Cuil.com not so Cool

The new search engine Cuil.com has terrible results. For many keyword searches unreasonable and just plain wrong results can be found. It appears that the search engine is easily manipulated by keyword stuffing and cloaking techniques as well. I hope that it does not gain any widespread use. But that should not be too much of an issue.

There is now a new way for bloggers to update their blogs

There is now a new way for bloggers to update their blogs. The iPhone now has a WordPress App. This application can be purchased at the iTunes App Store. It allows iPhone users to update WordPress 2.5.1 and up for remote and self hosted installations. With this iPhone application you can:

1. Preview Posts

2. Add tags and categories

3. Insert photos

4. Upload photos

5. Use multiple blogs

6. Edit posts

7. Recover posts interrupted by calls

Required Search Engine Optimization Wordpress Plugins

Required Search Engine Optimization Wordpress Plugins

1. Google Sitemaps Generator plugin. This plugin creates a .xml file for your blog. This .xml file is rebuilt with any post and google is pinged.

2. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator plugin. This plugin creates the best user friendly sitemap and is very Search Engine Optimization friendly.

3. All in One SEO Pack plugin. This plugin allows for unique titles, keywords, and descriptions for every post manually or automatically.

4. Related Posts plugin. There is no better plugin for creating user helpful and search engine friendly inner post links. This drastically increases page views for normal viewers.

Optimizing your Wordpress Blog for Search Engines

When Optimizing your Wordpress Blog for Search Engines there are several key steps that are very important to do and several that the latest version of Word Press will do for you.

1. Install a Wordpress plug-in that will create unique titles, descriptions, and keywords for all of your posts and your home page

2. Manually enter unique titles, descriptions, and keywords for all of your posts and your home page

3. Create or install a Sitemap plug-in for your Blog

4. Create manual links in all of your posts to other related posts (Wordpress will do this for you to some degree and there are plugins available as well)

5. Edit your sidebars with plugins such as “Popular Posts”, “Cloud Tags”, etc that will create links on every page to certain posts

6. Uniquely name any images and add moderate and helpful alt tags to images

7. Thoughtfully create the names of your Blog categories to include keywords but still make them readable and helpful

8. The rest is a secret and involves much hard work. Why not hire Web Site AZ for Arizona Search Engine Optimization

Boosting your Alexa Ranking

Boosting your Alexa Ranking is a vital concern for many individuals who are part of networks currently using Alexa as a measure for web sites or blogs. It has been widely shown that Alexa is nothing more than an estimating device but still it is important to increase your ranking. The absolute easiest and most search engine friendly way to boost your Alexa Ranking quickly is to install the alex widget on your web site or blog (which displays your alexa ranking and the number of related sites linking to your web site). Then set that web site or blog as the home page to your browser and finally download the free alexa toolbar to run on your browser. This way every time you open up your browser the alexa widget on your web site or blog will count the alexa toolbar browser visit. If you do these steps and open your browser at least once per day you will quickly see your Alexa rank improve.

Revenue from Adsense comes in waves

Revenue from Adsense comes in waves. Revenue from Adesnse comes in waves that matches the natural flow of advertisers. There are certain times of the year where advertisers are putting less money into marketing (such as in the summer) and both click rates, overall clicks, and click dollar amount will all drop during these times. There are also surges in advertising revenue (such as in September-October coming out of the summer months and during holidays etc) where there will be more advertising dollars, higher click rates, higher Adsense dollar amounts, and more people online actively shopping. Making money online is overall very streaky and you will often have bursts of high earnings followed by a relative lull in activity. The key is to maintain revenue streams that are independent of such fluctuation to see you through these downtimes such as steady contract positions or steady paid writing gigs etc.

15 of the Best Paid Blogging Networks

15 of the Best Paid Blogging Networks:

1. payu2blog.com - unlike many other networks opportunities are generally all the same $5 price but are assigned individually without any outword action such as reserving an opportunity. This network actively sends out products which can be reviewd. Multiple opportunities at a time.

2. bloggers.linkylovearmy.com - undergoing a change from a email based system to a web based system. There are still some kinks. Major emphasis on page rank. Very few opportunities.

3. smorty.com - number of opportunities has declined recently with the majority being released at 2:00 am and taken quickly. You must complete an opportunity before reserving another.

4. payperpost.com - has recently made changes limiting opportunities to 2 oppertunities per day per blog. Very competitive network and very restrictive in who they allow. Many ops with 50 word only requirements. Uses Alexa Rank and page rank. The most advertisers of any network. Segmentation geographically limits opportunities.

5. sponsoredreviews.com - an interesting spin where the advertiser is listed and bloggers bid to the advertiser. The advertiser chooses which to accept. Several opportunities per day.

6. reviewme.com - can take a long time to get your blog approved and has minimum 200 word per post requirements. Uses Alexa Rank and Technorati.

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Flash Design is Fine and Good

Flash Design is Fine and Good. If you want a Flash Design I will give it to you. But every small web site owner immediately regrets heavy Flash use one year down the road when maintenance costs increase and it becomes obvious that the Flash design did not improve sales. The fact is, people buy from ugly web sites with no Flash. A Flash banner is fine but I get increasing requests from web site owners who own an all Flash web site that the owner can not update or find anyone to update after their previous designer deserted them. Let’s be honest, many rich people are rich because they are cheap. Why would they select the more expensive to create and maintain Flash design over a dirt cheap but still professional standard web site?

If you do a search in the search engines you still find that the majority of the top sites do not include heavy amounts of Flash. You want things flying across the screen, music, and overly complicated transitions in between clicks? Fine but it will cost more now and it will cost more later.

Let’s get started on your flash design!

Succeeding in the Search Engines requires long hard work, tons of patience and a great deal of experience

So you have created a web site and you are ready to submit it to the Search Engines and get lots of traffic right? Well unless your domain name has been on the internet for at least 1 year here is what to expect:

1. You site will either be sandboxed for 8 months and get only a #50 rank or worse or you site may not be indexed at all and not even appear in the search engines. This equates to zero visitors to your site per day and no sales unless you take drastic Search Engine Optimization tactics to build quality inbound links from related sites and update your sites home page content every day or at least every week.

2. In rare instances you will experience mild results sooner only to have your hopes and dreams dashed upon the rocks when the search engines perform an update.

3. Any current rankings will be easily overtaken by your competitors who have been around longer with some simple optimization, updates, or additional quality links.

4. No amount of paid links or pay per click methods will fix this problem until your web site has significant updates and history to the tune of 8 to 12 months.

5. Make a mistake such as copying content or get involved in some spammy link farms and your site is permanently dead.

6. Sorry folks, the only way to succeed is now officially long hard work and tons of patience as well as a great deal of experience.

Why not hire us to help you out?

Submitting Web Sites and Blogs to Digg

When submitting your web site or blog post to Digg there are a few important rules to follow:

1. Write an interesting title

2. If submitting more than one item spread your submissions throughout the day at different times

3. If submitting more than one item submit to different categories

4. Never submit to a general category

5. Do not just submit your own web site but submit many different sites that you do not own

6. Do not try and submit using multiple digg accounts or any other tricks