I’ve built hundreds of web sites and understand what goes into the development of them.  I’ve also discovered and learned what ingredients need to be present to properly garner any one of the types of traffic.

So where does your site stand? Are you getting the traffic you expected?  Is your site properly set up to put your best foot forward when Google comes to index your content?  Do you even know?

If you don’t, I’d say it’s time that you find out.  You could be leaving “money on the table” with each passing day that you cannot answer those questions.  So let’s find out!

I’m going to give you a special offer, an offer you are more than welcome to refuse, but I think you’d be mistaken not to take me up on this offer.

With my 15+ years of web development experience, I will take a good look at your web site or blog with a critical eye and pick it apart.  I’ll tell you what problems I find and where you can make changes to help improve your site.  With the list of problems that I’ll provide to you, you can take that list to any web developer and have them begin to make changes, or you can hire me to make those changes for you.

So what’s the cost?

How much does this service cost?  I would say anywhere from $5 to $50 (really, it depends on the site), but I’m going to do something a little different.  I’m going to let you donate an amount that you feel is fair, and with that, I’ll take a look at your site and make a list of problems that I see, or things that you should change to help improve your Google rankings, your SEO, your traffic and your overall appearance.  The more you donate, the more time I’ll spend digging into your site looking for problems or areas that can be improved.

Normally I’ll take about 24-48 hours to provide you my findings, and larger sites might take a little more time than that.  As a general rule though, you’ll have the product of my research a few days after payment.

Money Back Guarantee

You don’t have much to lose with this offer, and I know that you’ll find great value in the list that I’ll provide you.  I’m so convinced of it that I’ll also throw in a 100% money back guarantee.  If you are not completely happy with the service, I’ll refund your money.  Simply let me know what the problem might be, and if we cannot come to a resolution, I’ll give you all your money back.  Consider this my virtual handshake with you.

* You are responsible for all fees incurred during the refund process.

Get Started Today!

Take me up on this offer easily by donating an amount that you feel would be fair.  There is a $5 minimum as anything less really isn’t worth my time, or yours.

I look forward to helping you improve your site! If you have any questions about this service, please feel free to use the comment forms below, or contact me directly if you choose to work in private.

A blog is only as good as the information it provides and the relevancy to the reader. Add to that the belief that there is always someone interested in what you have to say and what you end up with is the need to do a little blog promotion to find those readers.

I’ve finally dumped my blog information into several directories and lists, and the results have been nothing short of phenomenal. Since I have added my site to all the directories you see in my sidebar at the bottom, my traffic has increased by about 100 visitors per day. I know many of you may have thousands of visitors a day, I’m quite pleased to be out of the double digits finally.

If you’ve been hanging around for a while you’ve probably seen a bunch of changes that I’ve done to my site over the past 6 to 12 months. There are a slew of new widget buttons in the sidebar. Each one indicates a service that I’ve added my blog into. One particular one is the BlogTopList widget where each day visitors can ‘Vote for me’, which really means my writing, my blog, my love for cats, whatever, was found worthy and you liked it, and it’s a vote.

The voting widget looks like this:

You’ll find this widget at the bottom of each and every one of my posts. If you happen to like what you read, please give me a vote. It will be there on every post, and each and every day if you vote for me, I’ll be eternally thankful. Really!

If you have already voted for me on prior articles, thanks mucho!

Each day is a new day and you can vote once per day. It will move me up higher in their rankings which in turn should help to increase my traffic. If I see it on your blog and I enjoy your post or your site in general, I too will click it and help you out as well. I’m proactive like that.

Want one?

They’re free! In fact, all the widgets on my blog are free. Why pay right?

If you’d like to also hop on board and get into the BlogTopList, simply fill out this form, submit it and then update your blog with the widgets they provide.

Note: This is a post that has been sitting in my drafts bin for quite some time. I finally found some time to dust it off a bit and present it to you. I’ll be writing a few more posts like this to describe a few more things I have done with my blog, and perhaps they won’t be so targeted toward a single service.

First and foremost, I want to say that when I first started my twitter account last year, I followed many people, perhaps around 50 or so to just get the ball rolling.  I tend to expose myself as much as possible to an application or service to be able to look at every nuance a little easier.  Following one or two people at the start is just that, a start.  I felt I needed to follow a few more people to reveal the real value that Twitter provides. 

However, I haven’t continued on this way.  Oh no.  I followed an initial bulk of people to get the ball rolling.  Now I’m more picky about who I add.  I ask myself “What value are your tweets to me?”, or more appropriately “Umm, who are you?”, which might strike you as terribly elitist, but believe me, it’s not that at all.  It’s absolutely necessary if you actually want to use Twitter for value, and not for numbers.

