Technically Easy

Category: Websites and Blogging

This category will contain any blogging-related posts, that includes platforms such as WordPress and Blogger.

RSSHugger – A New Method of Generating Blog Traffic

When I started this blog several months ago, one of the big questions was how to generate traffic. There is a lot of advice on the Internet about how to accomplish this goal, and for the most part it takes time.

I have recently noticed, however, the many new sites that are appearing specifically targeting blogs. These new sites are designed to help generate traffic to our blog, and in this post I will discuss one of these new sites called RSSHugger.

What is RSSHugger?

RSSHugger allows a blogger to publish their blog’s feed and increase traffic to their blog. It was started by Collin LaHay, an experienced entrepreneur, search engine optimizer and Internet marketer (according to the about page on RSSHugger). The original goal of RSSHugger was to get 50,000 blogs to sign up with a $10 fee, however, the goal has now been increased to 250,000 blogs within the first year.

Collin has changed the sign up procedure in that a blogger no longer needs to pay a fee to publish their RSS feed on the site. If you write a post about RSSHugger in your blog, you can publish the feed to your blog for free.

Visitors to RSSHugger can search for blogs that interests them and then easily subscribe to that blog’s RSS feed. It seems sort of like a blog directory that you can search and find blogs you may not easily find through a search engine.

I will be trying out RSSHugger to see if it indeed does increase the traffic to my blog. I will post results of this new site in the near future in case anyone is interested.

December 14, 2007
Review: The Path To Total Financial Freedom

There is much information on the Internet today that discusses how to make money online. Everyone appears to have a method that works for them, but what it all comes down to is hard work and dedication.

In this review I look at, not only a ways of making money, but also of increasing your traffic and online presence as well. This week I look at the blog The Path To Total Financial Freedom.

Design

When I first viewed the blog, I noticed that it consisted of a left navigation sidebar and a content section. As I scrolled down the page I quickly realized that the design of the blog was the weakest part of it.

Although there is a navigation bar on the left, it didn’t help provide an easy means of navigating through the blog. A blog will usually consist of a category list and an archives selection method. Although there is an archives list further down the page, I had trouble finding anything that resembled a categories list.

The sidebar was confusing as it consisted of many jumbled and unorganized images that may have some meaning to the blog, but I had difficulty associating them with it. If the navigation bar was more organized, it would make moving around the posts easier.

The home page itself contains much information for a visitor provided in many posts. The downside of this, however, is that it increases the page size dramatically. Checking the properties of the page, I noticed it came in at a whopping 173KB, and that is without the images. Reducing the number of posts displayed on the home page, and including a nice navigation bar will help the design greatly.

The design flaws show up in the posts themselves, as I noticed some posts had blue links, others had light green links that were hard to read, while others even had red. Being consistent with the link colours using CSS can make them easier to understand for visitors.

The footer is just as confusing as the sidebar as it is a jumble of links and images.

The design of the blog is by far the weakest part of the blog, but one that can be easily fixed with minimal effort.

Focus

The focus of the blog is easy to determine since the author has conveniently provided a short definition below the title: “A Guide on how to succeed with the amazing Passport To Wealth Business Opportunity”. The posts he has written maintains this focus as the posts provide tips and tricks on succeeding the online business by increasing traffic and your online presence.

To strengthen the online business called “Passport to Wealth”, the author uses it in the title of various posts. Although he has included the name in the title, many of the tips the author has provided can be used for various online opportunities as well.

Overall, the focus of the blog is well defined and represented in the various posts by the author.

Content

The content of The Path To Total Financial Freedom can at times be nice and summarized, while other times it can be quite long. For the long posts, it can take some time to download, especially if they are included on the same page. It was much easier to read the smaller posts as the author nicely summarizes the important points nicely.

The posts in general focus on increasing traffic, and focus on such Web sites as Alexa, and Google. Many of the tips provided in the posts can also be used for other online opportunities, which makes this blog a valuable resource for generating traffic.

The posts the author has written on the blog do provide some useful information, but finding them can be quite difficult because of the current navigation available at this time.

Spelling and Grammar

There are a few spelling and grammar mistakes in several posts that could cause a visitor to go back and reread the sentence again. For the most part, however, the posts are easy to read and understand.

