Miner Tech is excited to announce the launch if it’s latest client, a social media marketing firm.

K & C Social Buzz is a cutting-edge social media marketing  company who offers a variety of services such as custom Facebook pages, custom Twitter & YouTube pages; as well as the service of keeping these pages up to date.  They also perform general social media consulting as well as photo and video editing for online marketing purposes.  Head on over to K & C Social Buzz to take a look over their site and see the other various services they offer.  Social media marketing is becoming one of the hottest fields in the IT industry these days, so make sure you are doing all you can to keep your company social!

Miner Tech is excited to announce the launch of it’s latest project for a San Diego whale watching company.

San Diego whale watch offers once-in-a-lifetime views of magnificent whales, dolphins, and all sorts of other sea life.  They offer many different tours, with their primary business being San Diego Whale Watching.  You can also take a ride through the harbor and out to view the beautiful San Diego skyline on their sunset cruise.  In addition to these cruises, they also offer private parties & organized field trips.

Head on over to their website to take a look! San Diego Whale Watch

Forwarding your Google Apps or Gmail address to a previously existing email address is very simply.  This configuration is usually implemented when a user already has more email addresses than they wish to monitor, or prefers to have all mail sent to a centralized location.

To make these changes, you first need to have a Gmail or Google Apps account with Mail enabled.  Also, you will need to have access to the email address in which you are going to be forwarding the mail to.

Easy enough, shall we get started?

1. First off, go to the Gmail website and log in.
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2. Once logged in, click on the little “gear” icon in the upper right corner of the site.  In the menu that appears, select “Mail Settings”
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3. This mail settings page controls how this individual Gmail account operates.  To set up our forwarding address, click on the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” link.
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4. On this page, click on the button up top that says “Add a forwarding address”
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5. Now just enter your existing email address into the popup.  This is the email address which will receive all forwarded email.
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6. Once you submit this email address, a confirmation email will be sent to your old address.  Log into your old account, and click the verification link in that email.
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7. You’ve now configured this email address to receive forwarded messages, but there is one more step.  Go back to the Gmail settings, and select the radio button to forward email to the appropriate address with the settings you specified.
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8. That’s it!  Just hit “Save Settings” at the bottom of the page.  And your forwarding is complete!

Updating your WordPress site is a common, yet simple, task that any business owner or other non-technical employee is able to take on.  Apptivo powered websites leverage the WordPress platform to provide an easy-to-use interface to make updates to just about any part of your website.  Miner Tech builds all of our websites in a similar manner so you can use this guide below to make updates to your own website.

Many clients choose to develop their website in “template” format, meaning we simply provide the frame of a website in which they can plug their content into.  We are going to walk through taking one of these “template” sites and start updating the content!  Although each site is set up slightly different, you can follow these rules to determine where you need to go in WordPress to make the changes.  This process will apply to both template websites receiving content for the first time, and users who already have a completed website, but just want to make some updates.

One of our clients, K & C Social Buzz, was gracious enough to let us use them as an example, so we will be working on adjusting their site in this post.

First Off…

Load up the website you want to modify, and locate the exact content that needs to be updated.  So for this example, I want to modify some text on the “About Us” page.

Next, we find this content in WordPress…

1. Log into your Apptivo account, and access the WordPress App.
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2. Now click the name of the website which you wish to edit
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4. We are now looking at the WordPress Administrator Dashboard, here is where you can control all of the different content on your website.
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6. Now, the first place to check is in the left hand column.  Click on the “Pages” link.  Now click “edit” on the appropriate page (ex. About Us).  When the “Edit Page” screen opens, you may have to move some of your widgets around to see everything easily.  You can click and drag the title bar of any widget on this screen to move it.
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7. Now, within the text editor on the “Edit Page” screen of the “About Us” page, you will see the content that we originally identified in the first screen.  From here, we can easily update with our own content using the text editor tools.
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8. If you are comfortable with HTML and want to take more precise control, you can click toggle between the “Visual” and “HTML” tabs of the text editor.  This will allow you to gain more precise control over the way your content is displayed.
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9. If you want to optimize your page for SEO, you can modify the keywords, page title, and description used by search engines on this page.
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10. Finally, once you are satisfied with the changes.  Go ahead and find the Publish widget, and click on the “Update” button.   You can also select “Preview Changes” to verify your updates before they are made public.
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11. And that’s it, you’ve successfully updated your website!
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Okay, so we’ve covered the most common method to update content.  But that doesn’t cover everything…

