Light up your life

I have made some money through internet activities over the last month and bought myself some 'toys' to aid me in computer related tasks. First I bought a flat-screen from e-bay, then a hard-drive and a DVD writer. I still have some cash left, so I have been planning to re-arrange my home office completely and nothing creates a good working ambience better than good task-lighting. I found a great website with loads of different light fixtures for every type of situation. My favourite one is the one I have shown below, this is both elegant and functional and will suit the style of my new office.
The same website even has a section for chandeliers and kitchen light fixtures in fact every type of lighting requirement that you might have around the home (or even in the garden) is covered on the Farrey.com website. Navigation is made easy as you can search by 'style', 'brand', 'finish', 'price', and with the amount of products they have, you really do need a good search function. Online shopping with this site means you can take delivery of products that are in stock in just one or two days (within the US).

With home offices becoming more part of every day culture, why not bring a bit of class and functionality into your office with some really nice fixtures and fittings helping to set the tone for your working environment.

SEO - pages to add to your site

I have written before about the importance of having a site-map, whether that be in HTML form,XML or ROR - a site-map helps search bots to effectively index your site. There are two other sections that you also might consider adding to your site:
A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and a Glossary of Terms. Initially you might see why this helps your visitors, but how does it contribute to SEO?
I have a FAQ section on my cassette2cd website (you can see it here... at the time of writing, this needs a LOT of work..) but I never thought about how it could be optimised. The trick is to phrase the questions to match search terms, so that it's possible for your FAQ section to pick up search traffic that your main site might miss.
I have added some explanation of terms to my site, but have not yet gone along the complete 'Glossary' route.. However I should because again having all these terms that are relevant to my website all in one place, will help the site to appear in search results. Not only that, but by linking from the main site to the glossary and then back again (include a BACK button on the glossary page - or make it pop-up) helps to give authority to your main site too.
If you need some ideas for your FAQ section, just look at any correspondence that you have received from your visitors and use the questions that you really have been asked..

Aim Promote CRM

What exactly is CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is an integral part of the modern business model. In days gone by, a business would have filing cabinets full of customer files and the information held there would not normally be used to it’s full potential. What CRM does is to use that information to forge marketing strategies and maximise the data that you already have.
A good CRM program firstly gathers data effectively, and then uses the data it has available in a way that is both useful to you as a supplier, and appropriate specifically to your clients. Where Aim Promote differs is that it offers a vast array of features, but the system is configurable, so the right employees have access to the right information specific to their tasks. This simplifies the system for that individual employee whilst retaining the full array of features intact. This means that your sales people have access to sales-related data and your marketing people have a different set-up allowing them deeper analysis into sales trends etc.

The full system functionality remains intact for the Business manager, Operations manager or other key personnel to be able to interrogate the system and form strategies, which will be, implemented company-wide based on all the relevant data to hand.
Experience tells us that a vast proportion of the employees time can be taken up with trying to manage the system itself, Aim promote has been developed to do a lot of that work, leaving the workers free to do their job

Some of the features that I could use to aid my growing internet empire(?) would include the ‘alerts & reminders’ feature. I find time-management to be the biggest problem especially where I am handling multiple tasks, a system of alerts allowing me to put-off less important tasks while still retaining them as ‘to-do’ items would definitely be on my wish-list.
Of course every budding internet entrepreneur is going to be tracking his or her web statistics on a daily basis. Free statistics services are all very well, but basically you have to accept what is on offer and sometimes you have to get through several layers to find the data you need. Aim promote has web statistics integrated offering you exactly the data you want configured exactly as you want it.
The final feature which is paramount for me, is the online support – you don’t want to be left floundering with super-powerful software without someone to guide you through it. Good support allows you to optimise the package to ensure you are really getting the most out of it.

Whatever you see written about CRM software, you won’t be able to appreciate the impact unless you actually try it, the good news is that Aim Promote are offering a 14-day free trial of their CRM package for you to really get to grips with what it can do for your organisation.

