How to be Tasteful

 

Prunella Servatius Hawke is an artist, who paints houses. Not two coats inside and out, but as watercolours for your enjoyment, business or publicity.

Prunella can also create images that are ideal for blog and letter headings.

You Don't Have to be Serious

 

One of my clients, The Warranty Co, uses an integrated blog to add life to a serious web site.

Go and enjoy.

Blogger is Ssooooo Slow!

 

Is it just me or is Blogger very slow at the moment?

I've also been getting a lot of spam on a Wordpress blog, that I setup for someone else.

Sumercourt.com

 

Don't go to this URL.

Someone posted a comment on this blog, that linked to that URL. It tried to download a virus, which luckily was stopped by McAfee.

Good on you McAfee.

I think one of the morals of this is that if you blog, then make sure you don't click on any links in posts, unless you are absolutely sure who they are and what has been posted.

Martyn Downer - News

 

This is an example of an integrated blog in a web site.

Everything is standard Blogger.

Blogger and Cookies

 

I've just had a bit of trouble with a client's blog. He couldn't log into it from his computer and the problem was that his cookies were a bit awry.

So if you get this sort of problem, the simplest thing is to delete your cookies that refer to Blogger.

There are some good articles on the web about this. Type "cookie problem blogger" into Google.

Click here to do the search.

If you want to know more about cookies, go to this article in Wikipedia.

Searching Blogs

 

If you are worried about something like a new e-mail from an unknown company, that you think might be a scam, then always search blogs as well as the Internet.

Although, the blog search does get to the search engines fairly quickly sometimes there is a delay of a few days, so check both places.

Google's blog search is at http://www.google.co.uk/blogsearch.

Search terms for current scams include, "Sydney Car", Viscard, Minaro, Walsh, Palker, Albrook and Langton.

Freedom Farm Stud - News

 

This web page is the home page of an integrated blog which masquerades as News.

It is powered by Blogger and the entries are indexed automatically by that web site.

Note how when you navigate around the blog and jump in and out of it to the main web site, the header is always the same. This makes users feel very comfortable.

Comments have been allowed without moderation. This may seem a bit silly in that it enables all sorts of abuse to be published, but you can always add moderation if required.

Lost Rankings

 

A lady called Peggy, who runs a company based on the website, www.kitchenartworks.com, is despairing as scraping sites are ruining her position in Google, by taking her content and advertising others.

In Peggy’s case there is one quick thing that she should do.

INTEGRATE THE BLOG FULLY WITH THE WEB SITE.

See my wife’s stud at www.freedomfarm.com, which has been designed this way. (It’s not finished yet, so don’t point this out.)

Having looked at both, what Peggy needs to do is move the blog to a sub-directory of her www.kitchenartworks.com domain and then cross link the two so that Google and the others can get the drift.

It may not be the total solution, but hopefully it will jack it up a bit. Remember now that Google updates the main search with what it finds in blogs, soon after they are posted, so a blog is a good place for special offers.

The Bar Goes Blogging

 

I've just come across a serious blog from the Inner Temple Library. That is also my wife's Inn of Court.

It should also be integrated properly into their web site, so that it has the same look and feel and helps that web site rise to the top of the heap.

The Power of Celebrity

 

In my test blog, I made a sensible comment about a minor celebrity, who is well liked in the UK, for what they do.

I was quite surprised at what happened.

I now find that approximately ten percent of my page views are to the four pages in the blog that refer to them. The blog has about 200 posts and about 1,200 page views every day. There is also quite a correlation between the page views and when they are in the news.

Does this give an interesting way to get your web site up the search engine?

Suppose you are a local business in a town like Ipswich or Norwich in the UK or say Boise in the US. You might be a garden centre, a clothes shop or a speciality cheese shop. So perhaps some of your SEO money might better be diverted to a minor local celebrity who already uses your services. They could promote your site with a few comments, which would then be picked up by the search engine. It's also a two way street, so they might like the local promotion too.

I think if my logic is correct, that this is rather a sad commentary on how much celebrities shape our lives and ideas.

