Wow! Back in the office after 3 days at CeBIT in Sydney! The first day spent on the floor surveying the offerings (and the competition). Then attending the Web Forward sessions which was keynoted by Google, who were never too far from peoples minds.

It's easy to get complacent while listening to the large organisations that shared some of their secrets. Our focus, however, is on how small to medium-sized businesses can take advantage of this technology. The main themes: mobile presence, SEO-ing sites and usability.

Especially for retailers, the location-aware capabilities of the iPhone and other mobiles are being utilised to attract customers already away from home. This often takes the form of special pages for mobile, and participating in directories where for mobile, google is not the only viable engine.

Being friends with Google, and hopefully great friends, means that all our sites are "crawled" by "spiders" from time to time. The spiders can be assisted in their work by using a number of techniques including making sure that when a page is prefixed with 'www', that same page without 'www', or however else that page can be reached, is 301 redirected so that Google counts the page just once.

Also that keywords, especially in the title, are ordered most subject specific first. Finally that javascript and css are in their own files and each product has its own page.

The bar has been raised so far on the usability front that Design, Look and Feel were suggested as job one when building a site. While Ajax and Flash need to be used with care from an SEO perspective, the subtle movements of on screen components entices and rewards users as they continue their interactions.

Click here to check out Haig Kayserian's video review!