Archive for March, 2007

Our First Month – A Look Back

March 31, 2007 | Comments (9) | Filed under: General

As we close in on the last few days of the month of March, I wanted to do a quick retrospective post about our site and where it’s headed.

The first thing I would love to do is ask for some feedback from our readers. There are many of you who have continued to visit our site and taken the time to contribute comments to our posts, and for that I am very thankful. You guys are what makes doing this site worthwhile. With that said, I would LOVE to hear from you on what you think of the site. Be brutally honest, I can take it, anything goes. If you love/hate our layout or think my posts are great/stupid let me know. The only way we can improve on things is by hearing about what we can do better…

EDIT: The responses to this have been great so far. I’ve already taken the advice of two readers who complained about the number of ads on the site. I removed two different ad-blocks, so hopefully the site is a little cleaner for our usual visitors.

I’ve decided to take the site in a slightly different direction for next month and most likely the months that follow. Professionally, I’ve been a software engineer for over 7 years and have been working on the web for all 7. My background and my expertise comes from this experience. The posts I’ve made over the last month have been sort of split down the middle. On one side, I’ve talked a lot about blogging, tools for blogging, and marketing your new site, since I’ve had to do a lot of this myself. On the other side, I’ve talked at length about programming your site and ways you can tweak it.

There are so many great sites out there with such a wealth of knowledge on blogging, it seems like I’m just reiterating points that have been made already when it comes to this area. Bookmark Bliss has the tagline, “Improve your Online Business” and I plan to focus the majority of my efforts in this area, from an implementation standpoint that is in line with my experiences. While the blogging tips won’t disappear, you may see less of them. No guarantees though

What this means is expect a lot more effort put into relating my posts to real world experiences from my career, as well as new experiences I deal with every day. Many of the issues and techniques we use every day can really help you improve your business, I hope that by focusing on this area it will make Bookmark Bliss much more unique and informative and allow us to build a community of like minded entrepreneurs. My goal is to provide tools, ideas, reviews, and information that you can use immediately to improve your own business.

Ultimately, we would love to hear some feedback from our readers as well when it comes to the topic area of the site. What would you like to see more/less of on our site? What brings you back now?

I’ve learned a lot of absolutely invaluable lessons this month when it comes to Blogging. Bookmark Bliss is my first real attempt at both running and maintaining an actively updated blog, so it’s a learning experience to say the least. By all measures, I think we’re doing pretty good and my focus for April will be to continue that trend right through while increasing subscribers and visitors.

In the next day or two, I plan to post up a comprehensive breakdown of everything that’s happened to us over the last month so you can see what we’ve accomplished and where we want to go. I also want to examine what has worked for us and what hasn’t, with the hopes that you can follow along with us as we figure this thing out. Until then, thanks to everyone who has stuck with us so far, we really appreciate your support. Here’s to a kick ass April!

10 Lessons Frank Miller’s 300 can teach you about Successful Online Business

March 30, 2007 | Comments (48) | Filed under: General

It’s 3:00 am and I just finished watching 300 for the second time (this time in IMAX). I sit here struck by a moment of clarity. Frank Miller must be an online entrepreneur in his spare time because 300 is the perfect metaphor for online business. Now I know what you’re thinking, this guy has completely lost it, and to be honest, that might be not far from the truth

Nevertheless, here are 10 Lessons Frank Miller’s 300 can teach you about successful online business…

Know your surroundings, and choose the battleground that most suits your strengths
Just as King Leonidas chose the Hot Gates as the perfect location for Sparta’s stand against the Persians, the same methodology applies to deciding on the niche and hook for your new online enterprise. Do your research and pick an avenue where your skills will thrive and your competition will fall. Choose a plan of action that highlights your skills while taking away advantages of your predecessors. Just make sure you cover your back at the goat path! You never know who’s sneaking up behind you!

A handful of well trained soldiers can out-perform thousands of weak ones.
The Spartan 300 stood against the million Persians for days because they were strong, well trained, and powerful. The same holds true for sites in the online marketplace. A well done site, where the owner takes the time to build a community and support it with continuous, quality content, has the best chance for success, even against hundreds of sub par competitors. At the end of the day, any successful formula requires repeat business, and you can’t get repeat business if your soldiers died in battle!

