motivation. While one or two plans might be having trouble, we have a third that should be doing at least “okay”.

YOUR MISSION…

…should you choose to accept it, is to now pick three business objectives for your three target companies or industries. These must be measurable goals. If they’re not measurable, how do you know you’re succeeding?

As always, feel free to contact me and I’ll see you for part iii.

SEO 101 : IS IT RIGHT? (part 2)

In my last post in this series (TAGS’n'STUFF), I talked about three of the most import parts of a web page: the title, description, and page link. By going to Google’s home page and typing in site:www.[your site name].com (or whatever), you can see what Google has in it’s database relating to your site.

One of the interesting things to do is check each page on your site against Google’s index. So, if you have a page on your site called www.[your site name].com/realestate.html, and the purpose of that page is to show off your real estate stuff, then what you see in Google should relate.

To get the exact address of a page on your site, simply visit your home page and navigate to the page in question. Then copy the entire link in the address bar as your search term (putting site: in front of it).

You may be surprised at what you see.

There are many "template" type sites that allow you to build your own web pages. Many of these allow you to put your own titles and "meta tags" in them. They don’t always tell you what these should be, or even what they are. We’ll go into "meta tags" in the near future, but the "description" of the page, limited to 150 characters, is one of these. These are so important to search engine placement and yet they’re so often overlooked.

Allow me to illustrate.

I have a (pretend) page on my site called "widgets". On this page, I’m advertising my widget products. My website is in Google because when I typed in site:www.jdemarketing.com it told me so. But I’m curious to see how my widgets page is doing. So I’m going to type in site:www.jdemarketing.com/widgets.html, which is the address of my widgets page.

Huh?

As you can see (above) in the "title" area, all Google has is "Welcome" and in the description it says "put your description here". The link is correct, because I can see the link points to my widget page.

What’s happened here is that although Google has found and indexed this particular page on my site, the fact that I don’t have any meaningful title or description makes it about as useless as a screen door on a submarine. Now, there might be some content on the page that helps people find it, but without a good title and description, my odds on being found have been greatly reduced. After all, who is going to search on "welcome" to find "widgets"?

My "phoenix small business marketing products" page, on the other hand (site:www.jdemarketing.com/marketingproducts.aspx) shows up nicely (see below). In the "title" area I have "phoenix small business marketing products and services". In the "description" tag I have "phoenix arizona small business marketing products and services | marketing materials | marketing training | marketing plans". The link points to the right page.

Now, in theory, when I type "phoenix small business marketing products" into Google, my page should appear. In this case it does, near the top.

Having relevant search terms in your title and description doesn’t guarantee you a page 1 listing on Google overnight, or on any other search engine for that matter, but it certainly helps you get listed and stay listed. Another thing to point out is how relevant my particular search term is. Yes, it’s five words long, but there is little doubt about what someone wants when they enter "phoenix small business marketing products".

So, to conclude

Relevant words in the title and description help search engines understand what your page is about. It also helps web surfers find what they’re looking for. While, in my case, I could have used "small business marketing products", I’m trying to keep my terms as narrow as I can because I’ll have more chance of getting the people I want. While I’d love a marketing client in New York, they’re more likely to look for " new york small business marketing products"…

Relevance is also important when it comes to moving up the ranks. If I were to use "Phoenix Accounting Services" as my description and title, but my page content were about marketing, I’m going to upset people who found my site and thought they were finding a CPA. It doesn’t help your marketing cause to be dishonest.

Finally, use something that makes sense to people and machines. Don’t "stuff" the title and description with single words.

So, check your titles and descriptions. If they look right, put those search terms into Google, Yahoo and Bing (MSN) and see where you rank. If you’ve just changed them, expect a couple of weeks to go by before any changes are noted; sometimes longer.

Check to ensure that the page content reflects what’s in the titles and descriptions.

Next we’ll look at other tools and techniques to help you get the most out of your own SEO.

SEO 101 : TAGS ‘n’ STUFF (part 1)

I’ve always argued that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is part art, part science and part black magic. Certainly, the “black magic” part applies at times, especially when it comes to Google who keep their algorithms close to their chests.

Yet there are some basic things you, as a website owner, can do to help yourself get in and stay in the search engines.

