I'm Dan Cave
2009
CO2 shenanigans, Link Bait and CSS
SEO::
I mentioned 'Link Bait' there and if you don't know what that means read on...
Link bait is some piece of online media which is designed specifically to tempt people into linking to your website. There is a huge amount of info available about it available by a simple Google query on "Link Bait".
Common types of link bait include:
- Article Bait (an article designed to induce a link)
- News Bait (news items often get link attention)
- Game Bait (games and viral content often can get great links)
- Image Bait (a funny or useful picture will always attract links)
Read more on link baiting: Link baiting article
The bit of link bait I'm coming up with is classified as 'Widget Bait' which means I am providing the use of a widget to anyone on the web for free and hoping that it is useful/fun/relevant enough to catch people's attention and get them linking to me. Week one "Brewery size calculator"!
Its great being able to pretty much be as creative as you like to create SEO link bait campaigns. I get to choose what I'm doing this week, as long as the clients agree. Ill still be producing articles weekly for them which is necessary but sometimes dry. Anyway Next week if all is still going well I'll try to post some more graphs charts and stats.
Beer::
This week I've been tasting my latest Homebrew and Having a right chew on Trying to get my Beer gassed up and force carbonated, it's getting there though.
I've Picked up a Regulator and a cylinder for CO2 with the intention of having years of minimum effort Forced carbonation fun.
However the cylinder I have is out of Date on its safety certificate so I've had to bin that off and been to buy a widget world CO2 cylinder from the hop and grape in darlington.
With this set up I just keep the keg up to carbonation pressure by hand every hour or two. below is a picture of th now redundant regulator.
The beer I made with Amarillo Hops , East Kent Golding's, elderflower and Cara Malt turned out well and a Bottle each is winging its way to Beer merchants, chilli-up-north and Edwards80. As soon as I can find the right size box and carbonate it. I might buy a soda stream hum....
Next Week I will review the Admiral Bottle conditioned ale a friend brought to me from the Devon brewery this weekend.
I've also been writting up some content for the top secret beer Site thats in development ~~shhhh~~.
CSS:
Light on CSS again this week, but i have got plans!
Making a new design this week for a clients Link Bait subfolder.
The new design, is based on a old one I done for a personal project but almost seemed perfect for the job. I'll put a sneak peak at the design on twitter at some point.
I've also been making a CSS based Dev Skill article which is coming soon...
Also See the Beer review site for regular reviews of beers from around the world. How they taste, where they are from and all that sort of thing. Beer is great and varied get some hints at the beer blog.
As usual you can always contact me
15th May
2009
Hi there, Its been a mixed bag of a week.
I missed the first half off the week due to a 5 year anniversary holiday in longleat. But on my return it had all kicked off!
Resale::
I am developeing an intereset in Used process equipment and the machines which are featured in resale 2009 Resale 2009 exhibitors
Processing plants and used plant equipment are all great fun, resale 2009 was in germany and seen hundreds of exhibitors yay!
SEO::
This week I have seen another increase in traffic which is starting to from a nice upwards trend in visitor numbers.
One of the reasons for the visitor number hike is that a lot of the onsite optimisation and inlinks have now been picked up by Google and I have lot of results on the first page of Google for most primary keyowords.
Check out this analytics graph showing the trend.
Ok visitors are all well and good but how about those conversions? Well check it out...
There is a monster abandonment issue with the forms which needs sorting but none the less conversions are on the up too.
Now its time to really ramp up the SEO pressure.
CSS::
Sadly I'm doing less and less CSS these as the SEO takes over my day to day work so nothing to report this week I'm afriad.
Beer::
I've finished the fermentation of my brew now, I've run a few bottles off and I'm trying a new technique to keep the fermentation going just a little while longer in the bottle to "self force carbonate" the beer in the bottle.
We will have to see how that goes, I'll give it a week to do its magic. I don't hold much hope for it but its worth a try for fun. I don't like having much yeast lest in the drink at drinking time.
The rest of the fermenting bin has been put in the garage to cool down over night before I rack it on Friday night.
The initial tasting is good though, which im pleased about because this is a original recipe with hops I've never used before. Now we play the waiting game...
Feel free to contact me
8th May
2009
Hello CSS Portfolio, SEO and Beer Making Fans
CSS::
I've updated the Parsec green energy website which was a minor html edit but is interesting from a CSS point of view because the site was made with the main navigation at the bottom of the HTML as a very early experiment in SEO + CSS about 2 years ago while i was removing there flash navigation.
My advise dont do it, SEO benefits are negligible compared to the extra CSS leg work you have to put in. try it yourself if you don't believe me ;)
SEO::
The week I've been making some recommendations for a CMS with SEO in mind which is actually quite thought provoking if you are into that kind of thing. Things like rotating site maps auto generation of XML sitemaps and post click marketing can all be included if done right.
It really brought home how much I've learned since I started doing SEO and how easy it can be made. If done properly then only things the user/owner should have to think about is content creation and Link building. which to be frank still leaves a good chunk of work to be done.