Overall

The Path To Total Financial Freedom does have a clear focus and well written posts that do provide a visitor with many tips and tricks. The design of the blog, however, will need some major rework to make it easier for a visitor to retrieve the information they are looking for. Restructuring the navigation sidebar will go a long way to making the blog better.

December 10, 2007
Entrecard – An Easy Way to Get More Blog Traffic

There is some buzz surrounding the newest way of generating traffic to your blog, and it costs nothing. It is a unique concept and is very easy to implement on your blog and use it on other blogs. Entrecard was founded by Graham Langdom, the creator of the Million Dollar Wiki, and is completely free to those who want to use it.

I will provide an overview of what Entrecard is exactly and how you can use it to generate traffic.

How it Works

The who premise of Entrecard is based around a business card for you blog and credits. Every blog on Entrecard is allowed to upload on 125×125 pixel image to act as their business card. This business card is then placed on another blog as advertisement for your blog.

This means that what image you upload has a great effect as to how many visitors your will get. If you create an interesting business card, then you will probably get many visitors.

Now before you can submit your business card to any blog, you will first need to earn credits. Credits are the currency used on Entrecard. It is not hard to generate credits, but it does take some minor effort.

Credits are earned by other blog authors buying advertising space on your blog, the same way you do for theirs. Each blog costs so many credits per day to advertise on, so you may not be able to advertising on some of the more expensive blogs until you have earned enough credits. If you blog costs 8 credits/day, and you approve of a blog to advertise on your blog, then you have just earned 8 credits.

The cost of advertising on your blog is determined by a formula–meaning you can’t set the price yourself. The price is determined by twice the number of cards on that widget each day. If you get 20 cards dropped on your widget each day, then the price of advertising on your blog is 40 credits/day.

When you visit a blog that has installed the Entrecard widget, you can drop your business card on the widget and earn 1 credit. Your business card will then appear in the blog authors’ inbox within Entrecard. This is also another way of building traffic to your blog, as the author can now click on your business card to visit your blog.

For me, it has been interesting to discover, and visit, blogs that I may not have known existed. There are many great blogs out there, and this site allows you to visit many of them.

Summary

Like so many other blog authors, I have joined up with Entrecard and have immediately notice that traffic to my blog has increased. I’ll continue to earn credits by dropping my card on the widget, and then pay for advertising on other blogs. Since Entrecard is free to use, everyone with a blog should take advantage of this site to help increase traffic to their blog.

December 7, 2007
Review: tenforty

Many blog authors like to write about personal experiences, which can be a refreshing change to those who like to read blogs. It’s nice to read about someone’s experiences on what they have done, or would like to do. For those that write a blog on their travels, the photos they take and display add to the enjoyment of the blogs as many of the photos provide a windows into another country and culture.

In this post I review a blog that provides both great content and photos to locations in the eastern part of the world. You may not understand the title: tenforty, but once you read the description of the title on the blog you will understand.

Design

When I first looked at tenforty one word came to mind: blue. The entire site is mainly various shades of blue. If you are not a fan of that colour, then this may not be the blog for you. Blue is my favourite colour, however, I do have my limits to the amount of blue that I like to see.

Unfortunately, the right navigation bar’s background colour is blue as well as the links. This makes the links more difficult to read as blue on blue doesn’t work too well. Once a link has been visited the colour changes to a light orange colour. This makes it also a little difficult to read.

There are some items in the navigation bar that just don’t blend well with all the other items. An example of this is the Resources item, which stands out amongst all the other items since it has a faded book background. Making all items in the navigation bar similar will provide a nicer look to the entire right-side of the pages.

One of the things I liked about the design of the blog were the design of the posts. The author has chosen a nice large and very readable font. The titles of the posts are even large so they stand out against the fonts chosen for the post content. I like how the posts are all surrounded by a thick border and are separated by other posts with a space. This provides some nice separation between the posts.

The design of the blog could be improved if the author limited the amount of blue as a background colour, maybe possibly making the right navigation bar and the post background match and keeping the main body background as blue.

Focus

For those that haven’t visited tenforty before may find it a little confusing as to the focus of the blog. There are many categories listed in the navigation bar, which may obscure the focus.

