Office Decorating

Has anyone considered wood blinds for their office? As I get older and my allergies start bothering me more, I have been looking for ways to decrease dust in the office. However, I read a recent report that states that wood blinds can also reduce my heating bills.

I like the look of wood, so that is no problem, and they are a lot cheaper than drapes. Of course, most members of this blog are in warmer clients so they probably have never priced 'lined' or thermal drops.

If you are a canadian blogger and have looked for blinds, then you might want to take a look. I am leaning toward the new honeycomb blinds.

Will The Net Crash in 2010?

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately over the threat of ‘brown outs’ and a potential crash on the internet. I’ve already talked to a few freelance professionals who are in a panic.

First – don’t sweat it. When television took off, the communication companies came to the rescue. Already, companies like AT&T are promising to invest billions into upgrading.

There is a problem – video. It will be blamed for 80% of the bandwidth hogging. This will slow down the net. According to a study, partly funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), the cost of an total overhaul will reach 137 billion dollars.

What Does that Mean to Us?

I don’t think the hype means anything. AT&T is already upgrading to the tune of $19 billion. Can you really see the giant conglomerates giving up their golden egg, companies like Google, AT&T, AOL, BT (UK), Rodgers, and others.

There will be a race to fiber optics – and beyond. The winners will see their stocks skyrocket. That in itself is worth billions, not to state that all that extra bandwidth can be sold. One single podcaster pays $0.01 per hour of audio file.

That spike in video – someone will pay for it. Webmasters will probably pay for it in hosting costs. To put the panic in perspective, if every ‘active’ domain name in 2007, 6.6 billion, were charged a onetime fee of $5.44, the cost would be covered.

Currently only 20% of the world’s population uses the internet. (1,319,872,109 users) if everyone was charged a onetime fee of $100, the cost would be covered. Of course, they wouldn’t do that. We would be billed $20 more a year for years.

Online retail sales, excluding travel, exceeded US$175 billion in 2007, an increase of 21 percent from 2006, according to Forrester Research. Forrester expects online sales to exceed $200 billion this year and exceed $300 billion in 2011.

When looking at the problem in ‘global’ terms, you can see that the big companies will not be afraid to invest the money needed to meet the future demand. There is money to be made. And whenever there is money to be made, someone will invest.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Warning: Avoid Free Domain Names

Almost every web host, forum host, or blog host now offers free domain names. Even other sources such as Paid Post services offer free domain names. I’ve been hit hard 2 or 3 times by these free domain sites.

The deal is great for the first year. After that, you’ll pay much more to review the domain than godaddy.com will charge. I’ve had bills as high as $40 per year to renew.

I learned the second lesson the hard way. When you leave, the domain doesn’t leave with you. I worked hard to promote one domain. The company promised to transfer the domain for months. After a year I gave up trying to get the domain that I’d worked up to PR4 and was now ‘aged.’ I continued to try and buy the domain and watched for it to expire. Eventually, it was sold for $4000 to a company in Italy.

All my link building work was lost. My loyal visitors were going to another site. My friend’s links lead to another website.

There is a saying that nothing is free. This goes for domain names. A website’s entire success can hinge on its domain name. Losing this because you need to change web host, or need a larger host, can cripple a website, or even force a webmaster to start over again.

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Shopping Online

Have you been shopping online? I'd love to hear from anyone who has been shopping for drug store typ products online. I've been looking at different products. One is Orovo. I've never bought it, but it keeps popping up everywhere. I've read reviews and info on it for several months.

I've been doing a detox for a couple months, trying to reduce my problems with allergies and sinus infections. They have a detox that looks good. I am interested and want to buy. What do you think?

My First Take on SocialSpark

I’ve been watching social spark for about 2 months. I was not one of the ‘selected’ for the beta release, but I’ve been moving around the web looking for information. I jumped the gun and enrolled in SocialSpark as soon as it opened last week. I’ve read the blogs. I’ve chatted with other bloggers. I’ve explored the site. Now I have some advice to pass one.

What is SocialSpark?

SocialSpark is PayPerPost’s new ad campaign. The platform is one of the most powerful I’ve seen in the Paid Post arena. It lets the advertisers and posters view each other’s profiles. This includes RealRank, and Alexa. No one was surprised to see that Google’s PageRank is brutally absent.

There is a PPP code in the blog, so Google will be able to identify the blog. Will this effect traffic? I don’t think so. Most blogs are established on the Social Network. I find that Google brings less than 20% of my blog. Of course, this means that you’ll take a hit on Google income, so if you make more from Google than you’ll make from Paid Posts then you might want to rethink SocialSpark.

I was pleased to learn that the ominous banner that floats over the blog is nothing like our first images. It is a fairly nice banner that visitors can click through. Once gone, it is gone for that visitor’s entire visit. This box is OPTONAL. The blogger does not need to subscribe for the Sponsorship.

SocialSpark and Social Networking

SocialSpark blends the best of both worlds, SEO and Social Networking. Bloggers can make comments about advertisers, and vice verse. There is a friends list and social voting – UP or Down. This is similar, but broader than the system used at PayPerPost.

So far, I’ve seen this work as nothing more than a big popularity contest ‘you vote for me, I’ll vote for you.’ I am not sure how much weight IZEA or advertisers will put on this ranking.








Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Prioritizing for Procrastinators

Many people waste more time managing and organizing their time than they would loose if they just took each day as it came.

List your tasks in order of the consequences if the task is not completed, not the greatest importance. Starting a list with the tasks that bear the greatest consequences, if not finished, causes a dramatic paradigm shift. The tasks you thought were most important, probably because they represented a personal need or goal are near the bottom. The tasks near the top, earning an income, become the focus of the day.

The next step is to start – and finish – each job in order. For some, this may mean allowing the answering machine to pick up the phone. For others it may mean viewing your writing job as if it were a position with an employer. You could not stop work in an office to do laundry, run errands, or catch your favorite show. Why stop writing to answer the phone?

Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

How to Submit To Search Engines Successfully

Have you taken a look at your website or blog? Are you getting visitors? Have you checked to make sure you are indexed?

There are right ways, and wrong ways, to submit to search engines. Most websites are indexed organically. The search engines follow a link from one site to another, delving deep into the site. The indexing times can take anywhere from days to months.

One urban legend was Google’s sandbox. This doesn’t exist in the true sense. It just takes time for a site to be indexed. Most search engines may index only 300 – 400 pages. Getting the site indexed deeper can involve several techniques including setting up sub-sections and sub-domains and submitting them to search engines, individual page submission, and linking to that page from an outside source.

Submitting one page at a time which links to other pages is called creating a "hallway page." This will get previously ignored web pages indexed, and it may also improve the ranking. It is important to remember that web pages found organically receive more value than ones submitted. So letting Google follow links to un-indexed pages increase their rank.

Avoid Redirects, no-follow links, and meta refresh code. Most search engines will refuse to index these web pages.

If a web page does not change for several months, then search engines may purge it from their databases. Search engines love new content. That is why optimization must be done every few months. An old page may be re-submitted after part of the content or page is changed.

Text

Make sure the web pages are not full of code that cannot be indexed. Search engines will long look through a page indefinitely, past affiliate codes, meta info, heading info, dynamic menus, graphics, video, links, and finally to content. They may leave.

Robot File

All sites should have a robot file that tells the search engine what information is important. It contains meta information.

Archives

Archives can make it easier for search engines to dig deeper into the website. Check your CODE. Did the template designer put a no-follow code in it?