Video Games

Mar 212009
 

gamesCompletely unfair. I am glad I was born when I was, but unfortunately it was about 15-20 years to late to be a video game tester. I came across this blog reviewing site on a webmaster forum, and was thinking, wouldn’t that be a dream job. According to the site I would qualify, game tester requirements, but I think it might be a little late in the game to start. I’m forty-one now, and I think the gaming guys start getting old around twenty-seven. I am also thinking the testing for StarCraft is long over. I still play that game.

If you are interested in becoming a game tester, the video game tester blog did have some tips on how to go about it, and also had information about realistic goals in the field. You don’t just start playing video games and earn money. You actually have to work. Acording to the blog though, you can make as much as $1,700 a week. Not bad!

Blog Directory for WordPress Fans

Mar 192009
 

cyberlogo2

Here is a cool little blog directory, especially for you WordPress fans. Cyber Blog is a new blog directory, and works similar to the more popular MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog directories. The home page shows off their new members, I just saw my face on there a second ago, and also lists any new blogs submitted.

How Do They Do It?

cyberblog 150x150

The reason I say it’s especially cool for you WordPress users, is because once you are logged into their site, you will feel very comfortable. They use WordPress styled forms. How did they do it? I don’t know. I do know that it works fine though, and I suspect it must be some sort of WordPress add-on. The site itself, is running using WordPress Software.

Overall the directory seemed pretty well set up. There were two things that bugged me when registering though. All fields were mandatory, even for entering things like “About Yourself”, and after I submitted I never received the confirmation email. Even after that though, logging in, and submitting my site was a snap. I’m just waiting for aproval now. Final note… High quality, free, WordPress Themes available for download.

Craigslist Handbook

Mar 182009
 

cl

Are you a Craigslist fanatic? I haven’t used the site in a while, but over the years I have sold stuff, got free stuff, and given away stuff thanks to their site. You can post “Free Left Over Sod” and have people at your front door within fifteen minutes. It’s amazing how well it works, and as far as I am concerned, smokes a newspapers classified section. If you are new to Craigslist, there is a new site that is all about Craigslist, and can even help you out in making those posts more effective. It’s the Craigs List Handbook.

The site start with some basic history of Craigslist for those new to it. It has information about Craig Newmark, the man who created it, and some links to some YouTube videos of Craig. If you want to keep up to date on what is going on with Craigslist, CL Handbook also has a blog, Craigslist News. The site additionally had some tips and guides on how to use Craigslist.

What I like most on their site was the new/blog section. They had some interesting posts in regards to weird stuff sold on Craigslist, and they also offered tips on how to do things on the site. The most recent example was how to use Craigslist to find an apartment. Another great thing about CL Handbook? It’s ad free! Not a common occurrence these days.

Never heard of Craigslist? Check it out: CraigsList.org

Link Building

Mar 022009
 

seofocused

Working on optimizing your site for search engines? As many of you know, one of the best ways to do it is by building up the number of links to your site. It works two fold that way. Search engines improve your rank when they see a lot, and your link is out there generating hits by visitors clicking on them. It’s a win, win.

I recently found a very busy member on the Digital Point forum that offers a link building service, and it’s for a great price. His site is SEO Focus and his specialty is a link building service. The prices are great, $22 = submission to 600 directories for example, and several other aggressively priced packages. He additionally offers a social bookmarking service aggressively priced as well.

I have had a lot of experience with other Digital Point members, and it’s typically positive. Occasionally though, you get a trouble maker. This guy is not, and after looking up his customer feedback he has had over 100 positive transactions with zero complaints. Here are that last three feedbacks for this service.

“Excellent Job! ”
“Very professional. Good service!!!!”
“A++ highly recommended”

That’s just a few, there were over 100 more just like those. I honestly have never used the service, but I am about to. I’ll let you know what I think, when I start seeing those back links.

SEO Service

Feb 252009
 

seovisionsThere are a ton of SEO companies out there, and if you are looking to market your site, I would strongly suggest talking to an SEO specialist first. SEO Visions is one of those companies, and here is their SEO consultant page.

SEO Visions Services

You can get a variety of on and off site services to optimize your site for search engines.

  • Page optimization
  • Link building
  • Article submission and writing
  • Directory Submission
  • Optimized press releases

The company has also taken the steps to become Yahoo Ambassador. If you are unfamiliar Yahoo’s Ambassador program, it basically shows that this company or person has taken the steps to learn all the functionality of Yahoo’s PPC services. You can then know it is a reasonably safe to use SEO Visions’ pay per click advertising service, and that your money will not be wasted.

SEO Sites and Their Help Pages

One of the best sources for SEO infomation is SEO sites. In an effort to convert customers they must educate them on the need first. Not everyone is a webmaster, and obviously the ones that need SEO the most understand nearly nothing about the topic. They are focused on business, not on how to build and market a website. So if you are new to the idea of optimizing your site, a great way to fast track your knowledge on the subject is to search for SEO companies, and look any articles they may have. SEO Visions had a ton of  seo tips and articles.

