One hell of a learning curve for such a novice!
Not too long ago back in the days of Windows '95/'98, the UK retail store Dixon's announced the arrival of it's flagship product "Freeserve" with dial-up connections at just 0.01 pence per minute, I somehow still managed to run up bills in excess of £80.00 per month!
It would seem an impossible thing to do what I did back then some 10 years ago, running up those sorts of phone bills, but this just proves how hungry I was for the knowledge of the technological marvel of what we now know as the internet (aka) the world-wide-web. Obviously other ISP's existed but "Freeserve" became the mainstream internet gateway for many Europeans.
In my hunger for such knowledge I quickly found myself spending more and more time online, not that I was misspending that time for inappropriate downloads (not all the time anyway), but it seemed that any little piece of knowledge just fueled my urge and led me to investigate and learn even more. I was preoccupied "hooked" into the technologies and faced with learning all that I could just for the sake of it. Unfortunately in those first couple of years I realized I was still left with more questions than answers. But as time went on I progressively became more "expert" however; and technological advances appeared to slow down compared with what I had learned and my ability to learn existing stuff from new. I soon caught up to speed in what was available in terms of computers and existing internet technologies. I even enrolled with the OU (Open University) and studied towards a degree: "Information Technology & Computing".
My problem was and always has been to involve myself fanatically and become entirely engrossed into what ever it is I do. This is still true of myself today, and in the last decade I have turned somewhat into the proverbial geek!
The old fashioned way
Building my first "hobby" generic computer with it's then massive 6.4GB HDD and, website: http://www.mouldmaking.freeserve.co.uk (long winded url) was an enjoyable but very steep learning curve for me. Not only did I learn basic html initially through newsgroups such as alt.html and using Microsoft Frontpage (Yuk), and then Dreamweaver wysiwyg editor. I also needed to learn FTP, CGi, Perl, javascript etc. this was on top of having to learn the intricacies of the FreeBSD (Unix operating system derivative), '95/'98 operating systems (more Yuk), and build my own PC to boot!
I was also promoting my website and learning SEO techniques (Search Engine Optimization) which took up most of my remaining time.
Actually my website did quite well and although competition was quite thin those first few years, I did hold No.1 position worldwide on Google for most of my keywords for 10 years straight. BTW Freeserve was sold out to a french company Wanadoo in 2000 for £1.65bn ($2.37bn) and that was that. Following a rebranding exercise in June 2006, Freeserve and Wanadoo UK now form part of the UK operation of Orange, and are known as Orange Home UK plc.
SEO was understood implicitly but the tedious link exchanges between webmasters were a real nightmare!
Then came the guest books and FFA link farms. These were seen as an easy option to "link back to yourself" (back-links) without fear of rejection provided you furbished them with "I think your site was great", and "I really enjoyed my visit" kind of bullshit to the respective site owners!
Unfortunately for many however; Search engines took a poor view of such spamming techniques and many sites simply disappeared into the murky depths of search results.
Happier times ahead - The modern way...
These days things have changed for the better I'm happy to say, and although spamming is still frowned on by the search engines, a new kind of link building is revolutionary to the SEO arsenal. Far be it for me to sell you on the idea of social bookmarking but with carefully timed posting to these sites, exposure can work their magic for the website owner and those concerned with SEO and back-links.
Read more about Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking Tool:
Automated "Spam- free" Search Engine Optimization tool through Social bookmarks"
Showing posts with label Web Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Web Design. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking as a SEO Tactic!
A new kind of link building tactic is revolutionary to the SEO arsenal. Far be it for me to sell you on the idea of social bookmarking but with carefully timed posting to these sites, exposure can work their magic for the website owner and those concerned with SEO in creating back-links.
If you are a responsible site owner intent on creating back-links for legitimate purposes then you can use software to "Automatically register and submit metatags" (keywords) to hundreds of Social bookmarking sites including CAPTCHA protected sites.
Automatic submission tool:
Automated "Spam free" Search Engine Optimisation tool using Social bookmarks
Social bookmarking is a great method for Internet users to permanently store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of interest found on the Internet with the help of metadata (metatags).
In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages online in a personalized manner usually for free. Such bookmarks are usually public (social), but can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or other combinations of public and private domains - Sorted chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.
Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based systems.
They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with tags, and include numeric information about the number of other users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also enable Drag-and-dropping (Ajax) relationships of tags to create clusters of (grouped) tags or bookmarks.
Many social bookmarking services also have web feed capabilities for new lists of bookmarks. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.
As these services have become more popular, new extra features have emerged such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from your own browser, emailing bookmarks, web annotation, and other social networking features.
History
With the launch of itList in April 1996, the concept of shared online bookmarks was born who's features included publicly shared and private bookmarks. Within the preceding three years, other online bookmark services had arrived with venture-backing such as Backflip, Blink, Clip2, ClickMarks, HotLinks, and others entering the market. They provided folders for organizing bookmarks, with some automatically sorting bookmarks into virtual folders. Blink included browser buttons for saving bookmarks; Backflip enabled users to email their bookmarks and displayed "Backflip this page" buttons.
Lacking any viable business model however, Backflip ceased trading citing "economic woes at the start of the 21st century". In 2005, the founder of Blink said, "I don't think it was that we were 'too early' or that we got killed when the bubble burst... I believe it all came down to product design, and to some very slight differences in approach."
Founded in late 2003 by Joshua Schachter, del.icio.us (since acquired by Yahoo! in 2005) pioneered "tagging" and coined the term "Social bookmarking". In 2004, as del.icio.us began to take off, Furl and Simpy were released, along with Citeulike and Connotea, and Stumbleupon. In 2006, Ma.gnolia, Blue Dot, and Diigo entered the bookmarking field, and in 2007 IBM Lotus Connections included a social bookmarking service aimed at businesses and enterprises.
Sites such as Digg, reddit, and Newsvine offer a similar system of organized "social news".
Advantages
A social bookmarking system has several advantages over traditional bookmarking methods.
All tag-based classification of Internet resources (such as websites) are done by real people (That is to say; You and Me), who understand the content of the resource, as opposed to using the sites own software, which algorithmically attempts to interpret the correct meaning of a resource. Also, You and Me tend to find and bookmark some web pages (gems) that have not yet been noticed or indexed by web spiders. Additionally, some social bookmarking systems can rank a resource based on how many times it has been bookmarked by users, "back-links" which may be a more useful metric than systems that rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.
From the users point of view, social bookmarking is an effective and useful way to store and access a consolidated set of bookmarks from various computers, organize large groups of bookmarks, and share bookmarks with others etc. For the Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) however, it can be a very effective free tool if used properly and can even outperform traditional paid methods of driving targeted and qualified traffic.
Automatic submission tool: "Bookmarkingdemon"
Disadvantages
Social bookmarking can also be susceptible to corruption and collusion. Unfortunately due to the popularity of social bookmarking, some users are using it as a tool to increase a websites exposure along with their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts making their website more visible. The more often a web page is submitted and tagged, the better chance it has of being found. Spammers are spending a lot of time and effort manually bookmarking the same web page multiple times and/or tagging each page of their web site using a lot of popular tags. Some social bookmarking websites add CAPTCHA protection to fight spam, but unfortunately this can prevent blind users from registering for those services if accessibility CAPTCHA's are not provided.
If you are a "responsible" site owner intent on creating back-links for legitimate purposes then you can use software to "Automatically register and submit metatags" (keywords) to hundreds of Social bookmarking sites including CAPTCHA protected sites.
Automatic submission tool:
Automated "Spam free" Search Engine Optimization tool using Social bookmarks
A new kind of link building tactic is revolutionary to the SEO arsenal. Far be it for me to sell you on the idea of social bookmarking but with carefully timed posting to these sites, exposure can work their magic for the website owner and those concerned with SEO in creating back-links.
If you are a responsible site owner intent on creating back-links for legitimate purposes then you can use software to "Automatically register and submit metatags" (keywords) to hundreds of Social bookmarking sites including CAPTCHA protected sites.
Automatic submission tool:
Automated "Spam free" Search Engine Optimisation tool using Social bookmarks
Social bookmarking is a great method for Internet users to permanently store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of interest found on the Internet with the help of metadata (metatags).
