Most if not all of my readers are familiar with and use Twitter. The great thing about Twitter is not so much Twitter itself, but all the really neat apps built around Twitter.

One app I use myself is www.twitterfeed.com. With Twitter feed configured, anytime I make a new post to my blog, a status update is posted to my Twitter account that notifies all of my followers of the newest post and links to it.

So head on over to Twitterfeed.com and get started.

Getting started

Here’s how to get your blog (or any other RSS or Atom feed) twittering:

1. Create a new twitter user at twitter.com (or use your existing one)

   this twitter user is going to be the one posting your blog entries - twitterfeed needs to know your chosen twitter username and password so it can post your blog updates to your twitter account

2. Login to twitterfeed using your OpenID

   OpenID is a standard for providing single sign on between web sites
   You can register your own OpenID for free, or may even be able to use your existing blog ID [more]

3. Provide us with the URL for your blog’s RSS feed, and how often we should post to twitter

   Our server will check your blog’s feed at the specified interval and post any new items to your twitter account. You just sit back and relax!

[ Both RSS and Atom feeds are supported. Posts need to contain publish dates in order for our server to know what's new. Feeds requiring authentication will fail. ]

Now I know, I know, I work for a domain name registrar. In fact I have worked for one in particular for a very long time. But believe me when I tell you that registering your domain name for as many years as you can will benefit you with your SEO in the long run.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo are known to provide a higher value on domains that have been registered for extended periods of time. The reason is simple, this shows a user commitment to the domain name and website. It also is an indicator that this website is not a temporary spam site. With the price of a 1 year registration next to nothing these days, spammers are notorious for snatching up domain names for 1 year at a time and then discarding shortly after.

So how long can you register your domain name for? You can register on most extensions for terms anywhere from 1 to 10 years. If you have the dough, max it out from the get go. If not, try registering for a minimum of 2 years, 3 years would be even better.

This is a very useful piece of code for a functionality I find people asking me about. How to specify a link to open in a new window with a specific Width and Height is done as follows:

<a href=”#” onclick=”window.open(’ENTERYOURURLHERE’,'mywindow’,'width=800,height=600,

toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,

copyhistory=yes,resizable=yes’)”> Click here</a>

The result looks like this: Click here

How often do you come across a Wordpress theme that really stands out from the crowd? That really brings something new to the table? While reading through some of my Tweets I stumbled upon a template that looks great visually and as far as I am concerned brings a new element to the Wordpress template arena. Rather than trying to explain it, I recommend you take a look at: http://wordpress.bustatheme.com/coda/

This is both an example of the template and where you can download the latest incarnation. In order to download from the site you do need to register. If you want to avoid doing this you can download the theme from me. However I will not neccessarily have the most up to date template.

Download WP CODA

Earlier this week I added a new section to DropTheMike.com. I thought I should also make a formal announcement via the blog. One spot has already been spoken up for, so 3 are available.

Advertise on DropTheMike.com

DropTheMike.com is targeted to Web Designers, Internet entrepreneurs, investors, tech heads, gears heads and interested consumers.

Ad buys are sold on 30 day periods using PayPal subscription service. Ads will auto renew every 30 days unless you cancel the subscription.

125×125 Button Sponsorship

The 125×125 button appear on every page, under the heading “Sponsors”. Pricing is $10 per month per button. Only 4 spots are available. The button can not be bigger than 15K in size. Animation allowed but no Flash.

If you’re interested in securing a 125×125 button sponsorship, Email your ad to mike@dropthemike.com.

Key Stats (taken September 26, 2008):

Source: www.websitegrader.com

1. Traffic Rank: Top 2.82 %

Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings.

DropTheMike.com has an Alexa rank of 866,507 which is in the top 2.82 % of all websites.

2. Blog Ranking: Top 1.23 %

Technorati is a popular blog directory service. It measures the popularity of a given blog as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system.

This blog currently has a Technorati rank of 863,799, which puts it in the top 1.23% of blogs tracked by Technorati.

3. Google PageRank: 3

“Google PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important.” - From Google

EVERYONE who has a website needs go to http://www.websitegrader.com/ now!

All I can say is wow. When I first tried this tool I thought it would be just another run of the mill report I would get back. It is unlike anything I have ever used to “grade” my site. You get a COMPLETE and detailed report that is top notch and really is of great value in building a site that is optimized for SEO.

