Hawaii Web Consulting

University of Hawaii, Manoa campus, has several non-credit web classes coming up for Spring 2009. These are usually great for beginners (and even those who think they know everything!). The schedule is online at: UHM Outreach PNM.
Just a couple of standouts include:

• Boost Your Traffic and Success Online with Social Media Optimization (SMO)
• Search Engine Optimization for Web Designers
• and ThinkTech Hawaii - The Social Web 2.0: Reaching New Markets.

Classes are generally on the Manoa campus or in their downtown location.

And don’t forget about the juried competition for digital images, “Survey of Digital Imagery in Hawaii “. Information about how to enter with your digital images is listed along with the dates and fees. Good luck!

Today was Web Weavers Workshop with Lorelle VanFossen, part of Hawaii’s Geek Week.   Lorelle had a ton of great tips to go along with the basics of setting up a successful Wordpress blog site.   A large part of the information is in Lorelle’s book, but it was her discussions to student questions that often proved most helpful.  Some sample tips:

• watch using pronouns in blog articles. Readers might be confused on what “it” is, along with the SEO problem related to keywords.
• do “brain dumps” and THEN edit.   Unload your ideas completely and then go back and edit.   And edit, and edit, and edit some more.
• and if you are using more than 400 words from someone else’s web site, be prepared to hear copyright problems.   In other words, keep your quoting of someone else’s material under 200 words or ask that writer for permission to use more.

Being a power-blogger, Lorelle had several shortcuts using Firefox, GreaseMonkey, and Google Reader, she even had tips on a great mouse that will power through web site scrolling.

It was a good class for anyone interested in learning about blogging, from beginners to those already blogging! Check out Lorelle’s web site for lots more information also!