Mike's Quarter - the internet blog

What’s up

Mike — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:55:42 +0000

Well, it’s been more than a month since my last post. That’s unfortunate, but I’ve been really really busy lately with lots of stuff and i had to neglect this blog. I’ll tell you guys (and gals) a little bit about why this happened.

First of all, i had to prepare my diploma paper. I finally graduated University and I’m now an Engineer in the field of Computers and Automatics (sounds fancy, i know :P). That’s me with a robe and cap in the picture.
Then, I put together a couple of new blogs from various domains, and i plan to push them in the last period of time with quality content and a good marketing strategy. I’m not going to disclose all these new blogs, but one of them is this one about netbooks.
Also, I sold one of my sites for a good amount of money (almost a 5 figure - 21 months revenue), so now i have some spare money for investments in future projects .
I want to focus more on some older projects like this one about gadgets and the one treating Black Friday Sales in 2009. They are now quite old and have great potential if dealt the right way .
Also, i have a couple of projects on .ro . I plan launching pretty soon, but i can’t disclose anything about those at the moment .

And yes, i still have an 8 hour job (as an SEO Specialist :P) + leisure time + offline activities. So, as you see, things are still pretty tight around here. But, I’m young and eager to work, so everything should get better and better in the near future.

Cheers till my next post

LG knows how to promote their products

Mike — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:29:56 +0000

Yesterday i was invited to an event made by LG in my home country. Besides being surprised of this, since the blog is English written and doesn’t really target Romanians, i must say i was eager to see the new LG screen they were launching in Romania, the LH5000 .

And… i really liked this display. It has lots of new functions and good screen quality. I won’t get into too many details, but, there are a couple of things i would like to mention (things ordinary Tvs lack):

the screen has integrated MPEG-4 and DivX decoders, so you can play movies directly from an external hard drive and you can receive HD TV signal with just a DVB-T antenna (no additional decoders needed) .
Tru-Motion 200 Hz refresh rate - and that’s something considering the regular LCDs use 60Hz or 120 Hz .
Very good viewing angles, good contrast (they only mention the dynamic one, but i won’t fall for that trick :P), etc .
And for more details, read this article from Trusted Reviews .

Anyway, they had a demo movie with Formula 1 scenes running at the show and i must say i never saw anything like that before. The images were… just incredible, they even made me think there were special effects added in there to make them so sharp. That’s why I would have enjoyed to see a standard HD TV program and a Blu-ray movie running on this screen too, this way i could really have made a proper idea about image quality. Anyway, it still rocks, from what I’ve seen.

Now, back to the subject of this post. LG tried an interesting approach in order to promote this new product. They chose 4 bloggers with different backgrounds (a professional blogger, an ex journalist, a media man and a well known radio voice) and they let them each organize competitions on their blogs, competitions that would have such a TV as a price. And competitions that would connect this new products with people from as many domains as possible.

Also, they promised the blogger who would make the best contest on his blog a similar LG LH5000 just for himself, to make sure these 4 guys would really give their best to promote the LG idea. Brilliant, simply brilliant, and i believe that’s the first time a company made such an approach in Romania. And i do believe they will get lots of exposure with a limited investment. After all, 5 LH5000s are just around 5000-8000 euros. And that’s peanuts for a company as big as LG.

That’s about it. I really liked the new product from LG, but showing more types of content at the presentation should have been a must. Also, i would have enjoyed a better technical presentation, their IT guy made it on the fly in just a couple of minutes (and he didn’t sound too convincing - that being compared to a German sales person presenting something similar last year for a competing company ). But i guess that’s just me, the others didn’t seem to interested by technicalities…

Kindle DX - a bigger better reader from Amazon

Mike — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:23:43 +0000

If you’re one of those who mumbled about the screen size of the Kindle 2, well… it’s time to be happy, cause Amazon just launched a bigger better version, the Kindle DX. This new reader doesn’t bring too many new features, the most noticeable being the bigger screen ( 9.7inches ) with better resolution ( 1200 x 824 pixels ) and auto-rotation function (a function similar to the accelerometer from mobile phones, that changes the image from portrait/landscape depending on the way you’re holding the gadget) .

Besides those, the new reader received a bigger internal memory (4 GB, with 3.3 GB usable for storage out of them) , a standard micro-USB connector instead of the proprietary one used before and PDF compatibility without the need to reconvert PDF files.

