BANS Today

Recommended Resources

Written by mbpage on July 31, 2008

Thought I’d just add that I have started to populate the recommended resources page. These are the tools I use personally. You will not see me talking about anything I do not own and use to help build my virtual real estate empire.  Nothing startling yet but I hope to have a few surprises up my sleeve in due course. However, for those of you that have never tried Roboform delay no further and grab yourself a copy today. It is easily the most useful piece of software I have ever owned and I couldn’t live without it.

Page Rank Update - What The ****

Written by mbpage on July 28, 2008

So I’ve just been through my first Google Page Rank Update.  Where is the science related to this?  I have a dozen or so sites that have accquired PR1 & PR2 status out of the 35+ I have developed over the last 4 months.

Why some have been awarded PR and others haven’t is a complete mystery to me.  One site, another blog I have only made 2 posts on in the last 4 months and has no back links and no traffic (now PR1) whilst this site posted to regularly and having a number of back links and good traffic gets no PR at all.

I’m not attached to PR (which is just as well) because it seems completely random.  In fact on of my sites got a PR2 that is only just a month old and hasn’t really been worked at all yet.

What has your experience of PR been - I’d love to hear from you please leave a comment.

What is Web 2.0?

Written by mbpage on July 23, 2008

That is the question I have been asking myself lately. Can it really generate traffic? I’d be being hard on myself it I said I had no concept of Web 2.0. It’s been around for a while but I have only been learning the online game since February and I simply haven’t had time to invest in understanding social networking etc. So over the weekend I invested a couple of hours in a spot of research and found a great free guide that is up to date (how unusual is that?) from social marketing authority Jack Humphrey.

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of the Authority Black Book today.

Free Email Icon Generator

Written by mbpage on July 22, 2008

Spam is a real problem! Ok so that didn’t tell you anything you didn’t know already but aren’t you sick to death of those email harvesting spiders visiting your site, scraping your contact address and sending you a pile of crap. One way around this is to use contact forms but that means you need to create additional code or learn another plugin. A quick fire solution is to use an email icon generator and I tracked down a free tool here which does the job perfectly. It’s great for using in BANS privacy policies or on contact pages.  Check it out Free Email Icons.

Fun on Friday

Written by mbpage on July 18, 2008

So it’s Friday again already and time for a new video - I must of watched last weeks episode 5 times and it still cracks me up - I’m so easy to entertain. Episode 2 is now live so scroll down the screen and relax a bit.

Build a Niche Store Video Tutorials

Written by mbpage on July 18, 2008

I’ve been minded for a while to start making a few tutorials relating to BANS. The first one is now ready to roll. This is the first video I have ever made so bear in mind it is a major learning experience for me. It is rough and ready - I’m no editing expert nor do I want to be. This is a one take shot on how to optimize your submission to the SubmitEdge Directory Service.

You can view the video here

I spotted one mistake I made with relation to the bulk purchase facility and I said you get 25 additional submissions - what I meant is you get a 25% discount by buying in bulk.

Love to hear comments and feedback on whether this was a help or not. I use a different strategy to Mark over at thenichestorebuilder.com so I think you’ll get some new insight if you’ve already watched his video.

WordPress 2.6 Press This

Written by mbpage on July 17, 2008

As my love of wordpress grows daily I’ve just upgraded the blog and produced this post using the sweet new “Press This” functionality. You’ll love it. Check it out now.

WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.6.

The SEO Swindle

Written by mbpage on July 17, 2008

Sometimes you just need to start with a controversial title. So why “The SEO Swindle”? Well what is the purpose of a link building strategy? To improve your rankings in the serps and build page rank right? The higher your PR the easier it is to exchange links and the higher you rank in the serps.

Well I was looking at a friends site today as I’ve been asked to convert it to a blog. I ran it through several tools including SEO Elite and discovered it had only two backlinks. One from the original developer who has a PR5 site and one from a blogger which is a PR0.

The site in question has no SEO and I mean none. Meta title is the company name, no meta keywords, no meta descriptions - zip, nothing zilch. The only positive is the age of the domain which goes back approx 7 years.

So why do I mention this? Will it has a PR3! A PR3 on a site with just 2 links and no traffic. What this says to me is that PR is awarded simply because of the PR5 link of the web developer. The age of the domain may have something to do with it but I can’t back this up with any evidence.

In conclusion if you want to get a PR value for your site simply get a link from a a high PR site with a small number of links that isn’t a directory or article directory. Am I right or am I right wrong?

Fun on Friday

Written by mbpage on July 11, 2008

I finally finished off the new theme and added a video to the bottom of the home page. It reveals a little about my sense of humor. Chad Vader may be old but I’ve laughed every time I’ve played it whilst testing the frame size. If you haven’t seen it before enjoy. I’m going to post the whole series over the next, however many weeks it takes. The season finale is an absolute classic.

US Hosting UK Sites (update)

Written by mbpage on July 11, 2008

In my post US Hosting UK Sites I discussed my realisation that my .com and .net domains targeting the UK were not being indexed in the UK and the plans I had to turn things around. I am pleased to say that these have been successful. The solution was similar to that outlined in my post on .info domains.

If you read that post you will know I use HostGator because of the exceptional value for money they provide compared to the cost of UK hosting. The disadvantage of this is that any domain with the exception of a .co.uk will not easily (if ever) find it’s way into the google.co.uk index. With Googles webmaster tools also failing to sort this out their are only two solutions.

Host country specific sites in the country you are targeting (not as easy as it sounds because in the UK the leading hosting company’s servers are located in Germany) and often expensive e.g. £9.95 per month per domain.

A much better and much cheaper solution is to use HostGator and just buy country specific domains. I bought .co.uk for my UK stores via Godaddy. Moved my existing stores and redirected the old domains as outlined in my previous post and low and behold they appeared between 2-5 days later in the google.co.uk index where they need to be.