Tel: 0113 2170419
www.littlefishwebdesign.com
Buying a domain name and hosting - a new Squidoo lens
Friday, June 15, 2007
I keep hearing from various sources about a website called 'Squidoo' and how you can create a 'lens' which is a collection of links on a topic.
Today, I finally created my first lenses, pulling together information about buying a domain name and buying website hosting. Why not visit and see what you think? Either comment in the guestbook or rate it - either way, I'll be pleased for your feedback.
Labels: domains, hosting, internet, linking
Free IP address location (geolocation) of your visitors
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
IPligence is a nifty utility that you can use to display where your visitors come from - IP address, city, country, continent and timezone.
If you want to download and use the full version, it does have limitations (free for non-commercial use only and subject to leaving a link back), but I think the information block shown above is enough for most people, and if IPligence is good enough to provide the service, they deserve a link back.
Go to http://www.ipligence.com/geolocation/?lang=en for the code for info box above (just make sure to put in a height and width for good code design!!).
Free service puts music to your pics and vids
Monday, April 16, 2007
Fliptrack is a web 2.0 (you know, one of the new breed of sites you can interact with) site that "allows users to create musical slideshows with their photos and hit music. Photos are synchronized to the beats of a song like a music video or movie soundtrack. It is free and legal to share creations." You can use the service online, or you can download the Fliptrack tool (Windows only at the moment).
Good idea or what? No longer do you have to worry about being caught out for using unlicensed music. And Fliptrack has music you've actually heard of - Barenaked Ladies, Fedde LeGrand and many more. In return, your video will have a small 'Fliptrack' logo in the bottom left hand corner.
Once you've created your video or picture show, you can choose to keep it as a private video for friends and family, or you upload and share it on Fliptrack itself or on many other sites including MySpace, Friendster, Xanga, Blogger, Facebook, Piczo, Bebo and Dogster. For the sites I've just listed, full instructions are given on how to do this.
Free toolbar builder
So you've seen the Google toolbar, the Yahoo! toolbar, and in fact a whole host of others. Wouldn't it be nice though to be able to offer your website visitors a free toolbar of your own? It can remind people your site exists, and help increase the traffic to your site.
A company called Conduit allow you to build your own toolbar to offer to people. You can brand it with your own news, offers, alerts, podcasts, RSS. Add a popup blocker, multiple search engines, weather, chat, radio player and multilingual versions and you've got a powerful customised solution to adding 'sticky'* content to your site, even when your visitor is elsewhere on the web.
Conduit says their toolbar is completely safe with no spyware, adware or malware and that you can create a toolbar in 15 minutes with their easy wizard.
*sticky = visitors will come back as they like what you offer!
Labels: biz, internet, misc, resources
Check your broadband connection speed
Thursday, March 29, 2007
InternetFrog has a neat little applet that reads your broadband upload and download speed. And while it's running (take the results a few times as an average), move your mouse near the frog to watch its eyes move!
Moving Servers
Friday, March 23, 2007
Just a short blog post to let you know that LittleFish Web Design is moving servers this week, so I may disappear off into cyberspace for a while before returning.
I started off hosting with Supanames, who provide a convenient 'all in one' package - domain name and hosting in one. However, I quickly outgrew what they could provide and decided to look for an alternative host. I still recommend them for good, basic web hosting when you're not trying to do too much with dynamic (PHP) files and RSS feeds (if you want RSS you have to apply for that particular feed address to be added to their firewall rules).
I considered GoDaddy and Hostgator - both are big reputable hosts with 99.9% uptime guarantee, more traffic (bandwidth) than you can shake a stick at, allow subdomains blah blah blah. Customer service for both has been really good so far.
In the end, I transferred our .com and .co.uk domain names to GoDaddy and 1and1 respectively (you've got to get the cheapest deal!) and chosen hosting with Hostgator.
Now, I'm just waiting to set the nameservers and then have to wait for them to resolve. Simple as that!
Labels: domains, hosting, internet
Linking Strategies - straight from the experts
Friday, March 16, 2007
I came across a blog post today that poses questions to five link development experts and shows their answers. Some of the information is slightly contradictory but is a fascinating insight into how the experts go about gathering links to their own and their clients' sites.
The experts are:
- Eric Ward (URL Wire)
- Rand Fishkin (SEOMoz)
- Roger Montti (Best of the Web)
- Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl, SEO Class)
- Rae Hoffman (Sugarrae, SEO Class)
And the questions asked?
- What are the factors you would take into account before buying a link from a directly contacted site (not a link broker or seller)?
- In sectors where links are particularly tough to come by (retail, B2B in boring industries, etc.), what are content tactics you?ve taken to appeal to relevant sites in those industries (specific examples would rock)?
- What is the current climate with paid links, and how can I navigate the paid links landscape so that I come out smelling like a rose on the other side?
- Automating the link acquisition process: How far do you recommend going with it? What are the benefits and pitfalls of automation?
- Name 5 specific techniques (queries, tools, process, or starting points) you would use to get links for a statewide real estate agent.
- What are the top 3 over-rated and under-rated criteria for determining how valuable an individual link will potentially be to your site?s search engine rankings?
- If you were in control of the search engine algorithm at Google, what are the top three changes you would make specific to how Google values/counts links?