What’s that? You’re already in the search engines? Cool!

Are you sure?

It doesn’t hurt to check. Don’t assume that just because you’ve got a site that any of the search engines know about it. A quick test is to go to Google’s home page (www.Google.com) and type in:

site:www.[your site name].com (or whatever).

So, in my case, I’d type:

site:www.JDELtd.com

The results will show you how Google “sees” your site. The results can sometimes be quite surprising, especially if it comes back “not found”…

The results of this search tell you a couple of the things about how your site is viewed by Google. For example, several of the results that come back when I put in my search include “Phoenix Web Design Company” in the title. This is good. I am a web designer and want to be relevant when it comes to web design related searches. Looking at your results, what shows? Is it relevant?

The text above the line (the link) is what is called a “Title” tag. When you’re on a website, the title tag is what displays at the top of the page. This is also used by Google (and others) to help web surfers find useful sites. The title tag is generally limited to 60 characters and should be relevant. Google has become very efficient at weeding out titles and content that aren’t relevant to what the site is trying to say.

The text under the line is what is called the “Description” tag. This is 150 characters long. You may have heard the term “meta tags”. Well, the description is one of these. In 150 characters, the description should expand on the title tag, and provide a little more information about the page in question. Again, like the title, it should relate to the content.

Are you with me so far…?

If what you see in the title or description results returned by Google are just your company name, or something less relevant, then you might want to consider changing them. This is where the “part art” comes in. You don’t want to “stuff” search terms into your title and description. That can be just as damaging as not having anything. The title and description must be relevant, but also should be useful because these two items are used, in conjunction with a page’s content, by the search engines to index your site.

Depending on your web master or hosting company, you should be able to tweak these, just be sure to understand how to do it properly.

The third part of the text is the link to the apge that the title and description is talking about.

Of course, in the interests of shameless self-promotion, you could contact me

In part 2, I’ll go into more detail about relevant page content.

POWER OF THREE (part i)

I thought I’d share one of my marketing development programs with you. It’s called “Power of Three” or “P3” for short:

• three markets
• three targets
• three plans

In a nutshell, the idea behind P3 is to pick three very different markets, develop three different goals, and the put a plan together for each.

Why three?

Well, I’m a big believer of not keeping all the proverbial eggs in a single basket. I am also a believer in not trying to do too much.

With P3, you pick three “markets”. These could be demographics, industries or other cross-segment of potential clients. This can be tricky. We all have our comfort zones. That’s why when I work with clients on the P3 program I specifically ask them to pick three unrelated market segments.

When done, pick three targets or “goals”, one for each. A goal (or target) is, in this case, defined as something that is you feel is achievable by you as it relates to the market.

Now, you put a plan together.

TORCH

In order to accomplish all of the above, I use a system called “TORCH” (Target / Objective / Resources / Calendar / How). It’s a process that can help focus your attention and hopefully give you some ideas.

“T” is for TARGET, our intended audience. This could be a certain type of company, an income level or geographic region…depending on your industry, this will vary. But for the P3 program you need to pick 3 different ones.

In part 2, I’ll go into TORCH in more detail. For now, if you’re interested in giving this program a try, I’ll leave you with some homework:

Pick your three target markets. This is easier said than done. You’re looking for three sets of potential clients that you’d like to go after. Consider all options and pick the three that suit you best.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you’ve got any questions.

10 REASONS TO NOT HAVE A WEBSITE

Here are 10 reasons to avoid getting out onto the Internet and joining the online community. These are all reasons we have heard from potential clients…

1. Websites don’t work or aren’t effective marketing tools)

A well designed website will work, at least from a technical standpoint. As a marketing tool, a website can be many things. It’s a 24×7 storefront, showcasing your business to the world when you can’t. There are over a billion computer users on the Internet around the world. That’s a lot of potential exposure. The right site, with the right marketing, both online and offline can be a very useful weapon in your marketing arsenal.

2. I won’t be able to find a web design company that I can trust)

There are good and bad web designers and web design companies. If you don’t have a referral, check out some web design companies online. Check their portfolios and speak to their clients. You’re the customer in the relationship. You should be allowed to ask any question you want, without any pressure or avoidance on the part of the designer. Also, shop around. We designers are a diverse bunch and you should feel comfortable with the one you choose.

