free link building tool comment kahuna

Monday, February 25, 2008

Today I found and tested a new free link building tool - an alternative to Comment Kahuna. I found that Real Link Finder is as fast, and at least as accurate. It asks you to set a minimum number of blog comments on each blog, which means that it's more likely to find blogs that haven't implemented 'nofollow' - and less likely to find false positives. An initial negative point is that you can't filter by pagerank, but to keep to a natural looking link campaign, you will need to get backlinks from pages of all PR values, so it's not as important as some webmasters will have you believe.

Labels: resources

Wordtracker coupon code - 15% discount

Thursday, November 01, 2007

WordTracker currently have an offer running for a whopping 15% discount off their annual subscription price.

Follow this link here, then enter codeus-annual-15.

If you don't know what WordTracker is and you want to build a successful money making website, I suggest you have a look. By using keywords and keyphrases that people are searching for, you are guaranteeing that your website is more likely to be found - WordTracker does all the hard work for you when you tell it what you want to research.

You can optimise your website content, utilise the keywords for your PPC (pay per click) campaign or research new niche ideas and know before you start whether you'll be successful or not.

Labels: resources, seo

The Internet Marketing Myth - A Review

Friday, October 05, 2007

Yes, I got a few e-mails about Russell Brunson's new report that he's giving away. With catchphrases such as "The IM-Myth, Showing Why Internet Marketing is Like Having a Lamborghini on a Dead End Road and what you HAVE to do today if you want to still be around tomorro..." and "What If Everything You Were Ever Taught About Internet Marketing Was A Myth...?" I was naturally skeptical.

However, curiosity got the better of me, especially as I was sent the e-mail from a respected name, and he promised there was no big one time offer upsell, just a $1 offer. The fact there was no big OTO finally made me visit the site - ALL internet marketers offer a free report to try and then sell you a $97 offer - why was Russell Brunson different?

I signed up, downloaded the report and started reading...It's 44 pages long, of which only three aren't useful content - header, copyright and contents pages. There is a prelaunch offered, but only as a hyperlink in the footer - it's not in your face at every opportunity.

So what about the content? It really does blow the Internet marketing theory of "the money is in the list" out of the water and gives you some incredibly good ideas for leveraging more sales without irritating your customers / people on the list. Most Internet Marketers seem to think the more they bombard you with offers, the more likely you are to buy. In actual fact, with me, I'm more likely to unsubscribe from the list.

And the ideas he gives aren't just for Internet Marketers - you can apply them for all sorts of businesses, both online and offline. To be honest, this report was a complete shock - I was expecting fluff and got something that I can actually use. And in fact, when you read the report you'll see just how good his ideas are - you'll have already seen something in action without realising what it was.

Go and have a read now - it is free after all, and you'd be daft not to!

And just for your information, here is the 'hype' e-mail:

Hey (Firstname),

I've taken a lot of internet marketing courses and read a lot of ebooks. Most of them talk about the same :

--Sign up for an autoresponder
--Create a squeeze page
--Create a series of emails
--Rinse and repeat

You can make a LOT of money doing this...don't get me wrong.

But you can make a lot more if you start harnessing offline marketing in your business.

You see, online marketing is preached as the "holy grail" of marketing.

But ask the big information marketing powerhouses like Agora, Boardroom, and Weiss
where the REAL money is made. They absolutely clean house offline...humiliating any online marketer who comes in their path.

Here's the deal: Millionaire internet marketer Russell Brunson has just released a special offline report: "The IM Myth" where he shatters the myth that internet marketing is the "be all-end all" of marketing.

You can check it out here.

Believe me, this stuff is the real deal. The marketers who absolutely annihilate their competition are the ones that incorporate offline marketing into the mix.

So check out Russell's report today before you're competition discovers it.

Thanks,

Emma

P.S. One of Russell's tips he reveals is how he moved his offline list online. This absolutely blew me away, and is something I'm going to implement in my own business immediately. So get it today, right now, while it's still on your mind.