In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages online in a personalized manner usually for free. Such bookmarks are usually public (social), but can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or other combinations of public and private domains - Sorted chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.
Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based systems.
They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with tags, and include numeric information about the number of other users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also enable Drag-and-dropping (Ajax) relationships of tags to create clusters of (grouped) tags or bookmarks.
Many social bookmarking services also have web feed capabilities for new lists of bookmarks. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.
As these services have become more popular, new extra features have emerged such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from your own browser, emailing bookmarks, web annotation, and other social networking features.
History
With the launch of itList in April 1996, the concept of shared online bookmarks was born who's features included publicly shared and private bookmarks. Within the preceding three years, other online bookmark services had arrived with venture-backing such as Backflip, Blink, Clip2, ClickMarks, HotLinks, and others entering the market. They provided folders for organizing bookmarks, with some automatically sorting bookmarks into virtual folders. Blink included browser buttons for saving bookmarks; Backflip enabled users to email their bookmarks and displayed "Backflip this page" buttons.
Lacking any viable business model however, Backflip ceased trading citing "economic woes at the start of the 21st century". In 2005, the founder of Blink said, "I don't think it was that we were 'too early' or that we got killed when the bubble burst... I believe it all came down to product design, and to some very slight differences in approach."
Founded in late 2003 by Joshua Schachter, del.icio.us (since acquired by Yahoo! in 2005) pioneered "tagging" and coined the term "Social bookmarking". In 2004, as del.icio.us began to take off, Furl and Simpy were released, along with Citeulike and Connotea, and Stumbleupon. In 2006, Ma.gnolia, Blue Dot, and Diigo entered the bookmarking field, and in 2007 IBM Lotus Connections included a social bookmarking service aimed at businesses and enterprises.
Sites such as Digg, reddit, and Newsvine offer a similar system of organized "social news".
Advantages
A social bookmarking system has several advantages over traditional bookmarking methods.
All tag-based classification of Internet resources (such as websites) are done by real people (That is to say; You and Me), who understand the content of the resource, as opposed to using the sites own software, which algorithmically attempts to interpret the correct meaning of a resource. Also, You and Me tend to find and bookmark some web pages (gems) that have not yet been noticed or indexed by web spiders. Additionally, some social bookmarking systems can rank a resource based on how many times it has been bookmarked by users, "back-links" which may be a more useful metric than systems that rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.
From the users point of view, social bookmarking is an effective and useful way to store and access a consolidated set of bookmarks from various computers, organize large groups of bookmarks, and share bookmarks with others etc. For the Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) however, it can be a very effective free tool if used properly and can even outperform traditional paid methods of driving targeted and qualified traffic.
Automatic submission tool: "Bookmarkingdemon"
Disadvantages
Social bookmarking can also be susceptible to corruption and collusion. Unfortunately due to the popularity of social bookmarking, some users are using it as a tool to increase a websites exposure along with their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts making their website more visible. The more often a web page is submitted and tagged, the better chance it has of being found. Spammers are spending a lot of time and effort manually bookmarking the same web page multiple times and/or tagging each page of their web site using a lot of popular tags. Some social bookmarking websites add CAPTCHA protection to fight spam, but unfortunately this can prevent blind users from registering for those services if accessibility CAPTCHA's are not provided.
If you are a "responsible" site owner intent on creating back-links for legitimate purposes then you can use software to "Automatically register and submit metatags" (keywords) to hundreds of Social bookmarking sites including CAPTCHA protected sites.
Automatic submission tool:
Automated "Spam free" Search Engine Optimization tool using Social bookmarks
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Building for a successful Website
It's very frustrating to "SELL" something for "NOTHING" if they just don't understand it!
About 8 years ago I founded PROCARE Computers, a consultancy Company here in the United Kingdom.
At the time I was still actively volunteering some of my time to charitable organizations, and working for free in local hospitals with stroke & dementia patients.
I also had some moderate success as a design consultant through my company, offering web design & hosting services.
Combining my two interests; around that time I was able to offer Charitable organizations FREE web design & consultation.
Technology services for free!
Costs were to be recovered paid through shared commissions on a performance related basis for non profitable organizations. However despite the fact that FREE SERVICES were on offer; it was still frustratingly difficult to explain, persuade or motivate these organizations into having something done for free!