- What?s the most common mistake you see people making in their link building activities?
- How do you think that nofollow links and redirected links are treated by the various search engines and do you see any value in obtaining these types of links?
- So many people complain about competitors who are ranking solely on reciprocal links. Do you believe reciprocal links still works as a complete strategy or do you believe age, trust and grandfathering (for lack of a better word) are taken into account? How important do you feel age is to a link?
Labels: internet, searchengines, seo
The Secret I Must Share
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I've had a few friends recommend "The Secret" to me in the past, and said that it's a life changing film. Ever one for being skeptical I never quite got around to watching it.
Then, I got a marketing e-mail from Scott Boulch with a link to the film to watch it online for free. It's been featured on Oprah Winfrey, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Larry King on CNN, Newsweek, Time Magazine, The New York Times and many more...so I can now see why both the book and film are ranked in the Amazon top seller lists (US here and UK here).
Well, I don't think I ever will look back. I really think this film will change people's lives, and could be the answer to many of the challenges we face every day. It's not for everyone, but why not watch it and see whether you have a similar 'light bulb' moment to me?
"The Secret" online or buy at Amazon:
A millionaire's personal rolodex...for free?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Mike Filsaime has just released his personal 'rolodex' of every resource he uses (some on a daily basis) to build and run his multi-million dollar business. Some sources claim he's worth over $7 million, so I assume he knows what he's doing.
Apparently, before now, the only people who got access to the 'rolodex' paid $5,000 to attend his 2007 Figure Business Workshop. But he's now offering the report for free.
I've already checked out the report and found some useful pointers. My usual cynical self decided that all the links would be affiliate ones, making money everytime someone signed up to a product via the report. In actual fact, there is a healthy mix of affiliate and non-affiliate links - quite a surprise.
Download The Resource Report and see for yourself.
Labels: biz, internet, resources
Speak out against child pornography
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
With a similar idea to 'Light to Unite' which I blogged about here, 'Light a Million Candles' petitions against online childhood pornography. It takes less than a minute and you can make a difference.
How to copy your laptop hard disk
Friday, February 16, 2007
Well, it may seem a slightly unusual post, but there's a good reason for it. Just before Christmas, my laptop starting hanging for no reason, and I had to reboot each time. There was no pattern to it, and sometimes the hang corrupted my data.
I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new hard drive, make a copy of my old drive and restore this to the new hard disk. The reason for this is that I had about 20Gb of data, including lots of utility programs and I had XP configured how I wanted it. I didn't want to have to reinstall the operating system and start again. Anyway how hard could it be?
So...much angst, sleeplessness etc. later I live to tell the tale, and thought I'd share the process in case anyone else needed the help! I am assuming a basic level of competence - knowing where programs are located etc., and also that your setup is similar to mine. There may be easier ways to do this process and if so, please contact me so I can simplify this process.
You will need:
- A couple of hours and plenty of patience
- A new 2.5" HDD
- Your old laptop hard disk drive
- Your laptop manual (for how to take out your old hard drive)
- A PC with at least as much free space as the amount of data on your laptop disk
- Your Windows XP disk
- 2.5" USB external caddy
- Bart PE
- Acronis True Image 10 Home - trial
- Download and install Acronis.
- Download and install BartPE.
- In the Acronis directory you will find a folder called 'BartPE' or similar. Rename this to Acronis. Copy it to the BartPE plugins folder.
- Put your XP disk in the CD/DVD drive and run BartPE. In the box for source, put the drive letter of where your XP disk is.
- Click 'plugins' and ensure that 'Acronis' is both present and enabled (highlight and click the enable/disable button).
- Close this, put a blank CD in your CD/DVD writer and in the media output box click 'Burn to CD/DVD'. If you only have one CD/DVD drive, copy the i386 folder to the BartPE directory on your PC and change the 'source' accordingly. Click build.
- Remove the new HDD from it's protective wrapper. If you're not used to handling hardware, be very careful, only touch the edges and make sure you aren't full of static electricity.
- Remove your old HDD from your laptop and put this in the protective wrapper.
- (Make sure you know which drive is which - to make the process easier don't worry, you won't harm anything!).
- Install the new hard drive in the laptop.
- Boot the laptop using your XP CD and make the largest partition possible without installing XP (press 'C').
- Exit and reboot the laptop using the BartPE disk.
- When loaded, choose the A43 file manager and right-click the C-drive. Choose format (NOT quick format).
- Switch the laptop off when done.
- Put the old hard disk into the 2.5" USB caddy.
- Attach it to your PC and ensure that you can see your data on the drive.
- Run Acronis and make a copy of your entire old hard drive. Save it to a location on your PC and ensure you verify the backup. (For my 20Gb this process took less than 30 minutes).
- Once this is done find the 'tib' file Acronis created and copy this to your old hard drive.
- Double-click on the 'safely remove hardware' icon in the system tray and remove your USB caddy. (If you don't do this, you could corrupt your data - this applies to any USB device).
- With your old HDD still in the USB enclosure, plug it into your laptop. It's important to do this whilst the laptop isn't on.
- Switch the laptop on and boot using BartPE.
- Ensure you can view your old hard drive files.
- When booted, go to system > storage > Acronis.
- Choose restore and select the 'tib' file that you copied onto your old hard drive.
