SAYZLIM.NET

Speaking of 2009

2009-01-05T15:54:15Z

Just a short notice to tell everyone that I have just come back from my hometown. Speaking about my hometown, it is located near Malaysia and Singapore. You can get there just by taking 2 hours ferry from Singapore.

Most of my friends went to the Singapore for the countdown party and of course. You can’t miss the splendid fireworks play if you live this near, LOL. I bet that everyone who never go to Singapore would want to experience it at least once.

How do I spend my new year? Just a small party with a bunch of friends :D.

Speaking of 2009, I haven’t set any specific goals yet because I’ll be having exam this month and won’t be able to celebrate lunar new year with my family. While writing this post, I decided on some goals.

1. Create more post about blog design optimizing
Blog design is closely related to web design and I think blogger especially the one who just started their new blog should optimize their blog and bring it to their fully potential. I’ll try to cover more post in this area and hopefully it won’t require a lot of knowledge about Photoshop, PHP and etc (You know these things sometimes freaking out some blogger).

2. Learn and connect with more blogger
I find it’s great to get know other blogger. Knowing them not only speed up my learning process (They are great catalyst, =D) but also let me have more idea on which topic I haven’t written.

3. Sustain and maintain this blog
Maintaining this blog requires time and money which I use my own money since I haven’t earn much money online. Monetizing and earning money from other source is unavoidable. Taking this chance, I’ll learn how to monetize blog and put more effort in this online business.

As for last, here are some pictures of my hometown. It is a simple and calm town.

Away from this Blog

2008-12-24T15:57:47Z

Snake by : David Omar

Looks like I’ll be away for the next 2 weeks because I will spend my holiday in my hometown where it won’t have internet connection. The holiday start tomorrow and I won’t be able to blog starting tomorrow.

The best thing during this month is how I learn to comment on people blog. I guess it should be called socializing. I never comment on other blog before because I am a passive reader. A real passive readers.

I was very afraid to comment, a barrier which cause me to stop clicking on the comment button because I feel that nobody cares about your opinion anyway. But how will I know if somebody care or not if I never try to comment. But it feels great to have your comment replied.

I’ve stumbled a few great blog, I guess I’ll write a review for them after I have understood how their blog works. Most of them are super active blogger, if you ever comment on their blog. They’ll reply and they’ll visit your blog too. So take a visit to their blog.

How to create an e-book
Every blogger can write an e-book but not every blogger know how to create an e-book. You can have a huge summary how an e-book created and use it as one of your marketing tools.

101 Blogging Tips for every blogger
A huge list of what the author learned about blogging, everything you should know has been listed there. And I love list. =p

Web Design How-to and Inspiration
This is the post I request from Corey, everyone has toolbox and I want to know what she use for her web design.

Using this chance I would like to say “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008 !”. Have a nice holiday everyone, will be right back soon enough.

What to do with Old Posts?

2008-12-21T10:14:04Z

Original Image by : Playingwithbrushes

Let’s take a look at your old archives, what do you think of the accuracy of the post compared to present? Here are some ways to optimize your old posts.

1. Update Old Posts
There are many ways to update old posts. We can browse around our old archives and use the latest information we got to include it in the post. While you are preparing the next post, updating the old post will let you create a connection that might can be used in new post.

2. Compile Series of Post
If you feel that a series of post can be combined into one post, why don’t you compile it? It will be better that a series of short post compiled so the readers doesn’t need to click and search for the related post in your blog.

3. Delete the Post
Some of the people might against it because deleting a post might cause 404 errors on a blog. But, if you had posted something that you wished you didn’t post it. Go ahead and delete that post (with the consequence of having 404 error page on your blog).

4. Leave the Post
If you have no idea what should be done with the old posts, leave it alone and track it back later. Monitoring how the post perform by analyzing the traffic source and update it later.

Have you disliked your old post before? If yes, what are you going to do with these posts?

Top 10 Tips for Switching Wordpress Template

2008-12-08T08:35:28Z

From all the tasks in blogging, switching template can be the most time consuming task. Since switching template requires you to change your blog structure which will affect your current blog usability and effectiveness, especially in search engine.

In this post, I’ll cover most of the sections you should pay extra caution to when you (perhaps) want to switch template. You’ll need to test if this blog template is qualify enough to be your new blog template.