My Own Rules

For me to follow you, there needs to be something on a social or technical level that I like or enjoy before I follow you.  If I’m going to follow 100 tweeters, 1,000 tweeters or even (oh dear) 10,000 tweeters a day, then you had better be damned sure that I’ve screened you and actually want to hear what you have to say.

So, who does this cut?  Salesmen primarily, and those that are just gaming the system.  Meh, there are a load of users that have a single sales page as their web site on their profile.  I can only equate these to be the digital ages version of a snake oil salesman.

Door: Knock, knock!

Me: Hello?

Them: May we vacuum your floors, de-squeak your doors, and perhaps make you feel like a dirty, broke whore?

Me: No, kindly piss off.  I have girlfriends for that.

Editors note: I’m sooo going to be beaten for that one…but I think it’s worth the insult.  I’ll take it…

There’s plenty of “them” out there, and while I don’t mind if “they” follow me, I’m certainly not down with following “them”.  I don’t need to know what products your selling that I’ll never buy.  It’s a waste of my time, so I avoid them, usually no matter what the hype.

I also avoid (don’t follow):

1. Users that have a single tweet.  Umm, is that all you had to say?
2. Users that haven’t risen beyond the default avatar.  Ok, perhaps you just haven’t gotten to that yet, that’s fine, but those three lonely tweets about your sales site doesn’t interest me at all either.  You are the weakest link, goodbye.
3. Users with bad grammar and incomprehensible tweets.  Huh?!?!  Can you tweet that again?  Never mind.  Hey, is that Billy Barty?!?! Sorry, I must be going.
4. There are many out there that are failing to understand any social etiquette what-so-ever.  These people tend to work the system to their own ends, and really don’t provide valuable tweets to the people following them.  Normally I’d appreciate the ‘punkness’ of it all, but come on.  Why should I bother to follow you, you obviously have intentions other than what the system was designed for.  You might find value in what you’re doing, but you’re wasting the time of your followers.  I call that bad form.
5. Argumentative people.  Yup, they’re everywhere, and I’m certainly one if you poke the right buttons, but I’m much better these days. Thank you.  If someone decides to fling poo like a little monkey in my general direction, you can bet that I’ll be flinging it right back.  You had better have your ducks in a row though, because I tend to fire off razors intended to level anything in their path.  I’m a bastard that way, but you were the bastard first, so I won’t feel any remorse.  It’s always reciprocal, never initial.  If you see it coming, you deserved it most likely.
6. People that are following twice the number that are following them.  I find your intentions questionable.  Perhaps you have honestly found that many people who you honestly want to follow.  It’s possible right?  I’ll give people like this an inspection, like I’d do to most anyone, and I’ll decide if I want to follow you based on what I see. 
7. Celebrities.  I’m a fanboy for very little in this world, especially celebrities.  I found one day that I had followed Britney Spears somehow, or more appropriately, her agents running her Twitter account.  Lord knows she doesn’t have time for Twitter, with the divorce, teaching 6 month olds to drive, dodging the paparazzi and flashing her nu-nu all over Hollywood, but she’s just pathetic anyway.  Dropped.  I’m following Shaq right now too.  What’s funny is that his tweets come across like his after game commentary.  Like he has a mouthful of rocks. (Bring the hate, come on…am I wrong?)

Overall, Twitter is an excellent application for those who have sites to promote, products to sell, or whatever you want to draw attention to.  The approach is critical however.  You just can’t hop on there and start wheeling and dealing your goods.  That will just turn people off and you won’t get far.  It helps to build a relationship with people, and you’ll get more out of it in the long run. 

The Greatest Thing About Twitter Is…

I’ve seen the leading edge of breaking news stories, and in fact I was on the leading edge a few days ago when a 5.0 earthquake occurred here in Southern California and I happened to have my Twitter client up.  It’s quite amazing.  I felt it, and it happened that I could post a tweet while it was happening.  I think I scared a few mid-westerners when I said “Nah, it’s only a 5.0, and it’s not even earthquake weather!”.  I think they were shocked that I was dismissing a 5.0 so easily.

They really aren’t that big.  But then, having been through so many has probably dulled my sense of danger about them.  Perhaps that’s not good.

In any case, I feel I no longer need to watch the news since I have probably already heard about it, as it happens!  We’re talking within minutes of an event, sometimes even less.  That’s nothing short of extraordinary, and amazing how far we’ve come and how small we’ve made this planet.

