Rumbling Lankan » Blogging Tips

Problem with Flash Websites and How to Fix Them

Nishadha — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:03:26 +0000

With the rise of tourism in Sri Lanka I see many websites coming up related to hotels, beach resorts and boutique hotels, and most of them are created mostly using flash. Problem with Flash websites are not limited for search engine optimization. There are many other factors about Flash websites that leads to less visitors and low sales. Even if you manage to get visitors to your websites, using search engines or referrals, you are more likely to piss off the user with too much Flash. Below are few problems of Flash heavy websites.

Flash is Not Search Engine Friendly

Although search engines have evolved and they have improved crawling of Flash content, still they can't properly identify Flash content. So if your website is Flash heavy then you will have trouble ranking in search engines. If you are using Flash then make sure to add some text content to the website as well. Proper titles, meta description etc become even more important in Flash websites. Also the preview function in Google perform poorly for Flash websites, Especially if the object takes time to load. Since I do SEO in Sri Lanka, I frequent come across sites like these and they sure are hard to optimize for search engines.

Problem With Flash Websites

Flash Increases Load Time of Websites

Flash object take some time to load, so visitors with relatively slow Internet connections will have trouble viewing your site and more likely to leave your website. Load time is not a factor in Google ranking algorithm as well, so it can hurt your rankings and potential customers.

Flash Object Do Not Pass Validation Tests

Flash object will not pass website validation and usability texts. If a website is not properly validating then you are likely to miss some visitors, especially if your content have a global appeal. Properly validated websites are more pleasing for the users and tend to speed up the website as well.

No Consistent Support Across Browsers

You need a Flash player to view Flash content, and although they are available for free, not everyone will go on to download players just to view your website. Also Flash content doesn't perform consistently across all browsers and can break your website according to the browser version of the user.

Difficult to Navigate and to Find Necessary Information

A Flash websites is difficult to navigate compared to a traditional websites and since information is embedded as images in some cases it will be very hard to find the necessary information for a user. For example if you are showing your contact details as an Flash image, then a potential user might never find those information if he doesn't have a Flash player installed.

How to Fix Problem With Flash Websites

The best way to fix the problem with Flash websites is to reduce the Flash content. Flash it not something bad, the correct lead to beautiful websites and attract more customers. These are especially useful in hotel, beach resort and entertainment industry, where visually pleasing websites attract more customers. Also try to add descriptive text within your Flash object because search engines are getting adapt at reading them.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Problem with Flash Websites and How to Fix Them in a browser.

Generating ideas and how to follow up on your ideas

Nishadha — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:30:55 +0000

If you have being blogging for a while, you must have heard about "writers block", it is a situation where you are stuck for new ideas, you are desperate to write a new post but you just can't come up with an interesting topic for a post, and there are situations where people have just stopped blogging because they can't come up with new ideas. Most people have trouble generating ideas and so you need all the help you can get to generate new ideas and efficiently use those ideas. I have being writing for Squidoo for a while, and when browsing some of the lenses created by fellow lens masters I found this great lens about creating ideas. Its a long article covering things like creating ideas and how to best use them. But there are two points which I personally found very helpful in my online work and life in general. Those two are

Ideas don't have to be big
You must immediately write down your ideas

Although two separate points those are somewhat related, because some ideas are not big you tent to ignore and forget them in a while, but if you have written them down then you always have a record of those ideas. Below is a quote from that article which I found very inspiring

People often think that to have useful ideas they must think of something extraordinary or revolutionary but in fact ideas can be small and simple, a quicker way to work, a way to organize your paperwork, a way to get your work done more efficiently, an attention grabbing title for your new essay or blog posting, a simple gift that would provide pleasure for a friend or relation, a surprise for a colleague, an exciting vacation, a new recipe, a way of using some ingredients that might go stale soon.

Please check out the article about creating ideas and I highly advise you bookmark it, so you can always refer it back when you are stuck for ideas.