These tips can be used in every blog provider, but this post is created base on Wordpress.

1. Single Post
The first thing you should check is how will the single post looks like. Does the blog post width/container looks enough for you? Will it cause your image in your previous post exceed the width/container?

Perhaps in your previous template, the single post show the author and post date, but not in the new one.

2. Search Result
After testing out the single page, you need to see how will the search engine in your template work. Try to type the keyword and see how the template show the result.

Some templates show the summary of a post, yet some template show the whole post. Smashing Magazine use Google as their search engine like the picture.

Again, try to type the keyword where your blog doesn’t have, and see how it looks like.

3. Comment Form
As for the last one, take a look into the comment form. Does it goes well in term of color and unity of the blog? Does the comment form requires signup before commenting?

If you like Gravatar, perhaps you need to see if the comment form support or use Gravatar in it.

4. HTML Structure
If you have tested out all the things above, the next one is to take a look at its HTML structure. As for me, I only need one H1 tag which is my blog title and H2 for the blog post title.

Some template makes the blog post title as H3 which makes them less important. So pay extra attention to the blog post title.

Learn more about HTML Heading Tags.

5. List, Quote, Bold, Emphasis, and Link
Create a post and see how it looks when you quote, list, link, and emphasis the text in your blog post. Perhaps in your previous template you used a quote and it turn out very cool. But you won’t know how it will look like in the new template. So test them out.

6. Testing in Browser
Test your new template in every browser you know. At least, try it on Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer. Since most of the people still use Internet Explorer 6, you might consider testing your new template in IE 6.

7. Update Tracking Code
I guess you’ve decided to use this new template after testing it for few hours. Wait, it is not done yet. Do you use any service to track your website? Something like Google Analytic or MyBlogLog which requires your to insert a short meta before your close body tag?

If yes, copy those code from your old template and paste it in your new one.

8. Update Meta Tags and Description
For Wordpress user, this one can be updated using All in One SEO Plugin. If by some chance you do this manually, all you need to do is to copy and paste it into your new template.

9. Check for Broken Links
It is almost done, the last step is to check if your new template has any broken links. I use xml-sitemap-generator to check the broken links and it works well everytime I need to check for broken links.

10. Controlabilty in Design
This one is for Wordpress user, in the setting and template design. Web designer always differentiate between the section with its own PHP file. Check them out to see if it is clear enough for you to understand.

Some of them use navigation.php to let you know their function and banner.php for template which use banner.

Template is not just a template, sometimes it can improve your blog but sometimes it can give you headache if you’re not doing it carefully.

Readjustment for SAYZLIM.NET

2008-12-20T09:40:59Z

Original Image by : Sister72

Here are some quick updates about what I’ve been doing with my blog during this December.

1. Changing the permalink structure
This is most likely the basic of Search Engine Optimization yet I didn’t notice it until I read the blog post about Search Engine Optimization. I’ve changed the structure of my permalink into this http://www.sayzlim.net/november-blogging-2008/ rather than having a date and month in the permalinks.

It sure takes me a lot of time to correct all the internal links after changing the structure.

For Wordpress User - Enter this in your custom permalink structure in setting. /%postname%/

Alternatively, you can use this redirection plugin to redirect your old permalinks.

For Blogspot User - I have’t found any ways to do this, so please stick with the custom permalink from blogspot until they let you have the right to customize the permalinks.

2. Switching template
For me to switch a template is a difficult decision to make. The template I choose must fulfill these characteristic. Otherwise, I won’t change my template.

Luckily, Smashing Magazine shares a new template where it is really cool after all. After testing it on this site, I choose wordpress.fun as my new template. Previously, I have designed my own template too, but the result is far from what I expected.

3. Sign up to Twitter
After a long consideration and seeing most of the blogger use Twitter, I think it is the time to give it a try. Follow me in Twitter and I’ll follow you back (I suppose this is how it works).

4. Editing “About” page
Since this blog created, I don’t really know which type of blog it is. After some thought, I guess I’ll just write what this blog about in about page. This blog is about me and my experience. Most of the information coming from this blog is what I have read and learned from other blogger or life experience.

