Net Covered Blog

Wordpress by admin

I really like this feature. It’s extremely useful and saves lot of time. Sometimes I get new ideas for posts while I’m just browsing the net or checking my favorite blogs/forums but the problem is that I usually don’t have enough time to write the post right away or simply I’m just too tired. That’s exactly the situation when this handy feature becomes very helpful. I just log into the wordpress admin panel, open a new post, fill in a title and few sentences containing as much information as possible so I won’t forget the idea. Then I save it as a draft. Once I’m in a mood to write a new post I just open my drafts and choose one of the brainstormed ideas I’ve accumulated. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Read the rest of the article

Wordpress by admin

Congratulations! This is the final part fo my guide and by the time you read this you should be able to code your own wordpress theme. This is mainly a recapitulation of previous four parts. I suppose that you have read through all previus chapters - if not, check them out: Part I, Part II Part III Part IV Read the rest of the article

Miscellaneous by admin

Today’s post will be partially just for my own reference but I’m sure many of you will find it useful and potentionally use it at your websites. There’s a little useful JavaScript function that clears input field once you select it. Imagine you want to have a search input field at your website that says something like “To search type and hit enter” or similar but you want it to clear up once you click at it. It’s pretty simple. Add this to the header:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
function clickclear(thisfield, defaulttext) {
if (thisfield.value == defaulttext) {
thisfield.value = “”;
}
}
function clickrecall(thisfield, defaulttext) {
if (thisfield.value == “”) {
thisfield.value = defaulttext;
}
}
</script>

Ok now move to the form where the input field is located. For example, my search form here at Net Covered looks like this:

<form method=”get” action=”<?php bloginfo(’home’); ?>/”>
<input type=”text” name=”s” id=”searchform” value=”To search - type and hit enter…” onclick=”clickclear(this, ‘To search - type and hit enter…‘)” onblur=”clickrecall(this,’To search - type and hit enter…‘)” />
</form>

The trick is that all three values (I have bolded them) must be the same or else it won’t work. See? That’s it. Now you can try it at your website.

Making Money Online by admin

Domain names have proven their resale value and more and more people are getting involved in domain trading every day. Necessarily the “science” of valuing domains has been becoming a big business. Appraising can be described as the process of evaluating a domain name and determining its market value. There are already dozens of appraisal firms on the scene and many more appearing. But is it really worth your money to get a professional appraisal? I doubt that. Most of the time you’ll need just an approximate value of a domain and you can figure it out on your own with a little research.

Since the domain name appraisal industry is so young, perhaps we could compare it to some other industries. Real estate maybe? I have heard many people describing domain names as “virtual real estate”. However these two concepts are absolutely different. You can register a new domain for cca 10 bucks in 5 minutes flat so there’s essentially no physical value. Therefor domain names are perfect example of an intellectual property in its purest form.

Important Appraising Factors

When determining a value of domains you should take into considerations various factors including its length, keyword recognition, clarity, range of potential uses and many more. I’m going to divide these factors into three categories: Structure, Impact and Marketability. Read the rest of the article

SEO by admin

Google’s PageRank (PR) is one of the most sought after web page attributes. The original idea was that a link from a web page to other site’s web page was basically a vote for that page. Google then used the number of inbound links (IBL or more often called backlinks) to a page to decide its importance. Based on this calculation (however there are many other factors, too) Google ranked the page and decided where it should appear in the search engine results (SERP).

Google uses scale of measurement for PageRank from 1 to 10. The lowest possible PR is PR1, the highest is PR10. The new websites tend to have PR0 which essentially means that they are indexed but they have no PR yet. Here is the official Google’s explanation of the PR.

The table above is only for a better imagination of how the the PageRank is calculated. Only Google knows the exact formula though. When building backlinks for your website remember that quality is more important than quantity. Try to get few higher PR links instead of bunch of low ones. In addition, you must be patient. Google updates the PR averagely every two months (the longest documented period of time between two PR updates was 122 days). Read the rest of the article

General Blogging, Miscellaneous by admin

The best thing you can do to become a more successful blogger is to watch your “enemies”. You should have a list of your favorite blogs and read them regularly or even better subscribe to their feeds. You should choose blogs that are popular and well established. Secondly, you should also watch over blogs that you enjoy reading even though they are not so famous yet (might be your future rivals). By doing this, you will have a greater chance to keep up with the top dogs within your niche and it will drive you to get better and better each day. With this kind of motivation you’ll become a more persistent as well as resolute blogger. OK, enough of the theory - here’s a list of my most favorite blogs and reasons why I like them:

Big Square Dot

Big Square Dot is probably the absolute winner of my list. It’s mostly about modern webdesign and wordpress - that’s why I find it very useful and inspirative. It has helped me with developing my own wordpress themes and I’ve learned tons of useful webdesign lessons there. You should really visit this one, especially if you are a designer.

