Daniel Felice

Google Nexus One in Australia

// January 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Phones

As usual, living in Australia means that we are the last country to receive anything. It has been better in recent years with regards to television and movies, but technology still seems to take at least 3-4 months if not more to catch up with the rest of the world.

Living in Ireland, they were pretty much on the same schedule as the UK, so I got things when they came out and not 6 months after the rest of the world was already sick of it.

The Google Nexus One was released a few weeks ago to 4 countries. One of them not being Australia, and probably not the fault of any Australia telco. Looking at reports from various online sources, Vodafone look like they are going to carry the phone in Australia but have said it will be available to us “sometime in 2010″. That means they probably haven’t even seen the phone yet, let alone be in the process of testing it.

With no confirmation date, and with no date likely to be annouced for a while I am going to get a friend to buy me one from the US and get it shipped here. It will probably work out cheaper for me anyway, with the final cost of the phone plus shipping to be somewhere around AUD$650, maybe even cheaper.

I have been waiting for an Android phone for a while now. In a post  a few months back I mentioned that I was waiting for the next generation of phones from Acer, Motorola and SE. Following that, HTC announced their new 2010 lineup and I was set on the Bravo, now I want the Nexus One.

By the time Vodafone Australia launches the N1, it will be old. The Nexus 2 probably would have been announced, or even released and I’d once again be wanting the latest device. There is always going to be something better, so I figure I will get the N1 now from the US before I see what is coming later this year, or I will never get an Android phone.

I am going to order it next week, I”ll let you know what it is like. But before then, I have to find to Aussie carrier that won’t charge me an arm and leg for data. That’s another thing we are behind in, the falling of mobile phone costs! I’ll leave that rant for another day.

Google PageRank

// April 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // General, Projects

I decided to check the PageRank of my websites today and was suprised to see that Explore With Me now has a PageRank of 3. We have been working hard in the past few weeks to gain a little bit more exposure with the site, trying to encourage travellers to join the social networking site.

Last week we went live with a modified layout and have had some positive feedback. The next big update will be WordPress MU 2.7.1 and BuddyPress v1 which will hopefully be released within the next few weeks.

The PageRank for this blog has dropped to 0 for some reason. I cannot understand why we have lost the PageRank 3 ranking which the blog held for a few months. We have had more traffic over the past few months so it does not really make sense and I cannot find an explaination as to why it would have been taken away.

It is still early days for Free BuddyPress Themes so there is no PageRank yet, but with the contest and a bit of publicity within the WPMU/BuddyPress community it won’t be long hopefully.

Things to Do When Creating a New Site

// January 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // How To, The Internet

I have created a few websites and blogs over the years and each time I tend to do exactly the same things in terms of setup, design and marketing. In the early stages of creating a new site, each site is pretty much the same no matter what kind of content you are going to upload.

Every website needs a domain name and a host server. The domain name is normally dependant on the type of site you are launching and choosing a host will depends on your needs. Unless you have a massive website with a lot of videos, music and photos, generally the basic hosting package is enough. Most good hosts now offer anywhere between 1 and 5 GB of storage as their basic package, storage shouldn’t initially be an problem.

Other things to consider when looking for a web host are mySQL databases, PHP, ASP, Windows or Linux and E-Mail addresses. It will depend on your needs as to whether you need a Windows or Linux based server, but generally Linux servers are cheaper and support both PHP and mySQL. If you are creating an ASP or .NET based site then you’ll normally need a Windows box.

In terms of design I normally create the site for 800×600 browsers as when I was taught web design this was the most common screen resolution. I should probably increase this now as monitors are getting bigger and bigger. It is also a good idea to test the site in a number of web browsers as they all interprete HTML differently.

Once the site is uploaded to your server, the next task is to bring traffic to the site. There are a number of things I do to get the site bringing in some traffic.

• Submit your site to search engines: There are plenty of free websites where you can submit your URL to search engines. Most services will submit your site to Google and Yahoo, and also a bunch of other search engines.
• Add an XML site map to Google: To assist Google in finding your web pages you should create an XML sitemap and upload it. If you search for “Google XML sitemap” you’ll find a number of websites who offer this service.
• Social networks: Submit a few pages of your site to social bookmark networks such as Digg and StumbleUpon. Twitter is also a good way to promote a new site.
• Forums: If you find a few forums that cover the topic of your website then add it to your signature and make a few posts. Don’t just create a new post to advertise your new site as it will most probably get you banned or your post removed.

Once the site is up and running, designed and listed in the search engines, then it is time to improve the site and generate more traffic. No project is ever complete…

What do you religiously do each time you create a new site?

DanielFelice.com Reaches First Milestone!

// October 13th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Project Blogger

After nearly 6 months since I started this blog I have finally reached a fairly important milestone – well actually two milestones in the same week!

Not only is this the 100th post to be published on danielfelice.com, but as of today danielfelice.com has a Google PageRank of 2!

It has been a long and hard 6 months and I have to be honest and tell you that I have thought about giving up and just forget about this whole thing. Over the weekend I was contemplating taking the blog down, however whenever I seem to have these thoughts something like this happens and it keeps me inspired.

