Web Designs for Small Business

Daybreak Web Designs has announced a new online resource which provides information on the Chesapeake Bay. The site is entitled “Chesapeake Bay News” and is located at www.chesapeake-bay.org. The project features Chesapeake Bay news, events, photo galleries, articles, book reviews, links, and other resources. When asked about the project, the site owner John Banks explained, “While doing research for our other projects, we realized there is a wealth of information concerning the Chesapeake Bay that comes from a wide range of sources. We were also made aware of the enormous number and diversity of the bay’s users. This project was created to act as a clearing house of information for anyone interested in the Chesapeake Bay region.”

The Chesapeake Bay impacts residents of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia as well as the millions of visitors that flock to the waterway each year. Included in the list of bay users are boaters, recreational anglers, charter boat operators, commercial fishermen, aquaculture workers, seafood lovers, bird watchers, nature lovers, artists, hunters, sportsmen, environmental groups, scientists, eco-tourism providers, beach goers, tourists, land owners, small business owners, government agencies and others.

The project comes at a time when the Chesapeake Bay region is under intense scrutiny and change. Known worldwide for its history as a vibrant estuary where oysters, crabs, fish and wildlife resided in enormous numbers, the bay is now threatened with pollution, over-development, declining stocks of its wild inhabitants and other critical problems. In addition to the marine life and wildlife affected, the people that live and work around the bay are also struggling to adapt to these changes.

The site features a number of tools that support interactivity by the people and organizations involved with the Chesapeake Bay. For example, organizations can submit press releases, news items, announcements of events, articles, digital photos, book submissions and other forms of information. Visitors can also submit comments in response to articles.

The resource is the next in a series of outdoor-related websites from Daybreak Web Designs. Being part of a family of related resources is one of the strengths of the site, as several groups of users can be made aware of the project, offering a higher level of diverse audience participation. The interaction and information sharing of the various bay users was a fundamental goal of the site blueprint.

John Banks, of Daybreak Web Designs explained the concept, saying, “Our sites include www.fresh-seafood.net, www.commercial-fishing.org, Maryland - Virginia Saltwater Fishing, Worldwide Charter Boats and Guides, www.chincoteague-island.net and others. The Chesapeake Bay site was the next logical addition to the family and has potential to be a very strong asset to both our business and to all the users of the Chesapeake Bay. This allows everyone that loves the bay to visit and find the information that pertains to their unique needs. The site also has an array of tools for organizations, small business owners and others that need to reach these audiences. The built-in interactivity is the real strength of the site. Thankfully, we have a strong team of technical personnel that support the technology.”

In phase II of the project, the site will offer reasonably priced online advertising for small business owners that need to reach audiences within the bay region. Other aspects of the second phase will include expansions of the photo galleries, articles and other resources.

If you are located in Maryland or Virginia and are interested in doing freelance web design or computer graphics

please visit our employment page.

These are some of our EzineArticles.com articles:

On December 16, 2007, www.commercial-fishing.org overtook several important websites to gain the Google search engine’s # 1 spot for the term “commercial fishing”.
Although Google is known for fluctuations in its search engine results and ranks are likely to change again, the upward shift in rank was an important benchmark for the site. The site continued to hold the #1 spot thru December of 2007.

Daybreak Web Designs is proud of the progress made by www.commercial-fishing.org. The goals for the website was to create a resource that hat would benefit commercial fishermen as well as businesses and organizations connected to the commercial fishing, seafood and aquaculture industries.

The site officially opened in January of 2007, offering the commercial fishing sector with tools such as a business directory, web forums, news, articles and other resources.

Tools on the site allow members to directly contribute information and discuss issues facing their industry. The site also accepts press releases, articles, business directory listings and other content from the commercial fishing and seafood industry.

Our emphasis has always been on the site being interactive. The idea was to give people that are connected to the commercial fishing industry a variety of tools that allow them to share information, promote their business and learn about industry changes.