A few good friends is better then an army of acquaintances.
The Spartan 300 drew their strength from their family of fellow soldiers on the battlefield. When it comes to online business, the temptation to work your way from one end of the web to the other begging for links is very high. Take the time to actually contribute to community sites like Digg, DigitalPoint, or even blogs you read every day. In the end, it will take you much farther by becoming a respected community member then a single comment that is never revisited ever could.

The gods aren’t always right, do what’s best for yourself, above all else.
King Leonidas knew that the Ephor were wrong when they advised him to stand down on the eve of battle. In online business, it is far too easy to read advice from people with sites that are more popular than yours and take it to heart. A lot of this advice is good but a lot of it is bad as well. Taking the wrong advice can cut you off from avenues that may be right for you, even if it wasn’t for the person who gave it. Always do what is best for yourself, and never be afraid to experiment. After all, the Gods were all in the same position as you at one point in time. Remember that!

Keep your skill set sharp, cause you never know when you might have to defend yourself.
At a moments notice, the Spartans were ready to march into battle, with no hesitation. The same applies to EVERY area of business. Never stop learning, experimenting, and improving yourself. The moment you drop your guard, is the same moment your opponents take away your land.

Never retreat, never surrender.
Even to the bitter end, King Leonidas and his 300 fought for Greece, never retreating and never surrendering. While it’s not so cut and dry in online business, in most cases this is great advice. A lot of people quit because it gets too tough to maintain their blog or too hard to keep the products up to date on their website. If you retreat, if you surrender, you’ll never know if a month or two more of hard work might have paid off. You’ll also never be a Spartan!

Constantly adapt to your changing situation, it’s the only way to survive.
When the Persians dispatched Rhinos, the Spartans adapted and prevailed. When they charged in with elephants, they adapted and once again came out the victor. The web marketplace is no different. Technology is CONSTANTLY changing. If you want to stand atop a mountain of defeated competitors, you have to stay on the bleeding edge of technological advances to ensure your ready to ride the new wave the second it arrives. A spear is fine and dandy, until your opponent charges in with Lasers!

Never be satisfied with your past accomplishments, it might just get you kicked down a bottomless pit.
When the Persian messenger delivered his ultimatum to King Leonidas, he was cocky and backed himself up by the past accomplishments of the Persian Empire. What did he get for that? A trip to the bottom of a bottomless pit! (is that even possible???). While success is great, always look to improve on what you’ve done and never underestimate your competitors. The Web 2.0 world moves so fast that one days champion can be another days failure in the blink of an eye. Don’t let your site get kicked into the pit. THIS IS SPARTA!!

Even a man-god can bleed.
King Leonidas proved that even the seemingly untouchable Xerxes was capable of bleeding after all. It is easy to look at the true juggernauts in a specific field and think it’s impossible to compete against someone of that size. No one is untouchable, and great ideas rule the world. Be innovative, be cutting edge, and most of all be fearless even in the face of god-like competition. The history of the Web is littered with stories of the little guy rising up to conquer the great Internet beasts, with nothing but a better idea to drive them. As King Leonidas showed his Spartans, not everyone who seems like a God really is one!

Even if you’re a hideous, misshapen troll, the right networking can get you riches and women.
Even in his hideously grotesque form, Ephialtes knew the value of networking. He made friends with Xerxes who ended up helping him to both riches and companionship. While you most certainly can use the web to find companionship through networking, from a business side networking can help you improve your income by leaps and bounds. If you make friends with other people in your niche, work on link exchanges and mutually beneficial collaborations, and actively contribute to sites with quality feedback and comments, there is no limit to the opportunities ahead of you. Know your strengths and know your weaknesses, and use networking to take advantage of both. If you can’t be successful in one route, look at others. Constantly keep your best interests at the forefront of your decision making process.

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Bookmark Bliss: 101+ Stock Image Resources

March 29, 2007 | Comments (11) | Filed under: Web Design

Over the past 7 years, I’ve had the opportunity to build up a substantial list of bookmarks. In the previous three installments of Bookmark Bliss, I compiled a list of 50 sources for web design inspiration, 80+ developer cheat sheets, and 30 developer community forums. I do this mostly for my own benefit but it seems to benefit others as well. I know there are dozens of these types of posts out there, but a lot of the sites I find are not really mainstream, so I think this list has some value along-side the rest.

A lot of times when I’m developing a new site layout, ad promotion, or graphic for business cards or logos, I find myself looking for stock photo resources to help out my artistic skill. Here is a list of 101+ stock image resources that I’ve come across over the last few years:

Have you found this list useful? If so, show your support by subscribing to our news feed. We’ve posted several other entries in our Bookmark Bliss series that you might find interesting as well…

As always, your comments are welcome and please let us know of any sites we might have missed.

