If you are on Tumblr check it out and follow me if you think you’ll find interest. You can also follow me on Twitter because I’ll post on there once I have a new Tumblr entry.

I’ll continually keep both blogs active.

Check out my RSS Feed if you enjoy this post. See what I did there?

1) Write a post about your RSS Feed. Even if your grandma is the only one who reads your blog, don’t let people know that! Write a post about your RSS Feed, why it’s good to subscribe to it, and explain some of the benefits to your readers. For example, subscribing to your RSS Feed via email is a great way for users to read your blog on the go and on their portable devices. Make sure to remind them of this.

2) Make your RSS Feed icon visible. The first thing one may notice when they come to my blog is the large and obtrusive (but shiny) RSS Feed icon over to the right. There’s also the subscribe via email field under it, and it’s pretty welcoming if a reader likes a few of my posts. Take away that tiny text wrapped in <small> at the bottom of your blog saying “Please subscribe to my RSS Feed” – sorry, but no one will. You need something obvious and above the fold (before the user has to scroll down) for you to gain more RSS Readers.

3) Hold a contest. People will do almost anything for $10. A small cash prize for a random drawing of one of your RSS Subscribers is an extremely easy wait to increase your subscriber count (via e-mail). Have them subscribe to your RSS Feed, then comment on the post saying that they did. That way, you can check their email in the backend of your blog software, and compare it to their e-mail in at Feedburner – this leads us to the next tip.

4) USE FEEDBURNER. Anyone who is trying to promote their RSS Feed and doesn’t use Feedburner should be ashamed. Not only can you keep track of how many people are subscribed, but you can also keep an e-mail list, create buttons/widgets for your blog, and even easily organize and promote your podcast, if you have one. It is a necessity if you are running a blog. Sub-Tip: Use the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin to automatically convert all of your RSS Feeds on your site to your Feedburner one. This means that if someone is using a browser that detects your Wordpress RSS feed, instead of giving them access to that, it will give them your Feedburner one.

5) Gain a Twitter following. Twitter has a lot of bloggers, and I mean, a lot of bloggers. If you aren’t a Twitter user yet, sign up and follow some people. You’ll instantly see that they promote their blog like crazy, letting people know about their RSS feed, when they write a new post on their blog, and even set up an automatic DM (direct message) for people to check out their blog. If you want, check me out on Twitter, and I’ll make sure to follow you back if you let me know you came from my blog. Make sure to set up TwitterFeed on your blog (so when you write a new post it will tweet it) and search Google for “Automatic Twitter Follow Response” and write a short message welcoming your new follower and link them to your blog. When you use Twitter though, even out your personal life tweets to links on your blog – if your public timeline consists of only links and self promotion, you’ll have a hard time gaining new followers.

And that’s all folks, comment here if you have any questions or would like to add anything to this list. Good luck! [Image Via]

I'm not obsessed with dogs.

In many ways, Bing has some pretty cool features that Google doesn’t. The first new thing you may notice is the related search categories on the left sidebar. If you do a simple search for “dogs“, instead of pages displaying in the search that only have the word dog in them, Bing creates some extended options for you such as “Breeders” or “Toys”. Well, Google has this too, but you have to enable it.

When looking at your search results, Bing will find the most popular pages or categories within the site and display them for you. You can also roll your mouse over and preview some text from the homepage before you decide to head to that site or not. Some sites have reported that these “popular pages” aren’t totally accurate, but I’m sure in time Bing will become propagated correctly and things will sort themselves out. I love this feature of Bing.

Another thing you may notice right off the bat is the speed of Bing. Whether you are changing to a search category or  going to another page on Bing, the load time is almost instant. This shows that Microsoft has really improved their architecture and optimization of the platform over their previous attempts, and overall the experience is a bit quicker than that of Google. This is something that I want in a search engine, and quick speeds is a must.

I like Bing Images better than Google Images. After all these years of searching Google for images, I think I may make my switch over to Bing when in need of someone’s body to Photoshop one of my friend’s heads on, or any other purpose of searching for an image out there that I may not be aware of. Instead resorting to pagination, Bing displays most of the found images on a single page. There’s also no text or url, like there is on Google, so therefore it is truly an image search. You can instantly change the zoom of all of the found images, and it is easier to find the direct link to the image than it is on Google since it displays it immediately after you click on the image.

Searching for Videos is pretty intuitive as well, as it searches for videos on any site, rather than videos only on YouTube on Google Videos. Google’s video search right now is mostly video results mixed with regular results, and though it works, it’s still not a dedicated video search. On Bing, there is also a preview of the video that you can watch by rolling your mouse over the thumbnail. Though this is cool, don’t try to preview a video at work if NSFW is in the title.

Shopping, maps, and etc are the same they were on Live. Though they aren’t bad, I don’t see myself switching from Google Maps or Google Earth anytime soon. Also, I don’t know what is with Microsoft’s fetish of defaulting to annoying hot air balloon or forest backgrounds throughout the search bar and results. I want simple, and this makes it still feel like the old Live.com, which I hated. Also, if you try out Bing on your iPhone or mobile web device, it just forwards you to Live Mobile, which just isn’t cool.

