Interior Pro: Miscellaneous

Showing posts with label Miscellaneous. Show all posts

Interesting Ways To Find Websites

I had a long list of funny search queries I put together five years back, but as luck would have it; gone in one of my numerous computer crashes. Use Firefox...Yes I do..now.

What's a Search Query?

west elm furniture,interior design, furnitures, office interiors

It's the words you type into a search box. In order to find out what people are searching for you need a stats program. Google analytics (tough word to spell) is a freebie that's used for this blog, but I've been hooked on www.sitestats.com since 2003 for the main site. Not all stats programs are created equal but having one for six years is great for comparing and improving your website traffic.

Here's a funny search query. I wonder what was on this persons mind?

"installing hardwood floors yourself sucks"

Initially I thought I would not see the visitor spending much time looking around, but sitestats shows where the person went and to what page after landing on the website. Maybe it was a he trying to please the wife? "Look honey, this guy says it does suck, let's hire a pro"

They were a previous visitor from October 16 while spending 38 minutes the first time, 18 minutes another time and today 23 minutes. Folks will tell you keywords are important to be seen in search engines, but "sucks" does not exist on the site anywhere. Maybe it's that semantic search stuff Google has been working on that got the person to the site. Actually I have a better idea how it ranked or how the term ranked well. Hey, I'm not tellin:)

Some folks don't spend much time trying to get a search query right. You have to wonder what are they are actually looking for.

"can i sanding cork?"

Huh? Yes. I know what you mean

"diy floor sanding australia"

Well, sure you can do it down under.

"hand scraped wood floor with pegs china"

I guess they have pegs in China. Yea..I know what they were looking for.

"examples of door trim while tiling a floor"

What am I, John Bridge? It's a tile forum

"pecan ahrdwood flooring"

Hey I do it too. Many, many times...misspell words. I found it interesting someone from Google stated 20% of the searches people do on their site have never been used before. I thought that was astounding until I thought of my own habits. Most of it must be from misspellings?

That's just a sampling from this morning.

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Recession? - Lumber Liquidators Rolls On

I like to follow Lumber Liquidators both on the web and off. How can you not see them all over the place? Baseball games for example. Look behind home plate where Major League ball teams offer advertising. Look on the web; these guys spend a lot of money on advertising.

Growth?

They continue to open many new stores by my surprise. One would think with the economy and the shrinking demand for hardwood flooring they'd be a bit more conservative. Sales for existing stores are down a bit according to their reports but they continue to open new stores at a considerable rate.

Lumber Liquidators has a secret. Keep it simple and offer low prices. You won't find them in the high rent district, but off the beaten trail. Yet they attract many. Although they don't see the massive lines of recent years when a great advertisement hit the streets, people are still magnetized to what they offer.

Posted in: Miscellaneous

What Type Of Hardwood Floor? Where?

west elm furniture,interior design, furnitures, office interiorshardwood floors in the kitchen

Often these discussions are heard, "should we put Walnut in the formal dining room and leave the rest of the job for a red oak or such?" Combining different species from one room to another never looked attractive in my opinion with the exception of handling some border work.

Some people are inclined to go with a harder species for instance when installing hardwood floors in kitchens. Their thoughts are I don't have to worry as much about the upkeep; it's always best to maintain them properly regardless. Although there are differences in hardwood floors as measured by the hardness factor, I find it to be overused as making the buying choice.

Other compelling thoughts from prospective floor owners are what hardwood best matches my cabinets and the like. Matching isn't the best idea, but finding something that contrasts is a better choice. Example in the photo above shows red oak cabinets with an exotic Brazilian Teak hardwood.

Here's the classic question on many minds..."what's the best hardwood for an active family of kids and running dogs?" All floors will see damage in one form or another regardless of how careful you may be. For those that obsess over the issue I've always suggested a hand scraped or distressed floor. Any incidental damage caused just adds to the character of the floor. Besides these kind of floors are extremely popular today and could help sell that home you've been trying to unload. Whether or not their popularity will continue is any ones guess but for a country type setting I don't see it changing.

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Web Listing Service Solicitation Through Regular Mail

I received this letter today and actually thought I owed money! I get this kind of stuff all the time in regular email, but these guys go as far as sending me real mail. I wonder how many unsuspecting people really fall for this? Easy money if you don't have a conscience the way I look at it.

So how did they find out about the site shown? The only source I can think of is godaddy, but I could be wrong because it's public record. I also paid ten years in advance for the domain. Perhaps they think I'm more serious than someone who paid for a one year listing.

The site is something I was thinking of putting together last fall, but I hit a dead end because what do I know about landscaping? I still think it's a great domain because it has the important keywords in it, and alot of people search for "landscaping ideas" online.

What a trip. Domain name submission with up to 8 keywords/phrases to 20 established search engines, blah, blah, blah. Eight? Yea, that's almost like 200 another email solicitation mentioned the other day. There are only three real search engines and I only pay attention to two; Google and Yahoo. They account for 85% of the search traffic any of my sites/blogs get.

Let's examine the domain name submission part.

It's not necessary. The simplist way to get the search engines to see any site is by way of links...then they take it from there. For instance, mylandscapingideas.com. If I wanted it shown I would go to the garden web and post a link in the message threads they have there. Mind you it cannot look like a sales push. Or another idea is to have your local chamber of commerce list your website. Another suggestion is getting listed in dmoz.org...at no cost. The latter is a real biggie, but it can take awhile to get listed.

And about those keywords. This is where you put them into the actual website. Frankly I don't know what this service can do with the keyword part unless they submit to the search engines with a spammy title of the site such as:

"Landscaping ideas, home, lawns, gardens, patios, pathways, backyard pools, house"

I've seen those websites. In fact I spotted a real spammy one last week by random surfing and the site had a two paragraph title! Google has a section of their site designed specifically for those with websites. It's very useful information if you're looking to get on the web or improve your visibility. Freebie too!

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Surfaces Convention 2009

Interesting to see who is outlay money and who isn't when it comes to displays at the period Surfaces gathering at the Sands Convention center in February of this year. While I don't clear much attention to carpet and instrumentation tile, hardwood and laminate is what I look for.

Anderson, who has recently been bought discover by Shaw Industries definitely takes the slot for most impressive pass (shown above). Another that had a good fourpenny spread was Quick Step laminate and DBM hardwood flooring. Sure I've been discover of the actual hands on business for awhile but where does DBM sound in? I don't think it ever did except for Home Depot.

Johnson hardwood floors had a spacious layout as did Wood Flooring International but they were on the lower level; used more for for demonstrations, tools, and sundry manufacturers.

Absent was Mirage but...no comment... never mind. I give them a ton of YouTube views on their protection type story with my important site. Probably feat to reach 20,000 in digit years time. That will be replaced very soon if I can see a protection story installation or do digit myself.

Bruce never comes to this exhibit so there's no comparing. Here's a pair of smart companies saving their dough with very diminutive discover of the way areas. Actually Kahrs was never such for a large presence as they've been more on the conservative side. Maybe that's digit reason they've been around for 100 eld plus.