Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Twitter is a social media venue that allows people to connect. I have found it to be a great place, even better than some of the forums I have participated in the past. However, as I see people comment and wonder what twitter is, or even ask me how they can do better, I just had to pool together my own list that has worked for me so far. Of course, I am no guru in Twitter, but what I have used has done well for me so far. Several things I have noticed are:

• I have more traffic to my personal site.
• I have met people who are interesting and share a common interest on some level with me.
• I have met people who I believe are good friends. Even though they are through the internet, we have been regular at
• I have learned a little bit from using Twitter.
• I have received web hosting business from followers just because of association with me and wanting to try my small time hosting.
• I have become more active with my website in producing informative blogs.
• I have been successfully able to produce blogs from paid-to-review sites that are not cheesy and are more of a consumer based review.
• I have been able to expand my site’s umbrella over topics I cover.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to connect with others out there, but this is one of the most drastic I have found. Also, there are a lot of more things I have taken from my experience so far with Twitter. Below are tools I had stumbled upon while discovering this social venue.

1. Tweetchat Simple site to allow you to see a live stream of tweets almost like a real chat room. They are designed around specific topics. For example, the group Girl’s Night Out, meets every Tuesday evening and they use the trendy topic of #gno to enter the room.

2. Twitter Grader is a place you can simply type in your Twitter ID and it will produce a grade on how good of a ‘tweep’ you are. In calculating this grade, Twitter Grader calculates your authority into a grade by how many you are following, who you are following, who is following you, and what you talk about. It is also a place you can see similar people from either location, profession, or something about them in their description at Twitter that may be relevant to you.

3. TwitterCounter Is a great place to analyze the growth of your following and also has a code that you can place on your site that will tell visitors how many followers you have acquired at Twitter.

4. Be A Magpie is a place where tweeps can make a little cash while they tweet away. The site produces advertisements that are placed within your streams, with keywords to not seem obstrusive. Those who sign up can adjust the ratio of how often ads are placed versus tweets. This is great for those wanting a few extra dollars. However, on the downside, it could be annoying for some followers if your ratio makes it obvious you would rather use them than get to know them. I recommend if you do use this service to use the 10:1 minimum ratio, no matter if you have 15 followers or over 15,000 followers.

5. Mr.Tweet is a place to help tweeps get connected with others who are relevant to them. The site calculates and based on the info you have given in your Twitter profile, try to connect you to others that you should follow or that could be a great influence.

Sometimes when you cannot market yourself due to time constraints or lack of knowledge, especially if your site is important to you and you want to increase your site’s popularity, it may be a good idea to invest in an internet marketing agency. One of the places I came across, Pepperjam, is highly popular and is a full service internet and search engine marketing agency.

What does that mean? Well, anyone who invests with Pepperjam will receive services that will do things like maximize the traffice and leads volume to a site. Search Engine Optimization is one of the specialties this company can provide. They focus on areas like meta tags, content optimization, and URL structure. Some of these points I have touched base on within my Webmaster Resources in the Articles section.

Pepperjam is very prestigious with it being the 75th company in the top 500 Inc. With clients like eBay, DNKY, and even Playboy, they are the real thing when it comes to what they do. The great thing about Pepperjam is that they provide services that are organic, search engine-wise so your site is indexed properly! It might cost a bit of money depending on what your expectations are, but my philosophy is that if you cannot do it, then get it done right even if it might cost. As Donald Trump says, “You have to play big to win big.”

Of course, if you are not sure about Pepperjam, they offer a free analysis and proposal which will allow you to see what they can offer.

Sometimes developing anything online can seem boring, but IDUG contest has found a way to put a real kick into producing a short XQuery. Their contest, the XLM Contest, asks entrants to produce an XML rap by simply pointing a camera towards the computer screen while you are working.
Their main terms are that the video refer somehow to XML, XQuery or DB2. The terms are fairly simple and once you are done, upload the video, post about it with an embedded file of your entry and mention the IDUG contest so others might have a chance to enter. Videos can be no longer than 5 minutes, so it is simple for anyone who might be a bit zany enough to document their experience for the contest.

Some helpful pointers is to fit in about the application are things like: security, how unique your item is, how easy your solution is to understand, and above all, how useful it is. The contest is great for students as it could be a stepping stone for future job hunts. So, if you are a developer, try out the contest even if for fun. The prizes given vary, but some of the prizes recently offered were an iPod and a Zune.

