Thursday, February 21, 2008

Links, Linking and SEO. What they have to do with each other explained.

After I had been asked by a fellow blogger on linking and the significance of links to your blog, I wanted to clarify a few details about linking that should help with your linking strategy. The Google and Yahoo algorithms look at the links pointing to your page. The more you have the better. BUT! It depends on the “characteristics” of the links that you have pointing to your site. There are “bad” links, “quality” links and “regular” links. I will offer more detail for the “quality” links as they are more useful and so that we know what we are looking for in a “quality” links characteristics.

Here are some few guidelines that you should follow and you will be ok and on your way to a better spot on the search eng!nes not to mention driving additional traffic to your site!

1. “Quality” backlinks are links that are:

a. Coming from another site that has a high page ranking (PR) ranking of 4 or better. (PR ranking is from 0 – 10 with 10 being the best).

b. “One” way links from similar sites as yours, as these links carry a heavier weight in the search engines.

c. Links that are coming from sites of a similar niche or nature. (I.e.: If you have an automotive repair site, then contribute to a site where they sell automotive parts or give automotive tips and tricks).

Getting these “quality” backlinks:

a. Join “niche” directories and forums where you can contribute and leave comments on their site. Leaving thoughtful and provocative comments will almost always coax a response from either the Author himself or Readers. Always input the URL of your website when leaving comments so that they can follow your URL to your site!

b. Join social community sites like Friendster, Mybloglog, Mylot, Blogcatalog etc. will help out not only with exposure of your blog by giving you extra traffic but you can also place the link of your URL on these high PR sites.

c. Ask to trade links with high PR pages. This will only work if they somehow think that you have a really good site, are really friendly or helpful. If you do get a link from them TREASURE it!

d. Befriend top-notch bloggers and learn from them their secrets also on obtaining “quality” links. Brainstorming with experienced people is always a plus.

e. Writing authoritative articles that helps or informs other bloggers, for beginners, novices and experts alike. They will link to your article if they like it! Valuable information can be passed onto others and used as references by many readers.

f. OFFLINE NETWORKING-This is one tool that is free for all of us and can play a big part in link building if done right! Tell all your friends, family, classmates, co-workers and associates that have blogs and sites about your new site. They can write a review or instantly provide a link to your site for you, over a cup of coffee or tea of course!

g. Make a business card for your blog. You can have thousands of business cards printed out for a very nominal fee. Leave them at checkout counters of stores or hand them out to your friends and family.

h. If this is your 2nd or 3rd blog, have your main blog link to it, if your PR for your main blog is pretty high.

i. Free submission directories. With this tool you will have to use your own judgment as to whether you want to submit to that site or not. Ask around the web and see what people say about that site first, it will save you a lot of time and hassle before submission.

2. “Bad links” links and other things to avoid:

a. Bad links are the links from other sites (mostly submission sites) that have nothing to do with your site. These links are not weighed heavily by the search engines but can help you drive a miniscule amount of traffic to your site.

b. Bought links in the hundreds or thousands, too many traded links and submission to link directories or FFA (free for all) should be avoided whenever possible. According to Googles algorithm, sites can be penalized if this is found to be within the site. The intermittent use of link trading is ok and manual submission to specific safe directories is ok.

c. Spamming your link to forums, sites and directories alike is a big no-no and should be avoided.

3. Regular links:

a. Regular links are the reciprocal links or links accumulated through “link trading”. This can be of good use especially if the sites linking to you are high PR sites and sites within your niche. This can also be bad if they have no PR or not within your niche.

b. Links that you use as a signature in a comment not relevant to your site can be classified as a regular link.

One thing to remember? Having a lot of “quality” backlinks to your site is good for your SEO and does wonders for your site as far as traffic and PR are concerned. Avoid the negative “linking” practices and your blog will grow and be a place that people can always come to depend on for information and knowledge. As with anything else seo, adding links and taking them out is and will always be a constant battle. Be patient when building "quality" links, have fun, enjoy your blog and be yourself. It will work out in the long run and readers will see you are real people and care about what you blog. That's the next generation bloggers way of LINKING! Happy blogging!

