One of the biggest issues we’ve had is properly dealing with the simple trio of search engine optimization: titles, descriptions and keywords. There are some really good tools out there, but all of them have issues or just aren’t kept up anymore.

Lately it’s become more and more evident that we needed something custom. We were willing to pay for it, but none of the authors of those existing tools would get back to us. So, this past week we took it into our own hands. We created the TGFI.net SEO Plugin for Wordpress.

Right out of the gate it does title, description and keyword overrides for greater control over search engine readability. We plan on adding more features, such as navigation control, in the future, so stay tuned!

Local bloggers from across Indiana will gather at the IUPUI Campus Center on August 16-17th, 2008, for Blog Indiana 2008, a 2-day blogging and social media conference that aims to promote education, innovation and collaboration among Indiana’s fast-growing blogging community. The conference is sponsored by the IU School of Informatics.

Blog Indiana 2008 is a 2-day conference for both experienced and new bloggers alike. Sessions will include topics such as blogging for beginners, using blogs in your business, monetizing your blog, political blogging and more advanced topics. In the past, most blogging and technology-related conferences have either been too expensive or too far out-of-state. Blog Indiana 2008 seeks to bring a low-cost, high-value conference to Hoosier bloggers.

Check it out today! – http://conference.blogindiana.com/

His skill sets include information architecture, usability, layout and design, and web development. Technically speaking thats conversing with people, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, Photoshop, PHP and MySQL. He’s also great at explaining how Internet Explorer has broken the box model. Ask him about that last one — he’ll go on for hours.

Soon enough we’ll have him on Ruby and .Net projects as well. Good thing he has a minor in Computer Science to back it up.

Interesting Note: Between IU and IUPUI that’s 3 employees we’ve hired now from the Informatics program. 

We’re looking for a smart, experienced web developer to help our clients kick ass from day one. Our immediate needs require solid PHP, and in general, LAMP skills. You’ll be talking with clients directly, so you must be able to explain technical things in English.After these first few projects you’ll be branching out a bit more. This is where your experience with some of the following comes in handy:

• Implement designs using XHTML, CSS and JavaScript by hand.
• Create and update databases in SQL Server, MySQL & Oracle.
• Develop sites using the best tools for the project including ASP, VB, VB.NET, C#, CFML, PHP, Ruby & Java.
• Source code repositories – SVN, Git, Vault, VSS.
• Half of us are on Macs, half are on PCs. You’ll want to be comfortable on both.

It’s a bonus if you have web design, IA and/or unix admin experience.If you like a challenging job where you are constantly having fun while learning, this is definitely for you. Please send a resume, samples of your work, preferred salary ranges, and other info to Greg Benedict (jobs [at] tgfi.net).

In just the first few days he’s been providing some much needed help for our clients in the Flash realm and will soon be working on front end design and layout for a stealth rails project we are working on. Things are just starting to heat up!

We also want to welcome Justin Ayer. Justin will be interning with us this fall doing a variety of development tasks. Josh and I both got huge starts to our career through internships and we’re doing what we can to help others in similar ways.

Next up we’re looking at some additional network support help and another developer if the upward trend continues. If you have the skills we talk about on the site and love to talk to people, drop us a note.

Things have changed quite a bit since then and we feel the Stutz is now the space for us. It’s full of small companies who are similarly passionate about what they do. After the first full week in the new office, we’ve met a lot of great people we think can be valuable to both our clients and ourselves. This includes technologies like text mesaging, video production, audio production, print design, flash, photography and more.

I can’t even begin to explain how inspiring it is to walk the halls and view the work of numerous artists. If you get the chance, stop by and see us, and we’ll show you around. Did I mention there is a full restaurant and bar with free WIFI? Ouch!

212 W. 10th Street
Studio C460
Indianapolis, IN 46202
(map with directions)

We’d also like to extend a belated thank you to everyone who applied for the job.

TGFI has been a bit different in that respect. I was so head down in getting work done for customers and running the company, that I didn’t have time to reflect on it. Now that we’ve grown a bit, I can finally step back and breathe.

Indianapolis has been a great place to work, and I’ve done so with some incredibly talented people. As a collective, I’ve just never felt we’ve been able to break out and let the rest of the world know about it. Fortunately that seems to be changing as of late.

We’ve picked up some new projects with out of state funding, along with a few national campaigns for locally based companies. As an example, we just very quickly helped launch one for AuthorHouse at http://www.authorsacrossamerica.com/. There’s more coming, but you’ll just have to wait until they are ready!

As we talk around with our friends, this seems to be a trend for others as well that could help put Indy on the map. ExactTarget is probably the most well known web company here in town, but there are several others that are trying to help out. We used to share space with the guys who are working on the new search engine ChaCha. Two of my former co-workers, Chris Baggott (ExactTarget co-founder) and Ali Sales (ExactTarget, ChaCha) just announced that they are starting a new company, Compendium Software, to fix the broken gap with corporate blogging software.

Could this be a sign of changing times for Indy? I hope so. Now if only we can get the local VC’s to help out…