Tech analysis

Wordpress is by far the most popular blogging platform. It has grown into an incredibly powerful product that can be used to host anything from a basic blog to a full website.

If you're anything like me, you read content from a bunch of different websites each day.

Do you use Twitter to help promote your business? Even if you don't, there's a good chance that other people are talking about your product or brand, and that's the type of thing you should know about.

Today I'm going to talk about how that principle can be applied to choosing and changing the software used in your company.

Chances are, you're currently using a bunch of software that you're not really wild about. The problem is that despite being horribly annoying, the software performs some sort of essential function and so you can't give it up.

When evaluating software, nothing can replace a thorough test drive, but there are a few red flags you can look for to decide if an option is even worth testing. In my opinion, the biggest indicator of quality is the pricing structure.

Tumblr is an online tool that lets you easily create and publish your own blog. While other blogging platforms tout their extensive feature sets, Tumblr puts an emphasis on sparse design.

We're big proponents of web applications around here, but there's no question that Microsoft Office is still the dominant force for documents, spreadsheets, and the like.

Clicky is a complete web analytics tool that lets you see just about everything you could ever want about your website traffic.

We've had a few posts recently about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in driving traffic to your site through Google search.

So you know what search engine optimization (SEO) is, how blogging can help with SEO, and that long tail keywords can bring people to your site. But if you want to take advantage of the long tail, how can you know what the "right" keywords are?

We've spent a couple posts (and will have plenty more in the future) talking about the benefits of web-based software. There are still some things, however, that web applications don't do as well as their desktop counterparts.

Before reading this post, I want you to stop and think about the last time you tried out new software. What was your first impression like? What kinds of things did you enjoy?

I've spent a lot of time discussing how you can use SEO to improve your website, but how are you supposed to know what areas need the most improvement?

If you run a business that has a website, you've probably heard the term "SEO". SEO stands for "Search engine optimization" and refers to the art/science of making your website more attractive to search engines like Google.

I really like professional football, and I'm from St. Louis. Unfortunately, these two facts combine to mean that I'm a big fan of the worst team in the NFL: the St. Louis Rams.

One of the main technological challenges that most small businesses face is that they can't afford the huge upfront cost of big-business software.

This post is going to cover the most basic aspect of your company's online identity: your domain name.

As you probably know, Google released a new social networking feature called Google Buzz. Just like any Google product, some people love it and some people hate it.

In my last post, I talked about how everything can be improved. I didn't make this distinction at the time, but I implied that I was talking about improving existing features as opposed to creating new ones.

As you may have heard, Apple is expected to announce a new tablet tomorrow (January 27th).

It recently became clear that I spent the past 20 hours of work designing screens that we won't actually use, and I couldn't be happier.

Regardless of what a company does, every business needs to be good at at least one thing: accepting money.

Now that we actually have a product, Bracken and I are trying to figure out ways to bring people to our site.

I wanted to get away a bit from discussion of using technology and focus more on how some of those ideas impact the way we are approaching the design of Less Annoying Software. So here goes.