Tools to write and follow up on your ideas

After realizing the importance of ideas why it is important to follow up on them I quickly looked for tools to implement the suggestion. If you are not a software engineer like me, who spends most of his day in front of the computer, then these tools might not suit you perfectly, but I'm sure you can generate few ideas to match your needs. First of all I needed some tool to write down my ideas. Since I have my Firefox browser opened all the time QuickFox Notes ( Firefox Add-On) was the best solution for me. You can open it with a single click on your browser and below is an image from my QuickFox Notes

Not that I have a way of quickly adding notes, now I needed a tool so I can access them from almost anywhere. Installing QuickFox helped in this regard as well,since QuickFox notes are saved as Firefox bookmarks all I needed to do was synchronize those bookmarks across computes. You can do this easily using Firefox Sync, which is another Firefox add-on. Now I can write down my ideas quickly and access them whenever I'm browsing, and I have found this very useful when it comes to producing blog posts and Squidoo lenses.

For people who are not in front a browser most of the day the most obvious choice is the mobile phone, there are plenty of advanced mobile phones these days and I'm sure they have the facility to store notes. If you are storing ideas in some other form I would love to hear about the tools and methods in the comment section, so feel free to share your ideas.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Generating ideas and how to follow up on your ideas in a browser.

PayPal send only solutions ( PayPal Alternatives )

Nishadha — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:50:05 +0000

In one of my previous posts I mentioned about how to receive money from PayPal send only accounts. Some of the things mentioned in that post are not that relevant now because of various changes in PayPal. However if you are residing in a country with PayPal send only accounts then there are few alternatives you can use to receive payments for your online service. I have tried all these methods and they have worked perfectly for me. It is up to you to choose your preferred method although I will give you some hints, so you can identify the best method that suits you. I personally use these service and have received money to those accounts so I know they work. If you have any questions about the below method feel free to ask in the comments section and if you find this article helpful make sure to share it with your friends as well.

PayPal send only solution

Use another online payment service

Although PayPal is the most popular and widely used online payment method, there are plenty of other services available to you as well. AlertPay and Moneybookers are the other alternative payment services I use, you can choose one depending on your country. In my opinion AlertPay is the widely recognized one and it is included as a receiving option in many popular freelance sites as well.

Like PayPal these services also have upgraded accounts which can be used to do a whole lot more activities. If you are starting to set up a online business in a PayPal send only country then this is about the only option you have as well.

Receive money to a friends account

If you have a friend in a country like US,UK where you can receive money from PayPal, then one of the easiest methods is to receive your payment to that account and let your friend send you money via check, direct deposit or any other payment service like AlertPay,Moneybookers etc. Be mindful of the costs for direct deposits because it is relatively high amount for international transactions.

Get the Money via direct deposit

If you are getting paid for a standalone service like creating a website, optimizing a website for search engines etc then you can consider getting money via a direct deposit. As mentioned above there are some fixed charges so it might be not applicable to all payment. As a practice I only request money via direct deposits only if it exceeds 100$ and usually it cost me about 5-1o$ for various charges. Considering that PayPal charges you 5$ to debit money to your credit card I think this is a good bargain.

Receive money via a check

This is my preferred option for receiving money from Merchants like ClickBank, CJ. You can use this method for other online payments as well. This option is cost effective but time consuming. It takes about a week to receive the check and it takes even more time for the money to come to your bank account. On average it takes about 2-3 weeks for my Adsense and Clickbank checks to be visible in my bank account.

Amazon Gift Cards ( Quick PayPal send only solution )

It doesn't necessarily have to be Amazon, but Amazon gift cards don't expire. If you are looking to buy something online then getting your money as an Amazon gift card is a good option. One big advantage of this method is, it is almost instant payment received.

Below are some of the solutions and workarounds you can use if you are in a PayPal send only country.If you have another great idea feel free to share it in the comments section. If you find this article useful share it with you friends as well.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read PayPal send only solutions ( PayPal Alternatives ) in a browser.

