How To Make It Work: April 2007

Promoting Your Blog and Postings

Getting good quality visitors to your blog is an important criteria for your blog's success. Besides search engines, social network is fast becoming a huge contributing factor nowadays. Portals such as HighFivez.com can help you open up your blog to a large audience base and their strength lies in their focus on blogs alone unlike other social networks.

Upon registration, you can submit your blog and also blog post to be included in their system. You can also choose your own tag to make your blog more identifiable. Just like other social networks, you can also submit more than one blog and promote it as well.

When visitors within HighFivez.com visit your blog and find it useful, they can choose to HighFive it and thus making your blog even more visible via the popular blogs category. Of course you should do the same and be active within the network too.

One of their latest feature is the Members Forum where I foresee in the near future will be the meeting place of fellow bloggers to discuss various issues such as blog promotion, making money with your blog and exchanging links just to name a few.

In fact, I started a new discussion pertaining to Alexa ranking and how we can improve it for our blogs since its used to measure a blog's authority and popularity among paid to blog providers. So come join the growing community and share our experiences together.

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Hosted Shopping Cart

Starting an online store is indeed a great venture but one of the most important aspect is incorporating a shopping cart to enable purchases directly from your site.

Ashop Commerce Shopping Cart system is an all-rounder covering all the crucial aspect to create a seamless integrated shopping experience for your customers. One of their many strengths is the simplicity of it that even a kid can set it up since it doesn't require any programming knowledge. A key feature for me would be how it helps you to submit your product feeds to popular shopping comparison sites which in return increases your sales potential.

The total feature list is amazingly comprehensive which covers site optimization and custom layout. If you are really in search of a shopping cart for your store, then I urge you to give Ashop shopping cart a try. In fact you can take it for a test drive to see if it fits your needs.

Here is a list of reasons why this cart stands out:

1. AFFORDABLE Why spend thousands from your hard earned income when you don't need to. Our shopping cart software features and design allow you to build 'top shelf' online stores for only a small monthly investment.
2. EASY! Anyone can set up an Ashop Commerce shopping cart. Test drive or view our testimonials and explore the opportunities.
3. TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND CUSTOMER SERVICE It's not just an ecommerce software, It's the full service. We bend over backwards to help you succeed.
4. GET FOUND ON SEARCH ENGINES 100% optimised shopping carts give you the best possible platform and advice to reach the top of the search engines.
5. CUSTOMISABLE DESIGN WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS No templates, use our unique design creator or even flash and HTML to continuously create that personalised look you need.
6. TOTAL SOLUTION Securely hosted, free emails, 128 bit SSL checkout security, design services, full fraud alerts and web promotion services.

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Sitemap Important Role

A sitemap is very often considered redundant in the process of building a website or a blog, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

1) Navigation purposes
A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

2) Conveying your site's theme
When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the "big picture" of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors' time.

3) Site optimization purposes
When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page -- they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

4) Organization and relevance
A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird's eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accessible and neatly organized for everyone.

Technorati Tags: sitemap, blog navigation, optimize blog

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Free OsCommerce Template - Footwear

It seems like a lot of people are interested in osCommerce template which can be seen by the sheer number of downloads for the earlier Fashion osCommerce template I posted. So since no one complained about me giving it away for free, I shall give you guys another super early Christmas present... LOL!

Presenting Green Footwear osCommerce template! Please note once again that for support and usage guidance, kindly visit osCommerce Community Support page because as I've mentioned, I have never personally used osCommerce before.

Here is a screenshot of this footwear themed template (click to enlarge) :

Platform: osCommerce
Color Scheme: Green
File Format: WinRAR
File Size: 9mb

- Download Template -

Technorati Tags: oscommerce template, oscommerce theme, free template, online store

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Shopping For Branded Watches

For watch collectors, this is one online store you would want to keep a tab on for sure. AMOnlineShopping carries a huge array of watches from various notable brands such as Casio, Timex and Nixon Watches to name a few. Although the large inventory, they do categorize them in an orderly manner.

Although I am not crazy over watches, I do ensure that the ones I buy and own are of superb quality since I expect to use them for a long period of time. Due to the importance of quality I feel AMOnlineShopping portray that very well with their selection of brands which will soon include Dior, Gucci and Armani among others. The other good news is they will soon be carrying branded sunglasses as well. I also like the fact that all the spec details we would ever want to know are listed in the product view page for easy decision making.

Just like any proper online shop, they offer gift vouchers as well which is great cause at times buying a watch as a gift can be quite impossible when it comes to individual taste.

My only concern is pertaining to their site design which I think they could do much better and make it compliment the watches a little bit more by perhaps using subtle and consistent colors.

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Free Template - Technologies Ramblings

The long awaited 2nd Blogger 3 column template is now ready for download. This template is based on the andreas08 template but what I've done is by adding another column and give it a tech feel to it.

Besides for technological purposes, this template is also suitable for gaming or personal blogs. I have tested this template on both IE and Firefox browser but if you face any issues, just leave a comment on this page or via the contact form if you're a little shy and I shall get back to you.

Kindly do not remove the footer credits as a lot of time and effort have been put in by Andrea and myself on this template. Its truly amazing for me to see more than over 30 downloads so far of my previous blogger template but only 2 with the footer left unaltered. Sometimes I really wonder if all this hardwork is worth it. So please encourage me to continue doing this by leaving the footer as it is. Thank you so much in advance!