- Select both the drive (in my case F:) and MBR and track 0.
- Select the new drive to restore to, and again ensure that you have both the drive (should be C:) and MBR and track 0 selected.
- Restore.
- When done turn off your laptop, disconnect the USB hard drive and boot the laptop normally (take out the BartPE CD).
Any other advice?
When buying a new hard drive, it only has to be as large as the amount of data you have on your old hard drive. My old one was 60Gb and my new one 40Gb - this was fine as I only had about 20Gb of data. Don't go for one that is slower (fewer RPM) than your existing drive. Buy it locally - it's much easier to take it back under warranty than if you've bought it over the Internet.
Try cleaning up your disk before transferring - uninstall unused programs, use a freeware program like CCleaner to remove unused files and do a general cleanup. Defragment your disk if it needs it.
My caddy/enclosure only seems to be recognised just after installation - I go to control panel > system properties > device manager > Universal Serial Bus Controllers and delete the entry for my caddy. Next time I boot my PC, it sees the caddy and installs it so I can see the files. Slightly irritating but not the end of the world.
Good luck!
Fight global warming for free with your PC
Sunday, February 04, 2007
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll notice a new button in the sidebar, and some new banners at the foot of every post which promote Local Cooling. This is an initiative aimed at getting 100 million people to download and use their software in order to help fight against global warming.
The Local Cooling Website states "...it [the software] automatically optimizes your PC's power consumption by using a more effective power save mode."
The software itself is a quick download and when installed sits in your system tray (that's the one in bottom right hand corner of your desktop with the clock and other icons). Right-clicking on the icon brings up a small window telling you in realtime how much energy your computer has saved by using the software. To enable you to understand this more easily, you are given the amount of energy in the equivalent of trees, gallons of oil and in kilowatt hours.
You can then use the software to easily edit your power settings - how many minutes of inactivity before switching down the monitor, spinning down the hard disk(s) and finally, to switch off the PC. Changing the settings is no more difficult than one click, or you can choose a custom profile to better suit your computing habits. You will then see the estimated saving in energy you are making.
As well as doing your bit to save the planet, think of the money that you'll save over a month, year or even decade!
An alternative webmaster glossary
Friday, January 12, 2007
If you want to know the meaning of geek-speak, an amusing site to stop by is "The alternative webmaster glossary."
With definitions such as:
404: Not found. Lost. Disappeared down the pan. Clueless. Like making a Usenet posting of rabbit recipes on rec.pets.rabbits. Like as in "George Bush is a 404 dude". It's also the reply your website gives a browser or SE bot when the page they are trying to reach is not available.
the site certainly puts a twist on the dry definitions you find elsewhere. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but it certainly brought a smile to my face!
YouTube helps catch murderer
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
YouTube recently made the headlines when it was bought for a staggering 1.65 billion dollars by Google. It's a video sharing website where people can upload their videos for others to view and comment on. New and established bands use it for video promotion and you can find videos on almost any subject. People are coming up with new ways to use the site all the time.
More recently, police in Canada posted CCTV footage on YouTube to enlist the help of viewers in identifying possible suspects in a murder case. Almost 16000 people viewed the video and thanks to this, a man turned himself into the police. Seems the YouTube possibilities are endless...
See the full story on ABC Online.
Labels: internet
100 oldest dot coms
Friday, November 03, 2006
Just a bit of fun - see Jottings.com for the 100 oldest registered dot com domains. Their registration dates range between March 1985 and November 1987.
As you might expect, most of them are tech-related and include many companies that are world leaders in their field - Philips, Sun, Xerox, Intel, Adobe, Siemens and Apple.
And no Microsoft as they didn't register their domain until May 1991.
Quite amazing when you realise that there are over 100 million domain names registered!
Optimising your images for the web
Monday, October 09, 2006
Whenever you put graphics on a website, you should try and make them as small as possible. This makes your pages load faster, which keeps the attention of your visitor longer. However, you don't want to sacrifice too much quality, else you'll lose the attention of your visitor!
Dynamic Drive have a range of tools available and the one I use most is their image optimiser:
Useful for gifs, animated gifs, jpgs and png files, you can upload the image either from your hard drive or an existing webpage. There is an upload limit of 300kB, but if your image is bigger than that - it shouldn't be on your website!
Once you click 'optimize', you will be presented with a list of your images with decreasing quality e.g. higher compression levels in jpgs, and fewer colours in gifs. From this list, you can quickly make a file size vs. quality judgement. To save the image, just right-click and 'save as' (or 'save image as' depending on your browser). The filename given as a default will be the same as the uploaded file with a number appended, relating to the quality you chose. From there it's a simple job to rename the image.
I recommend saving the new file with the name given (e.g. myfile_2.jpg), then renaming the original file to myfile.bak.jpg or similar, and then renaming the new file to myfile.jpg. Although this is slightly more time consuming, it means that your original image file is preserved, with a useful name - the golden rule being "Always backup or you may regret it later."
Labels: internet, resources, webdesign
Web addresses explained
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Web addresses, also commonly known as URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) or less commonly domain names, provide a unique, convenient and memorable way to access a particular website. But what do all the parts of the address mean?
