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Logging potential problems

I’ve been loggin potential problems in my programs so that if a problem occurs I can get a bug report back from the user. It will be full of details and I’ll be able to fix the problem.

Hopefully. However this isn’t alwats the case and I’ve been on the trail of some errors for months and months.

I’ve had a slowness in one of my program and I haven’t been able to firgure out why.
I went through a stage of putting log lines everywhere so I’ve find any possible problem.

But you’ve guessed it, I’ve just discovered why my program was slow in that area.
It was the logging lines.

So what do you do?

Do you have the log lines and a slow program and a program with problems.

Or no or few log lines, a fast program or a program with problems you may never fine.

Have fun making great looking masks with our Software!

by JM

2008 07 08 Dipsy Tech Talk Comments (2) Permalink

First Thoughts on Shareware Site Improvements

On SoftwareLode at the moment, the home page has a Featured program at the top. The script for this is a bit wonky though. It selects a program at random but the random number range is very small (1 to 10) and doesn’t cover the full range of programs on the site.

In any case, I was considering changing the Featured feature to be a series of 2 or 3 panels that give:

A pick of the day

I would pick a set of good programs on the site and display these randomly for one day at a time. The programs might be those where the authors supplied backlinks for example.

A personal recommendation

This would be a program that I personally recommend after review. The wording for the description would be my own – not the author’s. These programs might be those with which I have affiliation.

I’m still thinking these things through. One thing I might do is drop Google Ads from the right column on the homepage and use that for a list of table cells containing further recommended software.

by ML

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2008 07 07 MikeL Search Engine Optimisation Comments (3) Permalink

Working together for our sites to increase revenue

I was thinking that we could try and take the pain out of affiliate revenue setup, by doing both of our affiliate accounts at once. I mean you have to look at the affiliate then the revenue then add that tot he account. Perhaps this process could be made quicker if it was done for each site at the same time.

I guess we made some sort of administration screen on our sites to include these in our sites.

Coming back to this posting if I were to have rotating links to program instead of text adverts I could include the highest percentage affiliate with a better viewing.

What do you think?

High quality fashion jewellery at a reasonable price!

by JM

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2008 07 07 Dipsy Search Engine Optimisation Comments (2) Permalink

The importance of good site design

When i setup my first websites, I knew that it was important to use light colours and make the users feel comfortable and not scare them off with nasty colours and horrid text colours or styles.

I then progressed a bit further and realised that those stock site design were a great idea and made your site look professional, I have a site with a smiling business woman at the top and office type images and the name of my web site / company.

Then I discovered it was important to have good content at the top of your page for search engine positioning.

Now, I’ve just thought that the most important thing is to consider that small window area using the most popular screen resolution size aka that first area that a customer will see when they find your site from a search engine.

If this area is full of graphics, your company name and doesn’t give the customer the answer he seeks, without scrolling down, hes probably going to click back and look at the next search engine listing.

So not only do we have to worry about the SEO of our page, but site design, the list is never ending.

by JM

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2008 07 06 Dipsy Search Engine Optimisation Comments (0) Permalink

Kids Math Shop – An Idea?

One suggestion I’ve read about encouraging visitors to come back to your site says that you should have games or puzzles on the site.

I wonder if the kids mask and math software sites could do this? If you think some of your software has gone a full cycle then perhaps the software has a future in a different form. You could use mask drawing as an online game to keep children visiting a site.

Perhaps you could have simple online versions of the software – not enough to discourage a download or purchase of course – but perhaps enough to occupy a 5 or 6 year old for a while and encourage repeat visits over a few weeks. I know my kids get fascinated by the simplest of drawing or word games online.

The other thing that might be missing from the site is Adsense. If you did encourage people to visit again they might be tempted to click on ads.

I’m not sure this idea fits exactly with an online shop but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

by ML

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2008 07 04 MikeL Tech Talk Comments (12) Permalink

New Children’s Maths Education Shop Site – First SEO Tips

I’ve just taken a quick look at the new kids math store – looks nice and clean. I see you also modded the older shop site to match.

First thing I noticed in terms of textual content was that the homepage title was a bit short. Try to fit 3 keywords in if you can. Use WordTracker to check out good phrases. Off the top of my head I’d start looking at:

  1. Maths Software for Younger Children
  2. Preschool Maths Software
  3. Math Games for Kids
  4. Math for Kids

and so on …

The homepage description meta tag is also a bit light on keywords. The sentence:

“We also supply a range of products which compliment our software.”

is very non-specific and takes up too many words in the title. Also “compliment” should be “complement”.

by ML

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2008 07 04 MikeL Search Engine Optimisation Comments (5) Permalink

Need some help SEO’ing my new shopping site

I’ve finally got all my products and layout finished on my new shopping site. I’d like to tackle the old one separately. I can modify the title, the meta tags and of couse content.

Apart from page alterations, I was wondering about the internal linking strategy. I was thiking make I could find a mode which would display related products at the bottom of the page.

Advice?

For sale, Kids Maths Software and a range of exercise books

by JM

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2008 07 04 Dipsy Search Engine Optimisation Comments (5) Permalink

Sub Category page => pages, problem

The problem of there being only one sub categry page has now been fixed.

Now theres lots of pages 🙂

I’m not sure if this worked when this new pages was introduced, it doesn’t look like it.

High quality fashion jewellery at a reasonable price!

by JM

2008 07 03 Dipsy Tech Talk Comments (2) Permalink

Keeping up with blog posting

We’ve posted quite a lot of posts and I was concerned that they would get lost and I would never get round to actioning them. So I’ve been having a look round for something to help me. However I haven’t found anything.

Therefore I’ve just created a book marks folder in my browser and I’ve got links to everything which I’d like to taker another look at.

Have fun making great looking masks with our Software!

by JM

2008 07 03 Dipsy Tech Talk Comments (1) Permalink

New transaction emails, what to include?

I discovered yesterday that I hadn’t been sending out any transactional emails from softtester.

The email starts with a greeting, then saying their program has been added / updated, then theres a link to their program page.

Then I have an affliate advert, which I may as well remove.

Then a small section on advertising and a link.

Then the “you are now a member of softtester you are entitled to display your member logo” with some HTML code. I don’t display the logo here.

A link to the links page.

We wish you every success, bes regards.

Then is you wish to be removed please use the authors page with links.

All in all, a great deal of wasted space.

Obviouslt I now want to give them a the new logo, I’ll display it in the email and give them the code to do it, in the email. Which page should the link be directed to though?

Also I still need to mention advertising, but i could mention our new 2 site thing.

I guess I could also mention the blog.

I know I you put soemthing together here.
http://blog.softtester.com/index.php/software-promotion-rules/

But I think we may have moved on from there?

Anyway I think there’s lots to discuss before I put my new emails into production.

For sale, Kids Maths Software and a range of exercise books

by JM

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2008 07 02 Dipsy Tech Talk Comments (2) Permalink