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Use Your iPad For Your Next Presentation And Make Life Easier

July 22nd, 2010

As I continue to be amazed at the way people are making use of their iPad, it occurred to me that the potential far outweighs the limitations. For example, let’s say you have a presentation or speaking engagement coming up at one of the search conferences. You now have a choice: bring your heavy laptop or bring your lightweight and ultra-portable iPad. Not sure what to do? Here are some ways you can use your iPad at your next speaking gig, and then you can decide the best device to take.

Getting Your Presentation Organized
There are some great tools you can use on the iPad to help you organize your speech and get it ready to present. Here are a few that will help you prepare.

Evernote

This is an invaluable tool to have as you get ready for your presentation. Evernote is a very popular tool amongst bloggers as it helps you remember anything and everything quickly. You can use it to capture ideas for your speech in multiple ways and then sync these with your iPhone and/or your Mac or Windows desktop. Here are some of the ways it can help you as you prepare:

Write down ideas
Save web clips
Snap photos for your presentation
Record voice memos

Dropbox

Putting a speech together means you probably have a lot of files of various kinds and it also means you need access to those files from where ever you might be working. Dropbox is perfect for that. It is one of the easiest ways to sync and share files online and across computers. You get 2GB of online storage free and you don’t have to worry about hard disks crashing or failing.

Keynote

This is a great (basic) presentation app. You can import MS Powerpoint presentations and Keynote ’09 presentations designed in iWork ’09 (be warned that there are some compatibility issues). As a way to show slides, however, it is perfect for text, images, transitions, and tables/graphs. Here are some of the features:

12 Apple-designed themes
Over 20 professional-quality slide transitions
Slide navigator for arranging your presentation
Works with the iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite

If you really want to supercharge your productive time then you will want to check out this app. Quickoffice Connect is an entire mobile suite which gives you access to multiple cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Docs, or Box.net. It also is the only app that lets you view/edit MS Excel and Word. If you are on the go and getting ready to present, then this will help you stay organized and connected.

Notes+

while you are thinking about your content, you might want to jot down some notes. This is the perfect app for doing just that. Notes+ offers a handwriting tool with palm detection, exporting to PDF, and Google Docs uploads.

During The Presentation

2Screens

This is an invaluable app to have if you are going to be presenting anything other than your Keynote show. With this app and the VGA connector you can show any type of presentation materials stored on your iPad or on the Internet.

Prompster

Now it’s time for the big speech and you have it all typed out but you don’t want to look down at your notes. How about a teleprompter? This app smoothly scrolls easily readable text (which you can get from Pages, Email, or any other app that contains text), and at any speed you choose.

Speakerclock

If you have a speech to give where there is a time limit (as most of them do) then you might want to have this handy tool running. Speaker Clock is a digital LED countdown timer that has a large enough display so you can see it from a distance. It actually emulates the famous countdown clock that all of the speakers at TED conferences adhere to.

Bluetooth Keyboard

This is a tool you don’t want to be without if you are going to be typing at any length on the iPad, such as when you are typing up your meeting notes, etc. The keyboard on the iPad screen is great but for typing up lengthy documents you will definitely want to consider a separate device. Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard is flat, light, and it pairs instantly with the iPad. There is also an iPad keyboard dock that you can buy which is not wireless but I prefer the wireless one since it’s less bulky and thus easier to travel with.

iPad Stand

If you are using a bluetooth keyboard you will definitely want a stand. Also, during your speech, you will want the stand to prop up your iPad so you can see your presentation, your notes, or the clock. There are dozens of stands available to choose from and more get added to the market each day.

iPad Dock Connector To VGA Cable

This is a must-have if you will be showing any portion of your presentation on a screen. It will connect to a projector or a monitor that has VGA. If your monitor/TV does not have VGA then there are adaptors you can buy that go from VGA to Composite or HDMI.

After The Presentation

Angry Birds

I had to throw this in. After that big speech and before the parties begin, you will definitely want to just clear your mind. This game is one of the most mindless and addicting games for the iPad. There is just something oddly calming about slinging little birds at green pigs.

So, that’s the list of apps that can supercharge your next search conference speaking gig – and it will make your life easier because not only can you do all of the things above, but you can still answer email, surf the web, and work on Twitter/Facebook.

So, is that compelling enough to try it out? Or will you stick by your tried and true methods?

