Traffic in the Inland Empire can be at times horrible. With one lane shutdown, drivers seemed to forget how to drive and then that’s when the trouble begins. With the influx of new housing and people moving away from LA and Orange County, the roads and highways are only going to get more congested and dangerous.

There definitely needs to be something done, because at certain times the freeways and local streets are just a parking lot with angry drivers, and disgruntled drivers in the Inland Empire are a scary bunch of people. You don’t know if you are going to get shot, or ran off the road, or followed all the way to your destination and get stabbed. The sad thing is that when they finally do approve of a project to try to ease congestion, they’re usually 10 years behind. They then have to create another project to fix the project that they are currently working on. It’s so sad over the Inland Empire.

I don’t know if something like this exist, but there needs to be a message board of some sorts that the commuters can talk online with the people who are in charge of these type things. The commuters are the ones who actually drive the roads and know where the trouble spots are. They can tell city planning or whoever is at the top, and tell them some valuable information they can use to help them plan for their next fiasco. I believe this Inland Empire web design company can develop a site like what was mentioned above.

Are simply frustrated in reading meaningless articles and junk on the Internet and having to go through hundreds of pages of Internet Listings to get to the information you are looking for? Do you sometimes wonder what good is the Internet if it is completely filled with junk? Well you are certainly not alone. A recent survey of Internet Surfers showed that over 60% were dissatisfied with the search results coming back when surfing. They listed most all the Major Search engines and really none were deemed better than satisfactory.

This is an upsetting, as the Internet was the bright star of the future. A better communication system that was to hold all the world’s information of the human endeavor, something we can all be proud of and indeed all is not lost yet. Remembering that those companies which operate “search engines” are in fact commercial businesses that are in business to make money; it should not be surprising that some of the search results you get are paid ads and some are websites disguising information as sales ads or infomercials. We see the same thing on our TVs, as the average between commercials is now less than 7 minutes. Time it yourself sometime.

There are ways to get the search engines to bring you your desired results and if you will go to the advanced search and spend a half a day reading and practicing with it all you will save yourself days if not weeks of future searching time over the next few years. We spend hours in traffic on our freeways, highways and toll-ways, which take our time. If there was a shorter route home from work, which would save you time and fuel, well wouldn’t you take it? Think on this.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Everyone doing business with the public today should have a website, and that goes double for non-profits. Like commercial businesses, non-profit organizations rely on public interest and their ability to meet the public’s needs in order to survive.

If you’re creating a web presence for your organization, or revamping an existing one, consider using a blogging platform as the foundation for your site. A blog platform is essentially a user-friendly content management system that allows you to create anything a regular static site has, but is far simpler, easier and cheaper than just about any other system.

Here are a few more reasons you should be thinking “blog” when considering your web options:

Blogs Are Sticky

One of the primary metrics of effectiveness of a website is what is referred to as “stickiness” - a sticky site is one that attracts constant traffic and holds onto that traffic once it arrives. Good design and intuitive navigation are helpful, but real stickiness requires compelling, targeted content.

Marketing studies show that it often takes 5-7 exposures to any marketing message before someone says yes and buys your product or service - and fundraising, event announcements and requests for volunteers are just as much marketing messages as commercial sales copy is. But if all you have to offer is a static site with infrequently updated information, what incentive does your wandering visitor have to come back to be exposed to your message enough times to get them to act?

None, that’s what.

However, by its very nature, a well-maintained blog continually updated with valuable content invites people to return regularly to keep up to date. It engenders a sense of community between the host and the extended readership while creating the sort of emotional buy-in that increases responses to any calls-to-action that may arise. And features like RSS subscription and email notification let your readers know when new information is available without leaving their desktops, motivating them return to read more.

Search Engines Love Content - Especially When It Changes

Since blogs contain far more, and more frequently updated, content than static sites, and are therefore more frequently scanned by search engines, having a content-rich and frequently updated blog translates into far better search engine ratings and greater site visibility than a static site. And a blog’s ease of editing allows for keyword changes to be implemented at a moment’s notice across the entire site, further boosting the chance of your site coming up in a relevant search.

Another advantage blogs have over static sites is that not only can you link to other related sites of interest, but other sites are much more likely to link to you, assuming you provide valuable and interesting content for them to link to. Link-backs from well-placed, relevant sites are search engine gold. Simply put, the more interesting your blog is, the more it will be linked to and the more it is linked to, the better your chances of making it to the top of a search results page.

It’s So Simple, Your Child Could Do It (And Probably Already Is)

In the realm of non-profit organizations, few except the most successful can afford a full-time IT specialist with the sort of training it takes to design, build and maintain a regular static site. With its familiar input interface and ease of use, a blog is the ideal web platform when creation and ongoing maintenance of the site will likely be attended to by a string of motivated, but untrained, volunteers or staff members.

With a blog-based site, much of the work is done for you by the platform itself. If need be, the initial set-up and design can be done by a professional, but many platforms are so easy to set up that even the terminally clueless can do it. And even if you do opt for a professional set-up, once that infrastructure is in place, updating the site couldn’t be easier and is well within the abilities of a basic computer user. More advanced tasks may require more specialized skills. But even these are easier to do on a blog than on a standard static site, and help is often available on the web.

As you can see, a blog platform is a great way to attract visitors to your site, engage them at an emotional level and keep them coming back for more. And to top it all off, blog platforms are easy to use and very cheap, sometimes even free - and that’s always good news to who’d rather be spending their time and money doing good than running the shop.

Soni Pitts is a professional freelance writer and copyeditor. In addition to her freelance work, she collaborates with other writers on such projects as Wordbrains and the upcoming Web Content Awareness Day event. Need copy? Email Soni at writer [at] sonipitts.com for more information.