I am officially calling the death of IE6, at least for our web design firm.  This is something I have been wanting to do for a while.  I’m not sure how long ago other firms did this but I was holding off  b/c I always want to provide the best customer experience.  Even after IE8 was released I didn’t stop supporting IE6.  But today is the day.  I just logged into the Google analytics account for goebelmedia.com and saw that only 1.85% of our visitors are using IE6. 

Our default supported browsers will now be IE7, IE8, FF2, FF3, & Chrome.  If you need other browsers supported for your project, just ask and we will accomodate!

Update! After I posted this, I logged into Twitter and noticed one of the trending topics is “IE6 Must Die!” How ironic! Check out that article here: http://mashable.com/2009/07/16/ie6-must-die/

Free website and blog services like Blogger and Free Webs are attractive to business owners because they are free and easy to use.  While these services are great tools for personal use, using them for business blogging or for your business website can be a mistake.  Here are a few reasons to hire a professional to create your web presence:

1) Free blogs/sites tend not to rank as well in search engines.
There are exceptions, but frees sites usually don’t rank as well in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Free sites and blogs are popular as hobby sites and often have poor content and are never updated. Because of this, search engines do not give these pages a high rank.

2) Free websites and blogs make your business seem less trustworthy.
There is a notion that free sites and blogs seem less authentic and less professional. Spammers and scammers use free website services almost exclusively; I wouldn’t want my business grouped with them!

3) Free sites and blogs often look cheap and have an unoriginal site design.
Again, there are exceptions. However, for the most part, free sites and blogs do not look as sharp as professional websites. First impressions count; why would you want your business represented with a poor looking, unoriginal design? Another problem with these sites is that they are not easily customized to fit the needs of your business.

4) Most of these services do not come with a domain name.
Your URL for a free site is usually just a subdomain of the service (ex. example.blogspot.com).  If you do get your own domain (www.example.com) through the service, you are giving them control over the domain. And if you decide to get a professional website in the future, it may be difficult or costly to get the domain back under your control.

5) These services often put ads on your site.
Many free services run their ads on your website. This can make your business look really unprofessional.  If someone is going to make money off your website, it should be you.

6) Some services are unreliable.
One of the most popular free website services (Geocities) is closing on October 26th 2009.  It highlights a good point that these services are free, and some have a hard time making money.  Also, because they are free, they have less obligation to their users to stay open.

Don’t get me wrong– free website and blog services can be a great thing.  They make creating a website or blog possible for anyone, which is great.  But if you’re serious about your website and your business, it’s a good idea to make an investment in some professional web design services.