Callisti blog

Caveat Emptor

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:19:00 +0000

This lesson is so old the latin has stuck around.

In other words, once you've been sold something, what you thought you'd bought isn't what you actually got - and there's no recourse to the seller.

Callisti thinks this is pretty harsh so takes a more accountable approach to business, after all, the phrase might still be in use but the roman empire collapsed a few thousand moons ago...

Blog revamp for wishlist news

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:24:00 +0000

As a mini-project a few hours were spent playing with the mr moto template on blogger to recreate the likeness of the mywishwand website. Hitherto the blog looked very unbranded but now the style is inkeeping with the generic site design and the mywishwand twitter style.

Some useful tips to get you started on this sort of exercise can be found on various affiliate marketing type sites...

There are also tips here for adding google analytics and various pimp-my-blog techniques.

We are underused #2

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Callisti gives big thanks to all those who have helped with the migration of websites and email accounts to our hosting services over the past few months.

It's a time consuming job and requires a deal of knowledge, experience and learning to make sure the end-client has an uninterrupted service.

For anyone who feels their technical support job is towards the browner end of the stick be assured that your work is invaluable...

Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Callisti is pleased to finally complete the transfer of the DG Arts Festival website and start to manage and maintain the South of Scotland events site.

Lately it's been like running a web removal service; instead of people's possessions being transported from old house to new, it's transferring the hosting service of organisations' websites to a new server. It can be just as stressful!

Comlongon Castle

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Having worked on SEO for Comlongon Castle some years ago it's great to get back together with the team to provide a website hosting and management service.

Rather than change for change sake, Callisti aims to streamline the existing web presence and improve the online services for the prestigious Scottish wedding venue. It's a distinctive venue, and with the addition of the new honeymoon lodge, built in a style in-keeping with the historic castle, there are good prospects ahead.

If you're looking for a romantic wedding in a Scottish castle this is well worth checking out.

Allan McNish

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:10:00 +0000

Callisti has teamed up with CSS Stellar to provide the web presence for Allan McNish. This is an informative, subscription based website for fans and followers of the successful racing driver who hails from Dumfries and Galloway.

There are some bespoke systems in place on the website which were developed by Peter Graves, a development luminary who Callisti has worked with on several projects to date.

Sledges Upgraded

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:03:00 +0000

On 9th September 2009, Joe Brinkman from DotNetNuke Corporation announced that the DotNetNuke 4.x product line had officially reached its End-Of-Life.

The DotNetNuke Corporation is no longer providing support or patches for the 4.x product line, but PowerDNN have assisted Callisti in the upgrade of sledges.co.uk from v4.8.4 to the more stable v4.9.5, and will continue to provide their high level of support.

Callisti will be looking at moving to v5.x next year but will have to check for potential issues with the legacy version on ASPDotNetStoreFront currently employed by the sledges website.

Wigtown book festival accommodation

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:17:00 +0000

Wigtown book festival is an annual event around the end of September/start of October with a rich programme of events over a ten day period.

10 minutes drive away is some self catering cottage accommodation on the old Stewart clan estate, which was sold by the Earl of Galloway in the early 20th century and is now run as an organic dairy farm and Galloway coast holiday venue.

The estate is at Garlieston village, between Whithorn (first Christian settlement in Scotland founded by St. Ninian) and Wigtown. Check out the cottage availability calendar...

Holiday accommodation in Cyprus

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:50:00 +0000

Callisti is now working with The Villa Group alongside Goldminedesign to assist in SEO for one of the Cyprus villa booking websites.

Cyprus is a popular island resort in the Mediterranean for Western European and Russian holiday-makers so has a wide appeal. It is also a hotly contested online market for traffic and bookings so a multi-channel SEO strategy is the way forward.

Art events in Dumfries and Galloway

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:53:00 +0000

Callisti is pleased to have teamed up with Weesleekit to design and build the new Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival website to be ready for the 2010 calendar of events.

The Arts Festival has been running annually in the region for 30 years and is established in the last week in May. Theatre, comedy, classical and folk music, children's events and film are all part of the events running throughout the region at this time.

The site is still in development so more news will follow...

Sledges

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Callisti's sojourn into the world of DotNetNuke was precipitated by a transfer by a former Dodgy Till client and we are happy to take on board the Aviemore-based outdoor shop.

The client has a number of skis, snowboards and sledges websites to server customers in the UK and Europe. Traffic to the sites peak generally in January/February with steady traffic in the winter months and a lower average usage during the summer. Not rocket surgery, really...

We have chosen a US hosting company who specialise in DNN hosting and their support team has been very proactive in servicing us as a new client.

Holiday property repairs and maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Dumfries and Galloway is a region with a variety of rental properties available: there is a significant tourism market for holiday properties and a large rental market with many 2nd home owners making a business out of visitors to the area.

Alongside this there are caravan parks, holiday log cabins, and various holiday park areas.

There are also commercial letting agents that rent general accommodation.

Ewart Property Maintenance provides a repair and maintenance service for a wide range of these properties, from general DIY and maintenance and upkeep, to fitting kitchens and bathrooms.

Busines Adviser in Angus

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Just finished a spot of work for Edinburgh company weareunleaded, run by a successful young entrepreneur. The contract was a basic on-site and off-site SEO for a business adviser in Arbroath.

Interestingly the site was built using the smarty templating system so there were a few initial wobbles as we almost broke the website!

Self Catering Log Cabins

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:46:00 +0000

One of our website maintenance clients has recently decided to transfer their hosting to Callisti so that all their website management is under one roof.

