Back to the grindstone - website optimization..

You may ask what is website optimization and why do I need it? Website optimization is the process of making a website search engine friendly and hopefully brings it to the top of the list during a search. Sometimes called SEO (search engine optimization), it is a necessary step for any successful webmaster. There are many companies on the internet (I know because they spam me) that promise to make your website #1 on a Google search for a fee. They promise it can be done in a week! This is just plain bullcrap. You can optimize your website yourself, but be patient, the wheels of progress turn very slow. You may not reach #1 on a search, but you will have a definite advantage over websites that don't optimize. The following is the tried and true HTML method.

Step 1. To make a long complicated story short and simple, a website page is broken up into 2 parts, the and the . The body section is what is actually seen by the visitor. The head section content is not seenby the visitor. But it contains 3 valuable tools for website optimization. They are called "Meta Tags", and are the "Title", "Description" and Keywords" You can only create, install and modify your meta tages if you have access to the HTML code in your website's text editor. You need to do every page of your website, and costumize it to be topic specific for each page. The "title" should contain the name or title of your website and a REALLY brief goal of your website. The "description" should be approximately 2 sentences and contain a more detailed summary and goal of your website. The "keywords" should be a list of words and 2-3 word phrases separated by commas. You want to use words that would be used in a search to find your website in a Google search. You also need to use words that are found in the visible text in the body section of your web page. You can use a tool that creates your meta tages for you for free by just filling in a form, then copying the results and pasting them in the head section of your web page. The tool can be found HERE.

Step 2. The actual visual content of your web page should contain a good amount of text. Try to implement as many of the keywords you used in your "keywords" in your meta tags. When Google indexes youe website, it will compare the visual text to the keywords and also evaluate the text to see if it is relevant to your site's topic. There is no real "correct" way to do it, but like I said before, be patient. Set your site up to the best of your ability, then in a month or so, do a few searches on Google that would be relevant to your site. If you have a really competitive site topic, it may take several months to even appear on a search. If you do find your site, but on the 40th page, you could make a few changes (back up your work in case you lose ground). It may take up to a year to reach a consistent level.

Step 3. Another step that used to be way more important than it is now is getting people to link to your website. This is called a "backlink". The most valuable backlink is someone linking to your site without you linking to their site. This is called a "1-way link". The more links that are pointed to your website makes your website appear to be more popular and is supposed to help you in search engine listings when all things are considered. There are many ways of getting backlinks, but the most efficient way is to search for websites thate are similar in content to your's and contact the webmaster. Linking etiquette will have you link to them first, send them an email with the location of their link, and include your information for linking back. If they don't answer or refuse, just remove their link.

Another good way of getting backlinks is to find discussion groups, boards and forums that are related to your website. Contribute a bit of intelligent text and leave a link to your site. Also guestbooks are good to leave a link, and it helps to compliment the websmaster if you don't want to be deleted. And the new kid on the block for creating back links is blogging. Your archived pages are all listed on search engines one way or the other. So what better blog is there than a Google blog? ;-) There are link building programs and websites to try and automate the process, but I have had very little luck with them.

Backlinks used to weigh a lot more heavily in search enging ranking, but in the last year they seem to have less of an impact. I think it has to to with what is known as "Link Farms". A lot of companies and websites (mostly based in India) created thousands of websites that have no other purpose that to create 1-way backlinks for paying customers. Google is catching on to them and participating websites can drop right off the list with no warning.

In summary, create a site with good useful content and rub your lucky rabbit's foot.

This pisses me off too.

First let me clarify that I am in favor of public assistance for those who truly need it. But the idea has gotten truly out of hand. The welfare system is rewarding and actually encouraging people to be non-productive. The more babies a mother has, the more money she gets monthly and the more tax deductions she has at the end of the year. With the cost of daycare, it is a vicious cycle. She cannot afford to go out and get a job, but with the rising cost of living, she needs more money as the children get older. The system is set up for abuse.

To take it one step further, since she has all that extra time at home (probably with the deadbeat dad), she has more time to have sex. After all sex is free and what else do they have to do? So the productive ones like us work our asses off all day to make ends meet are too damn tired to make babies when we get home. Plus we see the bigger picture, if we can barely afford to live within our budget, how can we afford another mouth to feed? And our budget is growing ever smaller from taxation to fund more public assistance programs. So looking at it from a pessimistic point of view, civilization as we know it is doomed. Just for the plain fact that in a short time, the productive will be outnumbered.

