Space Invaders - Tipperary Institute

Science Week Ireland - Celebrating the 30th aniversary of classic arcade game Space Invaders, 8 schools visit Tipperary Institute over 3 days to create their very own version of of the game.




See http://www.insideview.ie/irisheyes/2007/11/science-week-ir.html

Uploading images from Flickr to Blogger

Uploading images from Flickr to Blogger
Originally uploaded by IWHQ

This is how it's done

Web Design Ireland - Search Engine Tips

So you've identified your audience and the most likely searches they may make to find your products. Now you need to fight to get your website on the front page of search engine results for these search terms.

For the next few weeks I will talk about content - specifically text content. Your website cannot exist in the search engines without content. The major search engines will index your site and read the content to form a picture of your site's purpose. If they think that the content of your site is a close match for a search engine keyword search then you have a good chance of appearing towards the top of the results.

News Flash - Search engines will not read images or flash files. Sure enough you can (and should) add alt tags and descriptions to your multimedia on your website but these will not compensate for lack of text content on your site.

When a search engine sees an image on a site, even if the image contains text, it will not read the text. If the image has alt tags the search engine will read those but will not give as much priority to alt tags as it does to good old plain text.

This weeks golden rule is:

Always include plain text content on your webpage

If your website provides information in image of flash format, repeat that information in plain text. What's the point in having wonderful animations on your web site when no one visits?

As a rule :

• Use H1, H2 tags etc for headings rather than images
• You have identified keywords that you want to rate highly for in the search engines - place these in the H1, H2... tags as much as possible - and place them at the start of the heading. For example if you wish to rate highly for "sweet shop" and your shops name is "The Candy Store" then use <h1>Sweet Shop - The Candy Store</h1> rather than putting your shops name at the front of the header.
• Use the keywords throughout your page. Somewhere between 4% and 20% of the text on your page should be made up of keywords.
• Use bold text for keywords. Do this a few times throughout your page. Search engines place priority on bold text also.
• Link to other pages in your site using the keywords - for example: Sweet Shop. This will help in two ways - Firstly the search engines will note that a keyword is linked and will note this when determining your site content. Secondly, one of the best ways to increase your Page Rank (PR) is to have links to your site with your preferred keywords as the link text.
• Use plenty of text content and plenty of text pages. Don't be afraid to write articles or place a blog on your site. The more relevant text the better. You may even syndicate content from other blogs if it is relevant to your site.

So we now have a clear idea of the keywords we want to rate highly for and we have created site content to reflect this. The next step will take us in a more technical direction when we will look at optimising out html code and web page structure for SEO.

Have a look at Liam Noonans blog where he did an analysis of effectiveness of the keywords on his website. Liam is a lecturer in an Irish College - Tipperary Institute

Web Design - Search Engine Optimisation

Tip of the Week
Search engine optimisation is the online equivalent of moving your shop from a back street in the middle of nowhere, to a prime location on a busy street in a vibrant city. If no-one can find you, chances are that sales will be down. Think of all of the passing trade that city centre stores get due to their location. Lets apply this theory to our sites and increase our business.

The first tip is a simple one. Determine the words and phrases that you want your website to perform well with in the search engines. For example, if you run a sweetshop you will want your web site to perform well for the phrases "sweets" and maybe "sweets Tipperary" (add your location here). You will probably not be interested in being in the top ten for search phrases such as "irish web design".

Put yourself in your customers shoes. Imagine that you are sitting in front of a computer and you want to find a sweetshop in the local area - What would you type in the search box?

Once you have a list of 3 or 4 search terms you can begin to optimise your site for these terms.

Web Design Ireland - Search Engine Optimisation

Irish Web Design services at Irish Web Headquarters include Search Engine Optimisation. Search Engine Optimisation gives your site the best chance of attaining a high search result placement in a web search such as google or Yahoo.

What's the point in having a web site if no one can find it. Our inside knowledge of

• designing web pages to make them easy for the search engines to find and read and
• marketing your site so that it gets the best placement in search engines

will ensure a major increase in your web traffic.

go to http://www.irishwebhq.com/index.php for more information on

web design

and search engine optimisation.