Although you can for example type "littlefishwebdesign.com" into your address bar and the LittleFish Web Design page will appear, technically the full address is "http://www.littlefishwebdesign.com" and this is what we'll look at:
http: - this stands for "hypertext transfer protocol" and is the language or method that your internet browser must use to access the webpage in question. You don't have to type this into your address bar - if it is missing, your browser will assume this is the protocol to use.
// - this separates the access method from the address
www - this means 'world wide web' and helps to distinguish the address from other non-internet addresses e.g. a company intranet. It can also be used for a sub-domain e.g. orders.domainname.com.
littlefishwebdesign - this is known as the 'second level' domain and when combined with the next part of the address, make up the unique identifier which allows you to arrive at the correct web page.
com - this is the top level domain (TLD) and there are many different ones to choose from. Different rules apply to each TLD as they are regulated by different organisations.
. - the 'dot' inbetween different parts of the address signify the end of that part.
When you buy a web address, you are really exclusively renting it for the period stated. For addresses ending in UK, you can only have it for two years at a time. Other domains such as COM, NET and ORG can be held for multiples of a year or more. And you can always release the domain back into the system early if you choose you don't want it any more.
If you want to purchase a web address you will need to find a domain registrar. We recommend 1&1 for domains ending in UK (£4.68 inc. VAT for two years) and GoDaddy for other domains (from $5.99 per year) - both companies are reliable and have very competitive prices. For full prices see the LittleFish Domain Name Comparison.
Text Link Ads Review
Monday, September 18, 2006
Text Link Ads is a service for matching up website owners offering advertising space and advertisers wanting to buy advertising space, a bit like a dating service really!
The website is very straightforward to use - as an advertiser or as a publisher:
Advertisers: Search by keyword or category for the suitable sites. Alternatively, you can request a free custom proposal - just give your website address, monthly budget and an explanation of what you're after, and you'll be sent back suitable suggestions. Full information is provided on each site (number of links available, popularity, price, number of pages where your link will appear, description and Alexa Rank). The price you pay is a flat rate for 30 days so you needn't worry about running out of cost-per-click budget. Furthermore, the links are static links on the target website which are search engine and website visitor friendly.
Publishers: As long as your site supports a server-side technology i.e. your pages aren't just html files, you'll be able to join the Text Link Ads program. Just complete the form for review which includes your URL, site title, short site description, keywords, whether you'll display the ads sitewide or on one page, the number of pages if the ads are to be sitewide and how many ad spots you'll provide (4, 6, 8 or 10). Once you have been approved, you are given simple instructions on how to integrate the Text Link Ads script with your site. Payment is either by cheque or PayPal and is paid at the beginning of each month. Text Link Ads choose the price of your links, starting at $15 per 30 days, and take a 50% commission.
If you signup through the following link as an advertiser, there's a special offer of $100 in free links.
Labels: biz, internet, linking
Make and print your own posters
Friday, September 15, 2006
Thanks to a post on the Money Saving Expert Forums (hint: sign up to the newsletter whilst you are there), I've found a fantastic new way to decorate my walls.
The Rasterbator (don't let the name put you off!) allows you to make any digital image into a huge rasterized picture upto 20 metres square.
There is a choice of downloading the software or doing it online - I tried it online and found it very easy to use, and you end up with a PDF image made up of all the separate images you need to print. You get a choice of image size, dot size, colours and whether you want extra margins printed to help you match it all up.
How cool is that?
How to Use Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Techniques
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Following on from my post yesterday on social bookmarking, tagging and pinging, I came across this excellent article which explains the concepts in context:
How to Use Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Techniques (To Boost Your Site's Ranking, Traffic and Sales)
If you're just heard the phrase 'Tag and Ping' and scratching your head in puzzlement - this article may be worth your time. Not that Tag and Ping is some magic marketing formula that will deliver untold riches. It won't.
It is just one more marketing tool professional online marketers are using to give their site or sites a competitive edge over their competition. It will help put your site on the Internet map and if done right, Tag and Ping will deliver plenty of very
targeted traffic to your sales pages. It will boost your rankings and increase your sales.
Tag and Ping is one of those simple, yet relatively unknown marketing techniques savvy Internet Marketers have been using and trying to keep quiet for years. To truly understand how Tag and Ping works, you will have to know some basic background information on keywords, blogging, tags, and how all these can work in sync to deliver traffic, links and sales to your site.
What are Blogs?
Most web users will know a blog is an online journal where bloggers post their daily or hourly entries (their opinions, views, info, links) on any subject that interests them. The most popular blogging systems are Blogger.com (owned by Google), Bloglines (owned by Ask Jeeves), LiveJournal, and many professional marketers use the free WordPress software which they can host on their own websites.
Each blog has its own RSS feed - RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication although its original acronym stood for Rich Site Summary. These RSS feeds broadcasts the information in the blog posts to all concerned parties - those who have subscribed and use an RSS reader or aggregator. Or more commonly, subscribers use the FireFox browser, Google Desktop, or MyYahoo to access their favorite RSS feeds. The next version of Windows will have RSS embedded into its operating system.
What are Tags?
Tags are really another name for keywords. Most surfers will know keywords are the exact words Internet users type into search engines to find what they're looking on the world wide web. Tags work in the same way and are a form of social bookmarking, a way of classifying and accessing all that content in all those countless blogs.