Understanding reading patterns to make money online

Nishadha — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:09:10 +0000

Understanding the average Internet user and there reading patterns is very important if you want to monetize your website or just want to make the user experience as pleasant as possible in your website. In very broad terms reading patterns can be categorized into two , immersive reading and scanning. The goal of immersive reading is to go through almost all of the text and thoroughly understand what is written in there. This could be something like reading a novel where you absorb everything written there. By contrast the goal of scanning is to locate things , this could be something like a user visiting your website to find your contact details or find an order form etc. When it comes to blogging in most cases it is a combination of two of these techniques , they scan for the desired information and do some immersive reading to comprehend that section. Which is why it is important to make your blog , websites and even blog posts easy to scan and locate important things. In one of my previous posts I showed how to make a user friendly website , below are few things you can do to make them easy to scan.

Have important information in vertical navigator or at the top of the sidebar - it could be your contact information , link to the download of something your giving away free , if its an event it could be link to the time table , anything that you will think that visitors to your blog or website want to find out quickly
Break your blog posts into small points - it could be by having sub headers , presenting items in bullet points , making some text bold etc , anything to highlight the important aspects of your blog post , keep in mind that users tend to skip large paragraphs that are not properly formatted. There are some cases where this is a good thing and which can lead to increase in advertisement clicks but if you trying to provide information and grab the attention of the user then its best to avoid such text blocks.

How could this be used when placing ads

Scanning Pattern

Making the text easier to scan can highlight your main points in the blog but to highlight your ads and to increase your income you need to understand the general eye movement pattern when scanning. Typically a user would scan a web page or a document in the order shown in the images. Top left corner is the starting point which is why ads just under blog title tend to perform well. Then the focus moves to top right and as you can see the least looked upon place is the bottom left corner. So having your contact information and newsletter subscription form at the bottom left is not a good idea. This web page about home business ideas is a good example of utilizing reading patterns. See how they have utilized the least looked at part with an attractive colorful looking poll.
Although these patterns could be considered as starting point you should remember that it is very important to measure the performance of your advertisement units because user behavior is differs from blog to blog. Most advertisement programs allow you to track your clicks etc and in case of Google Adsense you can use channels to monitor the performance of your ad block.
I hope this point will help you to increase your earnings and to grasp more readers , feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Understanding reading patterns to make money online in a browser.

Web Design in Sri Lanka – How to create a user friendly website

Nishadha — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:21:45 +0000

Sri Lanka has a growing Internet audience which is increasing the demand for web site designers. Web designing in Sri Lanka seems to be more about fancy Flash scripts and less about website usability. Its all very well to have a fancy looking flash based website but if the visitors can't find the information they are looking for then your website isn't worth much. In one of my previous posts I talked about search engine optimization in Sri Lanka , but ranking for key words and bringing in visitors isn't worthwhile if you are not providing the relevant information in an easy to find way.Below are few tips that could be useful in making your blog or website more user friendly.

Tips to make your website user friendly

Have a consistent website design - Everything about your website should be consistent , the color theme from one page to another shouldn't vary drastically. Same goes for link colors and sidebar links. If you are underlining your links make sure you underline all of them in a consistent manner. This should apply to fonts as well , basically what you should do is use your common sense. Getting a few opinions from different people also helps in this regard.

Display contact info - One thing I find missing in most Sri Lankan websites , contact information is something users regularly check on websites and in some sites its the hardest to find thing as well if it is there at all. Don't display contact info as a small link in your blogs footer but show it prominently in the header area. Its a good idea to have a separate page for contact info and link to it from the home page. Make sure to provide the necessary details and provide a contact form as well.

Have a good navigation structure - The important pages of your website should be always accessible. They could be displayed in the header navigation bar or in the sidebar but it should found easily.This is especially true for blogs where visitors tend to leave quickly if they don't find the information they are looking for.If you take this blog for example the RSS subscription is visible in every page. So are the important links in the header navigator which includes the contact info etc. Displaying the home button displayed everywhere is also very important.