I still watch the news though.  For now.

About My Twittering Tweeting

I’m a Twitter whore now.  I’ve drank the juice people.  I see a lot of value there when used properly, to myself and my clients.  You can follow me if you like, I’m @waynejohn and my profile can be seen here.

I use TweetDeck to make Twittering more manageable, Twuffer to schedule tweets (sometimes that’s handy…), and TwitPic for tweeting pictures.

I recommend Twitter to those that want to engage the social community eye to eye (as it were), businesses that care about their reputation, and to help grow your sites visitor numbers.  I hope to see you on there!

If you would like to know how to implement a top dropper widget on your Blogger blog, this post right here will show you how to implement a top droppers list on your blogger blog.

What is Entrecard?

I’ll let the intro text on Entrecard explain this for me.

Entrecard is a free blogging network that truly brings visitors to your blog. By joining our network, you can earn Entrecard credits which allows you to display an ad of your blog on other blog sites within our Network.

You can see my Entrecard drop zone over in my sidebar. The graphic is another Entrecard user that has purchased the right (with EC credits) to display their ad on my drop zone.

When other Entrecard users come to visit my site, they click the ‘Drop’ link and leave me what can be called their calling card. If you don’t participate in the network, then you will see a ‘Get One’ message instead.

When visitors drop their card, they earn 1 Entrecard Credit (EC) that they can use towards the purchase of advert space on my blog or any others that participate in the Entrecard blog network. Over time, these credits can add up and you can get advertising on some very highly trafficked sites giving you a great return on the effort in my opinion.

Why Entrecard?

I use Entrecard for a few reasons. First, it helps to drive a little traffic towards my site which is always nice. Secondly, I use it to find other blogs that I may be interested in visiting again and perhaps begin participating in.

It’s another way for me to network with other bloggers as well as advertise my site a little around the Internet. Because of the way Entrecard is built, there is already an inherent comradery amongst Entrecard users that adds oil to the gears of socializing, if I can say it that way.

Premium Drop Site Link List

Due to my own time constraints, I seek out those Entrecard blogs that will give me the most bang for my buck. After a little bit of thought about what sites might be considered better than others in relation to Entrecard and my own needs, I came to the conclusion that sites that provide an easy way to drop (above the fold) and those that also display a list of links showcasing the top droppers on their site would fit the bill.

I call sites like these Premium Drop Sites.

Not only do I get the benefit of the Entrecard system, but these bloggers have made it easy, and they give a little more link love by providing a list of top droppers.

You can see the list I am building on my links page. If I find your blog fits the requirements I’ve set, then you can bet that I’m going to add you onto the list and return daily to visit you and comment on your posts if I find something to say.

Add Your Site To My List

Does your site fit the bill? Do you want a free link placed in my link list so I and other Entrecard users can find your blog and know that you care about them by providing a little more link love than usual? Just leave me a comment below to let me know. I’ll check out your site and add your site to my list if it meets my requirements.

Also leave a little descriptive text that you want following your link also. It’s not required, but will help describe your site to others.

Of course, it is at my discretion to add your link too. If you have questionable content, you will get questionable results from me.

Already On My List?

My list started with the current top droppers on my list, and not all of the existing links on there meet the requirements, but I visit them anyway. Some are very good blogs and people behind them. Being that I will probably never be able to do 300 drops per day, which is the max drops one can do per day, there’s plenty of room for a few rebels.

I constantly find new blogs to add to my list without you asking for it. If you happen to see your link on the list and would like to add a little descriptive text after it, just leave a comment with the text that you would like to follow your link with and I’ll add it in!

I guess I should say that if you want your link removed (I don’t know why you would) simply let me know with a comment below.

In The End

My list will ultimately be a list of sites that I regularly drop on. I may not comment every time since there may not be a new post, but I try to when I have time.

I’m looking forward to seeing your blog, so let me know your address! And oh, for those that have actually read this far, if you refer another blog that also meets the requirements, I’ll give you 100 EC credits as a thank you. I’m setting the amount low to ensure I don’t run out of coin, but I will limit this to 50 people so that I can do another contest later on with bigger amounts.

You might also want to…

Get Started with Entrecard
Entrecard Drop Surf

Not only that, using images will save a little more space than the textual name of each service will, in most cases using images will also be more pleasing to the eyes.   With the space, you could use it for other sites that I don’t have listed here.  While I’m on that topic, if you have other sites you’d like to see in this post, just let me know in the comments.

