Howell Software Development Professional Computer Programming

Here we will post questions people ask about having a web page created, or a computer program created. Also questions about how to deal with everyday computer issues.

Question: What exactly can you do for my business?

Answer: We can provide you with a professional website that is not filled with un-necessary background code that is basically supporting dozens of different companies that provide cut and paste web pages that literally turn search engines away from promoting your site. Once upon a time, (three or four years ago) search engines looked for Meta-Tags or Key Words hidden in web sites. But, some programmers took advantage of their functionality to mis-direct and lead people to their sites even though they had nothing they were looking for, therefore, the search engine companies got smarter about what they do, and now, Meta-Tags and Key Words are useless. We at Howell Software Development do not use Programs that build web pages for us, We write programming code, the least amount of code needed to promote your business, and provide your potential customers a way to validate who you are and what you do. You can look at the code for any web page by right clicking and looking for View Code or Inspect Element, in some browsers it will actually tell you the number of errors on the page. If you have a web site, check how many errors are preventing you from being listed in search engines. Many of them downgrade a site if there are errors on the page. Browsers ignore errors, but search engines do not. There are many other reasons you may not be coming up in search engines for your type of business. We can help. We can show you the tools and how to use them, or we can manage those tools for you. We at Howell Software Development are not just about web sites, we also write software for desktops, provide technical support for computer systems, software programs and networking issues.

Question: What is a search engine, and why should I care?

Answer: A search engine is a networking program that searches all possible sources for the term you enter in the search-box. But, if that is all they did, you would never really find what you are looking for, so those programs also look at how many people have searched for that term before, and based on their clicking on a particular item, serve up the most commonly clicked site first and list all the others behind that, right behind all the advertisers that pay to have their sites served up first. Smart search engines keep track of much more than that, location, age of the user if known, past searches by a particular user, and so on. For people to find your website easily, you need to be found by the search engines, for the area you work. It does no good to provide a site people will not click on, or sites for businesses that are hundreds of miles away, when your customer just wants the company around the corner. Many search engines change their algorithms often, requiring people to reprogram their sites in order to be considered relevant to the search engine. We do that, without hiring it out to other companies.

Question: Why would I want a custom application or program for my company.

Answer: Often there are many pre-built applications that do what you want to do in your company, but, they also do what the baker does, and the AC tech, and the Construction Company, they are so all encompassing that they become hard to manage, they do everything that many different companies do, including what you want, but to use it you have to take classes on features you will never use and when you get new employees, you have to train them yourself, or send them to similar classes. With custom software we can build you an application that works exactly the way you want to work it. With layouts that you understand, because you help design the interface. If you want to match a particular form, we can make it for you. Need special business rules built in to prevent fraud, theft and other shenanigans? We can add that as well.

Question: Who did your animation?

Answer: We did the animations for all the web sites we do. If you need an animation made for your site we can do that for you as well. We can add movies, songs, photos, etc.