Many major blogging directories such as Technorati use tags to serve up the information to its patrons. One simple technique to create a tag in Technocrati:
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Laptops" rel="tag">Laptops</a>
Or if your blogging software supports categories; this will be recognized by Technorati as a tag.
What The Heck Is A Ping?
A ping is a simple way to notify the different search engines to let them know that your blog has been updated. You call up or ping your blog post.
You bookmark or place an entry in any one of the countless blogging sites such as Technorati, Furl, del.icio.us, Blinklist, Flickr --- you go to these sites and click your blog or tag to inform them you have updated your blog. Many blogging systems will automatically ping your blog updates.
Or you can do this manually, for example Technorati's ping form is here http://www.technorati.com/ping
Simple Way to Ping
If this is still confusing to you, one simple way to ping your tags/blogs is to use a site like: http://pingomatic.com/ and it will automatically ping your blog in many of the most popular blogging services.
Enter The Online Professional Marketers and It All Hits the Fan
Of course, online marketers have long discovered that the whole blogging system - blogs, rss, tags, pinging - is an excellent marketing vehicle. One great marketing system delivering targeted traffic to their products and services.
It really is a corruption or commercialization of blogging and this surely wasn't the idea the original designers of blogs had in mind. But the whole blogging system is so lucrative, many professional marketers (the author is pleading the fifth!) are using blogging systems like WordPress to create mainly marketing sites that may have little resemblance to a real blog. It just uses the backbone structure of blogs, RSS, Tags to give their sites a slight competitive edge in a very competitive world.
As we saw with the 'comment spam' there is a great likelihood that Tag and Ping will be misused and further antagonize the blogging purists. So if you are going to use Tag and Ping make sure you're creating valuable, usable content - then most sites will want to link to your site anyway. Content is still king no matter what tricks the professional marketers want to use. Always will be!
Using a Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Technique With Technorati
To explain further the whole idea of Tag and Ping. Lets just walk through a marketing system you can quickly create using Technorati - one of the most popular blogging services.
First, sign your blog up with Technorati. This is quite a simple procedure. Just upload a photo, doesn't have to be of you - your site's logo will do. Register your profile with your 20 or so tags relating to your blog. Make sure these are keywords you're marketing with your blog. Then you have to place the Technorati code on your blog for a link back.
Next, you must understand that Technorati creates a landing page for each tag in their system. This page is made up of four parts:
* Flickr Photos
* Recent blog posts tagged with that keyword or phrase
* Who's Blogging About sidebar which links to any profiles of blogs that those same keywords or phrase in their profile
* Links from Furl for the same tag
So to take full advantage and to use this marketing technique you have to sign up with both Flickr and Furl. Your aim is to get your links in all four spots on this Technorati landing page for your tag or keyword.
When signing up for Flickr, many marketers use their site's name for their Flickr username - just use a dash instead of a dot in your site's url. You can use a photo of the product they're promoting to get a link from Flickr in the top spot on the Technorati landing page. Pick your tags and description for the product.
Set up a Furl account and download the Toolbar - bookmark a few sites to get the hang of how its done.
Now You're Really To Put Everything Together To Tag and Ping
1.) You can start with the Flickr photos at top of the Technorati page.
Just post a photo or cover image into your Flickr account, making sure you tag it and use a catchy headline in your description. Link it to your landing or affiliate page url.
<a href="http://www.marketingtoolguide.com">Don't buy another
marketing tool until your check out this site.</a>
2.) Next, make the first of your blog posts on your particular subject or product to your blog, making sure you tag it with your keywords and then ping Technorati. Make all your posts good content, reviews, product information or free downloads. Your entry will appear on the top of the list for that tag shortly in Technorati.
3.) Furl your blog post and your landing/affiliate page with your tags to make sure your entry/post is listed the bottom section of the Technorati page for your tag.
To work this system, add another blog post every few hours, Tag and Ping, plus Furl your posts. For better results you can sign up for countless other social bookmarking sites and bookmark your pages. Here are just a few good ones: del.icio.us, blinklist, moreover, icerocket, weblogs...
Flickr, Blog, Tag, Ping, Furl
This is just one Tag and Ping method - professional marketers have countless systems and sites working many variations on this relatively new marketing technique. But the information given above should get you started on your own Tag and Ping marketing system.
Remember, blogging and RSS are the wave of the future, make sure you're geared up to take advantage of all they have to offer. You must have at least one blog on your site. Use WordPress if you can - Blogger will do in a pinch!
Just make sure you're using some Ping and Tag marketing techniques to harvest all those links, traffic and sales for your site. This is one marketing technique you should now be using. Just remember to Flickr, Blog, Tag, Ping, Furl - Rinse and Repeat!
About the author
The author operates numerous sites on the web, his first was a general Internet Marketing site http://www.bizwaremagic.com. And his latest site is Marketing Tool Guide where you can find all the latest helpful and effective marketing tools, including Free Internet Marketing manuals. Internet Marketing Tools can be found at: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com. Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins.
Labels: blogging, internet, seo
Social bookmarking, tagging and pinging explained
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
You might have heard of social bookmarking, tagging and pinging, but if you're not sure what all those terms mean, Wikipedia says:
"Social bookmarking is ... where shared lists of user-created Internet bookmarks are displayed."
