Going for a responsive web design is a very strong consideration when developing web pages these days. Responsive web design allows a website to render perfectly regardless of what browser or device is used to access its pages.

Today, more and more people are using smart phones and tablets to view pages over the internet. How does your website display on such devices? That is why businesses are challenged to convert their existing websites to be more responsive to the newer browsers used by the equally new mobile devices and gadgets.

Shifting to a more responsive web design may be a little too expensive to some web owners. But the investment is very much worth it. Marketing experts say that companies are best to put their money on a fully integrated marketing program in order to produce a higher ROI. In a recent survey, it shows that 78% of teenagers all over the world own a mobile phone. And almost half of them have smart phones to boot. What more of adults with a higher purchasing power? The mobile market is indeed too meaty to be ignored. Those consumers have 24/7 access to the internet wherever they are. That alone makes the shift to a more responsive web design a very sound decision indeed.

Opting for a responsive web design is more ideal than having to maintain different versions of your website for different devices. The latter would cost you more money in the long run. If you shift to responsive web design instead, your website will detect whatever browser or gadget your visitor is using for viewing your pages and adjusts all elements accordingly. Your website will render perfectly on a mobile phone screen as it would on a desktop computer. Responsive and interactive is the current trend in web design. How good does your website fare?

Author: Petar Rastovic is an entrepreneur and internet marketer who writes for 1DigitalAgency.com, website Design Company that specializes in WordPress, Volusion and BigCommerce custom design.

Hey Folks!

Just a real quick one today, but still pretty useful. I’ve had a few people ask me about this problem so I thought i’d pop a super-fast tutorial together and then people can access it whenever they need it.

On WordPress 2011 theme when you create a single post, you’ll notice that by default it comes up with just one column and without a sidebar. Now, this is fine if you haven’t got useful stuff (or ads, affiliate deals etc) to show people on the sidebar. However, if you’re getting a lot of traffic to some specific single posts, it would be a great idea to let those visitors know about the rest of your content.

Here’s how to add a sidebar to the 2011 WordPress Theme

1. In the Theme Editor (Dashboard > Appearence > Editor), go to single.php and add the following:

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

In a new line just above the footer code at the bottom of the file:

<?php get_footer(); ?>

Next, go to functions.php (Theme Functions) and find the following at the bottom of the file:

add_filter( 'body_class', 'twentyeleven_body_classes' );

Comment it out (by adding 2 forward slashes // at the beginning of the line) and it will force WordPress to stop differentiating between normal and single post pages.

Simple stuff, but useful nonetheless… Have a great day all!

Hey Folks!

When editing your pages, posts and even categories, sometimes WordPress can add a number to the end of the permalink to avoid duplicate URLs.

This sounds like it should be great and a useful tool but sometimes when you are trying to replace “sample” it can rename it “sample-2″ and can get a little stressful.

Here’s a nice and easy way to fully delete the old page without having to go into the database / PHPadmin etc (there’s no need:))
It’s similar to clearing a cache so you can add a new page with the original permalink and without a -2 or -3 after the postname.
Here’s the step by step:

1. Delete your page
2. Click Dashboard > Pages (Not “Add New”)
3. You will see above the page list the following: All, Published, Drafts, Trash
4. Click on “Trash” and select the pages that you want to delete permanently.
5. Click “Bulk Actions > Delete Permanently”
6. Then Recreate your page (by going to “Pages > Add New”) and the permalink should be fine and without a dash or number after the postname.

If this has helped, please leave a comment, Like or Tweet to show some love. Thanks!!

Over the past wee while, Google has been cracking down on sites which drive too many backlinks within a certain period. If a website gains too many backlinks quickly then it can be put down as spam and unnatural. Google want natural back linking because this shows that, the content is good and if the content gets enough backlinks pointing to it then Google will rank it higher.

Many new Internet marketers are now using Unique Article Wizard to make backlinks, although many people are sending the links straight to their domain name. This is not good for SEO, because Unique Article Wizard makes tons of links and it will look unnatural to Google if you send them straight to your domain name.

A good idea is to make a blogger blog and a squidoo page. You can then send the Unique Article Wizard links to the small blogs and then add your domain name onto the small blogs, giving your main site an SEO boost in the keywords you are want to rank for. If you know Pat Flynn, then you will be happy to know that this is how he ranked his blog, “smartpassiveincome.com”, quickly.

If you want to get some quick rankings then doing this is safe from the panda and penguin because all the links are point to the small blogs which can take, these kind of link building, then just point the blogs to your main site which will give you a great SEO boost.