Of course, the reader has been redesigned to fit the bigger screen, and looks a lot better if you’d ask me (check out the picture below for more for a comparison between Kindle 2 and DX - photo source) .

All these tiny changes might not seem like much, but in the end they fix some of the things potential costumers disliked about the previous Kindle reader models. On the other hand, I’m not sure how much will they like that the new reader costs now $489 ($130 more than the Kindle 2). If you’d ask me, I’d go for the DX. But we’ll just have to wait and see what will the customers do before we can jump to any conclusions on the Kindle DX.

Anyway, what do you guys think about it?

And follow this link if you want to read more about the new Kindle DX.

Focusing a domain on a misspelled high traffic keyword

Mike — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:07:37 +0000

For the last past days I’ve been doing some research for a couple of new domains and kept stucking with the same question: "Is it OK to focus a new domain on a misspelled keyword that has the potential to bring high traffic from search engines?" . That means, would it be OK to buy a domain that has such a misspelled keyword in its name and built a site around it?

After debating this for a while (with myself :P), i put together a list of pros and cons, list that you can find bellow:

The pros

could give you an increased chance to rank for that particular term if you have it in your domain name, as we know this is a ranking factor .
if you focus the entire home page and link building around that term, you could end up with very nice ranking positions for it
has a smaller competition than the right spelled form, thus better chances of ranking .
You might get traffic on the site faster, as you have less competition

The cons

while having the term in the domain name might help you, that’s not such an important criteria in SE’s algorithm, especially if you plan on ranking in Google (will help more for Yahoo and Msn) .
while having less competition, the search volume is also a lot smaller than the one of the correct spelled keyword .
Search Engines will automatically offer spelling suggestions for those who search the misspelled form of the term. Thus, some of the searchers will use these suggestions and will not click the results .
will affect your site’s branding ability (people are less willing to remember misspelled domain name) .
will have less SE potential traffic than a site focused on the correct form of the term .
in the future, search engines might even cut out from the results misspelled results, you may never know .

So, if you plan to use a misspelled keyword and build a site around it, don’t. Even if this might seem like a smart choice on the short term, you’ll end up regretting it after an year or so. Try choosing domains that are both brand-able and have some search traffic potential and work hard so these domains will get where they deserve to be.

Am i right or am i right?

Photo source: here

Thinking of a SEM career? I have some advices for you

Mike — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:07:22 +0000

I had to think of a couple of advices if would give someone who’s planning on following a career in Internet marketing, and especially the part involving search engines. All these are a part of my previous experience with engines, are not rules by any mean, just my thoughts about the subject.

First of all, make sure you like this. Working with Search Engines might be monotonous and boring some time, and it’s a domain where you have to research and read a lot, all these while sitting in front of a computer .
Read the rules. Learn what you are allowed to do and what not, by reading search engines’ TOS pages. You can find these for Google here: http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS and for yahoo here: http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/ .
Learn all you can about the factors influencing ranking and search engine positioning. There are quite a lot of them, so I’ll recommend you to read everything in here: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors .
Research a lot, read as many authorities in this field as you can and try to keep up with everything changing or new in this domain .
Practice a lot. All the SEO rules can be read and learnt in just a couple of days. Everyone can do this, but the thing that makes the difference between a newbie and a specialist is practice. You should build sites, create content, try to rank these sites, try to build links, use virals, social media, forums, use paid search, use everything you can.
Don’t try to fool the search engines by using non-ethical tactics that might not be accepted with the TOSs. In the end, the one fooled you’ll be you, you’ll get your site declassified or banned and you’ll loose all the hard work done before. Remember, only ethic tactics can give you the long range results you need .
Don’t be afraid to fail. Failing is part of the learning process, and most of the time, you’ll only learn things "the hard way" .
Try not to focus on SEO alone. Learn a bit of everything, while focusing on one domain. A little bit of email marketing, coding, graphic designing, copywriting, all these might come in handy sometime.

That’s about it. Of course, lots of other things could be added here, and if you do have something to add, please do. In the mean time, I’ll leave you with a couple of great SE knowledge databases, just a few of the ones you should have in your reader if you plan to become a successful SEO developer:

Image source: here

LinkedIn Answers - is this the true power of this service?

Mike — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:25:11 +0000

I’ve been using LinledIn for quite a while now, almost from the beginning. I completed my profile, education, work experience, added a photo, added some contact, etc etc . I even joined some groups to find discussion i might be interested in and people with similar interests.

But, then i got bored of it. For the last months, i only joined from time to time to see if someone new wanted to add me as a contact. And that was it.

