Archive for the ‘articles’ Category

Capturing a detailed photograph of the moon with a compact camera is a challenge as documented in this moon HX9V Cyber-Shot photo tutorial. The Sony DSC-HX9V Cyber-Shot compact digital camera which features 16x optical zoom may provide one of the best options for amateur photographers on a limited budget.

A higher end digital camera with a telephoto lens at 5-10 times the cost of a compact camera would make taking detailed moon photographs easier. The series of photograph edits in this photo tutorial were from one picture taken with the Sony HX9V, and presents early attempts that came about somewhat by accident.

Versions here are approximately 1/8th actual size and cropped as widescreen for a better fit.

Original Photo of the Moon

The moon original photo above was taken handheld at 6:48 p.m. on 1 Nov 2011 using the HX9V auto mode at 16x zoom, then cropped, and then digitally enhanced in Xara Xtreme.

Here are the tutorial steps and 2 edits of the original that resulted in the final version.

Cropped Photo of the Moon

I opened the original moon photograph in IrfanView free edit software, created a 16:9 custom crop selection under edit, and then chose the apply to photo option. Next, I held CTRL to maintain proportions, and dragged the window to compose a large centered selection of just the moon. Finally, I chose the crop selection function and saved the results as the cropped version shown above.

Enhanced Photo of the Moon

Next I opened Xara Xtreme, a graphics program I’ve used for more than 5 years, and imported the cropped photo into the work area. I experimented with dragging different shades of black onto the photo which tints the entire picture. Darker tints ruined the details. 30% black turned out to be ideal though at first the blue background simply turned to grey.

Adjusting the brightness slider in Xara to negative -87 retained the moon detail and turned the grey to black to simulate a night sky. The image was enlarged to 4608 x 3456 size and exported at 96 dpi resolution.

What accident did you mean earlier, you ask? The original photo of the moon was taken at dusk simply as a test while out photographing a Florida sunset. The daylight moon seemed appropriate for attempting a point-and-shoot photo using the HX9V auto settings. The results were better than expected.

Of a half dozen shots the one selected and used here provided the clearest details. I’d left my tripod at home, so perhaps the details could have been even better using a tripod and time delay instead of handheld.

The final high resolution version of the moon in actual size has not been uploaded to my Flickr account. Technically speaking, the black tint makes this an illustration, and I prefer showcasing original photos only without modification or enhancement.

This moon HX9V Cyber-Shot photo tutorial is one step towards testing the manual settings for a high quality photograph without edits, and taken at night. Stay tuned. The next full moon will occur on 10 November, 2011.

Here’s a web design META Title tutorial with positive advice to follow after the post recently about page titles and what NOT to do.

Each page META Title on your site is like a newspaper headline to grab attention. A single sentence that web designers use is the META Description that states the essence of the content on that page. These elements appear in the code and require key words to optimize the seo value and rank well with search engines. This strategy is part of the technical aspect of writing for the web.

The title of your page is usually the visible headline at the top in the on page content, plus if properly used as the META title it will appear off page at the very top of the screen next to the logo of your browser brand. If bookmarked as a favorite the title becomes a summary or reminder in your visitor’s bookmarks, too.

The page title continues to be THE most important seo high value item on each website page. It makes sense to give extra thought to your equivalent of a newspaper headline to capture the interest of readers and motivate them to continue exploring your site.

A good website page or blog post title often takes as much time to write as the actual article. Keep the POW factor in mind as you write title headlines. Less is more is an old yet accuracte advertising adage. In the case of titles my advice is using 6 words or less for website page or blog post titles. “Man Bites Dog” is a favorite example of a short headline that grabs attention.

This advice bears repeating: The page title continues to be THE most important seo high value item on each website page.

If you take all the advice written by dozens of experts, the ONE top key seo factor for ranking well is something you can learn to your advantage over competition to attract search engine traffic to your website.

Interested readers may want to learn more about seo for META Descriptions and search engine strategy in a blog post written last week at my collaboration web design site opened earlier this year with my son.

This is a lesson in SEO Search Engine Optimization. Imagine a web design where your website is listed in Google results on page one out of one billion SERPs (search engine result pages).

The search term would need to be a very popular, very generic, or frequently used phrase just to have a billion search results.

Today I discovered that this blog acheived #10 on page one for a one-in-a-billion phrase I made fun of nearly 3 years ago.

Some site owners make the mistake of wasting home page seo search engine optimization value by using the page title: Welcome to our website.

For optimized content for seo use descriptive phrases with key words about your business.