Labels: biz, misc, resources

Keyboard shortcuts galore

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Just found a new website called 'KeyXL' which lists the different keyboard shortcuts for all different programs. In case you don't know the terminology, keyboard shortcut refers to when you use a combination of keys on your keyboard rather than your mouse to perform a certain task eg. control-c to copy or control-v to paste.

Nicely split into categories such as 'microsoft apps', 'adobe apps' etc... or 'e-mail programs', you're bound to find the right shortcut for the right program, whether you're on a PC or mac. The search is also very easily arranged to ensure you get the right information. You can even rate each tip so you know whether it's been useful for other people or not.

Labels: resources

Speed up, stablise and secure your PC

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

It's not often that I buy reports on the Internet, especially not related to improving my PC - I do think that I'm pretty computer savvy (and so do all my friends and relatives that ring me for advice on their PC).

However, one report did catch my eye - it's by a former hacker and despite a little bit of hype in the sales letter, it did seem impressive. And at only $9.95 (less than £5), wasn't too expensive even if I only got one or two ideas from it.

NOW, I wish that I'd seen it before forking out $140 (£70) on 2GB RAM for my PC recently - it was running slowly even with all the pretty graphics scaled back...and try as I might, I could not work out how to improve its speed. I virus and spyware checked...search Internet forums...and in the end, paid for the RAM upgrade.

It's taken me approximately 30 minutes to go through the entire PDF manual (26 pages long) and I have been selective about one or two parts. However, my computer now flies!

Go and see for youself...I give it 5 out of 5!

Labels: resources, security

Nikon D80 Raw Converter for CS2

Friday, August 24, 2007

This is a slightly off-topic post, but I'm hoping will be useful for some. After purchasing the very expensive Nikon D80 digital SLR camera, my husband took hundreds of photos in RAW format. That was great until he wanted to edit them on the PC - the D80 format is very new and not many software manufacturers have brought out plug-ins or upgrades yet. After hours searching, we finally came across the Adobe Camera Raw 3.7 Update - carefully hidden away. It states the update is for the Nikon D40 and Pentax K10D, but it does work for the D80. Hurrah. The actual plug-in applies to Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 and5.

Labels: misc, resources

Opening Office 2007 documents

Sunday, July 08, 2007

If you want to be able to open, edit and save Word documents, Excel workbooks and PowerPoint presentations in the new Office 2007 formats, download the 'Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack'. This is a 27.5MB download, which should take care of compatibility issues if you have not yet upgraded from Office 2000 or Office 2003.

Labels: resources

Free 2GB online backup facility

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

IDrive-E is an online backup service offering free backup for up to 2GB of data. For a small fee ($4.95 per month or $49.95 a year) you can upgrade to unlimited backup space. 2GB is more than adequate for a big pile of documents, photos and even a couple of MP3 files if you so wish. No file type or size restrictions are in place and the service is free to businesses as well as personal users.

They make sure your files are secure*, and storing or restoring your files is very simple, with their filespace appearing as a mapped drive in Explorer so you can just drag and drop your files into it.

* The programme itself is encrypted with 128-bit SSL encryption and with password key 256-bit SSL encryption for the actual storage. This means that only you can access your files from the IDrive-E Online Backup because your data is encrypted with your own password key.

Other features include an incremental backup (only backs up files changed from the last backup), drag and drop or scheduled backups, multiple account management for small businesses.

Labels: pp, resources

Funky check boxes in your HTML forms

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Whilst looking for ways to style check boxes using CSS, I came across a nifty little piece of JavaScript at BrainError.net:

"With the use of CSS you can control how forms on your website look, however certain items like checkboxes, radio buttons and selects cannot be altered, they are rendered by the visitors operating system. There is no way to get around it.

The key to changing their appearance is by not by displaying checkboxes at all, use an image instead, and glue it together with a few lines of JavaScript."

