On The 45 SEO and Design

A friend recently approached me about a family business (Cascade Green) that has a website that’s been out in the wild for about a year and it still has not been indexed by Google. Interestingly it is indexed in Bing. After not finding any potential gotchas like a block in robots.txt, a rogue meta tag or even a canonicalization element gone awry, I set them up with Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, created and submitted a sitemap and pointed a link at the site to see if that’ll get them on Google’s radar. I’ll report back.

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Update: Happy to report that within 10 days of doing this work the entire site was indexed and showing up in Google’s SERPs.

We just wrapped up a nice little real estate and benefit auctioneering business site for our clients Bart and Colleen Lockhart. Check it out when you have a chance.

Crawford Landscape Services in McCall, Idaho just launched a new website. (We might have had something to do with it.) Check it out.

If you need a wedding consultant or a wedding photographer, check out Tara Reeder’s business, McCall Weddings.

Like many folks out there, I have been pretty interested to see what new product Apple was going actually unveil at today’s announcement. Well, they finally have come out with a tablet “computer,” and it’s called the iPad. I’ll let you decide for yourself, but it looks pretty darn cool. And with a starting price point of $499, this device may in fact be a Kindle killer — and seems to have the potential to take a big bite out of the netbook market. As I sit here perusing the specifications on this device, the only thing that appears to be a bummer is that it doesn’t have a built in iSight camera. This is too bad — because I constantly use my MacBook for video chatting and it seems that would be a perfect task for this device. I’m sure I’m not alone. I can only imagine that Apple has not included the iSight for strategic reasons — and specifically to curb product cannibalization. Would an iPad with 3g cannibalize the iphone market? Not sure. But I can see how AT&T might be a bit nervous about it. Especially in a world where the user can purchase a $30 a month, all-you-can eat plan with no contract. But let’s face it, you can’t carry an iPad like you would a cell phone. Does reserving iSight functionality for MacBooks and iMacs help provide a clearer upgrade path for those products? Maybe. Lastly, I suppose it’s possible that this is a feature that could be coming out in the future. We’ll see.

Check out the redesign for McCall’s Lakeside Vacation Rentals that was recently launched. And by all means, if you need a cabin or house rental for an upcoming vacation/weekend/holiday in the McCall, Idaho area, give them a try.

Wow, I was just sitting here at the table, working on a specification document for a client’s new website when I saw a long muzzle out of the corner of my eye peek around the bbq.  A funny thing is that I wasn’t even sure what kind of animal it was before I could see his head.  Crazy.  ”Is that a wolf snout?”, I thought?  HA! Nope.  Just your average, seemingly friendly black bear.  I feel bad because these guys are getting into a lot of trouble around McCall due to people leaving their garbage out overnight — and/or not sealing up their garbage cans tightly.  In this instance, I neglected to thoroughly clean up the bbq after using it two nights ago.  Clearly he smelled it.

An Experienced Property Preservationist position just opened up in the “McCall, Donnelly, and Surrounding Areas” as I see in Craigslist. No, I’m not looking for a new job, but I do have all new positions in the area via Craigslist going into my Google Reader. It’s been interesting to say the least. Pretty. Slow ’round these parts. Anyway, this one (like they all don’t) caught my eye because I wasn’t sure what it was. Call me naive. I’ve never been in the banking or real estate world and didn’t know what a “property preservationist” was! So I read the job description carefully and thought — hmm… this sounds like a landscape/yard maintenance position. And I wondered if I discovered a newly renamed position, much like the “Sanitary Engineer”. So, I went-a-googling and found out that the job description on Craigslist was a bit misleading, but more importantly, I am just dumb sometimes. Sometimes? Hope so.

Interestingly, there’s not a wiki page for “property preservationist”, so you wiki-types — have at it!

So what is it exactly? Near as I can tell, it’s officially the person that banks send into (often trashed) homes that are in foreclosure and gets them cleaned and sealed up, so the asset doesn’t deteriorate further. Hence the term “property preservationist.”

I’ll always reserve the right to get smarter.

I have no official sources, but word on the street this morning from a Donnelly, ID resident is that the Tamarack Resort near McCall, Idaho has been purchased. I did some web searches to try and confirm and have found nothing, but I suppose it’s possible that if it happened late yesterday that it might not have been picked up yet. Or, it’s entirely possible that the “word on the street” is well, totally wrong.

Keep your eyes peeled for news from real sources. I trust that the On The 45 Blog is NOT your primary source for news. Lord help you if it is. If the sale is in fact real, I would suspect that that it will be in the Idaho Statesman by the end of the day and of course the Star News on Thursday.

Anyone out there hearing any chatter?

I’m just back from the Farmers Market that’s located in downtown McCall, Idaho. It’s a great little market and it’s open on Wednesday and Saturday during the “Summer” months, which I find is very convenient for picking up fresh food. Even on a Wednesday morning the market is hopping with locals and tourists checking out the booths and purchasing great local items. Some of my favorites are:

Campell Trinity C Grass-Finished Beef from New Meadows, ID. Steve and Debra Campbell are the owners of the ranch and have always been at the booth to tell folks about how they are sustainably ranching and what’s special about their beef. But don’t take anyone’s word for it, give some a try and see for yourself. Delicious.

Ron & Anita from Council, Idaho. They have what seems to be an all organic farm and feature amazing vegetables at very reasonable prices. From different varietals of potatoes, summer squash, beets, carrots, and chard, they’ve got your veggie purchases covered. They also sell locally grown and processed chickens. I haven’t tried one yet, but will keep you posted.

The Tamale Booth. I don’t know these folks’ names, but they make delicious tamales for $1.50 each. You can eat them there, or take them to go. Last time I was there, they had chicken, beef and pork. They also sell Spanish rice and sides of salsa. I can’t speak for the rice or salsa, but the tamales were a real treat. Give one a try!

Here are the official details on the market:

Operating Dates: Jun 15, 2009 – Oct 14, 2009
Hours: 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Location: Pine St., McCall, ID 83638 (Between Hotel McCall and Gravity Sports)
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