To help visitors understand the focus of the blog, the author has provided a nice description in the upper right corner. There the author also explains the name of the blog: “The 10/40 Window is an area of the world extending from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north of the equator, and includes countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.” This also helps to set the focus for the entire blog, which is really ingenious. Sometimes coming up with a name for a Web site or blog can be complicated and I feel that the name captures what the author is writing about.

The focus of the blog is enhanced by the well written posts that also include photos of the authors experiences. Once you have visited the blog, the focus is more easy to determine as your read the posts on the blog.

Content

As I have briefly touched upon in the focus, the main content of the blog is about the author’s experience in the eastern countries in the world. The author has gone into great detail in some posts, but not too much where they have lost the focus of the post. Many of the posts are enhanced with the inclusion of at least one photo followed by a brief description of the photo. This helps to picture what the author is illustrating in the posts.

While the photos help the posts, those visitors on dial up may have to wait for the complete post to be downloaded. Some posts have one photo, while others may have several. Some of the photos can be rather large (80KB and larger) which can take longer if you are on dial up.

The content overall is detailed and well illustrated with photos. The post length is not too long where the interest of the visitor can be lost, but are rather short and to the point, while at the same time not losing the focus of the post.

Spelling and Grammar

As I read several posts I noticed that the author has obviously spent time checking both the spelling and grammar. I rarely found any problems with the spelling and grammar, which sometimes is a rarity in blogs. The very minor mistakes I did find, didn’t affect the readability of the posts. In this regard the author is very careful when writing the posts.

Overall

I enjoyed reading many of the posts that have been written on tenforty, as well as view many of the photos that are available. The only issue I found with the blog is the amount of blue that was used. This made some of the links in the navigation bar hard to read as they almost blend into the background. Besides the blue colour, there were no real issues with the blog and was a really well written and detailed blog. It was worth the visit.

December 3, 2007
Getting Colour Values from Web Site Templates
Many of us aren’t the greatest Web site designers, or just don’t have time to design one, and because of this we rely on templates that others have created. The only problem with this is we may not understand how the entire Web site is designed with regards to files used and the layout of the site.

One issue that I have recently read about is getting the values for the site colours to use with Google Adsense. The template user wanted to know how to get the colours from the template to blend in the Adsense ads with the site. The problem a user may have is reading the cascading stylesheets that come with a template to find the correct colours. In this post I will show how to retreive a colour from a Web site without look at the cascading stylesheets.

Using an Image Editor

This method may seem long when you read it, but it basically involves taking a screenshot of the Web site, pasting it into an image editor and then retrieving the colour.

In this example I will use Windows Paint and Windows calculator to get the colour. You can use any image editor that allows you to retrieve colours, such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

To get the colours use the following steps:
1. Open up your Web browser and navigate to the Web site.
2. Press ALT+Print Screen to make a copy of the screen. The screen copy will be in memory, so you won’t see anything change.
3. Click Start->Run and then enter mspaint.exe in the Run dialog. This will open up Windows Paint.
4. In Paint, press CTRL+V to paste the screen copy from memory into the document. You should now see the screen in Windows Paint.
5. From the toolbar on the left, click the eyedropper icon, also called Pick Color and then click the colour you want to find the value for.
6. Once you have clicked the colour, click Colors and then Edit Colors from the menu at the top. You should now see the Edit Colors dialog box on the screen.
7. Click the Define Custom Colors button to expand that dialog box.
8. The colour you clicked with the eyedropper will be the selected colour in the dialog. Write down the three numbers beside Red, Green, and Blue labels. For the Web, we will be converting those three numbers to hexadecimal.
9. Click Start->Run and then type calc.exe in the Run dialog box.
10. With Windows calculator open, click View and then Scientific to get more advanced calculator functions.
11. Near the upper-left corner of the calculator you will see four option buttons: Hex, Dec, Oct, Bin. These are the differernt number systems. We will focus on Hex (hexadecimal) and Dec (decimal) for now. Ensure that Dec is selected.
12. Typein the Red value that you retrieved from Windows Paint in the calculator, and then click the Hex option. The value should now be converted to hexadecimal, which you should now record somewhere. If the number is not two characters in length, then append a leading zero to the value.
13. Click the Dec option and then enter the Green value, and then select the Hex option. Write down that value beside the red value.
14. Repeat the previous step for the Blue value and write that value down next to the green value.
15. The number you should end up with will be 6 characters in length. This is the hexadecimal number that represents the colour you selected on your Web site. You can now use this number in Google Adsense, or any other place and the colour will match your Web site.
Summary