To use the script, you will need four things:

1) The line of code to put in the head section of the webpage on which you want to change the check boxes.
2) The script itself (make sure that (1) points to where you saved this script)
3) An image called 'false.png' (or change the JavaScript)
4) An image called 'true.png' (or change the JavaScript)

This script can be literally installed in a few seconds and looks great. If JavaScript is switched off or isn't used in your visitor's browser, they will see the normal textboxes, so there are no compatibility issues.

See "Changing the appearance of checkboxes".

Labels: resources, webdesign

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!!).

Labels: internet, resources

Free Directory Submitter Review

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Reciprocal links are an easy way to get links in to your website, are valued less than one-way links by the search engines. Websites with higher numbers of quality one way incoming links are typically the sites that rank the highest in the search engine results.

Website Directory Submission is a very popular and easy way to get quality, one way links to your website, and there are several submission programs available. I've just downloaded 'Directory Submitter', another product by Brad Callen.

It comes in two flavours - free and paid-for. The free version has over 300 directories and the paid for version over 1700, all free to submit to.

The program is very straightforward and you can be submitting in less than a minute. Unlike some software, it's not fully automated, but I see this as a positive issue for several reasons:

1) If you suddenly had 300 backlinks appear to your site, the search engines would be a little suspicious. Better to have five more links a day than 300 at once.

2) It allows you to finetune which category your site is placed under and reduces the risk of your site being rejected or put in the wrong category. The more relevant the page on which your site is listed, the more likely the search engines are to 'count' your site.

There are two steps to submitting your site to a directory with this software - firstly, you need to setup a project for each different site you want to submit. This takes a minute, or if you want to take advantage of using varying titles (anchor text), description and keywords, to look more natural to the search engines, it may take you a minute or two longer.

Once your project is saved, click on the name of a directory from the adjacent list, navigate to the category for which you want to submit and you'll see your details already filled in. Just give them a quick check, fill in the category and 'captcha' if needed and click 'submit'. Repeat for each directory in the list.

The software keeps a record of the date that you submitted to each site, so you can keep track of where you are in the list.

To have a look at the software, and to evaluate it for free (and it's free forever unless you upgrade - no nag links or shareware), see Directory Submitter.

Labels: linking, resources, seo

Online coupon resources

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Okay, so this post is aimed mainly at the American market, but it's the best example of it's kind that I've found. CouponChief is a really simple concept - it lists online coupon codes for various products and these are searchable by people who want to get a bargain. Unlike a lot of coupon-style sites, you don't have to become a member or pay a membership fee.

Coupons are arranged by both category and store for an overview, and there is an RSS feed so you can subscribe to new offers. Top offers, offers expiring soon and suggested searches are all visible on the front page too. It's not a pretty site, but is very functional and there's been some thought in the navigation and usability.

There are all size companies listed and some useful for your online presence like Dotster for example. See their internet category for more information.

Labels: pp, resources

Free toolbar builder

Monday, April 16, 2007

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

Special offer for blog readers

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Download this FREE Tool *Immediately* and Instantly Increase Your Sales by over 900%.

This software will protect your affiliate links and make them look 100 times more professional.

The Result - Testing has shown that you can make up to 9X more sales by using it!

I have made a special deal with Richard Legg to get it for you at No Cost. You save $147!

Click Here to Download

Labels: biz, 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!

Labels: internet, resources

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:

Labels: internet, resources

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

Free Software Every Day!

Friday, March 09, 2007

It's not often that you find a website that gives away free commercial software which is actually useful and of value. Giveaway of the Day and Game Giveaway of the Day do just that.

So far I've had free mindmapping software worth $119 and a powerpoint-to-flash converting software worth $199.

They guarantee that the software is AdWare and SpyWare free and it's really simple to install - just download the file, unzip it, run 'activate.exe' then run 'setup.exe'. You must do it the same day though else the software won't run.