Images for Social Bookmark

Here is ultimately what we’ll make in this post.  The following images can each be clicked and will perform the same function as the text links.  You can help me by using one or more of these right now for this post right here.  Thanks in advance for helping out!

Where do you get these images?  Pretty much anywhere you want really, assuming they are in the public domain of course, and most are.  You could right click and save the above images you want to implement in your blog, but if you wait a second and continue reading, I’ll share with you another option that will save you a bit of time.  If you don’t like these images and want to use different ones, you can find them on just about any other blog you might visit.

Image Hosting

There’s a problem using images though.  If you want to include images beyond the default set included in your theme, you need to find a place to host those new images.  There are no facilities for adding new images to Blogger (for your posts yes, but not for your template). However there are plenty of free image hosting web sites that provide a nice work-around to this problem.  You only need to upload your image and then get the URL reference for it.

Since both Picasa and Blogger are Google owned services, I decided to upload the above images to a Picasa Web Album and simply refer to the uploaded images in the code you’ll see below.

Now that the images are up on a server you can reference, you can start to build your “string” of social image links for placement within your template.

Note: After I uploaded the images to Picasa, I found that I couldn’t simply grab a reference to the image itself through normal means.  Instead, I had to strip the URL reference from the embed code that Picasa supplies for each image.  The following is what I went through.

Grab the Image Reference from Picasa

The following image shows you where to grab the embed code for an image you are currently viewing in a Picasa Web Album.  It’s the selected text, and I might add that I need to click the “Link to this photo” to expose it.

Simply copy the embed image code.  Here’s what you’ll come back with:

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td>
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/R571Pox03gMJ5jA66zlPSw">
<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKa674MI/AAAAAAAAAYU/FrJLxiWI_8M/s144/twitter.png" />a>
td>tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">
From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/waynejohnjohnwayne/BloggerImages">Blogger Imagesa>
td>tr>table>

You can see in the image tag source (src) property the reference to the image we want.  Simply extract that reference and you can use it wherever you want, even in Blogger templates.

All you need in the end is the image in your personal control, somewhere on the Internet.  If you use someone else’s image on a server that is not in your control, you run the risk of that image disappearing on you in the future.  Not only that, but each time that image is displayed to one of your visitors, the host where the image is will be using their bandwidth to deliver the image to your page.  Not good, and very bad form.

The exception to this rule is below, keep reading to find out more.

Creating the Image Tags

Here’s where the fun begins.  Let’s take a look at one of the existing text links that was built in the prior post.

<a expr:href='"http://twitthis.com/twit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title'>TwitThisa>

You should notice that this will display as TwitThis.  So what do we need to do to make this an image instead of the TwitThis text?  Simple, we need to replace the TwitThis text in the code above to be an image reference instead of static text.  For those that have been following along, you might remember that I wrote a post that explains the image HTML tag in all it’s glory.  Please check out that post for details on the image tag in case you need to know more about it.

Next we’ll remove the TwitThis text and replace it with the image reference, so let’s build the image reference.

Continuing with using the Twitter link, I’ve constructed the following image tag using our reference from the Picasa embed tag:

<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKa674MI/AAAAAAAAAYU/FrJLxiWI_8M/s144/twitter.png"
    alt="TwitThis" />

It’s rather long, and you might not see the file name on the end, but it’s there.  I also added the alt property to the image reference.  If you recall from my prior posts explaining the properties of the image tag, the alt property can be used to supply some text in cases where the image doesn’t show.  It also makes the image tag comply with W3C image standards, and that’s always a good thing.

I decided to also add a title property to the <img /> tag so that when visitors hover their mouse over the image, a tool tip will display that gives them a little more information about the action that will happen if they click it.

The <img /> tag itself may render with a border around it, as did my images on the Views on Life blog.  I didn’t like that, so I added a style property to remove the border.  The end result of these modifications looks like this for the Twitter image reference:

<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKa674MI/AAAAAAAAAYU/FrJLxiWI_8M/s144/twitter.png"
    alt="TwitThis"
    style="border: none;"
    title="Post to Twitter"/>

With the <img /> tag all done up and ready for use, all we need to do is simply replace the <a> tag anchor text “TwitThis” with our <img /> tag.

The end result for the Twitter image link will look something like this:

<a expr:href='"http://twitthis.com/twit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title'>
    <img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKa674MI/AAAAAAAAAYU/FrJLxiWI_8M/s144/twitter.png"
        alt="TwitThis"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Post to Twitter"/>
    a>

As you can see, I’ve removed the TwitThis text and replaced it with a reference to the Twitter icon image hosted on Picasa.  The Twitter icon will now be a link because it is encapsulated between the beginning and ending tags of the anchor (<a>a>) tag.

