Oh, this is brilliant! Did you ever get a .pdf and find yourself frustrated that you can’t do anything with it? You can’t copy or paste. Or, maybe it even has a password and you can’t open it at all!
Well… that’s not good for people who sell ebooks and locked the .pdf, so your on your honor there. However, I think that’s a dumb idea and not many people really do that anymore, anyway. But.. you may have some old ebooks that you bought lying around that you forgot the password for, eh?
OK… here’s the software that will fix all that for you: Free PDF Unlocker
Pretty cool little utility for nuthin’ I’m thinking. 
Google is going the extra step in their search listings, according to the Google blog of September 25:
“For most search results, Google shows you a few lines of text to give you an idea of what the page is about — we call this a “search snippet.” Recently, we’ve enhanced the search snippet with two new features that make it easier to find information buried deep within a page.”
What will happen is that when Google sends out results, if they find related information in the site, they may add links under the description that further enhance the information. He’s how they showed it:
Dang… I tried a few searches to see if I could get that to come out a little less fuzzy for you, but I found bupkiss so far. But here’s something else they’re doing… adding jump links to the description:
So, get optimizing! This is huge. If you can get more juice from each of your listings, isn’t that the smart thing to do?
Here’s where you can learn to make that happen:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/using-named-anchors-to-identify.html
It’s all about internal linking. Don’t be lazy. Remember that Google ranks your PAGES, not your site. So, optimize each page individually. It’s really important and now, more important than ever.
And if you want to read the whole article about these new changes to search listings on the Google blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/jump-to-information-you-want-right-from.html
There ya have it!
You know the search engine. You even know the mail program. But how strong is your friendship with Google? Do you know that there is a whole world of cool stuff inside? You know about the popular apps, no doubt–calendar, docs, image search, Picassa, YouTube, but do you know Google Labs?
Talk about cool stuff! If you haven’t been, you really need to go and check it out. To get there, just go to your GMail account and log in. At the top of the menu, it says, ” Calendar -Documents -Photos-Reader-Sites-Web-more ?” You can also get there from the Google search home page. But at the bottom of that “more” button, you’ll see “even more,” and that’s the hidden goodness. You need to make a nest.
Did you know that you can search not just for phrases you type in abstractly? You can do direct searches for stuff like patents, scholarly papers, and well.. the earth! But what I really like to check out is Google Labs. The fun stuff really starts there.
How about Google Code Search, for example? If you’re a developer, that has to be pretty useful. Or, even those of us who are geek-wannabes need snippets of code now and again. Well… This is the place to search for it! I just searched “highlight HTML” and it spit back a ton of PHP codes for me. Wow. Cool.
Worried about swine flu? Want to see what the trends are? Google has a flu map for that.
And if you’d like to search what people are saying in You Tube videos… How about Google audio search? I didn’t know that even existed until this very moment. Search bots are even doing audio now. I think that’s pretty freakin’ amazing, don’t you? OK, so it only works for politicians right now, but can everyday humans be far behind?
So, we’re into the Google tree of products, and it’s been expanding over the last 10 years now. Why, I remember when it was just a sapling search engine and my friend Jean sent me an email saying, “You should try this search engine. It seems to come back with the most relevant results.” Oh, so true, Jean. How the heck are you, anyway? To my great regret, I’ve actually stuck with Google longer than Jean. Well, I moved away and you know how those things go. It’s a horrible shame. She was someone I really liked and admired. So, you know…
Think I’ll have to look Jean up.
Probably find her on Google.
Ya think?
You know how much I love things that make my life easier, right? Well, there’s a new add-on for Firefox that you’ll have to try. It’s called “History Tree,” and you can get it here: http://normansolomon.org.uk/histTreeHelp/tutorial.html. I think I just fell in love with Norman Solomon, who developed it. (Hi, Norman! Just kidding. Married 36 years now. )
So many times I’ve wanted to go back to a page that I hit hours before, and well… did you ever try to wade through all the stuff you do during the day? I must hit a thousand online pages a day at least. It’s impossible!
History tree is awesome! It gives you not only where you’ve been, clearly and succinctly, but it allows you to see your path visually, so that you can see where you came from, where you went, and how to get back to where you want to go. I’m in heaven.
I just installed it and haven’t been to too many places yet, but here’s a screenshot of how it looks:
Neat? I think you’ll love it, too.
When you want to use it, you just to to the “Tools” tab in your top navigation bar, and click on “History Tree.” Then, it should be pretty easy to find whatever it is you’re looking for. Can’t wait to try it out for all my meandering on a daily basis. I’ll bet you’re in that boat, too and will be happy with the results that history tree provides. Let me know your thoughts!
Hey, all you Twitter users… Have you heard about the new phishing scam? It happens in your Direct Message box.
The message starts out: “ROFL this you on here?” and links to a video site, supposedly. What really happens is that you’re sent to a fake Twitter login page that asks for your login information.
Don’t think it will come from a follower you don’t know, either. The infected Twitter account of even your best friend or a sibling will send DMs to everyone on their contact list, and on and on it goes.
This started yesterday, so it’s still a relatively new nasty, and if caught quickly, we can all avoid it. Just don’t respond or click on any links in DMs that start out with ROFL or you won’t be L-ing at all. You might be “R-ing” but with pain, not pleasantry.
