Win a t-shirt

I am holding a competition on my auto lah blog. Winners stand the chance to win cool t-shirts. Check out this link for more details.

I plan to have other competitions in the future.

Opt in instead of spam

If you are going for email marketing, make sure you go for opt in marketing whereby subscribers decide they want to receive emails instead of sending unsolicited mails. Read my related post here.

New logo

Was playing around with this logo creator that I downloaded from the net. It's called The Logo Creator(T5b) from Laughingbird Software. You are allowed to 16 free uses of the software, which expires in 30 days.

It's quite easy to use and I had no trouble getting around it.

Just created this log using it. What do you think?


I finally have a Web 2 logo too.

Ways to make money online

Came across this blog called Dumb Little Man via esofthub's web finds.

He has compiled a list of 40+ ways to make money from the Internet. I thought I knew a lot but I found out today that actually I have a lot more to learn.

i really found it interesting. So what do you think?

Are you a blurker

Blurker comes from the combination of the words "blogs" and "lurker". It refers to someone one who lurks around blogs but doesn’t leave comments.

Got this word from Larry Hnetka's blog who inturn got it from the Blogging Terms Glossary: Blog Terminology. by Rose Desrochers.

I guess I am a bit of a blurker sometimes but it's not possible to leave comments on the possibly hundreds of blogs I visits every day.

Read somewhere that leaving comments on blogs, especially the highly popular ones can help increase your blog's PR. After trying it out, I think it's true.

Free newsletter for your blog

A lot of bloggers are interested in growing visitor traffic to their sites but have no idea exactly how to do that.

One way is to create a newsletter for subscribers and I have just the thing for you.

I am talking about Zookoda, blog email marketing application designed specifically for bloggers. It enables you to send a daily, weekly or monthly summary of your latest blog posts directly into your vistors inbox.

Now, in case you are wondering we need this when we already have RSS readers for those interested in your blog. Well, this is different.

Zookoda newsletter are not text excerpts of your blog posts. It allows you to enhance your newletters with eye-catching designs to match your blog design. In case you are worried about mobile users, you can also email your blog content in text form.

As mentioned earlier, it allows you to schedule recurring broadcasts for each day, week or month instead of "everytime you update".

Finally, you can see how far your e-mail marketing through Zookoda, has succeeded by viewing real-time reports. Each email sent out is tracked during delivery, providing you with open, bounce and click through information.

Some other worries I had were answered after reading their "About Zookoda" page. I found out that all emails sent by Zookoda are spam compliant. They also stop false subscriptions by adding wildcard addresses to your blacklist.

This service has a load of other benefits and options but best of all it's totally FREE.

Trying out sitescore

Have you tried out Sitescore?

It's a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible your website is.

I tested out my ah ok lah blog. So here are the results:

Summary
This report tested 5 pages of http://ok-lah.blogspot.com (using Sitescore v1.8.2)
Marketing How well marketed, and popular the website is. 3.1
Design How well designed and built the website is. 8.8
Accessibility How accessible the website is, particularly to those with disabilities. 6.2
Experience How satisfying the website is likely to be. 9.7
Visitor rating Average user rating for this site's design (website needs more votes) Not enough votes
(Vote for this site)
Overall Summary score for this website. 5.9

Visitor feedback
How visitors have rated the design of this website (from one vote):
10/10 100.0%

Good / bad points
Warning point - This website appears to be rarely visited
Warning point - This website appears to be in violation of the British Disability Discrimination Act
Excellent point - This website is very quick to respond
Excellent point - Design makes proper use of modern technology (no table-based layout)

Rating summary (0.0 / 10)- Popularity ranking: Your website appears to be visited so rarely that there is not accurate popularity information available - i.e. it is not in the top 10 million or so websites. This may not be the case if your website is only a few months old.

Recommendations: You can usually increase repeat visitors, by offering useful services or valuable content on your website (e.g. login area, downloads, forums). Ensure that your website is well linked to by others, and that you have submitted it effectively to all the relevant search engines. You should also ensure that your website is effectively designed to be promoted online - e.g. it makes proper use of titles, meta tags etc.

Rating summary (0.0 / 10)- Popularity on Google Based on your webpage title, we guessed that your website / company name is "ah ok lah". In the text on your homepage, these appear to be the most significant phrases:

1. simply different
2. malaysia boleh
3. blog
4. add
5. permalink
6. del
7. labels
8. comments
9. icio
10. post

We took the top 3 phrases and searched for them in Google, along with your website/company name.

No matches on Google were found at all.

The includes searches for ah ok lah, blog, malaysia boleh, simply different.

I don't agree with the above findings as my blog is #1 for ah ok lah on Google.

Recommendations: If your website is more than a month old, you should always aim to score within the top 10 results for a search for your website or company name, at least. Firstly, make sure your website is properly programmed, and makes proper use of title, heading and meta-tags - in particular your homepage. Ensure that your website contains text-based content that is relevant to those searching for your website. Then submit your website to all the search engines and applicable free directories you can.

Rating summary (1.5 / 10) - British legal requirements All pages were found in violation of the current W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

This website may be unlawful in Britain. The British Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service provided to members of the public - including websites.