Help, Don’t Hinder

I have one final thought that I’ll share with you about this.  When a user clicks the image, they will be taken to another site to perform a bookmark or some type of post promotion for you.  While that’s great, you don’t want to have the visitor leaving your site for good.  Perhaps they’re not done yet and would like to remain on your site.  Allow your visitors to leave your site when they wish.  Wanting to bookmark a post is wanting to help you or wanting to remember the location of the story they read, so the intention isn’t necessarily to leave your site.

In the final code below, you’ll see that I added a target=”_blank” property to the <a> tag.  This will open a new window when a user clicks the image.  I felt this was a better approach for these particular links, and if you disagree, you only need to remove the target property from the <a> tag statements.

Wrapping It All Up

This post shows how one can go about including images into the core of their Blogger template, as well as expand on my prior post on adding social links to your Blogger posts.  Since I’ve already done the effort of uploading the images to my own Picasa account, you can piggy-back on that and not worry about uploading your own images.  However, you’ll have to upload your own images if you want to use different images, or you don’t like the ones I chose.

Here is the complete code for all the same services, ready to insert into your template and begin using today if you want to.  Simply copy and paste into your template in the appropriate location as referenced in my prior post.

I promise to never remove the images in my Picasa account.    You can also see it in action here.

Enjoy, the code below is ready to drop into your template!

<a expr:href='"http://twitthis.com/twit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKa674MI/AAAAAAAAAYU/FrJLxiWI_8M/s144/twitter.png"
        alt="TwitThis"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Post to Twitter"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKAmkDgI/AAAAAAAAAYE/KUnCLCefDL0/s144/stumble.png"
        alt="Stumble"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Stumble this post"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&partner=fb&url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnDnGbriI/AAAAAAAAAXk/JOFPfwuzpAs/s144/delicious.gif"
        alt="Delicious"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Bookmark with Delicious"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url="
    + data:post.url' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnDlDzelI/AAAAAAAAAXs/cHSLbPnNovY/s144/digg.gif"
        alt="Digg"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Digg it!"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://technorati.com/faves?add="
    + data:post.url' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnKDlsfvI/AAAAAAAAAYM/dHm6DYOcdus/s144/technorati.png"
        alt="Technorati"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Bookmark with Technorati"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&url="
    + data:post.url+ "&title="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnDX5kBlI/AAAAAAAAAXc/r5Xa7X8fT5c/s144/blinklist.jpg"
        alt="Blinklist"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Save to Blinklist"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u="
    + data:post.url+ "&t="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnEG5ObrI/AAAAAAAAAX0/vj0tH_x6qSs/s144/furl.gif"
        alt="Furl"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Furl It!"/>
    a>
<a expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url="
    + data:post.url+ "&title="
    + data:post.title' target="_blank">
    <img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VChI6-yIxn4/SUqnEXCAC3I/AAAAAAAAAX8/2SwzalInFvE/s144/reddit.gif"
        alt="Reddit"
        style="border: none;"
        title="Save to Reddit"/>
    a>

I’ll update this post in the future should the links change.  You just need to let me know in case you catch it first. 

Are there any other services you’d like to see in this list?  If so, let me know and I’ll update the text link post and this post.

Update!  The Technorati add link performed a search instead.  Please update your templates if you used this code.  Thanks to Diesel for calling this to my attention!

Another Update: Because I love OnlyWire, I need to include the following to ensure that I can continue to use their service.

Installing this tool is one thing, easy.  The flip side to installing this tool is the question ‘Are people going to use it?’.  To help answer that question, I’m writing this post to demonstrate the power of this service.  It all starts with the Feedback link you see snug up against the vertical scroll bar in your browser to the right.  It looks like the one in the image when you move your mouse over it.  It’s out of the way, but there if you need it.

Clicking the feedback link will activate the feedback widget and the following dialog will be displayed.

This displays a list of the top ideas as voted on by other visitors.  You might notice that this particular post is not on the top anymore and has been out-voted by the ‘Add Twitthis, stumble to Blogger Posts’ request.  That will be my next post to write on.  It may not be the next post out the gate, but it will be the one that I’ll focus on.

Clicking the ‘Report a Bug’ link will change the screen to display the following.