The A to Z Guide for Beginner Bloggers:

The following is a guideline that will help you in becoming a better around beginner blogger. Hope you like it!


Aim to be a better blogger every day. Always try to learn something different and new. Here is a great site that will help you build your site by personally developing yourself along with your blog. Either you keep up with the times/technology or your blog will eventually fade into the black-hole of the blogosphere and be but a forgotten memory.

Be yourself! Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. People will see right through it. Readers of your blog will be able to connect easier and relate to you in many ways. Being yourself lets the readers know that you are sincere and helpful at the same time. Your personality will show through your blogging and the people will love you for just being yourself!

Caring about what you blog will make you a more sincere blogger to your cause. Whether it may be helping people with HTML or fixing cars, you will be able to write better articles and will be knowledgeable in your field.

Don’t ever copy anyone else’s works on the net. Plagiarism is frowned upon and you will never live it down if you are found to have copied another person’s works. Not only that but you might find yourself in a legal battle that you don’t need.

Entertain your readers! Entertaining your readers with great articles, tips and free stuff will always keep them coming back for more. People love a site they can have fun with and learn at the same time. Use your imagination, when we were kids we were able to do anything right (at least in our minds)? That imagination will help connect you to your inner-self and let you grow freely with your blog.

Find your niche carefully. Finding a niche where you fit in is critical as this will help you as a starting blogger. Your knowledge of course will depend on your experiences and how much you care to expand your knowledge of that subject. We are all experts in our field, but can still master new ways of approaching problems and fixing them.

Great articles. Great articles are the gateway to your massive traffic building. Write great authoritative articles and share information with your readers. They in turn will keep coming back for your advice and share their information with you that they think might help you.

Help out new bloggers. Helping out new bloggers and inexperienced persons will build you great character. Your readers will know deep down in their hearts that you are willing to take time to help them and are once again, sincere about it. Helping out other people also makes a world of difference; you might even need help from one of them in the future!

Implement all the learning and plans that you have made for your blog. Find that “master plan”, gather all the advice you have read and tips given to you and IMPLEMENT them. If you don’t your success rate will drop dramatically.

Join articles submission sites. If you are a great writer, let the world know about it. Submitting to article submission sites will drive massive traffic to your site and earn you a reputation as a knowledgeable author in your field. Use sites like EzineArticles, Stumble and the other article directories.

Knowledge on the blogosphere. Keep up to date with your knowledge from the blogosphere. Always find new methods that will save you time and money. Know how to work with all the aspects of blogging, from traffic building, readership, RSS feeds, link building etc.

Limitations are nothing on the web. There are no limitations on the web. You can always get help from other like minded individuals and experts in your field. If you don’t know how to do something, just ask. Most bloggers are willing to help you or will point you in the right direction. Link building is one of those areas where there are no limitations, with over 50 million sites and more being made everyday, there are no shortages of links!

Make friends with the top-bloggers. Making friends with the popular bloggers will help you get an inner perspective on their workings and how they achieve the things they did with their blog. Brainstorming with these experts gives you a lot of advantages and in time maybe you can contribute to their sites also, earning you authority and links for your own site! Imagine what ideas you could come up with if you had Steve Pavlina and Darren Rowse just to name a couple, in your corner.

Network with as many people as you can. Even if the person you are networking with is just beginning their blog, they might eventually become a PR 5 or higher blog. Networking is a great way to increase your rankings and PR for your blog. Networking can be done “on” and “off” line.

Offer great tips, free advice and other free stuff that your users/readers will be able to take with them and that makes a difference to them. Offering material that they cannot get from another site will have you one up on the other sites. They will love you for it and as a bonus come back often to see what they can get again.

Page rank. Your page rank will not increase unless you have useful links, hundreds and/or thousands of them pointing to your page. Page rank can be obtained by having an informative blog. A blog where people can keep coming back for more and refer other people to your site. Page rank should come second to writing great articles for your readers. Always put your readers first, PR will come eventually if you have a great blog.