I keep hearing on the local radio stations like WDML 106.9 about the International Star Registery. Now, I have a big question: Does International Star Registry own all the stars we see in the sky, even the ones named hundred and thousands of years ago by ancient astonomers?

ISR has been a company since 1979, but what makes them able to have the right to give others the ability to name stars for a fee? As a side note, I do want to say that there is a way to name a star for free, but you have to fill out a credit application and even make one purchase to receive the name. That is not not free and is considered false advertisement.

Despite the romantic idea of having a star named after me, I think no one should charge to have a star named after them. A star cannot be reached by necessary means. It is like receiving nothing in the end. How can such a company guarantee that no one star is named over several times for several customers. None of the people of the past before this company were charged in naming a star or even a constellation. It is ridiculous and a rip off. The site even says that the company is not recognized by the scientific community!

In their FAQ, which is quite short, they reveal that the do not own the stars and explain that it is an adoption. Well, if it is an adoption, does it not go somewhere like a charitable organization or perhaps for world hunger programs, or something of the sort? Of course there are adopt-a-highway, adopt-a-dolphin, and much more, but those programs go for things like animal conservation and giving back to the community.

Here is a thought, pick a star up, research about it, make and print your own pretty certificate, and then give it to your honey. It would only cost less than a dollar! Save your money and not give it to someone who cons people out of their money thinking that it is okay to charge money to name a star when they have no ownership in the first place.

Related Links:

• Buy A Star, It’s Not Yours
• Name A Star After Somebody: A Scam
• Stellar Idea or Cosmic Scam?

I am always looking for new tools to do searches. It is key when making sure my site is listed as I want people to be able to find my site. I came across the Find.com Search Engine. No, it is not google, but it was surprisingly fast and simplistic, probably because it is still developing. The navigation was clean and load time fairly quick. Again, because it is still new and has over 500 articles with the promise of thousands by the end of the new year, I have not seen anything as of yet to deter me. It is always nice to see how a newer search engine goes and I wish Find.com the best of luck!

Because of this, I thought I might try to look up the word ‘blondish.’ Lo and behold, my site actually did come up in the search. I was actually happy to see that, and I even saw links I had not seen before to my site. As I said, Find.com is new, but I would recommend bookmarking it and try to use it like to either: find people, find jobs, or even find friend. You might be surprised on what you find out, and plus having another search engine as a reference tool is always a nice thing to have when you cannot seem to find exactly what you are looking for elsewhere. I put this site in my favorites and definitely will be using it from time to time.

Anyone ever heard of Blogged.com? I ran across this site during a search and my site was listed there, so I took a look. This site has a load of nifty things, including a way for visitors to sign up. As a user, you can rate and review a blog. Now, I thought when I was there that someone submitted my site, but that was not the case. It was kind of like a search engine dedicated to bloggers. I like that idea. They even rank the blog by their own editors too.

I saw that I have a review, but I need to go over and update my site information. They were still using my old Camaro theme for a long time (lol.)

No, this is not a sponsored post. I know I have started doing that, but I am very picky on what I choose as campaign and that most of them are something that others can enjoy. It would be ridiculous to blog on something that I know nothing about and does not have any relevance to anyone that my site targets. On the note about material, I actually have a list of topics I need to catch up on, but I fear if I blog more than once in a day, it might be a bit much. I will be putting an article on Blog Tools soon that will occasionally be updated with links to help bloggers get their site out and about.

I have been hearing about a site called Rev.iew.me, that is another review community, so I went to check it out. I ended up joining and have already posted 2 reviews. I will be posting my reviews here that I have done from there, and moving my old reviews here that I had done at Cinnamon Gum (no longer a site, hence why I did not hyperlink it.)

The site is owned by Jem who knows her stuff when it comes to coding and offers quite a few free and popular scripts.

In light of this, I have been going through the pages and weeding out content. I got rid of most celebrity images and my ringtones that I made. It is illegal, and I have not had the time to pull it down until now. If you want any, I can put a list and you can email me, but I will not offer them on the site for download anymore.

As for reviews, if you wish for a review outside of the site, free free to use my contact form or leave me a comment.