July 31, 2007 – Adding an RSS Feed for Articles and Blogs

I hear that offering something free is a good way to get traffic and links. So the last couple of days, we decided to add the ability to offer calculators free. We already had the ability to handle it in the data, but we have to decide which ones to offer for free, make sure the shopping cart and renewal system handles everything correctly, and feature on the site the idea that some are free and add an icon by the ones that are fee. I still need to test it a bit then it will be ready to move it live.  

If you would like some free financial calculators, health calculators, health assessments, or parenting assessments for your site, visit us at www.WebCalcSolutions.com in the next day or two and check it out.

I’m also trying to concentrate on the idea of changing content that gets scanned often by the search engines. We have added an article RSS feed of relevant topics to the home page. I have some articles I want there all the time, so I’ve got to figure out how to make them look seamless. I also want to add a blog feed to this blog and a couple of others that are on topic. Then I have to decide how they act and where they go when they are clicked on.

Of course, I continue to submit links every day. So far I have mostly focused on directory listings. That has become familiar and comfortable now, so I guess it’s time to branch out and find some relevant sites to request links from. I keep coming across this magic number of 100 backlinks or inbound links. 100 inbound links is now my goal and I’m assuming things will begin to happen once I reach that magic number.

I found some neat tools yesterday. And best of all, they appear to be free. Future entries may report on how effective they really are, how free they really are, how hard they are to implement or use, etc. (Find all relevant entries by selecting ‘Webmaster tools’ from the Categories section in the sidebar.)

• http://www.master.com/texis/master/app/apps.html - Free tools like an RSS Aggregator, Feedback Manager, Message Board, Search, Poll Maker, Form Maker, and more
• http://www.iwebtool.com/tools/ - Free webmaster tools like Backlink Checker, PageRank Prediction, Link Popularity, Search Engine Position, Link Price Calculator, Broken Link Checker, Reciprocal Link Checker

July 28, 2007 – I Had No Idea Bookmarking Takes So Long

Yesterday and today I’ve spent most of my time bookmarking my 2 sites, www.WebCalcSolutions.com and www.BizCalcs.com . I had created a spreadsheet grid so I thought it would be easy and not take much time – I was wrong.

We added the AddThis bookmarking tool to the sites a week or so ago and I decided it was time to use it. Having AddThis on the sites made it easier to bookmark them, but it’s still harder than you would think. Another big advantage we should get from having AddThis on our sites is that it makes it really easy for our site visitors to bookmark us. That’s really the reason to add it to your site.

So why a little trickier for me and not for my site visitors? A valid question.

One reason is that most site visitors are using one social bookmarking site (del.icio.us, digg, reddit, etc.) while I’m bookmarking to a dozen or so. Each one of these bookmark sites asks for different information and some do a better job of getting what they can from the meta tags on your site. Also you have to log in to each one as you go.

I had a hard time deciding if I should bookmark the same page everywhere or jump around on my sites so I could bookmark everything to one social bookmark site. I did some of both – I don’t think it made much difference.

I got the slight advantage of not having to log in so much if I jumped around on my sites and bookmarked them all to that bookmark site, plus I already knew what fields would be required.

On the other hand, I got the advantage of copying and pasting the same information until I was done with it when I bookmarked one of my pages to all the places I wanted it, meaning less chance I would copy and paste the totally wrong thing.

Many of these sites feature the newest submission too. So it’s to your advantage to feed them slowly so that something of yours is staying featured in the just sumitted sections. If you wait a few hours or til the next day, you’ll probably get in front of some different people instead of flooding the ones that happen to be there when you start submitting.

Another reason bookmarking is harder than you might think is that I’m bookmarking several pages from my site to get them into topics that are more specific. Plus I hear that deep links are supposed to be good. I have pages that are good under personal finance, health, and parenting. I went a little deeper and bookmarked my indivicual calculator and assessment groups too. That makes close to 25 submissions to each of the dozen social bookmark sites.

How did I decide which dozen (of the several dozen) social bookmark sites to submit my site to right away? I pretty much just looked for the ones I had heard of before then hovered over the AddThis link on my site to see which ones show on the popup window without having to click the “more” link. They matched up pretty well (surprise, surprise).

I’ve also submitted my site’s Google Gadgets page (http://www.bizcalcs.com/GoogleGadgets.asp), this blog, and my article (http://ezinearticles.com/?Interactive-Website-Content—A-Total-Makeover-(or-Just-Some-Makeup)-For-Your-Webpage&id=646359). I start from scratch when I submit these since I don’t have an AddThis link for them, so it takes a little longer.

I’m keeping a simple NotePad file so I can keep my titles, descriptions, keywords, etc. for use when I submit these same pages somewhere else down the road. I think it’s easier to capture it as it’s created than to keep trying to find it later when I need it again. This file has already proven valuable since, after the first couple of bookmark sites, I don’t get asked for any new information now.

It’s quite a job – I hope it yields some positive results in exposure, traffic, and links.

July 26, 2007 – There’s a Lot to Learn & Even More to Do

Today I checked out a demo version of some software that’s supposed to help you submit your link to directories. The real software has about 2000 directories to choose from (with more added all the time – according to the marketing people anyway), but the demo version has only 100. That is overwhelming enough, but you can filter it to list only ‘free’ links, ‘paid only’, ‘real estate’, or ‘reciprocal link required’. (I believe there are more filter options in the full version.)