Question everything about your blog. Are you using an easy layout that people can easily navigate through? Is your color scheme easy on the eyes and not blinding people or make people wonder what happened to the text when they scroll through your site. Are all your links working? Is ad placement optimal, if that’s the way you’re going with your blog. There are many aspects to blogging that you must always question to yourself.

Read other peoples blogs! Reading other peoples blogs will increase your knowledge and you might learn something that you didn’t know before. Reading also gives you great ideas, maybe you can out-do someone or write an even better article on the subject. Reading forums, how to’s and personal development sites are a great way to answer some of your questions also.

Special style of your blog. You got to have your own style. That’s what makes your blog unique. Your writing style and layout of your page will be remembered easier by people if it’s not in the “norm” of other bloggers. Have a great looking graphic on your home page, write with passion and sincerity. Great first impressions last a long time. Slim-lining your blog will also create a more user friendly site and get rid of the stuff that just clutters your site making for a more eye-pleasing site.

Tools and training. Suggest web tools like SiteMeter and Google Web Tools etc. that users can use for free when checking their links, traffic, ranking or site building. Train other people in your field that are just getting started. You will have a loyal following and can do site sessions/reviews of each others’ blogs on what needs to be overhauled with blogs, what can be done better and so forth. As you are the more experienced person in your group, you will be responsible for being a leader to the others.

Understand the needs of your readers. Understanding the needs and what they crave will help you to build a better site for your readers. User friendly, easy to navigate pages and TONS of informative articles will do wonders for your blog! Understanding your readers will also help to maintain your reader author relationship in the long run and you will have loyal subscribers that keep coming back. Don’t be afraid to ask your readers what they want more of.

Verify all sources used in article writing. Verifying your sources will help you keep from “looking like a fool” and “looking like a liar”. Be sure of your sources first before publishing your article. No one likes to read one thing and it turns out to be the total opposite of what you published! Author expertise is a must for blogging. If you are not sure about it, don’t even publish it.

Who, what, where, when and why. Ok, I’m having a 6th grade flashback to my English creative writing labs, oh no! Actually, these are the 5 points that you should cover for any article written by you. If there is anything that pertains to these 5 points about the subject you are covering, then you should include it in your article. This basic guideline will help you also cover the basics of the articles, insert your interesting facts after the basics are done!

X-ray your blog. Yep, that’s exactly what I suggested. Just like we use x-rays to find broken bones in our body, x-raying your blog is just taking time out to find broken links and URL’s that don’t work. Nothing is more frustrating than clicking a link and going nowhere! It only takes a little time, but will show your readers that great care goes into your blog maintenance.

Your blog is your soul. What you write about will give people/readers their personal assessment of you. It’s like meeting a complete stranger through your blog and seeing if you can connect with that person. Have an outstanding and caring blog, and the people will come back.

Zone” out in a place where you can get ideas. Zoning out can be daydreaming, or just sitting by yourself with a pad and pen and writing/jotting down ideas or articles you would like to incorporate into your blog. The best ideas come to us when we have no distractions and our minds are free to flow with ideas and imagination!

By following this list, you will have an alliance when Traffic Building, SEO (Search Eng!ne Optimization), Article Writing, PR (Page Rank) building and Monetizing. Just follow these tips and they will open doors to the above mentioned site elements that will help you achieve your goals. I wish you the best success!

Importance of a domain name!

What is in a domain name? A winning domain name can put you miles ahead of your competition. After all, that’s the purpose of your website, right? Unfortunately most business owners and webmasters don’t realize choosing the right domain name can be crucial to the websites success.

Good domain names have several things in common. They are descriptive of the websites content; they are easy to remember and easy to spell. Being descriptive of the websites content is the most important because this is how you will attract existing traffic to your website. If your website or business is in the shoe business, shoe better be in your domain name if you want to succeed.

Your domain name is your location on the internet. It’s your piece of virtual real estate that you can develop however you see fit. Your domain name separates you from the 120 million or so websites on the internet today. Choosing a winning domain name is the equivalent to choosing a good location for an off line business.


CELEBIFY.COM
This domain presents the opportunity to start the next MySpace, or YouTube. Celebify simply means nurture a celebrity. This domain can easily rock the internet by providing a social networking portal that can make talented young people celebrities. So get grab this domain and start celebifying young people.