"Social bookmarking sites generally organize their content using tags. Social bookmarking sites are an increasingly popular way to locate, classify, rank, and share Internet resources through the practice of tagging and inferences drawn from grouping and analysis of tags."
"A tag is a keyword or descriptive term associated with an item as means of classification by means of a folksonomy."
Example:
A web page hosted on a web server or blog server which supports tagging, might have the tags Baseball, Red Sox, Tickets, Away Games (tags can be more than one word), and Discounts. A human reader can probably tell the purpose of the page by quickly scanning the list of tags. Typically, the server would display the tags in a list on that page, with each tag displayed as a web link leading to an index page listing all web pages which use that tag. This allows a reader to locate quickly all pages which have been associated with the term Red Sox. If the server supports tag searching, a reader would be able to find all pages that use a particular set of tags, such as Red Sox and Tickets.
If the page's author wishes to reclassify the page, all that is required is for them to change the list of tags. In this case, the author could add the tags Blue Jays, and Paypal to their page. All connections between pages are automatically tracked and updated by the server software. There is no need to relocate the page within a complex hierarchy of categories.
Pinging is the process of letting different social bookmarking sites know that you have added tagged content to your website or blog.
See also - a list of 124 tagging sites and Changing Earth's example of inviting visitors to socially bookmark a website or webpage (look for the 'socialize' button in the right hand column).
Labels: internet
Resell rights explained
Monday, August 14, 2006
Resell rights can be confusing, especially when there are so many offers on the Internet. Wikipedia gives a concise explanation of the differences between resell rights and master resell rights:
"Many ebooks and pieces of software, especially in the field of online or internet marketing, are sold with resell rights included. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between normal resell rights and master resell rights. Normal resell rights mean that after you buy the item you will be allowed to sell it to your customers. On the other hand, when you acquire master resell rights, not only you can sell it to your customers, but your customers also have the rights to sell it and pass on the resell rights.
Most resale rights packages will not let you alter any of its content or in any way change/tamper with the information. Always read the disclaimers surrounding them. If you wanted to change the content you would have to contact the author and request a partner ship or buy the editing rights to the product."
How to check your website is up and running
Sunday, April 02, 2006
When choosing a web host, you might have taken 'uptime' into consideration - most hosts guarantee 99.something percent uptime. This is literally the amount of time that your website is up and running. Downtime, is the opposite of this i.e. when your site is unavailable.
To put it into real terms, 0.1% uptime equates to just over 86 seconds per day. Whilst this doesn't sound much, if it's at a peak time for your visitors - how many potential sales have you just lost?
And even when you have chosen your host, how can you tell if it really does stick to the uptime promised?
SiteUptime is a free service that monitors your website every 30 minutes (more frequently if you pay a small monthly fee) and sends you an e-mail each time your site is down. In addition, you can see monthly aggregated statistics.
Whilst this is certainly not the only uptime monitoring service, it's ease of use and simplicity makes it a good choice.
Visit the SiteUptime Web Site Monitoring Service
Labels: hosting, internet, resources
What are status codes and what do they mean?
Monday, March 27, 2006
Put simplistically, an HTML status code is a three digit code sent to your browser from the server of the page you are trying to view. You will probably have seen "404 page not found" which is the most common example of a status code. The first digit of the code determines the group to which it belongs:
- 1xx - informational codes
- 2xx - success codes
- 3xx - redirection codes
- 4xx - client error codes e.g. errors originating from the user
- 5xx - server error codes
- 200 - ok
- 301 - moved permanently
- 302 - moved temporarily
- 400 - bad request e.g. the server did not understand what you asked for!
- 401 - unauthorised
- 403 - forbidden
- 404 - not found
- 500 - internal server error
- 503 - service unavailable - can be due to server overload
Labels: internet
A review of LiteCommerce
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
If you are looking for an e-commerce package, there are plenty of options available to you, but the one you choose depends on your level of expertise. OSCommerce, ZenCart, cpCommerce and CubeCart are all free solutions, but to make any changes requires a level of coding knowledge. If you are happy to have an 'out of the box' appearance and be restricted to the original functions, this could be your way forward.
LiteCommerce on the other hand is a commercial package, and a younger sibling of the hugely popular X-Cart. The basic package costs $95 (approximately £55) for the linux version and paid-for add-on modules cost from $8 (approximately £4.60). Free modules such as bestsellers, froogle integration and multi-currency are also available.
Litecommerce is incredibly easy to install, with both windows and manual install options. Once on your webspace, there is a Quick Start Wizard, guiding you through all the steps required to getting your shop up and running. This wizard is available at all times, so you can refer back to it when needed.
In the administration interface, there are options for all aspects of running the store - both the front end, including how the store appears - and the back end so you can keep track of orders, popular items etc...Everything is presented in a logical way, and you are not bamboozled by the sheer number of options available to you.
When using free e-commerce software, the support can be hit-and-miss e.g. you can post questions in the user forums but no-one is obliged to answer them or give you the correct information (this is not usually the case that I've experienced but it has happened).
LiteCommerce comes with 150 support points, which equates to quite a few queries to technical support. You can 'hot rush' your queries meaning that they'll be given priority, but do cost you double. Their technical support staff are second-to-none, both times I've had to use them - with information being both timely and accurate. In addition, you can join the LiteCommerce forums, and chat with other users of the software, for support information, how-to's and general stuff relating to your e-commerce site.
