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I write a blog on a whole bunch of stuff to do with SEO and website design and my latest post is a list of 25 website tools that I use loads in my day to day work. I hope you find some of them useful. http://www.massmediadesign.co.uk/blog/arch...nd-reading.aspx Cheers, Gregor

Hi Eggman, I'm interested in doing a guest spot on your blog. I write in my own blog about internet marketing and search engine optimisation: http://www.massmediadesign.co.uk/blog Take a look and let me know if it's something you'd be interested in. Cheers, Gregor

Best thing to do would be to try to get some newspapers, football club websites, fan websites all to link to it. I wouldn't worry about SEO for this sort of thing - what you want is some goos solid PR and marketing. Good luck!

Ah, well. Learn something new every day! Cheers, Gregor

That's interesting. Never? Would you mind explaing a bit more about why you shouldn't? I've never paid for a listing but I've never discarded the idea either - would be good to have a bit more insight. Cheers, Gregir

Hi Mike, I really wouldn't know how to answer that! It'll depend on the type of job you want to do - a simple graduate job for a large IT provider wouldn't require much .Net knowledge at since you'll learn on the job but I suspect that's not what you want. I guess I'd just work hard, keep up to date on programming forums, work through the tutorials and perhaps some of the online exams that MS have, then look at some of the newer developments in .NET which might give you an advantage on the more established techies. No harm in applying for jobs - it's excruciating if you go for a techie interview and don't know the answers but you'll know pretty clearly if you're up to scratch or not! All the best, Gregor

True, but you have to explain to them why W3C standards are good for them. Explain that Google doesn't look fondly on non W3C sites (might be true - nobody knows!). Explain that it'll be broken in some browsers and ruin their reputation. Dazzle them with your knowledge of the web and your concern for their business. You're the expert and they need you to guide them. You have to earn their trust and then earn their money! Like Rob said, if they don't listen then they deserve to be done over. But equally, they need to know what they get for their extra cash.

It's a difficult situation because clients may well be happy with what they get for their £500 but not actually realise that it's not bringing any benefit to their business and may even be damaging it. They don't realise that having a website unlocks a massive amount of potential that a £500 website just isn't realising. But we have to take much of the responsibility - we should be working with our clients to understand what they want and then explain what they're going to get from us and why it's going to solve their problem. We need to be able to justify a fee and explain that we're more expensive but you'll get something that works for you and will benefit your business. <blatant plug> Funnily enough, I wrote a blog topic on this just yesterday. http://blog.massmediadesign.co.uk/archive/...y---part-2.aspx Gregor

I probably shouldn't say this but just go for the C# jobs - if you get the interview then you can spend a day beforehand playing with C# to learn enough to get you through the interview should they pull something on you! Once you get the job then after a day or two then you'll be perfectly comfortable with it. The only problem is that if you're working with C# all day then you'll forget how to use VB.net!

Hi Mike, I can't help on the book unfortunately but I do both VB.net and C# (mainly the latter), having started on VB.net. You're mostly right about it only being the syntax. There are a few things - case is very important in c#, not so much in VB and there are a few things that you use in VB.net that you either can't do with C# or are more convoluted. But generally, moving from VB.net to C# is pretty easy and there is generally more demand for C# so I'd go for it! Good luck! Gregor