Have you considered purchasing an HDMI cable for 250$, just because it’s gold plated? Reconsider:
Archive for the ‘Tips and Tutorials’ category
The HDMI Cable Ripoff
March 31st, 2010WordPress SEO Tips and Tricks
February 13th, 2010Setting up a website based on WordPress is a great idea. Not only is this CMS cool and easy to use, it’s also very effective for promoting your site’s ranking in search engines.
There are some basic things you can do in order to improve your site’s SEO with WordPress. Here are some ideas:
WordPress SEO Tips and Tricks
Install All-in-One SEO
All-in-One SEO is one of the most popular plugins for WordPress, and with good reason. This plugin is packed with important SEO features like titles, meta tags, advanced canonical URLs and more.
Install Google XML Sitemap Generator
Google XML Sitemap Generator is another very useful WordPress plugin. It will automatically generate an XML file with a sitemap of your site, and will send pings to all major search engines when you update the site.
Install SEO Friendly Images
This plugin will do the dirty work for you when it comes to images. SEO Friendly Images will automatically add titles and alt attributes to all of your site’s images.
Check for Valid XHTML
Although WordPress code is usually good, certain themes and plugins might mess it up a bit. Check your site for errors and fix them for a better search engine position.
Avoid Linkware Themes
Sponsored themes, or linkware themes, are WordPress themes which are distributes for free, but with a catch – there are paid links at the footer, which you are not allowed to remove. Google doesn’t like these links, so you are better off avoiding such themes.
Use Permalinks
WordPress has a wonderful advanced option for creating custom permalinks. Choose “Custom Structure” and enter “/%postname%/ “. This will make your URLs look like this: www.example.com/post-name/. This puts your post directly at the root level and uses keywords that are in your post title.
Make Sure Post and Page Titles are H1
H1 will simply make the title of the page or post the most important title on the page.
Update Frequently
Make sure you insert fresh content into your site on a regular basis. This is one of the most important aspects of improving your site’s rank on search engines.
eBay Announces Free Auction Listings
January 26th, 2010
Selling on eBay just got a bit more accessible. eBay announced free auction listings and reduced listing fees for fixed-priced items in the U.S. The pricing changes, which take effect on March 30, will lower the upfront costs of selling on eBay.
Beginning March 30th, 2010, eBay will offer two pricing packages in the United States:
- For sellers who list items occasionally, new “eBay Everyday” rates. Auction-style listings with a start price of 99 cents or less will be free (with no insertion fees for up to 100 listings per month). When an item sells, the seller will pay a flat final value fee of 9 percent of the sale price – and never more than $50. If an item doesn’t sell, the seller pays nothing. Auction listings are a good choice for occasional sellers – people who are trying to get rid of some junk, usually.
- For sellers who list often, new “eBay Stores” subscription rates offer insertion fees as low as 3 cents per listing for 30 days—a 90 percent reduction over current rates. Larger volume sellers with this “3-cent store” premium rate can move thousands of items at high velocity with full search exposure.
Subscription rates offer basic, anchor and premium store pricing options, depending on the size of a seller’s business. With the new pricing a seller with 250 listings per month would save $80 or $960 a year in insertion fees.
Current store inventory format will be discontinued and will no longer have separate search functionality from core fixed-price listings. With the new eBay Stores rate package, all fixed priced inventory on eBay will have exposure through eBay’s main search functionality, increasing visibility for sellers and improving the search experience for buyers.
eBay is also expanding to all buyers its eBay Buyer Protection program. This program offers buyers even greater confidence that when they buy on eBay, they’ll be covered.
Through eBay Buyer Protection, buyers will have access to customer support specialists seven days a week, as well as a money-back offer for most purchases should a problem arise and the seller is unable to resolve the issue.
Tips for Selling on eBay
- Buy before you sell: create a user with a good reputation. It will make things easier when you want to start selling.
- Search and research: search Listings on eBay to see what is selling and what are the common prices.
- Add clear images: take pictures of the product from different angles and make sure the pictures are sharp and large. Use a good camera and not a webcam!
- Give good service: keep your customers happy.
- Use HTML: the text editing window in eBay enables you to insert HTML tags. Learn basic HTML to improve the look and feel of your auction page.
- Package well: make sure you package sold items well. Use quality packages and envelopes, and don’t forget packing materials like bubble wrap etc.
Recommended Books about Selling on eBay
- eBay 101 – Access the world’s biggest marketplace, right from your own home.
- How to Buy, Sell, and Profit on eBay – This quick read is a straightforward primer on the do’s and don’ts of starting your own serious eBay business.
- eBay PowerSeller Secrets – This beyond-the-basics guide reveals the trade secrets that have propelled the savviest entrepreneurs into eBay PowerSellers.
5 Free Tools for Testing your Website
January 25th, 2010Keeping your website up and running isn’t an easy task. Things break, stop working or just slow down. Sometimes the traffic is very low and in other times you are not really sure what the problem is.
Fortunately, there are a lot of great internet tools that can help you analyze, test and fix your site. Use these tools on a regular basis, and you can really improve the performance of your website.
5 Free Tools for Testing your Website
#1
WooRank
WooRank is a very comprehensive tool. It allows you to analyze your website thoroughly. Just enter your site’s URL and you’ll get a lot of useful information: traffic estimation, indexed pages in Google, popular pages, images that are missing ALT text, general SEO data and much more.
#2
Wave
No, this isn’t the Google thingie. WAVE is a free web accessibility evaluation tool provided by WebAIM. It is used to aid you in testing your site’s web accessibility. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility of that page. Very easy to use and very useful, as well.
#3
MyIPNeighbors
If you have a shared hosting service (like most of us), you probably know that you share the server with other site owners. Sometimes it creates problems, as your server-neighbors run scripts or create a heavy load on the server, and so your site suffers as well. If you want to know who else is sharing the server with you – MyIPNeighbors is a great tool. Just type in your server’s IP address, and check out who are you living with on the net.
#4
Pingdom
Pingdom Tools allows you to test your site upload time. If your website is slow to load or hangs, use this great free tool and find the problematic areas of your site. It might be a script, an overly-large image or a piece of code that’s clogging up your site – and the solution is usually very simple.
#5
BroswerShots
BrowserShots has become so popular, that you sometimes have to stand in line in order to receive this site’s service. This very useful cross-browser testing tool will present you with screenshots of your site, as seen in different browsers. When you develop a website, you want it to show properly on different browsers (mainly the popular ones). Since you can’t really install 5-6 different browsers on your computer (or don’t want to, which is also legit) – BrowserShots is the perfect solution.