Beer::
I've been Debating the use of finings in my beers this week. I had a little look into using twitter for recommendations on "to use finings or not to use finings?", but sadly it is a very dry subject.
My Conclusion? well I am going to use finings after a extended fermentation. Why? As it is now summer and the outside temperature is higher the yeast will take quite some time to settle, plus longer day light hours increses the beers exposure to direct sunlight (which is bad). SO yes im going to finings, but to give the yest some extra time to impart some flavor im leaving the fermentation a bit longer than usual, after all patience is the name of the game in homebrew anyway.
The home made beer video has been getting way more hits than I really wanted. Its good to good feedback from @chilliupnorth, @beermerchants and @SograteBBQ.
This weeks links?
Parsec green energy - check out the weird ('Navigation Last') HTML + CSS
SEOMOZ - Good place with some free SEO Tools
Feel free to contact me
29th Apr
2009
Back to CSS NEWS and SEO
So far this week... Beer CSS and SEO
I've been editing and uploading a beer making video as part of a side project. Its a bit of a dream of mine to have the best Beer making site out there for beginners to get involved in homebrew. and to improve british beer.
I've brushed off the old photoshop and CSS skills to produce the beer video page.
SEO activity this week
Now As for my SEO Antics I've made a post click marketing script which will detect which keywords you used to find me and then make decisions for based upon that. Try using firefox and searching for "colourpool karting" and click on my link ;o)
I've also started a link building campaign for a client, it's tough unrewarding work until you get the infrequent links you are looking for. A bit like fishing, alot of time spent doing nothing for 20 mins of action
The next stop for me is to get some interesting content up on the clients website. So ill be writing articles and web pages for "Link Bait"
Twiiter Activity
I've been on twitter a lot as usual, talking to Chilliupnorth, beermerchant, james mills and lismccormick.
Lisa is coming down to record some more beer making videos, but in a much more organised way.
Chilliupnorth and have been talking about cars, growing chilli's and misc stuff.
I've recently got in touch with Thursday Fizz, which is a excellent Newcastle event for creatives, digital folk and anyone interested in a party. I Shall be attending
Also
You may have noticed I've added some advertising to my site, I'm not really expecting to make any cash from it, I just wanted to see how it works.
I've also launched some sites about centrifuges this week on the topic of used centrifuge and Centrifuge decanter
Thanks for reading. See you next time
22nd Apr
2009
Twiiter Power and chilliUpNorth
This week I've been making in-roads to Getting my beermaking site up and running and twitter has provided some new helpful freinds
Hello this week im talking about how twitter can help you when setting up a new site.
Talking to people on twitter has helped me understand the hombrew nieche, which is nice as im launching 'homebrew how to' site.
I've been in contact with chilliupnorth, beermerchants and DrinkCraftBeer
They are all good guys and would invite you to follow them all.
How does that help?
Short answer is free advise, links, and to meet further new relvelent people. You see on twitter you build relationships not marketing campaigns. You enjoy meeting and tlaking to new people and as the relationships grow you can learn from eachother.
Its not what you know, its who you know!
And twitter will help you Get to know new people, and im sure people will want to know you too.
As ever, if you have any questions about my anything mentioned here feel free to contact me
16th Apr
2009
CSS Best
Css is Best for portfolios, initial css efforts are unrewarding but keep going
I was recently talking to a beginer designer developer and he was continually talking about "css sites are so hard to make" and out of all of his troubles css top ped them all.
css sites are difficult to make when you are starting, there is no doubt, learning the box model and making cross browser comapatable sites is a right chew on, but once you learned how to do it it will repay you ten fold.
Making sites properly pays you back in a few bifferent ways.
Your CSS sites are more accessibile by default, your CSS sites are easier to update and change
lets say... I wanted to change portfolio style and make ALL the text one size smaller. All i have to do is change one CSS rule and hey presto ever thing jumps up one font size. Using old school hardcoded html i would have had to go through every paragraph by hand and do them one by one.
Can you see the benefit? Good.
CSS best?
Short answer is yes, once you have mastered it. So stick with it and your xhtml + CSS portfolio will grow into an impressive masterpiece of CSS
Here are some links to more useful websites with free CSS tutorials
As ever, if you have any questions about my CSS or design work or anything else mentioned here feel free to contact me
SMASHING MAGAZINE:30 Brilliant Typefaces For Corporate Design
On the SEO side of things Everything is going well.
I've played around with the clients CMS, done A mountain of keyword research with Wordtracker and Google adwords keyword gernerator.
The secret to googd SEO is well written original content ("tell me something i dont know") marked up with good Semantic HTML. That plus Lots of Inbound Links.
The problem is which keywords to target, which ones are too competitive at the moment and which ones hold the largest number of people searching for them.
Thats what im doing at the moment - Keyword research. Its rewarding work eventually when you see the fruits of your effort, but its tough going to start with.
Back to Wordtraker...
As ever, if you have any questions about my CSS or design work or anything else mentioned here feel free to contact me
