Getting links to your blog

It’s no secret that the popularity of your blog is directly related to how many websites link to your content. Google and other search engines equate the amount of links to your website to the quality of it’s content. It’s interesting to note that your blog can have the most original and focused content in the world, but if nobody is linking to your site, you’re not going to rank very high in search results. And as you would imagine, the opposite is quite possible.

So how do you do it? How do you get people to link to your site especially if that person’s site is potentially a competitor of yours? The answer somewhat eludes most webmasters and every site’s situation is different. The truth is that some site owners overlook this important fact. With all this focus on search engine optimization, original content, creating e-books, posting updates to social media sites and advertising, it’s hard to pay attention to every detail.

Well you can start paying attention now because this information is probably the most important part of getting traffic to your site(s). Before I go into the details of how to get it, let’s look at the different types of traffic that’s floating around the Internet.

Targeted Traffic

Targeted traffic is usually from advertising streams. As an example, if you purchase Google AdWords, you’re essentially buying keywords that are related to the content of your site and the ads will show up on other sites that are simliar to yours. If someone on that site likes your ad, they’ll click on it and come to your site. Other forms of targeted traffic are from email campaigns that send out advertisements to people who have signed up for email alerts for specific information. Today, search engines are making attempts to return search results that are targeted to each user, but this is still only one piece of the “ranking” pie.

Type-in traffic

As the name implies, this kind of traffic is from people that simply type your domain into their web browser directly to come to your site. This traffic is the most difficult to obtain from the start unless you own a fairly generic domain name. Think about your own Internet usage. Have you ever wanted to lookup a topic such as cell phones and just typed in cellphones.com? Type in traffic for your site will come with time as people start remembering your site.

Search engine traffic

You’ll start to notice as you build your site and keep adding content to it that people will just start showing up. Search engines are always adding new content by sending out their spiders to locate information on the Internet to catalog it in their databases. Also, as you start posting content, you might end up writing about something that doesn’t have a lot of coverage on the Internet and this will dramatically increase traffic to your site.

Other traffic

There are many other places your site will start receiving traffic from. This traffic is not worth mentioning because it’s not only a small amount overall, but it’s also not the type of traffic you want. There are sites all over the Internet that make attempts to link to every site possible. Some even get more organized by sorting these links into categories. These sites are sometimes called link farms and are frowned upon by search engines. If you ever see offers on the Internet the purchase links on these sites with promises to add your site to “hundreds of targeted websites”, you want to avoid them. They can actually cause negative effects to your hard work.

Find those links

All this traffic is wrapped around the concept of getting links and now it’s time to learn the basics about how to get people to link to your site. If done right (and ethically), this process might be the most time consuming (or not). One way to do this is to let the fates decide: simply post your content and as people find it, let them link to it on their own. The second way is to go looking for the links.

The best way to do this is to just ask people to link to your site. Go around searching for sites that share similarities to your own and find out if the owner would be willing to link to your site. Usually this means he/she will want you to link back to them as well.

Link trading

This is a surefire way to get links to your site. But you need to know that webmasters will not link to your site if you don’t have original content or if your site looks like there’s not much substance to it. Also, they will not want you to link to them because bad sites can cause negative light to shine on good sites. Each webmaster might have varying rules for their link to be displayed. Link trading can be a time-consuming process, but it can prove very valuable to your site’s performance.

A good tip for your site is to create a links page close to your home page and accessible from it as well. My advice is to make a link like mine, ledfrog.com/links. This will ensure that all your web links will be clearly visible form your site and webmasters love this.

Sponsored links

Many websites are now offering link placement offers where you can pay a webmaster for a link on their site. The costs vary greatly based on the popularity of the site and where the link is located. Most websites will tell you the factual details of this placement and maybe even an estimated traffic count so you can value your dollar as much as possible. There’s no shame in buying links and in time, you won’t have to pay for them because eventually you’ll be the one charging!

Sponsored ads

The most obvious way to get traffic is to buy ads that offer your site’s link on countless other related websites across the Internet. This might be a more viable option to those of you that operate businesses online, but anyone can buy ads; if you’re willing to pay for them. Essentially you pay a small fee every time someone clicks on your ad.

Publish content

This one is more about publishing suplemental content. Your site will already have everything you’ve added to it, but every now and then you should consider creating something that people can download and pass on to their friends such as an e-book or maybe even a consolidation of a few of your posts. Be sure to place links to your site in these documents to ensure that no matter where it ends up online, people will always know where it came from. Also, give permission to other sites to use your content in lieu of posting a link to your site.