Cypher Hackz

Cypher Hackz (I always tought it was “Cyber Hacks”… the typo is almost invisible) is one great technology resource for designers and wordpress developers. It’s been around for some time already and there are hundreds of returning visitors and email subscribers. No wonder there because Cypher Hackz publishes only very relevant and informative articles.

Life Is Colourful

Life is Colourful might seem as an ordinary general blog trying to make some money online. But the truth’s it is a place full of great content and interesting posts. It’s updated almost every day and there’s a big community of loyal readers (I’m one of them). Really recommended.

Dosh Dosh

Dosh Dosh blog got pretty unusual and unique name. That’s not the only reason I like it though. It’s full of internet marketing and social media news and articles. It’s updated on a daily basis and every post is very comprehensive an full of useful information. No desperate posts just for the sake of update I tell you.

John Chow Dot Com

Probably the most famous webmaster blog out there. It’s really amazing what John Chow managed to achieve with this blog. In two years it has become one of the most popular “make money online” blogs and it’s probably the most profitable one, too (over $30,000 per month is really amazing). This blog is a great source of inspiration and ideas for all young webmasters and entrepreneurs out there trying to earn some money online.

Miscellaneous by admin

Just a shorter post for today… I’ve just came across this really interesting and comprehensive article. It consists of long list of tips and tricks on how to effectively spread the word about your freelance services and generate new client leads. It explains very well how to get more potential work. If you happen to be a freelancer or if you are considering starting a freelance carrier, check it out!

Wordpress by admin

Getting closer to finishing your first wordpress theme. However there’s one important thing left - sidebar. That’s right, every blog needs a well organized and user-friendly navigation. It’s actually pretty simple. We just need to call few wordpress functions, add few lines to the stylesheet and we’re done. Read the rest of the article

Miscellaneous by admin

Are you up to a great challenge? I mean a blogging challenge. When you succeed, your blog will rank better in search engines, you will gain hundreds of backlinks and a dramatic increase in quality traffic. Are you interested?

What am I talking about? I’m talking about 30 days full of hard work. However it will pay off greatly after your initial one month time investment and the results will last much longer after that. Where did I get this idea? I’ve came across a very interesting article and it really captured my attention.

The core of this challenge is to make at least one post each day for a month. But that’s not all. You must also leave at least one quality comment at other blogs with similar niche every day (no spam comments of course). It’s a brilliant way how to get your blog more popular. There are few reasons why it will work. Firstly, it will get you noticed by search engines and readers as an active blogger. Secondly, you will gather up bunch of a great content and many quality backlinks from well respected blogs within your niche. Finally, you will train your writing skills and become used to periodical posting.

If you don’t give up, you’ll see wonders. There’s a nice graph at Affiliate Confession - that blog used this method and the number of daily visits came from 5 to 180 in just 24 days!

So, are you up to this? It won’t be easy but it will pay off. I’ve already decided to take this challenge in a near future. Not from this day but soon. I will make a post with official announcement once I start it off. Meanwhile, I hope you will consider giving it a try and joining me in my ambitious effort.

Miscellaneous by admin

Hello everybody. If you have already visited this blog before you must have noticed some big changes going on around. I have created absolutely new design. I have kept the previous color scheme though I’ve smoothed the colors to be easier on eyes. In addition, I have tried to make the content more organized - reduced number of categories and more comprendious sidebar. Hope you like it. You can download my previous theme for free here. Enjoy!

Secondly, I have started to use the Entrecard in order to exchnage relevant traffic with other bloggers. You can see it in the “Featured ad” box. I’m also planning to make better comments template. Something similar like at this blog. There are more upcoming changes and few really great ideas in my head so be prepared.