Add a Favicon to your Website!

Favicon

Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism.

How? You can do a search for “add a flavicon” I used http://www.html-kit.com/favicon on GotRocks4Sale.com

Pick a photo or logo for your site; upload the graphic through the browse option; download the kit; copy and paste the code you are given to your index page, and place the icon in your root directory.

This is another way to Brand and Promote your website.

A Note

I won't be taking on any additional clients for website design, I am swamped. My theory of keeping things simple and  being a little patient with marketing is working. I am currently getting the hang of social networking. Since I'm not a full time web designer any longer I have the time to do the research I like to do before I "buy" into any of the SEO "you have to" stuff. The SEO business changes rapidly, in my opinion, and I don't see much change in SEO know it alls. Sorry for being blunt, but if someone wants you to fork over $400 a month plus, I want major performance, not just the same old thing.

What I am finding that really works with regard to social networking is:
Attend events - show up consistently
Join organizations and get involved in mommittees
Network with other trade partners
Invest you time
Volumteer
Build relationships
Recognize those who have helped you out
Be authentic
Don't act desperate
Listen to what people are saying, and follow through
Share your experiences
Be a mentor
Fous on giving, not getting
Let people know what your expertise is
Follow up with people
Learn about other trades
Don't be afraid to give feed-back
Ask lots of questions
Be respectful of your peers and their existing relationships
Set goals and manage your time
Maximize customer service
Treat everything you do as a networking opportunity.

Social Networking is not just for the internet, facebook, twitter, etc.

Cross Browser Testing

I’m guilty, yes it is true I have not tested my website in the different browsers to see exactly what others see if they don’t use the browser I use all the time. I am a creature of habit like many people are; it is the convenience, comfort level, ease of use when you are using something all the time. This is not good when it comes to your website!

www.GotRocks4Sale.com screen shot example:



I recently discovered http://browsershots.org It’s a handy webmaster tool to see, all in one place, how your front page looks in several different browsers. It is a free tool and very easy to use. You can type in any of your web pages not just your front page.

The process takes a little time to upload the screenshots but it is worth it. I discovered that the text you choose to use on your website is not necessarily the text that your viewers are going to see. If you have labored over which text to use on your web site you may be wasting your time.

Color can be another issue. There are colors you can use that are ‘safe’ colors and will remain true in any browser.

I would like your opinion

I've just set up a website for my friend Millie; she's Overstocked with Rocks. This is the first phase, there are many, many pictures to take. Between you and me she should open a brick and mortar store.


Seriously, I would like "objective" opinions. I know that most of you are not jewelry designers looking to purchase precious and semi-precious gems, that's not the point here. I want an objective opinion of the website.

Please keep in mind the about page, and the blah, blah, blah pages have not been constructed, those aren't the important pages. I won't give you a quarter for your opinion but I'll give you a link!! That's worth a bunch more than a quarter!

Easy Thumbnails

Easy Thumbnails is a great tool for taking any number of photos and making thumbnails is litterally a flash. Since I am totally redesigning two websites with vast amounts of photos that need to be used as a visual index (one picture is worth a thousand words)I needed a quick and easy way to make thumbnails.

I found Fookes Software, It is Great!



Easy Thumbnails is a popular free Windows utility for creating accurate thumbnail images and scaled-down/up copies from a wide range of popular picture formats. An elegant interface makes it a snap to find your images and select them for processing individually, in groups, or in whole folders, using a simple file selector and built-in image viewer. You can use slider controls to rotate images and adjust their contrast, brightness, sharpness and quality, and check out the results with the built-in viewer.



Thumbnails can be created in any existing folder or a new folder, and you can identify them clearly by adding a prefix or suffix to their filename. If you're an image-processing enthusiast, you'll enjoy having a choice of eleven resampling filters for the best possible results. You can convert small batches of images inside Windows Explorer from the File menu or with a right-click of the mouse, display thumbnails in your browser, and even take advantage of command-line switches to generate thumbnails seamlessly from other programs. You can also save your thumbnails to a Web page using a HTML template that you can easily customize to create your own layouts, and there's helpful documentation that includes full instructions and some useful tips.