With this screen, you can submit an idea or report a bug.  It’s really no different than the existing ‘Contact’ form found on most every blog. 

Submit a Bug

If at any time you come across a bug and are feeling exceptionally helpful, you could report it via the Submit a Bug form.  The form will send an email off to the owner, so your voice is heard immediately.  Of course, you can use this for more than just bugs.  It’s there for you to use for whatever reason you can think of. 

Submit an Idea

The Submit an Idea area is a little more involved.  You can help to shape the posts I write by providing some suggestions of your own; letting me know what you want to know more about, whatever that might be. 

If the idea is already in the list, you can vote for it.  I’ll always work from the top of the stack, it’s just easier that way and would be what people expect. 

If you don’t see your idea in the list, or want to see a complete list of ideas submitted to me, click the ‘Go to our feedback forum’ to see the complete forum in action.

Submit Anonymously or Not?

UserVoice was smart to allow anonymous users to provide ideas.  I believe that will help to encourage more people to submit an idea perhaps, but there are plenty of benefits to creating an account too that I’ll elaborate on in a bit.  Here’s a shot of the screen you’ll see when you are looking at the feedback forum.

You don’t need to have an account to add a suggestion.  Simply type your suggestion into the main textbox extended across the top and hit enter (or click the Search button, it acts like a submit button as well). 

If you do this anonymously, you won’t get any of the feedback that I might add to the request.  In fact, I may have questions for you to further clarify what your suggestion means.  I therefore encourage that if you are going to leave me a suggestion, please also take the time to create an account with UserVoice.  That way, you’ll be kept up to date on the progress of your suggestion or idea. 

There are plenty of features found on this page such as the voting abilities and status markers that show my progress on each item.  You can also add comments to existing suggestions, or see what I’ve completed.

With all the functionality provided, I feel this tool will be around my blog for a while.  In fact, I’m considering removing my contact form altogether, I may no longer need it since this covers the exact same functionality. 

Have you checked it out yet?  I mean, you’ve read this far after all, you might as well check it out, right? 

Tell me what you think guys and gals!  If there are any further questions on how how to use my feedback widget, just let me know. Now you know how.

Including a way for your visitors to bookmark individual posts within your blog is quite beneficial too.  The primary URL used to access your blog is most likely the greatest link you have spread across the Internet, but what about the individual pages?  Bookmarking and linking to the individual pages in your site is also highly beneficial, and providing a way for your visitors to do this easily will only help to improve your blogs standing in search engine results.

Update!  If you want to use images instead of textual links, please see my post on Using Images for your Social Links for Blogger instead.  Code ready!

Blogger Template Modification

To use the social bookmarking items found below, you’ll need to modify your template a little.  And I might say these are untested with the older template system on Blogger.  Being that these apply to each and every post, it makes sense to place all these at the end of each post.  You could add them to the top of each post if you wanted, but that would go against the grain of normal usage in most cases.  If you are not familiar with editing your template, a great place to start is a post I wrote on using the Edit HTML Layout screen in Blogger.

Modify Your Template

To begin, we’ll need to locate a section of the template code to inject these code snippets into.  I decided to modify the Views On Life blog to include these are the end of each post, and you can see them in action there.

You will want to include these snippets immediately after the following lines of code in your template (check the ‘Expand Widget Templates’ checkbox to see this code):

<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>

This will position these new items to sit on top of the default Blogger post footer items such as your name, date of blog post and comment link.  You might also want to add a <br> tag at the end of all the items you add to create a two row list of links.

WordPress Users

If you have a WordPress blog, you might want to check out the post over at Exploding Boy for the same information tailored for WordPress.

Helping By Example

The examples will show you what happens when  you use the exact same code to help me promote this post.  Please show some support if you use any of these by using the examples as well.

 Twitter

Example: TwitThis 

<a expr:href='"http://twitthis.com/twit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title'>TwitThisa>

StumbleUpon

Example: StumbleThis

<a expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title'>StumbleThisa>

Delicious

Example: Save to Delicious

<a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&partner=fb&url="
    + data:post.url + "&title="
    + data:post.title'>Save to Deliciousa>

Digg

Example: Digg This

<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url="
    + data:post.url'>Digg Thisa>

Technorati

Example: Technorati

<a expr:href='"http://technorati.com/faves?add="
    + data:post.url'>Technoratia>

Blinklist

Example: Blinklist

<a expr:href='"http://blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&url="
    + data:post.url+ "&title="
    + data:post.title'>Blinklista>

Furl

Example: Furl

<a expr:href='"http://furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u="
    + data:post.url+ "&t="
    + data:post.title'>Furla>

Reddit

Example: Reddit

<a expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url="
    + data:post.url+ "&title="
    + data:post.title'>Reddita>

Anything Missing?