Make your links descriptive - This could be considered as part of good navigation but making your links descriptive is very important. If the link is going to a page about web design services then make sure to name is "web design services" instead of just "services"

Have a site search - Make it easier for users who are looking for information in your site. It is very easy to integrate services like Google site search etc so you have no excuse for not providing a search box.

Use proper language and grammar - Your website is the first impression a potential customer has of your service or company so make sure to make it a good impression. If your website is filled with spelling and grammar errors then the customer might think if he can't properly maintain a website how could I trust him with a service or a product.

Make sure forms and shopping carts work - If your website has feedback forms or any sort of form make sure they are working properly. If you are a merchant selling something then make sure that your shopping cart software works properly and your payment options are secure.

Tips to make your website user friendly

Have a consistent website design - Everything about your website should be consistent , the color theme from one page to another shouldn't vary drastically. Same goes for link colors and sidebar links. If you are underlining your links make sure you underline all of them in a consistent manner. This should apply to fonts as well , basically what you should do is use your common sense. Getting a few opinions from different people also helps in this regard.
Display contact info - One thing I find missing in most Sri Lankan websites , contact information is something users regularly check on websites and in some sites its the hardest to find thing as well if it is there at all. Don't display contact info as a small link in your blogs footer but show it prominently in the header area. Its a good idea to have a separate page for contact info and link to it from the home page. Make sure to provide the necessary details and provide a contact form as well.
Have a good navigation structure - The important pages of your website should be always accessible. They could be displayed in the header navigation bar or in the sidebar but it should found easily.This is especially true for blogs where visitors tend to leave quickly if they don't find the information they are looking for.If you take this blog for example the RSS subscription is visible in every page. So are the important links in the header navigator which includes the contact info etc. Displaying the home button displayed everywhere is also very important.
Make your links descriptive - This could be considered as part of good navigation but making your links descriptive is very important. If the link is going to a page about web design services then make sure to name is "web design services" instead of just "services"
Have a site search - Make it easier for users who are looking for information in your site. It is very easy to integrate services like Google site search etc so you have no excuse for not providing a search box.
Use proper language and grammar - Your website is the first impression a potential customer has of your service or company so make sure to make it a good impression. If your website is filled with spelling and grammar errors then the customer might think if he can't properly maintain a website how could I trust him with a service or a product.
Make sure forms and shopping carts work - If your website has feedback forms or any sort of form make sure they are working properly. If you are a merchant selling something then make sure that your shopping cart software works properly and your payment options are secure.

I hope the above tips will help you make your website better and much user friendlier to the user. If you are looking to get your website designed you can contact me.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Web Design in Sri Lanka – How to create a user friendly website in a browser.

Search Engine Optimization Sri Lanka – choosing the right SEO company

Nishadha — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:27:08 +0000

With the growth of the Internet using population in Sri Lanka more and more companies are building there own websites and doing search engine optimization for there sites. Simply put Search Engine optimization(SEO) is the process of ranking your website in Google and other major search engines for a specific keyword using organic natural methods. Search Engine Marketing(SEM) can include paid methods as well. For example if you search for make money online in Sri Lanka you will find one of my previous posts as the first organic result.The other three results before that are paid advertisements which could be categorized as SEM. Although SEO has being there for a while it is relatively new thing to most Sri Lankan companies and it is certainly something that is a bit confusing to the top management. Search engine optimization Sri Lanka is done by many companies, but promises a great deal but fails to deliver on there promise. This has led to companies looking suspiciously at SEO companies but there are companies out there that do provide quality SEO services in Sri Lanka.

