Competition.

I googled for similar websites related to mine, and I may not be the best "googler" because for some reason I found it difficult to find individuals public relations profiles that directly matched my goal as well. However, I was able to find similar websites so I figured I would analyze those.

The first "competitor" website I came across was 'S&C Advertising and Public Relations" which is basically an online portfolio for a company, and not one individual which is what I am doing. This was a professional website, however I was not very impressed with it. The navigation and template were pretty simple, which was fine with the goal of the website. However, I felt the images used were pretty generic and reminded me of free clip art from a word processor. This made me think twice about the images I am using/going to use for my website. The font and how the words were all formatted created a clutter effect to me as well. After looking up the source codes it gave me a couple ideas about my keywords. Something I have not added yet is specific locations where I would like to work and this is something they did and I am going to add. Here is the list of keywords for the website: "San Antonio Advertising, Public Relations, Hispanic Marketing, Web Design, Transcreation, Public Outreach, Branding, Media Relations, 508 Compliance, GSA,WBE MWBE MBE, Translation, Spanish, Multicultural agency, Public Affairs, SBA certified small & disadvantaged business, san antonio, Texas."

The second "competitor" website I researched was Swanson Russel Marketing Communications. I felt this website was a little more professional than the other one I analyzed. I appreciate the whole 'less is more effect' and felt it worked well with this company's website. I liked the actual wording used within the website and how this website wrote less yet still said more than the other one. One thing I felt could have been changed is the navigation bar font; it just bothered me for some reason because it was so plain and everything else seemed more sophisticated and the effect kind of clashed to me. The font could have at least been bold or something! This was a website that I feel I could generate ideas from in terms of the feel of it. I looked at the source code for this website, and could not find the META NAME. I looked throughout the whole source code but nothing was labeled 'keywords' like the other website was. I looked throughout other public relations websites and they had them but this website did not. Here is an example of one of them: "publicity, pr, media, advertising, marketing."

GoLive Forums

I browsed throughout the forums for a while, and like how people actually respond with good intentions to help out and provide useful information. If I do run into a problem that I cannot figure out how to solve I will be posting on the forums. I also feel I learned more as I looked throughout the forums, and I am thankful for anything I can get out of GoLive because parts are still confusing to me! There was much controversy over which is better, GoLive or Dreamweaver, and made me a little curious as to the content and format of that program as well.

I was able to research areas that I am going to want for my page later on as it progresses. For example, I am going to want to center my page. I found a discussion regarding that, and different codes that can be used.

One thing that I was looking into was the text alignment on my page. I saw a post regarding the best way to proceed with adding text to a page for the most flexibility to format and move it. The best way I read was to create a layout grid and then put your buttons on from there. Then to put a text box on the layout grid and make it as large as needed, then add the text.

I learned many things just by reading these forums that is going to help me in the future, even if it was little topics such as that the bug symbolizes a broken link. If I have any problems I am unable to figure out I will go to these forums and post.

Search Engine Relationship Chart

I thought the Search Engine Relationship Chart was very interesting because I did not know the correlation between the specific search engine and how results are included. It shows that Google is basically the internet king and rules over all the other search engines. Now I understand how I go to different search engines and receive slightly different results. I liked how I could see what specifically powers the search in a sense.

I am still learning all this website lingo and whatnot but after researching Google, I did not know that the Meta description and keywords have little influence on Google's rankings. I would have thought previously that keywords were very influential based on what we have learned so far. Google's ranking are due to factors such as how many links are aimed towards which page and such. Google, I've concluded, knows everything and it's a little scary!

The next one I read about was AskJeeves. What really popped out to me was the use of the butler in the logo. I know this really isn't too web specific but it was really interesting to me because I never knew that the use of the butler symbolizes the servitude the service brings for users finding accurate information without effort, like a butler. Now that I think about it, it was very smart idea because I didn't even realize one of the reasons I liked this search engine so much!

I did not know Lycos was one of oldest search engines. I don't think that shows to much because I have never cared for this search engine. I think this website is a weaker version of Yahoo. The site to me looks cluttered and I have never really cared for the results either. I also did not know they were partnered with Terra, and I never knew what Terra was either. It is a Spanish and Portuguese speaking online company.

The automatic URL I found very easy to use and helpful as well!