On my first go my website received the following note:

A website grade of 84/100 for blog.dropthemike.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 84% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

The software is constantly being upgraded and the algorithm enhanced. The number of potential recommendations provided by the tool is also increasing frequently. Please check back often.

It then goes on to list in detail all of the items it benchmarks you against and provides recommendations on what to change.

If you do a lot of design work you likely are always looking for some beautiful and new fonts to experiment with. Here are 3 sites DropTheMike.com recommends you look at:

Web 2.0 Expo NY: Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk has captured national attention as a businessman and Internet celebrity. Gary’s fame can be attributed to his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business building.

At a very young age, Gary took over the family business, a liquor store in New Jersey. Over a period of 6 years Gary and his father Sasha rebranded the business as Wine Library and transformed it from a local store doing roughly $4 million in sales annually to a $50 million national industry leader. The development of the Wine Library juggernaut reached its zenith on August 25, 2006 when Gary was featured with a caricature in the top left corner of the Wall Street Journal, a lifelong goal of Gary’s that he achieved before the age of 30!

I visit a lot of blogs and websites that talk marketing and give tips on boosting traffic and sales convergence. Never have I come across an article like the one posted at AnalyzedMarketing.com. Yet in reading through it and even the comments on the site, it is clear that there is in fact an opportunity here to use EBay as a tool rather than just as a service, an opportunity I nor many others never even thought of.

Here is an excerpt from one their tips:

One way to use Ebay is as a market research and keyword research tool. By simply creating a free account with them, you get the ability to search through all items that are available for sale.  By doing an “advanced search” you can do a search only for items in which the auction has already ended.  To do this, simply check off the option “completed items only.”

To do market research and keyword research on Ebay, simply do a search for all the completed items with some of the keywords in your target market.  This search will reveal to you what prospects are paying right now for items in your market as well as what keywords successful sellers are using to drive traffic to their auctions.  As you can probably imagine, this type of information is incredibly valuable to those who actually use such information to their advantage … which, by the way, is highly recommended.

For the complete article visit: http://analyzedmarketing.com/blog/one-of-the-easiest-list-building-traffic-generation-tools-available

On September 23rd a new smartphone is entering the mobile market, backed by the Google, this phone has its eyes set on dethroning Apple and RIM. The G1 from T-Mobile will be the first handset to run Google’s new mobile operating system, Android. And while it won’t look as sleek as the iPhone, it promises to give mobile-phone users a lot more freedom and flexibility. Something that Apple products in general seem to shy away from. Not a knock on Apple, they do deliver (for the most part) good quality products.

If you are un-familiar with the Google Android project do yourself a favour and watch the following video:

My current webhost, BlueFur.com is offering a 10% discount to DropTheMike.com readers. Simply use the promotional code: dropthemike

Why do I recommend BlueFur? Well how is this for good service, they took care of the entire migration of my blog from my previous hosting company. I do mean everything. Well except for the DNS change I had to make on my domain name.

Again that promo code was “dropthemike”, and that saves you 10%.

I am just as guilty of spelling and grammar mistakes as any other blogger. “10 Most Misspelled Words In Blogs” is a great little article  I came across courtesy of @SocialMtgExpert

Here is an excerpt.

Ok, so technically the following words aren’t misspelled. They’re misused. The reason you should review this list is because a spell checker won’t correct these for you. Make sure that you’ve got foolproof control over them (especially if you tend to write around 3:12 AM like I am now). Extensively misusing them throughout your posts may actually cost you a visitor or two every now and then because some folks do get caught up on these, which means they won’t focus 100 % of their attention on your incredibly valuable content!

1. Your - You’re
As mentioned above, your message might lose impact if you’re not paying attention to this number one word maltreatment. If you find it particularly difficult to separate them from each other, stop using ‘you’re’ altogether and notice how you are starting to improve your spelling.

2. Then - Than
The next step is then to tell yourself that it’s better late than never to get that vowel placement in order. Then your readers might find something more useful to comment on than your apparent spelling impediment.

The entire post can be found here.

Ah the wonderful world of Wordpress blogging. Where you can publish content to hundreds of thousands just as quickly as the idea for a post comes to mind. Also where you can change the entire look and feel of your site at the click of a button!

I have come across many Wordpress templates/themes sites, as I am sure you have as well. Today I came across one that definately stands out above the rest. The site is topwpthemes.com.

Here you will find a wide variety of professional looking designs, even Ad sense ready designs!

If you haven’t been here before, do yourself a favour and check it out now.