What you should not do!

Do not send all links to your main site if you’re using Unique Article Wizard, because you will most likely get banned from Google. It looks very unnatural and the last thing you want is to get banned.

If you keep your site looking natural then Google will award you with good consistent rankings, so be smart.

My name is Larry and I have been helping people with Internet marketing for years now. You can check out my Unique Article Wizard Review at my blog.

In this tutorial I will show you how to make money by loading a script into your site and every click on every link will make you a small piece of passive income. All you do is copy and paste the adf.ly javascript into your blog then you start making money – seems pretty simple eh?

What is adf.ly?

adf.ly is a link shortener service that converts your link into a tiny one just like bit.ly or goo.gl. The main difference is that adf.ly PAY you each time a user clicks on the link you create. For further information you can visit their website.

Now I’m going to show you this cool little script that can convert ALL your sites links into adf.ly ones automatically. So, everytime a user clicks on a link, it will show a small advertising banner at the top of the page and you’ll make a small piece of cash. Imagine if you had quite a few visitors on your site each clicking say 2 or 3 links – That’s going to add up pretty quickly right?

Here it is:

<script type="text/javascript">
onmousemove = function adfly() {
adfly_id = '3080028'; //replace with your ID
banner_id = 'banner';
for (var i = 0; i < document.links.length; i++) {
var hrefer = document.links[i].href;
if(hrefer.match("adf.ly") || hrefer.match("javascript:")|| hrefer.match("#")) {
document.links[i].href = document.links[i].href;
}else{document.links[i].href = 'http://adf.ly/' + adfly_id + '/' + banner_id + '/' + document.links[i].href;}
}
}
</script>

Just paste it into your BODY tag of your site. If you are using WordPress as your CMS, i’ve found pasting the code into the footer.php file does the trick nice and easily.

Explanation:

This script will convert all your site’s links, EXCEPT adf.ly itself, google adsense, javascript href, and ‘#’ href. You can add any other link as exception such as your own site, advertising link, etc. To do that, just add the new || hrefer.match(“your URL”)) inside the IF section of the script.

That’s it.. Super simple right? I’m going to test this out for a month on a few of my sites and i’ll report back on the results. My only concern is that it could look a bit “spammy” and visitor level could drop OR it could be a tidy little earner. I’ll let you know and thanks for reading!

Show some love with a share, tweet or comment if you found this useful

For many hardcore webmasters, investing in domains is a part of their every day life. Although they are not considered an actual commodity, there is certainly potential there.

We all despise those people that got 95% mortgages, making 100% ROI within the space of a few years. If only we could turn back the clocks, right?

Remember, at the time, these gains were not guaranteed. Many people put all their assets on the line. They made calculated investments that paid off. The position many people were in then, is similar to the position that domain investors are in now. Their question was then, and is now; is this investment going to make me, or break me?

With property becoming unstable in the UK and the internet booming, could investing in domains be the nest egg that we all dream of?

Background research

Stats to help with investing in domains can be found on IDNX. This is about as close to valuing the domain market as anyone is going to get, for the time being. It gives a good visual overview of the market as a whole (take that into account).

Valuations

Appraisals are fairly pointless; the market operates similarly to unique artwork. When the price that a seller will sell for, is equal to that of the price the buyer is willing to pay, it will sell. Of course, the above could be applied to any market.

That said; compare this to the property market, prices of property will generally be inline with historical pricing. Investors can take the prices of multiple sales in the past, apply the increase/decrease in the market since the sale and get a fairly accurate idea of what the value is.

This is coupled with the fact that houses, using mortgages, are leveraged investments; increased potential gains, but losses too. This is obviously the reason why investing in domains could still be lucrative. As soon as detailed information relating to domain investing is released, the margins will close up; so the time is now or never.

Choosing domains for investment purposes

Here is one of the rules we have been using; if a basic ideas don’t pop into your head for a domain within 5 minutes, don’t buy it. Obviously it gets a lot more detailed than that. The ideas should consist of:

What is the purpose of this domain?

Fetch.co.uk recently sold for £17,500. The idea behind the new site will be a transportation based company.

Who will buy the domain?

Typically, “end-users” will pay MUCH more than other domain investors. Yes, you could flip a domain for 100% profit, but factor in those domains that don’t sell for 5-10 years; you’re probably making a loss.

How will you value the domain?

