Where do blogs fit into your web strategy?

The web has grown up very quickly. From using blogs as a marketing communication tool, SEO to boost awareness to now, social media as your reach to the masses. But among all this talk now, I wonder where  and how does the blog fit into your online strategy? Let’s have a look at some popular … Read more

Is the Website Designer Responsible for Search Engine Optimization?

I just finished reading the article titled; Effective Search Engine Optimization for Web Designers, and it inspired me to write about the responsibility of a website designer in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Is the web designer responsible for a client’s SEO? I was thinking this because SEO is about content. It’s about the copywriting and … Read more

Google Chrome Extensions Now Available

Yes! Finally! Booyah! I’m overjoyed to have found out Google Chrome now officially has support for extensions. Just like Mozilla Firefox, the Google browser now allows you to download and install module to extend the functionality of your browsers. At the bottom of the browser, a notification read: New! Google Chrome now has extensions and … Read more

Social Bookmarks Win Browser Bookmarks Hands Down

google-chrome-starThere was a phrase I heard watching Discovery Science this Chinese New Year. It goes something like, “technology is the key to the future but what is the key to technology”. It’s an inspiring start to what we could term as innovation. Therefore, browser bookmarks aren’t the exceptional tools left out of innovating our Internet experience.

So, what does social bookmarking mean?

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

Source: Wikipeida

Some quick examples of social bookmark services; Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, BlinkList, Reddit, Fark and more. But why will social bookmarking soon replace browser bookmarks?

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Basic Search Engine Optimization Tips

magnifying-glassA friend of mine showed me his new website pending launch on Tuesday. It was done by another Malaysia website design company and not us at Simpleet Solutions. He was rather concerned about the position of his company website in search engines – who isn’t today. So I agreed to have a quick assessment of his website.

I was surprised to find not even the basic of search engine optimization (SEO) steps were done for his website. So, here are 10 basic search engine optimization techniques you can tell your provider. :)

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Malaysia Website Hosting versus International Website Hosting

network-cableIt doesn’t take a genius at this moment to realize our Internet has slowed to a crawl – especially Streamyx users. Some of your favourite websites or blogs even, take more than 3-5 minutes to load on a single connection. I can’t even bear to mention the number of times I’ve refreshed and reset my connection, just to get a better IP address. For those who don’t know, selected IP connections do give a faster browsing speed. Don’t ask me why. *points to TMNet*

You may have noticed selected local websites still loading at the normal speeds. Well, it’s because the local connections aren’t fully affected by the international cables – which are down now. Yes, apparently there’s an underwater cable disruption on TMNet’s website which they always assume for its customers to refer instead of informing us via email. Well, the next common question some clients ask me is; what’s the difference between hosting in Malaysia and outside of it?

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The Malaysia Blog No One Cared About

My blog was unavailable the past 3-4 days due to a dumb mistake I made unconsciously. Any reader who came to my blog during the time would see the landing page above (click image for larger). It was what I’d call; my BRB page, instead of under construction. And believe me, nothing was under construction. I was busy reinstalling my blog and restoring all my 605 posts.

So why would it take me 3-4 days to restore everything? It takes less than 5 minutes to setup WordPress, right? Well, yes it took me less than 2 minutes to get WordPress up and running. But I spent a half-day figuring out why my imported WordPress WXR backup file wasn’t importing right. Then, I spent more than 2 hours splitting up the backup file (I’ll explain later) in preparation to import. But it gets better.

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How to Start an E-Commerce Business in Malaysia?

picture of shopping cart with moneyWith the advancement of online (web) applications, starting an e-commerce website and selling products online has never been easier. The best part is it sounds easy and it IS easy. So what do you need to start an e-commerce business today? I’d say, around RM10,000 or USD3000 for the investment.

And I wasn’t kidding about the figures. If you’re asking, why are the figures so high? It’s because I’m talking about professionally designed, real search engine optimized, online advertising and marketing type e-commerce businesses. If you’re still saying; but you said it’s so easy to start selling online today, yes I did say it but easy doesn’t always equal to cheap. Let me give you a quick breakdown of where the investment would and should go if you wanted to start an e-commerce business.

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