NoMusicMedia is a new music portal dedicate to all. <-Just a test for trackbacks

Central to the power of Wordpress are all the features. There are to many to list right now, but one in particular that has helped transform Wordpress from a simple blogging solution to a CMS is the ability to add static pages. It's simple to do...

Step 1: Login into the admin section of your wordpress installation

You can find the login page at: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin

Step 2: Find the main menu and go to: Write > Page

Step 3: Start Typing
Get to typing! Add your title, some text, and a few pictures if you like. Remember...any title used for your page will also appear in the navigation. You can also create a "contact us/me" page by using plugins like cforms-II or the Secure Form Mailer by Dagon Design. Just follow the directions for each plugin. If your new to Wordpress, use the second of the two. Cforms really isn't for the newbie.

Step 3: Publish that sucker!
That's it. Just a basic, no-frills tutorial on how to add pages to your wordpress blog

Occasionally I spend time on Bustaname.com looking for domain names that might be of value. I've found a few winners and quite a few losers but today my heart stopped.

Using the word combiner, I entered a long string of words and clicked the "add" button. To my suprise "loyal.com" was available. My first thought was "yeah right...there's not a chance in hell".

False positive are common on Bustaname, but I had to check anyway because, who knows, maybe...just maybe the name expired and no one caught it. So I clicked "buy it" and said a little prayer. Again, I was not optimistic and really just going through the motions.

The screenshot below is what I saw after being redirected to Godaddy.com:

Talk about an "Oh Shit" moment. I registered the domain and then started researching brokers, auctions sites, and appraisal services. I'm no expert but I do know that domains like this could easily fetch mid to high $xx,xxx...if not more.

After a bit of researched I opened Gmail and found the following email:

Dear Me,

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

LOYAL.COM

Error: LOYAL.COM: cannot register - already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

Sincerely,
Godaddy.com, Inc

What a bummer! So I called Godaddy to enquire, they said it was a clear mistake and refunded my money.

So for those of you who use Bustaname be sure to double check a domain that seems to good to be true.

So you need to search a website but the on-site search engine stinks or doesn't exist?  It happens...more than it should but true to most things web related, there's a work-around.  Google has a long list of tools (also known as operators) that people can use to help focus and refine searches, and one such tool is the "site:" operator.

The "site:" operator can be used to search any website that's indexed by Google.  Remember that you are using Google's search engine and if it's not in Google - it's not going to be found using this method!

Take a look at the image below:

The query above searches all of Foxnews.com for "banana split".  There are two parts:  [The keyword or words] and [The site].  In this case the keywords are "banana split" and the site is "Foxnews.com".  You can see the results here. If you took the time to look, you may have noticed that 29 instances of the words banana split exist on Foxnews or rather within the pages from Foxnews.com that are indexed in Google.

A few more searches using the "site:" operator.

• Beer on CNN.com
• Beer on Foxnews.com
• Obama on The Onion
• McCain on The Onion

Bear with me - I tried to be fair. It was interesting that CNN had roughly 3000 results for beer, while FoxNews.com had more than 14,000. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with The Onion, the information is intended for "entertainment purposes only"

Google's chock full of little goodies to help people find what they're looking for. After all, there's a reason their stock is trading at $$$ per share.

Chances are if you own a business you own a website. Who could pass up the opportunity to reach thousands of potential clients...right? Well...maybe. Using a website to market your products and services is a great, but have you given any thought to your websites daily, weekly, or monthly traffic? Without traffic (that converts to sales) your wasting one of your best marketing assets.

There are steps that you can take to improve your online exposure and traffic without ever looking at a line of code.  Each step, in one way or another, focuses on your niche or location which will not only increase traffic but should also yield a higher ROI because you'll be putting yourself in front of people who are looking for your services or products.

I mentioned "ROI" so you're probably thinking that there's a fee of some sort.  We'll, there is...your time.  Each step outlined is free but some work (albeit minimal) is required from your end.

