Google has been harping about quality content for a while now. They want great content and will provide the best search results to the people who have it (in theory). Of course there are millions of examples showing garbage content at the top of the SERPs but they are slowly improving and are better than the alternatives.

We all have been looking closely at the way we build links and have been doing SEO lately because of Penguin. Many of us have seen our sites tank because of poor link building practices. Some of us simply didn’t know any better or did some foolish things a few years ago that ended up affecting our sites today.

I've been spending a lot of time writing my own web content lately but whether you just don't have the time or don't know the subject finding writers online is the next best option. There are lots of places to look and the quality of the articles varies tremendously.

Well I suppose if you play around with grey-hat techniques you end up getting burnt eventually. But even white hat techniques can get you in trouble these days. One of my better niche sites got the Google slap last week and probably won’t come out of it for a couple months or more. Here’s what I’ve learned from the experience.

Crowded niches can be extremely difficult to get started in but also happen to be the most interesting and most lucrative. Whether you have a passion and want to write about it, have a business in a crowded niche you need to promote, or simply want to make money, it takes lots of time and persistence but it can be done.

In order to get any design project off the ground successfully you need to create a solid outline. An outline clearly states the goals of the project, work involved, a timeline, deliverables and tools to measure the success (or failure) of the project after completion.

I am always on the lookout for good new blogs or those with great content that I haven't seen before. In the web design field it seems like a handful of the larger blogs can drown out the voice of the little guys who many time have better things to say. So here are some of the smaller blogs that have great content that you should follow.

Normally I don't post things like this, but here are a few good pieces of advice for designers, but they apply to pretty much everyone.

For a brand new website, optimizing for local search can be the first and easiest way to get relevant traffic. There are plenty of ways of driving traffic to websites but local search is best for small businesses looking to use their websites to gain new clients or sales. The traffic won't be staggering but will be highly relevant which ultimately is what is important.