How To Increase Font Size

Feb 242009
 

I simply loved seeing this. It was a how to, on how to increase the font size on a web page using your browser. Check out Healthy Fellow’s website. Healthy Fellow critiques about natural health products, and additionally writes about health tips. There are numerous categories, and the number one tag word on the blog is Heart.

healthy

I was checking out Healthy Fellow’s site, and saw those three little words, “Font too small?” I wasn’t sure what wasn’t going to happen when I clicked it. I expected it would simply increase the font size, and that would be the end of it. It didn’t though. What it did do is open up a new window that had instructions on how you can make your browser do it. Absolutely fantastic! A lot of people don’t know how to do it, and when visiting this site they can figure out not just how to adjust the font on this site, but anybody’s site. Below is a screenshot of the popup.

howtozoom

I thought it was a very nice touch to a website, and I give Healthy Fellow two thumbs up for doing it. It’s the first time I have seen this.

Keep and Share

Feb 232009
 

keep

Do you do any photo sharing or file sharing with your friends? Keep and Share offers both, and it’s free to join. You can store thousands of files, and they can be public or secure. Think of it as your computer briefcase while you are on the road. Besides storing files or pictures, and you also have a public, or not, calendar. I personally use Outlook, and my phone, but the calendar option is great if you running group events where you want to share it.

One of the things I particularly liked about the photo sharing is that you can put your photos in a journal like blog. This can make it a little more fun for your friends viewing them. Competitors usually just allow you to title, or add a small caption. They allow 1,000 x 1,000 pixel images which is enough to fill most monitor screens, and they allow as many as you want.

Cool little tool, and can be handy when you are on vacation or on the road. I know many times my wife and I like to upload our pictures while we are still on vacation. This is just the tool for that. Keep and Share

Affiliate Programs

Feb 212009
 

Are you running an affiliate program to sell your product or service? I want to know how it’s working out for you. About a year ago, I had coded my own affiliate script to sell my usability software. Being in a rush, I threw it up on my site, and immediately had a few people join. There were a couple of problems though.

It’s Got To Be Professional

The first was that I didn’t have time to finish it. It looked completely unprofessional on the admin side for users checking their stats. The second major problem was that I was not certain how well it worked. I knew it worked. I tested it. I tried cheating it, and I tried messing it up as an uniformed user. But like I said earlier, I threw it up in a rush. I was concerned that someone was not going to be happy with how it worked/didn’t work. So I killed it off, and haven’t had one since.

Who Should Run the Affiliate Program?

So now I am on a quest to start an affiliate program again, but this time I want it to be rock solid. Additionally, I am still deciding on wheter to host the program myself, or to use an existing service. I’m leanging toward hosting it myself. Hosting it myself, I receive all the profit. Using it with an affiliate service, the publisher gets a cut, and the affiliate service gets a cut. That doesn’t leave much for me. Their advantage though, is that they offer a professional service, and there is essentially no work for me involved.

Affiliate Software

After asking a few forum members what they use, I was referred to this affiliate software, by OSI Affiliate. Doing a little digging, I was pleasantly suprised to find the best of both worlds from them. I could install the software on my server if I wanted, or I could host it on their server, and simply pay a monthly fee. Either way there is no limitation on the number of affiliates or banners, or anything like that. The price for buying the software appears the better way to go. It’s triple the monthly fee. See more of the product details on this extensive list of features.

Still Deciding

I’m still currently deciding on what to do, so I would love to know what some of you are doing, and how well it’s working for you. OSI does seem like a great way to go for affiliate tracking sofware. I just have to make sure that whatever I do, don’t do it in a rush again.

Ranking Search Optimization Sites

Feb 182009
 

I’ve been asked to look at a lot of seo sites over the past year, and the one thing I always look for is how they actually rank. It’s a credibility thing. How are they supposed to rank your site well, when they can’t rank themselves. Granted, it’s a competitive topic to get ranked well, but are you going to use a company that ranks 367th, or in the top ten? Welcome to HubShout.

hubshout

HubShout is an online marketing company that doesn’t just offer SEO services. They brag about it. Many of the seo sites I look at rank poorly, not at all, or just have maybe one spot in the top thirty listings on Google. I don’t think there is any better credibility factor that you can find from a seo company that their ranking. HubShout is shooting for SEO technology. On their home page they mention that they are ranked on the first page of Google for the keyword. Well guess what, they are not just on page one, but listed second. If you are in the top five for your keyword, be happy. It’s not an easy accomplishment, especially when you are competing against 10,000,000 plus other sites.

HubShout offers the typical SEO services.

  • Free consultation
  • Onsite audit, and keyword research
  • Link building services
  • Paid search campaign

They also have a great listing of seo articles to help you out. Before diving into any seo campaign I would strongly advise finding out as much as you can ahead of time. Pretend you are buying a new flat screen t.v., and research the heck out of it. HubShout has passed my first credibility test. They actually rank well for a competitive keyword.

New York Web Designer

Feb 102009
 

david

Any New Yorkers out their looking for a local web design studio? Check out these New York web designers. The name of the company is Davidz on Online Web Design Studio. I don’t really think calling them a design studio really does them justice though. They are not just a bunch of designers.

Besides building websites, they offer a few equally important services, marketing, site hosting, and search engine optimizations. There is not much for a webmaster to do after that. Having a web design firm that also specializes in SEO is a great combo. SEO should really start day one when developing a site, see search engine optimization New York. So what company would be best at marketing your site? Probably the guys that developed and optimized your site for search engines and marketing. They are already in on the strategy side of your site.

The one service they offered at this studio that made me a little jealous was that they additionally offer hosting service. They have a couple of packages to choose from, and are well priced. I always just refer my customers, making them get their own host. Something they usually have no clue on. All said and done, Davidz on Online Web Design Studio in New York is your all in one package for getting your site up and running, and getting the traffic you would expect.

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