I suppose it would be appropriate for me to let you all know we posted two videos on the OneSketch web site including a 2-minute elevator pitch describing the OneSketch web site editor and company and video demo. The demo shows an early (pre-alpha) look at what our web site editor might look like in action, though we have a lot of changes planned before we move the software into beta. I’ll keep you updated as new developments happen, but feel free to comment and let me know what you might like to see from the software.

Not only is it informative at the beginner level, it’s cute and amusing, too. What more could you ask for when trying to understand cloud computing.

This is a short piece I wrote for work to help others understand the theory behind SERP domination. I pulled quite a bit of the information from Eli’s SERP Domintation article on the Blue Hat SEO blog. I don’t warrant that this process will help you rank better in search engines in any way, but feel free to try these techniques at your own risk.

Goal:
By the time you finish reading this document, you will have a clear idea of what you must do to dominate the search engine result page –that is, rank multiple times on the first search result page for a specific keyword or keyword phrase using several different web sites and domain names.

What You Need:
1. The keyword or keyword phrase you are trying to dominate (it is tougher to rank for multiple keywords / phrases, but it can potentially be done).

2. 15-20 individual domain names / web sites with highly optimized, relevant content (content built around the same subject matter).

3. At least weekly relevant content updates to each property. Preferably, these sites would have social community elements such as forums, commenting, etc. to encourage more frequent search engine crawling.

4. Each individual site footer should provide a link to the homepage of each of the 20 other sites. To make this cleaner looking, CSS provides a way to make a DIV hidden until a link is clicked, which would cause the DIV to expand, displaying all the links.

5. Use rel=”No Follow” link tag elements on all links that are not important for search. To better sculpt a page’s authority, this tag element can also be used to direct how a spider should crawl a site.

6. Targeted videos should be created for the selected keyword and be placed on YouTube with optimized tagging.

7. Images should be created for content rich pages. During creation, keyword rich meta data should be included in the image, the image should be named using targeted keywords, an alt tag including keywords should be used when including the image on a page, and the image should be placed, surrounded by keyword rich text.

8. A link building campaign that provides thousands incoming links to the properties in the group of 15-20 sites. 40,000+ total inbound links should get the sites ranking within the top 5 pages.

Recommendation:
As you can probably tell, this is a rather complicated process and could potentially take a lot of time and money. There is the potential to receive only meager results, since after all, you can really only target one keyword term or phrase with this strategy. This strategy is also a risk in that the sites could be penalized by search engines as a result or suffer in the long term due to an algorithm change.

A better strategy to pursue is to apply similar concepts on a per-site or per-webpage basis in attempting to rank for a group of keywords (one per page). Combined with paid search, it would be much more feasible to have three listings (paid result, top listing, and secondary top listing) at the top of the first page of a search engine for many keywords, rather than attempting to take over all ten positions on a search engines results page for a non-branded keyword. This also creates more possible brand touch points for customers as they search. Each of the concepts above apply to both single and multiple keyword SEO, but I believe you will find better success targeting multiple keywords verses putting all your eggs in one basket.

A post came across my RSS feed reader, today that included a post from The Gypsy: 11 Premium But Free And Useful Web Apps For Designers. I was skeptical at finding anything of use from yet another list of Internet site programs, but to be honest, this article highlights many useful programs (I haven’t had a chance to try them all yet), many of which I haven’t heard about. It’s a worth while post to check out.

A co-worker of mine (and Mac lover) decided to share this wonderful YouTube video with me today and I couldn’t help but share. I’m not a Mac lover by any means, though I own an iPhone, and I am forever given a hard time due to my nuetral feelings toward Macs given my last name…. Oh well, I guess it comes with the territory. Enjoy!

Even though the 2008 presidential has been decided, I still wanted to post this video I found that complements the last “Don’t Vote” video I posted some time ago:

On another note, you can check out change.gov to see what else our new president elect is up to.

In the midst of the wonderful financial crisis and the shadow of GM coming undone, I have done the unthinkable. That’s right, I bought a new car. In my defense, the 98 Lincoln I was driving couldn’t pass inspection and needed a lot more money thrown at it to have the work done that would put her back into play, so I splurged. I think Saab 9.3′s are my one weakness. When the blue paint stared me in the eyes, the financial crisis was but an after-thought. Now I just need GM to stay in business long enough to honor my warranty.

Let’s look at some specs for my 2006 Saab 9.3:

* Curtain Air Bags
* Power Door Locks
* Power Windows
* Alloy Wheels
* Trip Odometer
* Tachometer
* Air Conditioning
* Tilt Steering Wheel
* Cruise Control
* Interval Wipers
* Rear Defroster
* Console
* Front Bucket Seats
* Power Driver’s Seat
* Fold Down Rear Seat
* Compass
* Dual Power Mirrors
* Trip Computer
* AM/FM Stereo Radio
* Telescoping Steering Wheel
* Heated Seat(s)
* Thermometer
* Traction Control
* Dual Air Bags
* Steering Wheel Stereo Controls
* C.D. Player
* Leather Upholstery
* Dual Climate Control
* Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
* Side Impact Air Bags

At 24,000 miles, I am happy. Below are some pics of my purchase.

I’ve not had the time to properly review Mint’s service offerings, but for free I figure if you are interested, you’ll want to try it out for yourself any how. Mint is a neat, online, personal finance management software service. What a mouthful. I learned about Mint from MaximumPC magazine and found that their service helps you to not only pull in your bank accounts, credit card accounts, loans and other investments, it also shows you a break down of these parts of your life in order to help you make better financial decisions.

I’ll try that for free. Will you? What are your thoughts about online financial management software and the security of your financial data?

I mean it’s pointless. Just watch this video.

Well, tomorrow Comcast begins limiting our Internet consumption. And if the future brings with it greater technology and Internet usage, this means Comcast is going the way of cell phone companies… Oh, wait, cell phone network carriers have UNLIMITED data plans. For those of you who want to know about the nuts and bolts of Comcasts decision to cap the net, check out this white paper.

I find it funny that Comcast is trying to make customers mad. I haven’t talked to one customer of their’s that likes them. Everyone is simply forced to use them. It is time for other carriers to step in and take charge, because it is apparent Comcast is not going to pick up their game.