Another tool from WeBuildPages.com

The WebuildPages site is a great resource for bloggers and webmasters alike. Todays 'top tool' is the link back checker which assesses the link popularity for any URL and splits the result into the different search engines. For example, here is the result for this blog

Domain	livewyre.blogspot.com
Search Engines
Yahoo!	1,157 (check)
Yahoo! linkdomain	1,420 (check)
Google	38 (check)
AltaVista	605 (check)

Total	3,220

Why not check out some of the cool SEO tools at this site, each of their little applications tells you something you probably didn't know about your site...and they don't even pay me to plug them!

Tracking systems for the modern business

For anyone working in a modern working environment, there can be no doubt that work-related technology has been advancing in leaps and bounds at a phenomenal rate over the last few years. Think back to when Windows software was new in 1990, and contrast that image with your current workspace and home technology that you use on a daily basis. It is now perfectly possible, and indeed, normal to access the internet on the move either via a laptop, PDA or mobile phone. The kind of tasks that can be carried out via web servers, GPS, GPRS and SMS technologies make a reality of what was previously limited to ‘futuristic’ films and TV programs.
In the last few weeks, we have been testing mobile phone tracking at my workplace and are considering vehicle tracking for two reasons. Firstly, it is undeniable that this technology will aid the bosses to clamp down on shirking and possible fraudulent overtime claims. Secondly, there are the issues of efficiency where a worker may be able to be easily re-routed if his route and progress can be tracked. Coming a very poor third, but nonetheless valid, are the health and safety concerns of lone working. We often work on unmanned sites sometimes in precarious situations, a static signal over a number of hours might be enough to raise concerns about a lone workers safety and enable someone to mobilise possibly vital assistance.

The technology we looked into is simple enough, but today I came across a system which blows the system we’ve been looking at, totally out of the water… The company offering this service across the USA is GP Insight, and their GPS tracking system is seriously impressive. The tracking device fits directly into the vehicle diagnostics system and reports all the data you could possibly require. The package reminds me a little of the type of system that a motor-sport team would use to regulate a racing car. The system can report the position of the vehicle, the speed, the fuel consumption, a list of all the stops and starts the vehicle made, how long a vehicle spent at a specific location. Not only this, but early warnings of engine problems can be generated, vehicle maintenance can be easily overseen and you can even link up with a breakdown service as part of the package.

This system is ideal for every aspect of fleet management and can provide live tracking of the entire fleet on one overview map. There is an excellent on-line support website with an extensive list of FAQ’s and resources. Further support is provided by the blog, which is a really innovative way of informing clients about the latest software developments and how to get the best out of the system.
You may be thinking that systems like this are only within the reaches of global corporations like UPS (actually I wish couriers DID use such a great system…), but the price of the package breaks down to between $1.50 and $2.00 per day per vehicle. This type of stuff, once a fantasy, is not only available but affordable too.

Statistics the key to growth

Having the right information, and being able to interpret it is the key to growing your business at any level. I am aware that traffic on five websites I manage has been growing steadily over the last month or so, and I get those statistics from Google Analytics for free. I also use Technorati to assess how much link love I am getting from other blogs.
Without these free services, I would be pretty much flying blind when it comes to assessing the impact of changes I am making on my websites.
If you register a blog with Technorati, they can tell you when people have provided a link to your blog on their blog, this blog has almost 300 unique links registered with Technorati, my other blog has nearer 500.
Google Analytics can tell you how many visitors found your blog or website, what search terms they used, and where in the world they came from. If you haven't yet got either of these up and running, now is a good time to start...

Berlin and Vienna Hotels

I was taught German at school and have had the chance to visit Germany on a number of occasions, although it has been a long time since I last visited. In fact it was long before the Berlin Wall came down, so I have never been able to visit Berlin though I would love to go.
I believe that the building and Hotels in Berlin are well worth a visit, The Brandenburg Gate would be a thrilling sight, symbolising as it does, where the Berlin Wall used to be. Berlin has much to offer in terms of restaurants, art galleries and nightlife. There are hundreds of clubs and thousands of bars in Berlin, giving the city a joint reputation both as a historical landmark and a vibrant nightspot.Recently restored as the capital city in the new unified Germany, Berlin has plenty to keep visitors from all interest groups busy. Try the restaurants and hotels in Berlin to discover the hospitality of the new Germany.