3. I’m not technical so I won’t know what I’m getting into)

A good web designer should be able to speak to you in language that you understand. How else can they interpret what you want?

4. I (or someone I know) had a bad experience with a web design company)

Unfortunately this is often then case, but there are many very good designers and design firms out there. About half our clients come from other developers or webmasters, but they do stick with us

5. I won’t be able to find a web design company who will understand my business)

Good web designers learn. It’s how we build sites. We don’t always come into a project knowing too much, but we always know a heck of a lot when we’re done. In order to provide a site that suits your business needs, a designer has to understand at least a bit about what you do. (In my opinion) one size does not fit all.

6. My type of business doesn’t need a website)

Are you sure? Have you checked the search engines lately? You may not need a full-blown e-commerce site, but what about providing a list of services and contact information. Many web surfers use sites just for that. Also, though it may seem strange, many people use the web to verify that companies are legitimate. A website’s a good place to start.

7. Websites take too much time to update)

What is “too much time”? As a marketing tool, a website needs to be invested in to yield returns. You shouldn’t have to spend hours and hours updating your site (unless it’s really big or you really like doing web updates), but you will need to do some, just to keep it up-to-date and fresh. Some of our sites are updated by us. on behalf of the client, only once or twice a year.

8. I won’t know what to ask, so I won’t know what I need)

That’s where we come in. Good web designers know what to ask to get the ball rolling and help you determine what you need.

9. I don’t want to be pressured into something)

This should never happen and if it does, then our advice is “walk away”.

10. Websites are too expensive (to build and/or maintain)

A common misconception. Websites do not to cost a lot. Our custom websites (no templates here) are surprising affordable and hosting costs as little as $50 a year. Also, in many industries, a website can pay for itself very quickly in new business…

…in all cases, those potential clients became actual clients and are still clients today.

There are probably other reasons people can think of, and that’s okay. As a web design company, we hear a lot of concerns and rightly so. It’s a business investment decision and should be made wisely. Whateve the reason for not building a site, have you considered this…what’s the cost of not having one?

Check us out at www.JDELTD.com. Did we mention we’re a custom small business web design company and we love what we do!

Dave Segrove is a Phoenix Small Business Web Designer and Marketing Consultant. You can learn more about Dave’s products and services at www.JDELtd.com.

THE TANGLED WIDE WORLD OF WEB BROWSERS : A PERSONAL OPINION

As a web designer, part of my Quality Assurance (QA) testing is to verify that my websites work in a number of different browsers. One cannot "assume" that just because it’s okay in one, it’s going to be okay in another. Beyond just working, the appearance of the site is often affected by the browser as well. Sometimes the behavior difference can be quite dramatic.

Some of these differences are due to the fact that there are differing standards for browser and web design behavior. Though there are a fundamental set of "rules" that everyone follows, the difference in "tweaks" can be very frustrating at times, but the ultimate result is worth it.

As a result of all this testing, I’ve come to develop a fondness for certain browsers. While Microsoft’s Internet Explorer used to dominate the browser market, others have begun to develop a following of their own. I thought I’d share some of my experiences with you.

The "Big 5" browsers are, considered by many, to be:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox (Mozilla)
• Chrome (Google)
• Safari (Apple)
• Opera (Opera)

I used to be a big fan of Internet Explorer (IE) (www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer). However, as the version numbers went up so did the complexity of the browser. I’ve found that many "built in" features of Windows suffer from a tendency of trying be all things to all people and IE is no exception. In addition, the changes from one version to another have been very dramatic, both from a visual and usability standpoint. According to w3schools.com’s month-to-month "Web Statistics and Trends" report, Internet Explorer, with no less than three major versions out there, has seen its heyday (mid 2008) and it’s market share, though still significant at about 35% has dropped a lot. Whether this is due to security or usability concerns, who knows, but I’m betting that the numbers will dwindle even more as awareness of other browsers grows.

From a personal standpoint, my major complaint about IE has been the speed at which it loads and the continual having to unload or "switch off" various components. I also don’t like software that interacts with my operating system at a level that makes me feel as though it knows better than what’s good for me. Added to this have been security issues for years now. My use of IE has simply been reduced to testing. Yet, Microsoft does claim that IE is one of the "safest" browsers out there.