Theme Name: Technologies Ramblings
Platform: New Blogger (Beta)
Colors Used: Gray, Blue and Light Blue
Widget Installed:
Google Translation below each post
Peekaboo for condensed category view
Favicon - Insert Disc image

- Live Preview -
- Download Template -

Installation Notes:
1] Download xml file
2] Login to blogspot
3] Click Template - Edit Html
4] Upload the downloaded xml file via Backup / Restore Template
5] Remove my Adsense codes with yours
6] Change Sitefeed address with yours on the nav bar

Image Files:
Header

To change Adsense codes to yours: (click to enlarge image)

* If you find difficulties getting your Adsense to work, kindly read how to Add Adsense in New Blogger.

To change Sitefeed to your blog address: (click to enlarge image)

* Note: If you prefer more control and security, I'd encourage you to save the above header image and host it yourself in either Photobucket or your preferred free image hoster. Then alter the code to reflect your own hosted url address.

Technorati Tags: download template, blogspot theme, free template, new blogger

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The Mother of All List... MY List

This list is not about benefiting just those who embraced it early on but rather for every single blog participation from now till the 31st May 2007 deadline. If you are a Malaysian blogger or someone who owns a blog featuring anything about Malaysia (a lot of my Singaporean blogger friends would qualify for sure.. LOL!), then head over to My List Page for more details on how you can participate.

The purpose is simple actually, it is to help every participating blog to obtain better pagerank and techorati rank which is very important these days not only for search engine results but also to open more doors when it comes to monetizing your blog and who do not want to earn that extra moolah now huh?

Here is the latest list at the time of writing:

My List Participants

toxicle.org
[ Wood ] [ Earth ] [ Cheap ] [ Flight ]
COMtech
Ah Ling's blog
Memoirs.:*CRoSs mY hE@Rt
~WoOLaLA~
vivivava Design
My Mothering Corner
Shoppingmum’s Home Office
My Filling Station
Shopping Mum
All about Beauty
Shoppingmum and Kids
datotalrandommessy.grey
Notes from my heart
Joy Montessori
wahlau's online hut
Cedric’s Asylum
mott’s mutterings
Just My Thoughts
delephant
Incoherent Ramblings
HOT STUFF
Make Money Online with Malaysia Love AGLOCO
MONTESSORIMUM.COM
Funky Cookies
Earn Money Blogging
PabloPabla's Whatever
Make Money with Blogging
Paris Beaverbanks
Free Links Giveaway
Free Blogger Templates
Blogsreview.Net
Making a Living
5xmom
How to be a Better Blogger
My Women Stuff
Hochiak! Delicious Asian Food
Best Recipes
Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget
Daryl's Discovery Journey
The fluff must go somewhere

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Monetize With Bloggerwave.com

Have you tried monetizing your blog by writing reviews? If not then you are losing out on a lot of potential income by giving your opinion on services and products the world has to offer. One way you can do so is by heading over to Bloggerwave and register yourself. Afterwhich just submit your blog for approval which is done very promptly.

From then onwards, its about checking the list of Open Opportunities and type your way to a few extra dollars in your Paypal account. So what are you waiting for? Start making that extra income today by registering with Bloggerwave!

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Free Favicon Batch 2

This is the 2nd batch of free favicons to once again beautify your blog and you can view the earlier 10 favicons to see which ones suit your blog best.

Please do not save and use the images shown as they are in JPEG format for the purpose of viewing only. Right-click on the 'Download Favicon Text' below the respective image representation to save the ICO file on your pc.

For installation instruction kindly visit my earlier post on Adding Favicon To Your Blogger Blog.

If you have any questions, kindly post a comment on this post and I shall get back to you as soon as I can with a solution.

Download
Favicon

Download Favicon

Download
Favicon

If you like these favicons or my blog in general and would like to encourage me further, a short mention or link to my blog on yours is very much appreciated.

Also if you do use any of my favicons on your blog with a mention of my blog, kindly post your blog url in the comment section as I will make a permanent link to your blog in another separate post.

Thanks in advance and Enjoy these favicons!

Technorati Tags: favicon, free favicon, download favicon

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Free Used Car Classifieds With A Heart

There are many places online where one can place a Free Used Car Classifieds ads but none is more unique and noble than AutoCity101.Com. Their extensive website offers a Free Car Classifieds service and when you use their site, you are indirectly helping to create an orphanage network that will start in Mexico and soon to develop worldwide where AutoCity101.com is using most of their profits for the development of this project.

It appears that this is their main mission is to help generate funds for Natalia's House and here is an excerpt from the orphanage site to explain their cause:

Did you know that every 30 seconds 2 children become orphans? There are more than 100 millions orphans worldwide. There are an estimated 65 million orphans in Asia alone and another 10 Million in Mexico.

It is hard to grasp such large numbers, but if you had just the Asian orphans hold hands in a line, the line would go around the entire earth. If you were to follow that line of orphans holding hands, driving 60 mph, passing 1700 children per minute, you could drive 24 hours a day, mile after mile, hour after hour, day after day, nonstop, for over 17 days, and you would still see orphans holding hands. These children are hungry, lonely and afraid. They have holes in their clothes and tattered shoes (if they have clothes and shoes). They feel cold, sad and forsaken.

So whether you are looking for Pre-Owned Vehicles, Used Car Classifieds or Cars For Sale, head over to AutoCity101.com and support their cause.

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

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Free OsCommerce Template - Clothes

Since I got this template for free, I thought of sharing it with all of you who are keen to setup an online store but want a more unique design rather than the boring standard ones that comes with it. Unfortunately I will NOT be providing any support or help on this template since I have no experience using osCommerce myself.

If this is in violation of anyone's copyright, please send me an email and I'd gladly take this template down but you would have to prove ownership of it as online paid template downloading industry is quite clouded with so many affiliate sites selling the same looking templates all the way to USD 200 per download.

For support and usage guidance, kindly visit osCommerce Community Support page.

Here is a screenshot of this fashion themed template (click to enlarge) :