In a blog post about seo search engine optimization on 14 December 2008 I wrote about that phrase and why certain page titles are inappropriate when trying to compete for search engine traffic in your web design. The phrase is so generic and mistakenly used so often by web design amateurs that I decided to do a search just to see who was #1. Someone had to be.

The problem is the phrase has zero key words to rank well for terms related to actual website content. Afterall, who really does a search on “Welcome to our website“? At the time of my blog post a university was the “winner”. While working on seo search engine optimization for a new project, I decided to see if they were still #1.

The university is no longer on page one out of one billion SERPs, yet this blog is, and maybe in another 3 years this post will make page one for “Welcome to our website“.

Inspiration for writing website content as part of web design, and especially the pressure for new blog post content, can be relieved somewhat if you recognize opportunity. Earlier today I had that type of experience involving web copywriting, and decided the topic was worthy of sharing here as the anatomy of a published article.

Ever help someone with a problem as part of your job by providing free advice? The good will generated is worth donating that solution with no strings attached, yet take it another step and document the story as a blog post so others know just what you did to make a difference in a person’s life.

If you’re away from the computer when inspiration strikes, jot down a short note as a reminder of the new blog post topic for later. Do that often during the day and you’ll never run out of ideas for blog posts. Here’s what happened today, and the timeline.

8:43 a.m. – Replied to an email with advice for writing effective blog post content
9:00 a.m. – Used notes from the tips I sent earlier to begin a formal advice article
1:15 p.m. – Article finished and began submitting it to my top 20 article directories
2:27 p.m. – Email confirmation received from EzineArticles.com acknowledging receipt
4:03 p.m. – Email message confirms EzineArticles.com approved and published my article*

Acts of kindness in business may be repaid by others who become new customers by observing or learning about how you treat people. I think of that whenever I’m doing custom cms web design and offering free advice.

What began as a helpful email reply to an acquaintance early this morning evolved into a full article submitted, approved, and published by the end of the day. That article will generate backlinks and site traffic because I recognized the opportunity to share expertise relating to web design.

Curious? Read the article entitled My Golden Rule Writing for the Web with advanced tips about writing website content.

*Footnote: For authors wondering about an article being submitted and then approved and published in just 96 minutes, those are true times down to the minute. EzineArticles.com gives expedited reviews to Platinum level authors like me. Read about another benefit of being a platinum author here.

Having purchased SubmitEaze directory submission software several years ago for seo or search engine optimization reasons, recent updates and enhanced functions make this a good time for another look at SubmitEaze. Part of website optimization strategy for search engine optimization involves backlinks which are links to your website from other sites. These are like votes when found by Google, so by acquiring more votes your site is more likely to increase its rank.

Two methods of acquiring those backlinks are “Website Directories” and “Article Directories” featured in my series of do-it-yourself seo reports released in 2007. Follow that link to download your free copies of the PDF reports (no email or registration required).

In a hurry to learn how? Visit their site to watch the SubmitEaze demo videos.

In summary, you acquire backlinks by getting listed on other websites. The Website Directory lists businesses by category with links to those sites, and the Article Directory sites accept advice articles for syndication that includes links in the resource (About the Author) box. Get listed, or write helpful articles about your business niche and submit to 100′s of directories.

Prior to SubmitEaze, the submission process was VERY time consuming. Each site you visit meant doing copy and paste of content over and over, so submitting to 100 sites could take 2-3 days. SubmitEaze is a very fast and semi-automated software program with a system to submit your site or articles to directories in minutes, not days.

First released for web directories only, SubmitEaze now handles article submissions, too. My advice is to review the SubmitEaze software and watch their demo videos before you buy. I started out doing manual submission of my website, and then bought other software before discovering SubmitEaze and making it my standard.

Great resources for do-it-yourself small business website owners using a Joomla content management system may be found at the recently launched Joomla articles website.This brilliant one-stop-shop for everything Joomla is the creation of Ric Raftis, a fellow custom web design expert in Australia.

For now the site is in beta pending the formal release, yet the site is already loaded with valuable information for Joomla based site owners. The official Joomla forum contains nearly 1.3 million topics. By comparison, www.JoomlaArticles.com features only the best and current resources for making the most of your small business Joomla 1.5 installation.

My advice for small business website owners is bookmarking JoomlaArticles.com to stay on top of the latest developments from a neutral expert with an eye for collecting only the best online resources. Best of luck to Ric Raftis with the growth of this site.