Shane Ketterman is the owner of iPaddaily.com and describes himself as a driver and writer. He drives traffic and writes daily for his iPad blog. Shane became involved with the Internet since it was text-based and websites were built in Geo Cities. He is passionate about search, marketing, and gadgets.
photo credit: Richard Jones

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Use Your iPad For Your Next Presentation And Make Life Easier

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Clarus Glass Whiteboard Review

July 20th, 2010

About a month ago I went to a client meeting where they had a glass whiteboard in the conference room. This was the first one I had ever seen and I remarked how cool it was. The folks at Clarus GlassBoards were monitoring for keywords on twitter, and reached out to me about sending a sample for review purposes.

Glass Whiteboard from Clarus

Now if you’ve never seen a glass whiteboard it’s a pretty substantial item, a lot more sturdy and durable than your ordinary dry erase board. Basically it’s a marker board made from
tempered safety glass, that gets shipped in some heavy duty shipping protection. They have a few different options as far as sizes, and colors. If you have a white or very lightly colored wall you can go with clear glass, my wall was green, so I went with a frosted board that was 3′ x 4′. They also make one that has some rare earth metals in it making it magnetic.

The packaging may seem a bit intense (we’re shipping glass here people), but installing the glass whiteboard was easy. The unit comes packed with a template for drilling holes for the mounting brackets, so be sure not to rip it when you are installing it, I’d also suggest saving it in case you need to move it later. You drill four holes and put in four heavy duty wall anchors. It’s not hard at all, but you do want to pay attention while doing it so the board is straight. Once you get the wall anchors and the stainless steel stand-offs in place, you put the glass whiteboard onto the mounting brackets. You will need two people to do this since it’s a little heavy. Then you put the mounting caps on and its good to go. It’s actually a really professional looking installation (see pic1, pic2). You can choose to mount your board horizontally or vertically, there’s a gallery of writeboard installations on the website, I put mine in the vertical position shown in the picture to the above right.

So why would you actually want a glass whiteboard instead of your standard dry erase board? First off it’s a much more professional looking piece of office equipment. A dry erase board is cheaper, but it also looks cheaper too. A glass whiteboard is much more durable. After you’ve had a standard whiteboard for a while and someone forgets to erase it after a meeting you get “ghosting”, we’ve all seen it. So you get to relive the details of that meeting over and over again, with a glass whiteboard that never happens. With standard dry erase boards you need to use special markers. Eventually someone forgets and uses a sharpie permanent marker and then you’re stuck with whatever they wrote forever, with a Clarus whiteboard that’s not an issue, you can use any marker you want and clean it later with a little glass cleaner and paper towel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re interested in getting a glass whiteboard I suggest contacting the folks at Clarus and following them @ClarusBoards. You won’t regret it.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Clarus Glass Whiteboard Review

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Advertising and Usability

July 16th, 2010

As the web matures and begins to displace, replace, or work with established news, information, and entertainment sources, the advertising that pays for this content to get created is going to change as well. When you combine this with the growth of smart phones like the blackberry, android, and iphone and appliances like the ipad, advertising will soon be faced with new obstacles.

… Publishers need to adapt and overcome … and they need to do it quickly if they plan to survive …

The problems advertising faces are coming from multiple fronts. First, carriers are abandoning the unlimited, all you can eat business model in favor of tiered pricing based on consumption (see Why You Should Care About AT&T’s iPhone Data Plans Even If You Don’t Own an iPhone). This will lead consumers to think before using high bandwidth programs like streaming audio or video. A second aspect is usability: some publishers have designs that take up so much real estate that it affects usability and makes it nearly impossible to read the content on a normal website, never mind a smart phone (see Forbes or IDG).

As a response to this problem, consumers are starting to use software to strip out the advertising. Programs like Norton have stripped out affiliate links for years, and adblock is one of the most popular add-ons for both Firefox and Chrome. A new contender in the marketplace is a script known as Readability which removes ads and sidebar navigation, converting a page back to text. The same is true of other programs like Instapaper or Read it Later. While many publishers cling to partial RSS feeds as way to drive advertising views to their websites, it’s becoming clear that partial feeds are no longer a viable solution. With the announcement that Apple has incorporated the ad stripping technology from Readability into their OS, this is becoming a problem we will have to deal with sooner rather than later. If you think ads won’t become part of computer operating systems, you might need to rethink your position. Publishers need to adapt and overcome–and they need to do it quickly if they plan to survive.

