I occasionally buy expired domain names; I try and develop relevant web sites, hoping to benefit from what small amount of traffic there is coming to the old site.
This time I struck it lucky - I bought the domain name WebThyme and put a contact form on it while I struggled round for an appropriately themed web site. Imagine my amazement when I got this email:
"I am in the Bay area frequently, and have always seen your sign from 101. I am the california rep for ...... I am constantly meeting with many ILEC's , CLEC's, Isp's etc in the bay area, and was hoping I could get 20 minutes on your calender during the first 2 weeks in June. I look forward to hearing from you."
Wow - did I buy a domain name that still has a physical advertising sign visible from a busy highway??? - has anyone seen it???
Jeepers, creepers, I'd better get some sneakers on and get a proper web site up. Question is - how would you use the domain name when you don't know what the advertising sign says???
I look forward to your comments.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Paintballing - anyone?
I must have been slightly deranged when I bought the domain name http://www.paintballware.com - but I was trying to put together a little hotsheet for someone about buying a domain name through 000domains.com. I happen to like the 000domains service - and regularly buy domain names there. However, I needed to see how the service worked as I wrote my hotsheet - and I knew that the paintballware.com domain name was available.
When I started on the internet, like a lot of newbies, I found it extremely difficult to understand some of the basic concepts; f'rinstance, why was hosting different from a domain name? It took me quite some time to understand that the domain name is like a specific reference point on a map (eg your home address) and the web hosting is the space which your domain name occupies on a computer "web server". To make sure that your web site can be found, you need a domain name which can be reached by computers users all around the world and this is done for you by the registrar when you buy the domain name.
Anyway, to get back to paintballware.com, it's not as if I know anything about paintballing; nor indeed am I fit enough to struggle through boggy, rough terrain playing hide and seek. The idea does appeal, though, and I can see the attraction it would have in team-building exercises!
If you're interested in acquiring the domain name, please check it out at our online auction at Sell My Domain
If you would like a copy of the hotsheet which I put together on acquiring domain names at 000domains.com, then you can download it from here.
Buy a domain through 000domains.com
This is a pdf file which can be opened by PC/MAC users using Adobe's free PDF reader.
When I started on the internet, like a lot of newbies, I found it extremely difficult to understand some of the basic concepts; f'rinstance, why was hosting different from a domain name? It took me quite some time to understand that the domain name is like a specific reference point on a map (eg your home address) and the web hosting is the space which your domain name occupies on a computer "web server". To make sure that your web site can be found, you need a domain name which can be reached by computers users all around the world and this is done for you by the registrar when you buy the domain name.
Anyway, to get back to paintballware.com, it's not as if I know anything about paintballing; nor indeed am I fit enough to struggle through boggy, rough terrain playing hide and seek. The idea does appeal, though, and I can see the attraction it would have in team-building exercises!
If you're interested in acquiring the domain name, please check it out at our online auction at Sell My Domain
If you would like a copy of the hotsheet which I put together on acquiring domain names at 000domains.com, then you can download it from here.
Buy a domain through 000domains.com
This is a pdf file which can be opened by PC/MAC users using Adobe's free PDF reader.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Sitemaps
I don't know about you, but I find some things straightforward to do and others have me completely bewildered. One of the things I found quite difficult was creating the correct format of sitemap to submit to Google.
I could create a sitemap.html page with links to all the sections of my site; it's a bit boring if you have a big site to do this manually :O
I managed to add links from web pages to the sitemap.html page that I had made. The bit I found totally obscure was creating the xml feed for google.
How relieved I was to come across a brilliant piece of software which does the sitemap thing for me - this Brilliant Sitemap Software
will spider my online web site or a folder on my pc, it will create the sitemap.html page and the sitemap.xml with all the links correctly in place.
The only thing left for me to do was to upload them to the website (including a couple of small images for the folders, etc) log in to my Google account and follow the instructions on how to get the sitemap spidered by Google.
What a relief! .... anyone can use this software (ok, not MAC users) - and it's brilliant! I highly recommend it. Click here for more information on thisBrilliant Sitemap Software
I could create a sitemap.html page with links to all the sections of my site; it's a bit boring if you have a big site to do this manually :O
I managed to add links from web pages to the sitemap.html page that I had made. The bit I found totally obscure was creating the xml feed for google.
How relieved I was to come across a brilliant piece of software which does the sitemap thing for me - this Brilliant Sitemap Software
will spider my online web site or a folder on my pc, it will create the sitemap.html page and the sitemap.xml with all the links correctly in place. The only thing left for me to do was to upload them to the website (including a couple of small images for the folders, etc) log in to my Google account and follow the instructions on how to get the sitemap spidered by Google.