FluentSales.COM
Online sales is a big business on the internet, contributing billions of dollars to global trade. A good domain that will send a clear signal of intentions. Fluent. It can be used for selling online carious products and services. You can sell virtually anything with Fluent Sales .COM, as long as you are fluent, that is the only pre-requisite! This domain is on sale. Click on the link up to grab the opportunity.

ICTBUY.COM
This domain can be used along the model of Buy.com, but focusing on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). It also provides business opportunities for online sells. ICT Buy comes laden with endless opportunities. It is available for purchase.

InvestorPanorama.COM
In its most general sense, a panorama is any wide view of a space. It has also come to refer to a wide-angle representation of such a view — whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model. In investment, a panorama would represent a broad informed view of available options. This domain is excellent for those who want to give informed advices or a full package of investment products and services.

Accounting Icon or Finance Icon
An ICON is an image or symbolic representation often with sacred significance. Put that to Finance and Accounts, it would mean a solution center of the highest esteem where even competitors in the same field look up to. Like an idol or celebrity. A great brand name for those who what their business to be ICONs in accounting.

Accounting Beacon
Solutions from a shining beacon in Finance and Accounts. This can be used a brand name in the accounting circles. Traditionally, Beacons were fires lit on hills or high places, used as lighthouses for navigation at sea. Beacons were used to give direction since they shine from a distance. An Accounting Beacon would be a shining solution center that is visible from far away, giving accurate direction and guidance.

PremierBlogger.COM
Blogging is still hot on the internet. The only factor separating millions of blogs out there is how hot your blog is. The domain name comes into play. Obvious, content plays a bigger part. This domain can even be used for hosting blogs. It is quite suitable. Open this link and grab this domain.

PremierCoder.COM
Another blockbuster domain for those into computer programming. This domain can be used for so many purposes in computers. It can be used as a programming resource portal, or for a community of programmers who fight it out for the best accolade, thereby making them more visible to employers. Grab this domain and make a great start.

LoyalPresident.COM
Who is the LOYAL PRESIDENT? That is the question! 2008 is turning out to be a very busy and exciting year on the political front. Several elections are lined up across the globe, with the US being the highlight. Some have already been conducted, like in Kenya were an idiot called Kibaki selflessly watches as people massacre each other. Besides the elections, we are witnessing the action packed drama in Kosovo unfolding. All the time, asking, WHO IS THE LOYAL PRESIDENT? And what do you, the reader thing? Do we have a loyal president in the world? Certainly not Bush! Americans are ruing the day they mad a mistake of getting that man into office. LoyalPresident.COM is available for sale! Grab it and rock 2008!

PrimeICT.NET
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) presents limitless opportunities, so do this domain. Grab it and start/grow you own business.

2008: The year of presidential Elections

Who is the LOYAL PRESIDENT? That is the question!

2008 is turning out to be a very busy and exciting year on the political front. Several elections are lined up across the globe, some have already been conducted, like in Kenya were an idiot called Kibaki selflessly watches as people massacre each other. Besides the elections, we are witnessing the action packed drama in Kosovo unfolding. All the time, asking, WHO IS THE LOYAL PRESIDENT? And what do you, the reader thing? Do we have a loyal president in the world? Certainly not Bush! Americans are ruing the day they mad a mistake of getting that man into office.

In Zimbabwe, a ray of hope is shining. The current president may give in to growing pressure from democratic forces. In Pakistan, elections were held that saw Musharraf being upset. Is the tide turning against dictators. In Cuba, Castro resigns!

The biggest story however, is the US Elections. Bush's days are numbered. America now has the opportunity to select a leader who can turn out to be the Loyal President. Can it be Obama, Clinton, McCain?? Most people think McCain will face Obama.

I have already put my bet on Obama. He must be the Loyal President America have been waiting for.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Run Linux inside Windows

andLinux is a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in Windows 2000 based systems (2000, XP, 2003, Vista [32-bit only]). andLinux is not just for development and runs almost all Linux applications in Windows without modification. It supports quick launch icons, start menu, system tray, Explorer shell extensions and file type associations.

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