Increase Your Pageviews With A Related Posts Plugin

April 1st, 2011 Zander Posted in Wordpress

The hardest part of blogging is getting people to your site. But once they’ve found you, how are you keeping them coming back?

You’ll come across many sites that have a newsletter pop-up as soon as you arrive. To me, that’s too much too soon. A casual surfer who stumbled across your site on Google isn’t going to subscribe to your newsletter within 15 seconds of landing on your site, because he doesn’t know anything about the site yet. The key is to hook the reader, and have them read a few stories on that first visit.

The easiest way to do that? Install a related-posts plugin. These types of plugins displays a link block at the bottom of your post, suggesting other stories on your blog that might be of interest to your reader. We tried this on one of our sites, and saw a 267% increase in pageviews. And that was with a clunky plugin that didn’t meet our needs 100%. We’re currently in the process of testing out some other plugins that we’ve heard good things about.

The main issue we’ve found is that some of these plugins are REALLY database intensive, and on a site with 5-10K posts this poses a real problem. If you’re on a shared host, the CPU usage could go high enough to get your site disabled. If you’re on a cloud server like us, your bill could skyrocket if you’re not careful. So test, test, and then test some more!

That said, once you find a good related posts plugin, you should be golden. If you can setup a subscription box pop-over to be displayed after someone reads their 3rd post, then your success rate should be very favorable, as the person has shown that he’s genuinely interested in what you’re writing about.

Good luck!

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The High Cost Of Seeing A Movie

March 23rd, 2011 Zander Posted in Business Essentials, ZanderLand

So over the weekend, my wife and I went to see Limitless. We don’t go to the movies too often, because prices have gotten out of control. But she wanted to see it, so I relented. The cost for a night out at the movies? $41

Yeah, I about had a heart attack! 2 tickets, a small popcorn, 2 boxes of candy, and a soda. What the hell happened to the old days when you could go to the movies for under $20?

Something’s got to change here.. In my younger days, I would go and see a new movie every Friday night. $4-5 for a movie ticket (thanks to the Student discount), and somewhat reasonable prices at the concession stands. I’d usually go with a hot dog or nachos for $3-4. Throw in a soda, and I was still only in for $10. If I had a date, the cost was still around $20.

Let’s do the math. Let’s say I saw 40 movies in a given year. That’s $400 that the movie theater is getting from me. Today, I see maybe 2-3 movies a year, netting the theater $60. But really, it’s probably not even that much. If I’m going to Regal, I’ll make it a point to go on a Tuesday, since all Tuesday movies are $6. And if you have a Regal card, popcorn is only $2 on Tuesdays. I can’t in good conscience pay $6-7 for a drink, so I’ll probably smuggle in a drink. So the theater gets $8 out of me. Multiply that by 3, and they’ve gotten $24 from me in the course of a year!

See the problem? They’ve brought this on themselves, and it’s the consumer that suffers..

It makes more sense to wait until movies come out on video. Check out my price breakdown:

Cost of DVD – $16 (to PURCHASE it)
Popcorn – $2
Box of candy – $1 (x2)
Soda – $1

So I’m spending $21, and I get to own the video? And if I rent the movie, it only costs me $10!

Hmm…

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Two Days Of Torture – The Migration To Windows 7

March 18th, 2011 Zander Posted in Product Reviews

I’ve been rocking Windows XP since the beginning. When Vista came out, I stayed away because of the bad press. When I actually used a Vista machine, I saw that the reports were true. But here we are 10 years after XP debuted, and it’s getting harder to stay away. I needed a new computer badly (my previous machine was a C2D from 2006), as my old PC has been struggling to keep up with me lately. I saw a great deal come up through Dell Small Business, and decided to make the plunge!

First impressions were good.. Pretty user interface, appeared to be pretty quick, I thought we were off to a good start. But then those annoying UAC messages started popping up every 10 minutes, driving me absolutely crazy! I figured it was the cost of having a more secure OS, so I let it go and started moving files over from my old computer. The most important piece in that migration was my 2GB Outlook PST file, containing every important e-mail from the past 15 years.. But when I went to import it into my Outlook, I started getting a UAC error stating that I didn’t have permissions to do that, even though I’m an Administrator.

30 minutes later, I stumble across a forum post where someone describes the “workaround” you have to do to import your old e-mails. (You have to have Outlook launch with a “Run as Administrator” option checked off) I still don’t understand what that’s all about, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t the biggest issue.

Day 2 brings me more application migration and actually getting back to work. Only as I install more of my programs, more OS issues start to pop up. The system locked up a number of times, and I had to keep uninstalling stuff until the system became stable again. So much for Windows 7 compatibility.

After one reboot, my primary screen (I run dual-screens) didn’t light up, and my whole desktop showed up on my 2nd monitor. Somehow, Windows 7 forgot that I was running in Extended Desktop mode, and I had to re-enable this setting to have my other screen come back on. At that point, my icon placement was screwed up to high hell..

I’m using UltraMon, which gives me a few of the basic features that should have been included in Windows 7 if they were going to openly support dual-screens. I used it with XP, so it’s not a huge deal. But it’s overhead nonetheless.

Windows Update had me install some hotfixes and reboot. Guess what, screen #1 went missing again! FML!!

