Entries Tagged 'Blogging' ↓

This is a test post using the new Wordpress iPhone app. Pretty cool, right?

Webmasters are always looking for ways to improve their websites. Whether it’s enhancing your look and feel, increasing your Google Pagerank, search engine optimization, or any of the plethora of ways we can improve our sites, we’re always looking for ways to be better. If you’re a webmaster, I have good news for you.

Network Solutions has just come out with a domain name analysis tool. This is a great tool that will allow you to analyze the effectiveness of your domain name and improve it in three easy steps.

The first step is to visit the domain name analysis tool at the Network Solutions website. Put your domain name in the text box and you’re off!

The second step is to answer their quick and easy questions about your domain name. Once you complete the questionnaire, the tool will rank your domain name’s effectiveness in a few different categories. Even better, the tool will offer ideas on how to improve your domain name effectiveness from the comfort of your own home (and directly on their website).

The third step is to follow through with their recommendations. The tool will offer ideas on ways to protect your brand, increase your domain name’s relevance to your topic, and will even offer new available domain names that you might consider purchasing.

This will be an eye-opening experience for many webmasters, and is quite a useful tool. I would recommend it to anyone looking to improve their website.

Well, last week my blog got the Google spank. In a split second, my site went from a Pagerank of three to a big fat ZERO. Ouch.

I know this doesn’t mean much to most people, but hitting three a few months ago felt like a really big accomplishment. You see, Google “ranks” pages through their Pagerank, which rates sites between zero and ten (ten being the best - only sites like Amazon, Google, eBay and such have a ten).

A high Pagerank means a number of things, many of which Google will not divulge. To me, as a blogger, a higher Pagerank means that I can sell advertising for a higher price, thus meaning that I can afford to blog more often (not to mention that I’m motivated to blog more often - yes, sadly I am extremely money motivated).

But alas, for some reason the Google Gods have decided to spank me down to a big gnarly zero. This could be for a number of reasons, but it’s not because of my traffic. You see, my traffic has not changed at all, so there’s something funny going on.

Anyway, this spanking has given me some insight into my blog. I have been trying to rein it in, and keep things productive and more focused. But if that strategy isn’t going to help me, I’m going back to the old format. I’m going to talk about what I want to, when I want to, and not worry about trying to make the Google Gods happy anymore. Don’t worry, friends. I’ll still be bringing you the best stuff I can. But I might be inclined to write more random shite now too. Stuff like this. Stuff so inconsequential that I shouldn’t even be writing it - but here we are.

Thanks for tolerating my rant. And now back to our irregularly unscheduled programming…

Last month, I attended the Transworld Haunt and Attractions show in Lass Vegas. Transworld is arguably the biggest show for the haunt industry, as well as the costume and party industry. I took some pictures and did some guest blogging for The Haunted Report ( http://www.hauntedreport.com ) upon my return since they were not able to make it out to the show. My posts so far are located here:

http://www.hauntedreport.com/2008/04/transworld-madness-part-one.html

And here:

http://www.hauntedreport.com/2008/04/transworld-madness-part-two.html

Check out my posts over there, and be sure to check out The Haunted Report for your online Halloween and horror fix! Hopefully this relationship will progress, and I’ll be able to be a guest blogger for them more frequently. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted as this relationship progresses!

I would like to introduce my newest source of blog ads, Bloggerwave. They’re a fairly new blog advertising company out of Denmark, and are looking for bloggers to add to their pool. If you’re a blogger, you would do well to get signed up with these guys. Their opportunities pay quite nicely, and I have a feeling that if you can get in on the ground floor that you will do quite well with them.

As many of you know, I blog for cash. I’m not going to lie, I get paid to write posts on my blog about certain products through a number of different avenues. I realized after posting my rant on mainstream media that it may seem a bit hypocritical on the outside that I post ads for some pretty big companies.

I want all of you to know though, that all of my posts are original material, and never, EVER, do these companies dictate what I may or may not blog about when I’m not blogging about their products. If any of them ever did, I would immediately cease blogging for them.

The only reason that I blog for cash is to pay for my hosting fees, and to supplement my normal salary. Rather than getting a second job, I work blog based advertisements into my normal posts.

So please do not think that my opinions are swayed by my advertisers. They absolutely are not, and like I said, if any of them tried anything like that, I would immediately end our relationship.

In my recent effort to improve my blog, I have recently signed up with a company called Kontera. Kontera has a script that I added to my blog that will identify certain keywords and link them to relevant Kontera advertisers. Not only will this hopefully bring me some money (call me a sellout, but I know you like money just as much as I do), but more importantly it will link my readers to relevant products and websites that should be of interest to them.

Any feedback, good or bad, on your experiences with Kontera would be much appreciated. Thanks for your patience with all these recent changes, I’m working hard to make my blog that much better for everyone. Next change will be my navigation bar, hopefully in the next week or so depending upon how much time I have.

So by now I hope you have come to embrace the new look of my blog. I’m pretty happy with it, but that’s irrelevant…it’s all about what YOU, my readers, like.

I want to throw a quick thank you to Chris Pearsonified, creator of the Copyblogger Wordpress theme, and blogger extrordinaire at Pearsonified, “the best damn blog on the planet.” If you are a blogger, and are interested in making your blog even better, check this guy out. He has a ton of great information and ideas, many of which you will see appearing on my blog in the near future. So even though I don’t know you personally, thanks Chris!

Before you panic, loyal visitor, yes, this is still LiamFerris.com! I have decided it’s time for a new look for the site. I’m getting bored with the old black and white basic theme, and it’s time to spice things up a bit. Any feedback is appreciated.

I may try out a few different themes over the next few days, so don’t worry. You’re in the right place.

Same Liam Ferris, same cynical attitude, same foul mouth. You know you love it.

This here is a bit of a break from my random political ramblings. I just wanted to sincerely thank all of you who have been visiting my blog lately. I really appreciate you stopping by and opening your minds to whatever crazy crap I’m spewing that day. It’s amazing how much my readership has increased lately, and it’s really cool to see the numbers keep increasing. So thank you, and please keep stopping by.

Here’s a screen capture from Google Analytics showing where all of you are coming from. It’ pretty cool to have readers from all over the world!