Home Blog Page 1266

Traffic Sunday Updates

Elliot Silver
-
3

I am driving down to Miami tomorrow for the Traffic conference. Based on what I am hearing, it sounds like its going to be a pretty big conference. Here are a few things I am looking forward to at the show (on an iPad so my apologies for any typos):

– I hear that somewhere in the ballpark of 300-400 people will be in attendance. This is a great turnout compared to some recent Traffic shows. It will be a good chance to meet with people I don’t see very often. The last big conference I attended was DomainFest in January. Rick and Howard have put a lot into making this a big conference.

– I think the auction is going to see some good results. There are quite a few good names that seem to have reasonable reserves. With some recent underwhelming auctions, I think Rick Latona and his team have been working harder than ever to ensure a successful auction.

– One of my favorite domain names at Rick’s auction is FruitBaskets.com, and it’s not because I received a fruit basket advertising the name. Aside from a company like Harry and David’s and Baskets.com, I don’t know many brands of fruit basket companies. Without a  dominant leader, a company that operates on the generic domain name can become the perceived leading brand. I think 1800-Baskets, which operates Baskets.com (owned by 1800-Flowers) would be a good candidate to buy this name. They should probably make a business case to buy it, so at the very least, they don’t give another company a chance to compete immediately.

– There are quite a few premium .CO domain names like Pizza.co up for auction. This will be a big test for .CO since their closed auctions have been doing great, but there haven’t been many big sales happening outside of these (from my perspective). It will also be interesting to see what companies bid.

– Aftermarket.com has been preparing for a re-launch for a while and has been collecting email addresses on its website. Perhaps some new details about the relaunch will be released during the course of the conference. Thought Convergence is a dynamic company, and it will be exciting to see what the brand will offer its customers and clients.  

Annoyed with Google Results Lately

Elliot Silver
-
15

I am an avid Google-user. In fact, I use a ton of Google searches daily. I also can’t remember ever using another search engine for a search that wasn’t SEO related for my websites. I am hardly let down by Google.

I don’t know about you, but I have been getting annoyed with Google lately. Since they started permitting websites to have multiple results on search pages, it seems that searches get more frustrating.

Take a search from today for example. I am looking for a company that does fulfillment inserts, aka blow-ins. Basically I want to insert some of my DogWalker.com magnets into boxes shipped from pet companies to dog owners. When they open their box, voilla, a magnet is inside that they can add to their fridge You’ve probably seen similar things, like samples, coupons, and/or other inserts on your shipped purchases.

From the sponsored advertising links on my search, I know Google recognizes what I am looking for, but the top organic results are way off. Perhaps Amazon links would be appropriate if Google was directing me to Amazon’s fulfillment department, but they aren’t. I’ve seen results like this a number of times, and it’s frustrating when Google seems to understand my search but not produce the organic results that are even close to what I want.

I don’t know about you, but this type of thing is happening to me more and more. As a webmaster, I do like the fact that my website might have 3-4 links in Google for some searches. However, as a searcher, I am finding this to be annoying, especially when the results are way off.

I’ve turned of Google Instant already, and I hope Google is going through growing pains and it’s not a sign of things to come.

Idea to Get Back Links, Traffic, and Good Will

Elliot Silver
-
1

This might be somewhat obvious to many, but here’s a technique that I’ve been using to get some backlinks and traffic to a couple of my websites (not my blog). These are things you might consider to help your sites while helping others as well.

On Twitter and Facebook, I’ve noticed many companies and organizations discussing competitions or contests they are involved with that need votes from the general public for them to win.  They seem to focus a lot of energy publicizing their involvement and asking for support for them to win/make money. Additionally, many organizations hold annual events and need as much publicity as possible for them.

I’ve contacted some of these groups at various times and offered to post articles on my sites to help promote their cause, at no cost to them.  They send me articles, and I simply publish them, Tweet them, Digg them, and post them on Facebook.  Since the articles have somewhat of a relation to my sites’ content, the readers who visit can see why it’s posted so it’s not annoying to them, and they help the organizations and companies. I let them know I prefer recaps of press releases (rather than the duplicate release).

Additionally, and most importantly to the sites the articles are on, the organizations help promote the articles and drive traffic back to the sites. They are happy to share links to leading websites (on the category killer names) that are promoting their events and work. As you can imagine, doing something beneficial like this generates good will for my websites, traffic, and back links.

About.me Launches in Beta

Elliot Silver
-
3

About.me is a new website that allows people to create a personal profile page, and it recently launched in beta. Invites to people who signed up a few weeks ago are slowly being distributed, and I received mine yesterday.

The website allows its registered users to create a very customizable profile page. You can add a picture or other image, profile information, colored background, website links, and there are a variety of other neat profile options.

I think it’s important to sign up early because you can secure your customizable url. My profile is found on About.me/ElliotSilver. I also think it’s important to sign up, from a public relations standpoint, because it’s always good to “own” the top search results for your own name, and assuming this service takes off, it will probably rank very well.

Congrats to Karen!

Elliot Silver
-
10

Every once in a while, I sprinkle in some personal tidbits on to my blog, and I hope you don’t mind. This morning, I want to congratulate my wife on successfully defending her doctoral dissertation yesterday afternoon.

Karen has been in graduate school earning a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology for the last 4+ years, and she is currently in the midst of her 5th year internship. Karen worked hard on her dissertation (and for the last 4 years of grad school), and I am very proud of her accomplishments!

Now we’re off to Florida to celebrate.

Vaultpress: Great WordPress Backup Plugin

Elliot Silver
-
1

For the past month or so, I’ve been using a great new WordPress back up plugin called Vaultpress. The creator of the plugin is Automattic, the company that also owns WordPress, so you know they know what they’re doing.

I signed up a few months ago, and since the company is still in Beta, they’ve been slowly awarding “Golden Tickets” that can be redeemed for the ability to install and use the plugin. The cost of the backup is $15/month, which is more expensive than the Amazon Storage I’ve been using, but I am told Vaultpress makes it much more simple to install a back-up in the event of a database problem.

If you operate a WordPress website where data loss or complete data  wipeout  would seriously hinder your business, you should consider Vaultpress. For a few of my sites, having a back up is critical, and I trust Vaultpress with my data backups. I recommend you apply for an account and decide later if/when you are given the Golden Ticket.

1...1,2651,2661,267...1,569Page 1,266 of 1,569