But someone reminded me something i already knew: the Answers part of LinkedIn is what gives this service its true power. Here’s where you can help people, you can get in contact with them and maybe establish some relationships that will help your business. And yes, i already knew that, but i think i was too lazy to see if this works.

If you manage to give good answers to other people’s questions, questions that have something to do with your expertise, and answers so good that will be chosen "Best Answer" by the asker, then you’re "on fire". The more "Best Answers" you’ll have in your domain, the more others will see you as a authority in this domain, will want to get in contact with you and even work with you. Like i said, i knew the theory for quite some time, but i sucked at practice

So, I’ve decided I’ll give it a try. For the next couple of weeks I’ll try to be as active as possible on LinkedIn Answers, try to give people my best advices and maybe help solve their problems. And then i’ll see what’s going to happen. In the worst case, I’ll end up with a couple of new content in my Expertise box on LinkedIn.

Do you have any previous experience with LinkedIn Answers? If yes, please share.

Acer AspireRevo - powerfull minicomputer with Nvidia Ion inside

Mike — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:43:29 +0000

Acer just announced it’s going to launch a mini-computer on the newly announced Nvidia ION platform, called Acer AspireRevo. It will be in fact the first nettop based on this architecture.

While being compact (7.1 x 7.1 x 1.2-inch), this gadget will be also powerfull: it’s going to pack up an Intel ATOM 230 or 330 CPU, both at 1.6 GHz, but the first being single core, while the second one having two cores. A 1080p capable graphic card will join these CPUs, along with up to 4GB of RAM . This way, the tiny AspireRevo will not be just a mini-computer for browsing and Office applications, but also a machinery capable of playing games like Call of Duty 4, according to SlashGear. A special gaming controller (similar to the Wiimote from Nintedo Wii) will also be created to support the gaming experience. As for storage solution, there will be available both HDD or SSD drives.

The Acer AspireRevo comes with HDMI and VGA exits, lots of USBs , LAN and Wi-Fi (802-11b/g). Also, it has a special shape that allows it to be attached on the back of screens and TVs that are VESA compliant . This way, the nettop will be almost invisible, hiding behind the screen.

Acer AspireRevo - one of the best nettops on the market

We’re not sure when will this gadget be available on the market and how much will it cost. Initial estimations from Nvidia for devices based on the ION platform stated they should cost around 300$, but i doubt we’ll be able to get an Acer AspireRevo that cheap. Don’t you think so?

A smart solution for lowering bounce rates

Mike — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:48:51 +0000

It’s a well known fact that whenever you change a site from the ground, bounce rate will reach sky-high limits. Especially if you have lots of returning visitors who are used to find things in a certain position on the site. So, a solution is required in order to smooth the transition between the old site and the new one.

And there is one, but I didn’t find it used on too many sites: make a video that should be placed on key pages of your site and should explain how you changed stuff and why, and also how users can find the things they’re looking for.

This video should be embedded on your site in visible position and should be eye catching, so users will click it. For example, if you have an IT site, use a cute girl or something (geek girls are always catchy. look at Veronica Belmont or Marina Orlova ). If you’re a fashion site with lots of feminine visitors, use a well dressed boy or something. You’ll find a suitable solution.

This way your visitors will understand better how you changed things around. Cause, even if you think the changes made are logical, your visitors might not (that’s a lessons well learned in the last years, from practice…).

This approach can also be used when you launch a new site with lots of elements and features too, or when you have an application that does complex things (like a highly customizable comparing system).

Unfortunately, i could not find any English sites using this kind of videos, but I’ll give you this one as an example: CinemaRX.ro (it’s in Romanian). The video is not so well placed (on the left side, just bellow the cut) but it does its job. There’s also this french site using similar approach, but better implemented..

So, what do you think? Will this thing be useful for visitors or not? Please comment. And if you know any other sites using such videos, please share.

Indexing tag pages or not?

Mike — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:06:55 +0000

I’ve been playing with the subject of indexing tag pages in Wordpress for quite a while now. I have sites were i keep these pages in the indexes and pages where i don’t . The result vary from case to case though, so stating a rule for this subject is kind of difficult.