I’m very grateful to everyone who put comment on this blog, I really appreciate it and will always pay attention to your upcoming posts. As for you who haven’t start blogging, I guess you can just start a blog and write anything you want.

Learning From This November

2008-12-20T09:35:32Z

Original Image by : 96dpi

This November is the month full of experience and I have finished my mid-test. This month also give me a lot of thing to learn like photoshop, web-development, and some blogging techniques.

I’ll share with you what I’ve starred in my Google Reader. Most of them are closely related to web and design.

November Writing Tips
What Can We Learn From High School in Blogging
How to Avoid Writing Insecurity
How to do Guest Blogging

Web Design and Development
Understanding The Basic of CSS
How to Tagline Your Blog Picture
How to Develop Your Own Wodpress Theme
12 Principles for Keeping Your Code Clean

November Blogging Corner
Understanding The Use of Time as Blogger
How to Always Have Idea
Using Comment Tips

I hope you can gain something from these blog because they helped me a lot during this month. So cheers and get ready for a new month.

Blogger? Internet Marketer? or Blogger? Which One?

2008-12-20T09:41:27Z

Original Image : Lumaxart

Sometimes a blogger can get lost, especially the blogger in “making money niche”. How should I address them? Internet Marketer or Blogger? Or perhaps we can create a new name for this type of Blogger. But today, I’m going to tell you what I think about the difference between Blogger and Internet Marketer.

1. Blogger aim for name, they aim for…
profit. They are smart in marketing. It is not how good and what the product is. Marketing, marketing, and still marketing. But NOT EVERY INTERNET MARKETER smart at marketing, it is just like NOT EVERYONE good at blogging.

Google Adwords, Google Keyword tool, Word Tracker, ads expense, ROI, landing page, Adsense, Squidoo. They use all tools they can get and they work with it.

2. Blogger work alone, they work…
by partnership. They won’t do everything by themselves, they will do outsourcing when they can and calculate if it is worth for. They don’t need to update their blog regularly, they can get someone to write for them. They build a landing page and send visitor to them in many ways.

3. Blogger is building readers, they are building…
their list. As long they have list, they can have multiple sales from their e-mail list alone. Imagine they have a list of 800 subscribers. They only need to send an e-mail to all of them. Let’s say the product profit is $5 and 10% if their list bought the product? Get you calculator, it is 80 x $5 = $400 profit.

How does it sound? Feeling tempted to become an Internet Marketer?

4. Blogger inspires people, they…
solve people problem (probably). What Internet Marketer do is looking for problem where many people are desperately trying to solve it. That’s why a common niche noob internet marketer will go for “Earn Money Online” as their niche. So can they solve peoples problem? Probably yes

5. Starter Blogger have problem, Noob Marketer…
spend money. And they spend quite a lot, perhaps in keyword tool, e-books, joining courses, being schemed is definitely a must for Internet Marketer (at least once). If you’re trying to make money as internet marketer then you need to be careful when purchasing product.

So for this blog entry question.

What are you? A blogger or Internet Marketer or are you a lost blogger?

Sitepoint The Art & Science of CSS FREE Download

2008-12-05T17:19:35Z

FREE STUFF WORTH $29 ! I’ve just woken up and check my email, guess what? Sitepoint is giving out one of their e-books worth $29 for FREE, absolutely for free. No special requirement, all you need to do is follow them on Twitter or visit this site.

Unbelievable? If you’re one of the web designer or blogger who tends to design your own template, take this opportunity and grab this marvelous chance because this is the rare chance to get The Art & Science of CSS from Sitepoint for free.

I’m in the middle of exam right now and I try to write this entry as fast as I can because this free giveaway will end in 14 days. So hold your mouse and download your FREE The Art & Science of CSS from Sitepoint right now.

Further more into the book
In this The Art & Science of CSS, you’ll find out how to create a beautiful and functional web design with CSS. Starting from the header, navbar, images, background and etc.

Like most of the Sitepoint E-books, it is written in a simple language and many cool example for you to view. This full color e-book will give anyone who is interested in web-design a huge boost in their design skill.

What’s my rating?
As a beginner in web design, the e-book is totally awesome, I own most of the e-books from Sitepoint and this e-book is making me feel excited. This is definitely the 9/10 e-book you should check out. Whether you are web-designer or not, you can get this e-book for FREE.