Making a Web Site Sweat

 

I've been doing something similar as an experiment with a web site. I won't give the name here as then everybody would go and look at it and that would ruin all the stats. Sorry, you'll just have to wait on that.

Basically, I've created a WordPress blog, which I've expanded in WordPress with extra pages to form a complete site exclusively in WordPress. I'm about to change the template, so that the site looks better, but I won't do that until I have a large amount of traffic, so that I can assess whether the new template makes a difference.

Wordpress gives people all of the hooks they need to come back again and again and if the content is good, then they will. I've also found that the blog gets an average of about 1,000 page views a day, with a maximum of about 3,000. This means that in most searches it is in the top ten in Google. So I think we can say that it actually doesn't take much to get to the top in a non-competitive market, as it seems most web sites are lucky to get perhaps a hundred page views a day.

Now what gets you looked at.

1. Blogs seem to get read by the search engines much more often than ordinary web pages. I commented about a BBC program in the blog and that appeared in Google the next day. I may have been lucky, but usually Google picks up the blog entry within a few days.

2. I go into forums, find topics and post messages. In one case I sent an e-mail to the moderator and he published an article on the blog and traffic tripled for a week. When it settled down it was fifty percent higher than before the post.

3. I generally post to this blog about five or six times a week. This keeps it fresh.

4. I also add posts, which are in essence not really connected to the blog. For instance, if your blog is about marriage, you might put in a story about swans being monogamous. Or even one about how the weather is really good today and you went out and had a lovely walk in the park. These off topic posts tend to bring in visitors, who aren't really looking for you, but when they see you are a serious site, they take a good look.

5. If your blog is about something like marriage counselling, which is a distress purchase, keep a light tone in some posts. I've known my wife for over forty years and sometimes we've gone through some stale patches, which have often been relieved by some silly and very erotic incidents. There was the incident in Berlin in a two star Michelin restaurant...

6. Answer all comments quickly and promptly. As in the previous post be upbeat and funny where it helps.

7. Think about RSS feeds. Most Wordpress templates incorporate these.

The biggest advantage of this approach, is you spend all the times on the words.

It was Lindbergh who when asked if he should take a navigator when he crossed the Atlantic, said that he'd take the fuel instead. You're better off in the first instance adding the words and then doing the style later.

Blogging as a Spam Source

 

This was posted by Robert Tarrall on the SPAM-L spam list, which is a good source for trends as to what the spammers are up to and who is going to be their next victim.

Blogspot.com is quickly becoming a favourite hosting site for the spammers; about 20% of the blogspot.com URLs coming through our mailserver recently are spam.

Worse, Google (owner of blogspot.com) ignores email-based spam complaints and refuses to accept Spamcop reports. You're supposed to VISIT THE SPAMMER'S SITE and flag it as in violation; once enough people have flagged the site Google will supposedly take it down. Doesn't seem to be working very well - less than 10% of the spammer sites are taken down within 2 days so these are essentially guaranteed to stay up long enough for the spammer to get his results.

The porn spammers are setting the sites up so they immediately redirect to the real porn site, or at least something outside of Blogspot. You could turn off Javascript and avoid the redirect but then of course you couldn't flag the blog, so it is *impossible* to even follow Google's instructions for reporting the site.

In the past, this "refuse abuse reports, don't take down spammer sites" would ensure a quickly expanding listing (in the MAPS RBL in the early days, more recently in SPEWS) and other proactive blocklists. Didn't always work but in Google's case appearance is everything and if it became widely known that a Google property was a favoured refuge for porn spammers you could be sure that Google would change their tune.

Shame we no longer have that kind of leverage. Unlikely that Spamhaus would take this on and I'm not aware of any other blocklists with sufficient penetration to make a difference.

Here's a random sample of the spamvertised blogspot.com hostnames coming through our mailserver in the last couple of days. The *one* hostname marked [D] was either deleted or never existed. The ones marked [*] are redirects to porn sites using javascript embedded in the blog post.

debtalaiekhila
debtslaonen
foc-fuckk-com [*]
fsktsrmf-p-stars [*]
hvakjailekaakear [D]
local-a24fpkm8-7478
local-a334lskx-5209
local-av8xj3i7-2857
local-az5kher8-5888
mortenakahto
mortenakehlkhi
mortenakjaihl
mortenskjaih
mortenskjaxxo
vit-beavermovies-com [*]
yvyhhncb-p-stars [*]

I hope that Blogger do something about this worrying development.