The Mob Mentality Aspect of Readership

March 28, 2007 | Comments (4) | Filed under: Blogging

Ever wonder why some blogs just seem to skyrocket to super stardom in no time, while others, with great content, toil in obscurity forever? I’ve been thinking a lot about that fact lately, especially since Bookmark Bliss is so new to the game. Obviously there are many ways you can promote your blog in the beginning, that will dramatically increase visitors to your site, but what is the key to keeping them coming back?

One thing that people often don’t think about is the physical presence their blog makes on the web. When a new reader stops by to visit your site, are they impressed by what they see and if so, do they take the time to subscribe to your feed?

I think that one of the main reasons blogs crash and burn is that they fail to properly consider the mob mentality aspect of readership. What this means is that if your site looks popular, many people will visit on that aspect alone. Popularity implies a sort of expertise in an area of knowledge, and many readers take this to be true, even if it isn’t. Think about it yourself, if you come across two new sites, both in similar niches and one has 1000 readers and 10 comments a post while the other has 100 readers and 2 comments a post, which are you more likely to subscribe to?

Now most people will tell you, it depends on the content of the sites, but the truth is many of those same people don’t actually take the time to really read more then one or two posts before making a decision about a blog. In the end, the popular site wins out time and time again. This is human nature. If you see that someone else has taken some of their hard earned time to contribute to a site, the first thing you think is that there must be some reason they are doing so. This leads to more readers and more comments and the effect just blooms from there.

So what can a new blog do to satisfy the mob mentality?

If you’re new, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to load your blog with widgets that require user contribution to fill, like “Top Commentators” or “MyBlogLog.” These will just show new readers how few contributions you get from others, and result in less subscribers. You also want to be careful about adding things like FeedBurner Chicklets that show your number of subscribers. The number shown in the chicklet can turn a would be subscriber into a one time visitor in no time at all. All of these tools are great, once you’ve gotten yourself established a bit, but right away you can easily live without them.

Another aspect to be conscious about is the comments you receive on your posts. If every one of your articles is showing no comments, you’ll find would be responders are reluctant to comment themselves. One way to sidestep this issue is to remove a comment count from the main page of your site. If a reader has to click your post to see the comments, you increase your chances they might respond. Also, try to encourage comments by asking questions and actually following up yourself when people respond. You’ll find it goes a long way. If all else fails, get a few friends to stop by on a regular basis and help liven the place up.

If you’re aware of the mob mentality aspect of readership, you can quickly and easily make small changes that will improve your chances of gaining more subscribers and repeat visitors. You don’t have to hide from your initial growth, but it doesn’t hurt to keep the flaunting to a minimum…

The John Chow Effect, Part Deux

March 27, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Ranking

Recently John Chow made a few changes to his “Make Money Online” (formerly known as “Review My Blog”) link exchange program. Now with the new rules anybody that wants to participate in this program must include the anchor text “make money online” somewhere in the review. This is a brilliant move by John Chow, in my opinion, because he is now getting hundreds of targeting backlinks that will go a long way in helping him rank highly in search engines. If you do a Google search for the phrase “make money online” you’ll see he is already ranked number two. Anyone running Wordtracker or similar software will appreciate the fact that tens of thousands of people on a daily basis search for this phrase.

So, in a John Chow evil sort of way, we decided to modify our original review of John Chow’s website to adhere to the new rules and resubmit it for another round getting double the link backs for the same amount of effort. We went with “Online Business for the Bookmark Bliss” as our anchor text. The link was featured in installment 36 of the series which was posted on his site Monday March 19th, 2007.

A week or so has gone by now, so we thought we would once again take a look at the results! If you remember in our last John Chow Effect article, our biggest suggestion was to allow a description or unique anchor text that would encourage readers to visit the links. Now that John’s modified the rules to allow for this, has adding the anchor text helped improve our success over our previous submission?

Of the 4,000+ unique visitors we had from Monday to Friday last week only 14 came to us through johnchow.com. In the month of March we have had in total 33 visitors from johnchow.com and over 13,700 from stumbleupon.com. While it really was no effort on our part to get these links from JohnChow, especially the second one, it looks pretty evident that John’s readers are not really all that interested in the reviewers in his review compilations. Basically, the linkback from his blog is the best thing that comes from these posts from our perspective. The real beneficiary from this whole deal is John, and the rest of us are just helping him get to the top one post at a time.