Positives:
+ Free commercial software
+ They don't take any details, just download it straight away

Negatives:
- Can only download it within a 24 hour period (hence 'download of the day' I guess!)
- It seems that if you reformat your hard disk, you may have lost the use of the software - it can only be installed and activated on the day that you download it.

Labels: misc, resources

Keyboard shortcuts when internet browsing

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

When using Firefox, I've found it to be great timesaver to use keyboard shortcuts e.g. ctrl-t to open a new tab, ctrl-tab to hop to the next tab and ctrl-shift-tab to hop back a tab.

However, until today I didn't know how to get to the address (location) bar, or the search engines in the top right (ctrl-l and ctrl-k respectively).

Onto Google I went and found the helpful people at the Mozilla Foundation have put together a very comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts for FireFox, Internet Explorer and Opera. See their 'Keyboard Shortcuts' page for the full list and give your mouse (and wrist) a rest!

Labels: browsers, resources

Font-tastic free fonts and dingbats!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

There's hundreds of times that you could use different typefaces in your documents and projects - my sister for example at Christmas, made placecards for the whole family each member with a different font to reflect their hobby or job - and they looked fantastic.

Urban Fonts is a great looking site which offers free fonts and dingbats to download. They have a distinct 'web 2.0' look and feel - curvy corners, slight 3D effect on the logo and bright colours. The site is well laid out and easy to navigate with features such as the top searches shown as a word cloud, featured free font of the day, useful font articles, categorised fonts and a blog.

One feature that I did like? No pop-ups! There are ads on the site but they don't obscure or obstruct your view, and with providing over 8000 free fonts, I think they're probably entitled to try and earn some money!

When you've chosen a font category or are viewing your search results, you can select whether to view both free and commercial fonts or just free ones or just commercial ones. From these results you can download the font directly for both windows and macintosh, or if you click for further details, you can then see the full range of letters available or even better, type in your own text and font colour to see what it will look like in a range of sizes which is a really nifty feature.

A 'dingbat' in case you've not come across the term, is used to describe a font with symbols and shapes rather than alphabetical or numeric characters - common examples are wingdings and webdings in Windows.

Labels: pp, resources

Top 10 downloads of the past 10 years

Thursday, December 14, 2006

CNET have published their list of the ten applications that best represent the top downloading trends in the past 10 years, via their download.com site:

ICQ - instant messenger
Winamp - music player
Napster - controversial turned legit file sharing / music service
Firefox - see button in top left for more details
WinZip - file compression
iTunes - music player and organiser
Ad-aware - spyware detection and removal
Skype - free calls over the internet
RealPlayer - audio and video streaming
Acrobat Reader - PDF reader

For further details see CNET's article.

Labels: resources

Free faster safer surfing

Saturday, December 09, 2006

OpenDNS is a free service with no software to download or install that can vastly improve your surfing experience.

As well as blocking phishing sites and speeding up your surfing, it can intelligently correct typos in your address bar e.g. if you type 'og' rather than 'org' it will still take you to the 'org' site.

It works by you changing your DNS settings. If that sounds scary, don't worry, full illustrated instructions are provided, whether you do this by changing your broadband router settings or on your desktop or mobile phones.

See OpenDNS for more details.

Labels: resources, security

Scheduled tasks without cron

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

If your web host doesn't allow for cron jobs ("scheduled tasks") this can cause problems for some scripts you might want to run.

Help is at hand however - SmartScripts.com have a free fakecron script that you can install on your server.

It is cgi-based and very simple to setup - just follow the installation instructions. The only bit which you may need help on is the time syntax. The fakecron script uses traditional crontab settings which can be difficult to get your head around e.g. a task scheduled to run at midnight every day will look like:

* 0 * * * http://yourdomain.com/scheduledtaskname

However, again, help is at hand - HTMLBasix have a fantastic free crontab generator that is simply to use. Just remember to remove /dev/null from the 'send results to:' box as this will not work in fakecron.