Submit to directories - Your best bet would be to submitting to directories relating to your niche...or otherwise known in the directory industry as "niche directories". There are a few reasons for this: they tend to be better manage because the owner is familiar with the niche, there's typically less spam associated with niche directories so the search engines crawl them more frequently, and niche directories receive targeted traffic looking for information relating that vertical market, which usually results in a small amount of traffic being directed to your site. Below are a few niche directory resources:

• Directory Critic
• Web-Directories
• Directory Rate

Leave comments on blogs - Find blogs relating to your market and become active in their community.  Comment frequently on posts that interest you and provide assistance, insight, and information to other people commenting.  Over time, you'll become known as an expert in your field (Online) and likely generate some business. Below are a blog resources:

• Blog Catalog
• BOTW
• Technorati

Write an article and submit it to an article directory - This approach is edgy.  Some call it "Bum Marketing" others simply call it "article marketing".  The idea is to write an article, about anything but the more closely related to you business the better, and then submit it to any of a 100000+ article directories.  The benefit to you is that there's a byline at the bottom that includes a link to you site.  In the past, people would write one article and submit it to thousands of article directories.  Google didn't really care for that as it created tons of duplicate content and now frowns upon (and penalizes) those who use that approach.  The better method is to write an article and then submit it to one article directory and then repeat as time permits. Below are a few article directory resources:

• GoArticles
• EzineArticles
• iSnare

Do follow the directions when submitting articles. If you don't, your article won't be added and you'll have wasted your time.

Add your website to your email signature - It only takes 5 minutes to add a link to your website in your email signature. If you gained just one client it would be worth the time spent.

Add yourself to Google Local - Google local provides business listing at the top of common searches. Take a minute to look at this example, you'll notice a map at the top of the results page with several business listing to the right. You WANT to be there. You'll need a google account which requires 15 to 20 minutes to set up.

Research your competitors - I could write a series of post relating to online competition and competitive analysis, but for the purposes of this post - just have a look around. If you're a home security company in Dayton, Ohio, search for "home security dayton ohio" and look at the listings on the first page. Are you there? Who is and what are they doing differently...or the same? As I mentioned earlier, this is a fairly complicated topic and something that I'll cover with more depth soon.

Ask for links - Don't be afraid to ask people to link to your site. Truth be told, some people/organizations would happily link to you if they only knew you existed. Just fire off an email introducing yourself and kindly ask for a link. This approach doesn't always work but I guarantee it will never work if you don't make the effort. Try your local chamber of commerce, local associations, local business directories, etc. This article is along the same lines and a pretty good read.

Wrapping it all up - You'll notice that 5 of the 7 steps resulted in gaining a link back to your site.  The more links you have point back to your site the better.  Link popularity is a broad topic and deserves some explanation but that will have to wait until next week.

Keep in mind that using the steps outlined above is NOT a substitution for professional search marketing guidance. Providing the resources are available, consider hiring a professional SEO who has the expertise to optimize your site, keyworks, link portfolio, and other factors that effect search ranking. By using the steps above and hiring a competent professional, you should see gains in rankings and traffic in a fairly short amount of time.

After spending that last 4 hours searching for quality directories, submitting and then repeating the process, I'm reminded about how much it sucks. Although directory submission is tedious, it is necessary for SEOing on a budget...or lack thereof.

For those who work within the web world, you're probably familiar with directories. And for those of you who are not the web techie type, the following may be somewhat foreign but I'll do my best to be thorough...feel free to ask questions in the comments.

First let's touch on "Quality" Directories

So what makes one directory better than the other? Who's packing the juice and who isn't? Well, it's safe to say that since roughly September of 2007...Google is not a fan of directories at large. There were several [directories] hand picked by Google and either penalized or removed completely from the index. Other's weren't penalized per se...but did have their pagerank removed or reduced.

So are directories worthless now? No. Not at all. Google may add less weight to listings (in some cases no weight) but adding your site to worthwhile directories can certainly add to your link reputation as well as your online exposure...to a lesser extent.

A few questions to ask before submitting:

Is it FREE or PAID? "You get what you pay for" - I'm sure you've heard that before. Generally speaking, paid directories are well-managed. The owners of paid directories often reinvest the revenue generated by submissions into advertising and search marketing which creates a better resource for everyone. Keep in mind that just because a directory is paid doesn't necessarily mean that it worth the money. There are some directory owners who would be more than happy to take your cash and offer zero value or service. Just be warned. Free directories, on the other had, are the mystery meat of the directory world...you just never know what your going to get. The upside is that the only cost is time. And some of the free directories (especially new ones) will ultimately become paid directories managed by people who want to succeed.

