SouthwestSEO.com » Random Thoughts http://www.southwestseo.com SEO related news and opinion Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:50:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 en Wi-Fi Detector Shirt with working signal meter http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/10/08/wi-fi-detector-shirt-with-working-signal-meter/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/10/08/wi-fi-detector-shirt-with-working-signal-meter/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:50:52 +0000 jason http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/10/08/wi-fi-detector-shirt-with-working-signal-meter/ The Wi-Fi Detector shirt. This is the most amusing shirt or party favor I’ve seen since the flip-flops with the built in bottle opener.
There is a battery pack in the shirt and the lights on the front actually reflect signal strength. No indication if the shirt supports both B and/or G signals.

The perfect shirt for those morning coffee shop visits will only set you back $29.95
Wifi Shirt Anim

Tags: wi-fi detector, wi-fi shirt

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/10/08/wi-fi-detector-shirt-with-working-signal-meter/feed/ New Template- New Changes! http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/09/29/new-template-new-changes/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/09/29/new-template-new-changes/#comments Sat, 29 Sep 2007 23:26:26 +0000 jason http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/09/29/new-template-new-changes/ I changed the template for this blog and added a bunch of new features and capabilities
I was so frustrated with the previous templates and features I had almost stopped blogging.
I wanted this blog to reflect myself and most of the tools I use on a daily basis. I use Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other related tools.
Getting all these tools to talk to one another and show updates, status, etc was no small feat!
I also want to integrate video into the blog as much as possible from videos I create myself to other videos I find and comment on or review.
I hope you enjoy the new theme and I look forward to getting back to blogging now that I have sorted out these issues

Update: Check out the cool cactus favicon in the url bar

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/09/29/new-template-new-changes/feed/ Techpresident- following how the presidential candidates market themselves on the web http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/07/12/techpresident-following-how-the-presidential-candidates-market-themselves-on-the-web/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/07/12/techpresident-following-how-the-presidential-candidates-market-themselves-on-the-web/#comments Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:11:57 +0000 jason http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/07/12/techpresident-following-how-the-presidential-candidates-market-themselves-on-the-web/ A fascinating new site focusing on presidential candidates and how they using and in some cases not using the world wide web to further their message and gain supporters in the upcoming presidential election: Techpresident.com

Www Techpresident Com

A Daily digest chronicles the ups and downs of each candidate on the web.
Interestingly enough there appears to be a underground Ron Paul movement that is trying to monopolize youtube videos and digg entries as the entry below describes:

“if you went to YouTube and searched for the latest videos on Giuliani you’d find no end of Ron Paul videos (because he’s everywhere) and then no end of videos from 9/11 conspiracy theorists and deniers and Giuliani haters. Fringe though they may be, these people own ‘Giuliani’ on YouTube”

Another entry examined the way the Barrack Obama campaign is using viral marketing:

“Barack Obama’s campaign has gone viral, writes Time’s Karen Tumulty. “No campaign has been more aggressive in tapping into social networks and leveraging the financial power of hundreds of thousands of small donors,” she says. While Obama has been the most successful at utilizing the web to generate micro-donations from 258,000 supporters in the first two quarters of the year”

The site has many great features including:

  • Politickr- what are the candidates blogging about? What are they talking most about?
  • Facebook supporters- Who’s up and who’s down on Facebook
  • Candidate Flickr feeds
  • My Space friends
  • Youtube stats
  • Technorati tracks

FacebooksupportersYoutube

It’s one of those great sites you read and go why didn’t I do that or think of that. This is one site I will be following quite closely

Tags: southwest seo, political seo, seo, presidential candidates

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/07/12/techpresident-following-how-the-presidential-candidates-market-themselves-on-the-web/feed/ What’s a Blogger Job and how do I get one? http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/05/05/whats-a-blogger-job-and-how-do-i-get-one/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/05/05/whats-a-blogger-job-and-how-do-i-get-one/#comments Sat, 05 May 2007 16:53:45 +0000 jason http://southwestseo.com/2007/05/05/whats-a-blogger-job-and-how-do-i-get-one/ A new service offered by problogger.net is a job board for bloggers. A place where bloggers looking for jobs and various companies looking to hire bloggers meet.