While this is still an evolving issue, fortunately there are solutions you can implement today. For example, if you are using WordPress as your cms, you can solve the problem with an off-the-shelf plugin Yet Another Related Post. Here’s a sample post presented five different ways: on the web, on Readability, from the mobile site, in an RSS reader, and in instapaper.

If you are a publisher and you are selling advertising, you have a few responsibilities: write posts that are on topic and engaging on a regular basis, make sure that as many people as possible are seeing the posts and the ads, and avoid obstacles that might prevent either of those first two conditions. Don’t let fear, antiquated stat collection, reporting, or bizarre business rules get in the way. If you do, you’re pulling a WAYMISH …
photo credit: Jeff Kubina

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Advertising and Usability

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How to Write Keyword Focused Articles and Posts About Timely Topics

July 14th, 2010

One of the things I often say that most bloggers get wrong is they sacrifice keyword focus for being clever, cute, or entertaining. Yes, it is important that you make your blog posts as interesting as possible; but you should never ignore the opportunity to tie into commercial concepts. Since I often get criticized for telling you what you do wrong but not how to do it right, here are some examples about how to write interesting blog posts that are more keyword focused.First out of the gate is an article from the New York Times about how to get an artificial tan without looking like Snooki from the Jersey Shore. As we come into summer, lots of people are looking for ways to look like they have a tan without spending time in the sun or in a tanning booth. Artificial tanning products have been around for years, but the results can be hit or miss. This article addresses that issue with a tie in to the Jersey Shore, which makes a nice pop culture hook. If it were my site and not a news site, there would have been some affiliate products links, but I think you get the picture.

Next up is another seasonal post–but this one has a viral keyword hook. I know that flip flops aren’t the most supportive shoes, but I didn’t know they made your shin muscles work harder … did you? When I passed by the magazine rack at the gym, I noticed that toning shoes have started to appear on the covers a lot, but I didn’t know much about them. Here’s an article about toning shoes from USA Today that plays the viral hook “revolutionary sneaker, or overhyped gimmick.” When you come across the article, it’s very likely that you’ll share it. I know I did. Again, if I ran a site and we did an article like that, it would certainly have some affiliate links in it.

Hopefully by now you are familiar with the concept of an editorial calendar and are using it to your advantage. It’s also an excellent opportunity to try and capture some KWD focused searches with things like posts for Father’s Day. These kind of posts are easy because you know they are coming, have a lot of lead time, and can time your publishing for maximum exposure. Something else to note: see how they interlinked the Mother’s Day post at the bottom … don’t miss out on opportunities like that.
photo credit: Johny hanging head down from the tree

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How to Write Keyword Focused Articles and Posts About Timely Topics

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Personalized Google News – Will That be on the Test

July 10th, 2010

For a moment, I’d like you to think back to high school. Remember how there was always that one kid who would raise their hand and ask the question “Will that be on the test?” Now, thanks to Personalized Google News, we have the answer.

… If Google News was limiting the news sources I read I never would have seen that article or had that idea …

Last week Google announced they will be bringing personalization to Google news. I have no love of Google’s personalized search, but I understand that Google thinks it gives them a POD (see point of differentiation). The problem with this personalization is that if you limit your news only to sources you agree with, you’re missing the whole picture. Like that annoying kid in high school, you’re so focused on passing the test and getting a good grade that you’re missing the bigger picture and the opportunity to think and learn.

Since I got the iPad, one of the things I’ve started doing again is reading the news via newspaper apps. They expose me to ideas and concepts that I wouldn’t see if I read only SEO blogs and forums. Hopefully they make me a more educated and well rounded person, but I know they allow me to be more creative: I take things I read and use them as starting points for the projects I am working on. For example, this article about the Crown Victoria and Lincoln Town car being discontinued gave me the inspiration to write a social article about the Prius and other “green” cars becoming taxis for an automotive website I work on. If Google News was LIMITING the news sources I read, I never would have seen that article or had that idea.

