OK, so you’ve thought about a fantastic name for your company and it’s time to purchase your website domain. Before you hit the purchase button, it’s always a good idea to run your decisions past someone else.

Why? Because, by shortening two words or more by simply removing the spaces in your business name, your domain name could attract an unwanted audience.

All of the businesses below didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their URLs might appear – or be misread…

So you want to find out the name of the agent or agency that represents any celebrity in the world, so you can book them for your upcoming event? Who better than ‘Who Represents’ [www.whorepresents.com]?

You’re a programmer and you need advice or want to provide advice to other programmers. Where better than ‘Expert Exchange’ [www.expertsexchange.com]?

Looking for a pen? Look no further than ‘Pen Island’ [www.penisland.net]?

Need a therapist? Try ‘Therapist Finder’ [www.therapistfinder.com]?

In Italy and need to contact a power company? ‘Italian Power Generators’ can be found at www.powergenitalia.com

And don’t forget the ‘Mole Station Native Nursery’ in New South Wales 
[www.molestationnursery.com].

If you’re looking for ‘IP computer software’, there’s always www.ipanywhere.com.

Decided you have found God and want to attend church? Then you might want to head over to the ‘First Cumming Methodist Church Web’. Their website is www.cummingfirst.com.

And finally the designers at ‘Speed of Art’ await you at their wacky Web site – 
www.speedofart.com.

The serious point is, always check your domain spelling and the way it reads. It saves on embarrassing marketing issues or red faces in front of clients later on.

The above article was written by Alan Anderson of Blue Tube Design.

Today, January 6th 2010, the UK has been gripped by ’snow fever’. The main TV news, tabloids, social media networks, everything and everybody has had just the one subject to talk about – snow!

The image accompanying this article is of my koi pond and garden, taken with my Nokia N95 mobile phone at 8.00am. Looks pretty doesn’t it?

Due to the weather (we’re talking snow here of course) I was forced to stay at home. This gave me the opportunity to do all kinds of online tasks – including writing for various blogs and websites and also updating the keywords on my ‘main’ website – www.davcomedia.co.uk -though to be honest, they were all labours of love.

I could just have easily done all of it from an internet cafe, the local library, McDonalds or a thousand other places with free wi-fi hotspots.

Publishing content to the internet is now so easy and I strongly recommend anyone who is thinking about blogging to stop thinking and start blogging.

All you need is a blogging platform (WordPress is my preference), a subject to write about and access to the internet. That’s it.

What are you waiting for – get blogging.

Ian Davies
Editor

There are literally thousands of guys (and gals) making a small fortune from their blogs, and in some cases a big fortune!

How do they do it?

There are many ways: Google adspace, affiliate schemes, advertising, product sales and more. They make it look easy to rake in a lot of cash, but if it was so easy everyone would be doing it!

Now I’m not a pro blogger. It takes time and hard work to make a full-time income from blogging and, frankly, I don’t have the time. However, I do make a small income from this blog (around £100 a month) and you can from yours too.

One easy way to generate money is by becoming an internet hosting reseller. It’s a method I use via a company called Heart Internet based in Nottingham.

Reseller hosting is a simple process and this is how I do it.

I pay Heart Internet £29.99 (plus VAT) per month and for that fee I get unlimited web space, unlimited bandwith and I can host unlimited websites. It’s a really impressive package with all the whistles and bells I need. I am then free to sell hosting to others at any price I like. I tend to resell hosting packages at around £20 PER YEAR per website, so I only need to sell two packages a month to make a profit and believe me it’s easy! I average around four packages each month without any effort at all! I’m sure I would make a very healthy profit if I promoted the service.

If becoming a reseller interests you I can highly recommend Heart Internet. The product they offer is excellent and their customer service is very impressive too.

Want to know more about Reseller Hosting with Heart Internet. You can find more information here.

Ian Davies
Editor

Regular readers of Blogging Crew know we are evangelical about using WordPress. Frankly, we love it! However, although downloading the core files is pretty easy, setting up everything else can be a little daunting, and more than a little time consuming when all you really want to do is start writing!

Thankfully, Davco Media can take all of that hassle away from you. They are now offering a new service, which includes hosting, installation and setting up WordPress for you.

The cost of the package is only £24.50. That’s a special offer price until December 31st as it usually costs £39. It really is a brilliant offer!

