Brandon’s response:

Hey Johnny. I found quite a few backlinks to your site, using Yahoo’s Site Explorer. I saw links from the Yahoo directory, Topphotoexperts.com, Fotobridge.com, and a number of others. Here are the settings I used to find them:

For Yahoo, the best way to find your backlinks is by using their Site Explorer tool. Just put your full website address in there, and make the following dropdown menu selections:

• Under the “show inlinks” menu >> select “except from this domain”
• Under the “to” menu >> select “entire site”

That’s the best way to see how many backlinks Yahoo has found for your site.

How are you checking your backlinks in Google? Are you using their Webmaster Tools? That’s the best way to check for backlinks through Google.

When you’re logged into Webmaster Tools, you can select the link that says “Links to your site.” It’s found below the “Your site on the web” header. I’ve included a screen-shot of what it looks like.

If you do a regular search query to find your links, it won’t work very well. You used to be able to put “linkdomain” into a search query, followed by your website URL. But those days are long gone — it just doesn’t work anymore. But by using Webmaster Tools, you can find a good number of the backlinks Google has found.

If you know all of this already, just disregard. I’m trying to share this tip for the benefit of all readers.

I hope that helps you out. If you have any follow-up questions, you can either leave a comment below or post a new question through the sidebar. Take it easy.

-Brandon

You don’t need to submit your site to the search engines. They will find it on their own. Once your site is online, Google will probably find it within a matter of days. The “other” SE’s will take a bit longer.

Here’s a quote from Google’s Webmaster Central:

Inclusion in Google’s search results is free and easy; you don’t even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as ’spiders’ to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index.

If you pick up some inbound links to your site, they search engines will find it even faster. You’ll also be well on your way to good rankings, because links weigh heavily in search engine algorithms. Publishing a press release online is a good way to gain links to your website. It will get the ball rolling, at least.

You can also attract links from other websites by publishing something useful, interesting or unique. In fact, this should be part of your publishing creed. Whenever I put a new article or tutorial online, I try hard to make it useful to my key audience. The better the content, the more links you’ll get over time. This is what separates top-ranking websites from those found on page two, three, four, etc.

If you still want to submit your website URL to search engines, then knock yourself out. It’s just not necessary.

No, I can’t. As much as I’d like to, there are just too many variables to name a certain cost. But I can give you some food for thought.

When I was in the SEO business, I charged my clients $550 per month for a certain number of tasks. Unlike most SEO firms, I actually quantified the work I did every month. It might include two pages of website content, two hours of link-building work (also quantifiable), and one hour of admin-type services.

Of course, some SEO firms charge more money and do less work. That’s the nature of this industry. There are plenty of scum bags who start SEO companies with dreams of getting rich. Some of them know how to talk a good game, but that’s about it. Unfortunately, I’d say these folks are the rule — not the exception. If you find a search engine optimization consultant that does solid work each month (and quantifies it for you), then you’ve found the exception to the rule. Stick with that person!

How much does SEO cost, you ask? Let me pose another question. How much would it be worth if you learned to do basic SEO tasks for yourself? Search-marketing firms want you to think that SEO is difficult and “techie.” It’s in their interest for you to think that way. But it’s simply not true. Search engine optimization can be boiled down to two things — content development and link building. In fact, if you do an excellent job creating content (or providing something useful), you don’t have to worry about link building. It will take care of itself.

Here’s another important question to ask: What is the SEO firm doing for the money they charge you each month? If they’re vague about their services, it’s probably because they’re not doing very much. I was proud of the work I performed each month, so I used to describe it clearly on my website. There was no mystery to what I did each month — it was itemized in plain language.

In contrast, I once worked for a marketing company that laughed about the “free money” their customers sent them each month. These were customers who paid for monthly SEO services when absolutely nothing was being done. It was despicable. And needless to say, I didn’t work there for very long. This kind of deplorable work ethic is common in the SEO industry, by the way. So before you pay a dime for search engine optimization, you need to find out exactly what the company is going to do for you. How else can you comparison shop?

So while I can’t tell you how much SEO costs on average, I can tell you that you’re better off handling it yourself. It all starts with your online business model and your website content. If you create a boring website in a saturated market, all of the SEO services in the world won’t help you. Not in the grand scheme of things. But if you create a highly useful website and create a niche for yourself, your site will rise steadily through the search engine ranks.