… by limiting your input you limit your perspective and your ability to better understand an issue …

I know that the culture of Google is one populated by people who believe in the singularity of life. This belief in the singularity permeates everything they do, how they approach their problems, and life in general. It’s why they are willing to sacrifice everyone without a second thought to achieve that singularity with an almost religious zeal. This difference in beliefs was accentuated when I read Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus (see Book Review – Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus) and Jaron Lanier’s book You Are Not a Gadget (review coming soon) at the same time. I think it’s important for people to read and understand as many sides as possible of an issue. By limiting your input, you limit your perspective and your ability to better understand an issue. At the end of the day, you end up limiting yourself.

Using Google’s personalized news may give you more of what you want, but does it give you more of what you need? It’s funny that a company that has so many smart people and probably the largest concentration of PhDs in the world can’t see that the McStandardization of what readers are exposed to on a daily basis is not a good thing.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Personalized Google News – Will That be on the Test

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The Loss of Privacy in An Opt-Out World

July 8th, 2010

Anyone over the age of 30 who spends any amount of time online has to be aware of the gradual erosion of online privacy and how we are slowly moving to a point where our online life has become opted-in by default.

… sacrifice your privacy on the altar faster than an Aztec Priest could ever rip out your still-beating heart …

A disturbing trend among people in the valley and other technology centric locations is the subjugation or near-complete surrender of one’s work, one’s copyright, intellectual property, and sometimes complete self to the great computer singularity (a concept I am shamelessly stealing from Jaron Lanier). All of your work and data becomes part of the collective sum of information. The value of the individual is subservient to the singularity of data. Your work, even if it’s under copyright, is used and often abused in mashups by others building and growing this singularity. Your sense of self worth and individuality are, as Mark Zuckerberg would have you believe, not your own: they belong to the collective body sum of human knowledge. If he sells it to the highest bidder, you shouldn’t have done it if you didn’t want that to happen

Click here to view the embedded video.

… Google will find out about it (when they invade your privacy by snooping your wifi networks, emails, passwords …

This isn’t just a Facebook only trend. Google has been opting you into things automatically whenever they wanted to for years. In fact at this point it’s standard operating procedure. If they opt you into a program that puts your life in jeopardy with your abusive ex husband … oops! Sorry, our bad. We’ll try harder next time to not invade your privacy. But really we are working towards this singularity of storing all the world’s information. And not to worry: our leader Eric Schmidt says you just shouldn’t do things you don’t want online, like have an extra marital girlfriend. Don’t worry–Google will find out about it (when they invade your privacy by snooping your wifi networks, emails, passwords, and lord knows what else).

Now, bloggers, who often fancy themselves as reporters, are considering your tips as opt-in by default. Send them a tip and, unless you explicitly tell them otherwise, they will sell you down river almost as fast as Mark Zuckerberg will. When I grew up, we were taught the value of trust, and confidentiality was the normal rule when dealing with the press and reporters. That’s not the case anymore. Silicon valley wingnuts, who have a zealot-like, almost-religious devotion to building and becoming part of the computer singularity they are constructing, will sacrifice your privacy on the altar faster than an Aztec Priest could ever rip out your still-beating heart and spill your blood on the steps of a ziggurat.

Welcome to the age of enlightenment and progress …!

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

The Loss of Privacy in An Opt-Out World

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Buying Links to Third Party Websites

July 7th, 2010

Last week I was having a discussion on Twitter about whether or not some links were bought. Quite a few people were confused about how you can use link buying to your advantage when you buy links to a website you don’t own (aka a third party). I thought I’d do a little ed-ju-macating and share some tips and tricks.

First off, standard link buying disclaimer: Buying links is against Google’s guidelines. If you engage in link buying, you may be subject to penalties up to and including complete removal from the index. The following post does not serve as an endorsement of link buying. It is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Happy, Matt? Ok, let’s get down to business … hypothetically speaking of course

Buying Links for Reputation Management:

The most common use of buying links for a third party website is for reputation management. You find a website that talks favorably about you or your client–preferably one that is already ranking in the top 20. You then buy links and point them to the website that talks about you with your name, company name, product name, or other desired KWD as the anchor text. If you buy enough links from the right places, you will see a jump in ranking. Ideally, these positive listings will displace negative listings. The great thing about this technique is you can boost multiple third party websites. This works really well if you can point links at trusted news websites, magazine websites, or other information-focused websites. The bad thing is that, unless you negotiate permanent or long term link buys, the results will change when you pull the ad dollars.