Thanks to Robert for giving me permission to post this here.

Web Designers and Updating

 

This is my reply to a forum in which the owner said the following.

"His site could also have failed because he hired a designer. That was a problem because he never learned how to run his sites. A site that would be viable with a domain like this requires constant changes and maintenance."

Web designers on the whole do not know your business as well as you do and of course they design something that is complicated to update, so that they get the repeat business.

I would also add, that the more a site changes with valid material, the more likely it will be found by searches, as there are just that many more words available for hits. So you have a virtuous circle, in that the more you add to the site, the higher it will go up the search engines.

But adding large amounts of content with a designer doing it at arms length is a very expensive process.

So whether you like it or not, successful sites will be updated by someone who knows the business. And that person will work in house.

This is one of the reasons why I like to use blogs for news pages. Updating can be shared out and large amounts of copy can be quickly added to the site by Internet virgins. The designers job here, now becomes one of reading and editing the information and transferring the important bits to the real site.

Marketing a Film

 

Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but now that Google, Blogger and YouTube are now united and will link their search strategies in the next few months, I think that you now have the perfect medium for viral marketing of anything. And that includes a film.

http://www.jamesmiller.com/mtmblog/blogger.html

This is the blog for my book, Making the Most of the Internet, and it shows how a blog can be fully integrated into a web site.

Note :-

1. The blog is fully indexed, so you can find anything you want quickly.
2. A blog is updated by just logging in and adding the name of the article and the text.
3. You can also add pictures and video clips quickly and easily.
4. Readers can add comments to the blog, which can be unmoderated, moderated or added by approved users only. I prefer the unmoderated, as you can always remove the offensive.
5. Anybody with the right permissions can add topics to the blog. So you, the director and the tea boy can all be empowered.
6. The blog is easily linked to YouTube and external web pages.

But I think the great thing about using an integrated blog is that you will get feedback and you might like to use this to change either the film or the way it is promoted and marketed.

The Affordable Web Site

 

Let's say you are starting a small business and want a web site. I'll assume you're providing some sort of goods and services locally, rather than be a company or individual who wants to sell lots of things on-line.

Your business could be something like a solicitors, a cafe or restaurant, a plumbers or any of the other small businesses that we all need and have tremendous difficulty in finding to suit our exact taste or requirements.

The information you put on a web site falls into one of two categories :-

• Fixed - Your profile, location and what you basically do.
  
• Variable - Special offers, new services and personnel, holiday arrangements and everything else that happens as you improve your business.
  

Depending on your business, the proportion of fixed and variable information is different. For instance, a solicitor or someone whose business doesn't change much, will have a higher share of fixed content. On the other hand, a restaurant will find that most content is variable and frequently changes. For example, how many restaurant web sites show a typical menu?

So why not split the fixed and the variable, with the fixed going into a traditional web site and the variable information going into a blog, that has been fully integrated into the web site.

Look at the Cambridge Law web site, which I have written as an example of how you can integrate a blog into a web site.

Blogger's Reliability

 

Blogger reliability of late has not been good.

As I write this I've lost the wysiwyg editor and every time I change the template for a blog it refuses to publish.

If I wrote software as reliable as Blogger, Google and Microsoft, I doubt I'd ever make the money I have done in the past.

Google AdSense

 

Last night I added Google AdSense advertisement links to my three blogs.

I'm not really a lover of adverts on web pages, but I wanted to see how the links behaved and whether they were beneficial.

Perhaps, this was best answered by the first link that came up on my Coeliac Diary blog. It was for a company called Wiltshire Farm Foods that sell all sorts of ready meals over the Internet.

I'm not sure whether I will taste them or not, but it does show how Google can target the right sort of advertisement for your site.

I've also put a link in the sidebar so that you can sign up for Google AdSense.

I'll let the adverts run for a bit and see if they make any money. That is the real test.