The next most common way that content is stored in your WordPress site is within Widgets.  Widgets are typically special units which do not conform into the standard format of the rest of your website.  For this example, the K & C Social Buzz website has three boxes of information on their homepage.

Here is how we go about changing the content stored within Widgets.

1. Log into your Apptivo account, and access the WordPress App.
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2. Now click the name of the website which you wish to edit
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4. We are now looking at the WordPress Administrator Dashboard again, look within the “Appearance” section of the left navigation, and select the “Widgets” link from the menu.
5. You will now see a series of widget areas in the right column, flip through these widget areas until you identify the proper widget.
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6. Now just carefully modify the text/html within this box.  The Miner Tech team will set up the framework you need, so if you aren’t familiar with HTML, just make sure to only modify the text in which you understand.  Once you are done, hit the “Save” button.
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7. The changes will be live as soon as you hit save, so just go ahead and double check your work!
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How to update your website’s blog…

1. Log into your Apptivo account, and access the WordPress App.
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2. Now click the name of the website which you wish to edit
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4. We are now looking at the WordPress Administrator Dashboard again, look within the “Posts” section of the left navigation, and select the “Add Post” link from the menu.
5. This is where you can enter the contents of your blog post.  You have complete control over the font size and color, numbering, or even the HTML of your post.  Just fill up the title and description of your post and locate the Publish button.
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6. You can insert images anywhere throughout the body of your post.  And, if you insert an image at the top of a post, it will appear directly on your blog homepage.  Just click on the little photo icon above the text editor controls.
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7. Now use the popup window to select the image you want to insert.  Once the image has uploaded, you will be able to define keywords for the image, select it’s alignment, and it’s size.  Once you are done, simply click the “Insert into Post” button.
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8. If you want to see how the post is going to look, click on the “Preview” button before publishing.
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9. Once you press the Publish button, the post will be made live on your website, WordPress will provide you with a link to see your new post.

How to Add/Update Testimonials…

1. Log into your Apptivo account, and access the WordPress App.
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2. Now click the name of the website which you wish to edit
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4. We are now looking at the WordPress Administrator Dashboard again, look within the “Testimonials” section of the left navigation, and select the “Testimonials” link from the menu.
5. Here you will see a list of any testimonials that already exist on your site.  You can edit or delete any of the testimonials from here.
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6. To create a new testimonial, simply fill out the information in the form at the bottom of the page.  Any fields left blank will be hidden from the page.
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7. That’s it, quite simple!

1. Start off by opening up the outlook program
2. Now go to the main navigation menu and select Tools -> Options
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4. Now click on the “Mail Setup” tab of the dialog, followed by clicking on the “Email Accounts” button.
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6. Now you will see an icon that says “New…”, click on that, and hit the next button in the resulting dialog (leave the default option selected).
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8. On the next page, ignore all of the fields for text, and simply mark the check box in the bottom left corner of the dialog and hit next.
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10. Continue through the next step with default options selected.
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12. Now you will need to enter your personal and email account information.  Once your information is filled in, click on the “More Settings…” button.Your Name: Place whatever name you would like to appear to others when you send them email here.
13. E-mail Address: Place the email address you would like to set up here.
14. Account Type: Leave this as IMAP
15. Incoming Mail Server: Set this to imap.gmail.com
16. Outgoing Mail Server: Set this to smtp.gmail.com
17. User Name:  Place the email address you would like to set up here.
18. Password: Type in your email address password here
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20. Now in the new window that appears, click on the “Outgoing Server” tab.  Now select the checkbox which says “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”, and leave the default setting “Use same settings as my incoming mail server”.
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22. Now click on the “Advanced” tab of this dialog and do the following:
    1. Select SSL from the Incoming Server dropdown
    2. Make sure the Incoming Server port is set to 993
    3. Select TLS from the Outgoing Server dropdown
    4. Make sure the Outgoing Server port is set to 587
23. Once the above items are done, hit the “OK” button
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25. Now just go ahead and hit “Next” on the main dialog, and finish.  Your email account is now set up to work through Outlook.