Labels: programming, resources, webdesign

Open source notepad replacement and webpage editor

Friday, November 03, 2006

I've just discovered Notepad++, which must have one of the funkiest websites I've seen. Just have a look at the menu on the site!

The program is a breeze to use especially if you like to handcode web pages, but like syntax highlighting, line numbers and ability to 'bookmark' lines. If you don't know how to write webpages, then there is a WYSIWYG editor and plenty of help in the files provided.

For a full list of features and to check out the funky chameleons, see Notepad++.

Labels: resources

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

Clock Link - rent a virtual clock!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

"ClockLink provides fashionable clocks that you can easily embed in your web page. All you need to do is simply paste the tag on your web page. Our clock will display the city name of your choice if you choose. You can also choose a time zone for your clock so it will show the correct time. Decorate your website with our clocks!"

That's the blurb on the ClockLink website - and yes it really is that simple, just look at this blog's footer. The service is free - if you hover over the clock it will link back to ClockLink.com or one of their advertisers.

There's a big choice of clocks - from simple digital ones to funky animals and they're great fun. Colours, time and date format are customisable, and the clock in our footer took less than five minutes in total from starting at Clock Link to appearing on the site.

If, like me, you can never remember the date but you do check your site frequently, it's a good idea!

Labels: resources

Article Dashboard Directory Site List

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

There are hundreds of article directories out there, and it's very useful to have a current list. So here is one at LittleFish Web Hosting!

If you would like free article submission software that will automatically setup accounts with all these directories, just click the link and save the zip file! Please note that this is a PHP script that requires a MySQL database. There are instructions included, but if you would rather have LittleFish install it, we charge just £5. If for any reason the script installation fails, we'll even refund the money. Can't say fairer than that!

Labels: resources, seo

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?

Labels: internet, resources

Experimenting with Windows Live

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I'm not always a big fan of Windows software, but after reading a post on Digital Inspiration about Windows Live Writer, I thought I'd give it a go.

At the moment, I'm writing this from the comfort of my desktop, without having to be connected to the Internet. Setting up was easy - once downloaded, just enter your Blogger or other blogging details and Live Writer sorts it all out.

Different views allow you to see how your post will look before publishing, and you can save as many draft posts as you like. The interface seems simple enough, and for the technophiles you can see your HTML whilst the technophobes can stick to the 'What you see is what you get' interface.

Multiple blogs can be added, which is a bonus. The only drawback that I can see is that you can't schedule posts - a feature that is also currently missing in Blogger, but is in WordPress.

Further exploration shows that you can set up your services to be pinged when you've posted.

If anyone knows where to get plugins, which sound like a good idea, please let me know!

Labels: blogging, resources

Free search engine optimisation tools

Sunday, August 13, 2006

SEO Chat has an amazing range of tools to help you optimise and analyse your website. What's more - they're free to use and tools are constantly being added. Explanations of each tool can be found on its page:

...is there any other tool you could possibly want?

Labels: resources, searchengines, seo, webdesign

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

How to get your site indexed in Google and Yahoo

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

When you've got a wonderful website, you want the world to see it! Submitting to Google, Yahoo and MSN means that your site will show up in the listings at some point, but how do you tell the search engines which pages to list?

Firstly, use robots.txt - this states which parts of your website you DO NOT want to share. You can also use the robots meta tag in your web pages, but not all engines use this yet. For more information, see www.robotstxt.org/ and www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm.

Secondly, create a sitemap, which links to all of your pages and link to this from your index page. You don't have to just list all the links - it is for your visitors benefit too. For an example, see our sitemap at www.littlefishwebdesign.com/sitemap.htm.

