Micelife » Editorial

Sad Tab

chris — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:06:10 +0000

This a bit of an experiment in predicting the future and getting in early.

Google’s newly created browser, Chrome, has a feature that should mean it never crashes because a web page is badly behaved. Instead, just one tab should crash and an image, known as the Sad Tab, will appear.

As with any new Google product, Google Chrome will generate a lot copy and web sites about it. Getting in their quickly and establishing a site as the home for all Google Chrome news would be a smart move and I’m sure that someone is doing it as I type. I don’t have the time to put in to that sort of project so I’m experimenting with spin off keywords. e.g. the Sad Tab

It is unlikely that “Sad Tab” as a keyword will generate the millions of impressions that “Google Chrome” but it will generate some. “Sad Ipod” generates 6,600 per month, “Sad Mac” 1,900 per month and the “Fail Whale” 590 searches. Not exactly earth shattering traffic but for a couple of hours work and in the spirt of investigation, I want to see if I can get my Sad Tab image on Poosk as the number one result.

This may generate a few t-shirt sales and a bit of traffic but mostly I want to see if my approach pays off so that I can use it for future SEO operations. So the Sad Tab may not make me a fortune but it may make we wiser and this worth the time to create an article on the Sad Tab to support the Poosk page and of course there is this post as well. I plan to plant a couple of comments here and there as well and that is it. What happens next is down to Google and their algorithms.

Guitar Hero: On Tour

chris — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:09:02 +0000

I’m a big fan of the Nintendo DS but I don’t play it a lot. What I like about it is its versatility and great design. |t and similar handheld devices offer new ways of interacting with the world and are great devices for teaching people new skiils. I write about this on Myomancy. Now new game has that I was so smitten by that I’ve set up a web site all about it: Guitar Hero: On Tour

Guitar Hero is a game that is somewhere between playing air guitar and playing a real one. Its great fun, especially at a party with a few friends. It comes with its own guitar shaped controller which posed a problem for a hand held device. However, some smart designers have come up with a great compromise that fits perfectly with the Nintendo DS.

Of course I will be using SEO techniques to promote the web sites. So look forward to more information on my progress.

Match It For Pratchett

chris — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:03:36 +0000

Award winning, best selling author of the Discworld novels, Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In typical style, Terry has decided to use his fame to draw attention to the low levels of funding for research into Alzheimer’s. He has given £500,000 ( $1,000,000 ) to research and has been round the TV and radio stations raising awareness of this terrible but often hidden disease.

In response, the millions of Discworld fans are coming together for Match It For Pratchett. A campaign to match Terry’s £500,000 with £500,000 raised from fans around the world. In just four days, £35,000 has been collected.

If you are a fan of the Discworld or want to help fight a disease which, in Terry’s words, “which strips away your living self a bit at a time” then please donate. There is a donation jar on the web site plus full details of how to give directly to various national charities.

P.s. I’m also the web master for Match It For Pratchett so their may be less updates around here for a while.

Going Superflat

chris — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:58:52 +0000

My latest blog project is Superflat Art. Most people are not aware of Superflat but it is one of the hottest areas in art. Its a Japanese pop-art movement that blends manga / anime imagery with social commentary on the otaku (the obsessive fan-boy culture). Artists such as Takashi Murakami, Chiho Aoshima, Mahomi Kunikata, Yoshitomo Nara, Aya Takano, Koji Morimoto, Hitoshi Tomizawa, Henmaru Machino and many others from Kaikai Kiki Co. and Studio 4°C workshops are all part of the Superflat movement.

From an SEO view point the keyword is Superflat though all the artists names are secondary keywords. The domain was purchased about a week ago, and the first posts on the site, a couple of days later. I’ve just added Google analytics, a sitemap and submitted the URL to Yahoo and Google. Based on past experience, the site should start appearing in the listings with the next week.

The Waiting Game

chris — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:23:17 +0000

One of the most annoying aspect when working on better search engine placement is the waiting game. You write an article and then you wait. Wait until Google indexes it, wait until Google incorporates its links into your target page’s listing, wait until traffic starts to turn up. It can take a day or two or it can take months. Sometimes the rewards can take a year to appear.

An article I wrote on Myomancy about Adderall Side Effects has just reached number one in its search result for its target keywords. I wrote that article in July 2006, a little over 13 months ago. Only now is it generating enough traffic to justify the time I spent writing it.

MiceLife 2.0

chris — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:05:37 +0000

Welcome to the new look MiceLife

When MiceLife started out it was a simple blog about my other blogs. Over time it drifted away from that, never quite finding a niche for itself. So I would use it as a way of link building to my other websites. Then I thought. Why should I be the only one to do this. Everyone should be able to build links and so MiceLife 2.0 was born.

MiceLife 2.0’s purpose is simple. Write a good article, focused on your keywords, that links to your website. These good quality links will boast your site’s standing in Google and drive more traffic to you.

To find out more, check out the helpful articles on Better Seach Engine Placement and Ten Rules for Better Search Engine Placement in our Help and Advice section.

SEO Articles

tregenza — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:33:35 +0000

SEO or Search Engine Optimization to give it its full name is a difficult task. One of the big factors in getting a good Google listing for a site is the articles, the text or the copy on your site. Writing specifically for SEO is hard work as I found out last week.

I needed to boost my traffic so I went on Overture and found a bunch of keywords that I was happy writing about. Normally when I write its on whatever topic takes my fancy and consequently a lot of the hits Myomancy receives from Google are just scatter shots. Articles where I’ve just happen to use a phrase that only gets searched on once a month but Myomancy is number one or near number one in the listings. So writing on a prescribed topic was a bit more of a challenge.

One of the areas I focused on was ADHD and the effects of diet, nutrition and supplements. Partly because ADHD advertising pays more than dyslexia and autism but also because I could interlink them. An article on ADHD and Diet can legitimately reference articles on ADHD and natural remedies and one on ADHD and caffeine.

The hardest part of writing the article is keyword density. For example, this article is about articles being optimized for search engines. In order to do well in the search engines I have to work the phrase SEO articles in as many ways as possible. This isn’t good english. An article written just for a human reader would find alternative ways of phrasing it. Referring to it as copy, text or the story. SEO would be just optimisation for or tuning for or targeting for search engines. Being forced to use the same words over and over and at the same time make the article engaging to a human is a real challenge.