Simply by explaining "Technologies" to those who are not technically minded, can still frustrate your marketing efforts.
As part of the "pitch" to provide something for free... (Yes you still need to pitch), I included some information which I still think holds true today, and which someone such as a budding web designer for example (who hopefully will understand the simple tech speak) may employ in their own marketing efforts.
The information and services below are a few extracts and part of the original pitch - provided FREE to non charitable organizations. But as mentioned already; - it's very frustrating to "SELL something for NOTHING" if they just don't understand it!
HAVE I GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU… Hi and a warm welcome to everyone! So you want a Website do you? It ’ s possible that we at PROCARE COMPUTERS could provide any charitable organization with free Web pages. This would make us feel very proud because we would be contributing something you and your service users need, and that can only be a good thing. I have put together some basic information for you and your organization that should simplify the complexity of planning and creating a website. The analogy compares to producing a “ Successful ” Website to that of just producing some basic html documents which I hope you will agree; are pretty much useless on their own. I sincerely hope you find the information both informative, and easy to understand. If you have any difficulty with any of the jargon or you need more information, I will be more than happy to discuss.
Happy reading and good luck!
Chris Wilson
We achieve that by diligently optimizing your pages to get top search engine placement and ranking based on a solid research foundation. All this can easily be realized without it significantly affecting your existing budgets.
ELEMENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE
The costs involved for us to produce Web pages for your own Charity Website would be minimal; about £50 or so per page, which we can offset against tax.
However before we can start to produce even a single page, you need to plan it! The following list represents what we believe to be essential…
1. You need to research and define your target market or niche
2. You need to decide on the type of Website you will need
3. You need to decide the site ’ s overall theme
4. Content needs to be gathered and sorted such as photographs, logos, written text, video ’ s, and sound etc. as applicable –and lots of it
5. Content needs to be relevant and appropriate (not misleading to visitors or the robot engines)
6. You need to break all the information down into manageable parts; categories, pages, headlines, sub-headlines, paragraphs and sentences
7. Content needs to be altered, reduced in size and/or converted into electronic form for publishing on the internet
8. The design of the site needs to be determined (layout, colours, text sizes, fonts, links, online forms, promotions etc.) which should be consistent throughout
9. You need to design the sites structure making it easy for visitors to find the information they want (navigation)
10. You need to decide additional kinds of technology you may want; JavaScript, Java, XML, Perl, ASP, SQL, PHP, Flash etc.
11. Confidentiality & Copyright issues may need to be addressed
12. Your site needs an online privacy statement
13. You need your own Domain name example: (www.yourname.co.uk)
14. You may need your own personalised matching Email address example: (you@yourname.co.uk)
15. You need to publish it on the Internet (uploading, file permissions etc.)
16. You need it hosting somewhere (a place for it to reside)
17. It needs to be registered with and rank highly on search engines and Online directories– free and “ Pay-Per-Click ” are some of the options available
18. It needs to be positioned well on the engines, otherwise you ’ re potentially losing 90% of your visitors (and revenue) if they cannot find you
19. It needs promoting
20. It needs to be checked, maintained, and updated regularly (managed)
21. Security flaws and loop holes need to be addressed proactively
22. It needs to be administered by you daily
If you want your site to succeed at all- then you need to implement all the above and more besides such as; META Tag creation, keyword density, doorway pages, Website Statistics, CGI Programs, Ezines, Newsletters etc.
The above few paragraphs are just extracts. If anyone wants the original pitch (9 pages in total) you can request it HERE
About 8 years ago I founded PROCARE Computers, a consultancy Company here in the United Kingdom.
At the time I was still actively volunteering some of my time to charitable organizations, and working for free in local hospitals with stroke & dementia patients.
I also had some moderate success as a design consultant through my company, offering web design & hosting services.
Combining my two interests; around that time I was able to offer Charitable organizations FREE web design & consultation.
Technology services for free!
Costs were to be recovered paid through shared commissions on a performance related basis for non profitable organizations. However despite the fact that FREE SERVICES were on offer; it was still frustratingly difficult to explain, persuade or motivate these organizations into having something done for free!