Finally, create a Google and Yahoo sitemap, for the search engines benefit. You will need to create a Google Sitemap account (http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/) and Yahoo account (http://edit.europe.yahoo.com/config/eval_register?.intl=uk&new=1) to be able to submit your sitemaps. To create a Google Sitemap, I thoroughly recommend SOFTplus GSiteCrawler found at http://johannesmueller.com/gs/. There is a settings wizard, which walks you through the whole process and you can even choose for your completed sitemap to be uploaded to your website, and Google to be alerted.

The "URL list for export" function of GSiteCrawler means that you can then generate a text-only list of all your site's pages, ready to upload to Yahoo. This is a slightly more manual task than the Google Sitemap, but still a fantastic time-saving tool, as you don't have to type out each of your pages into a list. To submit your sitemap to Yahoo, upload the file to your website and then go to http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request and fill in the location of your sitemap file.

Of course, there are no guarantees that Google and Yahoo will index all your pages, or rank your site as highly as you would like, but at least using the sitemap method, you are giving your hard work a fighting chance to get noticed.

Labels: linking, resources, searchengines, webdesign

Check your website popularity with us!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Link popularity checking is a quick and easy way to see how "visible" your website is on the Internet. It is a measure of the total number of links that a search engine has found for your website. Obviously this will change between search engines, so the top engines are queried for a collective result.

To use the link popularity tool, go to our resources page and complete your URL in the form of www.yourdomain.co.uk, and if there is a competitor you want to compare yourself with, enter their domain as well. Next, complete the access code given to you and finally press the 'generate' button.

Marketleap provide the data for this tool, and will give you a comparison table for where you stand on the internet, from a limited presence to the "900 lb gorilla" category! It will also collect your data over time, so you can see how well your web promotion is going!

Labels: linking, resources, searchengines

6 free high quality SEO tools

Sunday, January 15, 2006

SEO (search engine optimisation) is always going to be a hot topic for any webmaster, especially where online sales are concerned. The problem is, especially when you are starting out, that there are many different tools offered, and they all cost an arm and a leg. HOWEVER, I have used the following free SEO tools, written and given away by Shawn Pringle, and recommend them (please note that descriptions are condensed descriptions from Shawn's website):

Link fetcher

Link Fetcher goes out and automatically fills in reciprocal link forms for you, and creates link pages based on your specifications. Saves you a ton of time and gets you as many links as you need/want.

Barrier To Entry Analyzer

Well, this wicked app takes your keyword(s) and does a custom analysis to see if it is a competitive keyword or not. It tells you how many searches per month that keyword gets, and tells you how many other sites are actively optimizing their pages for this exact keyword. If they are optimizing their content for it then they are your competition.

Authority Site Finder

An "Authority Site" is simply a site that the search engines feel is an authority on a subject, with loads of relevant content and lots of one-way links pointing to it. This tool finds these sites based on your keywords, and tells you which top 15 results for that keyword have links from these authorities.

On-Site Analyzer

It looks at the top 10 pages for your keyword and tells you all about their on-site optimization. No other tool goes into this much detail. You have to try it to see what I mean. It does a lot of analysis, and quickly too. It gives you a chart comparing every aspect of your site to each of the top 10 pages for that phrase.

True Backlink Counter

Ever noticed that Google reports different backlinks for a site than Yahoo and MSN? They all show different backlinks, so how do you really know how many backlinks a site has? Answer: use this tool.

Rank Finder

Ever wonder where your site sits in the rankings? Plop in your keywords, or just put in your URL(s) and have the program find your keywords and your rankings itself.

Get your free SEO tools from here

Labels: resources, seo

Ebay auctions - win more and improve your listings!

Friday, January 13, 2006

Knowing how frustrating it can be to lose an eBay auction in the last few seconds (sad but true, if it's something I really want, I'll sit there constantly hitting 'refresh', adrenalin pumping, until the end), I discovered AuctionSniper. This is a brilliant online program, that you input your eBay details, the item details and your maximum bid. At your specified time before the auction ends (around 5 seconds is normal), AuctionSniper places a bid on your behalf! It obviously can't guarantee you'll win, but does improve your chances, and is particularly good if an auction ends when you can't be at your computer. Also, you can set up 'bid groups' which means that for a particular item, you list all those items available on eBay, how many of them you want, and your maximum price, and AuctionSniper does it on your behalf - magic!