If you have an Android phone and a Gmail or Google Apps account, but don’t want to use the Gmail App to manage your email; then you’ve found the right place.  There are many other email clients that are able to connect to your Gmail address with ease.  I personally use, and reccomend an App called K-9 Mail.  These instructions should apply to just about any App though, including the stock “Mail” or “Email” Apps that usually come pre-installed on every Android smartphone.

Start off by opening your Email App of choice, and selecting to create a new account.  Then as you walk through the steps, just use the information below to get yourself all set up.  These settings should work on any phone, Droid, iPhone, Galaxy S, Infuse, Evo, etc.

Account Type (POP, IMAP, Exchange): IMAP

Incoming Server:

• Username: email@domain.com
• Password: yourPassword
• IMAP server: imap.gmail.com
• Security Type: SSL (always)
• Authentication Type: PLAIN
• Port: 993

Outgoing Server:

• SMTP server: smtp.gmail.com
• Security Type: TLS (always)
• Port: 587
• Check the “Require Sign-in.” box
• Authentication type: PLAIN
• Username: email@domain.com
• Password: yourPassword

Hopefully this helped some of you set up your Android phone with Gmail.  Please leave a comment if you find these Gmail/Google App email configuration settings don’t work for you!

Company Name: Comprehensive Glass Works

Website: San Diego Glass & Windows

To Whom it may Concern:

Todd is extremely well versed on what he does. He is well organized and helped us to set up our
website and email system configuration – describing each process simply, the benefits of what he
was doing and why it needed to be done as well as performing it smoothly and capably.
All changes were made swiftly and correctly.

Todd recommended a great hosting service with many free apps for small business
Moreover, his services are very reasonably priced compared to other quotes we had for
the same job. We believe that our business is better off because of Todd and Miner Tech
Solutions, design of our new Website.

We are so confident in Todd’s ability and attention to detail, that our company has retained his
services to further enhance our Web presence using all his recommendations.

Any questions, do not hesitate to call or Email.

Thank You,
Shakeel Darugar, Manager at Comprehensive Glass Works

I cannot imagine how I conducted business before without my new website from Miner Tech. Todd and Chuck were amazing with their prompt service and professionalism. Now my clients can search the MLS or other information at their leisure while always having my contact information right there in front of them. This site has increased my business dramatically and cut down on lots of questions by clients that can easily be answered by just logging in. Thanks again for all your help boys!!

Ryan Bos President / New Horizon Real Estate

So after quite a bit of work, the completely re-designed Miner Technologies website has launched!  We hope the new look will help us focus on our goal of helping more small businesses realize their success through technology!

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Server Setup Related:

• Decide which  url you want to use  (www vs. non-www) and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.site.com is your preference, then http:// site.com should redirect to it.
• If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.
• Be sure to 301 all old urls to their respective new pages.
  • Verify there are no 404 errors index by google, use the firefox link checker tool.

General Coding Related:

• Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
  • Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
  • Minimize the size of the produced html as much as possible
  • Never use inline css (ex. <table style=”height:40px;”> or <table height=”40”>)
  • Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.
  • Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
  • Also, sprinkle your keywords throughout your article. The most important keywords can be bolded or colored in red. A good place to do this is once or twice in the body at the top of your article and in the sub-headings.

General Content Related:

• The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.
• Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.
• Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.
• Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.
  • Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

Page Meta Data:

• the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.
• Make sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page. It is unwise to have keywords in the title tag which are not contained within the body of the page.

Google webmaster guidelines:

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).