This post explained how to retrieve a colour value from a Web site without reading the cascading stylesheets. Windows Paint was used to retrieve the Red, Green, and Blue values of the colour, and Windows Calculator was then used to convert the three numbers to hexadecimal. Using this method, you can easily find out colour values of an colour on any Web site.
November 28, 2007
Review: Web Mash

With Technically Easy I try to write posts that are both informational as well as helpful. I am a more serious blog as compared to other blogs. There are many types of blogs that people have authored, informational, personal, witty, or funny, as is the case with Web Mash.

It is nice to just get away from the pressures of life and just kick back and laugh and just have fun, and that is just what this blog provides.

(more…)

November 26, 2007
Review: Matts Nutts Blog

There is much information on various Web sites devoted to SEO, WordPress or blogging in general. Many simply display the same information that is provided on other sites, while others provide the information in a badly designed Web site.

This week I look at Matts Nutts which is focused on SEO, WordPress and blogging. The blog provides original posts with a nice clean design that will help others succeed in the world of blogging.

Design

When I first looked at Matts Nutts I was immediately impressed with the look of the blog. I found it very easy on the eyes with a nice selection of colours. All colours on the blog seem to fit together nicely with none of the colours feeling out of place. I thought even the search bar with an completely different colour than the rest of the blog was a nice touch. It made the search bar stand out with is a nice plus if you would like to find specific information.

I like the fact that the header wasn’t too big and allowed at least one full post to appear above the fold. Many web sites have such a large header that a visitor would need to scroll down to find any of the content. The author has created a good size header to prevent any scrolling for content.

I like how the author shows only a few paragraphs of each post on the main page and then a link to the full post. This allowed me to quickly scan through the posts and click on any that I was interested in reading.

There really wasn’t any downsides to the design of the blog. I didn’t, however, like how the “Categories” section in the navigation bar was to the far right, and on my display, below the fold. I always like the categories to be more accessible as I can then easily view posts for a particular category.

One other issue I found with the design was on the “Contact Us” page. I found the headings in the form to be a little hard to read. The text is too small and light for the background colour. Besides these two design issues, the design of the entire blog was really well done.

Focus

The focus of the blog is mainly on SEO, WordPress and blogging in general. When reading the posts you can easily determine the main focus of the blog.

I noticed that WordPress is covered in more detail than the other two focus points of the blog. The author definitely has much experience with using WordPress and provides great information on using it to create better blogs.

As for SEO, there are several posts relating to this topic, albeit, not as many as WordPress. The author provides some useful tips to optimizing your blog for search engines, especially if you use WordPress.

As for blogging in general, the author provides information on how to mnage blogs and tools that you can use. Many of his WordPress posts can also be used for other blogging engines, so don’t shy away from the blog just because you don’t use WordPress.

The focus of Matts Nutts is well defined and narrowed down to specific topics. Simply reading the blog without knowing the main focus will allow you to determine the focus yourself.

Content

The content of Matts Nutts is well focussed. The posts are detailed and provide information on the various tools and tips on creating and maintaing a blog. Although blogging in general is discussed at times, the main target audience are those bloggers that use WordPress.

The author publishes posts to the blog on a regular basis, which is a good indication of how much time and effort the author puts into the blog. Subscibers to the blog will be rewarded with at least 3 posts a week.

Unfortunately, at times the spelling and grammar mistakes can take away from the readability of the posts. If there were less mistakes, then the content would be top notch. These mistakes are discussed in the next section.

Spelling and Grammar

The one downside to this blog is the spelling and grammar. There are various grammar mistakes that may cause visitors to re-read a sentence a second time to understand the point the author is trying to make.

Many of the spelling mistakes are simple mistakes such as forgetting punctuation or the space between words. A simple text editor that includes a spell checker can easily identify the spelling mistakes within the posts. Most of the mistakes, however, don’t make the posts unreadable as they are usually just simple ones that you can easily identify the word the author intended to use.

The one mistake that appears throughout the blog is that of not capitalizing names. There are several posts that list the names of companies or products and the names are all in lower case. Once again, however, a visitor can easily understand the name of the company or product since the spelling is correct.