Email marketing

Be VERY careful with this one considering the amount of spam that is going around the Internet these days. I would suggest only emailing those that have signed up to your site and only email periodically. You don’t want to flood them with content that they can easily get by going to your site. Try and stay away from purchasing email lists.

This is just a basic covering of ways to get links to your site. As times change, I will undoubtedly be updating this section.

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What's the point?

It’s weird when you realize that things you used to do in the past are no longer exciting. Before, going out and having a few drinks was the thing to do–in fact, it was the “only” thing to do. Now, it feels more like a chore. Don’t get me wrong I had a lot of fun tonight riding around in a stretched Hummer and eating sushi up in Manhatten Beach, but once it was over, all I wanted to do was sleep.

Tomorrow is Saturday, so it’s not a matter of going to work the next day. I just don’t feel like doing this anymore (outside of a special occasion of course).

Maybe my girlfriend is on to something. She was never caught up in this “scene” and she never wonders what she has missed. She’s perfectly ok with how her life is and how she chooses to spend free time.

The point is I’m tired and I want to be sleeping in my bed. Maybe I just miss my girl.

Starting a Blog

You’ve heard of them and you’ve undoubtedly seen them, but have you ever thought about starting your own? A lot of people in your position have probably asked themselves this question, but usually there’s doubt in their minds. They doubt whether they’d have something to talk about or if people would actually read it. Above all, how can you create a “new” blog in the vast sea of information that is the Internet?

Well, fortunately, none of that matters! What matters is if you have an interest in something or you love your hobby, create a blog for it! But, the key is to have an interest…if you’re wanting to quickly move into the realm of making money with your site, you might be heading down the wrong path. More on this later.

Before I get into the how, let’s talk about the why.

Everybody has different reasons why they start a blog. Some start them because they want to share every detail about their personal life, some love reviewing products and want to give advice to other people, some are experts in their fields and love to talk about it! The end result is always satisfying to that person because they know that as long as they can help one person or share their insight to someone, then the job is done.

Here are my reasons for starting a blog:

  • Share information
  • Show off your personal life
  • Talk about something you’re interested in
  • Help people with their problems
  • Make some extra money

I’m sure that last one really caught your eye! 🙂 You might not know it, but you sure can make some extra money with your blog. How is this possible? Well, it’s all done through advertising and search engine placement. It sounds pretty easy, but there is a lot to learn about this by checking out my other guides, but for now, lets get your first blog up and running.

You may have heard of sites like WordPress.com and Blogger.com. These sites allow you to setup a blog without any actual knowledge of website building, servers, computers, etc. They are a really great start for someone starting out, but I have to vote against using them. The reason is simple: professionalism. If you use a free blogging site, your web address will be something like: username234.wordpress.com. At first, this won’t matter, but as you build and build and your site’s traffic starts growing, this can matter a whole lot.

Advertisers for one, generally don’t respond favorably to those types of web addresses. They prefer actual domain names. The flipside, however is when you get a domain name, you incur costs. When you calculate the cost of a domain and the monthly cost of having a webhost, you may start to shy away from this idea altogether. However, I’ve put together a nice little deal for new bloggers out there where I can host your site for free! Read this for more details.

Getting Started

Step 1: Decide on a topic

Brainstorm some ideas about what your want your site to focus on. There are a few ways to go about this. You could create a general blog about all of the computer industry or you could hone in one one specific topic such as the Mac operating system. Another possibility is to cover one smaller area of the larger one like a blog about all operating systems. Each one has it’s perks and obviously will vary greatly in workloads.

Step 2: Start your blog

After you’ve decided on your idea, it’s time to get the blog going. If you’re going to use a site like WordPress.com or Blogger.com, simply go to one of those sites and signup for a free account. If you have a domain and a hosted solution, you’ll need to install some blogging software. I use WordPress on all my blogs and you can download it for free from WordPress.org. It’s the same software you’d be using on a free account at WordPress.com.

I’ve created some guides to help you with this step. Check out how to use WordPress.com or how to install WordPress on your own server.

