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Ultimate SEO Toolbar For FireFox

Those of you looking for a great SEO centric toolbar to add on to your FireFox installation are in luck. Aaron Wall, the man behind SEOBook.com released a FireFox extension called SEO Toolbar. This extension is packed full of features.

After installation, you should notice an entire toolbar added to your FireFox browser which contains at a glance icons that tell you the domains PageRank, Number of Yahoo DomainLinks, Yahoo Links, DMOZ entries, Yahoo Directory Entries, Best of the web entries, Archive.org Site Age, Compete.com Ranking, SEMRush.com Traffic Value and more.

Asides from providing numerical information, the toolbar also contains a toolset which includes a Search Engine Rank Checker, SEO XRay tool which outlines SEO specific elements on a webpage, Rank Checker, Keyword suggestion, Keyword Highlighter, No Follow Link Highlighter, and a site compare tool.

In a video published on the SEO Toolbar homepage, Aaron states that the first release of this extension will be free but he is unsure if it will stay that way forever. So if I were you, I’d grab myself a copy of this extension as it’s light weight, customizable, and essentially, an entire SEO Suite that can be used within the browser.

Hat Tip To The AussieGeekPodcast

January Performancing Theme Release: Too Newsy

We are pleased to announce the January, 2009 Performancing Themes for WordPress release: Too Newsy. A three-column theme, Too Newsy uses minimal images and earthy colors, and a few touches of elegance, contributing to that old-world feel.

The theme features widget-ready sidebars, which can accommodate several different image dimensions (suitable for button and banner ads). The theme also supports the default CSS alignment and caption classes in WordPress 2.6 and above, and it is the first Performancing Theme to support new WordPress 2.7 features out of the box:

  • Threaded and paginated comments
  • Post classes
  • Image captions and gallery classes

Another highlight of Too Newsy is the use of the sidebar for snippets of the latest posts in a pre-defined category (which is by default the “features” category). This can be useful for bloggers who wish to highlight certain posts, such that they are not pushed down too soon by newer ones. The theme also supports gravatars out of the box.

You can see a live preview of Too Newsy here. Usage notes and download links are here.

Too Newsy is another collaboration with Splashpress Media designer Sophia Lucero, who previosuly brought us the Rubidious Theme, and various other designs in the Splashpress network.

Have You Moved Your FeedBurner Account?

Have you logged into FeedBurner.com lately? If you have, you may have noticed a message at the top of your browser letting you know that all accounts are being moved away from FeedBurner to Google. If you haven’t moved your account just yet, you have until February 28th, 2009 to do so. So today, I decided to move my account over to Google and figured I’d share my experience in case you were wondering how difficult of a process it is.

The process was simple enough. You tell Google which account you want your FeedBurner feeds to be moved to and then, you select the Move option which will move the feeds off of FeedBurners hardware onto Google’s. According to FeedBurner, their algorithms for detecting the number of subscribers to a given feed is more accurate on Google which may be the reason why some people have seen a decline in their numbers after the move.

My account only contained about 5-6 different Feeds which took about 30 seconds to move. Once the move is complete, you’re given a new URL that allows you to manage your account: http://feedburner.google.com.

As I was going through this process of moving accounts, I realized that I still use the FeedBurner Feedsmith plugin for WordPress which consolidates all of the various Feed URLs generated by WordPress into one FeedBurner feed. Once you move your account over, be sure to visit this plugins settings page and change the feed url to the new one or else visitors will be subscribing to a feed that doesn’t exist.

Have you had any troubles moving your account from Feedburner to Google?

pMetrics Plugin Updated for WordPress 2.7

Folks who use the Performancing pMetrics plugin for WordPress might be experiencing glitches with WordPress 2.7, due to some incompatibilities. Because of this, we’ve upgraded the pMetrics Plugin to version 1.1.

Download the updated plugin here.

AlphaInventions – New Way To Get Traffic?

Today I stumbled across a website called AlphaInventions.com. I decided to check it out after noticing quite a few blog posts commenting that the site delivered a surge in traffic after their site was added to the AlphaInventions system. So what is this site all about?

AlhphaInventions.com was created by Cheru Jackson who was a bored 20 something that created AI as an experiment to see if Bloggers and their audience could connect in real-time. As Cheru mentions, if you were to leave a comment on a blog post soon after the post was published, you have a very good chance of getting noticed by that blog author and connecting with them. I agree although the chances of connecting go way down with the inclusion of scheduled posts.

So how does it work? AlphaInvenstions.com has a spot at the top of the browser which is like a dashboard. Blogs which have been submitted by individuals that have recently been updated appear in the window below the dashboard for about 5-10 seconds. Then, a new site is loaded. So far, I’ve logged about 250 blog views on the site. While it doesn’t seem like all blog posts are hot off the press as I noticed some which were published a day or two ago, most of the blogs presented to the visitor do live up to the sites purpose. Also, if you see a blog post of interest and forget to hit the pause button, you’ll be hard pressed to find it again as there is no way to navigate amongst the entries.

I can easily see how it could be addicting to just sit on the page and watch blog updates whiz by as they happen. The feeling of being first to read content produced by someone is sort of a weird experience, one that apparently many people share and enjoy considering the large amounts of traffic blogs that have been submitted to the system enjoy.

As an experiment, I added the Performancing.com site to the list while at the same time, monitoring the traffic in real time with the Spy feature found in Pmetrics. As soon as the site was submitted, I noticed a 10-20 visitors immediately hitting the site. I’ll update this post to reflect how much traffic was received after this update goes through the AI system. Also wanted to let you know that I tried submitting the URL to my WPTavern Forum and it went through. I immediately saw 10-20 people hit the forum front page.

