Review: Ucoz Content Management System
Posted by Mike | Filed under Other Reviews
Ucoz is a web 2.0 Content Management System for those that do not wish to host a website using open source CMS scripts on a paid host. Ucoz offers beginners unlimited space on their servers (200 MB to start off), an e-mail account and site back ups at no cost. If you do not want the hastle of running a blog like WordPress on a paid server, you should give the Ucoz hosted content management system a try. The system is perfect for those looking to save money on hosting while still having an advanced content management at your finger tips.
Currently, you can use Ucoz to run a forum, blog, photo albums and a dozen other features. You can see a full product list of features here. Have a few questions? Check out the Ucoz FAQ.
If you develop a website using Ucoz let us know by posting a comment!
Other posts that you might find interesting:
How to Know If a Directory is Worth Submitting To
Posted by Jug | Filed under Link BuildingHey, it’s me again. What’s up with me? Well, nothing much. I’m just hangin’ around at home since it’s Saturday. No school! ‘Nuff talk about me, I wanna keep this post short. Basically I want to “teach” you how to know if a directory is worth submitting to. I know I’ve mentioned before that lots of directories don’t give much link juice, and that’s because they aren’t the right directories to list your links on.
You guys probably know that I started a new paid web directory just a few weeks ago. If you’re thinking that I’m writing this post solely because I want exposure for my site, then you got it all wrong. 
I want you to be aware of certain factors that make or break web directories!
How to Know If a Directory is Worth Submitting To
Check the web template/web design… and then THINK. If the directory is using a free template, would you think that it’s worth submitting to? I wouldn’t. Why? Because the owner has not even invested on a premium/custom template and now he wants us to believe that his directory is worth it (and would stay for long)? No way.
Look at the stats, if they’re available. Some directories have a little box or sidebar item that contains some crucial information that you have to know. Look for a box or whatever that has the number of listed links, pending links, and other stuff. If you see that there are thousands of pending links, then don’t submit anymore. It just shows that the owner has stopped approving/rejecting websites for a long time and yours would just probably end up in the pool of pending links.
If you’re running after PR, look if the categories have a good amount of PR. No, don’t even bother
using the main page’s PR to analyze if it’s worth submitting your site to that directory. If you’re just submitting to get some PageRank, then check if the category that you’re submitting to has a decent PR. Why? Well, ’cause that’s where your link will go!
Check the latest links. Most directories have this “latest links” section wherein you could see the recently added listings. Now see if the listings are of high-quality. If they aren’t, it means that the owner is in an approving-frenzy mode and does not check whether a site is good or not. Don’t bother submitting to those directories, otherwise your site will be “surrounded” by JUNK.
See if the directory is indexed by Google. No need for me to explain this. C’mon, you should know by now that sites that aren’t index by Google aren’t worth getting links from. 
Ah, there you have it guys and gals. A pretty short post from me, but you might find it useful nonetheless. Bye, I’m out.
Other posts that you might find interesting:
Using Google AdWords as a “Keyword” Research Tool
Posted by Mike | Filed under Google, Traffic-buildingThis is a great way to write articles that will gain you Google traffic instantly!
I have not spent money using Google AdWords in months, but I still use AdWords powerful Keyword Tool to help me decide article topics. The Keyword Tool will detail the current month’s search volume, the average search volume for the past 12 months and give you an of the advertiser activity competition (how much advertisers are actively campaigning towards specific keywords). Google AdWords provides you insight into what keywords are hot in Google Search, helping you focus your content and gain tons of Google traffic.
To continue with this tutorial/article you will need to log into your Google AdWords account. If you don’t have an Google AdWords account I recommend Google Trends or other services that can provide the keyword tool data.
Once in to your AdWord account click on a existing or expired campaign (or create one if you don’t have one). To do this go to “Campaign Summary” in the navigation bar and click on a campaign. Then click on one of the Ad groups. Click on “keyword tool.”
Use the “Descriptive words or phrases” option and type in a keyword for the theme of your site/blog. In my example, I will use the “Hawaii” keyword for my Hawaiitopia.com blog.
You will get results for all keywords including and/or related to the “Hawaii” keyword. You can easily sort these results by relevance, current month search volume or past 12 month search volume. I recommend sorting the results by current month search volume. This will show your the current “hot” keywords. It also gives you an idea of what keywords advertisers value the month thus giving you a better chance of getting solicited down the road for advertising money. Here is an example of my “Hawaii” keyword results sorted by current month search volume (by current month I mean the last month Google has full data on).
I now have a list of 100s of keywords relevant to my blog/website and have a starting point on where to focus my next few articles on. Based on my results I would focus on a few articles related to “hawaii vacations”, the “big island hawaii” and maybe even “hawaii beaches.” Here are some articles I will be writing based on this information.
- “Top 5 Hawaii Vacations”
- Things to do on The Big Island Hawaii
- Top Hawaii Beaches
While writing my articles I would focus on the keywords and ensure they are in the subject, meta data and through out the article. I would include at least 2 pictures with the ALT TEXT containing these same keywords. Once the articles are completed I would submit them to these 7 websites knowing they will help me get noticed quicker by Google, Yahoo and other spider/bots. I have used these techniques with a lot of success on my other blogs to gain tons of traffic.