Is you air conditioner on the fritz? Need to install a new unit, or repair an old one? You better move fast before another sweltering Austin summer heats up. The link above will help you connect with air conditioning experts in your area. If you’re ready to move forward and start gathering quotes / bids, start there. Otherwise, keep reading to learn about Austin AC contractors and air conditioning services.

How to Choose an Air Conditioning Company

The first thing you need to do is identify the type of job you have. This includes the kind of AC equipment you are using, as well as the exact nature of the work. Some AC companies in Austin specialize in installation, while others primarily do repair work. Other companies offer both services, but only on certain types of units. So before calling an Austin air conditioning service, you need to know exactly what the project involves (or as much as possible). These are the first things they’re going to ask when they call.

You should also try to get referrals from friends, family members or coworkers. This is one of the best ways to find an AC contractor, because the recommendation comes from somebody you know and trust. If this is not an option, then you’ll have to find an air conditioning company through some kind of service directory, or through the Yellow Pages.

I recommend using the phone book only as a last resort. Anybody can advertise in there, and there’s no validation process for licensing, insurance, etc. So if you can’t get a referral from somebody, you’re probably better off using a service / website that actually prescreens the contractors for you (see link provided above).

Once you’ve identified some companies that offer the AC services you need, you should check them out by using the Better Business Bureau website. You can do a search for Austin + the name of the air conditioning company or contractor. If they’re not a BBB member, you might want to steer clear. If they’re a BBB member with a history of customer complaints, you should also be wary. You’re looking for a company that has been in the BBB program for a long time, with few (if any) complaints against them. This kind of pattern suggests a reputable service.

Lastly, you can use a basic search engine like Google or Yahoo to research the company. You can learn a lot about air conditioning services in the Austin area, just by searching for them online. You’ll find their own website, of course. But you’ll probably also find customer reviews, ratings and comments. There are plenty of sites online today that allow consumers to rate and review (and sometimes rant about) local service providers.

Thanks to David Cornett, of Cornett Heating and Cooling, for his help on this article.

One of the benefits of using WordPress is the flexibility it provides. The coding that controls the design is broken up into segments. This means you can easily adjust certain aspects of the blog, such as the sidebar or footer, without affecting other areas. You can also make certain changes to the main-page template that won’t affect the individual blog posts, and vice-versa. Pretty handy. Because of this segmentation, you can customize a WordPress theme more so than a Blogger template (another popular blogging program).

Of course, it helps to understand HTML and PHP coding. Your WordPress theme is mainly built around these two types of web code. So if you want to customize some aspect of the theme, you’ll need to be familiar with HTML /XHTML and PHP. Are you familiar with these things? If so, you simply need to find your way to the “Editor” section of your control panel, and edit the appropriate file for the area in question (header, footer, sidebar, etc.). If you’re not familiar with HTML or PHP, you’ll probably need to get help from someone who is. It really depends on what you’re trying to customize, within the theme.

The Parts of a WordPress Theme

See the image to the right, down below? This is a snapshot I took of the theme files within the WordPress interface. These are the files you would need to change in order to customize the appearance of your blog. To reach them, you would simply log in to your WordPress program and then select “Appearance” >> “Editor” from the left-hand menu. After that, you’ll see something similar to the image below.

The types and names of files that show up will vary, depending on the WordPress blog theme you are using. Some themes use a basic structure, and therefore don’t require many template files. Others are more complex, and require more files to support that complexity.

In the image to the right, you’re seeing the following items:

• 404 Template — You probably know this better as “Page Not Found.” If somebody searches for a page on my blog that does not exist (or has been deleted), they will see my 404 page. I can change the message they see by customizing this part of my WordPress theme.
• Comments – This one is self-explanatory. It controls the look and feel of the comments section of the blog.
• Footer and Header — These are also pretty straightforward. This is the coding that makes up the top and bottom of your site.
• Main Index — Any changes you make here will only apply to the main / home page. In most cases, at least.
• Page Template — This controls the appearance and structure of your pages.
• Sidebar — This is the area you were asking about. If you want to customize the sidebar of your WordPress theme, you would do it through this file.
• Single Post — This controls the actual posts / entries of your blog.
• Stylesheet – Here’s another important file. If you want to customize the appearance of common elements (like the fonts, colors and overall layout), you would need adjust your stylesheet.

Before You Customize Anything…

You should always save a copy of each file before changing it. That way, you can always put the original code back in place if you “break” something. I can’t stress this enough. Save the original first, and then make changes to it. You can do this in one of two ways. You can copy the code from the file in question, and then paste it into a text file. Or you can use an FTP tool to download the file in question from your hosting account, and save it on your computer. Either way, you need to have a backup before you try to customize a WordPresss blog with the theme editor.