I also wanted to mention that AI has an interesting way of making money. When you submit a site to their system, you are taken to a page which contains an explanation as to the site that was bumped out of the rotation as well as two Paypal buttons. You can purchase a AIID# which will enable you to keep your site within their rotation system for much longer than if it were submitted for free.

Conclusion:

AlphaInventions seems like a Blog version of StumbleUpon both in terms of how it works but it remains to be seen if you’ll receive the same amount of traffic or more. However, just like StumbleUpon or Digg, the traffic doesn’t seem sticky. Still, an increase in numbers for your monthly stats is nice no matter how you do it as long as it came from a natural occurrence.

If you happen to submit your blog to AlphaInventions, please leave a comment and report on your experiment.

Perfcast Episode 21 – Launching The Blog

In episode 20, we covered the various things you should consider before launching a new blog/website. Continuing with the series “Launching The Blog” David and I cover a lot of ground as it relates to getting the site off the ground. When you listen, be prepared to hear a lot of useful information as we moved from topic to topic pretty quickly.

software Choices
WordPress
Movable Type
etc…

Initial Content
Mix of Content
Link Bait
Resource Bait
Average Articles

Pages
About
Contact
Archives

First Impressions: Design
Logo and Branding
Design or in our case: WordPress theme

Basic Advertising Considerations
Ads now or later?
Basic Ad Terminology:
CPC
CPA
CPM

Which ad system to use?
AdSense
Adify
Commission Junction

Social Media
Why is Social Media promotion is important?
Which social media site fits our niche?
Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Delicious
*Tip: Don’t always seed your own articles, but get them out there anyway you can

Getting Press
Beyond Social Media
Using network connections
Contacting competition

Call to Action
Ask for people’s opinions
Ask people to do something (comment, submit story to digg, etc…)

LINKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW
shareasale.com
wickedfire.com
99designs.com
forums.digitalpoint.com
performancingads.com
talkfreelance.com
oiopublisher.com

LISTENER FEEDBACK – You can give us your feedback by shooting us an email at, [email protected] or leave a comment on this blog post.

LENGTH OF EPISODE – 1 Hour 11 Minutes

NEXT EPISODE – January 29th, 2009 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES – Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode21.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 21 OF PERFCAST:

Open Source Screen Capture Tool – Lightscreen

I’ve mentioned before in previous posts how I have come to love my purchase of SnagIt which is screen capture software developed by TechSmith. However, I’ve always got my eyes peeled for free alternatives. Today I’d like to feature Lightscreen. Lightscreen is an open source, free application for Windows that enables you to quickly create screen captures. In no particular order, the software contains the following feature set:

  • Directory – You can configure which directory images are stored in after creation
  • Filename – Enables you to create an automatic naming structure for your images
  • Format – Choose between .PNG, .JPG, or .BMP image formats
  • Delay – Program a delay in the form of seconds before the software becomes activated

You can also configure hotkeys for Lightscreen so that the program is only activated by a key stroke combination. Out of the box, Lightscreen supports capturing the entire screen, a window, or user specified screen area. Last but not least, you can configure the image quality for the screenshots.

If you’re looking for just a utility to take screen captures, this tool may be the right one for the job although, I have become increasingly spoiled by the post screen capture editing tools provided by SnagIt. Something Lightscreen does not currently offer.

3 Ways To Consolidate Your Social Media Icons

While there doesn’t appear to be a new social media site opening at every blink of the eye like in 2007, there are still many blogs/websites which feature anywhere between 4-7 social media/bookmarking icons to entice readers to share their content on those networks. Just before 2008 came to a close, Lorelle VanFossen touched on this subject in a blog post entitled WTF Blog Clutter: Bookmarking and Site Submission Icons. Fast forward from 2007 to today and it’s pretty clear which services have become popular with a core audience and which ones are still on the slow growth curve. This means it’s time to shave back those icons you have under or above each one of your blog posts. But lets say you don’t want to get rid of them. There are a few services that exist today which consolidate all of those icons and submission sites into a neat little button or link. Here are three of them.

ShareThis – What started out as a WordPress plugin from what I can remember, ShareThis has turned into a full fledged movement. While the RSS icon has taken off to signify the visual presence of syndication, the ShareThis icon is quickly becoming the standard of letting visitors know that a particular piece of content can be shared in any number of ways such as through user chosen social media services, posting the entry to a blog right from the widget or, an email form.

Add To Any – Before I discovered ShareThis, I found this gem which provides a choice between two buttons. One for subscribing and the other for sharing. The buttons take up very little real estate and can be used without registering any type of user account. After configuring the button, Add To Any gives you a block of Javascript code which you can then embed into a WordPress Text widget or wherever you want the button to appear.

AddThis – AddThis is pretty similar to Add To Any but contains more button graphics to choose from as well as additional benefits to being a registered user such as button statistics. You don’t need a registered account though if you just want a quick and easy way for visitors to bookmark or share your content. If you end up using AddThis, be sure to check out their help section as it contains a lot of great info on how to extend the widgets functionality.

Conclusion:

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, many different sites and services like the three I just described sprung up across the web during 2007 as every idea imaginable by an Internet startup was granted funding. There are many more options to choose from if you’re looking for something a little different but I’ve used each of these services and I can vouch that all of them do exactly what they’re supposed to. Currently, I’m a big fan of ShareThis since it contains the email form.

So do yourself a favor and re-evaluate how many of those social media icons you have floating around your content. Ask yourself if they are more of an annoyance, or if they are being used at all for them to still be there. If not, look into replacing those icons with one. This will at least help you clean up the look and feel of your blog.

Do you use a service like the ones I described in this post? Let me know which one you use in the comments.