


Where: First Farm Inn - 2510 Stevens Road, Petersburg, KY 40180
When: Sunday, January 31, 2010 from 2 to 5 p.m.
More Details: First Farm Inn or Cincinnati Website Solutions
Website promoters, take note:
As a webmaster for multiple clients, I also often play the role of blog administrator. One of my responsibilities is to approve comments made about the blog entries. It's not difficult, but one thing I have noticed is this:
Some people use a blog comment to post a link back to their website.And that is perfectly acceptable IF the comment is legitimate. In fact, if you or one of your minions is not currently reading and posting comments to blogs, then you're missing a great opportunity to get your links out into the ether - and we all know that search engines love finding links to your site.
The trick is that many times (over half the time, in my experience) the comment is not legitimate AND it contains a link to someone's website. Using a complex mathmatical equation which I just made up, I have identified a new species of internet communications:
SPAM + COMMENTS = SPAMMENTS
Up until recently these spamments were easy to spot because they contained gibberish or at best, really bad english. They might look something like this:
slkje w okijoweko wkm b owokiw dswwexxosi w
or
I have okay for you. Now girls going crazy for your manly... (well, you get the idea...)
Those were easy to spot and delete. Their message to the blog owner is quite clear; "If you don't administrate your blog comments (and many people don't) then you will never notice that this is gibberish, so I'm going to take advantage of your stupidity to promote myself."
But over the years spamments have proven to be highly resourceful at adapting to their environment. In fact, lately I've discovered a new subspecies of spamment - the TEPID SPAMMENT.
This brave new subspecies actually looks like a legitimate comment (with a link, of course) except that upon closer inspection one may notice that the comment is so generic that it might apply to anything - which is, I'm sure, the whole purpose of the tepid spamment - you can use it just about anywhere and it doesn't directly offend. Unfortunately for the blog owner, it also doesn't really say anything useful. Here's an example:
Nice article. You provide a great service. www.cincinnatiwebs.com
Some of my clients have suggested that these comments are legit, but I recognize the TEPID SPAMMENT when I see it. IMHO (in my humble opinion) the tepid spamment is also sending a message to the blog owner, which says; "Okay, so you administer your blog comments, but maybe you're either stupid enough or desperate enough to get comments on your blog that you'll let this one slide, in which case, I get to promote my site without actually reading or caring about your blog entry."
The idea is simple: Get a list of blogs to abuse, create a tepid spamment generic enough to use on all of them, and spend an hour or two placing your link all over the internet. It's not a bad idea, really and I bet it works much better than the original spamments do. But it still makes me angry. These people are taking advantage of bloggers to promote their own site(s). And some blog owners don't even mind being taken advantage of... they'd prefer to see more comments on their site - even the tepid spamment.
So, What's a self-respecting blog administrator to do? Well, I have found a solution which satisfies my clients and appeals to my sense of truth, justice and the american way (Kids, don't try this at home - I'm a professional and I use all the proper safety equipment.) I remove the link and then post the comment. Yes, it takes longer for me to do that, but my client is happy with more comments on his blog and I feel I'm doing my job to protect my blogs from spamments.
Mind you, if you send a tepid spamment to MY blog - I'll remove the link and use it as an example. So, in the immortal words of Pat Benatar (okay, so I'm dating myself...),
"Hit me with your best shot... Fire Away."
Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
It has long been know that left-handed widgets are rarer than their right-handed counterparts, but what may not be so widely know is that you can save an average of 15% when buying left-handed widgets... Here at "Widgets R Us" you can find all your widget needs, assuming, of course, that you actually need widgets, which you may not... In fact you probably aren't even reading this far into the paragraph, particularly if you clicked the link to go buy a left-handed widget, so I'll just blather on endlessly... blather blather blather... but hopefully your eye was attracted to 1) the header and 2) the bolded colored text. In fact, what I really wanted was for you to click on the link and go buy some of my left-handed widgets...
Get the idea? What we really want is for people to be drawn to the topic "Left Handed Widgets Cost Less". Not everybody will care about left handed widgets, But those that do care are more likely to read the paragraph.
And within the first sentence or so, give them another eye-catching bit of text. In this case it's a link which would take the reader to go buy a left handed widget. So they don't have to read the entire paragraph if they don't want to (and many won't want to.) AND WE DON'T CARE... what we really want is for them to go buy a left handed widget.
Okay, don't get upset with me. The rest of the text should be valuable and relevant. But you should also understand that the people who read down that far are less likely to buy your left handed widget. And, after all, what is the primary purpose of your website? To inform or to sell?
Have a safe and happy new year.
I just updated my website. Have you? Or, more to the point; When is the last time you made an update to your website? Yeah, I know... your website is great just the way it looks now. You've got all the information on it that you want. And, darn it, you've got too much other stuff going on right now and you just don't want to have to think about it.
Yeah, me too...
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BUT... (does this font make my 'but' look big?) your website really does need to be updated regularly. There are several reasons, but the two most important are these: 1) So people who came to your website last week have a reason to come to it again. and 2) Because search engines tend to rate web pages higher that have regularly updated content. That's one of the reasons blogs are good for search engine rankings - because they get updated regularly. And so should one or two (or more) pages of your website.
So how can we appease the search engine gods without rewriting the perfect text that already exists on our website? One thing you can do is to have a section of the page dedicated to updated content. If you take a look at CW's home page, you'll see in the right column a couple of entries entitled "Latest Blog Entry" and "New Article Published". I usually write a new blog entry once or twice a week, so this quick blurb about my latest blog entry can be updated that often, too. I don't write articles quite so often as blog entries, but the concept is the same.
Another example in the case of CW's home page is in the lower left column. I have a Featured Client Website section with a picture and link to on of our web clients. This gets updated each month. I also tell my clients when their site is being featured and that can bring in more traffic to my site as they tell their friends and clients.
Next, the wording can change to promote a season, an upcoming holiday, event, etc. You don't need to change the content of the page (all the important info can stay there, but word it a bit differently around the holidays. Reword it again around the Superbowl, Valentines' Day, Saint Patty's Day, etc. While changing pictures on the website doesn't do much for search engine spiders, it will be directly noticeable to your readers.
So what can you update on your home page without redesigning the whole thing every time? Here's a brief list of things to consider:
Are there others? I'm sure there are. Please feel free to comment and leave your own suggestions.
And have a great holiday season!
I don't use an antivirus program because they're too expensive
No, that's not a statement of fact from yours truly, it's the engraving on a headstone where a dead computer is buried.
AND it's not a true statement...
There are free versions of antivirus software packages out there (and some free trials) that are well worth looking into.
This one was recommended by a small business group I belong to. They have a free version and a subscription version. http://free.avg.com/us-en/download?prd=afe
PC Tools has a free version of SpywareDoctor
http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor-antivirus/
AVG has both a free and paid version
http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
Norton has a 30 day free trial version http://shop.symantecstore.com/store/symnahho/en_US/ContentTheme/ThemeID.1313000/pbPage.Trialware_en_US/pgm.6037100/Currency.USD?resid=FyQ7DwoBAiMAAEbCGWoAAAAK&rests=1258301252419
There is no reason to avoid shopping on line. AND if you 'Think Before You Click' you can enjoy the convenience and ease of Cyber-shopping while keeping your money and private information safe and secure.
See you at the Cyber mall...