You can find more information about the package here and let Davco Media set up your WordPress blog in no time.

After a trawl through them, these plug-ins could provide your WordPress powered website with the added functionality to make it even better.

Take a look at these selections:

Google Analytics for WordPress:
One of the essential downloads, this plug-in will automatically add your Google Analytics tracking to all your blog’s pages.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

Easy AdSense:
Use your blog to make money with Google AdSense. This plug-in allows you to customise how your adverts are displayed without having to manually add the code to every page.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-adsenser/

AdRotate:
Show multiple and/or random banners on your website to maximise revenue.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adrotate/

Contact Form 7:
Customisable contact form with the option to add CAPTCHA’s
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

GD Star rating:
Allow your blog’s readers to rate your post (or anything else) out of 10 with this highly customisable star rating.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gd-star-rating/

Twitter for WordPress:
Display your latest Tweets on your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-for-wordpress/

Subscribe2:
Automatically sends your blog’s subscribers an email when you add a new post to your site.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe2/

NextGEN Gallery:
Add some colour to your blog with a slick Flash-based image slideshow.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

WP-Print: Creates a printable version of your blog pages.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-print/

Smart Youtube:
Insert YouTube videos without any messy formatting.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/smart-youtube/

Events:
List upcoming events in your sidebar or on a separate page.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-events/

Breadcrumb NavXT:
Automatically generate breadcrumb navigation on your blog to aid usability.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/

WP Forum:
Add a simple forum to your blog fully integrated with WordPress.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpforum/

Who is online:
Display how many guests and users are currently viewing your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/who-is-online/

AmazonFeed:
Sign up as an Amazon affiliate and display their adverts quickly and easily using this plug-in.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazonfeed/

Article Templates:
Create post templates if your posts commonly follow the same format.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/article-templates/

MP4 Player Plugin:
Add MP3 files to your site for people to easily listen to and enjoy!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mp3-player-plugin-for-wordpress/

Vote It Up:
Adds voting functionality to your posts for readers to vote for or against your posts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/vote-it-up/

404 notifier:
Get informed by email or RSS if a visitor to your site is shown a 404 error.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/404-notifier/

WP to top:
Add a “Back to the top” link in to your posts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-top/

Get Recent Comments:
Shows the most recent comments on your blog in a side widget to help encourage further comments.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-recent-comments/

PayPal donations:
Take payments using PayPal.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/paypal-donations/

GravatarGrid:
Displays the Gravatars of all your commenters as a mosaic in the sidebar of your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gravatargrid/

My Page Order:
Change the order of your pages with a drag and drop interface.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-page-order/

Google XML Sitemaps:
Create a Google XML-compliant Sitemap of your WordPress blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Have fun!

WordPress makes it easy to break up long posts so you can save space on your home page. Simply insert the ‘more’ tag while editing a post, and WordPress will display the text that comes before it as a “teaser” followed by a link to the rest of the post.

By default, when a reader follows the link, the single-post page is loaded and the browser “jumps” to the next piece of text. This jump can be disorienting, and some bloggers prefer to link their teasers to the full post instead of the anchor. I certainly prefer to do this.

Unfortunately, the only way to avoid this “jump” is to hack the WordPress source code. Even if you’re comfortable with hacking your source files, you’ll have to remember to do it every time you upgrade your WordPress installation and that’s a real pain.

Thankfully, I recently came across a brilliant plugin called StripTease which makes this task a sinch. It does all the code hacking for you!

The StripTease plugin is a simple filter that changes WordPress’s default teaser links so that they link to full posts.

Installation is a doddle:

1. Download and unzip striptease.zip file. You can get it here.

2. Put the striptease.php plugin file in your WordPress plugin directory.

3. Activate the StripTease plugin on your WordPress plugins management panel.

The StripTease plugin doesn’t require any configuration. Once it’s activated, it will immediately begin stripping the “more” fragments from your teaser links and anyone clicking on your “read more” teaser will see the entire post.

This plugin gets a glowing endorsement from me!

If you have, great. If you haven’t, I’d suggest you should.

A common blogging goal is to reach the milestone of X number of followers. Aiming for 100 initially, then 1,000, then 5,000 and so on.

Many Twitter users, perhaps even the majority, strive towards achieving a specific ‘followers’ goal.