Potential employers can post a job for 30 days for $50. This is actually quite a bargain for employers considering the pricing from the mainstream job boards like monster.com & career builder. Ads on those boards can cost a couple hundred dollars plus they attract everyone which can be a problem.

Problogger is a blog about and for blogging. If your involved in blogging or writing for blogs chances are you’ve been to problogger and enjoyed the tips and advice. A job board on this site would tend to attract the right type of people to fill potential blogging jobs making it easier for employers to zero in on candidates vs. weeding out people who are unqualified.

How much you can make is the tricky part. Most of the jobs listed don’t offer pay rates or income. It’s just like anything else it’s based on experience and quality of work. Some positions list base pay plus bonuses so there is an opportunity that instead of being paid per article or per post you can earn a monthly income

Reading through the job listings is quite fascinating to say the least

Asian Foodie Blogger

“Looking for a writer/blogger with a craving for Asian food and culture! The candidate must be familiar with Asian cuisine and be willing to write about and share recipes, experiences, restaurants, news and events related to Asian food. Experience with wordpress is a plus, and they must be able to write a minimum of six time a week. “

Video Games Blogger

“The Video Games Channel at b5media is looking for bloggers in the following areas of video games:
Wii, PlayStation 2 & 3, Xbox 360, EverQuest I & II, Virtual Economies

This is a paid position.”

I think this is a great way for bloggers to make some extra money and build up a resume. It’s a great starting point but one has to wonder what the turnover rate is or would be. If I can write great content and know how to set up blogs when would I start doing it for myself full time? It’s like anything else if your doing it for someone else they manage all the aspects of promotion if your doing it for yourself you manage everything. Getting a blogger job would also represent a great networking and learning opportunity

Looking through most of the job listings they all want examples of work. If you have a blog you can submit your prior work or you can create a new blog and post example related to the position.

For example: If I was looking to apply for the asian foodie blogger position I could create a blog and write about asian food restaurants around my home then submit the example for consideration

Tags:blogger,blogger jobs,southwest seo

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/05/05/whats-a-blogger-job-and-how-do-i-get-one/feed/ 15 second pitch or how to explain affiliate marketing for yourself http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/23/15-second-pitch-or-how-to-explain-affiliate-marketing-for-yourself/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/23/15-second-pitch-or-how-to-explain-affiliate-marketing-for-yourself/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:34:27 +0000 jason http://southwestseo.com/2007/04/23/15-second-pitch-or-how-to-explain-affiliate-marketing-for-yourself/ 15secondpitch.com is an interesting site I stumbled upon recently. It attempts to solve a serious problem for those in affiliate marketing and other seo type jobs for themselves

Having trouble explaining what you do?

Feeling uncomfortable explaining what you do?

Work for yourself?

When I first started attending conferences such as Search Engine Strategies, Webmasterworld and Affiliate Summit I would meet lots of interesting people involved in search and affiliate marketing and undoubtedly one of the first questions I would be asked was what do you do? are you involved in search marketing? do you work for one of the companies here?

Most of the people I was with would shake their heads and say something like I build websites or I sell a variety of products on the internet or my favorite I’m here to learn all I can. This type of response would most times kill the conversation and move it towards you need a drink or what did you think of the google booth?

Search marketing and affiliate marketing is unlike any other industry. It’s not the IT world- you need to install an exchange server ok! no problem! you find a Microsoft partner and presto you have a Certified Professional at your office within a few days taking care of everything- it doesn’t matter if your in Los Angeles or Omaha

The search professionals are spread very thin across the globe and because of the constant changing nature of the business each have different specialties. One person you meet might be a blogging expert another could be a SEO expert.

In order to effectively network and build a collection of associates and colleagues you need a crisp and clear message as a starting point. Following up with a business card with your pitch on the back with links to a personal website with more information about yourself is essential.

15 second pitch is a launching point to help you craft a crisp, short message about your self and/or company. Examples of real pitches are posted throughout the site to help get those creative juices flowing

Get the business cards of the people you meet if they don’t have any get their email address and write it down on one of your cards and send a follow up email after you leave the show. Build a network and keep in touch. I’ve noticed when I go to shows I am recognizing more and more people. Lots of opportunities to build relationships and forge partnerships for a future project or idea!!!