We are very please to welcome Lochanview on board and hope we can get time off one day to enjoy the hot tub at their lovely self catering log cabins in Kippford, Dumfries and Galloway.

Commercial Vehicle Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Clydeside Rentals are now posting commercial vehicles for sale on their website. We're trying out a simple customisation of the wordpress theme to find a friendly way of displaying information, marrying the blog/website information philosophies.

Time-lapse confusion

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Timelapse was a video game, this we know. When you type 'timelapse' into google it asks if you meant 'time lapse' but shows results with 'timelapse' and (mainly) 'time-lapse' in the meta title tag. This suggests that 'timelapse' is not really a word in common usage. 'Time lapse' is ambiguous because the definition of usage is loose.

If you enter 'time-lapse' it shows results with all three variations of spelling.

If you enter 'time lapse' it does also but the results vary slightly.

So which keyword should you optimise for?

Well it depends what you mean - semantics!

Some argue that 'time-lapse' refers to time-lapse photography (common usage) - the hyphenation is a way of packaging and individuating the meaning so it becomes shorthand for this filming and photography technique.

'Time lapse' is also used to refer to this but more literally means 'a lapse of time'.

Anyway, for Lobster Pictures we tried to disambiguate time-lapse. Don't know if it will work yet but we'll see...

Data Protection Abuse

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Seemingly, website customers private information is bought and sold without their consent by unscrupulous web design companies.

(See external article on "How To Run A Company Into The Ground And Accrue Massive Debts In Just One Year")

Callisti is concerned at recent events in Dumfries and Galloway where customers of a failed company have been given a like-it-or-lump-it block transfer of all their details and website hosting to a Cumbria based company with only 1 week's notice. No mention is made that pays any respect to patiently loyal customers' privacy and information - or that it's been given to strangers - just a link to a video threatening price hikes in hosting.

Ruthless cherry-picking or brotherly concern? You decide.

Given that it can take 4-6 weeks for even simple domain name transfers out of the debt-ridden mismanaged business, 1 week's notice isn't much use!

Callisti wishes the best of luck to any hard-working web developer who's just had the rug pulled from under them, but this freeing of shackles may be the catalyst to move to a better working environment.

Hunting and Fishing

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:13:00 +0000

Some minor but significant updates to the Raehills hunting and fishing website should see the site pages achieve more relevant cataloguing in google's archives.

The page urls have been tweaked to stay relevant to the page content and the verification tag has been updated so that search data for the site can be monitored.

Domain forwarding

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Sometimes the only way of getting the required keywords in the domain name are URL rewriting and 301 redirects to the sans-keyword domain name.

This SEO tool is useful.

Raehills Estate

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:12:00 +0000

For those who enjoy a bit of sporting activity, check out Raehills mansion just off the M74 at Junction 15 to Dumfries.

There is shooting, deer stalking and fishing for salmon and sea trout available within the estate grounds and you can stay in the self catering holiday cottages with big gardens to enjoy.

Raehills is the historic seat of the Johnstone Clan and every August the estate hosts the Galloway Country Fair. A must for those of agricultural bent.

Those pesky ghost hunters visited earlier this year but the results were ambiguous...

Do you want fries with that

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:49:00 +0000

Imagine finding that one of your fries had a face on it...

Who said a face can launch a thousand ships - what was that all about?

Anyway there is a whole world of planet fry going to happen apparently - who knows what is in store...

Leith Library Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:32:00 +0000

Callisti is proud to support local artists at the Edinburgh Festival.

Keith Thompson is exhibiting paintings as part of a Leith Library Exhibition from 20th July - 8th August 2009.

Sweet!

Blood from a stone

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Sometimes in life you have to deal with people or organisations unable to carry out any task with any thoroughness or efficiency, either deliberately or because they are simply incapable.

Latest sites in a long line of rescuees are:

Motors Local - a resource for buying and selling cars in South West Scotland. This also carries pages for Troqueer Garage and Top Ten Models (phew!)

Dumfries Bed and Breakfast - currently a simple contact marketing poster for the Abarglen Bed and Breakfast in Dumfries but with designs to become a more useful resource for tourism in the region.

Fancy an Italian?

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:37:00 +0000

When Ivano first arrived in Scotland over 20 years ago from The Tuscan town of Lucca, he brought with him a knowledge of Tuscan Italian cuisine and a skill for home made cooking.

Little did he realise that he was to meet a man from Callisti through forces unknown and end up with a website to help with the marketing of the already successful Italian food take away business in Dumfries.

Callisti can fervently recommend the Penne Speciale, the Pollo Salsa Rosa (or Surfer Rosa as we sometimes call it in our throwback ways), and the pizza bases. Pizza eaters may know what this means.

They also have a holiday home in Tuscany that is available to rent should you ever need to visit North West Italy and the home of the renaissance in Florence or whatever...

External Links

noreply@blogger.com (Callisti) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:18:00 +0000

One of the strategies of SEO is building a relevant network of external links to the target website(s). Now, how to do this without being spammy?

A genuine strategy is to optimise the site in question, submit it to the relevant engines, find related sites and cultivate links from them, build supplementary sites on different servers and link from them, engage in social networking stimulating interest and discussion, make use of all the different search channels (images, local business listing, video, news) and generate relevant and timely press releases as appropriate.

You can then embark on a paid strategy using the major search engine sponsored link programmes but this is best used in tandem with organic SEO as it disappears as quickly as it appears.

But the genuine strategy often seems like pissing in the wind unless you can get access to a strong existing link source. How to do this? Answers on a blogcard please...