Overall, I’ve spent 2 days just trying to get things where I needed them to be. I’m sure in time I’ll learn to cope with Windows 7, and maybe even grow to love it. But right now, if I had an easy way of going back to XP, I’d be there already.

To The Cloud my ass..

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Check Out My New Men’s Interest Blog!

March 16th, 2011 Zander Posted in ZanderLand

I’m one of the founders of Guys Gab, a new Men’s Interest blog.. The site is an online men’s portal, featuring cars, models, technology, movies, music, TV, sports, fitness, travel, product reviews & more. It’s definitely not a site you want to browse at work, if you get my drift. :)

It’s a passion play for us, as this is what we live and breathe! So if you like what you see, please help spread the word about us. And of course, if you have any suggestions on how we can make things better, leave me a comment.

Thanks!

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Farmer Update Is The Best Update In Years!

March 8th, 2011 Zander Posted in Google

Much of the mainstream coverage about the Google Farmer update focuses on the fallout that’s happened. But there’s another side that’s not being talked about, and that’s about the TREMENDOUS gains people are seeing as a result.

Traffic to our e-commerce site has doubled since the update rolled out last month, resulting in a substantial increase in revenue! If you look at our Analytics chart, you can clearly see when the update happened. :)

We’ve always followed white-hat SEO best practices, and it’s finally paying off! I know a number of people who were negatively affected by Farmer, but every one of them knew the risks they were taking by ignoring the “rules” put forth by the big G.

It should be interesting to see how things play out over the next few months..

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More Comcast Frustration..

February 23rd, 2011 Zander Posted in Television

So I picked up a new Plasma TV a few weeks ago, and it has support for 3D. I had heard a rumor that Comcast had some 3D programming, so I started searching the web for answers. Low and behold, a post led me to channels 980 and 981 – Two 3D channels offered by Comcast.

But nothing is easy with Comcast. Only certain set-top boxes are able to receive and broadcast 3D programming. You can swap out your current box for a compatible model, you just have to be able to find one.

10:30am today, I roll up to my local Comcast Customer Center. The lady there tells me that they don’t have any 3D boxes. I ask if she can call the main office that’s about 15 minutes away, and see if they have any in stock. They do, and put one aside for me!

10:45am, I walk into the main office, and “take a number”. Yes, this office is so busy, you have to take a ticket and wait for your number to be called. At 11:15am, they finally call lucky #41, and I go up to swap out my box. During the 30 minute wait, I watched a guy lose his shit (he just wanted to return some boxes since he was cancelling his service, but wasn’t about to wait 30+ mins to do so), and watched two idiots tie up two of the three available service windows with their constant barrage of questions. No problem, don’t mind the 20 other people waiting to be helped!

I finally get my new set-top box (the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta RNG150), and head home. It’s finally 12:00pm, and I plug the new box in, call the number to activate the new box, and I’m off and running. But there’s a weird thing I notice about this new box. It doesn’t have a front LCD display. What does that mean? NO CLOCK! Yep, there’s no clock, and no display to tell you what channel you’re on. WTF kind of BS is that?

Furthermore, Xfinity loves to promote their iPhone app on TV, but what you don’t realize is that the app doesn’t work with the majority of set-top boxes that Comcast offers! It’s a mystery to me..

So to recap: 90 minutes wasted running around town to get a new box, which has no clock and which doesn’t work with the Xfinity App. But it works for the two 3D channels they offer.

Talk about a waste of a morning..

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Good Customer Service = A Customer For Life!

February 14th, 2011 Zander Posted in Business Essentials

While I was in Dallas, my wife called to let me know that “the TV is blurry”. When I got home, I found out that one of the convergance boards had gone on my aging 55″ RPTV. The TV had lasted 10 years, and the cost to repair it was $400-600. For a few hundred more, I could get a whole new TV with all the latest and greatest features. So that’s what I decided to do.

Now, I used to be a huge A/V snob, but this time around I decided to keep things simple. A 50″ Plasma with 1080P was what I wanted. I ended up finding a Samsung (C680) for $999 at Best Buy, and it came with a free 3D starter kit (2 sets of glasses, and some 3D movies), and it included free delivery and removal of my old TV. Good reviews, looked good in person, SOLD!

Here comes the problem. I go to my local Best Buy, and they tell me they’re out of the TV. They call over to another store about 15 miles away, and they have 1 TV left. We ask them to hold it, and go over there to purchase it. When we get there, they tell us the TV is available, but the 3D starter kit has been sold out since Monday. (It’s Friday). No rainchecks, and no way to backorder the starter kit in their system. They tell me to take it or leave it.

I leave. I was pissed that they neglected to tell me this before I drove over there. No wonder BB gets a bad rep.

I decide to head next door to PC Richard and Sons, another electronics retailer much like Best Buy. They had the same TV, only it was $1199 and didn’t come with the 3D Starter Kit. I showed them the Best Buy flyer, and asked them if they’d match the deal. (TV, 3D kit, and delivery/removal) I didn’t think they would go for it since their price match policy excludes the add-ons and delivery. But the manager came back a few minutes later and matched the deal!

This is great customer service! I never bought anything from them before, but you can be sure I’ll be shopping there in the future. (And I’m telling everyone I know about them as well) The TV is being delivered tomorrow, and I can’t wait..

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