I was eight when I visited Austria, it was the first place I ever visited outside of my own country, and it still retains a fascination for me as being both familiar yet at the same time exotic (at least exotic for an eight year old…)
Staying at Hotels in Vienna offers you culture rarely paralleled anywhere in the world. From the Vienna State Opera to the Vienna Philharmonic or the world famous Boys’ Choir. Vienna is a place for musical pilgrimage that has, in it’s past attracted the likes of Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn.Immerse yourself in the sophistication of Vienna’s coffee-house culture and marvel at the architecture, no visit is complete without a visit to the stunning former Imperial summer house Schloss Schönbrunn.
Hotels in Vienna range from the full five star treatment to the smaller family-run establishments holding a charm all of thier own.

Post and Learn

It struck me today, that whilst researching for subjects to post about (even paid posts) that a good blogger is learning all the time. Passive learning is a direct symptom of creating blog posts, you have to learn something new in order to write something new. You have to learn in order to keep a blog content fresh. The circle is then repeated if visitors to your blog learn something new too. Knowledge is the currency is of the blogger, in 'spending' the knowledge, it is passed on to someone else (assuming anyone is reading!!!).
There is an effect in economics called 'the multiplier' and it examines how spending creates wealth for others, and the quicker you spend, the quicker the economy grows... I won't go into the mind-staggering details, but suffice to say that the same can apply to knowledge. Accelerating knowledge around the world in the way that the internet can, enables the 'economy' of knowledge to grow more quickly.

Traffic or pagerank revisited

Since writing about this a few days ago, there have been some developments in the paid blogging world. Namely that Google have pursued paid post participants and dropped their pagerank.
This will end the pursuit of paid posts on high PR sites if Google are successful in punishing every PayPerPost participant.

However PPP have introduced their own rank called ReakRank which is based mainly on traffic - this turns on it's head my theory that PR was more important than traffic, that or PPP have had to change strategy.

My PR was 4 on the blog where I do PPP posts, my new PR has been dropped to zero, and my Real Rank is 2 - presumably this may limit paid posts with PPP as if I had PR2?

Either way, there seems to still be paid posts available, and this will hit PPP, blogsvertise, smorty and all the service providers harder than it will hit me... I expect some new strategies which will keep paid posts alive in the future and prevent Google from crashing the market.

Online Shopping with Mpire

On line shopping is taking over from high street shopping, and the post-Christmas statistics will no doubt show that more and more people are buying online. So how do you know where to look? Many people will prefer to use Ebay (me included) others may prefer Amazon or some other service, there’s no shortage of on-line stores after all…

One website that can locate the best deals from ALL of these on line resources as one search result is Mpire.com.
I thought I would test out the ability of the search engine to deliver results for something very specific, so I entered the term ‘rubber elephants’. To my surpise, I had quite a lot of relevant results including a load of 1 inch rubber elephants for sale on Amazon, 107 entries for rubber elephants for sale on Ebay, but sadly no rubber elephants on Craigslist in New York…

Searches are not restricted to domestic items, but are just as applicable to industrial and commercial work. At work today a colleague was looking for a ‘Genie’ lifting device so I tried out Mpire and got a list of new equipment available from 'Amazon', 'Net shops' and 'Northern Tool and Equipment' websites, and 30 results from Ebay.

The search window even anticipates your search term and offers a list of possible matched items. There is even data on price trending for the item you have searched on. I have to admit that this is an excellent service, if you are already using Amazon or Ebay, why not try using a service that can get results from both sites at the same time….

Traffic follows your activity

Building traffic to your blog is hard if you are busy actually working on your blog or other projects. The good news is that you don't have to work that hard on traffic-building if you are keeping your content fresh.
I have been posting very actively this month on three blogs and can confirm that even if you don't devote any time to driving traffic to your site through tried and tested methods, the traffic should naturally follow your activity. All of my websites are experiencing definite upward traffic trends during this period of increased activity without me having to actively seek it.
This is good news for one-man-band operations where the same person is responsible for writing content, and publicising the site and designing the layout etc... Work on the content alone and (as long as your site is being 'spidered' and you have some traffic) the new traffic will naturally follow.
Recently I have been experimenting with writing topical 'news' posts on a specific topic on a new blog, and can report that this is certainly a traffic catcher... I posted some up to the minute news last night and my traffic shot up according to Google Analytics (more than 500%!!). So far, this particular project has not generated any significant income, but the experiment is purely about generating traffic at this point.