Daybreak Web Designs, specializes in analyzing the behavior of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. This experience was in place at a critical time for the commercial fishing industry

For the last 12 months we have worked to present content that is of benefit to the industry. Having the tools in place to allow others to contribute content was a vital component for us. The quality and quantity of the site’s content helped us during the Google re-alignment and much of that content came from the commercial fishing industry, so everyone benefited.

Search engine results change daily but commercial-fishing.org stands a good chance of staying in the top results for a variety of key phrases not only with Google but with Yahoo and MSN. These ranks allows the us to offer some of the best online advertising values available to those businesses that provide commercial fishing-related services and equipment.

We are proud to have a presence on Squidoo. Members of the Daybreak Web Designs team have published over 100 lenses!

Recently our account has been awarded Giant Squid status on Squidoo. This is another asset that the Daybreak Web Designs team has attained to help provide the best service possible for its customers.

Many of the lenses associated with us serve to boost traffic to our client’s sites and projects that we own. Lenses also generate income and we are proud to donate a portion of that income to worthy causes.

Special recognition goes out to the talented assistants that work for Daybreak Web Designs. Many of these artists and technicians donate countless hours of community service, both here on Squidoo and in the local community.

For September, we are pleased to announce another in a series of projects by Daybreak Web Designs. The site is entitled “Worldwide Charter and Guide Directory” and is located at www.charter-guide.info.

The project allows business owners such as fishing charters, fishing guides, hunting guides, lodges, nature tour operators, sailing charters and others in the outdoor adventure niche with a variety of tools.

The Worldwide Charter and Guide Directory is the next in a series of outdoor-related websites from Daybreak Web Designs. Being part of a family of related sites is one of the strengths of the site, as human traffic can be directed to the project, offering business owners assurance of their information reaching potential customers. Related sites from Daybreak Web Designs include Maryland - Virginia Saltwater Fishing, www.fresh-seafood.net, www.commercial-fishing.org, www.chincoteague-island.net, www.tidewater-virginia.net and www.virginia-beach-va.net.

For details, see the full press release.

A peer’s blog often focuses on the uses of Squidoo, both in SEO and as a source of income.

He was kind enough to publish our thoughts on the subject of Squidoo and how it’s used by the web design community.

View Chuck Huckaby’s Work at Home Business Opportunities blog entry here:

http://work-at-home.business-opportunities.biz/2007/09/10/squidoo-fans-tell-how-its-helping-them-make-money/

A simple sitemap is an important tool to insure that every page of your site gets indexed.

A sitemap can be a manually coded page that lists all the pages of the site, or can be created via special tools such as www.xml-sitemaps.com

Once sitemaps are created and installed, their locations should be spelled out in a robots.txt file.

Here is information on creation of a robots.txt file which will assist search engine robots in indexing your site:

Each site should include a robots.txt which specifies sitemap locations.

To specify the location of sitemaps, just put a line like this anywhere in your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
or
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.html

Replace the Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/ with the actual full URL. For example, if www.yoursite.com has a sitemap file called sitemap.xml in top level, the reference would be like this:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

If you have more than one sitemaps you can either create a special “sitemaps index” file that links to all of them, then put a link to the sitemaps index file in your robots.txt file.

An simpler process is to simply list more than one sitemaps in the robots.txt file.

Example:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.html

Need to raise your search engine rankings for your site or increase traffic to your site?

Consider these tools:

• Have your web designer install a blog on your site. Take a few minutes and enter a paragraph or two weekly, or even just once a month.
• Submit online press releases, or see a specialists to have this service done.
• Submit online articles, or see a specialists to have this service done.
• Talk to your web admin about link exchanges with other sites within your niche.
• Post an ad or comment in a relevant category in your regional Craigslist page.
• Create a presence on social networking and community sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Squidoo and others.
• Create email and forum signatures that contain the URL and title of your website.

In addition to our site and this blog, we also have a Daybreak Web Designs Squidoo lens here:

http://www.squidoo.com/daybreak-web-designs/