The unique features, speed, and intuitiveness of Bing makes it a good competitor towards Google. It is definitely Microsofts best attempt, but it still falls short in the beautiful simplicity that Google offers. There is no web app, annoying backgrounds, it still needs to be propagated correctly. Though Bing is a vast improvement of Live and I will be checking it out every now and then, I’ll still use Google for all of my searching needs. Microsoft is close, and competition is good, but there are still some things that need to be worked out. I really like Bing, but it has yet to win my love. I look forward to seeing Google’s reaction to this, and can’t wait for future builds of Bing.

Technorati Tags: Bing, Microsoft, Google, Search Engine, Search, Live

1) Each week I’ll post a simple contest with the possibility of one winner.
2) The winner of that week will get the #1 slot of the text-link in my sidebar. There will be up to five total slots.
3) If the contest is a question, those who get it right will be mixed up in a virtual hat and be randomly selected. If the contest isn’t a question, then the one person from the bunch who answer will be randomly selected.
4) To enter, reply on the Weekly Blogroll post of that week with your answer and the URL that you would like to be placed. The link should be no more than 30 characters.
5) If you don’t have a link you would like to share and just want to enter for fun, that is perfectly fine! Just please, no adult content or inappropriate material.

To be the first winner and get your link improving SEO and traffic of your site, simply subscribe to my RSS feed, comment below saying you did, and provide the link you would want if you win. Please use a valid email when commenting so I can contact you if there is an issue. Thanks, and good luck!

To easily answer that question, check out this graph. It’s based on Twitter’s traffic for the past six months.

Though the graph fluctuates and dips every few months, it is continually rising. In fact, Twitter has continued to surpass sites almost every month that are ranked under 100 in Alexa, and that takes a lot of increased traffic. Sure, Alexa isn’t totally accurate, but it’s the closest thing we have to officially ranking sites. Twitter’s traffic may even be greater than what Alexa picks up, but only the company and their investors know.  Either way, we can see that Twitter is continuing to rise per month, and if you wait around too long, there may not be room for your Twitter-based App.

So what should you do? Purchase a Twitter domain…now. Think of something, preferably with Tweet or Twit, bird, or Twitter in it, and purchase the domain.  Buogo, Inc. is sitting on a number of Twitter domains only to be used for with our own apps or sell them in the future. We have already launched our first Twitter-based site, TweetMyLink, and there will be more to come.

You may be asking “Aren’t you creating competition for yourself by encouraging people to create Twitter-based sites?” Yup, and we love it. Twitter needs sites like these to continue to grow and hopefully in the future profit. Sites like these need competition to improve on their game and offer more to the internet than they ever did before. Competition, especially on the web, is a good thing.

If you are indeed worried that Twitter may go out of business and your site will go with them, then come up with something that can still be used afterward. Perhaps loosely base it around the API, or create something that is marketed towards Twitter users but everyone can use it. Like TinyURL, yFrog, TwitPic, eggURL, or any other web app that is beneficial to both someone using Twitter and those who are missing out.

I predict that now is the best time to start on your tweet-action.  Whether it’s a highly followed account, an app based on the Twitter API, or something mobile that you have in mind, get a start on it. If you are a web developer I highly recommend that you get into this game. You’ll love it, you’re users will love it, and in the long run, Twitter will love it because you are improving the power and publicity of their platform. Oh, now I see what their business model is.

Though getting your site or content on Digg or Reddit is a great way to start, it’s not always possible. Write up a summary of your site and send it to these following sites. Each link will directly send you to their contact page:

1) KillerStartups: KillerStartups reviews 15+ sites a day, and displays basic information about your site and company to the world. Getting reviewed by them is a little tougher than some other sites, so make sure you have a “killer” site.

2) MakeUseOf: MakeUseOf is a large directory of web apps, with over 60,000 subscribed via e-mail or RSS. This can drive great amounts of traffic to your site, and is very beneficial in the long run.

3) FeedMyApp: Almost any Web 2.0 startup sent here will be published. Users can rate and comment on your site, and some good traffic is generated.

4) TechSnack: TechSnack is a blog type site listing new websites on the internet. They are pretty good about checking your submission out, so you should submit your app and see what happens.

5) Post on forums. Don’t be annoying and make it sound like a commercial, just casually tell them they may enjoy using your site and that they should check it out. Also, make sure to tell them to comment and critique it, so they will be inclined to actually check it out. There may be more of a chance of a “flame war” on some sites rather than others, but if you have already have a good reputation on a forum, you should be fine.

There are a million web directories and review services out there, but these are the ones that have worked for us in the past and helped out with new startups. Merely getting reviewed on one of the first four sites may spark other sites to review you, and in no time you will have 15-20 links to your site. Your users will be happy, the internet will be happy, and most importantly, you and your company will be happy as well.

If you know of a site that has worked better for you and I didn’t include, list it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Seo Samurai, Advice, SEO, Tips, Startup, Exposure

I just got an official Beta Key for Battlefield Heroes, a new and free to play shooter based on an updated version of the Battlefield Engine. The game is currently in closed beta, and this key grants you access to create and account with EA Servers and download the game client. I however, am too busy to enjoy the game and be a true beta tester for this game, so I decided to give it to my blog readers.