Software Review: BrowserCam

March 25, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Reviews

If you’ve ever had to design a new layout before, whether it be a theme or a site built from scratch, you know how painful it can be to make sure your site looks the same no matter what browser it’s rendered on. For any of us who don’t work at big companies with large testing facilities, it can sometimes be difficult to test your new design on a wide variety of platforms and browsers. For example, you might test your site in FireFox 2.0.2, but how does it perform in FireFox 1.0.7 or how about on IE 6.0 in Windows 2000?

BrowserCam is a web application that can help you with your compatibility requirements. If you have a new layout, BrowserCam allows you to evaluate your site from the end-users perspective. You simply enter your site URL, choose from a huge list of platforms and browsers to test on, and let it test your layout for you. It even allows you to test out different screen resolutions, which can help you optimize your design to suit your most common users.

In the backend, BrowserCam is basically a network of servers that can automatically load your site, and screen capture the results. If you enter a URL, say www.BookmarkBliss.com, in a matter of minutes you can see exactly what your site will look like using Konqueror 3.4 in Fedora Core Linux, if you’re so inclined. It’s amazingly useful, and can save you a lot of headaches and lost users, especially when it comes to obscure platforms that may not even cross your mind.

Now unfortunately, BrowserCam does cost you money to use it on a regular basis. Their fee runs from $19.95 – $999.95 depending on your requirements. They do offer a 24 hour trial though, and if you use their system smart and test a lot of sites in one trial, you can actually get away with only needing a trial for most compatibility checks. If you’re a heavy duty web designer though, 24 hours once a month might not be enough to satisfy your needs.

Overall though, BrowserCam is a powerful online application that should be considered for any designers arsenal. After all, what good is an amazing site design if only 10% of your user base can view it?

Improve your Site with Web Design Statistics from Google Analytics

March 24, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Web Design

When designing a new site, it’s important to know your target audience. Unfortunately, with a lot of blogs out there, that might be easier said then done. While it’s always best to think about your niche in advance, some sites start with one idea in mind, but over time evolve into something totally different. That’s the fast moving nature of the web, and it’s pretty hard to avoid.

Every so often, a friend of mine will ask me for advice on setting up a new site, and one of the most important tips I usually relay is to become best friends with Google Analytics. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Google Analytics, it’s a powerful toolset that allows you to track many statistics about the users that visit your site. It’s dead simple to integrate, and if you’re using Wordpress like we are, all your need is a simple plugin to get up and running.

Once it’s installed, Google Analytics tracks almost anything you can think of about users who visit your site. For a new site, one of your best friends is the data tracked under the area titled “Web Design Statistics.” These statistics track everything you need to know about visitors to your site and how they view your content. For example, one of the most important sections is “Screen Resolutions.” In this area, you can see what screen resolution most visitors to your site are using. If your site is designed for 1024×768 resolution, but 55% of visitors are using 800×600, then you can be sure they aren’t getting the full experience your site has to offer. Here is an example of the resolutions Bookmark Bliss visitors have had over the past 3 weeks…

As you can see, less than 1% of our visitors have a resolution that is lower than 1024×768, so our site design has been optimized to reflect that. There are many more statistics that can really help you to tailor your site to the users who visit it. Everything from whether or not they have Flash installed to browser version to connection speed. By really looking into the fine details of these statistics, you can ensure that most visitors are getting the ideal experience you designed your site to provide.

At the end of the day, if you want to be competitive in online business, you need to know who your customers are and how they visualize your site. Google Analytics Web Design Parameters can help you mine as much information as you can and if you play a smart game, you can use those stats to really optimize your site to take full advantage. It’s the next best thing to actually visiting your user’s homes and checking out their computers one by one…

Delayed posting can save your sanity

March 23, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Blogging

When it comes to writing for a blog, the daily grind of constantly coming up with new articles can really weigh heavy on some people. Not everyone has something to say so regularly. Keeping your blog fresh and informative, especially in the early going, is one of the most important aspects for gaining readers. Last week in our Link Roundup I mentioned an article from over at AskShane.org that discussed this very issue. I just wanted to take a quick moment and share my experience here at Bookmark Bliss with regards to delayed posting.