I would also recommend making one change at a time, and then viewing the blog to see how it affected the design. It’s a lot easier to undo a single mistake than a dozen of them. This is also a good way to become more familiar with the inner workings of your blogging program and design files.

This article answers the question: How do I customize my WordPress theme design? If you found this article helpful, be sure to bookmark this site for future reference. There are many more blogging tips coming soon.

If you asked an Internet marketing company (which I’m not), they would tell you about all kinds of “secret” techniques for boosting your traffic levels. In truth, there’s nothing secret about the process at all. Do you want to know the one thing that will increase blog traffic, more than anything else? Here it is. Prepare to be amazed…

Create a high-quality blog that’s worth visiting.

If you can do this, everything else will take care of itself. Here’s what I mean. Let’s talk about the different ways people can find you online. Most people will reach your site in one of three ways:

1. They will come from another site that is linking to you.
2. They will find you through the search engines.
3. They will visit your blog directly, by typing the URL / web address.

If you publish great information on a regular basis, you will increase traffic through all three of these paths. The more useful your blog is, the more people who will link to it. This helps you with items #1 and #2 above. The steady acquisition of inbound links (from other sites) will improve your “site referral” traffic as well as your search engine rankings. As for item #3 above, people will remember your blog and revisit often if they find it useful or engaging in some way.

Here’s the bottom line. There are millions of blogs online today. Literally. So launching a new one is similar to putting another grain of sand on a beach. If you want to attract links, boost your search engine rankings, and increase traffic to your blog, you have to develop quality content. Everything else is secondary to this.

More Tips for Blog Traffic

This blog is just a hobby of mine. So I’m not concerned with how it ranks in the search engines, or how many people link to it. But I do put a lot of effort into my network of real estate blogs, and I’m very concerned with the traffic they receive. Here is how I increase blog traffic to those websites:

• I publish often. Quality of content is most important, but quantity helps too. I post at least one article per day on my other blogs. This gives people a reason to come back. It also makes those websites serve as valuable resources, which encourages other webmasters to link to them.
• I create useful, in-depth information. The Internet is overcrowded with “puff” pieces. These are articles people write just for search engine visibility. You’ve probably encountered this kind of content online. It doesn’t say anything specific, and it’s not very useful. It’s just full of puffery. Nobody will link to an article like that, and nobody will remember it either.
• I do plenty of audience research. The best thing you can do to attract a target audience is to find out what interest them. You can use keyword research tools like this one at Google to generate topic ideas. You can also visit web forums related to your industry to see which topics are generating the most buzz. Talking directly to your customers / readers certainly helps too. The more you can learn about your audience, the better you serve them with useful information.
• I seek feedback constantly. About once a week, I check my website analytics to see which pages / articles are generating the most traffic. This helps me understand what interests my audience the most. I also check my backlinks (links from other websites to mine) to see what pages are attracting the most links. It only makes sense to create more of these pages.
• I create a lot of lists and step-by-step tutorials. These are helpful to my readers, and they also attract links from other bloggers and web publishers. This improves the overall search engine visibility of any website.

These are just a few of the things you can do to bring in more visitors. Just don’t forget about the conversion side of things. All of the traffic in the world won’t help you if people simply leave the site. So you need to work on your lead- and sales-generation at the same time.

This article answers the question: How do I increase my blog traffic to find new customers? There are many more Q&A sessions on the way. Be sure to check back often.

With this strategy, you would basically create an “army” of Internet publishers (bloggers and webmasters) who would promote your products and services for you. Depending on your business model and your marketing budget, it might be worth pursuing. The better you understand it, the easier it will be to decide. So let’s look at an example of affiliate marketing in action:

Example of Affiliate Marketing

Let’s say I own a printing company. I want to attract more customers from the Internet, but I don’t have a very big staff. My marketing department is one guy. I could create an affiliate marketing program to broaden my reach. I would first devise some kind of commission structure, so my affiliates have a reason to promote my business. I decide that I’ll give them 10% of whatever sales they generate. Then I start recruiting publishers.

In this scenario, I would go after bloggers or webmasters who get a lot of web traffic for my keywords. These people would then promote my products / services, and they would earn commissions for the sales they generated.