Just as with any other phishing scam, don’t give your login details to any page that you haven’t typed into your browser’s address bar or arrived at because of a bookmark. That way lies madness and frustration!
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Posted by
Pat Marcello |
Categories:
web 2.0 | Tagged:
phishing scam,
rofl,
Twitter |
People often tell me, “I can’t blog. I don’t know what to write about.” And I always go into my spiel about how people don’t have to write to blog. You can talk and have an audio blog. You can make videos to blog, and so on. Though that’s some help for the reluctant, it doesn’t totally solve the problem.
There’s still the question of, “What do I write about?” or make a video about, etc.
You can get around this. There are all kinds of things you can do and some are easier than others.
How about running a survey for your list? It’s really easy to set one up at Survey Monkey, and it’s free! Just ask them, “What’s your single biggest question about…” whatever your niche is. When they answer, you’ll have all sorts of things to write about.
You can go to a forum for your niche and look at the problems people are talking about. Write about those problems and your take on them.
Or, you can join Skribit, and without doing a thing, except adding a widget to your sidebar, let your readers suggest topics for you. It’s free to join, and you can make a suggestion. Check out the widget in my sidebar. It’s simple to add and much easier than setting up a survey.
But will people use it? The answer remains to be seen, but it would really help me to know what you like me to write about.
I enjoy writing news, like what’s going on with SEO and WordPress. Readers seem to enjoy those posts, too, but let me know. I’m really happy to write about things when I know people are excited to read them.
Now, you have a voice! Let me hear it.
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Posted by
Pat Marcello |
Categories:
Blogging |
As you know, I’m a HUGE fan of WordPress. Not only do the search spiders love the platform, but it’s so easy to use and so extremely customizable that you can find plugins that help you to do just about anything you want to do with your blog. It’s just incredible!
Anyway, I’m always checking out new stuff, and am excited about a few new plugins I just heard about and thought I’d pass the information around. I have to admit that I haven’t tested them myself yet, but I have every intention of installing and using them as soon as I’m done writing this post. So, here we go:
WP-Contact Form: I do use this one. It’s awesome! If you go to my top nav menu, you can see it. Setting it up is just a matter of making a new page, and plugging a little code into the HTML tab. Simple and one of the things that spiders look for in a web site. If you don’t have a contact form of some kind, you should and this plugin makes it easy for you.
Scissors: Allows you to do some sweet photo editing from your blog, like resizing and cropping. And it helps make the image smaller, which WordPress doesn’t do. It just resizes the image but keeps the size intact. That could mean MB for scanned images, for example. Better to resize before uploading or with this plugin, do it from your blog. A little more convenient, I’d say.
Lifestream: Add as many of your social feeds as you want. Each time you post to Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. your updates can immediately be posted to your blog as well. This isn’t for me, though. I like to give a digest on the weekend, when I”m not posting content, but you really don’t want to know every time when I tell someone I hope they feel better, now do you? Be sensible about this. Too much la-di-dah won’t be good for your credibility.
N-Voice: This is a great plugin for folks who’d rather talk than type. It’s great for people who can’t type or people who are handicapped and unable to type. Blogging can be writing, but it can also be talking or video or whatever you want it to be, as long as it’s valuable content.
Redirection: Change your permalink format after making several posts in your blog? This plugin will make your 404 errors 301 redirects, and allows you to point the pages wherever you want them to be. Spiders really don’t like dead ends. This plugin helps stop them from happening.
PayPal Donations: Is your content really good? Do people tweet about it? Do they make comments and tell you how much you’ve helped them? Well… maybe it’s time you started accepting donations. Couldn’t hurt to have a button that lets people decide how good your content really is for them, right? You’ll be seeing one in a widget in my sidebar very soon, I think.
Daiko’s Text Widget: I’ve been using this one for quite some time, and it’s great! It allows you to add php code to your widgets. If you set up a text widget and it doesn’t work… this is your solution. Just add a Daiko’s and you’re probably going to be all set!
So, there are seven really cool plugins that will help you to make your blog awesome and save you a ton of work on some fronts. Try them out, one at a time. If you install more than one and your blog goes kablooey, you’ll know which plugin did it, and you’ll be able to uninstall it and go along your merry way. I’m not saying that any of these will be problematic, but you never know. Sometimes a plugin won’t work with your theme or your version of WordPress. Update to the latest version first, of course, and then… let ‘em rip!
How about the difference between a 2% and a 3% conversion ratio?
You may be thinking, Whoopee! A whole one percent.
Now, let’s make that percentage real.
If you send 1,000 people to your website and 20 people buy, that’s a 2% conversion. If you’re selling a $97 product, that represents $1,940.
But let’s say you send another 1,000 people to a page with a different headline, and 30 people buy. That’s a 3% conversion that just made you an extra $1,000.
What if your product is $497, and you only make a .5% conversion difference? You’re making almost $2,500 more money, just by coming up with a headline that was only .5% better.
Small changes to your site can make huge differences in your pocket. You should be testing at least one element of your page at all times, not two or three, or you won’t know what worked, unless… you use a tool like Google Website Optimizer. Then, you can work on several different elements of your page at the same time.
Here’s a great primer on website testing by Daniel Waisberg over at SearchEngineLand.com: http://searchengineland.com/a-primer-on-website-testing-25816
There are all sorts of things to test. So, what are you waiting for?