Delayed posting of articles really can save your sanity. There are some days I wake up, and 10 article ideas are floating around in my head and I can’t wait to get them down on paper. Other days, it is like an empty void up there with nothing but whistling wind. Since I know that’s how my creative process works, I use it to my advantage. On the days I do have plenty of ideas, I try to write as many of them as I can. Even if it’s just a topic, sometimes that’s enough to jog my memory again later and continue the piece. What I do is use WordPress’ timestamp features to stagger the posts I write throughout the entire coming week. I generally like to have at least one article posted every day (preferably in the morning for people bored at work) and then, if I feel so inclined, another one posted sometime in the afternoon. My goal is to have enough posts to keep people interested daily, but not too many that they get overwhelmed. If I had to write two posts on a daily basis, I would never survive.

The timestamp feature allows me to pick the time of day each article will go live, and I can simply set it, and forget it. This particular post, I wrote last Sunday, but it’s just going live today. That’s the beauty of the entire idea. Now, if you close your eyes and think deeply, you can maybe see me sitting at a bar with a beer or relaxing on a beach enjoying my Friday, while Wordpress takes care of the rest

Another important aspect of delayed posting is it gives you time to still think on the subject matter. Often times I’ve come back to a post later in the week and tweaked a few things to just make it sound a little better. You can even write your articles the same way. Add a paragraph a day and eventually the article is written. Some of the best stuff at Bookmark Bliss was written that way. With a schedule like that, eventually what you post will get way behind your actual writing and you’ll find it much easier to maintain a consistent posting schedule, which is one of the major secrets to blogging longevity.

So, if your struggling to keep your blog updated, consider delaying your posts and staggering the content you do have. You might find it’s the difference between a successful blog and a trip to Arkham Asylum…

Getting started in Freelancing

March 23, 2007 | Comments (0) | Filed under: Programming

While I was browsing the web today, I came across an interesting post over at North x East on How to get started with your Freelance Career. I know a lot of our readers are interested in this area of potential self employed income and after all the emails I received on our recent review of Guru.com it appears that many of us out there could use a little advice on getting the ball rolling.

This article is very well written and includes many interesting points for up and coming entrepreneurs. They cover issues with everything from branding to good sites to find jobs to get yourself off and running. They also discuss many of issues usually vaguely covered such as what to charge clients and what to do if someone refuses to pay. A high quality read that I recommend for anyone who wants to get into the freelancing game.

If you’ve had some experience in the freelancing game, and have some advice for others getting started, we’d love to hear from you. Drop by our comments and let us know about your experiences.

Adding MyBlogLog Images to Comments with WordPress

March 22, 2007 | Comments (7) | Filed under: Tutorials

For just over a week and a half now, I’ve been testing out the automated addition of MyBlogLog images into comments here at Bookmark Bliss. You can see it in action over at our post of 50 sources for web design inspiration. It was actually pretty easy to setup, and I think it makes the comments just that much more personal. I was going to try and find a Wordpress plugin that already accomplishes this, but instead I just looked at a few other sites for the required HTML and implemented it myself. Now, if you have a MyBlogLog account, and you make a post here using the URL of your MyBlogLog community site, your image will automatically appear next to your post.

If you’re interested in adding MyBlogLog images to your own comments in WordPress, its actually really easy. Inside the comments.php file for your template, find the spot where your comment text is actually being printed. This is usually with a php call similar to this:

<?php comment_text( ) ?>

Then, depending on how you want the image to look, you simply need to put the following in the right place to match your theme and layout:

<a href=”http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/co_redir.php?&t=&href=<?php comment_author_url(); ?>” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://pub.mybloglog.com/coiserv.php?href=<?php comment_author_url(); ?>” border=”0″ alt=”Visit my Community at MyBlogLog” title=”Visit my Community at MyBlogLog” onload=”if (this.width < 48) { this.title = ‘Get a MyBlogLog account’; this.alt = ‘Get a MyBlogLog account’}” /></a>

In our case, we put this line just above the one that prints the comment text and wrapped it in a div like so:

<div class=”mybloglog-image”>{CODE ABOVE}</div>

Then we just floated it right of the text with our CSS:

.mybloglog-image {
        float: right;
        margin-top: 15px;
        margin-left: 10px;
}

That’s all there is to it. The reason this works so easily is MyBlogLog takes care of almost all the work. The image call automatically returns the correct image, or else links a small ? image if none is available. So, if any of you out there are interested in incorporating this into your own site, hopefully this will help you get there.

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