I focused on the free ones. It will show you each directory’s PR (if you believe it’s accurate) and let you sort by that. I focused on a couple of PR1 directories so as not to waste some good listings if the software (or me) got really mixed up.

You set up a profile for each URL you want to submit. I set up 5 URLs, one for my main site (www.WebCalcSolutions.com) and one each for my 4 industry groups (finance, health calculators, health assessments, and parenting).

For each profile, I was asked for the

• URL of course
• preferred categories and subcategories (I had no idea how this would work since directories have such different categories.)
• link titles (You can create multiple titles – I don’t know the max - so that you’re not using the exact same text in all the directories. Pretty clever I thought. And it even rotates through them as you go through submitting!)
• site description (Same as titles, you create different descriptions so they’re not the same all over the web!)
• keywords (Again multiple lists.)
• reciprocal URL for when it’s required (I didn’t give it one since I only want free, one-way links right now.) You then choose if you want to add the reciprocal link manually or upload a script and have the software do it for you. Kinda nice!)
• name
• email (hopefully they’ll let me know when my links are accepted)
• username & password (This will become your user name and password within the directory you submitted your URL to.)
• and address info (I did not fill this in since only a few directories require it. I’ll deal with it if I bump into one that requires it.)

I then selected a profile and a directory to submit my link to, and up pops the submission page for that directory with the free radio button selected (since I only requested free ones) and the title, URL, description, etc. all filled in. I was wondering about the categories – the software took its best shot to pick one based on the categories and subcategories I had guessed at, but since you’re on the directory site’s webpage, you just select the category that’s really best for your link. You can tweak your title and description on the fly here too.

All in all, it looks like it could save me a lot of time. I have submitted my links to quite a few directories before now and often I didn’t hear back. How discouraging is that when you’ve spent quite a bit of time even finding them and screening them for relevancy and making sure they’re still active (which can be a real trick and time waster)?

I got some links on my own but it was painful duplicating the title, description, and keywords each time. Not to mention the time setting up accounts on those that require it. (I was already setting up text files with all this information in it so I could just copy it each time I found a place to submit.) I don’t know, but I’m hopeful they have screened the directories they include somewhat and don’t have a bunch that are dead so you never hear back.

For $97 this software could take the sting out of taking the time to submit your site and never hearing back! I think I just talked myself into buying it (especially with its 30 day money back guarantee). Thanks for helping me decide.

I keep hearing that “Content is Queen and Links are King!” when it comes to page rank and search engine result position. I believe in my content and now I won’t have to avoid trying to get links any more. After all, I’ve got a whole list of things to do still that don’t seem as futile as that little job!

In the long run, we’ll see if this yields positive results, but for now anyway, a pretty productive day for me!

July 25, 2007 – An Introduction to My Website

I have spent a lot of time, but not full time, over the last two years developing 2 websites, http://www.WebCalcSolutions.com and http://www.BizCalcs.com . I am now trying to figure out how to get traffic to those sites… You are welcome to follow me day by day as I post the things I’m doing and any results, good or bad, that I see from those efforts.

I have developed a collection of online calculators and assessments that can be added to any website by setting up an account and adding the links to your own website. The calculators and assessments are interactive, colorful, customizable, and fun. I’ve made it as easy as possible and as feature-rich as I can.

The sites are ready to launch – all I have to do is find some visitors. After 2 years you would think that would be easy. But hold on! It’s been anything but easy.

Here’s what I have:

www.WebCalcSolutions.com – This is the main site which hosts and invites visitors to subscribe to the calculators and assessments. All calculators and assessments can be run from this site, but if the links are copied and pasted they will not function. The calculators and assessments you can find here include:

• financial calculators covering mortgage, loan, auto, debt, credit card groups
• health calculators covering general health, fitness, exercise, nutrition & weight groups
• health assessments covering physical health, mental health, addictions & behaviors, social & relationship groups
• parenting assessments broken up into 5 age groups from preschool age to young adults

www.BizCalcs.com – This site features all the calculators and assessments from www.WebCalcSolutions.com so anyone can use them free. This site has ads (AdSense and affiliate ads) and generates minimal revenue up to this point.

 Some of my marketing plans include:

1. offering at least one calculator or assessment from each group for free for life
2. offering lifetime subscriptions so there is a one-time payment and all updates and new calculators within the subscribers groups will be free to them forever
3. setting up a reseller program where website companies can offer to include calculators or assessments on their clients’ sites and they keep some of the money
4. featuring a calculator or assessment for a month and offering it free or discounted for a year

I decided I could wait until all these things are done or I can get out of my comfort zone and start to try to figure out how to promote these sites. I have never done any marketing, I’m not comfortable with marketing. In fact, I’ve always jokes that I couldn’t even sell water to a thirsty millionaire. I probably would have talked myself out of this great idea of mine if I had known I was going to have to market it and just how hard this would be.

I’ve read a bunch of articles, books and websites on how to get traffic or promote your site. I’ve dabbled with trying to get a few links through email (which all of the material I’ve read suggests), even offered to put calculators on their sites totally free – I never hear back from them. I have had some success getting links set up in directories, but it’s very slow. I’ve emailed all my friends – they don’t need what I offer and I don’t have enough friends.

I’m not ready to give up. I’ve done the research and I’ve made a plan, so here goes nothing… Stay tuned.