I normally check my Google PageRank every month or so and up until now it has always been zero. I was surprised to see it at 2 today so I have to check a few different websites who offer the service just to make sure I wasn’t being fooled.

So after checking the PageRank I decided to head over to Alexa and check my traffic ranking. For the first time the site has ranked below 1,000,000 at 827,46. The site is ranked even better in Australia (26,020), Philippines (97,758) and even the Untied States (609,886).

I think for a webmaster and blogger seeing these types of figures helps boost the confidence and keeps me from giving up. Some days I wonder if this is worth maintaining and putting effort into, however as the old saying goes “you have to be in it to win it”.

Looking back at the past 100 posts I have dramatically improve my style of writing. When I look back at some of the early posts I cringe and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Although this is an online journey I think it has taught me a few things about myself – perseverance being number one.

Thanks for all the support over the past 6 months or so, and thanks for helping me get to 100 posts and a PageRank of 2!

Hard Work is Paying Off

// July 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

The first week of July was great for danielfelice.com. This month alone, the blog has had more hits than in the past 3 months it has been active. I put this down to Nameseek and also my increased efforts to generate more content for people to read.

As far the as the revenue goes, it is slowing climbing. I can now afford 2 cups of coffee! But it has doubled in the past few weeks alone, which is a good sign. Most of the revenue is coming from Google Adwords, and few cents here and there from Kontera.

Next I have to find a way to optimise my affiliate ads to suit my users. I have had the same ads up for the past few weeks, with the best performing being “Watch TV live on your PC“. Although I have not made any sales from this ad, it has been clicked the most.

I will start to change around the ads every week or so to try to figure out what the best performing are. I think “Domaining Manifesto” will be fairly good, as alot of the hits I am getting are related to Nameseek.

I have also been reading a few ebooks in my spare time to find out how the pros make money blogging. I have downloaded the new ebook from JohnCow.com to try and improve my blogging, and also try to make it into a business rather than just a blog. I also plan of downloading a few others to read over the next few weeks.

Hopefully I can learn a few things and implement some of their strategies to improve my blogging and my approach to making this a successful resource for my audience. Thanks for all of your support!

New Look

// June 22nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

As you may have noticed, I have changed the theme of the blog. I think the other theme was a bit out-dated and didn’t really have what I was looking for in a theme.

I have downloaded this theme from Dezzain Studio after searching all over the net for a good looking theme. I was about to design my own when I stumbled onto the Dezzain Studio website. All of their themes are top quality and very professional looking.

I have added some six 125×125 advertisements from various affiliates that I have signed up to over the past few days. Market Leverage are responsible for four positions, Nameseek one, and Bidvertiser the final position. If anyone else does want to advertise I will open up 2 more positions on the right sidebar.

I have removed the Bidvertiser ads from the site and replaced them with Google Adsense. I wasn’t making anything from the Bidvertiser ads so I thought it might be a good time to see how the Google ads go.

I have also removed DealDotCom from the site also and I have not received anything from them and would rather use the space to advertise a 125×125 ad.

Kontera is the only original ad that remains on the site. I have had a few hits and made a little bit on the Kontera Content Links so at the moment there is no need to remove it.

So after a few months it was time to change a few things around to see if it generates some other interest. I still have not been blogging as much as I would have liked, though with Nameseek up and running I should now be able to concentrate on danielfelice.com.

What is Google PR?

// April 6th, 2008 // No Comments » // The Internet

Since I started this blog last week I have been doing alot reading about Search Engine Optimization and trying to get my blog listed in Google’s search results. A word that keeps on popping onto my screen is Page Rank, or PR.

Being new to blogging and website marketing, I had no idea what it meant, and even less of an idea of how to improve my Page Rank.

If you’re like me and want to trying improve your Page Rank to try to drive hits to your site, then here is a quick explanation for us dummies.

So what is Page Rank?

Page Rank is a numeric value that Google places on your site. The value represents how important your site is, and how it will appear in search results. When one page links to another, Google considers it as a “vote”. The more votes a page has, the more important it must be. Aside from looking at votes, Google analyses the page that casts the vote, and the more important the casting vote is, will be taking into account when determining that pages Page Rank.

How do I improve my PR?

• Links to and from other sites: Try and get your site linked other as many other sites as possible. The Googlebot moves from page to page by following links, so if your page is linked from other sites it will be found easier.
• Internal Links: The easier your site is to navigate, the easier GoogleBot will be able to move around your site. Make sure you have no dead links, and your pages aren’t hidden away in deep directories.
• Update Content: Try to update your content as often as possible. The creation of new pages will keep sending the GoogleBot back to your site for indexing.
• Keywords: Include search keywords within the content of your pages and in your tags. This will help your pages be indexed quicker.
• Images: Google also looks at the ALT tags that are attached to your images. I for one don’t normally use ALT pages, I will be now!

So over the next week or so I am going to be working on trying to build some contacts with other bloggers to hopefully try to get a page linked. Hopefully this will impove my current PR of -1.

If you want to check your current Google Page Rank, visit http://www.whatsmypagerank.com