Entries from October 2007 ↓

If your time is valuable like mine is then you definitely appreciate this wordpress plugin. Awhile back I was looking for a quick way to put together a product review website to promote some different merchants. During my search I came across the Wordpress Review Site Plugin.

It does require some manual work to get going, but  it provides some great features once you do get the plugin fully installed.  Some of the features include:

• Allowing users to comment on products and adding their own ratings
• Displaying numbers of negative and positive ratings
• Click here to see the rest of the features of this plugin

I’ve downloaded this neat plugin and I’m going to see how quick I can actually develop wordpress review site this weekend.   I’ve also got to give some credit to the author Dan Grossman for creating a plugin that looks like it has the potential to be very valuable.  I’m looking forward to see what kind of site that I’m able to develop using this.  If you’ve used this plugin I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.

A few days ago I decided to give the keyword research tool Wordze at try after reading Jonathon’s review of the program.  In the beginning I’ve got to admit the interface took a little getting used to.  Ultimately though I got used to it and I must say that overall so far I’m extremely impressed with it.

Currently up to this point I’ve been using a variety of tools for keyword research including  SEO Book KeyWord Research Tool, KeyWord Elite, & the Adwords Keyword Tool.  So far I’m able to use Wordze much more efficiently than the other tools and I feel as though that overall I’m getting pretty accurate results.  Here are some of my favorite features that Wordze includes.

• A powerful keyword research tool with great options to see number of searches, KEI, & historical trends as well.
• Dig function to dig into the engine and find out what others are optimizing for
• KeyWord Expander Tool - Apply filters to keyword lists to quickly build targeted keyword lists
• Wordrank Tool - Cool feature to analyze what it takes to rank for certain phrases
• Thesaurus Tool - Tool to find related keywords

Those are just a few features as there are really a lot more that I could talk about, but I think I’ll write a more in depth interview about the product in a month or so.  If you want to see a more in depth view of Wordze check out the Wordze program tour.

One thing that I should mention is that overall the application is extremely quick, the only thing that does take some time is when the Dig feature is digging deep into the search results, but that is to be expected.   Last night I was able to knock out some pretty large targeted keyword lists in a very short amount of time.

Wordze is a subscription based product that is $35 per month and I really don’t think that is a bad price based on my initial review of the product.  Overall my early review of Wordze is extremely positive and I look forward to getting more in depth with the product and being able to write an extensive review of what I do and don’t like in the future.    So if your looking for a quick accurate keyword research tool then I would recommend that you at least try out Wordze for a month and see what you think.

What can I say,  The Office on NBC gets better and better each week.  If you don’t watch it on Thursdays, you should really make some time to watch it as you won’t be disappointed.   Check out the clip below, it really doesn’t get any better than this!

Well most of us have probably experienced neighbors that you could’ve done without over the years.  I know I’ve had some experiences with some not so great neighbors over the years.  Now thanks to rottenNeighbor you can check to see if you’re possibly going to move near any problem neighbors or you can even share your own comments about problem neighbors around you.

I checked my neighborhood that I just moved into and luckily it really doesn’t have any negative reviews.   Currently the only thing that I really see bad about the site is the fact that since its relatively new it really doesn’t contain a large number of reviews to go off of at this point.  I’m sure though once the site gets some more exposure then you’ll definitely probably find some interesting stuff about your neighborhood.  Nonetheless I think the overall concept of the site is a fantastic unique concept for the web!

I love looking for new ways to turn visitors into buyers on sites that I’m working on. Now because of this I usually spend alot of time in my design tool of choice Fireworks, creating fancy buttons to try and increase my conversions. The problem with this is that it takes away from my precious time that could be better spent on other projects.

A few weeks back I was reading a post from Zac Johnson about a package he bought called Marketing Graphics Pro. It contains a bunch of great premade buttons that you can use on your own sites. The entire package of over 2000 professional looking elements and icons was only $17! After reading his post I decided to make the purchase and give the program a try and the results have been really good so far.

Overall the buttons and icons in the package look outstanding and there is really a variety of things that you can use in the package. I’ve actually been testing some of these buttons out on some of my sites over the last few weeks and in some areas I’ve seen conversion rates rise significantly! I’m still testing this in several areas, but I’d definitely say at this point I got a pretty solid ROI on my $17. So if your looking for an affordable easy way to try and boost your conversion rates then I highly recommend giving Marketing Graphics Pro a try!

So I’m really not a country music fan, but I’ve always wanted to see a Garth Brooks concert.  I actually never figured that it would happen, until he announced he was going to play a show here in Kansas City on Nov 14.   I got my wristband for the lottery system on Thursday and this morning I was lucky enough to get tickets to one of his shows. Pretty much all of the 9 shows are sold out for the most part and it only took a few hours to do so so that’s pretty amazing.

I’ve got say I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for the guy on the way that he handled tickets for this show for the following reasons.

1. Ticket Prices  -  All tickets were no more than $32.50 a piece including ticket fees.  It’s nice to see someone do this considering what most acts charge these days.
2. Beating Ticket Scalpers - They restricted online sales to residents in the area here and the wristband system  used for buying tickets in person did a good job of discouraging people camping out for tickets.  It may not of been a perfect but it was definitely better than I’ve seen anyone else do lately.
3. Adding 8 Shows After the 1st Sold Out - Lets be honest, Garth didn’t have to add 8 additional shows, but he did for his fans because he wanted to make sure that everyone that wanted to see the show had a chance to.

Overall he did an excellent job of trying to accommodate everyone that wanted to see the show for an affordable price.  I know I’m super excited to see the show in November and I’m sure it will be a great time.