The appearance of your store can be controlled through the admin interface, or you can actually edit the store templates in FrontPage, DreamWeaver etc...The entire package is template driven which means you can alter almost anything you want. The version I have used is written in PHP, which means that if you do want to get your hands dirty, you can do! (But remember to always make a backup first...).
To extend the functionality of the store, there are different extension modules available. Installation of these literally takes seconds from the admin interface which is a huge time-saving on some of the free packages.
To summarise - as a user of the free e-commerce packages, I was pleasantly surprised by the cost, support and functionality of LiteCommerce, and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get their e-commerce website off the ground in a short space of time, whilst being able to expand the site as necessary through extension modules.
To see LiteCommerce in action, see their demo. A full feature list can be found here.
Internet Marketing and the Small Business
Thursday, March 16, 2006
The internet marketing landscape has changed quite a bit in the past 3 years and has further defined itself further in the past 12 months. With Google raising $4 Billion from new stock offerings in 2005 we will see more changes underway over the next 3 years. Unfortunately, I fear the small business is going to be left out in the cold in this process. Perhaps a better statement would be that the small business has already been left out in the cold.
This writing is certainly not designed to provide a solution to the growing problem. More so, it has been written to raise the awareness and acknowledge the difficulty small business has on the web. Certainly the small business does not receive any sympathy from the major search engines in their quest to provide quality information for those that are searching the web.
Let's review how the situation has been created. We have to make the assumption a small business does not have the financial resources for a proper advertising campaign on the web (even though it is less costly than offline advertising) and they do not have the man-power to devote time for the non-costly methods of marketing. Yes, I have distinguished between advertising and marketing.
Marketing is the process or technique of promotion, selling and distributing a product or service. Advertising is to make your product or service publicly known an announcement to call public attention by emphasizing qualities to arouse a desire to purchase.
Can the small business market at no cost? Yes, absolutely, however, the issue at hand is not expenditure but time. Time they are already spending on their business and do not have more time to spend on non-costly marketing methods on the web. What are these non-costly but time-consuming marketing methods? This would include but not limited to writing articles, maintaining newsletters, maintaining email addresses with auto-responders, submitting their articles through a variety of methods and resources over the web. Let's not forget standard search engine optimization issues and HTML coding. Oh, the best one of all is 'natural' link exchanging as defined by Google. If you have not already been there, manual link exchanging is a time consuming process even if you do decide to spend money on lost cost services that can assist. You cannot use 'link farms' as that is against search engine policies and will cause your listing to be down graded.
In order to reach top ranking on the search engines it all boils down to links (or link exchanges, link popularity) and content. Inbound only links better than reciprocal inks. Writing content for your site, articles, news, newsletter is time consuming to properly write a 500 word article and the submission process is not easy either. Some services and software exists to help you in your submission of articles, but just like link exchange services they can only do so much. Could you create a blog and place your articles, certainly. However, you can see the 'things to do' list only keeps growing for the small business owner.
Could they engage in pay-per-click campaigns? Sure, however, you now are entering in a financial issue and one that does not necessarily provide a great return on investment. Pay-Per-Click campaigns are good as an overall marketing strategy and if you use it in combination with a variety of other internet and search engine marketing methods. On its own it cannot provide the returns the small business is seeking. Searching the key phrases (no longer key words) and understanding which ones to select is equally not an easy task. It requires due diligence, research and analysis to understand the information and make an informed decision. Assuming they can get past this part of the pay-per-click process, the next phase is writing the pay-per-click ad headline and content. Unfortunately we see many small businesses flocking to pay-per-click advertising in hopes of a quick return. They might as well go to a casino!
There is indeed another problem associated with Pay-Per-Click campaigns. The ratio of exposures to hits is equally a problem when you are supposed to keep a certain percentage ratio between the two. When search engines like Google are allowing your ad to be placed on other websites with their Google Adsense, your exposures are indeed going up, however, how many people actually click on the links? From Google's perspective probably a lot, but from the individual advertiser's perspective this is not necessarily a good situation. Google is now dictating what key phrases you 'should' bid on and ultimately consolidating the bidding war into small key phrase groups and larger number of advertisers.
Lastly, at least for this writing, but not necessarily on the subject, is time to see revenues. There is no doubt that it takes months for a website to propagate through the Internet. This is by no means a short-term situation and expectations need to be set accordingly. Just because you have a website does not mean that you will see rewards anytime soon. Once again we get into the dilemma of time resources to do the necessary internet marketing work in order to see benefits 6 - 9 months later.
Requirements set by the search engines as they seek to provide quality responses to those that are searching are making it increasingly difficult for small businesses to compete on the web. So, who will end up on the first page or in the top position of searches for key phrases? Unless something changes and the small business is given a chance, it will be the larger corporations that have the man power time and the money.
About the Author
Melih Oztalay is the CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. A internet marketing firm specializing in turn key marketing solutions for businesses including research, analysis, planning an strategy. Please visit SmartFinds at http://www.hsfideas.com
Labels: biz, internet, ppc, searchengines
SnippetMaster Pro - A review
Monday, March 13, 2006
As a web designer, I am always looking for ways to help my clients edit the content of their webpages. No-one really wants to have to pay a web designer for each and every tiny little change required, and from my perspective, it isn't really commercially viable in most instances. Software that enables my clients to edit their pages in a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") screen, so they don't need to know any webcoding is an absolute godsend!
