Inexperienced horse rider

My little town of Warrenton, Virginia, started off life not as a destination, but rather as a convenient stopping point between other destinations. In the late 1700s, it had a road running through it between Falmouth, a port town on the Rappahanock River, and Winchester, an early European settlement and frontier town where once a 17 year-old George Washington was offical surveyor in the area. That road crossed paths at the place where Warrenton would grow with a road between Alexandria and Culpeper, Virginia. At the crossroads, a trading post was set up, known as the Red Store (the original building has been incorporated into a larger building, and still exists on Main Street in Warrenton). A blacksmith shop and an inn or two also came into existence, and the commerce in the area originally existed primarily to serve those who were traveling down one of the roads or another. Others started settling into the area, and a decision was made to set up a Courthouse at this crossroads, and a … [Read more...] about What problems does your Website solve?

One of the limitations of information on the Web is that it is organized differently at each site on the Web. As a newly granted Google patent notes, there is no official catalog of information available on the internet, and each site has its own organizational system. Search engines exist to index information, but they have issues, as described in this new patent that make finding information challenging. Limitations on Conventional Keyword-Based Search Engines The patent granted to Google, in September of 2016, discusses a way to organize information on the Web in a manner which can help to better organize and index that information, using context vectors to better understand how words are being used. The patent describes limitations of search engines that are based upon indexing content using keywords, such as: A search engine working with Conventional keyword searching will return all instances of the keyword being searched for, regardless of how that word is used on a site. This … [Read more...] about Google Patents Context Vectors to Improve Search

When I ask for website submissions for this column, the very first thing I want to know is what is your goal for your website? "My daughter says I need to have one", or "everybody has one so I should too" definitely don't count. I'm talking tangible, profitable goals. And these goals ultimately come down to just one question: what do you want people to do on your website? This is the most important question you need to ask yourself when building a new site or revamping an old one.     Do you want people to buy something? Do you want them to contact you? Do you want them to subscribe to your news feed or blog? Or do you just want to educate people about your organization or service (aka page views)? These are the basic, tangible, bottom-line type of goals you need to determine ... and then focus your content, navigation, and design in that direction.This week's website for review is The Riding Centre, which has just recently undergone a redesign. The goals of the … [Read more...] about Site Clinic: The Most Important Question You Need To Answer