The next item I recommend if you are an eBay seller is Auctiva - it's free and gives you image hosting, scheduled listings etc...If you are bored of the eBay templates that you pay for, definitely give Auctiva a go - it'll give your auctions a better air of professionalism.

Labels: ebay, resources

Website Plagiarism Search

Thursday, December 01, 2005

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

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Tech Support Alert (www.techsupportalert.com) have a list of the best ever freeware utilities, and a quick scan through the list shows it's an absolute goldmine for people who like good quality software without a hefty price tag. The categories shown include "The Best Freeware...":

Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
Anonymous Surfing Service
Anti-Virus Software
Archiver/Zip Utility
BitTorrent Client
Bookmark Cleaner
Browser Protection Utility
Clipboard Replacement Utility
Desktop Search Utility
Digital Image Editor
Digital Image Viewer
Digital Photo Organizer
Download Manager
Download/Upload Meter
Email Client
File Cleaner
File Manager
Firewall
Folder Synchronization Utility
FTP Client
Hotkey Utility
HTML Editor
Intrusion Detection Utility for Home Use
Notepad Replacement
Outliner
PC Inventory Tool
Popup Stopper
Process Viewer
Registry Cleaner
Registry Editor
Rename Utility
Resource Meter
Rootkit Scanner/Remover
Screen Capture Utility
Search and Replace Utility
Search Toolbar
Secure Erase Utility
Software Suite
Spam Filter for Experienced Users
Spam Filter for the Average User
Sticky Notes Utility
TCP Settings Tweaker
Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover
Web Browser
Web Mail Accessory
Web Site Ripper

The full list can be found at http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

Labels: resources

Free Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Software

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

If you go here you will find the links, and information for:

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express
Visual Basic 2005 Express
Visual C# 2005 Express
Visual C++ 2005 Express
Visual J# 2005 Express
SQL Server Express

If you download them before 7th November 2006, they are free for life and registering your software gives you additional benefits:

250 royalty-free stock photography images from Corbis
Free Windows Icons from IconBuffet
Free eBooks including: Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition: Build a Web Site Now, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!, and Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!
3rd party components from VSIP partners
And more

Full information for each package from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

Labels: programming, resources

Free PDF-writing software

Monday, November 07, 2005

If you buy the PDF-creating software from Adobe, it can be an expensive business, especially if it's only for the occasional document. And a lot of free PDF-making software out there will put their own website link in each document. We have found two excellent pieces of software that do exactly what you want them to do:

*** Primo PDF ***

www.primopdf.com

PRO: easy to install, lots of options for your document e.g. optimise for print or screen, good support, no nags, no links to them in your PDF documents.

CON: cannot create clickable hyperlinks.

*** PDF 995 ***

www.pdf995.com

PRO: easy to install, extra (free) installation options allows document security and clickable hyperlinks, can integrate into MS Word.

CON: 'nag' screen appears before you can use the software unless you purchase a license, no support for free version.

Labels: resources

Outlook Express - Autoresponders & Spam filters

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

An auto-responder is literally an automated e-mail response. It's an incredibly useful tool if you're out of the office or want to automate electronic product deliveries. The first section of this tutorial will explain how to send out the same response to everyone and the second part will look at how to tailor your responses to different circumstances. Finally, the last part will look at how to filter your incoming messages for spam!

*** Sending out the same response to everyone ***

Create your message:

In notepad or similar, type the message you want people to receive.
Save this file to a location on your hard-drive; give it a relevant name!

Goto Tools > Message Rules > Mail

Choose 'new'
In section 1 (conditions) tick the 'for all messages' box.
In section 2 (actions) tick the 'reply with message' box.
In section 3 (description), click on the blue underline 'message'

Navigate to where you saved the file from (1)
Select this file

In section 4, choose a name for your rule.

