Monitize, Splash Pages, Autoresponders, SEO, Robots, Htaccess

Do Webmasters Have Brains?

I got an interesting email yesterday, and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the members here would like to see it, so I've included both the email I received, and my response to it:

Feeding RSS Directories - Have You?

RSS content is becoming more and more popular, and with good reason.  It allows the end user to have some control over what he wants to read - and for the webmaster, it allows him to bundle everything up, including articles newly written - and immediately publish everything. RSS is simply a method of syndicating content. The idea of aggregating content is very useful - the readers of your website can view your latest offerings without being bothered with email spam, and without taking a trip to your website. RSS allows users the flexibility to regain control of their content. The creation of RSS feeds provides content, yet doesn't force it on anyone who isn't interested in what you say.

Leveraging the Efforts of Others

One of the reasons that small business owners are generally in the top tax bracket, is not because they tend to be workaholics, putting in 60 hour workweeks – although such is common.  The reason they tend to be wealthy is because they’ve learned that a business can take on a life of it’s own – and you earn not just from your own efforts, but from the efforts of others as well.

Leveraging only your own work into pay can be quite profitable on the Internet, since if you blog well enough, your audience can conceivably be in the millions. (Most local businesses do quite well with no more than a few thousand customers – millions are far beyond any conception for the average small business) Unfortunately, those with the skills to command the attention of millions are few and far between. I know that my name isn’t Matt Drudge.

Drupal Pathauto - Optimal URL Pattern Settings

Does anyone else find it amusing that Adsense puts so many ads about 'knives' on my site?  I realize it's a new site, but I do hope their spiders can eventually do a better job at indexing my content!

To Follow or NoFollow - That is the Question...

The correct use of the rel="nofollow" tag, it has been argued; will help your SEO efforts. Some believe that by eliminating external links from search engine consideration - you'll end up with higher page rank. Others strongly disagree. Some will argue that one place to use it is in internal links going to your privacy policy page, or your contact page... pages on your site that you really have no interest in raising the page rank.

How To Force Your Apache Server to Make the Coffee

The .htaccess file is the configuration file for your Apache web server software. I don't know anyone who knows much about the .htaccess file, it's one of the most complicated and mysterious config files in existence. Don't look here to understand the mysteries, I suspect that you'd need a degree in Computer Science to even approach understanding of the .htaccess file. What I do, and what most people do, is merely 'cut & paste' relevant snippets to do what they want done.

How to Give Away Your Paid Content for Free!

And Destroy Your SEO standings at the same time...

A good robots.txt file is indispensible for almost all websites. It prevents search engine spiders from going where you don't want them to go. It will also prevent your download pages from being indexed, should you be selling a downloadable info product.

The Magic of Good SEO Techiques

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - is a series of techniques that you can do to improve your 'SERP's, or Search Engine Result Pages... where you end up when someone is searching for your website.  Everyone would like to be number one - but in reality - that's going to be very difficult to achieve.  There are too many other people fighting for a number one listing for you to hope to rank as number one for your selected keywords.

Why You MUST Have an Autoresponder

According to survey after survey, it takes an average of 8 visits to a website before a purchase is made. So you must be pro-active - you cannot rely on your visitor to return to your website, so offer them something of value, a free report, a correspondence course, something to convince them to give you their email address. Getting their email address is critical! Then the following 7 visits can be initiated by you, rather than by your potential customer. With a good autoresponder series of emails - you can develop a relationship with your visitors, and encourage them to purchase what you have to sell.