You might ask why am I even bothering with this problem. Well, let’s see why Tag pages are not worthwhile of being indexed:

they are just another navigation method on your site, meant to help visitors find posts on the subject they’re interested of.
they won’t rank. Unless you’re an authority, they won’t. I believe SE have some kind of trigger to distinguish and declassify tag pages, and this is especially true foo Google.com . On regional though, clever done tag pages might rank well.
they create duplicate content: a tag page is usually similar to the category page so you have the same content as in categories, just displayed in a somewhat different order
they create almost empty pages, unless you have a very tight tagging system. And this will happen every time you’ll use a new tag that hasn’t been used before on your site.
sometimes, they create useless pages

And we could continue with that. But that doesn’t mean tag pages can’t be useful for ranking, if done correctly. First of all, you should have a standardized tagging system. You should only use nouns on singular form, without any articles, etc.

ex: use only "mobile phone" to tag all the articles about mobile phones, and don’t use others like: mobile phones, mobile, phone, telephone, etc .

You should also try using complex tags made from groups of words instead of singular words. And you should use tags that have a potential to help your visitors and be searched on SE.

ex: a tag like "pictures of Britney Spears" used on all the articles with Britney Spears will do better and be more useful than just "Britney Spears"

Also, try not to have singular tags (tags only attached to one or two posts on your site), cause these will generate almost empty pages.

Lots of other tiny advices could be given here… So, as you can see, tagging is not that simple in you want to get traffic from search engines on these tag pages. Actually, it’s quite difficult. And even if done right, most of the time you will only rank on long tail searches with almost no competition. Or you won’t rank at all…

That’s why i choose to not index tag pages on my .com blogs. I can’t say this vastly improves my ranking positions (although slight increases were spoted 2-3 months after no-indexing these pages), but at least i keep a tight control on the pages indexed. Anyway, if you have a site with 1000 posts and 5000 tags, no-indexing these tag pages will surely help your posts rank better. Like in this guys case: traffic increase by 300% after no-indexing tag pages .

In the end, i can’t draw a clear conclusion, but I’ll have to say no-indexing Tag pages is the good thing to do in most cases. Oh, and if you don’t know how, the easiest way is to add the following line to your robots.txt file :

Disallow: /tag/

This should work on any default Wordpress blog. If your tag pages have a different indicator (like /tags or something), just use that one instead.

5 Free Wordpress Themes You Could Pay For

Mike — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:34:28 +0000

The most obvious difference between premium and free Wordpress themes has for long been the quality in addition to price. But more and more professional web designers are designing free Wordpress themes as a proven online marketing strategy. A well crafted wp theme offered for free will not only generate many backlinks, but may also increase awareness of the theme designer.

After some research I can list five designers, freelancers and agencies that have created exceptionally beautiful free Wordpress themes. Here we go:

1. WeFunction Design Agency – Magazeen theme

Magazeen is the second in a line of free Wordpress themes created by WeFunction.com. Implementing a jQuery based Latest Image Showcase on a clean and communicative web design, Magazeen is an outstanding freebie from WeFunction. Costing only two links in the footer, Magazeen is a great example of professional free Wordpress theme of today.

2. WELLMEDICATED - Zinepress theme

WELLMEDICATED.com is the creation of the talented Vancouver native, Andrew Lindstrom. Just recently taking the step to designing websites full time, Lindstrom wasn’t late to create the beautiful magazine/news theme Zinepress. With all the elements of a classic theme, Lindstrom has made the theme user-friendly with thumbnails and post listings on frontpage and a customizable ad space on the sidebar.

3. ProductiveDreams – Imprezz theme

Trying to access ProductiveDreams.com to retrieve some juicy information, I was greeted by an error page. But based on the design of Imprezz theme, these designers seem to know what they are doing.

4. Paulicio.us – Viewport theme

Paul Bennett released Viewport November 5th 2008 and offers his services as a freelancing developer at Paulicio.us. Viewport is an exceptional wp theme as it is obtained by a featured content image slider on front page. The large images makes for quite an impressive first impression of the site and a true pioneer contribution the to free Wordpress themes category.

5. Woothemes – Irresistible theme

Woothemes.com produces mostly premium Wordpress themes but throw in a free theme now and again. Irresistible is a personal blog theme with My-sections for posts, photos, feeds and video. A perfect and well-designed option for a portfolio or blog site.

Additional tips for your Wordpress users

In addition to web design, I have taken the liberty in listing some more useful information regarding Wordpress, to paint a full picture. You have free themes for download above. Let me also recommend proper blog web hosting options here, where you can find best host for wordpress and for more information concerning WP installations, plugins and misc documentations just go over to Wordpress.org.

Mike's Quarter - the internet blog

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