Should I buy a regular or featured listing? You budget will probably determine the answer to this one. If you have the money, buy as many featured listings as possible...for two reasons. One, your listing will appear at the top and usually set apart (in appearance) from the regular listing which will result in a bit more traffic. Two, a featured listing at the top will carry far more weight than a regular listing at the bottom of page ten.

Is the directory littered with advertisements? Banner ads, adsense, and text links aren't necessarily bad. However, think twice about submitting to a directory that is littered with ads and sponsored links. If you're paying, the focus should be on your listing and the other listings around you. If there's more than one banner ad and ten sponsored links, then take a closer look.

Does the directory provide "deeplinks"? Many directories will allow site owners to sumbit their site as well as 3 -5 pages from within the site. Most directories that practice deeplinking are paid directories but the money is well worth it. Links to internal pages can enhance search rankings and provide added exposure.

If paid, are refunds provide to rejected sites? It's been a hotly debated topic among webmasters and directory owners for sometime. Most directories do issue refunds if your site is not approved. Some offer a partial refund while a few offer no refund at all. Yahoo is an example of the last. They charge a $299 review fee and do NOT offer refunds to sites that are rejected. In their eyes, you're paying for their time to review a site and not a place in the Yahoo directory.

What type of sites have been recently submitted? Most directories have a "recently submitted" section that lists 15 - 20 freshly submitted sites. Be sure to take a look and ensure that the sites submitted are "quality" sites. So what's a "quality" site? Ask 20 people and you'll get 20 different renditions of what defines quality. To be safe, just make sure that you don't see any porn, pills or gambling sites (unless that's your niche).

Perform A Quick Directory Diagnostic Check

Lastly, if a directory seems unusually expensive or shady or both, perform a couple of "checks" in Google and Yahoo to ensure that the directory in question hasn't been penalized or banned.

Start with Google. In the search box type the following and hit enter:

If the directory in question is not the first result or at least on the first page, then chances are the directory has been at least penalized. Maybe banned.

Next, insert the following into the google search box and hit enter:

The "site:" operator returns all pages found in google from a given site. If no pages are returned the site is either very new or has been penalized or banned.

For a final check, determine how many links to the directory in question are found in Google. Do this by inserting the following and hit enter:

The "link:" operator returns all sites linking to the directory in question. The more links the better, but keep in mind that google only returns a sample of a site's backlinks. If the number of links seems small (less than 20), then head over to Yahoo and repeat.

There are factors such as a directory's age that can make a great directory look questionable using the above quality checks. It's best to save this type of research for paid directories so that you can ensure you're getting your money's worth.

Wrapping It Up

The directory world is an industry. As with any niche or industry, there are good vendors and bad vendors. Make sure to shop around when paying for directories. Before purchasing a link, size up the directory and apply some of the techniques above to ensure you're making a worthy purchase.
As far as free directories are concerned...the only cost is your time. Don't waste it! If you come across a free directory that looks like it took 15 minutes build then move along.

Good Luck!

I recently purchased a Wordpress theme over at Digitalpoint forums and it's been an experience.  I have purchased a few uncoded templates in the past but never a fully coded theme until now.

Let me just say that I know it's not an easy job to develop a Wordpress theme.  There's a lot that goes into the process and it's very, very easy to overlook a few details.  There are a few stones that should never go unturned...never, never, never:

1. Make certain that your theme works in ALL major browsers.
2. If there are browser specific issues with the theme DO NOT suggest that they are easily hacked to support all browsers. Especially when the hack is a half-hearted work around.
3. If you plan on including a feed - twitter for example - don't use a block of javascript code that chokes the living shit out of IE6. Instead try the fetch_rss() function. It's much more friendly.
4. Ensure that attention to detail is a priority. Doing so will save you from selling a theme with links (the natural kind found within a paragraph) with a font-size set to really, really BIG.
5. And last but not least - Include all of the "standard" php files (eg: archive.php).

The original design was absolutely amazing. A beautiful use of transparency and ajax...very web 2.0. Due to IE6's inability to handle transparent png's used as repeating background images, I was force to eliminate much of what made the design unique and appealing. Unfortunately, design is where the greatness ceased.

For those looking to buy a theme - do take your time checking out the theme and developer. Most people who deliver "digital goods" do NOT offer refunds so it's important to get it right the first time. At the very least, ensure that support is available should you need some help.

