Valitics Blog

How the iPad will influence web design

Posted by J. Glerum

Tuesday, February 02, 2010


Apple's (over)hyped ebook-reading, video-gaming, mail-sending, photo-displaying, video-playing wunderkind iPad device has the ability to change the way we interact with the web, in a few ways. 

The cool factor vs. ROI

Posted by Dan Bruce

Wednesday, January 27, 2010


Yesterday I talked to a dental professional who spent a great deal of time and money investing in a talking avatar and videos of their office. He told me that the salesman did a great job selling him on how cool everything was (I am paraphrasing and condensing things a bit). I asked him what the response was from patients. Since the site additions had only been up for a couple weeks, I was the first to see them. 

Chili Cookoff

Posted by J. Glerum

Friday, December 04, 2009




Earlier in the week, we ventured over to Red Sky for a fantastic chili cookoff. After thoroughly testing the 5 varieties of chili, all I can conclude is that 1) chili is delicious, and 2) I can't have a photo taken of me and not look completely ridiculous.

At any rate, it  was a lot of fun to see Carew Co. peeps and Red Sky peeps "in the wild."  

7 Questions to ask your potential web designer

Posted by Dan Bruce

Tuesday, December 01, 2009


The other day I had a conversation with a friend who had purchased a website elsewhere and was having some frustrations over what he assumed he would get and the product that was actually delivered.  With this conversation in mind, I think there are 7 questions (at least) you need to figure out before deciding on someone to build your online business.   

Two simple SEO tips for business websites

Posted by J. Glerum

Tuesday, November 17, 2009


Search engine optimization is always a hot topic with our clients. Everyone wants their websites to rank #1 on Google for their industry, and rightly so. But competition is fierce and getting fiercer. Getting more traffic to and results through your website via search engines is not an overnight process, but it's not necessarily rocket science either. 

Why Valitics Does Not Support Internet Explorer 6

Posted by J. Glerum

Sunday, November 01, 2009


The main reason we aren't supporting IE6 on our new website design is because it's a crappy browser. It doesn't support web standards.  It's 8+ years old (in internet years, that is like 120 years old - we've done the math). It's full of pop-ups, adware, malware, and other insidious things that will hurt your browsing experience and possibly the stability of your computer. It doesn't play by the rules, it sucks and we're not going to support it anymore on our site. 

Why you should write your own content

Posted by Dan Bruce

Tuesday, September 08, 2009


I just talked to a client who is trying to decide between using stock content for a dental website or writing his own.  Of course, as a dentist, he only gets paid for performing dentistry on people, so he doesn't want to waste time.  My recommendation was to use our content for a framework, but to write everything himself.  Use a professional if you want it to sound perfect, but the ideas should come from you. 

Reciprocal Link Juice for Small Business Owners

Posted by Dan Bruce

Friday, September 04, 2009


Being a dentist, I am one link between Valitics and real world applications.  Reciprocal links occur when one website links to another and vice versa.  The goal of any external link is to send search engine bots (How search engines retrieve data) to your site.  This is often called "link juice."  The more link juice going to your site the better chance you have of ranking well. 

Practical applications for social media to build your business

Posted by Dan Bruce

Saturday, August 29, 2009


If you are a business owner, maybe you don't think you have time to participate in social media marketing.  The good news is you don't have to Tweet the longitude and latitude of your exact whereabouts every 10 minutes to participate.  In fact the key to a good social media presence is relevance.  Tell people something they want to hear and they will listen.  Keep in mind that may be something useful and insightful on Twitter or it may just be who you are, what you do and what makes you unique.  Here are some good stating ideas you should consider for participating in "bare bones" social media. 

Benefits of a Fully Featured Content Management System

Posted by Dan Bruce

Tuesday, August 18, 2009


When businesses and organizations search for a website design company, they are looking for the performance to cost ratio.  It really boils down to the return on investment.  If the site has high traffic or has the potential for high traffic, then a website that costs a lot to develop but fulfills every specification the owner wants provides good ROI.  In small to medium-sized businesses, there is usually a budget cap and also a limit on the ROI with increased development costs.  This is especially true in local and regional markets.