Benefits of SEO

Without a doubt there are plenty of benefits for properly optimizing your site for search engines , below are few benefits you can get through SEO

Increase in Sales - If you manage to rank for a keyword that is related to your business then it could lead to a significant increase in your sales. For example if you are a florist then ranking for the keyword "flower delivery in Colombo" could lead to increase of sales
Branding - Having a strong online presence is important for almost any business , Imaging someone searching for your company and comes up with a post criticizing your product , this could lead to losing trust with your customers

Optimizing your website( on site SEO )

On site SEO means optimizing your website for search engines , keep in mind though that this is only 10% of what you need to get good search engine rankings. But this 10% is very important for achieving good rankings. This is where shady SEO companies trick there customers , they charge a hefty fees for this although it could be done relatively easily. These are things like modifying your titles , H1 and H2 tags , writing keyword optimized posts , creating proper links , creating good navigation structure and optimizing your images etc.

Link building - the most important thing you need to rank in search engines

There are lots of factors that contribute to good search engine ranking but without a doubt one of the most important factors is the number of back links you have for your site and the quality of those back links. When you are hiring a SEO company this is one area where you have to be very careful because some black hat SEO companies promises higher ranking in a short period of time but they achieve that using illegal and shady method which could lead to your website not showing at all in search engines.

Choosing an SEO company in Sri Lanka

Below are few things you can do to make sure you find a good SEO company

Check how well they rank for related keywords - this is somewhat of an obvious thing , if the company that is going to deliver your results can't even rank there website then its a bit tough for them to do that for you. For example you can search for "SEO in Sri Lanka" and see if that company comes up in the top 10 or something like that.
Look for customer testimonials - This is one of the best ways to find a good company because you need to be doing a good job to have happy customers. Be aware of fake testimonials though because lots of companies have no problem adding fake testimonials in there websites. If they don't have them in there website make sure contact them and find some references.
Ask for the exact plan - If its a good SEO company they usually have no problem providing you the exact details of how they are going to rank your website in search engines. This is a good way to avoid black hat methods and keep your company reputation in tact.
No one can guarantee first place in search results - No SEO company can guarantee you first place in search results and it some company is claiming that then it is usually a fraud company.

Looking for Search Engine Optimization Sri Lanka ?

If you are on the lookout for search engine optimization in Sri Lanka you can contact me . You will get advice on what keywords are relevant for your business , you will get your website optimized for search engines and if you are looking for rank for certain keywords a full detailed plan about how back links are gotten will be provided.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Search Engine Optimization Sri Lanka – choosing the right SEO company in a browser.

New Year , Better focus

Nishadha — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:13:37 +0000

I know its not the beginning of the year but when someone has to send you messages to let you know that your domain and hosting expired you know you are neglecting your blog. Last two months were strange months for me where I couldn't seem to do much on my online work, and as expected my earnings took a dip. Still 340$ is not bad for not doing anything at all. My sweet deal with Bluefur hosting expired so I had to move to a regular 6$ per month hosting package. Before that hosting cost was 10$ per year which was a pretty sweet deal and one of the reasons why I started this blog. Since I'm paying 6$ per month I guess I better put some effort into this blog.

There is a steady increase in the number of peopel who are asking for help too. I would like to help you all but the fact is I can't help everyone. I would be happy to answer a specific quetion like "Will reading commercial e-mails make me money ?" but I cant answer a question like "how to make money online ?" simply because the scope is two great. And if you are a beginner who wants to learn how to make money online then please visit Keyword Academy and become a member. It will cost you 1$ for the first month and the first video alone is worth far more than that. That video alone will save you lot of time and effort and the rest of the videos will guide you along the way. This ain't a get rich quick scheme and you have to work hard , but it will make sure you go about it in the correct way. If you have any questions about the program feel free to ask in the comments section.

A recent comment made me think of writing a post about managed FOREX accounts and the legal side of FOREX trading. I will come up with a post about that soon , so stay tuned

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read New Year , Better focus in a browser.

