Posted by David on in
Other Stuff In my last post, I talked about recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations into certain marketing practices that you may unknowingly and innocently do.
While the specific investigation was on “fake blogs” it isn’t a far leap to many of the review sites out there that aren’t really more than affiliate promotion advertising pages.
There is talk that FTC will require explicit disclosure of these sites including social media sites like Facebook, Squidoo and even possibly Twitter.
We also looked at how a possible further step was the move to stop cloaked affiliate links.
There is also a second investigation going on that is also a common enough practice in our Internet Marketing world and I’m pretty sure that that this investigation will result in a ruling that will require some changes into the way some people do things.
Again, you may not do or you may unwittingly do it but you need to be aware of it and change now before the ruling.
What I am talking about is…
Read more…
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Posted by David on in
Other Stuff Recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started investigating some common, although not exactly ethical, marketing practices but ones you may unknowingly and innocently do.
I did some research to make sure I’m not potentially at risk and, while not a lawyer, I don’t think I am.
I also don’t think most marketers would find themselves purposely at risk but the practices are common enough that you might not even know you were so I wanted you to know about this so you could look at your business before it was too late.
Anyway, there are a couple of investigations that are of particular interest to me and other Internet Marketers.
The first is…
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Posted by David on in
Other Stuff While I was laid up with my poison ivy it seems to have been a pretty “violent” week in the Internet Marketing world.
You may have heard of this but I didn’t until this weekend and I thought I’d let you know in case you hadn’t heard it.
Google “Slaps” Again
Last week, Google “slapped” again — which means they changed their computer algorithm; the set of computer instructions.
From what I can gather from my research, Google decided to seriously dis affiliate marketers; although it potentially can harm anybody so pay attention to this.
The way Google did that is they took away “points” from pages that have affiliate links on the page.
On a simple level, when Google calculates the “value” of a page, like their Quality Score, they have a set of rules in their computer program.
When they go through a page they look for matches to their rules and if they find a match to a rule they add or subtract “points” to the page’s “score”.
When they’re done they have a final score of the page.
Read more…
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Posted by David on in
Other Stuff The last 2 parts of this series gave you a bunch of plug-ins to pimp your blog inside and out; see http://fromthedeskofdavid.com/blog/other-stuff/pimp-your-blog-1 and http://fromthedeskofdavid.com/blog/other-stuff/pimp-your-blog-2.
This time we’ll look at glamming up your blog with a customized theme!
Don’t know what a “theme is”?
WordPress defines a theme as:
A theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. A theme modifies the way the weblog is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Essentially, the WordPress theme system is a way to skin your weblog.
Clear as mud, right?
Really, it’s simple. A WordPress theme is what the blog looks like.
For example, this blog has a brown “messy wood desk” look with the keys and the calculator, pen, etc. It has brownish letter on a very light brownish white background, the left side bad is a gray “paper” with white lined “paper” with red links. And so on and so forth.
WordPress makes it extremely easy to change how your blog looks like by just installing a new theme.
The hardest part is finding the theme you want out of the thousands of available themes 
Let’s look at where to get themes and how to install them.
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Posted by David on in
Other Stuff We’re going to look at 8 more “must have” plug-ins, in addition to the 9 we looked at in my last blog post.
This time we’re going to look at plug-ins that:
- Add that gives you MUCH better search capability than WordPress
- Adding lots of social media links
- Twitter Tweet and Re-tweet capability
- Gives you peace of mind by making sure your blog is safely backed up so that is some technical glitch happens you can get it back
- A nice visitor greeting facility
- Helps protects your blog from hackers and thieves
Let’s look at the plug-ins in more detail.
Tags: Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, blog, blog how to, blog setup, blogging, Broken Link Checker, customize blog, customize WordPress, Feedburner FeedSmith, Google Analytics for WP, Google XML Sitemaps, OptimizeDB, Popularity Contest, S-Button-Z, Search Everything, Sociable, StatPress, TweetThis, TwitMe, web blog, weblog, weblog design, WordPress, WordPress Backup, wordpress plug-in, wordpress plug-ins, wordpress plugin, wordpress plugins, WP Greet Box, wp plug in, WP Security Scan
Posted by David on in
Other Stuff WordPress is great, it makes it easy for anyone to put up Web pages; which after all is what a blog on the Web is.
A problem with WordPress is that, by default it doesn’t do much more than that, that is, be a simple, boring Web page. The default theme and settings are what used to be called “serviceable” but they are hardly attracted or compelling.
A great thing about WordPress is that you can really customize it with one of the thousands of plug-ins available.
I feel like I’ve went through all of the plug-ins even as I know that isn’t true but I have found 17 that I use in all my blog, at least I am using them now; I’m always on the lookout for new or better ones.
So if you’re ready to pimp your blog then read on because this time I am going to go through 9 really sweet (and free) plug-ins that will help turn your plain vanilla, white toast blog into something to strut about; I’ll do the remaining ones next time.
Tags: Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, blog, blog how to, blog setup, blogging, Broken Link Checker, customize blog, customize WordPress, Feedburner FeedSmith, Google XML Sitemaps, OptimizeDB, Popularity Contest, S-Button-Z, web blog, weblog, weblog design, WordPress, wordpress plug-in, wp plug in
Posted by David on in
Other Stuff For a project I am doing that requires me to get some Unix Web hosting accounts, I was doing some research this past weekend, May 2, 2009, into who are the best hosting companies to use.
I went to the 15 rating Web sites that I found on the first page of Google, either in the paid AdWords section or the free, organic search section, and listed them in a spreadsheet.
Then I used a simple weighting formula to find out who the best ones are from those various rating Web sites.
In addition, I went to forums, review and opinions sites and looked at the opinions I could find and then did a rating of which seemed the best based upon the reviews.
Altogether there were 25-30 companies that were included because they’d been rated well in the above, here are the top 5 as calculated by the Web rating Web sites:
Read more…
Tags: 1and1, A2 Hosting, Best Hosting Companies, Best Hosting Company, Best Web Hosting, Best Web Hosting Companies, Best Web Hosting Company, BlueHost, EasyCGI, Fast Domain, FatCow, Globat, Green Geeks, Host Clear, Host Excellence, Host Papa, HostGator, Hosting Companies, Hosting Company, HostMonster, InMotionHosting, IPower Web, IXWebHosting, JustHost, LunarPages, MidPhase, Omnis Network, PowWeb, Startlogic, Super Green Hosting, Web Hosting, Web Hosting Companies, Web Hosting Company, WebHostingPad