This post covers a number of sites, but there are more out there.  From the examples above you might be able to derive your own for other sites.  If you want me to create one for you though and update this post I’d be more than happy to, just let me know.

Update: I’ve just found a list of these that are formatted for use with the older template system Blogger used to use.

Another Update! The Technorati link was performing a search and not an add.  It’s been updated above, please update your templates if you used this code.  Thanks to Diesel for calling this to my attention.

A bookmark is really no different than you saving a favorite in your browser, except for the fact that they are either public or private, and Google and other search engines can find them.  Thus increasing the the number of links you have pointing to your site. 

I’ve found a site that will help save you time while bookmarking your links to a number of the social sites out there.  You’ll still need to spend the time to set up your accounts there, but the end results are going to be worth your time.

Why use a social bookmarking site?

In case you are wondering why you might want to use these sites, there are a number of responses to that.  First, you know you need links on external sites that point to your site, right?  This handles that. 

Secondly, having links to your primary domain is nice.  Having links to specific articles and posts is even better.  This is known as deep-linking.  This will help you place those links too. 

Thirdly, it’s yet another way of finding more people to visit your blog or web site.  As some of these sites provide a “friending” mechanism, you can thusly create a following on them to help bring more eyeballs to your site.

Follow the Rules

Each one of the social bookmarking sites listed below acts and behaves in their own way.  They each have their own nuances and community rules.  You should also take the time to become familiar with each one you intend to use on a regular basis.  No need to go and get banned from any because you didn’t know the rules, right?

Update!  Beware of Red Flagging

It has just come to my attention that Google and perhaps some other search engines look for excessive bookmarking and will red flag a site that appears to be abusing social networking for their own gain.  My advice is to use some common sense when bookmarking your own sites and blog posts.  The best way is still to get your visitors to do your bookmarking for you!

Use Social Submitter to speed things up

As one might imagine, there has been a need for a tool to help save people time in this regard.  No one wants to spend the time creating all these backlinks by hand if they can avoid it! There are tools and what-not for marketing a web page or site that exist out there, you just need to find them.  SocialMarker.com is nothing but extraordinary in the way it saves you time spreading your own link love across the Internet.

SocialMarker allows you to enter the title, url, description and tags for a post and then visit 48 different social book-marking sites to post a blurb about your post.  Just hit submit and you’re moving along to the first site.

The first time through, you’ll need to create an account on those sites that you don’t already have an account, and that can take a little time.  Once you have an account on each one though, you’re rolling.  I took the time to establish an account with each and every social bookmark site they had listed, 48 of them.  I was able to spread links to 5 different posts of mine to 48 sites within the scope of 2 hours once I was rolling.

If you happen to want to spread some links around the Internet to some quality, high PR sites, you need to give SocialMarker a look.

The Supported Sites

Some Observations

I don’t normally Stumble my own stuff, so I just click next when that site comes up in the queue.  I also skip the YuppMarks, and HealthRanker, since they don’t look applicable to my blog.  You just need to go through it, and decide for yourself which ones you want to sign up with and may be beneficial to you and/or your site. 

When using SocialMarker, you should check to make sure the values that are being submitted are what you expect.  Some of them look back at your blog and grab from there instead of what you supply into the SocialMarker interface.

Also, some are specific to a particular niche.  Like Health Ranker, it appears to be primarily medical, so I skip that one too.

For those that set off to create accounts on these services, may I also suggest that you take a little time to dress up your profile there.  You can supply your homepage on some, and define an avatar too.  And don’t forget, while your there, add me as a friend and we’ll help each other grow.

Be A Friend?

I’m ‘waynejohn’ on most of these services (some won’t allow you to specify a username).  If you participate in any of them, why not add me as a friend there if you are also on there?  If you have any problems finding me, just let me know on my contact form, or simply leave a comment below.

Do you know of any social bookmarking sites that are not in the above list?  Leave a comment and tell us about it.

A few things I didn’t like about the Skribit widget is that it takes up space, and for you to see the entire functionality, my sidebar needs to be a larger width than what it is today. I can’t really change the width without a cascade of issues, so I was forced to decide between reducing the amount of visible area or find a new place for it where there is plenty of width. Obviously I decided to reduce the viewing area and just live with it. I wasn’t happy about that at all though. UserVoice doesn’t come with those issues.