Rant complete

I've been working on my taxes all day and ran across the following excerpt from About.com. Here's the link to the actual page (scroll towards the bottom of the page) and below is a screenshot. Bribes and kickbacks don't qualify for a deduction...who would have thought.

Some things just seem obvious...others, well maybe not so much to some.

One of the most exciting aspects of the web is that you can find just about anything for free. After 10 hours of searching, evaluating, and even test driving a few "freeware" applications, we have compiled a fairly extensive list of software that costs absolutely NOTHING. Maybe life is possible without Microsoft? Please be sure to look at the requirements for each before installing and donate where & when possible. Let's get to it...

Collaborative Software

Campfire - Real time chat and file sharing.
BackPackIt - All-In-One collaborative software. Share to-do lists, notes, and images.
Google Docs - Online Spreadsheets, word processor, and more. Google...go figure?
myNoteIt - Share notes, track "to-do's", and share notes.

Word Processing and PDF Readers

OpenOffice - Boiled down...it's a free version of Microsoft Office!
PDFOnline - Create Free PDF's online
FoxIt Software - Free alternative to Adobe Acrobat
AbiWord - Lightweight free word processing software

Graphics

Gimp.org - Lightweight Graphics program...very nice w/tutorials
Alch.info - Icon (.ico) editing software
GetPaint - Powerful graphics/photo editing software
GimpShop - Free "version" of Adobe Photoshop...imitation do win.
Blender - 3D rendering software. Absolutely amazing!
InkScape - Open Source vector graphics editor similar to Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel

Browsers

Firefox - Hands down the BEST browser...sorry IE!
Opera - Free, standards-compliant browser...second best:)
Camino - Powered by Mozilla (Firefox)...but made for a Mac

Email
Thunderbird - Free Email Client
Gmail - Google email with POP and IMAP support
Hotmail - MSN served free email.
Goowy - Lightweight free email provider
BlueBottle - Another free email provider. Said to be SPAM Free

Antivirus/Spyware

Spyware Doctor - Best of year 2005 and 2006
Ad-Aware - Highly respected with millions of downloads
Clamwin - Free anti-virus for windows
AVG Spyware - Free spyware built for Windows.

Tools

Online Conversion - Over 5,000 units, and 50,000 conversions
MusikCube - Free mp3 player for the modern generation
GetMiro - Download YouTube, Bit Torrent Compatible, High Definition
ImgBurn - lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application
FileZilla - Free FTP Software
PsPad - Free text editor

Archive/Zip Software

7Zip - Free Alternative to WinZip
WinRar - Try it...forever.
WinZip - Try it for free. Popular and worth the mention.

Entertainment

MythTV - PC based alternative to TiVo...and much, much more.

Blog Software

Wordpress - Popular open-source blog software

Imagine...school is over, your degree is complete. You have that diploma seated nicely in a $100 frame purchased months ago in anticipation of your final days at school. Now what? Some will take time "off" while others will need to land a job fast. To help those still on the job hunt, I've packaged up a list of the 17 best - in our opinion - resume and cover letter resources on the net. A few are thorough so be prepared to absorb quite a bit of information...

Resumes
How To Write A Resume [Mahalo.com]
How to write a masterpiece of a resume [Rockport Institute]
The 7 Deadly Sins of resume design [LifeClever]
Why your resume annoys employers [CNN]
Give Your Resume A Face Lift [LifeClever]
Resume Writing Tips[Daily Writing Tips]

Coverletters
Dozens of Coverletter Examples [Vault]
More Coverletter Examples and Samples [Missouri Univ]
Tips for a Dynamic Email Cover Letter [Quintessential Careers]
Tips for applying to a job from Craigslist [Craigslist]
Zooming In on Cover Letter Anatomy [All Business]
Nothing But Coverletters

Interview Tips
88 Surefire Job Interview Tips [OEDB.org]
Interview Questions and Why They Ask [Business Balls]
Answering 6 Common Interview Questions [CNN]
The 25 most difficult questions you'll be asked on a job interview
50 Common Interview Questions [Bhuvans]

Remember, nothing attracts an employer like a resume with real substance. Tout your strengths and highlight experiences that have relevance. Also, be sure to follow up with a phone call and don't be afraid to make your presence felt. Don't over do it but don't sit idly on the sideline either.

Happy Hunting!