What a relief! .... anyone can use this software (ok, not MAC users) - and it's brilliant! I highly recommend it. Click here for more information on thisBrilliant Sitemap Software
Monday, April 24, 2006
eMail Marketing
Create and send eye-catching HTML email campaigns in minutes!
Collect email addresses of your site visitors with a "join my list" signup on your website. Then, easily create and send compelling email newsletters, promotions and announcements to keep them coming back.
KEY FEATURES
Add a visitor signup to your website
Import in-house permission-based names
Includes 50 professional templates
Use templates as is or easily customize to match your brand
Add a "forward to friend" to every email
Manages and hosts your subscriber list
Constant Contact is easy and affordable -- Try it FREE!
and see for yourself.
Collect email addresses of your site visitors with a "join my list" signup on your website. Then, easily create and send compelling email newsletters, promotions and announcements to keep them coming back.
KEY FEATURES
Add a visitor signup to your website
Import in-house permission-based names
Includes 50 professional templates
Use templates as is or easily customize to match your brand
Add a "forward to friend" to every email
Manages and hosts your subscriber list
Constant Contact is easy and affordable -- Try it FREE!
and see for yourself.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
The east wind doth blow and we shall have snow
Snow? In Scotland?? - I know many folks expect Scotland to be covered in a blanket of snow for much of the year. The truth is different, of course. Scotland benefits from the warmth of the Gulf stream for most of the time - and it's only occasionally that we seem to have a cold winter.
While the forecasters were predicting a severe winter for the UK, it's only in the last few days that we have seen much snow in the west of Scotland. It never lasts long. We had a snowfall of about 8" last Sunday and it had all but disappeared on Tuesday in the low-lying areas. What we have now is a cold easterly wind with occasional flurries of snow blowing around - but again, the general temperature is above freezing point, so the snow is melting quickly.
I'm loving it! This is reminiscent of many winters when I was a kid in the 50s. The quality of the daylight seems much better and I've hardly needed an umbrella at all this winter. (Shiver me timbers, that's bound to bring on a deluge!) The trick to this kind of weather is to wear layers of lightweight clothing so that you can be comfortable outside and when you come back indoors.
I'm away to rediscover the joys of wearing lip salve - and I'm going to walk in the woods later on and find some lovely spring catkins!
Later
M
While the forecasters were predicting a severe winter for the UK, it's only in the last few days that we have seen much snow in the west of Scotland. It never lasts long. We had a snowfall of about 8" last Sunday and it had all but disappeared on Tuesday in the low-lying areas. What we have now is a cold easterly wind with occasional flurries of snow blowing around - but again, the general temperature is above freezing point, so the snow is melting quickly.
I'm loving it! This is reminiscent of many winters when I was a kid in the 50s. The quality of the daylight seems much better and I've hardly needed an umbrella at all this winter. (Shiver me timbers, that's bound to bring on a deluge!) The trick to this kind of weather is to wear layers of lightweight clothing so that you can be comfortable outside and when you come back indoors.
I'm away to rediscover the joys of wearing lip salve - and I'm going to walk in the woods later on and find some lovely spring catkins!
Later
M
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Link Popularity
Free Link Popularity Checker
Publish your web site and you'll be inundated with more business than you can handle?? Well, maybe not. You can ask yourself (and your web designer) why you're not making money from your web site - and here is some of the information that you need to know to make your web site appear in the top of the search engine results for your chosen key phrase.
The internet is a brilliant tool for marketing your offline business or for making a living entirely online. Countless companies have mastered the art of ecommerce and now receive a substantial portion of their income from the web. But as a start-up company on the internet, that effectively means that the competition is ferocious and getting to the top of the search engines for any keyphrase or word takes a lot of work. Ask yourself how many times you click on a link in the first page of results on one of the search engines - and how infrequently you surf to the results on page 20 or 31 or further.
Publishing your web site is just the start of the strategy of making a living online. I heard someone recently recommend that you choose to spend less money on the design of your web site, leaving more money in your web marketing kitty to promote your web site effectively. I think that this is a masterful piece of advice. The internet is only going to pay dividends for you if you understand that you must get your web site to the top of the results, beating your competition. To do this might take six or more months - so you can not afford to delay taking action.
Search engines "spider" links. In other words, a search engine will read a page of your text (not your images, flash, etc.) and, when they come to a hyperlink to another page or another web site, they will go and read that information as well. If you have links on many other web sites which lead back to YOUR site, then the search engines will consider your site is more important and you will start to improve your rankings in the search engine results.