Christmas Presents

In the run up to Christmas, there are folks who are easy to buy for, and those for whom it is somewhat harder to find the right present. If you're struggling with presents for little ones (traditionally far easier to buy for!) you could try Shopwiki.com where a whole host of child-related goods from all sorts of shops and suppliers has been assembled for you to browse through.

One toy that my little one has had hours of fun with is along the same lines as the ‘Aqua-doodle’,
I particularly liked the travel version which would be perfect for use while in the car or on holiday. I have even been known to use it myself for illustrating things to my wife, and coming up with designs for graphics!

Of course, the old standby is socks for when you are really struggling, and shopwiki have a staggering array of girls socks and boys socks on offer.

And for the new parents or even grand-parents expecting little visitors over the holiday period, there is the all-important child-safety section with all the stair gates, playpen and safety gates which are so important for protecting your little ones. In our house we have a range of these, we had one at the top of the stairs, one at the bottom, one on the office, and a playpen that doubles as a fireguard for our open fire.

Why not visit one of the links above and browse around for the perfect Christmas gift?

Traffic or pagerank

I have long pondered this... why do advertisers rate your site by pagerank when they are assessing a site for suitability??
Well my conclusion is that advertisers (those who pay for paid posts) are actually planning to increase the likelihood of their own site popping up in search terms. Although I have good rank on the two blogs that I do paid posts for, neither of them receive huge amounts of traffic. So if the advertiser wants a high PR, rather than high traffic and high visibility for the post (though I am sure they object to it!!), then he must be looking to raise search engine visibility for specific anchor text primarily. Not all advertisers request specific anchor text though, so I guess any back-links with relevant text is the aim in those cases.
If you were advertising on a bill-board, you would look at the position of the board. Is it visible to lots of people, is it visible to my target audience? In the case of blogs, the advertiser is concerned with the back-link value rather than the passing trade, or so it seems...

Bad Credit advice

Debt is a worrying feature of today’s economic environment, and I believe all of us should be striving to free ourselves from debt where possible.
Credit card debt is a millstone dragging a great many households into a never-ending debt cycle which can only be beaten through determination and making some economies (sometimes unwelcome) in the way we spend our money.

If you find yourself with a bad credit-rating, there is a new resource which can help by providing resources for getting your own credit score and ‘repairing’ your bad credit record My advice, if you are in a bad credit situation, would be to remember to read all the small-print and add up any charges before signing up for something, your only route to improving your situation is to spend less (however obvious that may seem, sometimes the simplest messages are the ones we ignore!). This resource also offers a range of credit solutions for those with a bed credit rating.

Personally I have cut about $8000 off credit card bills in the last couple of years and plan to lose the rest with free 0% credit cards, but that hasn’t meant that I haven’t had to curb spending, quite the contrary, my spending has been dramatically cut and I hardly ever even take any money or credit cards with me when I go out – plenty of time for that when I am debt free!

For me the lure of being debt-free has enabled me to focus on the future and being prepared to go without today. Even if you think your debt is manageable, keep a record of how quickly your debt is rising (especially over Christmas) and you might be surprised at how easy it is for us to be comfortable with our debt.

Top SEO tools

I found a new website resource for SEO tools at WeBuildPages.com, one of their top ten online tools is the 'Top Competitor' tool. This tool reports on the top rated sites for any given keyword. All you do is enter your chosen keyword, press 'check' and the application will fetch the top ranked websites for that keyword. It is then down to you to visit those sites to see if you can assess what they are doing to get such high ranking, and to see if there are any lessons to be learned.
I searched for make money online, and was surprised to find a blogspot blog at position three, way above John Chow and doshdosh (that will mean something to the blogging community). You should get over there now and bang your keywords in to see what you need to work on....

Real Travel Blog

Out of the RealTravel website, comes the real travel blog where everything from the world of travel and the world of travel blogs can be found. I liked the featured travel blog sections where the editors have chosen to feature the best parts of different travel blogs. I was struck by how well written these articles were, really bringing the far-flung places of the world to life with well chosen words.
There are articles on places as diverse as French Polynesia, Hawaii, New York, New Zealand and Europe, all of them providing hints and tips along with fascinating personal travel experience.