Simply by explaining "Technologies" to those who are not technically minded, can still frustrate your marketing efforts.
As part of the "pitch" to provide something for free... (Yes you still need to pitch), I included some information which I still think holds true today, and which someone such as a budding web designer for example (who hopefully will understand the simple tech speak) may employ in their own marketing efforts.
The information and services below are a few extracts and part of the original pitch - provided FREE to non charitable organizations. But as mentioned already; - it's very frustrating to "SELL something for NOTHING" if they just don't understand it!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Building for a successful Website
By: Chris Wilson
(Web Consultant & Proprietor)
PROCARE COMPUTERS
Copyright © 2002 Chris Wilson
Imagine… after just a few weeks of contacting us, your once “ struggling ” local organization has suddenly gone global! Be prepared to play host to thousands of people from all over the world!Copyright © 2002 Chris Wilson
PROCARE COMPUTERS
Internet Design & Managed Hosting
www.procarecomputers.co.uk
Internet Design & Managed Hosting
www.procarecomputers.co.uk
HAVE I GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU… Hi and a warm welcome to everyone! So you want a Website do you? It ’ s possible that we at PROCARE COMPUTERS could provide any charitable organization with free Web pages. This would make us feel very proud because we would be contributing something you and your service users need, and that can only be a good thing. I have put together some basic information for you and your organization that should simplify the complexity of planning and creating a website. The analogy compares to producing a “ Successful ” Website to that of just producing some basic html documents which I hope you will agree; are pretty much useless on their own. I sincerely hope you find the information both informative, and easy to understand. If you have any difficulty with any of the jargon or you need more information, I will be more than happy to discuss.
Happy reading and good luck!
Chris Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------------
We at PROCARE COMPUTERS design professional Website ’ s for a “ Targeted ” and “ Qualified ” visitor with high click-through rates.We achieve that by diligently optimizing your pages to get top search engine placement and ranking based on a solid research foundation. All this can easily be realized without it significantly affecting your existing budgets.
ELEMENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE
The costs involved for us to produce Web pages for your own Charity Website would be minimal; about £50 or so per page, which we can offset against tax.
However before we can start to produce even a single page, you need to plan it! The following list represents what we believe to be essential…
1. You need to research and define your target market or niche
2. You need to decide on the type of Website you will need
3. You need to decide the site ’ s overall theme
4. Content needs to be gathered and sorted such as photographs, logos, written text, video ’ s, and sound etc. as applicable –and lots of it
5. Content needs to be relevant and appropriate (not misleading to visitors or the robot engines)
6. You need to break all the information down into manageable parts; categories, pages, headlines, sub-headlines, paragraphs and sentences
7. Content needs to be altered, reduced in size and/or converted into electronic form for publishing on the internet
8. The design of the site needs to be determined (layout, colours, text sizes, fonts, links, online forms, promotions etc.) which should be consistent throughout
9. You need to design the sites structure making it easy for visitors to find the information they want (navigation)
10. You need to decide additional kinds of technology you may want; JavaScript, Java, XML, Perl, ASP, SQL, PHP, Flash etc.
11. Confidentiality & Copyright issues may need to be addressed
12. Your site needs an online privacy statement
13. You need your own Domain name example: (www.yourname.co.uk)
14. You may need your own personalised matching Email address example: (you@yourname.co.uk)
15. You need to publish it on the Internet (uploading, file permissions etc.)
16. You need it hosting somewhere (a place for it to reside)
17. It needs to be registered with and rank highly on search engines and Online directories– free and “ Pay-Per-Click ” are some of the options available
18. It needs to be positioned well on the engines, otherwise you ’ re potentially losing 90% of your visitors (and revenue) if they cannot find you
19. It needs promoting
20. It needs to be checked, maintained, and updated regularly (managed)
21. Security flaws and loop holes need to be addressed proactively
22. It needs to be administered by you daily
If you want your site to succeed at all- then you need to implement all the above and more besides such as; META Tag creation, keyword density, doorway pages, Website Statistics, CGI Programs, Ezines, Newsletters etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The above few paragraphs are just extracts. If anyone wants the original pitch (9 pages in total) you can request it HERE
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