M-80’s, Jumpin’ Jacks, Roman Candles, Tanks, Snakes, Bottle Rockets, Smoke Bombs, Whistlers, and of course, the best firecrackers of all – Black Cats…

Those are the fireworks that I played with 20 years ago, unsupervised, and with little respect for the directions on the packaging.

I still like a good backyard fireworks show with friends and family. Today there are so many different types to choose from and the packaging and names of some of these newer issued show stoppers are quite interesting. Some of the names are funny and are obviously named by old souls that have not come on board with the PC bandwagon. Other names are rather obvious solutions.

Whatever you do this 4th of July, remember, just because it didn’t go off, doesn’t mean it won’t, and when the box says don’t shoot it out of your hand, maybe consider it for a second before doing it anyway.

Have a Blast.

Mashable.com has aggregated a ton of wonderful info on using Twitter into their Twitter Guide Book: the basics, getting followers and even Twitter for businesses.

Thanks Mashable.

Artist Willard Wig is launching a new exhibition featuring several micro-sculptures. Painted with a single hair plucked from a fly, they are small enough to fit into the eye of a needle. Have a look for yourself at Willard Wig’s micro-sculptures and let us know what you think.

I was tempted to create a clever title for this blog post, something like, “Hey – Ho – SEO,”  and rip off a verse from the Ramones, but I suppose it would be going against my tip list below, so I have opted for a more search engine friendly title.

Increasing your rank in Google takes time and is a job in and of itself. It requires designers, developers, and content developers to be on the same page.

There are numerous tips floating around about how to improve your ranking in the search engine Google. I have put together a few that you may find interesting and helpful while thinking about your organization’s new website.

1. Inbound links are important. Google ranks your pages according to how many links are pointing at the page. The more links, the better chance you have at increasing your placement. There are several applications that will help find “linking partner sites” that may be helpful.

2. Your page title name is important. Remember to use important keywords in your page title. Many websites have their names in the title, which is fine if you are a well known established brand, but for lesser known organizations, it may not be as helpful as specific keywords to increase your rank. Remember to be specific.

3. Make sure you use keywords in your content. Use research tools like “Wordtracker” to make sure you are targeting the right keywords searched by web surfers.

4. Use keywords in links. For example, using specific link terms like “Purchase Benny Hill, Volume 1, Blue Ray” instead of “click here” may help to rank you higher.

5. Unlike other search engines, dynamically generated pages can be indexed by Google as long as a link exist to those pages somewhere.

6. Use ALT tags in images. Google indexes the text in the ALT tags of images.

7. Don’t count on META keywords to rank you higher, as Google is believed to ignore this tag.

8. Google also searches header tags (H1, H2, H3). Make sure that you use keywords in at least one or two of these tags.

Enjoy and Good Luck!

Now there’s even less of an excuse to miss an appointment with your personal trainer – as your personal trainer can meet you 24/7 inside your television or portable media device.

St. Louis based NUYU has recently completed a revolutionary new web site/application which allows end-users to browse, preview, assemble and download customized, video-assisted workouts. Drawing from a collection of hundreds of different exercise videos hosted by a diverse group of professional trainers, casual enthusiasts to earnest athletes can create workouts tailor-fit to their individual needs, time constraints, equipment, etc. The completed workouts can then be ripped to DVD for use at home, or downloaded to popular mobile devices like the iPod or other MP4 players and taken on the road or to the gym.

Big Wheel was responsible for creation of the brand and identity, web site, and user interface for the new business. We also played a significant role in the development of the go-to-market strategy, as well as an ongoing role in the continued updates and improvements to the product.

So, no more excuses: Get off the couch and discover a new you today.

http://www.discoveranewyou.com