Each to their own, we have a fairly detailed formula for valuing domains on an individual basis. The formula is adapted based on SEO value, traffic, historical sale prices (of that exact domain and other similar tlds), CPC cost, search traffic and more.

This is our “assumption” of what a domain is worth and by no means fact.

What will you do with the domain?

If the time was available, would you invest time and energy, trying to develop a project and implementing SEO strategies? If not, most end-users are probably thinking the same thing.

The result

Investing in domains has proven to be profitable for some, but then again, so has poker. Like great poker players, great investors fill in gaps in information, the ones others fail to see.

Our unbiased opinion is that there are plenty of opportunities out there, but each opportunity should be studied in depth. Thin the herd, find the great opportunities.

At the same time, hang around for the right price. The same buyer might pay up to $2,000 for a domain that is advertised for $1,000. This was the case for hotels.cd, which sold for $986 (Feb 07) and $2,022 (Aug 07).

Prepared to spend time on SEO? That domain is probably worth investing in…

Vibe Tech Media is a UK business blog discussing ecommerce businesses issues, online marketing and more…

The emphasis is always put on business SEO. Why? Without great SEO, a fantastic idea is left uncovered. That’s not to say that a site with great search engine optimisation is going to succeed though. There are 100s of sites out there that fail to convert customers that visit their websites every single day; a loss of opportunity.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you focused any time on analysing conversion rates?
• Are your SEO efforts really worthwhile if your website doesn’t convert?

It’s not hard; you can easily increase conversion rates in a few minutes:

#1 – Use a CTA that is bold, possibly a different colour to your website template

#2 – Make the checkout process simple; the fewer clicks the better

#3 – Make use of great copy; put it in the right place to really sell

#4 – Do you offer just one payment option? Offer more!

#5 – Make sure categories are in a clear format. Customers know what they want and you need to show it them; quickly!

How do you think the above changes will help?
The obvious answer is; they increase conversions.

I’ll ask again; how do you think the above changes will help?

Dig deeper this time. A website that really “sells” products and services well, and is easy to use, means consumers can find more products. Sales increase, but sales value with increase too!

So there you have it. SEO is important, but don’t avoid conversion rates!

Vibe Tech Media is a UK online marketing company that helps people think outside the box; making their presence in the internet known. Try and relate this post on outsourcing to the above post on conversion rates.

Between the ages of 19 and 29 I spent several years as either a full or part-time student and had to supplement my paltry student loan “income” by doing all sorts of part time jobs including bar work, handing out flyers, helping out in shops and stores and even busking!

OK the last one is maybe not a real job I guess, but it was pretty good cash and it taught me a very valuable lesson that I could make money doing something that I loved and I could also work in my own time without a boss looking over my shoulder 24-7 or breathing down my neck (Isn’t this counted as harassment these days?)

Some days I would pop out in the morning with my trusty, but rusty guitar and spend an hour on the London Underground – The district line, that’s where all the record companies (and rich folks) were and i’d make a nice little earner.
£20 was considered a very poor result and on average I was pulling in around £40-£60 per hour depending on whether I could be bothered to “work?” or hang out with the other buskers drinking copious amounts of tea and avoiding the transport cops.

Now, i’m not here to tell you guys to learn the guitar and do what I did – those days are over my friend – However, what I will advise is find something where you can utilise your talents and be paid for doing something that you enjoy.

This is where the point of the post is

There are a few micro job sites online and one of my favourites is this one – dedicated to helping students all over the world make a bit of extra cash in their spare time by performing jobs, services or promotion in their own skill set that only takes a few minutes to complete but makes the buyers life a lot easier and cost a lot less than if they were paying a professional freelancer.

How it works

• The seller posts their job for free and shares it via social media eg. Facebook, twitter etc.
• The buyer orders the job via paypal or credit/debit card (each job is only £5).
• The seller completes the work in the allotted time-scale (set by the seller) and delivers the work.
• The buyer reviews the work and once they are happy, gives feedback on the completed job.
• The seller is paid and withdraws their money to their paypal account.

There are a few things to take into account when posting your jobs:

1. Only post jobs that take a maximum of 15 minutes – You don’t want to be working for any less than £20 per hour
2. When choosing how many days the job will take, allow for time differences, holidays etc. – Bad feedback will impact on future sales.
3. Keep in touch with the buyer and let them know how you’re getting on.
4. PROMOTE YOUR JOB. This is the biggie! The more you share your job on facebook and twitter etc, the more orders you’ll get, the better your feedback will be and err… the more orders you’ll get!