My solution: every able body on public assistance will have to spend time at the landfill. Create an assembly line where the trash is dumped on a slow moving conveyor belt. Each person will have the duty of pulling out a specific material, like newspaper, orange plastic, tin foil, you get the idea. Give bonuses to those that show promise and move them to a more profitable recyclable. Promote those who show initiative to supervise the others. Provide the daycare and staff it by those capable. Do this with RESPECT and not a punishment. Create a positive attitude, as a majority of people WANT to be productive, they are just in a hole they can't get out of. As a byproduct, the landfills could cut their space needed by 50%? And the positive publicity for the landfill and the city would be enormous.

I do not say this from a point of view that I am better that these people. I would be the first to volunteer to do my time on the line. There probably woud be others that would volunteer to do the same. It may not even save any money in the short term, because they would all be paid what they were being paid before, but this would bring people together to network and come up with ideas of their own. I truly believe it would be self perpetuating. After all "green" is the new catchword.

Now I know the nay-sayers are going to say "what about liability"? Well if they are on public assistance, we are paying the medical bills any way. right? Or we could all just stay home and make money on the internet ...

This pisses me off...

Daylight Savings Time. Who do we think we are that we can just pass a bill to say what time it is? I lived in Indiana and for about 40 years we did not have daylight savings time. Everything ran smooth and you could count on the constant of time to never change. You could welcome the earlier sunrises of spring to bring us out of the depths of an Indiana winter. Television shows were on at the same time all year.

Then our Governer Mitch Daniels in 2005 would have you believe our state is on the verge of anarchy with civilization collapsing because we are not aligned chronologically with Chicago to the west or Cleveland to the east. Of course we couldn't decide which city we should align with so most of the state went one way and some went the other way, with some counties changing their minds at the last moment. So twice a year we change our clocks to supposedly be able to have financial transactions with like timed cities. This is to save the state of Indiana tons of money.

Here is the main reason it pisses me off. I used to be able to ride my bicycle to work from May to September. Now it is too freaking dark in the morning to commute on a bicycle safely and it cuts 2 months off my ride time. I would normally save $4 a day every day I rode to work, so 60 days X $4 is $240. Not to mention the exercise I am not getting. Plus I have to have the lights on in the morning to get ready to work. You can see where I am going with this.

And now, the state of Indiana has extended DST into November. So if you throw in the safety factor of kids having to get on the bus in the dark. The cost of businesses having to turn on the lights for that hour in the morning, I don't see how this could possibly be saving money for Indiana. This is just stupid, It reminds me of when I first moved to Texas in 1981. I was furnishing my apartment and went to Kmart to buy a shower curtain on a Sunday. I carried it to the checkout and was told I could not buy it on Sunday because of the Blue Law. They named off a bunch of seemingly unrelated things that could not be purchased on Sunday. However the pawn shops were open and I could by a machine gun with no waiting. The Blue Law was repealed (after I moved back to Indiana) and Texas realized how outdated the law was and we moved on with our lives.

This is what Indiana should do with Daylight Savings Time. Admit your mistake Mitch, repeal DST and maybe you will get re-elected. Or maybe Jill Long-Thompson should campaign on that platform... I'll vote for her then. Maybe we could form a focus group with a catchy acronym like ReTArDS (Repeal The ARchaic Daylight Savings). Abunch of us with focus group t-shirts lobbying should get the job done...

While I was telling you about Texas, I remembered an experience I had at an Arby's restaurant in Garland outside Dallas. Me and a friend had sat down to eat there and talk. They had drink refills for 25 cents, and at that time the Texas state sales tax was 5%. So I took our cups to the counter and asked for 2 refills. The kid at the counter asked for 53 cents. So I asked what was the sales tax on 25 cents and he said 1 penny. So I told him I wanted to pay for them seperately; 26 cents x 2 or 52 cents. He sid I could not do that, so I told hime I changed my mind, I just wanted 1 refill. He gave me 1 refill for 26 cents. I then told him now I wanted another one. He refused to give me one and said he was going to get his manager. I asked him if the Texas sales tax was 5%, then why isn't it broken up 20, 40, 60, 80, 1 dollar? So the sales tax on on 50 cents would be 2 cents. Evidently there was some sneaky psychology going on at the treasury department. Well the manager came out and told the kid to give me my sodas, and I could pay for them any way I pleased. The manager smiled, and I told him if I was manager, I would be looking at the register tapes, changing all the 53's to 2 26's and putting a penny in a jar. He laughed. Now I'm sure there are going to be 2 schools of thought out there reading this. Kudos to the ones that share my triviality.

