Searching for a web designer

There is a novel new way to search for people called Spock.com a search engine for people using tags to find individuals who meet your chosen search terms. I thought maybe I would look up some web designers to get some inspiration or make some contacts. I started at the home page, I logged in as I am already signed up though I think you can search without being a member. I stated my search terms as follows:
“Website, Design, SEO” as I think that an ideal combination for a web designer is one who gas artistic flair (design as a keyword will bring up art & design and graphic design too) as well as knowledge of SEO…

Click on the screen-shot to go to my search results...

I found a suitable individual who seems to have a good grounding in artistic design by clicking on a link at the bottom of the results page, her name is Leanne Campbell. And in proper social networking style, there are numerous links to her work and even a picture along with links to other social sites.

What I really liked is that I could really get an idea of what this individual was all about, and then it would be up to me to get in touch if I felt that she could help me or even if I thought I could help her in some way. You can get in touch via Spock.com by requesting contact - this allows the contactee to check your profile before approving contact. This site differs from other sites (you are expected to add your other social site links too ie. linkdin, facebook etc..) in that the intention is that searches are purely keyword oriented. The more keywords (tags) you have the more chance you have of popping up in search results...

SEO - New Years Resolution

It's the start of a brand new year - Happy New Year!... and I'm as busy as ever with internet projects. I am halfway through introducing a completely new template on my 'cassette to CD' website whilst still building content on 'livewyre.NET'. On top of that, I have to get properly into PHP and code some new pages on a commercial website which will (hopefully) integrate with a MYSQL database - Oh and I also need to code an interface for the database so that anyone can use it... PHP is new to me, so getting to grips with that little task alone will be a very steep learning curve.
Running through this 'to-do' list in my mind, I realised that while I have been concentrating on getting these jobs done, I have not been as SEO-aware as I should have. The routine (mundane) tasks have been left for later whereas they should really still be a priority. These tasks include:

• When adding pages to a site, make sure your sitemap is updated
• Make sure that new pages are included in your site-wide links
• Make sure that new terms are included in your Glossary
• Make sure new pictures are SEO-friendly with keyword-oriented tags
  

At the end of the day, there is little point adding new material if your visitors can't find it, so my new years resolution (and I don't make them as a rule...) is to ensure that I put my SEO thinking cap on every time I add new content to one of my sites.

Bargain Electronics from Second Act

I love gadgets HiFi, HDTV's and the like and I also love a bargain... I found a retailer who sells refurbished goods, factory closeouts, end-of-line, overstocks etc. and they have some great brand names on offer too.
One feature they have is their Deal of the Day feature where they have a special deal (currently a Sharp 37" HDTV for $75 plus carriage).
My favourite section is the Audio section (as I am a bit of a closet audiophile) where I saw a very smart Denon surround sound receiver for just $199, with current exchange rates that's less than UK£100...!!

I have spent a lot on refurbishing my PC recently and plan to spend some more on restructuring my home office, after that I'm going to be sorely tempted to start browsing through this website (Second Act) to upgrade my audio-visual equipment. What's even better is that they appear to take Paypal, so my online earnings can be used to buy the Hi-Fi equipment of my dreams... They are HDTV specialists, so if Santa didn't bring you that HDTV of your dreams, pay them a visit and see if you can pick up a bargain.

Website Design

I am currently redesigning my 'cassette2cd.co.uk' website and am employing some totally new tactics that I thought I would share with you. These are not new to good established website developers, but new to me as a keen amateur...
I am using Dreamweaver, but the principles would be the same for any similar software. For the first time I am using proper templates where I can make a change to the single template and the change takes place site-wide. previously I have just created a page called 'template' and built every page around this template. This method is time-consuming when changes need to be made, but the strict template (extension .dwt [dreamweaver template]) option means that you have to know pretty much what your final layout will be before you start working.
I have built the navigation into the template and copyright info (and google analytics tracking - nearly forgot it!). I also placed my high-rise adsense banner in there too along with site title and logo. I made a cell (middle top) for my title which I placed as a background image - I was pleased to discover that I could then make this an editable region of the template even though the background was fixed. This means that each page could carry a SEO aware sub heading right at the top of the page. I have yet to discover if the template element needs to be SEO aware, but will play with that idea later.
I have found that I can arrange the whole template to sit in the centre of the page so that viewers using different screen setting won't get a lop-sided view with the page pressed to the left-hand side of the monitor.
I think that all future sites that I shall build will be done in this way and I have started to make a site here for which I don't have a use yet, but I want to prove that I can make a nice-looking site with the tools that I have and no formal training....

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.