Step 3: Configure your blog

After your blog is up and running, you may want to consider adding some design to it. The generic template(s) aren’t very pleasing to the eye. If you know anything about HTML, CSS and/or PHP, you can customize your blog to your heart’s content. However, I use a much simpler approach (it also saves time): use themes. Themes are pre-built “looks” for your blog that integrate tightly with the software. I get all my WordPress themes from Woothemes.com. Their themes are the best in my opinion and if you don’t want to pay for one, check out their free ones! You can also check out TemplateMonster for a much large collection of website themes, but be sure to only browse the category for WordPress to ensure maximum compatibility.

Check out my Guides section for more information on this.

Step 4: Start blogging

Alas! The step we came here for! Now that you’ve got everything sorted out, you can start adding your content. Here’s is where your blog begins to shine. These tips will help you when blogging:

  • Always blog ORIGINAL content
  • Try to post at least one item a day
  • Stay focused on your topic(s)
  • Always give credit where credit is due
  • Obey copyright laws
  • Ensure your posts are accurate and free of grammar mistakes (remember, “professionalism”)

Congratulations! You now have your first blog! Once you get the feel for how everything works, come back and discover the many, many ways you can promote and monetize your blog.

More information can be found under the Guides category.

Tinting my Mini Cooper's Windows

<< Back to main project page There are a few reasons why you might want to tint your windows. For me, it was about the looks (as you'll see below), the ability to reduce heat and UV rays inside the car and most importantly, for theft reasons--if you can't see something in the car you like, you're less likely to break in. Anyway, I just want to share with you my story behind this project. I found some video "ads" on YouTube for this place in Costa Mesa, CA that had an impecable warranty on their products, so I researched the location and customer reviews and decided to take my car there. I must say that this place (and the people working there) blew my expectations away! See below for a full review and more information. Without further ado, here's the before and after shots: [nggallery id=1] For those of you who are interested in the place I got them tinted, it was a place called Signature Tint in Costa Mesa, CA. I can't say enough good great things about this place and the guy who runs it. I mean, from a strictly business point of view, this guy knows how to take care of his customers!

Here’s my little story: I originally found this place on YouTube after Dave (the owner) put up two videos of other Mini Coopers that had just been tinted and I emailed him to ask how much it cost among some other details. He responded back within the hour with a price and all my questions answered. Since this was before I even got the car, I didn’t make an appointment at this time. Once I finally got the car, I looked around at some other tint places and even asked people I knew who had their cars done to see if the quote I got was good or not.

At first, my friends were saying it was a little high, but I informed them of the lifetime warranty from this place and they agreed it was worth it. I decided to go forward with the project so I called on a Thursday to see when the next appointment could be made. He was pretty booked up and I could only go on Saturdays, so he told me to call back that Saturday to see if he had any time for me.

At this point, I wasn’t worried about being “squeezed” into a timeslot since this project was not a super high priority, but I called anyway and he told me to come down around 2:30pm. I did and when I got there, I was taken care of from the second I walked in the door.

The shop was a very simple place with nothing more than a few samples of the different tint shades, a couch and DirecTV. He had told the customer in front of me that he’d call them when their car was done and started helping me. Since I already knew what tint I wanted, this process was fast. He then explained to me that he would squeeze my car in right away because I wasn’t from the area and I had planned to wait in the lobby.

Not more than 2 hours later, my car was done, I was paid for and Dave was offering me a free car wash and detail at the place up the street. I told him I couldn’t take him up on his offer that day because I had to be somewhere, but he said I can come back at any time and get the free wash plus he wanted to take some video of my car to post on YouTube.

My total cost for this project was $215 out the door and for that, I got the best tint you can buy done by the most professional people I’ve ever dealt with. And the product guarantee: Dave said if anything happened to my tint, and I mean ANYTHING, I was to bring it back and it would be replaced for free! This was his quote:

I don’t want you driving around with my tint on your car if it’s messed up.

Now that’s service!! If you’re interested in checking this place out, here’s some information you’ll need:

Signature Glass Tinting
670 West 17th Street, Unit G
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
949-515-TINT (8468)
EMAIL: sigtint@aol.com
WEB: www.signaturetint.com
Visit them on Yelp for more customer reviews!

They don’t just do cars either!

Funny Yahoo! Answers posts

I was browsing through Yahoo! Answers today and I found this funny Question/Answer post and thought I’d share. I think I’ll be posting more whenever I see them.

Feb. 16, 2010

The Question: Hi I want to order a build a bear online and was wondering if it comes with a reciept for the credits or comes with anything to get credits with. also does it come with a certificate?Has anyone had any problems with ordering online??
NOTE: For those that don’t know, Build-A-Bear is a shop that allows you to ‘build’ custom stuffed animals and dress them up how you want.