All caught up..

Well we are almost caught up to my everyday life. I currently maintain 15 websites and my earnings are almost enough to live on, but not quite enough for me to retire from my day job. I switched the original content of jimmohr.com to gaming, and bought several more gaming related websites. The reason I have built so many sites around computer games is that I have a captive audience. While the visitor is playing a game on my site, they usually stay on the page for the duration of the game. I surround the game with a banner or text link or two and the visitor cannot help be exposed to your revenue generating ads. Another advantage of building a gaming website, is once you have the website done, it really does not need to be updated. This is a big problem with websites that offer current information. It is very time consuming updating multiple pages. Also if you operate a Big Fish gaming site (which is free) you earn up to 40% of any revenue generated from game sales!

A common misconception is that webmasters make money when a visitor comes to their website. This is not true, a visitor must do something when they get there. The way I make money is when someone downloads a free screensaver. Several companies pay $1 (or so) for a download that you refer. Several companies also offer from $.25 to $5 for every free website that is built from your referral. There also generous payouts if you refer someone to sign up for paid web hosting. For example, if someone pays for 1 month (approximately $10) and signs up for Yahoo web hosting, Yahoo gives you $60! There are dozens of web hosting companies that pay as much or more for referrals! You an also make some good money if someone purchases an item from your referral though this is actually the hardest way to make money. These methods and more can be implemented by joining affiliate programs. Several websites like Commission Junction or PepperJam represent hundreds of companies that NEED you to run their campaigns. You need to have a website with some useful content before you apply for an affiliate program as they will look at your website to make sure you are ready. A lot of affiliates will also not accept a website built on a free webhost.

The more the merrier...

Well if 2 websites can make $100 a month, then 4 websites could make $200 a month? And you also hear of people selling domain names for an outrageous profit, so getting a couple more domain names seemed like the logical next step. I spent a few days just seeing what website related domain names were available and settled on WebsiteFreebies.net and free-templates.org. I wanted websitefreebies.net because I wanted to develop a website similar to buildfree.org only with emphasis on the cool free add-ons and widgets you can put on a free website. I still promoted free webhosting, but I concentrated on my 6-7 favorite free hosts. WebsiteFreebies.net also reflected a bit of what I had learned in the last few months. I was learning a little more HTML and the benefit of using tables and cells in the design.

I chose free-templates.org because every attempt I tried to use a free stock web page template was a failure. They want you to download everything to your computer, then edit sections with a photo editing program. You have to do this to add your logo and to personalize the photos and images embedded in the template. Every time I did this, the template never looked right or was distorted. The lines never lined up and it was totally distracting. It was hard enought to come up with web page content, and fighting the configuration of a template just plain sucked. Well with my increased knowledge of HTML and tables and cells, it was just a matter of putting tables inside tables to create a template. I will be honest with you though, I can't code by hand. It was all done using the Microsoft FrontPage wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor. All you have to do, is click on the page, choose "insert table" and wala! It took some practice, but I turned out 35 or so cool free templates. I decided to just give them away, free as long as the end user left a link back to free-templates.org on the page. This causes a kind of viral visitor traffic system that works out real nice. The templates for beginners contain no images, so you can just copy the code and paste it in a text editor and edit away. For someone that wants a background image, there are several free templates that that allow an easy way to use a single image. I recently added a set of advanced templates that look really professional, yet are easy to use and edit. (just look for the "advanced" section at http://free-templates.org/).

I would have had a 3rd domain but I learned a hard lesson. I got an email from a fine gentleman from England who claimed he was part owner of a company that offered web hosting. He was inquiring on what it would cost to buy a small text link on buildfree.org, and I think he did even pay for a couple months. What he wanted to do was build up a java script section on his website. Java script is just a short bit of HTML code that has all kind of applications to do things with a web page. It is used to embed games, create calculators, change the look of a webpage and tons more. Anyhow, he said if I helped build up his java script section, he would give me a domain name and hosting for free. It would only involve me copying and pasting some of the scripts that are listed for free elsewhere, so I jumped on the deal. I chose the domain name webfreebies.org and started working on that site as well as his script. All was well, but in about 6 months, I got an email from his billing department saying I owed money to keep the site. When I explained to them the deal I had made, they said the guy I had talked to was out fighting a war somewhere. I did not have administrative control over the domain name, and it didn't seem like they wanted to give it to me even if I paid up, so I bit my tongue and lost the domain name. Another lesson from the school of hard knocks.