This is how affiliate marketing works, in a nutshell. The most complex part of it is tracking sales, commissions, etc. So if you’re serious about pursuing this kind of strategy, you should work with a service like Commission Junction or LinkShare. They handle most of the technical stuff for you, and they also give you access to a lot of publishers. It’s the easiest approach, by far.

Is it a Good Marketing Strategy for You?

Is affiliate marketing any good for your business? To answer this question, you need to consider two key factors — cost and control. This kind of marketing strategy can remove some of the promotional burden from your shoulders, but you’ll pay for those benefits. For one thing, you’ll have to create a strong enough commission structure to attract successful publishers (the kinds of people who do this for a living). You’ll also pay some kind of fee to the affiliate networking service you use.

Control is another key consideration. With this method, you are essentially creating a bunch of marketing “deputies” who will promote your business far and wide. Are you comfortable giving this kind of mission to strangers? If not, then affiliate marketing might not be a good idea for you. Granted, you can establish all sorts of guidelines for your program. But that doesn’t mean people are going to follow them.

My advice is to experiment with it on a small scale, with some hand-picked publishers. That’s the best way to measure the results, without losing control of your program.

This article answers the question: How does affiliate marketing work, anyway? Stay tuned for more Q&A…

They will eventually find it on their own, as they continuously search the web for new sites. But there are some things you can do to expedite the process. It all has to do with inbound links. These are links from other web sites to yours. If you can get a few links to your new website (ideally from well-established sites), the search engines will find you within a couple of days.

This leads to the next question webmasters ask: “How do I get other sites to link to mine?”

The long-term approach is to publish quality content that other people will find useful, interesting, controversial, etc. This will encourage other webmasters to link to your site on their own. In the short term, you can get links by submitting your website to a directory, or by publishing some articles online. If you have some news to share, you could also publish a press release through a service like PRWeb.com. These are all ways to get links from existing, well-established sites.

As a new webmaster, you’ll eventually get some spam emails from “companies” offering to add your website to search engines like Google. You can delete these emails. There’s no need to pay anyone for “search engine submission.” It’s a complete waste of money.

I would also warn you against using a “link-building company. These people charge you to build links to your site, in order to boost your rankings in Google, Yahoo, etc. While it’s true that link help with rankings, many of these companies go about it all wrong. Thus, they can do a lot more harm than good.

This article answers the question: How do I add my new website to search engines like Google? More Internet marketing questions and answers are coming soon.

Truluck’s

If you’re looking for a fine dining experience, and you enjoy good seafood, put Truluck’s on your itinerary. This Austin restaurant has two locations, one downtown and one in the Arboretum. They have a variety of seafood dishes and steaks, but they are particularly good at shellfish and crab.

They even have their own fishery in Florida, with a fleet of crabbing boats. When it comes to stone crab, their motto is “From our traps to your table in less than 24 hours.”

Restaurant locations:

Truluck’s at the Arboretum
10225 Research Blvd, Suite 4000
Austin, TX 78759

Truluck’s downtown
400 Colorado
Austin, TX 78701

Learn more by visiting: http://trulucks.com

Guero’s Taco Bar

No trip to Austin is complete until you pay a visit to Congress Avenue. And it just so happens that one of the city’s best restaurants is located there as well. So it’s a great way to do things at once — give your guests a taste of downtown Austin, and give them a taste of some great Mexican food!

Guero’s is a piece of Austin history right in the heart of downtown. The restaurant has been at its current location since 1995, but the building itself has been around for over 100 years. It used to be a local “feed and seed” store. This popular Austin restaurant offers some delicious food to boot! They are known for their tacos (being a taco bar and all), but they have a wide variety of tasty dishes. The enchilada with molé sauce is one of my personal favorites. Try one of their top-shelf margaritas, while you’re at it. Or try several of them, so long as you have a designated driver.

This restaurant is located at:
1412 South Congress Ave.
Austin, Texas 78704

Learn more by visiting: www.guerostacobar.com

Alamo Drafthouse

The Alamo is another great place to take your guests, because you can combine food and drink with good movies. Like any drafthouse worthy of the name, the Alamo has a large selection of beers on tap. Their menu offers a lot of “bar food” options, such as burgers and fish tacos, but they put their own spin on most dishes. I enjoy the Alamo burger paired with an Arrogant Bastard, but that’s just me.

It’s not fine dining, nor does it claim to be. But it’s a great place to have a casual lunch or dinner while watching a flick. They also have a lot of movie-themed events and special menus, mostly for the evening shows. It’s an Austin original, and that’s why it is on this list.