The latest website advice article for small business owners was published earlier today, and you may read the full review Internet Explorer IE8 Doom or Joy for details.

Last year Microsoft announced an updated browser scheduled for release by the summer of 2008 with Internet Explorer 8, IE8, and the news was met by most web developers with apprehension. After following the news releases from Microsoft and an announcement earlier this week on March 3rd, it was time for an article and preliminary review of IE8.

Backward compatibility and cross browser compatibility are important to site designers and owners. One of the resources mentioned in the review and article is a website for testing page display in current and older browsers from BrowserShots.org. Visit their site to see what your website looks like in more than 50 browsers including Mac and older revisions of major and lesser known brands.

To the joy of web developers worldwide, Microsoft reversed a previous decision from December 2007 and announced that IE8 will incorporate the most standards compliant interoperability possible. This should be good news for small business website owners, as well.

One of the free methods I teach my custom website design clients about seo, or search engine optimization, is writing articles to get backlinks as syndicated articles are published, plus you can establish your reputation as an expert.

The incentive for article directory owners to promote article writing by offering free syndication is a challenging business model. Monetizing a free resource depends on visitors following affiliate links on the site and then making a purchase, or from click revenue derived from Google Adsense advertising if that’s used on the site. Otherwise, the enterprise becomes a hobby without a financial revenue stream unless that website becomes very well established and is sold years later.

The series of email messages shown below were received from an article directory owner, and all within 30 minutes. The names have been obscured to protect the identifiable parties involved. The urgency and calamity faced when things go wrong are apparent.

Message 1: I have found it necessary to add user and password login to (directory site name) because of so many spam articles. Hopefully this change will not be too much trouble for you.

Message 2: Please be patient. The security measures that I turned on in this article directory are not functioning correctly. I am in contact with (software company name) for their assistance.

Message 3: (Directory site name) article submissions is back up. Requirement for security has been disabled so you can submit freely. I must come up with a plan B for spam.

The security measures being attempted by this article directory owner are already in place with the majority of article syndicate websites, and points out one of the time consuming issues these owners face. The best directories have editors who proof read every article submitted before approving or rejecting each. If they receive 200 to 500 articles a day ranging from 500-1000 words, that’s a lot of work, and reading.

Article writing is a great way for do-it-yourself website promotion to establish a reputation as an authority, and get bonus backlinks to your small business website as articles are republished. Authors should benefit from the seo, or search engine optimization, value of article syndication. Hats off to the article directory owners who make this possible.

Following my Top 50 List of Article Directory sites a few months ago, the list was revised to the Top 20 and released today. Selection to this list is based on overall design and performance including approval time, reputation as a trusted authority site for article publication, and personal positive results using their services. The list is in alphabetical order:

www.advisor.com
www.amazines.com
www.articlealley.com
www.articlecity.com
www.articleclick.com
www.articlecube.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.articlegarden.com
www.articleonramp.com
www.articlerich.com
www.articlesbeyondbetter.com
www.buildyourownbusiness.biz
www.ebusiness-articles.com
www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.iwantcontent.com
www.niche-content-articles.com
www.positivearticles.com
www.searcharticles.net
www.theleadingarticles.com

Follow this link to the complete Top 20 Article Directory List and reasons for the shorter version. Time can be an enemy for small business owners, so if you avoid writing articles perhaps the short list of top syndicates will help you. The seo, or search engine optimization, value of published articles is an important aspect of small business website promotion.

Article writing is featured in one of the free SEO pdf reports in my series for do-it-yourself small business website promotion, and I thought I would share some statistics. The evidence favors article writing as a way to promote your website as shown by the following results at just one article syndication directory.

Article titles are blog related and linked to the originals as listed in my library of small business advice full length articles.

Small Business Blog Integration Advice
Author: Jim Degerstrom
Posted on: Apr 28 2007
Status: Approved
Downloads: 1843
Word Count: 866

Small Business Blog Writing Tips
Author: Jim Degerstrom
Posted on: May 18 2007
Status: Approved
Downloads: 623
Word Count: 978

The first article was written in April 2007 and was downloaded from the article syndicate 1,843 times. The second was published in May 2007 and has been downloaded 623 times.

The benefits of becoming known for writing free expert advice will draw fans when you write quality articles from a neutral point of view. Visit the directory of small business advice articles for a list and links to these and other website design related topics.

Learn more about the value of writing articles. Download the search engine optimization reports in pdf to learn more about free methods for small business website promotion. The first is entitled “Google Page One in Just 9 Months”.