When looking for this solution recently, I came across SnippetMaster. It's free for the Lite Version and the Pro version costs only $24.95. Additionally, if you are a charity or other not-for-profit organisation, you can obtain the Pro version for free.
To use SnippetMaster, you need to get your web designer to install the software on a linux hosted server and insert a tiny amount of code into your existing files wherever you want to change the content. This takes approximately 5 minutes in total!
To use the software, all you need to do is log in over the internet, meaning that only authorised users can edit the website, and choose which file to edit. A handy preview function means that you can check any edits before hitting 'save' and making the changes live.
SnippetMaster rates 8/10 in my book - 1 mark deducted for only being able to use in Internet Explorer and not Firefox. A second mark is deducted as the code is not W3C (web standards) compliant. However, I do know both these issues will be addressed in the next software release, at which point it will rate 10/10!
See SnippetMaster including a live demo at www.snippetmaster.com.
Labels: internet
How to choose a pixel advertising site
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Since Alex Tew and his highly successful million dollar homepage, pixel advertising websites have appeared in abundance. The secret to finding which one to advertise on is fivefold:
- Is it affordable?
- Are the other ads suitable for your market e.g. are there adult ads?
- Can you still get a good space i.e. when someone first view the page, will they see your ad without having to scroll down, and is it down one edge e.g. more likely to be noticed?
- How long will the site be up for?
- Finally, does the site have a pagerank? Whilst this isn't the only traffic-related factor to take into consideration, it is a good indicator of the site's popularity. If there is a pagerank value, the site owner has taken the time for promotion of the site, which can only work in your favour.
The Good Net Guide
Monday, February 13, 2006
"The Good Net Guide is an independent initiative that helps to promote quality websites. By displaying our approved graphic and us displaying approved web sites, higher search engine rankings will be achieved, thus promoting quality in the search engines. If you feel your web site is good quality, help us to help you by submitting your site and displaying the GNG Approved graphic."
To obtain GNG Approved status, your website must be W3C validated, have a clean and clear design and intuitive navigation, and contain original content. It must not contain adult material or popups.
If your site fits these criteria, get it approved by the Good Net Guide!
Fair Trade First - Sourcing affordable fair trade for businesses
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Fair Trade First is a company set up to promote personal and corporate social responsibility through the use of ethically sourced products. LittleFish Web Design worked alongside Fair Trade First to produce their website, and became a much bigger believer in Fair Trade in the process!
Products aren't limited to tea and coffee - they include snacks, recyclable office supplies, industrial strength cleaning products, biodegradable catering disposables and numerous other items. Even the coffee is award winning - it's not the Fair Trade produce of old!
Labels: internet
Website Plagiarism Search
Just a quick post - Copyscape is a website plagiarism search - just type in the page you want to check, and it will come back with any matching results.
If you find unauthorised duplication of your site's content, there's plenty of advice on the site as to what to do next.
From the Copyscape Global Web Rights Campaign page:
"Copyscape is dedicated to protecting content rights online and defending against the threats of plagiarism and content theft. The Web is built on the hard work of honest people who devote their time and energies to creating original content for the benefit of all. The global epidemic of content theft violates people's hard-earned rights and discourages the creation of new web content. Copyscape was created as a free public service to address this growing problem."
Labels: internet, legal, resources
Zero Cash, A Little Talent and 30 Days
Sunday, November 27, 2005
If you are thinking of trying to make money on the internet, a series called "Zero Cash, A Little Talent and 30 Days" couldn't be more appropriate. Jennifer Laycock, editor of The Search Engine Guide, set herself a challenge:
"I've decided to set up a little challenge for myself and to both blog and write articles on it over the next month. The idea is to try to setup some type of business in my free time and see if I can start to turn a profit in a 30 day period."
The result is a series of articles charting her progress and how she went about making money with no initial budget. Highly recommended reading - find the series at www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/
Free - your own dating website business with over 10000 members
Monday, November 21, 2005
Well the old Yorkshire saying "You don't get owt for nowt" doesn't quite apply in this case. Follow this link to your free website business. It's (almost) as simple as that.
How it works
- You visit the dating website to see whether it is suitable for your needs
- You choose whether:
- To use one of their (potentially recognisable) subdomains OR
- Register a unique domain name (web address)
- You sign-up and customise your dating site - e.g. choose which payment plan you are going to implement or decide which one of the 20+ templates you are going to use for your site
- You market your site
- People visit - and sign up as members
- To contact other members they must sign up to a paid membership
- You earn 50% commission on paid memberships
You need to be able to dedicate some time to marketing your website. Just because a page is on the Internet doesn't mean it will be found. Here are some ideas to get started with:
- Search engines
- Pay per click / Google Adwords
- Local radio
- Local TV Channel (Cable)
- Link exchanges
- Banner advertising
- Mailshots*
- Local newspaper
- Local newsagent and supermarket notice boards
- E-mail campaigns*
- Local free ad papers
- Local shops
- Friends, family, neighbours and anyone else you know!
There are more marketing ideas available on the dating website
*ensure you do this legally - no spam!
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