Yesterday (May 13th 2009) Xavier Lur had 66,988 followers on Twitter!

So who is Xavier Lur?

Xavier is the most followed 15-year-old on Twitter and a blogging phenomenon from Singapore. His TechXav blog is an absolute mine of information on new technology and social media.

A self-confessed ‘geek’ Xavier loves to write and clearly has a flare for his passion.

“I’m just a 15-year-old student who loves blogging and I am keen to share my tech knowledge with all you guys via my blog. Running this tech blog is just one of my interests and a place for me to kill time.

“I blog on TechXav about Web 2.0 apps, online tips and news. I have good experience in technology (especially the Internet), search engine optimization (SEO), web designing, the blogosphere and even the Twitterverse.”

Xavier has wisely suspended writing any posts as he’s in the middle of exams at school. A smart move. That said, there’s no doubt his posting will come thick and fast once his exams are over.

Does Xavier’s long-term career goal include blogging?

“I’ve planned to put professional blogging as part of my hobby and my main careers goals is to become a financial investor just like Warren Buffett and maybe a psychologist (not so sure yet).”

Although Xavier is without doubt the driving force behind his TechXav blog, he does have the luxury of a co-editor to help him. 14-year-old Zhou Tong, who has a ‘mere’ 1,007 Twitter followers. I suspect that’s a goal achieved… 7 followers ago!

Their partner? Perhaps.

Their Children/Parents? Probably.

Lists? 100% guaranteed.

What about a list of lists? Absolute utopia!!!

Here’s a top 40 list of lists for you to dribble over, all related to building, managing and marketing a website.

They have been grouped in to categories to help you find the juicy bits you’re interested in easily.

Scripting (HTML/ CSS, PHP, Javascript etc…)

20 Useful PHP Components & Tutorials for Everyday Project:
http://www.noupe.com/php/20-useful-php-components-tutorials-for-everyday-project.html

53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css-techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/

70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/08/70-new-useful-ajax-and-javascript-techniques/

Top 30 Ruby on Rails Tutorials:
http://webdeveloper.econsultant.com/ruby-rails-tutorials/

Web design

100 Websites With Outstanding Artistic Design:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/12/100-websites-with-outstanding-artistic-design

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

Top 100 best fonts of all time (German website):
http://www.100besteschriften.de/

Top 100 CSS Designs of 2007:
http://www.nerdbusiness.com/blog/top-100-css-designs-2007

Top 100 CSS Designs of 2008:
http://www.nerdbusiness.com/blog/top-100-css-designs-year

A Collection of 30+ Free Stock Photo Sites:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/05/a-collection-of-30-free-stock-photo-sites/

Top 10 Sites for Web Designers:
http://tutorialblog.org/top-10-sites-for-web-designers/

50 Useful Design Tools For Beautiful Web Typography:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/27/css-typographic-tools-and-techniques/

20 Steps to Better Wireframing:
http://thinkvitamin.com/features/20-steps-to-better-wireframing/

20 Free & Open Source Image Galleries for Web Designers:
http://www.cmdshiftdesign.com/blog/2008/11/17/free-image-galleries/

99 Resources for Web 2.0 Design:
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/web-20-design/

Top 20 CSS galleries (and more):
http://www.web-design-list.com/

Top 34 Web Design Mistakes:
http://www.bootstrike.com/Articles/DesignMistakes/

Freelancing

12 points to include in your design contract:
http://freelanceswitch.com/clients/what-should-be-included-in-a-design-contract/

7 Tips For Writing A Winning Web Design Proposal:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/03/7-tips-for-writing-a-winning-web-design-proposal/

10 Steps To The Perfect Portfolio Website:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/26/10-steps-to-the-perfect-portfolio-website/

Web copy & Blogging

5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang:
http://www.copyblogger.com/5-simple-ways-to-open-your-blog-post-with-a-bang

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/

10 Blogging Tips for 2009 to Make It Your Most Successful Blogging Year Ever:
http://www.bloggingtips.com/2008/12/31/10-blogging-tips-for-2009-to-make-it-your-most-successful-blogging-year-ever/

10 Writing Tips for Web Designers:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/02/10-writing-tips-for-web-designers/

Social media

27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today:
http://www.smbceo.com/2009/03/25/top-27-twitter-applications/