CLICK HERE to visit JacksAlive.com

Well, that’s it folks. I hope you’ll find this post useful. If you did, please show some love with a “like, share, tweet, comment” etc. Have a great day all!

Summer Jobs For Students All Year Long!

Hey Folks!

As Summer’s nearly over and a load of you are going back to university, college, school and further education, I thought i’d drop in a quick blog post with some tips on making those summer jobs last a whole lot longer.

Now, some of you who are new to this site probably haven’t had the pleasure of selling micro-jobs and making a tidy income on the side. You’ve probably been in a bar / restaurant / etc working your fingers to the bone doing something that’s not utilising your skills as AWESOME creative entrepreneurs. So why do it?

Well, now you don’t have to! You can sign up to Jacks Alive (yes, it’s free and always will be), create a job that is in your skill set and post it out on Facebook, Twitter and a load more social networking sites. You can even have a look and see what other people are doing on the site and tweak it so that it’s got your spin on it and make it unique.

Summer Student Jobs

The deal with Jacks Alive is that the marketplace is set up so you don’t need any Start Up Capital, you don’t need a huge client base to get started, you dont need payment infrastructure (although you will need a Paypal account so you can get paid) PLUS you’re not tied into a Business Location with high rents – you don’t even need your own website as all the promo is done using the viral power of Social Media.

You do have a Facebook account right?

Good.

It really is a ‘win-win’ situation with sellers using their skills providing resources and services that only take them a little while, through to the buyers who can utilise this expertise at a fraction of what they would normally pay an outsourcing company.

Jacks Alive is constantly looking for ways to help their customers improve the services that they offer – Keep an eye on the blog for regular updates and remember… summer jobs for students doesn’t need to be menial labour at minimum wage. Before you know it you could be pulling in thousands of pounds if you know how to promote yourself.

The only thing holding you back is your imagination. Good Luck & Happy Selling!

It takes a pretty special concert for you to go out afterwards and daub graffiti on the walls saying that the guitarist is God. That is exactly what famously happened after an Eric Clapton concert though.

I have taken advantage of the internet’s many resources to download some of his finest works – it is still legal to do that, isn’t it? I was wondering fairly idly whether the great man had ever heard of SEO.

Well, lo and behold, it seems that Slowhand not only knows about it but he was giving out SEO advice before it even existed. I know it sounds weird but here is the evidence.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

I might be wrong but I think that this could be the only song ever to mention both the hero from Homer’s Odyssey and crimson shells. Clapton didn’t actually write the lyrics; they were handed to him written on a beer mat apparently. However, his guitar playing and ideas helped bring it alive. What does Tales of Brave Ulysses tell us about SEO work? Well, to me it shows that you can bring fresh and edgy ideas to any subject. He had previously applied his deadly guitar work mainly to old blues songs but here he was playing on a song which talked about, well, I am not really sure what it talks about to be honest. Somehow it works and what it can teach us it that it is worth taking chances and doing something completely different. If you have a weird sounding idea for making your SEO projects work better then you should go for it just like Clapton and Cream did.

Badge

This is another Cream classic and it always sounds to me like an amazing guitar solo which has had a song tacked onto it because he didn’t know where else to put it. Maybe that is being a big harsh but how else do you explain the lyrics about swans in the park and the kid who got married to Mabel? It works though and I can find a link to SEO in here as well. You can always find ways to fit in your best bits of work, even when it might not seem immediately obvious how. I keep a folder with my best unused SEO articles and another with vague ideas I have had floating around my head. Sometimes they languish in there for ages before I use them but they almost all come in useful at some point. I like to think that Clapton had a couple of folders, one with “Daft Lyrics about Swans” written on it and the other called “Brilliant Solos with No Song Attached”. It was then just a question of combining the two.

Change the World

This is a lovely song from later on in his career, isn’t it? His singing has improved notably from the early days and the message in the song is fantastic. Who wouldn’t want to change the world? Can you do this with your SEO work? I don’t see why not. If you want to help people find what they are after and enjoy doing it then I think you should do exactly this. There is no rule which says that SEO has to be a boring exercise in looking at keywords and building links. Instead, you can bring it alive by imagining how you can make the end user experience better and enhance the site’s ranking at the same time. You might not become God and change the world completely but you can make it a little bit better for some people, and that has got to be a good feeling.

For a great experience which lets you forget about your poor search ranking blues you need to turn to an SEO company with the ability to do things differently when it is needed.