UserVoice To The Rescue

UserVoice is different. It doesn’t require any space other than the little Feedback tab you can see on the right hand side of the screen. Clicking that will pop open a window where you can type in your email address and a comment. The comments are meant to be a bug, a feature request, a blog post idea or even a generic question you want to fire my way. Hell, it could be whatever you want as long as you’re not trying to sell me something.

Another feature that helped sell me on UserVoice is when you establish your account with UserVoice, you can set up a landing page. You are able to do some limited skinning of the landing page, like provide a logo, customize some of the text and so on. It’s pretty minimal but functional.

It’s also from the landing page that you can elaborate on the question or idea, and also vote on other ideas or suggestions that you agree with or want to see something happen with. All in all, it feels better than the other options, so I have once again switched up on everyone in favor of a better tool.

Installation

Another thing I liked was the ease of installation. A simple script placed before your closing tag is all it takes. With Blogger, you could easily add a new JavaScript/HTML widget to the footer of you template to install it should you want to. Same is true for WordPress or any other blog system that allows you to install custom scripts.

Sub-Domain Your UserVoice Profile

Finally, as if this service couldn’t get any better, you can also create a sub-domain for your profile page on UserVoice. For those that don’t know what this means, it is simply a way for me to include my UserVoice profile page under the waynejohn.com domain. If you navigate to feedback.waynejohn.com, you’ll see that this page is actually my UserVoice profile page. ‘Feedback’ is my sub-domain in this case.

They provide instruction on how this is accomplished, and if you are able to modify your own DNS entries then you should be able to as well.

Conclusion

I’m rolling with UserVoice from here forward, and if you need to get feedback from your users, this is probably the best route I’ve seen outside of some custom, business specific application.

I’ve migrated the existing Skribit suggestions into the UserVoice application and will be working to get those suggestions answered post-haste. I said that I may ditch the Skribit widget if things don’t take off. Well, things crashed for Skribit as far as being on my site any longer. UserVoice is something that I don’t mind keeping up, even if it’s not used that much. The ‘out of the way’ approach is easier to deal with and accept if people don’t use it that much. It’s another means of giving my readers a way to communicate to me, and that is all I want.

If you have some ideas on how to improve UserVoice itself, UserVoice is eating its own dog food and has established a feedback forum for suggestions on how to improve the widget and service.

I hope you find as much value to this application as I have so far. As always, I value your opinions and suggestions, so keep them coming!

If you have not run into PixelHead, henceforth referred to as Adam, the fact that you are reading this means you now have, sorta. I ran into Adam early when I was just starting my blog, and all the while I’ve found that I enjoy his posts. For several reasons.

One, he writes on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and practices. What is that you might ask? Well, what SEO entails is creating web pages (or blog posts, one in the same right?) that are optimized for the best ranking possible in any given search engine. There are always little things that you can do to help you out on this front. These efforts are complimentary to what I write about also, so once you figure out how to build your blog or web site here, you can also use his site to help you optimize it for search engines.

Search engine traffic can account for a good percentage of the traffic your blog or web site receives. Ignoring this means that you could be leaving some traffic on the table as it were. Why not put out a little effort to best prepare your site for the traffic you may get from there?

Just take a look at one of his recent posts titled “Ways to Get Your Website Indexed Fast – FREE Links with Possible High PR!“. He’s literally telling you where to go to help get your site spidered more often with the potential of placing links on some very high PageRank sites!

The second reason I like his site is because he writes on environmental issues. I’ve never fancied myself an environmentalist, and the trail of litter behind me only proves that. However, in light of my aging and the impending world doom, I’ve decided to at least become more aware of those little things that I can do to lessen my burden on the earth. I don’t plan to have any children, so I’m doing this for everyone else’s children, yours included. Ain’t I a nice guy? (Don’t answer that)

Adam also runs a web directory where you can submit your link for inclusion into his directory. This isn’t a free service and there are submission guidelines as well. However the cost is quite affordable from what I’ve seen around the web.

Please check out Adam’s site. If you are interested in learning more about SEO practices and care for the environment, his blog is a great place to get some really good ideas for both. An easy way to do this is to subscribe to his feed.

I would also like to mention that Adam had nothing to do with this post, he didn’t pay for it, nor did he ask for it. I simply wanted to give back where I could to someone that has helped me learn more about some aspects of web site optimization that I haven’t had time to dig into. It’s my way of saying thank you.

Thanks a bunch Adam for all those ideas and tips! I’m glad to have met you online and keep those tips coming!