The posts are well tagged with sections for hiking, food and wine, solo travel, family travel etc. This blog really has something to say about every sort of holiday, and appears to have a large amount of contributors all adding to the general knowledge base. Added to this is the ability to comment on each post. A lot of information-based blogs don’t allow you to comment, but this one gives people to opportunity to have their own say, either about the destination in question or about the way the post has been written.

I thought I should try and pick a favourite entry so I went for the Killamanjaro story, if only for the delightful photograph of the ‘The Hallgrens’ at the peak. The Hallgrens have travelled round the world and provided other stories and pictures for the blog.

This site even offers you the chance of setting up your own travel blog for free.

Website reviews

One of the better ways in which we learn about how to present a website or blog, is to look at other people's work and lift out the best bits and apply them to our own work. There are not many completely original websites around, everyone borrows ideas from somewhere - the same principles apply to any scenario, but especially to blogs and websites. it is entirely expected that you will see something on one site and then implement something similar on your own. If you do this. it is always a good idea to credit the originator with a link. I intend to carry out some website and blog reviews and post them here.

Italia!

A country I have not visited except when passing through, but certainly aim to visit properly in the future: Italy dripping with romance, fine wine and good food - what more could you desire from a holiday - There is so much on offer in Italy, one hardly knows where to start.

Where better to kick off than in Rome? The Colosseum, the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps... you could spend weeks in Rome alone. The Vatican with it's wonderful heritage, architecture and sculptures would certainly form part of anybody's visit to the Italian capital city. Rome restaurants, rome hotels and bars would keep you entertained through to the wee hours.

And who would not visit Venice given the chance? this unique city offers the famous canals, the Doge's Palace, the Bridge of sighs and St Mark's Basilica amongst it's treasures. With venice hotels and a whole vista of sights and experiences, any tour of Italy must take in Venice though it certainly merits a holiday all of it's own...

Now Milan is where they take their music (and their football) seriously. Milan boasts La Scala, believed by many to be the true home of opera. Milan is also home to the Leonardo Da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology and AC Milan... The San Siro (Stadio Giusseppe Meazza) is a place where many football devotees would gladly go to pay homage. Why not stay in Milan hotels and take advantage of some Italian hospitality.
Italy, Italy hotels, architecture, music, food and wine has something to feed the soul, the mind and the belly all at the same time.

Beckham News - a review

For football fans in the UK, there has been a dearth of information about how David Beckham has been getting on in the USA at LA Galaxy. A blog has been set up to chart the progress of the ex-England captain as he attempts to highlight soccer to the USA public.
The aims of the blog are strictly sports-related, with no mention of posh-spice anywhere to be seen (might have missed a trick there - but this is a principled serious attempt to report news not fluff).
The blog reports on all games that Beckham has played in, the injuries, the England team where it impacts on Beckham and follows the story leading up to the European Championships in 2008.
Once the internationals are over, there are a series of exhibition matches and charity matches to report on, but don't forget, this blog won't be talking about the effect LA has on Beckham, but the effect Beckham is having on the pitch....

Short-term loans

Pay day loans provide No Fax Payday Loans for short-term emergency borrowing ie. just until your paycheck comes in. No fax, no written application.

Please note that this speedy type of borrowing is not the sort of borrowing you should habitually use, but a very quick convenient way to get money quickly. The borrowing rates (if you were to compare them with typical APR) are very high, but that's the price you pay for the convenience of having a loan of between $100 to $1500 approved almost immediately.
You can phone them or apply for a loan online, and each loan rate is negotiated on a case by case basis from a range of lenders, funds are generally available by he next working day.

I really want to stress that this type of borrowing should only be used in an emergency when you need funds approved immediately, and it is gratifying to see that the service will only offer loans to those who are in steady employment.

If you are considering taking out a loan, then you should test the market to find the best deal, if your in a tight spot on a one-off basis, a loan from Payday loans would help in the short-term. My advice would be to pay high interest borrowing off as an absolute priority.