That's it!!!

*** Sending out different responses ***

If you look at the different components in creating a new rule, you will see that there are many different ways of customising your response e.g. if you have different e-mail addresses, you can create corresponding subfolders in your inbox and automatically direct the e-mails to it's subfolder.

To automate delivery of your electronic ebay products, the easiest way is to use a link-hiding program to disguise your actual download location, take payment with PayPal and then use Outlook Express message rules to send an e-mail to the winning bidder with the download link:

For each product:

Set up an EzyLinkExpire link

Create a message (See step 1 above) containing the download link

***Tip*** Why not suggest the recipient check out your other products?

Create a message rule:

Where the Subject line contains 'Notification of an Instant Payment'

and the message body contains 'Put in your auction title here'

and Reply with your link-containing message

You're done!!!

*** Spam filtering ***

A different use of Outlook Express is as a spam filter. Create a new rule:

Conditions:

Where the Subject line contains 'security alert' or 'Credit Union' or 'Update your CU account' or '$aving$' - carry on adding words that you frequently receive in spam e-mail titles

Click on the word 'and' and select 'messages match any one of the criteria'

Where the message body contains 'Opt-in Email Special Offer' or 'credit union' - carry on adding words that you frequently receive in spam e-mail messages

Actions:

Delete it
and Highlight it with Red

Labels: email, resources, spam

Get Safe Online

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Get Safe Online in its own words "...will help you protect yourself against internet threats. The site is sponsored by government and leading businesses working together to provide a free, public service."

It's split into 3 sections - Protect Your PC, Protect Yourself and Protect Your Business to be relevant to everybody from home users to small business owners.

It's sponsored by the UK Government, BT, Dell, eBay, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Message Labs, Microsoft, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, Secure Trading and Yell.com so you know that the site knows what it is talking about!

Take a look, and also consider these free* software packages to protect your PC:

Adaware - Removes spyware
AVG Antivirus - Removes viruses, worms, trojan horses and other nasties
Spybot Search & Destroy - Removes spyware
ZoneAlarm - Free Download- Firewall software

(* free to personal, non-commercial users)

Labels: email, resources, security, spam

E-mail campaigns...Part 2

Friday, October 28, 2005

Last post looked at the legal side of e-mail and newsletter campaigns. Now to look at how to implement them at no cost. Using your desktop e-mail program is the simplest method, followed by a hosted solution. Finally, there are some very good free scripts out there but are slightly more complex to set up.

*** Using Outlook Express, or another desktop e-mail program ***

1) Copy your list of recipients into the BCC (='Blind Carbon Copy') field in a new e-mail. [TIP: If this is not visible, go to 'View' and select 'All Headers']

2) Put your e-mail address in the 'To' field

3) Type your message and off you go!

4) To see who you sent it to, right click on the message in the 'Sent Items' folder and choose 'Properties'.

Advantages
- No recipient can see the e-mail address of any other recipient, so you maintain privacy.
- You know that it's been sent because you'll also receive a copy.

Disadvantages
- You have to deal with unsubscribes and bounces manually.
- Limited customisation options.

*** Using a hosted solution ***

We've found Listapp to be a very simple and effective newsletter service. The setup is very straightforward, and it automatically generates the code for people to (un)subscribe, for both your e-mails and webpages, as well as letting you customise various options.

Advantages
- Simple to setup and maintain.

Disadvantages
- Limited customisation options.

*** Hosting your own script ***

If you can host your own scripts and have some experience in setting them up, PHPlist is by far and away the best free script we've seen.

Advantages
- Fully customisable.
- Automated bounce and subscribe options

Disadvantages
- Setup not for the faint-hearted! You must have knowledge of FTP, CHMOD and editing script files.

Labels: email, programming, resources, spam

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