Blogger versus WordPress

 

I've integrated several Blogger blogs into web sites and found it pretty easy to modify a standard template to how I wanted it. It helps a lot if you choose a template that has a similar layout to what you want.

The blog shows a Blogger blog fully integrated into a web site, but just changing the Scribe template. I just added my header and links to the top of the template, moved a few things about and it looks totally different and fully integrated. Anybody who knows HTML and CSS to a reasonably level would have no problems.

I've recently set up a blog for someone on WordPress. It would appear that to change things as radically as I have done with the example, would mean that I have to pay money.

So I would always choose Blogger over WordPress, if I wanted to integrate a blog.

Note that you have the problem that once you've created a large blog, it is a devil's own job to move it.

It is also a good idea to store the created blog on a domain for which you have control, so that if you have to move it, you at least have the HTML.

I shall investigate the other blog sites, to see if any others are better.

Thoughts on Integrated Blogs

 

I have been doing some experiments with blogs.

I put up a post and then searched for it using the Blogger search facility. The post appeared in the search after only 56 seconds. I tried it again and it took longer, but it still appeared very quickly.

This must be because every time you post, Blogger searches and indexes your post.

I've also checked and Blogger doesn't add these results to Google. But how long before it adds them immediately to the main Google index? And the other results it gets from posts and searches in YouTube! It is much quicker to index something that is presented to you on a plate, rather than search pages and pages of information that may not have changed.

So it would appear that if you want a quick reaction to news and updates you post on your web site, then you should use something like Blogger and integrate it fully into your web site.

There is also the fact that if the blog is stored on your web site, that every time it is updated, then Google itself, will find more pages to integrate, with new words describing your products and services.

Will this take you to a higher position in Google?

YouTube and Marketing

 

I should say that I have used YouTube and have put the only Dory Previn video up there. It is a very easy site to use and one of the reasons for its success, is that anybody can upload a video very quickly and without fuss. I think that the site has tremendous potential and although at present it has a stereotypical market, that will expand dramatically.

I have invented a post puller that is a simple example, where showing a video should sell the product, as it is quite a difficult concept to explain on the flat page as it would need a whole series of still images. As to whether it gets stolen, I'm not actually bothered, as in the largest markets, I would have patent protection and there are plenty of lawyers who'll tackle copyists on a no-win no-fee basis. My wife and son are both lawyers, too!

Supposing that YouTube became the place of choice where any instructional video was placed. Let's say you sell laser printers! A ten minute video can show a lot of how it works, how you install it and how you do simple servicing and change cartridges. As YouTube can be integrated into your site, it doesn't matter whether anybody finds it on YouTube or not.

Just look at blogs. They started as something nerdy and fairly pointless. Now they are serious.

It's not surprising that Google bought Blogger a few years ago now. Perhaps, we will say they got a bargain with YouTube in a couple of years.

News and the Integrated Blog

 

This blog or weblog is fully integrated with the Making the Most of the Internet web site. It also serves as a professional news page for the book :-

1. It has the same navigation bar and menu as the main site.
2. Colours and feel is the same.
3. The blog is updated using Blogger in the same way as any other blog.
4. It is stored on the Making the Most of the Internet web site.

So how was this achived?

The blog was originally created in the same way as a normal blog and it was stored in a sub-directory of the Making the Most of the Internet web site. One of the standard templates called Scribe was originally used, although it has since been extensively modified.

The main page of the blog was put in the menu of the site. This meant that the blog was called directly from any of the pages in the web site.

The template of the blog was then gradually changed. Typically changes were :-

1. The main site style sheet was used.
2. The background was changed to the same as the main site.
3. The header was modified so that it included the standard site header.
4. The site was then gradually adjusted until it resembled the one you see now.

Was it difficult?

Yes and no! If you don't know style sheets and html, then don't attempt it, but if you do with patience you should be able to do the integration in a few hours.

But I would make sure you save the template before modifying it.

This Blog

 

This blog is the update system for the book, where I can post comments, add new topics and others can reply.

I can also introduce topics that perhaps shouldn't be in the book. Or perhaps some that are an ongoing story, that needs to be updated on a periodic basis.