Show error details (1354 errors found over 5 pages)

Webpage http://ok-lah.blogspot.com
567 errors found - only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 402, column 11: there is no attribute "name"
Line 402, column 31: there is no attribute "content"
Line 402, column 79: element "META" undefined
Line 409, column 24: there is no attribute "src"
Line 409, column 311: there is no attribute "height"
Line 409, column 324: there is no attribute "width"
Line 409, column 343: there is no attribute "marginwidth"
Line 409, column 360: there is no attribute "marginheight"
Line 409, column 374: there is no attribute "scrolling"
Line 409, column 382: there is no attribute "id"
Line 409, column 410: there is no attribute "frameborder"

Webpage http://ok-lah.blogspot.com/2005/04/faqs.html
226 errors found - only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 403, column 11: there is no attribute "name"
Line 403, column 31: there is no attribute "content"
Line 403, column 79: element "META" undefined
Line 410, column 24: there is no attribute "src"
Line 410, column 311: there is no attribute "height"
Line 410, column 324: there is no attribute "width"
Line 410, column 343: there is no attribute "marginwidth"
Line 410, column 360: there is no attribute "marginheight"
Line 410, column 374: there is no attribute "scrolling"
Line 410, column 382: there is no attribute "id"
Line 410, column 410: there is no attribute "frameborder"

Webpage http://ok-lah.blogspot.com/2006/12/classics.html
151 errors found - only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 403, column 11: there is no attribute "name"
Line 403, column 31: there is no attribute "content"
Line 403, column 79: element "META" undefined
Line 410, column 24: there is no attribute "src"
Line 410, column 311: there is no attribute "height"
Line 410, column 324: there is no attribute "width"
Line 410, column 343: there is no attribute "marginwidth"
Line 410, column 360: there is no attribute "marginheight"
Line 410, column 374: there is no attribute "scrolling"
Line 410, column 382: there is no attribute "id"
Line 410, column 410: there is no attribute "frameborder"

Webpage http://ok-lah.blogspot.com/search/label/Banks
193 errors found - only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 402, column 11: there is no attribute "name"
Line 402, column 31: there is no attribute "content"
Line 402, column 79: element "META" undefined
Line 409, column 24: there is no attribute "src"
Line 409, column 311: there is no attribute "height"
Line 409, column 324: there is no attribute "width"
Line 409, column 343: there is no attribute "marginwidth"
Line 409, column 360: there is no attribute "marginheight"
Line 409, column 374: there is no attribute "scrolling"
Line 409, column 382: there is no attribute "id"
Line 409, column 410: there is no attribute "frameborder"

Webpage http://ok-lah.blogspot.com/search/label/finance
217 errors found - only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 402, column 11: there is no attribute "name"
Line 402, column 31: there is no attribute "content"
Line 402, column 79: element "META" undefined
Line 409, column 24: there is no attribute "src"
Line 409, column 311: there is no attribute "height"
Line 409, column 324: there is no attribute "width"
Line 409, column 343: there is no attribute "marginwidth"
Line 409, column 360: there is no attribute "marginheight"
Line 409, column 374: there is no attribute "scrolling"
Line 409, column 382: there is no attribute "id"
Line 409, column 410: there is no attribute "frameborder"

Validation services courtesy of W3C Validator.

Recommendations: Pages should be redesigned to meet the W3C standards.

Rating summary (1.5 / 10) - Use of page titles All of your webpages have the same title: "ah ok lah - I am simply different".

Google and other search engines will not be able to easily determine the content within your different pages, and will mark you down accordingly.

Unique titles also help promote your website better for keywords you specify inside them.

We found the following unique page titles:

Page title No of times used
ah ok lah - I am simply different - 5 times

Recommendations: Make sure that each of your webpages has a different title where appropriate. If your website is properly content managed this process can be automated.
Not possible as this is a blog hosted on Blogger and my blog name will appear on all pages.

Rating summary (3.5 / 10) Size of pages Webpages are larger than they need to be, and will take a fair while to display. This is particularly important for the homepage.

Rating summary (5.3 / 10) No of images We found an average of 55.6 images per page, this is high and will make the website slower to display.
However, there appears to be good variety in the images within this website (14.8 unique images per page).

Recommendations: Consider reducing the number of images per page. Often lots of small images can be combined into a lesser number of larger images, increasing the speed at which pages display.

Rating summary (6.5 / 10) - Links to About 97 other websites were found linking to this website. (97 quality links, out of 97). The website is reasonably well linked to, although there is room for improvement.

Recommendations: A large number of web directories, news and affiliate websites can be encouraged to link to you for free. Over time any reasonably successful website should pick up additional links as a matter of course.

Rating summary (8.4 / 10) - Speed Your website responded in 0.46 seconds, and your homepage downloaded in 1.26 seconds. This is very fast and suggests your website is running on a sufficiently powerful web server.

Rating summary (10.0 / 10) - Website icon This website includes a favourite icon. This is a nice touch.

Rating summary (10.0 / 10) - Features The following 6 features were specifically identified: Login facility, Search facility, Contact details, Frequently Asked Questions, News, Advertising or Sponsorship. Generally, our analysis detected a very positive selection of text and features.

Rating summary (10.0 / 10) - Use of Interactive Elements Your website does not appear to include any advert keywords in your source files and therefore displays correctly to the user with a spam blocker enabled.

Introduction to this blog

This blog records my experiences with various gadgets, online marketing, social networking, search engine optimisation (or optimization) and technology in general.

Click here to read about the blogger.