You should
Now, I promised you a free tool to check your "Link Popularity" - this software runs on PCs. I use it to check and see how many links there are to my web sites - and I can also use it to check on the link popularity of my major competitors. This is REALLY USEFUL!!!! - and is helping me get my sites to the top for my chosen key words.
Margaret
Publish your web site and you'll be inundated with more business than you can handle?? Well, maybe not. You can ask yourself (and your web designer) why you're not making money from your web site - and here is some of the information that you need to know to make your web site appear in the top of the search engine results for your chosen key phrase.
The internet is a brilliant tool for marketing your offline business or for making a living entirely online. Countless companies have mastered the art of ecommerce and now receive a substantial portion of their income from the web. But as a start-up company on the internet, that effectively means that the competition is ferocious and getting to the top of the search engines for any keyphrase or word takes a lot of work. Ask yourself how many times you click on a link in the first page of results on one of the search engines - and how infrequently you surf to the results on page 20 or 31 or further.
Publishing your web site is just the start of the strategy of making a living online. I heard someone recently recommend that you choose to spend less money on the design of your web site, leaving more money in your web marketing kitty to promote your web site effectively. I think that this is a masterful piece of advice. The internet is only going to pay dividends for you if you understand that you must get your web site to the top of the results, beating your competition. To do this might take six or more months - so you can not afford to delay taking action.
What can you do to improve your results?
Search engines "spider" links. In other words, a search engine will read a page of your text (not your images, flash, etc.) and, when they come to a hyperlink to another page or another web site, they will go and read that information as well. If you have links on many other web sites which lead back to YOUR site, then the search engines will consider your site is more important and you will start to improve your rankings in the search engine results.
You should
- Add your web url and your best keyword search terms into web directories.
- Publish articles about your business in article directories - and you will be allowed to leave a link back to your web site in the "resource box" - a profile of you, the author.
- Take part in discussion forums and, depending on the site, edit your signature block in EACH site, so that there is a live hyperlink back to your web site.
- If you arrange a link exchange with another site, you must be aware that linking to a bad web site can hurt you considerably. So try to choose only reputable companies or web sites when you are trying to arrange a link exchange.
- Use Pay-per-click search engines to bring traffic to your web site (this can work very well when you are selling products or services.
Now, I promised you a free tool to check your "Link Popularity" - this software runs on PCs. I use it to check and see how many links there are to my web sites - and I can also use it to check on the link popularity of my major competitors. This is REALLY USEFUL!!!! - and is helping me get my sites to the top for my chosen key words.
Margaret
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Focus on Imaging
Well, Sandy and I escaped for three days; we visited my little sister who lives in Derby. Isn't it strange how taking a three day break can make you feel as if you've been away from home for much longer!
Anyway, Joan is in the honours year in her photography course at Nottingham Trent University; she keeps her finger on the pulse of all things photographic and, consequently, on Tuesday, we found ourselves going to the Focus on Imaging exhibition at the NEC, Birmingham.
I find that I have to work hard to get the best out of exhibitions and trade shows. There are so many stands with such a lot of useful information that a day simply isn't long enough to learn about all new products and to filter the new bits which apply particularly to us.
On several stands, manufacturers have come up with new automatic booths for people wanting to print digital images directly from their camera or cell phone. They look really smart. We're tempted to put one into our shop, but we're not quite sure that we have enough users (the blue rinse brigade, for goodness sake!) who know how to use digital cameras. The customer would end up paying between 20p and 49p per print. Is there enough demand to make the purchase of such a machine profitable??? We're considering it.
More later .....
Margaret
Anyway, Joan is in the honours year in her photography course at Nottingham Trent University; she keeps her finger on the pulse of all things photographic and, consequently, on Tuesday, we found ourselves going to the Focus on Imaging exhibition at the NEC, Birmingham.
I find that I have to work hard to get the best out of exhibitions and trade shows. There are so many stands with such a lot of useful information that a day simply isn't long enough to learn about all new products and to filter the new bits which apply particularly to us.
On several stands, manufacturers have come up with new automatic booths for people wanting to print digital images directly from their camera or cell phone. They look really smart. We're tempted to put one into our shop, but we're not quite sure that we have enough users (the blue rinse brigade, for goodness sake!) who know how to use digital cameras. The customer would end up paying between 20p and 49p per print. Is there enough demand to make the purchase of such a machine profitable??? We're considering it.
More later .....
Margaret
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