Software Promotion & SEOThis blog covers a range of topics concerning the SoftTester Shareware/ Software Download site. Topics include software product releases as well as SEO and software development information and tips.

Well I thought I could do both, my screen saver program contains the maths laid out in the same colours as my cd program. So I thought I could advertise my program and get links, by using my shop page
for the cd as the home page.

I guess I could genuinely be providing a demo of my main product, I had put prices in but I guess I could leave these out of the pad file.

Thanks, just needed to see things from another angle.

I had a look at some of the programs people used on softtester to do this sort of thing and they used a prog which created the screen saver and even creates the distribution. Quite neat software,
cheap too. Its called 2Flyer Screen Saver Builder.

I add some images and the way you like the image to transform to the next image and set a few settings and thats it basically.

I’m not saying don’t do it, just don’t do it yet. I guess I
always recommend starting simple!

Thanks for the info on the program, I’ll check it out as I
may want to do a similar thing myself.

I’ll be very interested to hear how successful your
submissions are.

Well I always like jumping in feet first

I actually started this message in an email to mike, but this seemed a better place to put it

Should get quite a lot of links, I reckon.

My first one was my times table prog for my maths shop.
I’ve created it in such a way that it will be easy to develop screen savers for my other maths programs.
I am wondering whether it might be better to change the pad file category for the others?

However, I’ve decided to move on to my jewellery site and start developing a screen saver for one of the jewellery items.

I’ve only got 2 images for each (which I thought would be a big problem) and after much thought, I think on my first page of the screen saver, show image 1 and a slogan, page 2 a big caption and my
URL, 3rd my 2nd image and another slogan then on the 4th page (like my first maths screen saver) have my shop logo and URL maybe with another slogan / caption.

I know you’ll probably say, don’t worry about the program, but I guess like anything I do, I do try to do a good job.

I thought it best not to include too much of the same text I have on my page in the pad file.
As I want to avoid duplicate content, well, I mean, from my page.

However, I think I will struggle with the text for my pad file.

Also the product name, which I guess is going to be the link text for the page will need to be relevant, but I don’t want to make it spammy. Not sure what to do?

I mean I don’t want sysops to click delete on their vetting page.

I’m now working on my second type of screen saver, those which don’t relate to software.

I thought this would be a lot harder but with the setup of the first saver, this one is very similar. It will be a demo of my main product. The main product is a jewellery item. The category will be
home hobby personal interest. The price will be the price of the main product.

Its hard to tell whether I’m getting an increase in orders, but I’ve had two bigg’ish orders in the last couple of days.

Blue mentioned my KMS site analytics stats were up. Theres a bit up and down I think, which is natural for pad file interaction.

As always with the project I’m worried about the whole spam thing. Especially as the main product isn’t software.

Hmmmm the name of my demo program any ideas? Its sheep earrings.

This is a difficult one. If the idea is to increase chances of
being accepted onto the shareware site, increase
chances of a download and use of the screensaver,
choose a name like: Online Jewellery Selection Tool?

Only an idea though!

Could you try one name to start with and then if it gets
rejected, try another? One advantage of a screensaver is
that you can create variants very easily I would think.

I’ve been having a look at other programs on softtester. All look link genuine software; Catalog, Toolbar, Screen Saver and Pricing Calculator.

I don’t want to do too many screen savers, but I guess a few would be OK.

I don’t like the idea of being rejected.

however I would have thought we’d be able to decide what genuine between us.

I get loads of toolbar submissions to softwarelode but
they almost invariably have little function than to sit in IE
or FF and direct the browser to the target website, i.e.
they aren’t really useful software tools.

I am thinking of doing some screensavers for a relative
who is a graphic designer (following your example). With
these I will be choosing realistic titles like Impressionist
Graphic Design, i.e. titles which say exactly what’s in the
screensaver.

I guess the true test of whether this approach works is to get a sale from my shop site.

I submitted my padfile towards the start of the week. The product was sheep earrings.

So the ultimate measure of success has to be a sale of that item. I’ve had no sales from that site while its been selling jewellery. The site use to sell maths things.

Drum roll, massive led up…

Yep, thats right, I’m sold some sheep earrings. This is especially good as I’d say that those earrings aren’t the best product on the site. In fact it was kind of a joke having them in the first place.

So the strategy has worked.

Blue and I looked at and implemented some code to track success as goals in analytics. However this doesn’t work at the moment. So I think this has to be some we sort out as its valuable information.

So whats my next pad file going to be?

Well I’ve noticed my best keywords before the sheep was red costume jewellery. Which is a little odd as my page is optimised for costume jewellery although the items are red. However there will be
mention of red in the right places.

So I’m tempted to do that one. But I’m thinking of another challenge