10 ways to measure social media succes:
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3407-10-ways-to-measure-social-media-success

25 Free Social Media Marketing & SEO Ebooks, White Papers + Other Downloads:
http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2009/03/25-free-social-media-marketing-seo-ebooks-white-papers-other-downloads.html

200 Blog Posts on Social Media:
http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=1787

Online marketing

Top 100 SEO & Internet Marketing Blogs:
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/seo-blogs/

9 mistakes when creating [PPC] ad text:
http://www.ppchero.com/9-mistakes-when-creating-ad-text/

13 myths of pay per click:
http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/ppc/13-myths-of-pay-per-click/#comment-100985

10 Ways To Increase Your Adwords Quality Score – A Mini Case Study:
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/10-ways-to-increase-your-adwords-quality-score-a-mini-case-study/

7 Tips For Finding & Expanding Your Negative Keywords:
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/how-to-build-a-negative-keyword-list/

10 sales and marketing tips I learned from strippers:
http://www.onlymarketingjobs.com/jobboard/cands/newsview.asp?id=1511&nc=&ex=

Top HTML Email Coding Mistakes:
http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/top-html-email-coding-mistakes/

Software/ programs

Free HTML Editors, Web Editors, and WYSIWYG Web Editors and Site Builders:
http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmleditors.shtml

Top 40 Free Downloadable Open Source Social Networking Software:
http://www.vivalogo.com/vl-resources/open-source-social-networking-software.htm

Analytics, optimisation & usability

14 free tools that reveal why people abandon your website:
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/understanding-your-visitors/

108 ways to improve your conversion rate (scroll down page to find):
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/101-google-website-optimizer-tips/

10 Web Analytics Tools For Tracking Your Visitors:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/26/10-web-analytics-packages-for-tracking-your-visitors/

10 Usability Tips for Web Designers:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/12/10-usability-tips-for-web-designers

Thank you to all of the webmasters involved in writing all of this wonderful content. Without them there would be no list.
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Don’t know much about Drupal? Here goes…

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize content on a website. Drupal powers a wide variety of websites, including…

1. Community web portals
2. Discussion sites
3. Corporate web sites
4. Intranet applications
5. Personal web sites or blogs
6. Fan sites
7. E-commerce applications
8. Resource directories
9. Social Networking sites

Straight out of the tin

Drupal is ready to go from the moment it’s downloaded. There are dozens of freely available add-ons to privide impressive functionality, including:

10. Content Management
11. Blogs
12. Forums
13. Peer-to-peer networking
14. Newsletters
15. Podcasting
16. Picture galleries
17. File uploads and downloads

Whilst Drupal can’t challenge WordPress when it comes to the quantity of themes available, there is still plenty of choice. Take a look at drupal2u.com (over 230 FREE themes), alldrupalthemes.com, templatemonster.com (207 premium themes) and topnotchthemes.com (premium themes) to give you some idea of what is available.

Blatant plug

Although the software is free, a Drupal site requires 3rd party hosting (unlike Blogger for example). I offer a brilliant blog hosting package. For further information please take a look HERE.

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]]> http://bloggingcrew.com/2009/05/drupal-themes/feed/ 0 http://bloggingcrew.com/2009/05/short-url/ http://bloggingcrew.com/2009/05/short-url/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 10:00:13 +0000 admin http://bloggingcrew.com/?p=800 Tinyurl.com is a brilliant service. If you’re new to blogging and don’t know anything about it, tinyurl.com allows you to transform really long URLs (Unique Resource Locator – or the web address to you and me) into shorter and user friendly ones.

As an example, the ‘real’ URL of this post is http://bloggingcrew.com/2009/05/short-url/ and by using tinyurl.com the shortened version is http://tinyurl.com/cjbtxo. Reducing it from 42 characters to 25.

In situations where you have a limited space or characters to use, in Twitter for example, where there are only 140 to play with (20 less than a standard text message), it becomes very useful.

A couple of months ago I came across an even better URL shortening service called bit.ly. With bit.ly you can track the stats behind the short link, like how many clicks it got, where the links came from, which country the user was in when he/she clicked and so on. If used with Twitter, the service also tells you if your message has been re-tweeted. It’s all updated in real time too!

If you’re curious, http://bit.ly/psIFY (only 19 characters) is the shortened version of this post!

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