How to get it?
Just follow them on the Twitter or you can visit this site for more information on how to get the e-book. Remember that the free give away will end soon, so take your chance right now.

A Small Wish From a Kid

2008-12-05T20:11:28Z

I don’t hope for toys, I don’t hope for candies, all I need is my parent and a place to let me sleep peacefully every night

Imagine this. Your kids are running around the field and playing with his friends. He doesn’t need to worry anything and he get the protection from his family, these kids can play with each other without fear. You’re his angel, these kids believe that you can do anything. And if you’re one of these kids, then you’re very lucky.

But try to picture this, suddenly the war breaks. These kids need to run away from their country and wander to a new country just to seek protection. A new country where they don’t even know what they’ll face there. The boys need to fight for survival and most of the girls are vulnerable to any kind of abuse.

Hence some questions come to my mind, do these kids really need to go through this? If it is some kind of test for these children from God, isn’t it too much? For me, the children is the future of this world. For me, the children should be playing and exploring. They are the angel of this world and the one who will carry on what we should have done.

But that is what most of the refugees face, especially the children. I don’t know what I can do to help them, only by writing this post and let people know that there are some kids out there who are lacking of education living in fear and uncertainty.

I’ve been a member of BlogCatalog and BloggerUnite always remind me one thing. You’re not living in this world alone, you can’t be selfish. While you strive hard to pursue your dream, you can also contribute to other people by taking some simple action. So, I think it’s time for me to stop and listen to these children small voice.

How to Use Comment and Turn Visitor into Reader

2008-11-28T16:40:15Z

Original Image by : Lumaxart

Comment Marketing is also known as one of the ways to drive traffic to a blog. Comment marketing is commonly used by a new blog to achieve a certain traffic because they are desperately want to gain instant traffic. Sometimes I find it’s funny to see a forum post with title like this “How to Get 1000 Visitors in One Day”.

I can accept that because It is one of the copywriting skills to create a headline that grabs attention.

But do you know that commenting also requires skills? This idea appeared when I was sleeping in the car (It is said that ideas always comes out when you’re relaxing).

Perhaps it is one of the habit I usually follow. I am expecting a good result by doing so. I’ll guarantee that your comments will work better if you follow these habits.

1. Add Value, Share Your Experience
I often see a comment that said “Thank you, it is great”. I feel great whenever I receive comments like that because I know readers find the post helpful. But it will be greater to add value into your comments rather than a simple thank you.

How to add value?

Easy, all you need to do is to choose some of your blog post which you think really relevant and can add value to the blogger’s post. Share what you’ve known related to the blog post. Using search engine to provide more content can also add more value in your comment.

2. Leaving Feedback to Fellow Commenter
After you add value into your comment, blog owner and his readers will read the comment too. Especially if your comment carries value.

Well, what’s next?

The comment form always let us to leave our website URL. Most of times,the commenter will leave their homepage URL. Now let’s change this habit, everytime you post a comment, leave your most relevant blog post in the comment form. If you do this way, you’re not only adding value but also turn his readers become your readers too.

3. Comment on Related Blog
If your solely purpose is to turn visitors into readers, then the best ways is to comment on relevant blog. Beside the content of your blog and the blog you comments are similar, it can also let your blog post have more exposure because most of time you’ll have more opportunity to leave high value comment in their blog.

4 Comment Whenever You Want
I’m not a regular commenter but I do follow the progress of the blog I subscribed. Most of times, these blogs are the blogs which have the same approach and age. If you really want to leverage your blog by building relationship with the blogger within your niche. Then you can find out how to do comment marketing with Felix.

Summarizing all the habits I have shared, I can show you a example of art commenting. (I wish I am left-handed)

Name : Sayz
Website : http://www.sayzlim.net/5-characteristic-of-a-good-blog-design/
Comment : Blog design do plays an important part in blogging. I tweaked my blog design and it turned most of the visitors into readers. Some of the blogpost I find it is worth to read are [blog link] by [blog author]. There is a website which provide template if you don’t plan to create your own template, it can be found in [blog url]

Now for some practice, why don’t you try to add value in this post? And please share your experience with us later after practicing these skills.