The lion’s share of the browser market belongs to Firefox (FF) by Mozilla (www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html). In the Windows world, Firefox became a big rival to Internet Explorer in 2006. I believe that much of this was as a result of the whole legal drama that surrounded Microsoft’s including IE in Windows, along with what seemed to be one security issue after another. Firefox was there and took the lead.

I used FF for about a year as my primary browser until Google Chrome came along. I became increasingly frustrated with loading times that seemed to grow and grow, along with what seemed to me to be an incredible number of updates. Perhaps it was no more that IE, but the fact that the updates were installed when I loaded the browser, gave it the appearance of being perpetually updated. I always liked the "tabbed" browsing windows that Firefox, I believe, was first to adopt. Yet, over time, I feel as though the browser has suffered a little from the IE habit of trying to be too much. So, as with IE, I use it primarily for testing purposes.

Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) made it’s debut in 2008. It was heralded (by Google) as being a fresh browser, built from the "ground up". Early reviews were positive. It was certainly different, and took a little getting used to. Gone were many of the text menus that I’d gotten used to. It behaved differently too. One tab crashing didn’t wipe out the others. I also rather liked the way it tracked my browsing history.

Yet, there were some early problems. Some addins, such as Flash, were a little "iffy" and some sites refused to load in Chrome, telling me to use IE or FF instead. I’m glad to see that this has changed and, as Chrome’s use has grown over the past year, many of the early problems have been ironed out.

From a personal standpoint, Chrome is my current browser of choice. It’s fast. Very fast. Once you get used to piloting it, I’ve found it very reliable. It does what I expect it to do: allow me to browse the web. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Safari (www.apple.com/safari/) used to be the "Mac" browser. It still is, but the Windows version has been adopted by a growing segment of the browser marketplace. Safari is what Apple products tend to be: glossy, streamlined and functional. It’s a nice browser. It feels "clean" and "light". Many consider it to be the "fastest" browser out there.

My personal use of Safari has been for testing purposes, but I do like it and will continue keeping an eye on it as a potential alternative for Chrome should be need arise…

Finally, the last of the "big 5" is Opera (www.opera.com/). While this browser still has a relatively tiny percentage of users (about 3%), it’s growing. Like Safari, Opera feels "clean" and "light". It loads quickly and does a good job.

Opera is the only browser that has not crashed once since I’ve started using it. I like the way it "remembers" the last site I was on, and this, straight out of the box. There is little "fluff" with Opera, like Chrome and Safari. I personally believe that it’s popularity will grow as people become aware of it.

As the mobile platform usage grows, I expect both the mobile versions of the above browsers as well as new ones to make their presence felt. As a web designer, I do have to take mobile browsing into consideration. Most "airtime" costs when it comes to browsing, so sites need to load quickly and the amount of content needs to be "bare bones" to keep costs down. My mobile browsing testing has been limited to IE and some "emulators" from the mobile phone companies which allow me to do some limited testing. That said, Opera has a nice feature built into the desktop version which easily simulates a mobile browser. It was the original reason I downloaded Opera and, from a developers standpoint, I’m very glad I did.

As a designer, I also test my sites using Lynx (lynx.isc.org), which is a pure text browser. This allows me to see my sites in a mode that might be used by a visually impaired visitor as well as how search engines view the sites.

So, there you have it, the Dave Segrove opinion on the major browsers. To summarize, I think Internet Explorer and Firefox have become too "bulky" and slow to be practical. Chrome is where it’s at, right now, but Safari and Opera show a lot of promise. You can download and run all of these browsers on the same PC and try them for yourself. It always comes down to what you’re comfortable using, but it never hurts to try something new…or old again…

VIPRE ANTIVIRUS +ANTISPYWARE : ALL HYPE?

I was fortunate to be able to review this product for free (courtesy of Amazon Vine) . I have to confess that straight upfront, because I’m not sure I’d have purchased it knowing the little I’d read about Vipre and the concern about what it might do to my PC after install.

