New Zoey pictures posted

It's been awhile, but I finally posted some recent Zoey pics to my smugmug site. Lately I've been so focused on Trey's work site, I haven't had time to mess with my pictures. There's still much to do with the dentworks site (mostly link building), but man, I've learned a lot about web sites and SEO optimization this past month.

Go ahead, visit the site and learn a little about paintless dent repair in Austin. You'll think that the site itself doesn't look all that different (if you've seen it before). That's because most of the changes are in the code. I mean, there's more--and hopefully more informative--text on the site (b/c google loves it some context), and the navigation bar has been simplified because the old one was a java-scripted nightmare of fireworks code that took up way too much code real estate. Also, I lost the original PNG file when our old computer went kaput, so recreating would have been a PITA. I added a sitemap, too. That was easy enough.

The real changes were behind the scenes. I took out all the CSS style codes that were on each page, and put them all on an external CSS file. That cleared up a lot of space at the top of the code. This way, when the robots go a-searchin', they don't get bored halfway down the page and give up. They can find those dang keywords right near the top. I also took advantage of Header tags, which I hadn't been doing. And I validated most of the pages as valid XHTML files. We are still waiting to overtake the #1 spot on some of our keywords, but overall we are doing pretty well with the search engines. I do expect our rankings to keep improving.

This Search Engine Optimization stuff takes a lot of time and effort--and apparently there's still no guarantee you'll get results. Fortunately, there's isn't a lot of internet-related competition for us yet, as we're so specialized regarding service and location. But I have some bigger plans in the works, that mostly involve Trey and I writing articles and blog entries on related subjects. Because it's just a matter of time before all PDR companies everywhere have a web site.

So, back to the Zoey photos, you'll notice a princess theme. I'd been wanting some pics of her in one of her princess costumes for awhile now, because I think it'll be one of those memories down the road we'll be happy to see in a photo. You know, "Remember when you were all into princess stuff? And you used to wear your costumes every day and make me wear a costume too so we could play princess?" She'll be all like, "God, mom, why do you have to bring that up, I was just a little kid. Geesh! Leave me alone!" And I'll say, "No, come here and look at this picture of you nakad in the bathtub!" Then she'll run screaming from the room. And I'll laugh.

p.s. The other photos are from one of the little hikes Zoey and I take in the woods behind our house, and from the Zilker Kite festival. I will also add some birthday party pics in the very near future.