Restaurant location:
There are four different Alamo Drafthouse locations around the Austin area. For individual show times and other information, visit www.drafthouse.com.

Hula Hut

Good food and a fun atmosphere make the Hula Hut one of the best Austin restaurants for your out-of-town guests. This establishment is located on Lake Austin, with a pier-like dining area that extends out over the water. It even has a boat dock with to-go service.

Their food is a mix of Mexican and Polynesian cuisine, so there’s bound to be something for everyone. I recommend the fish tacos or the Hula Hut burger — you can’t go wrong with either of them.

This restaurant is located at:
3825 Lake Austin Blvd.
Austin, Texas 78703

Learn more by visiting: www.hulahut.com

The Oasis Restaurant

The food has improved over the years, though it still leaves something to be desired. But The Oasis restaurant was never really known for its food. This Austin restaurant is known for the breathtaking views of Lake Travis, and it certainly delivers in that department. It’s not just marketing lingo when they claim to have some of the best views in Austin — it’s actually true.

Even if you only have appetizers and drinks, it’s worth the drive (the drive is pretty scenic too, by the way).

This restaurant is located at:
6550 Comanche Trail
Austin, Texas 78732

Learn more by visiting: www.oasis-austin.com

Find Professional Roofers
Click the link below to start your free search:
Find Local Roofing Services. Get Up to 4 Quotes Now. It’s Quick, Free, and Easy!

After clicking the link above, you will be asked for some basic information about your project. Then you’ll receive free estimates from local roofers.

Choose Your Roofing Company with Caution

Let me tell you a quick story about roof repair and roofing contractors in Austin, Texas. There’s a moral to the story — I promise. And there’s a chance this has happened to you as well:

Last week, a man knocked on my door and asked if my roof had been damaged by a recent hail storm. It hadn’t rained a drop on my house in over three weeks, so I asked him what storm he was referring to. I said, “Do you mean the one last month?” And he nodded and said, “Oh yeah, I guess it has been a while.” That was the first red flag. This Austin roofing contractor did not know what he was talking about, yet he was willing to say anything to get his foot in the door.

I told him my roof was fine and that it did not need repair, and then I started to close the door. He quickly spoke up and said that the shingles could be bruised, which could lead to more serious damage later on. By this point, I was pretty angry with his intrusion. So I walked out to my front yard and looked up at the roof and said, “I can see the shingles plain as day from right here, and they seem to be in great shape to me. So thanks for stopping by.”

Normally, an Austin roofer would get the message by this point, and would simply move on to the next homeowner. But not this guy. He told me that certain damages cannot be seen from ground level, and that he would need to get up on the roof to perform a more thorough assessment. That was the second red flag. He was trying to conjure roof repairs where none were needed, out of sheer desperation. I told him goodbye and closed the door in his face. He was still talking when it slammed shut. Jeez!

A Better Way to Find Roof Repair in Austin

Why am I telling you all this? Because the roofing industry is plagued by scam artists and people who make a living by lying to homeowners like you and me. They’re certainly not all bad. On the contrary, many Austin roofers combine honest business practices with solid work ethics, and have been serving the Austin area for many years. But there are quite a few “fly by night” roofing contractors who will do or say anything to get a roof repair job, even when those repairs are clearly not needed. Many of them are from out of town, or even from out of state. They swoop in after a storm to turn a quick profit. They locally owned roof companies refer to them as “storm chasers.”

In the past, the only way you could learn about Austin roofers was through the phone book. Fortunately, that has changed. Today you can use the Internet to learn more about roofing contractors than you ever could in the past — if you use the right website, that is. For example, if you visit the website I’ve listed below, you’ll be able to read customer reviews for a variety of roof repair companies in the Austin area. You’ll also know that they are properly licensed and insured, because the third-party website where they are listed performs a comprehensive background check.

Find Local Roofing Services. Get Up to 4 Quotes Now. It’s Quick, Free, and Easy!

This is certainly better than choosing a roofer out of the phone book, because you don’t really know anything about them from their own advertisements. It is far better to choose an Austin roofing contractor based on honest and objective reviews.

If this kind of approach appeals to you, use the link provided at the top of this page to continue. You can provide some basic information about the type of repair work you need, and then you’ll be able to view contractors in town who provide those services. You’ll also have access to customer ratings and comments, among other things. Now that’s a smart way to find your next roofing professional.