The Answer: well wen i bought mine i had to pay 50 quid extra for postage an it came wid a bomb inside and killed ma little brother
Source(s):
happyland.

Feb. 18, 2010

The Question: What do i do?????? please read on!!!?
i currently have windows live messenger and one of my contacts pictures is not show!!! what do i do???

please help xxxxx

The Answer: call 911, any contact that is missing a picture is also missing in real life.

IMAP on iPhone

It seems like a simple task and for the most part it is, but what happens if you set up your IMAP email account and then you get an error message stating this when trying to delete messages:

Unable to Move Message

Well first, let me send you over to an awesome guide for setting up IMAP email on iPhone alongside the Mac app, Mail. The link for this guide can be found here and it contains a very detailed look at the configuration from beginning to end. I only have one piece to add to it.

If you’re getting the message above, it’s simply because by default, iPhone wants to use the Trash, Sent and Draft folders on the phone rather than the same folders on your mail server. What this means is when you try to delete a message, you get an error saying it can’t be moved. For whatever reason, iPhone does not allow you to throw email away in your phone’s trash. My best guess on this would be that it defeats the purpose of IMAP, which is to completely map ALL folders on the server to each of your email devices.

At any rate, the fix is very simple. Follow these steps:

  1. Go to the iPhone Settings
  2. Tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars
  3. Tap on the email account you wish to edit
  4. Scroll down to Advanced
  5. Under the header ‘Mailbox Behaviors’, tap on each of the three mailbox folders and check off the identical box under the ‘On the Server’ header.

You’ll see that you’ve changed the folder from being ‘On My iPhone’ to ‘On the Server’. Once the changes have been made, you’ll be in business!

We're making music with our cars now

I found this video on a friend’s blog and I just had to repost. Sometimes I’m just amazed at some of the stuff the Internet brings us. I always ask myself when I watch things like this if people have always been doing creative things like this before sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. If not, then can hold the Internet responsible for extended our creativity and if so, is all this stuff really talent or just creative ways to waste time? I can’t really say for sure because I’ve been on the Internet for many years and I can say that I haven’t become more creative!

In any case, the people who came up with and made this video surely impressed me. Check it out:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFybwg4wadI

Douchebag Drunk Driver

Last night I was about to go to sleep and I hear this really loud noise outside. I already knew what it was because every time there’s a loud noise coming from my neighborhood, it’s always a car accident. I’ve lived here over a year already and have seen four accidents near the major intersection behind my house. The intersection is Magnolia and McFadden.

At any rate, I ran out in the backyard and looked over the fence to see a very large van that had ran into a slightly smaller SUV. As near as I can figure, the SUV was just making a left turn as the van came barreling through the red light and hit the SUV right at the driver’s side.

As I’m looking at things unfolding and people getting out of their cars to help, I saw this guy start walking down McFadden toward my direction and he was yelling at someone. I couldn’t see who he was talking to until I saw another man walking under the street light also in my direction. Right then and there I realized what was happening.

The driver of the van was leaving the scene and in quite a hurry! He ended up crossing the street onto my side and I got the feeling that he was going to come down my block, so I ran through the house and out the front door. Sure enough, he was heading straight down my street and the other guy was quick to follow. Just to be sure, I asked the other guy if he was looking for that person and he said yes. I joined him and started walking toward the driver. He wouldn’t stop, so I finally shined a flashlight on him and told him to stop moving. He finally sat down on a wall in front of my neighbor’s house and we started to talk to him.

He began by saying how scared he was and that he left because he didn’t know what to do. His Spanish accent was so strong, I could barely understand what he was saying. I said to him, “You don’t have insurance, huh?!” and all he could mutter was that he wanted us to “work something out” with him. I couldn’t believe that he wanted us to potentially hide him or something! Unless he was also driving a stolen car, he would surely be found out by the DMV records.

We advised him that leaving the scene of the accident just makes things worse and that he needs to go back because he didn’t even know if the other driver was ok or not. I didn’t want to get more involved so I let the other guy walk him back, but I did notice that right as they rounded my corner, the cops pulled up!

I went back to my backyard and watched from over the fence again. The guy that was chasing after the driver walked back to the scene and as he did, he passed by me once again so I asked what was happening and he said they were arresting the driver and that he was really drunk.

There wasn’t much to see after this and I can at least say that the ambulance left without it’s sirens so we can probably assume that there weren’t any major injuries.