Building Up Your Supporters:

Instead of buying links to yourself, why not launder some of that purchased link equity by beefing up the webpages that are linking to you? Think of it this way: it’s like sending your backup singers for voice lessons. You get an indirect benefit. If you are going this route, choose some non-competitive anchor text. This is an expensive strategy if you want to do it right, because you really are looking to buy the most trusted and authoritative links you can get your hands on, and you are going to want to do it for a few months (I’d recommend at least 6 months).

Buying Links to Boost Non-Commercial Listings:

Let’s say you are ranking for a commercial keyword, but you have a lot of competition below you, and it would be really great if they weren’t up your butt, so to speak. One tactic you can try is buying links towards other websites that are ranking for the term but aren’t actually selling anything–like wikipedia. You buy some links and point them there. If you’re the only one selling in the top 5, you can get a nice boost in converting traffic. The danger of course is if you push too hard you can end up knocking your own listing down a spot or two, so using caution is advisable with this tactic.

Link Sabotage:

Floating out there in the nether regions of cyberspace are some poisoned web networks. After getting a few links from them, in 30 days most sites will take the plunge. If you can’t find one, go out and buy run-of-site links from a few warez or other auto-gen networks. These come really cheap and are easy to find on places like eBay. Choose one phrase (not too commercial) and completely throw off someone’s backlink profile. There’s no amount of links you’ll be able to buy to tip over a website like CNN or Amazon, but for mid level or below it’s just a numbers game. Personally I think this is pretty crappy thing to do and remember that karma is a bitch … but I did want to not leave any gaping holes.

There are some other subtle nuances and variations on the theme, but you’ve always got to have few tricks up your sleeve when you need them. Right?

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Buying Links to Third Party Websites

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Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed

July 2nd, 2010

This is a post of why natural link building seems to be no longer working, despite Google not admitting that.

I don’t know how many times Google have said: “Produce great content and if users find it useful, they’ll recommend and link to you.” But Google, how do I get these people to even come through your engine? “Produce great content and they’ll (somehow) come. They’ll find your content and recommend you!”

It was January 1st. I’ve decided to start a blog and listen to Google’s advice. I started MixTheNet and decided to write on topics I like and also some I want to rank for. So far I wrote 31 world-class articles, all amazingly great content. My motto was: I’m not going to focus on building links for the search engines at all (by building them manually), I’m just going to get traffic to my articles and hopefully, some of the people who see them will find them useful and link to them! So I focused 90% of my time on building useful content, 10% on building links manually.

I did that for 6 months. Some of the articles got on the Digg front page 5 times (it’s easy to get on the Digg FP if you know how with an average article, but mine got a lot more diggs than the average because the content was really useful). Many of them got featured on StumbleUpon which is all about good/interesting content (over 10 of the articles got 20k+ views each, this one had the biggest success, 110k+ views.) Here are the traffic stats for the site from January:

But what about Google? Only 2000 people? That’s around 10 per day (it was actually 10-20 daily because I wasn’t receiving much traffic during the first 2 months.)

Several days ago I took my most popular posts and did an analysis to see what traffic Google sent to each of them over time. I was shocked to see most of them didn’t rank even in top 100 for the keywords which weren’t so hard, judging by the top 10 pages. Ironically, the ones that received most traffic from Google were the ones where I took the time to manually build the links by doing some forum marketing/guest posts (there was one exception though, I got one article that went both popular on Digg and StumbleUpon and 2 authority sites picked it up but it still wasn’t ranking in top 20 for the intended keyword, it was frustrating to see that most of the top guys for that keyword did manual link building.) Overall, I wasn’t receiving much traffic from Google.

2 lessons here: social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Propeller) currently SUCKS if you want to build good links (for popular posts that got 30k+ views, I barely got 2-3 links from PR2-3 sites who feature daily ‘interesting sites’ so those are not that valuable links.) I also got some good links, for example, a link from HowStuffWorks which ir PR7 blog. With 400k views, you are bound to get some of these links However, the results weren’t enough to persuade me to focus 100% of the time to this strategy. I mean, spend 10 days writing and researching content for (hopefully) 1 PR7 link? In the process of promoting my site on Digg, I met several people who had their sites go on the front page more than me. Same results there.