Overall

The look of Matts Nutts is very easy to read and navigate around. The colours are easy on the eyes and blend well together, with the exception of the some of the headings on the “Contact Us” page.

The posts in the blog are detailed and provide much information with regards to blogging. The blog indicates that it discusses SEO, however, there aren’t too many posts dedicated to the section, at least not yet.

The one downside to this blog is the spelling and grammar mistakes. Many of the spelling mistakes are simple and can easily be correct with a spellchecker in a text editor. Some of the grammar mistakes could cause visitors to re-read the same sentence over again to understand the point of the author.

Overall, the blog is well designed and very informative, and could help many soon-to-be bloggers understand the world of blogging.

November 19, 2007
Free Web Site Statistics
I have seen many posts in various forums regarding where to get Web site statistics. There are many statistics package that can be purchased and installed on a Web server, but many Web site authors are on a host that they don’t own.

The two most common online statistics packages available are Google Analytics and StatCounter. I have used both in the past and will be reviewing them in this post.

Google Analytics

Many people recommend this as their choice for keeping track of their Web site statistics. It provides a very detailed look at the visitors to your site, and is completely free to use.

The statistics are organized into different sections: Dashboard, Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and Goals. With the exception of Dashboard, the remaining sections all have subsections that provide more detailed information.

The first view that is shown when accessing Google Analytics is that of the Dashboard. This page provides an overview of your Web site statistics over the past month. Items such as traffic, visitors, popular content and traffic sources are summarized on this page.

The next sections are summarized as follows:
- Visitors – This section provides an abundance of information about the visitors to your Web site. Information such as the number of new and returning visitors, maps, browser capabilities and network information can be found here. This information can be useful because it gives you an idea of the tools and connection speeds that your users are using when accessing your Web site.
- Traffic Sources – How are your visitors getting to your Web site? That question is answered in this section. Such things as referring Web sites, search engines and keywords searched by your visitors are shown here. This information can be helpful to optimize your site by review the keywords entered. Many bloggers create posts based on what keywords visitors used to get to their Web site.
- Content – If you would like to know the pages on your Web site that are the most popular, then you should have a look in this section. This section contains information on the pages that visitors first see when they visit your Web site, as well as the pages they leave your Web site from.
- Goals – If you have a business Web site then you can set metrics to measure how much your site fulfills its business objective. Goals measure the conversion rate of your Web site, such as when a client completes a purchase of a product from your Web site. Many Web site authors may not use this section.
I find Google Analytics provides very detailed information regarding visitors to my Web site. I do, however, have trouble tracking how a visitor moves through my site. There may be a way of doing this, but I don’t it very easy to do. Google Analytics also takes some time to update its statistics. From my experience, it can be several hours before you see the data.

Overall, I use Google analytics because of the information that it provides, especially for past data as it seems to keep a lot of historical data.

StatCounter

Along with Google Analytics, the other big player in the free Web site statistics package is StatCounter. I have only recently used their service, and found that they offer a really nice, detailed statistical information.

StatCounter doesn’t have as many different reports as Google Analytics does, but it does have very detailed reports. They do provide the same information as Google Analytics, such as entry and exit pages, keyword analysis, and visitor system information.

The one thing that I like about StatCounter is the ability to easily see how a visitor navigated through your site by viewing a Visitor Paths report.

I have a lot more experience with using Google Analytics, than with StatCounter (actually I just signed up StatCounter about a month ago), but I find myself using StatCounter just a much because the reports are easier to understand. They provide charts with several reports including the data in a tabular form below the chart.

The one thing about StatCounter that you should know is that it will only keep track of the last 500 page loads for the free account. You will need to upgrade to a paid account if you would like to track more. Once the log is full, the next page load will be recorded and the oldest data will be deleted. For many people, such as myself, 500 may be a large enough value. I believe the log file contains information about the visitors, as I have been able to pull up my site stats for a month ago.

Summary

Both statistics packages mentioned in this post are great for providing information about the visitors to your Web site. Each package has a different look and feel, but both provide a lot of information that could help you manage your Web site. I currently use both packages as each one provides information that the other does not. If you would like to choose one, then I suggest you try both and see which one you like best.
November 14, 2007