Easy Thumbnails is a genuine freeware product that will not annoy you with advertising, intrusive spyware components or nag screens. It comes from the developers of the award-winning NoteTab text editors.

If you need to make thumbnails, I highly recommend this and yes I have used it many times. I give it a 10 out of 10!

Simple Things: Html

Below are simple things that can help you control the look of your posting in your blog. By typing these into the code you can, for example, put a widget in the center of a column. The picture below illustrates what the characters look like but can’t be typed here because it won’t show up. Put the first character set before your text or widget and the second set directly after.

The br is for a break in a line. It creates a new line.

Strong means the text will be bold.

Strike means there will be a strike through a word.
As in the price was 49.95 Now 39.95. There is a character set of html before and after the 49.95 that you don't see.

Free Image Hosting - Photobucket

Author: David Cowgill
Website: http://www.eblogtemplates.com

Finding a place to park your web images is fairly easy to do these days. The problem is there are dozens of sites out there so how do you know which one to use? If you pick the wrong one, you will usually find out pretty quick. After you spend hours uploading all your images and then linking to them from your website, all of a sudden your image links break and your site is broken with no images.

Most free blog template sites let you download their template but fail to mention anything about the images that go along with it. Some people don’t even realize that images need to be hosted somewhere in order for the template to work properly. They install their newly downloaded template and it just works. Other templates don’t host the images and include the images in a folder which you need to find a place for them to live. People get confused and don’t know what to do.

If you are one of these people or just want a place to drop off your images, then listen up. I’ve been using a great image hosting site called Photobucket ever since I started eBlog Templates. You can use their free service which is great for small sites with not a lot of bandwidth needs or upgrade to their pro plan which gives you unlimited bandwidth for around $25/year.

Here are some other great features of Photobucket:

Keep all your pics and videos in one place - room for up to 10,000 photos and hours of video!
Share with everyone you know by email, IM or mobile phone.
Make slideshows and mashups with music, special effects, captions, and more.
Link to your profile, blog or website. One-click posting, direct to your favorite sites.
I recommend at least setting up an account since it doesn’t cost you anything. Then upload a picture or two just so you’re familiar with how it’s done. If you are currently using a Blogger template that you downloaded for free, it’s probably a good idea to start moving all your images over as well. If you don’t, you’re leaving your images in the hands of someone else and they could delete, move or even put up adult images on your site by just changing the images on their server. Not good.


Ready to super charge your blog? Check out our professional premium blogger templates or make money by joining our blog affiliate program!

How to make your blog unique

Article by: ~David Cowgill
Founder, eBlog Templates
http://www.eblogtemplates.com


Having a unique design for your blog can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have made by a professional designer.

Most people that I know (including myself) don't want to spend that sort of money and end up searching Google for free blogger templates (isn't that how you found eBlog Templates in the first place? :-) ).

Well now that you've got your nice free template, it's time to customize it so you've got a unique blog, right? Easier said that done.

One of the top questions people ask me on eBlog Templates is, "David, how can I create a beautiful header image on my blog?". It's a good question because everyone wants a unique blog and any template that you end up using, isn't personalized for you.

Sure, the template usually looks good (that's why you downloaded it in the first place) but you just aren't satisfied until you can get a design just for you or your business.

After having to answer this question literally dozens of times through email and responding to comments, I decided to write a detailed article on my recommendations. People's feedback has been great and it's amazing what some have done to their blogs. Now I invite you to try the same and impress me with your creativity.

The article includes several free blogger header image sites and also a few pay for image sites. If you can find something for free, then great. If not, then you at least have some more options to choose from.

http://www.eblogtemplates.com/free-blog-header-images/


To Your Blogging Success,