Microsoft's Azure Services Platform, Exciting Stuff!

So you THINK your new web app idea might be the next big thing... But you don't really want to spend $$$ on a large IT infrastructure, no problem! The many pay-as-you-go cloud computing platforms sprouting up have a deal for you. Amazon Web Services was one of the first and probably the largest right now, but Microsoft is investing MAJOR MONEY in their Azure Services Platform.

Being a developer of Microsoft-based systems built with SQL Server and ASP .Net, this upcoming offering from Microsoft is SUPER EXCITING! I recently attended four consecutive sessions of Azure-related presentations at the SoCal Code Camp held at CSU Fullerton on Saturday, January 24th. The topics covered everything from the Azure application model, data storage, integrated security, and a final overview that brought several Azure aspects together for a Social Networking application that is completely built for the Azure Cloud Computing scenario. The application used Windows Live ID services for login/authentication and Windows Azure for application hosting and dynamic data storage.

The idea is that you can start off small and pay almost nothing; and then as your application gains popularity the IT infrastructure that your application uses will grow and expand automatically according to how much it's being used. Your business will benefit from this success without having to worry about adding load-balanced web/database servers and other IT resources and you just pay for what you use, which in theory will be fine since the success is already there!

There's also a slew of related services, many within the long-running Live Services Platform, that can help your business use and share data more efficiently. The future is bright and Azure cloud computing technology could be as big of a game changer as the .Net Framework has been.


More Info: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/services.mspx

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!

Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce Member Discount

Although discounts have been given to previous Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce projects, DezTech is now offering an official 10% Off Discount* through the Chamber's member-to-member services discount program. The discount will appear in the March issue of the Chamber's newsletter, but is active immediately as of NOW (1/27/2009 at 11:21:32 am).

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!

* This discount is only for Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce MEMBERS and is not available in conjunction with any other offers and negates our 5% referral discount. Discount is for new clients on their initial project.

DezTech Launches New Client Referral Fee Program!

On Monday, January 26th, 2009 DezTech launched a new client referral fee program. If you refer a new client to DezTech Consulting LLC for any of our website design or custom application development services*, you'll receive a 5% referral fee of the initial project total.

Projects have historically ranged between ~$2,000 and ~$50,000, so corresponding referral bonuses would be between $100 and $2,500. There's no referral bonus limit!

DezTech Consulting LLC is an experienced web-based solutions consulting company with over 10 years of experience designing and developing functional websites and other web-based custom applications. Visit our deztech.com website for more information and to view our online portfolio, or contact Aaron Soto for details.

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!

* Eligible projects include: new website design, existing website redesign, new custom application development, existing custom application upgrades, database development projects, intranets, and extranets. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) projects are not eligible.

Reflections on What Inauguration Day Means to DezTech

MLK Day on Monday, followed by the inauguration of our nation's first African-American president on Tuesday, made for what must have been the most moving and inspiring Monday / Tuesday combination of my lifetime. Especially because Obama has instilled so much hope and vision into the American people. I heard an especially interesting comment that even people that did NOT vote for him in 2008 and that will NOT vote for him in 2012 are still feeling some sense of positivity brought by this momentous occasion and new beginning.

Evidence of this new beginning, in terms of business and "DezTech", came yesterday at our bi-monthly Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce Lunch Mixer. We had an OVERWHELMING turnout! I thought the first lunch of 2009 would be large with business owners looking to start 2009 with a bang, but yesterday's second lunch of the year was something else! Cindy Van Der Wyk of wemakeflags.com had brought small American flags for everyone and placed them on the tables. I quickly used the name tag sticker on my chest to help me wear my flag with pride. I then noticed many other people were doing the same and shortly we had everyone walking around with little US flags displayed on our chests. There's just something about this new guy that we like and seems to inspire us to do more and be better...

Obama called on us to WORK as a nation to pull ourselves out of the mess we helped create and I'd like to work hard this year to do my part! I hope to remember the last two days vividly and have them guide me throughout 2009 as I WORK for myself, my clients, and our country!

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!

New Bella Body & Mind Website Launched!

DezTech is pleased to announce the launch of Bella Body & Mind's new BellaBodyAndMind.com website! The website features a custom-designed layout as well as matching business cards. In addition, we helped the client set up a Google Blogger Blog that the owner can use to post articles on general fitness, personal training, diet planning, and life coaching.

We also used a variety of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that immediately got the site on Google's second page of search engine results for the list of keyword phrases that we chose to target. We expect to move up to first page of search results within one month after launching!

Please visit our portfolio page for the Bella Body & Mind website for more information:
http://www.deztech.com/portfolio/bella-body-and-mind.aspx

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!
http://www.deztech.com

A Quick Search Engine Optimization Review...

Happy New Year everyone! I was recently researching some SEO basics and thought I would summarize them here for everyone's enjoyment! Well, let's jump in...

1. Your page's TITLE tag is the most important single thing. Write your title containing the keywords you want to target for the given page and keep the total length to around 60-70 characters.
   
   
2. The next most important thing are your HEADER tags (ie: H1, H2, etc). You should have only ONE H1 tag and it should generally match your TITLE tag or at the very least nearly match it such that it contains similar keywords. You can use H2 tags for secondary headers, and H3 tags as well, but the value diminishes quickly beyond the main H1 tag.
   
   
3. Use your keywords in the text copy of your webpage. This sounds simple, but it can be a bit more complicated than you think. It's VERY IMPORTANT that you frequently use your keywords within your content, especially towards the beginning. It's also important to repeat the keywords once at the end and if the page is long add another reference in the middle somewhere.
   
   
4. Text enhancements like BOLD and ITALIC should be used sparingly to highlight a keyword term where appropriate and they can help boost its ranking a bit.
   
   
5. META Tags aren't as critical as they used to be and only the DESCRIPTION meta tag is really used anymore. This META Description is often used in the search engine results and should contain the keywords used in your TITLE and H1 tags.
   
   
6. Use TEXT LINKS within your website to link from page to page. Using fancy graphical links is detrimental to your search engine rankings as search engine spiders index text links better. So consider using other CSS styling for your main navigation so that you can leave it as text links.
   
   
7. Here's the hardest part, but one of the most important tips... You need relevant links to your website from other related websites, especially if they're "high authority" websites. For example, if I ran a news site, getting a link to my site or news articles from a site like CNN.com would be HUGE!
   
   
8. Add and update your website regularly. The search engines like to see sites that are keeping their content fresh and adding to the site. Consider adding new pages on a regular basis or perhaps integrate some dynamic content to help keep your site updated automatically.

There's certainly a lot more to overall SEO and performing these tips on your website can require a lot of planning to do well, but the end result can be well worth it. We've recently achieved several first-page placements on Google for a couple clients just by following some of these basic tips! So make sure you're at least covering the basics or call us to see how we can help you out...

Sincerely,
-Aaron

Aaron M. Soto
Partner / Consultant
DezTech Consulting LLC, since 1998
Move Your Business FORWARD!
http://www.deztech.com