Sign up for linkedin and create personal profile with your pitch as a summary. Send a request to connect to everyone you get an email address for. You would be surprised how many affiliate marketers are on linkedin

15 second pitch is a quick exercise to create a pitch for yourself create a business card and read the profiles and pitches of others just like you. Give it a try!

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/23/15-second-pitch-or-how-to-explain-affiliate-marketing-for-yourself/feed/ Tell everyone you know about GOOG-411-Google voice local search http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/tell-everyone-you-know-about-goog-411-google-voice-local-search/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/tell-everyone-you-know-about-goog-411-google-voice-local-search/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:06:23 +0000 jason http://southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/tell-everyone-you-know-about-goog-411-google-voice-local-search/ Goog411
Tell everyone you know about Goog-411- I have used other free 411 services in the past and have had up and down results with the services- everything from ending up in a endless advertising loop to not being able to find the correct listing

Goog 411 or 1-800-GOOG-411 or 1-800-466-4411 is Google’s answer to 411

The system works even if you don’t know what you are looking for- for example you can request coffee shop and give a zip code or nearby intersection and the system will read off a list of nearby business and you can even have the option of having the information sent to you as a text message.

I’ve been reading about some work Microsoft and other companies are doing with this along the lines of having maps pop up on your phone and using the GPS features to not only give you the information but guide you to the location. While this is very cool and I would love to try this services like this will not work on all services or all phones.

This service works with all phones, all providers and as far as I know everyone can receive a text message of some kind

Here’s the cheat sheet for the service. I tried it out and the best tip is you hit 9 to have the text message sent with the listing information

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/tell-everyone-you-know-about-goog-411-google-voice-local-search/feed/ Interesting use of twitter- woot! http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/interesting-use-of-twitter-woot/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/interesting-use-of-twitter-woot/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:13:04 +0000 jason http://southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/interesting-use-of-twitter-woot/ For those of you that follow twitter or were thinking about using the service an interesting new twist has come to light. Woot is on twitter now at http://twitter.com/woot. Get woot updates straight from twitter. The new deals come out around midnight depending where you are and more times than not are pretty good deals for stuff you may or may not need or want.
I’ve considered jumping in on the whole twitter craze and more applications like this might just push me over the edge so to speak
Twitter woot

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]]> http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/04/12/interesting-use-of-twitter-woot/feed/ Costco tightens return policy for electronics-sad day for shoppers http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/02/27/costco-tightens-return-policy-for-electronics-sad-day-for-shoppers/ http://www.southwestseo.com/2007/02/27/costco-tightens-return-policy-for-electronics-sad-day-for-shoppers/#comments Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:47:30 +0000 jason http://southwestseo.com/2007/02/27/costco-tightens-return-policy-for-electronics-sad-day-for-shoppers/ Costco announced today that it is tightening its policy for return on electronics to 90 days. This is disappointing for a couple of reasons.

Costco was a great place to shop mainly for the return policy. Whenever I would shop for a computer or a monitor or other electronics I would always check Costco if the price was the same or even a little higher in some cases (No-Costco isn’t always the cheapest!!) I would buy it at Costco because if anything ever went wrong I could take it back and get a full refund or swap out.

Friends would call me on the phone and ask my advice and I would always say “well if costco has it buy it there because your protected in case anything goes wrong”

This policy was great for monitors, lcd displays, tv’s, etc. If you ever developed bad pixels- the little white dots that appear for no reason you could take it back and if you had the receipt it was a no brainer. Not any more! I hate to say it but if costco isn’t cheaper- quite a bit cheaper on electronics it’s a no go I mean I can get a 90 day return policy at Target!

I recently started purchasing all printers at Compusa- they have a warranty you can buy for less than $50 if anything ever happens to the printer you fill out a web form and they ship you a refurbished printer to replace it with return shipping and materials to return the old one.

That’s a great add-on I can’t tell you how many printers that have just died on me over the years forget about getting anything repaired its usually cheaper to get something new depending on what you have.

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