If you haven’t heard, we just launched the beta of eggURL, one of the fastest, easiest, and funnest ways to shorten your large and annoying URLs. So, in order to win my beta key, all you have to do is go to eggURL, create a shortened link, and paste it in a comment here. Make sure to provide a valid email address when posting your comment so that I can contact the randomly drawn winner. (Also, if you have anything nice to say about eggURL that is greatly appreciated too.)

That’s it! I hope you enjoy eggURL, and I hope the winner enjoys his/her beta key.

Technorati Tags: eggURL, EA, Battlefield Heroes, Contests, Beta

Step 1. Create An Account: Twitter has one of the easiest registration processes of any social network. Head on over here, enter your full name, username, password, and email. That’s it! You can add some of the recommended random people on the next page but they are all extremely populated accounts. There’s a good chance that they won’t add you back, so unless there is a news network or politician that you would like to read on a daily basis, you can just skip this step.

Step 2. Follow Me: Here’s a deal for you. If you read this guide, and then follow me, making me one of your first followers, I’ll follow you back. Just click this link, click “follow”, and then send me a message as instructed on the next step.

Step 3. Send a reply (now called a mention): This is where the magic of Twitter starts happening. If you want to send a message to someone, all you have to do is type an “@” symbol in front of their name. For example, if you just followed me from step 2, and want to let me know about it so that I can follow you back, go to your Twitter page, and at the top type “@zea Hey! I just followed you!” or whatever your little heart desires, and of course without the quotes. If you want to reply to someone’s tweet, click the little button and it will automatically put the “@zea” in the type box for you, and tie your message to their reply.

Step 4. Your replies and checking a conversation: If someone replies to you or mentions you in their tweet, you will either see it in your public timeline or on your  “@username” link on the right sidebar. Here, you will see the respective tweet, along with a timestamp and conversation link under it. It will look something like this: 1:26 PM Apr 27th from Whoever in reply to zea. If you click the timestamp, it will take you directly to the tweet, or, if you click “in reply to” you can see what they are replying to.

Step 5. Direct Messages: If you want to tell someone something without the whole world seeing, then either click on your “Direct Messages” link in the sidebar, or instead of putting an “@” in front of their name, put a “D” or “DM”. This will send them a private message, and hopefully you’ll secret will remain a secret. Unless they decide to be a mean follower and reveal it.

Step 6. Get More Twitter Followers: Twitter isn’t Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, FriendFeed, Orkut, or any other one of those personal social network. Twitter is open to everyone, so following or contacting a random person is the cool thing to do. If you go to a friend’s page and see someone that might be interesting to you, and you want to follow their tweets, add them. If you want to get a lot of followers fast, add a whole bunch of people. Just not too many, or Twitter may ban you. Perhaps only a fourth of them will follow you back, but this is definitely an option. Make sure to update frequently – someone who doesn’t tweet will lose friends. And also, make sure you have a profile picture. Having the default avatar of 0_o is just creepy.

Step 7. Search: Searching Twitter is really fun, and useful to network with people with similar interests (trends), or a way to find people around you. Head on over to search.twitter.com, or use it in your sidebar for those select of you that have it enabled. Search for events in your home town, or find people tweeting about the stuff that you want to tweet about, and follow them. I’d recommend following a lot of the people in your city, so if something big is happening or going on, you’ll know about it.

Step 8. Remember What Twitter is For: Twitter isn’t a place to spam, write in all caps, be mean, or just plain annoying. That’s for other social networks. If you have somthing interesting or neat going on in your life, tweet about it. If you just got a new iPhone, tweet about it. If you are at a large event, tweet about it. If you want to yell at someone because they stole your girlfriend, head on over to Facebook.

Well, that’s my Twitter Starter’s guide. I hope new tweeters find this helpful, and I hope usual tweeters find this interesting. Twitter is really fun once you get going, and I hope your experience will be as good as mine.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Social Networks, Facebook, MySpace, Tweet

Turn ON the lights to turn ON the future.

Please start by Retweeting this Post, thanks! http://twitter.com/zea/status/1409267129 When talking about Power Hour on Twitter, use the tag #powerhour

To help promote (PRODUCT) RED and contribute proceeds to help fighting AIDS in Africa, Microsoft is now offering Windows Vista Ultimate, the (PRODUCT) RED edition, for only $64.95 to students. This is edition has all of the usual features with Windows Vista Ultimate, but includes some information, media, pretty backgrounds, and gadgets relating to (PRODUCT) RED.

If you are wanting to finally give Vista a whirl, want to participate in the almost inevitable Windows 7 upgrade program, or just want to help elimiminate AIDS in Africa, then you should definitely take up this deal. Regular Windows Vista Ultimate retails at around $300, so this is a little less than $250 off instantly. Get a legit OS and help save the world; it’s all in a day’s work.

Weekly STeal Link!

Technorati Tags: (PRODUCT) RED, Windows, Microsoft, Vista, Vista Ultimate, Weekly STeal, Africa, AIDS