E-Learning & Multimedia

Did you know that Irish Web Headquarters offer much morte than professional web design services. We also offer E-Learning, 3D modelling and digital video productions. Use our contact form for more information.

Email Pro @ Irish Web Headquarters

Email is easy at Irish Web Headquarters. Get 10 free email addresses when you sign up for a hosting account for your website.

Forget Hotmail or other free accounts - now you can have a professional free email address that reflects your domain.

For example, if your web address is www.xyz.com you can get info@xyz.com, sales@xyz.com, joebloggs@xyz.com etc.

Companies will be wary of dealing with you and may treat your email address as spam unless it uniquely identifies you in this way.

Why go to the bother of compiling tenders and sales quotes only to find that your mail is sent to the Junk box of your recipients.

Email addresses that uniquely identify your company are a great method of building your brand and increasing brand awareness.

Find out more about our free email offers at www.irishwebhq.com/emails.php

Domain Name Registration with Irish Web Headquarters

Your domain name is your web presence. Choosing the correct domain name is important. A short, memorable, easy to spell domain name is more likely to be visited by your target audience than one which is difficult for them to remember.

Choosing a short name or catchy phrase is like having a memorable phone number - It's always on the tip of your customers tongue. While many web surfers will use Google or another search engine to find content, your repeat business will soar if your customers can remember your domain name.

At Irish Web Headquarters we know domains. We will work with you to choose the most suitable name for your business, whether a catchy .com or .net domain for an international presence or a .ie domain to show your nationality, we will guide you in selecting the perfect choice for your company.

Promoting your domain is as important as the initial selection. There are many ways that you can promote your domain (and thus your website and product/service). The easiest is by listing your domain in all company publications and notices.

Your headed paper, tenders, invoices, receipts and letters should all contain your domain name.

Placing an ad in a newspaper or on TV or radio? Make sure you mention your domain name and watch your hit counter rise.

Emails sent by all company employees should contain a link to your website. Thousands of emails may be sent by your employees yearly - take advantage of this and promote your site.

Got a mailing list? Add your site address to promote new and repeat business.

Posting to an online discussion forum or bulletin board - List your domain. Be sure to read the conditions of posting on the discussion forum as some do not allow this.

Finally, remember that a good domain is pointless unless your website matches it both in content and design. Giving visitors to your site useful and updated content will ensure that they will be satisfied and return in the future.

Irish Web Headquarters offer domain name registrations at the following rates:

.com .net .org .biz .info	€25 per annum
.eu	€30 per annum
.ie	€79 per annum

To search for a domain name go to www.irishwebhq.com/domains.php

Business blogging

Creating a blog is an easy way to communicate. Irish Web Headquarters is a web design company using blogs to post details of products and services such as hosting domain name registration and e-learning. The advantage of blogging is the dynamic nature of the content once posted. People can subscribe to your blog and syndicate the content using Atom or Feedburner or another RSS feed reader.

Forget about copy & paste, just syndicate and all new blog content will be displayed on your site.

Blogging can also have many business applications. Notifying clients of new product updates, keeping in touch with market news and information/reviews of products are ways in which blogs may be used for business purposes.

Irish Web Headquarters Web Design Services

Irish Web Headquarters offer professional web design services with a personal touch. We are interested in fulfilling your needs for a customised web solution.

Most companies will design your site and walk away. Unlike other companies we offer a personalised service and ongoing support post-development should you need us.

Our simple website administration portal puts control back in your hands. You control all content on your site and can update it quickly and easily in a few simple steps.

• Add documents and images to your site
• Copy and paste from Microsoft Word to your website
• Create photo galleries with automatically resized images
• Add news and event bulletins
• Create mailing lists with attachments to keep in touch with your clients
• Add online forums, blogs or discussions
• Training course management
• Dynamic calendars
• Online contact and order forms
• E-Commerce Solutions for online shops accepting credit card payments
• E-Learning development
• Full hosting, domain name and email services

Some satisfied clients:
(Click the images to view their sites)


I personally guarantee satisfaction in our services.

Mark O'Leary,
Manager,
Irish Web Headquarters