Back in 2007, if you had an article go popular on Digg/StumbleUpon you would get a bunch of authority links. This great article on 25 free people search engines got also over 100k views from StumbleUpon and got featured on around 5 authority sites who made separate posts just to review it. But now, things aren’t that easy because all this got over-saturated.

2nd lesson: Google mantra “Build great content and users will find you” isn’t valid anymore. The fact they still spread this propaganda makes me sick. I’ve realized that building great content is just one piece of the puzzle (so I’m not saying building great content is bad, I’m just saying it’s one piece of the puzzle, not everything.)

It comes down to Economics 101 if you ask me. What if Google suddenly started recommending you build links? Webmasters wouldn’t spend so much of their time building great content. SERPs will be filled with less quality content and users won’t like what they see. Google profitability will suffer. Also, Google always recommends you get only ‘natural links’ (of course, you can get these with good content ) but as we’ve seen, people don’t link very much nowaways. That’s why, I think, most of the SERPs you’ll see for any keyword are by people who went and built the links themselves.

How to protect yourself against present (and future) Google SEO propaganda

There’s one question you can ask the person or entity who is spreading a particular propaganda (I’ve learned this from Thomas Sowell, an economics professor, great guy) and literally destroy their argument. The question is: “Do you have any (hard) evidence for that?” A good question to ask someone from Google once they start saying ‘produce great content’ is: “Do you have any proof that the majority of sites got their SERPs on the basis of following your advice for ‘producing good content’ and that was all they did?” According to my experience, that is far from the truth and I have hard evidence for that. Do you have any hard evidence to back up your claim?

Does good content matter?

Yes. Personally, I’ve been noticing that my return visitors increased as I’ve been producing more great content. You also build trust, authority and all that. Heck, someone might even link to you (although that doesn’t happen much these days.) I’m going to continue to produce great content for all of my sites, more because for a matter of principle (I want to contribute value to the web, not pollute it) than results (people linking to me.)

Before I finish, I want to leave you with one video of Matt Cutts talking about getting natural links through producing interesting/useful content and getting it on places like Digg, Twitter, Facebook and so on. There were 2 top-rated comment that summarize my point quite well:

For TechieGeek1, he doesn’t have to ‘think’ that is the case anymore, it’s confirmed (by me and other webmasters I know who have quite popular sites.) And for the first comment, I agree that Google needs to do something do adjust this side effect. Things aren’t going good for natural link builders.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed

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Thanks to This Month’s Sponsors June 2010

June 29th, 2010

I’d like to say thanks to the people who sponsored the blog this month, without them there wouldn’t be regular posts here.

Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links.

CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps.

BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.

Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!

SEO Automatic Plugin – Get custom white labeled SEO reports within minutes saving you time and money, see SEO Automatic Review.

Interested in seeing your message here? There are banner and RSS advertising options available find out more information. Be sure to check out our new Sponsored post option.

Here’s a list of some other programs and products I reccomend

Thesis Theme for WordPress – Hands down the best theme on the market right now, read my Thesis Theme for WordPress Review.

Scribe SEO – Improve your blog posts with this easy to use built in tool, read my Scribe SEO Review.

KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites, read an Interview with Michael Streko.

TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price, read my Tiger Tech Review.
photo credit: tropicaLiving

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Thanks to This Month’s Sponsors June 2010

Advertisers:

Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links.
CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps.
BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.
Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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The Webmaster, Programmer, Developer and Blogger’s Guide to Getting Things Done on an iPad

June 26th, 2010

When I got my iPad, some of the things I wanted to know were how much could I actually get done on an iPad and in what situations could it replace my laptop. Here are the programs and apps that I use to help me get things done.

Here’s a screen shot of the programs I use

Google Apps for Domains Email and Calendar
I use the built-in mail and calendar functions, but each has its own problems. The mail function doesn’t handle multiple threaded messages well and doesn’t archive, so I only use that when I need to. Currently the iPad only syncs with one calendar (the iPhone syncs with more than one), so if I need to see something not on my default calendar, I use it here. It webpages bookmarks saved to the home screen. Here are instructions about how to do that if you’re interested.

Analytics app

This gives me the ability to see my analytics without needing to be in front of a laptop. I did a much more extensive review of the app when it first came out. I was part of the beta program. You can read more about it.