Fight Plagiarism while building back links

Nishadha — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:20:58 +0000

Blog content theft is one of the biggest problems faced by bloggers and although there are many steps you can take to fight plagiarism it is still a nuisance. If you are a blogger yourself then you know how much time and effort is put to come up with a blog post. So it is no wonder that it pisses you off when someone publishes your content as there own. But the sad reality is that there will always be scrappers out there who will copy your content especially if you write good stuff. Serious blogger community is a linked in group where blogger are getting together to fight plagiarism. It has some really good discussions like how to find plagiarism , how to handle plagiarism , how to inform WordPress about plagiarized content etc. LinkedIn groups are normally very responsive and since they are relatively small it is a good place to make connections as well. I suggest you join the group and check out the discussions. And if you are in LinkedIn don't forget to connect with me

One thing about content thieves is they are generally lazy people , otherwise they would be writing blog posts instead of copying them. What most of them do is feed your RSS feed to some software which automatically does the posting for them. They hardly check or modify the content and you can use that laziness to your advantage. Whenever you write a new post always try to link to your previous posts within the post. That way you will be automatically building back links with your choice of anchor text. In a while you will realize what kind of content gets copied the most. For me its mostly when I write about Adsense. So now when I write blog posts about Adsense I make sure to link to at least two of my previous posts about Adsense.

Another great way to build up your back links and improve your readership is guest blogging and the above mentioned LinkedIn group has a sub group for guest bloggers. Its pretty similar to bloggerLinkUp which I blogged a while back. You can ask for guest post or offer guest posts. If you are looking to build back links then this is a good place to start looking. I hope you join the group and help fight plagiarism

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Fight Plagiarism while building back links in a browser.

Blog posts I found interesting and useful

Nishadha — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:37:50 +0000

Time to take look at some of the great posts I found this week. If you do happen to have found a great post related to SEO , making money online or blogging feel free to share them in the comment section , I feel feature it if I liked it .

The first post looks at blogs from a reader point of view. If you want to know what readers find irritating about blogs this is a very good read. Applying some of the techniques given here is sure to make your readers happy.

The next post is from Daily Blog Tips and it shows you four steps to increase your traffic. It has a very nice break down of things you need to do to increase your traffic and if you are relatively new to blogging and looking to increase traffic this is a very good read.

Next one is a post from Friday Traffic report and its about a one hour link building workout. If you are trying this for the first time it will take you more than one hour. At Least it took me more than one hour , but its a very good way to approach link building. More links you build the better it is for your blog.

Next is a post from TypePad and its about ten secrets to writing better blog posts. There is no secret method revealed here but it shows some simple things we tend to forget or neglect that can make our posts much better.

I hope you will enjoy these posts as much as I did and if you have a great post to share be sure to mention it in the comment section

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read Blog posts I found interesting and useful in a browser.

BlogEngage – Engage with bloggers while getting traffic

Nishadha — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:22:34 +0000

BlogEngage is a Digg like service where you can submit your articles and then others can vote for your articles. Although its still not as popular as Digg, it sure seems to be heading in the right direction because people who are behind blogengage seems to be putting lot of effort in marketing it. Because its still in its opening stages at the moment you have the early movers advantage. You can get to the front page without too many votes and getting published in the front page gives you a back link and a considerable amount of traffic as well. And unlike diggers the traffic from blog engage tends to stick and engage with the blog. This could be due to the fact that most members in there at the moment are actual bloggers. Building back links it very important for the success of any blog and blogengage provides a great opportunity to get some easy quality back links. Since most of the members are bloggers blog posts related to blogging , SEO , WordPress seems to do well so if your blog is along those lines you might want to expose your blog to these targeted set of people.

If you feel like engaging more then there is the blog engage forum , as with the site there are not many users there yet but because of the small size this could be a good opportunity to build some relationships. Building relationships play a big role when your trying to build a business online and the forum provided you with a good opportunity to do that. I think this is a good opportunity to get some quality back links and build relationships so you definitely should try it out.

This post originally appeared at Rumbling Lankan - How to make money online from blogging . Click here to read BlogEngage – Engage with bloggers while getting traffic in a browser.