Unlike other software "applications", protective software tends to get into the "nuts and bolts" of a computer. It needs to in order to protect, but this has been known to go wrong. I wish I could say I were not speaking from experience…

Anyway, Vipre arrived. Cool-looking box. The quick-startup directions suggest you remove existing anti-virus software first. Again, from personal experience, I’d learned this. When I’d made the move from Symantec to McAfee, many years ago, the software didn’t test for other anti-virus products and I ended up with two installations that were both convinced the other was malicious. On the positive side, my PC was probably the best-protected in the universe, but it was unusable.

So, this time I uninstalled McAfee and installed Vipre…fingers crossed…flip to "present tense"…

The installation takes time, mostly because after it installs from the CD, reboots the PC, it then has to download the latest version and definitions and reboot again. I found that doing other tasks while keeping an eye on the installation was a little more productive use of my time. On one PC, the entire installation process took about an hour.

Once installed, it’s almost impossible to tell Vipre is running (apart from the glaring "V" in the windows system toolbox). It certainly lives up to its claim of not slowing down the computer. After moving from McAfee, I noticed a very definite speed increase.

The user interface – FINALLY SOMEONE GOT IT RIGHT – is the best feature (besides the protection), designed for the novice and expert alike. There is a simple "at a glance" screen on startup which shows you what’s happened, what is active and a neat little "Worldwide threat level" box which actually does change as new worms and viruses come out.

As with many products in this category, you can "set it and forget it", just install and let it take over. If you’re like me, the fine-tuning options are a pleasure. You can quite literally tell Vipre what it should consider a "threat", how often and in-depth you want your scans to be, how your email is configured, manage quarantine and so forth. Yes, other products offer all this too, but the way that Sunbelt Software has brought it together in a simple, yet in-depth interface is what makes it stand out for me.

I’ve been a heavy user, both personally and professionally, of anti-virus software since it was invented, when there were products such as "Dr. Solomon’s Anti-Virus Toolkit" – if anyone remembers that, you’re a dinosaur to – and I’ve found that as the solutions have become more integrated, they’ve become a bigger drain on system resources. I moved from Symantec (after 10 years) to McAfee when I found the Symantec interface and stability problematic (and my ISP offered McAfee for free).

- Please note that this review isn’t intended to devalue what McAfee and Symantec security products offer, on the whole, they are very good. I’ve been very happy with McAfee, except for the overhead I feel it places on my computer, even after a lot of tuning and tweaking (and I’m a little technical). My decision to test Vipre was driven by this overhead and my decision to stick with Vipre (despite the promise of free McAfee from my ISP) is due to primarily to the performance. I do miss the anti-spam and firewall from McAfee and will end up getting these as separate products rather than part of an integrated suite -

Unfortunately, I cannot make an "apples to apples" comparison between McAfee and Vipre because Vipre doesn’t offer a "complete Internet security" package, but between it and the Windows firewall, I’m very satisfied. My next step will be to find a firewall application that is a little more robust than the Windows one and see how it integrates with Vipre.

Since installation, Vipre has caught a couple of incoming dangers and found several pieces of spyware during its scans. The nice thing is, it tells me and then leaves me alone, just how I like it. One final thing to point out is the license covers you for every computer in your house. In my case that is 6 – for the price of 1. In this economic climate, that’s certainly worth considering.

So, to conclude, it’s affordable, simple to use, fast and effective. I would recommend giving Vipre a chance if you’re looking to get something a little easier on the system than what you might be using right now…and shame on me for not having considered buying it.

I’ve run Vipre on a Dell Precision (4 processor / 3GB / XPP), Dell Dimension (1 processor / 2 GB / Vista HPE), Dell Dimension (1 processor / 2 GB / XPH) and HP Pavillion (1 processor / 1 GB / XPH).

One of the best parts of my job

I love it when a website goes live. Weeks or months of work have come to this moment. Even though the site owner(s) know what the site looks like, there is still a feeling of seeing something for the first time. The vision is a reality.

I say this today because I’m proud to announce to launch of www.PattyFusco.com, the real estate site of (you guessed it) Patty Fusco. Featuring many standard “realtor” site features such as listings and MLS searches, the site also offers market analysis, trends and reports.

What’s more, unlike many conventional agent sites, this one is 100% custom, with a supporting content management system that allows Patty to update, refresh or remove her own conent.

Saying “your site is live, congratulations” is one of the best parts of my job and a major reason why I do this for a living.

Have a great weekend!