WordPress App

The Worpress app allows you to write new posts and to edit existing drafts and posts right from your iPad. You can connect it to multiple blogs as long as you have xmlrpc enabled. In fact this post was written using the app while I was waiting in a car dealership waiting room. The app isn’t perfect: the features for inserting links, placing images, and editing either don’t work or are so hard to do it’s not worth trying. If you have special plugins like Scribe SEO those aren’t accessible either. Don’t try and use safari and log into your admin panel: all the Ajax that WordPress uses makes that impossible. The best solution is to use the iPad to write drafts, note where links go, upload, and hire an editor–or add the link yourself later when you are in front of a computer.

Goodreader

Goodreader lets you connect to multiple places, download files, and upload them to a server ( see How to FTP Files From Email Using an iPad, for more details on how to do this). Its a lot less user friendly than other programs, but it has functionality they don’t and is the only one that lets you upload and download a wide variety of file types.

Readle docs

Lets you tie in with services like box.net and dropbox to access different files. You can also pull in documents from your mail account. You can view and read them and move them to other services, but you can’t FTP to a server using this program or edit them.

Markup

Need to log into a sever and edit a file? This is the program to help you do it. Editing files on a live server is a dangerous thing, but sometimes it needs to be done. My suggestion: don’t plan on doing a lot of big edits using this program. It’s best suited for small minor changes.

FTP on the Go

Need to FTP or upload images from your iPad? This is the program ( see how to FTP files from your iPad). If you need to move files from one server to another, this program lets you do it. Download the files to a temporary holding bin, then reupload them somewhere else. It’s a shame you can’t use this program to move email attachments. You still need good reader from above to get that done.

SEO Review

This is the iPhone companion to SEO Automatic. See the full SEO Automatic Plugin Review.

Linkjuice
Want a quick snapshot of a Website’s link profile? Linkjuice will do it on the spot. It also links to SEOMoz, majestic SEO link tools, and SEM rush to give you more in depth information (note some of those services are paid services).

Odesk

If you use odesk to outsource some of your work, this tool lets you tie into the system, get status updates, or see screen shots from your remote team’s previous work sessions. Pretty handy when you have multiple people working for you and need to correct any mistakes before they get too far.

Office2 HD

Office 2 HD lets you create and edit documents and spreadsheets. It lets you work with services like box.net, drop box and Google documents (even the Google apps for domains version). Additionally Office2 HD is the only iPad app that let’s you edit Google documents. I’m sure others will come soon but as of right now this is it. It’s a huge productivity boost to be able to edit shared Google documents while you are poolside … err… slaving away at an undisclosed location

Photo pad

Need to edit pictures or screenshots? Then photo pad is the app for you. You can crop, resize, rotate, and do some basic color correction all while on the iPad. You can then upload using one of the FTP programs from above or email them to yourself and upload when you edit/format later.

RDM+

Sometimes you’ll need to remote log into your home computer or file server. RDM+ lets you do it. You won’t be able to work like you are sitting in front of the machine but you can log in and do that quick thing you need or get that file you forgot to share … As long as you left that machine on before you walked out the door …

Airsharing

If you want to share files from your iPad over a wifi connection, this program lets you do it. It’s not super secure so don’t use it for really confidential documents. Emailing files is usually easier, but sometimes you’ll need to move files to a computer that has wifi but no email (like a presentation laptop at a conference). At times like that, it’s good to have this option.

Basecamp
Like most Internet centric companies with remote workers I use Basecamp for project management. There are some Basecamp apps but IMHO they don’t work as well as the Basecamp website. I saved it as a bookmark to my start screen and then moved it to my home bar .

Pageonce
Pageonce ties all my bank accounts, credit cards, stock market, Tripit travel plans, cell phone, insurance, cable, and utility bills together in one spot. It’s sort of a virtual overview of the financial and travel details of my life all on one page, which is extremely helpful. Again this is a bookmark saved to the start screen. As of this writing, they only have an iPhone app not an iPad app.

That’s a list of all of the programs I use on my iPad to help me get my work done.

Thanks to Michelle Robbins who helped with this list of programs
photo credit: Rego – twitter.com/w3bdesign

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

The Webmaster, Programmer, Developer and Blogger’s Guide to Getting Things Done on an iPad

Advertisers:

Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links.
CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps.
BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.
Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

Go to Source

No Comments »

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