20 TIPS FOR ALEXA RANKS

   1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step.

   2. Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. I did this a few days ago and receive a fair amount of clicks every day. According to some, each click counts as a visit even if the toolbar is not used by the visitor.

   3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. Be sure to link to Alexa’s full explanation of their toolbar and tracking system so your readers know what installing the toolbar or extension entails.

   4. Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. Perhaps it will be useful to note that this may work only when dynamic or different IPs are used.

   5. Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. Not entirely sure of its impact on rankings but it might help in some way.

   6. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.

   7. Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. You’ll get webmasters to visit your website and offer useful feedback. It’s also a good way to give back to the community if you have useful articles to share with others.

   8. Write content that is related to webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. Promote your content on social networking websites and webmaster forums.

   9. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.doshdosh.com . Replace doshdosh.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help. There is no official proof that redirects positively benefit your Alexa Rank, so use with caution.

  10. Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. I suggest trying this only if you have the time or capacity to do so.

  11. Create a webmaster tools section on your website. This is a magnet for webmasters who will often revisit your website to gain access to the tools. Aaron Wall’s webpage on SEOTools is a very good example.

  12. Get Dugg or Stumbled. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer amount will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.

  13. Use PayperClick Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in Traffic. Doubly useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters.

  14. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa. This acts as an easily accessible resource for webmasters or casual search visitors while helping you rank in the search engines.

  15. Optimize your popular posts. Got a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines? Include a widget/graph at the bottom of the post, link to your Alexa post or use Alexa redirection on your internal URLs.

  16. Buy banners and links for traffic from webmaster forums and websites. A prominent and well displayed ad will drive lots of webmaster traffic to your website, which can significantly boost your rank.

  17. Hire forum posters to pimp your website. Either buy signatures in webmaster forums or promote specific articles or material in your website on a regular basis. You can easily find posters for hire in Digital Point and other webmaster forums.

  18. Pay Cybercafe owners to install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as the homepage for all their computers. This might be difficult to arrange and isn’t really a viable solution for most. I’m keeping this one in because some have suggested that it does work.

  19. Use MySpace . This is a little shady so I don’t recommended it unless you’re really interested in artificially inflating your Alexa Rank. Use visually attractive pictures or banners and link them to your redirected Alexa URL. This will be most effective if your website has content that is actually relevant to the MySpace Crowd.

  20. Try Alexa auto-surfs. Do they work? Maybe for brand new sites. I think they are mostly suitable for new websites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. They aren’t also long term solutions to improving your Alexa Rank so I suggest using with caution.

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR COMPUTER’S SPEED

It’s kind of a law of nature: your computer slows down over time even though nothing seems to have changed.

So how to make your computer faster again without buying a new machine?

Firstly, check how much memory your machine has. Windows always has liked to use lots of memory and modern operating systems like XP and Vista are especially greedy. If your machine has less than 2Gb of RAM memory, it’s time to treat it and you to more.

Upgrading your memory to this level will make near enough everything on your computer run faster. If Windows doesn’t have enough memory to work with, it will use space on your hard disk as an alternative. But hard disks are lots, lots slower than regular memory.

A memory upgrade is simple enough to do yourself - there are plenty of tutorials online to show you how - or your local computer store will be happy to help you for a small fee. The whole operation should be over quickly - it will probably take you longer to unscrew the screws on the case than it will to upgrade the RAM.

If it’s only print jobs that are running slow, do the same treatment for your printer if it’s possible. Color lasers especially will appreciate any extra memory you give them and will allow Windows to pass them across more of the printing job, freeing up your machine for other tasks.

If that still doesn’t do enough to make your computer faster, there are other things you can try as well.

FOOD FOR THE SOUL

Love is always building up. It puts some line of beauty on everything it touches. It gives new hope to discouraged ones, new strength to those who are weak. It helps the despairing to rise and start again. It makes life seem more worthwhile to everyone into whose eyes it looks. Its words are benedictions. Its every breath is fill of inspiration.

THE WAY LOVE IS SPELLED

When Joey was 5 years old, his kindergarten teacher told the class to draw a picture of something that they love. Joey drew a picture of his family, and then he took his red crayon and drew a big circle around the stick figures on his paper. Joey wanted to write a word on top of the circle, so he got up from his chair and approached the teacher’s desk.

            “Teacher,” he asked, “how do you spell—-?”

But before he could finish his question, the teacher told him to go back to his seat and not interrupt the class again. Joey folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket.

When Joey got home from school that day, he remembered his drawing and dug it out of his pocket. He smoothed it out on the kitchen table, got a pencil from his backpack, and looked at the big red circle. Joey’s mother was busy cooking supper, but Joey wanted to finish the picture before he showed to her.

            “Mom, how do you spell—-?”

“Joey, can’t you see I am busy right now? Why don’t you go outside and play? And don’t slam the door,” she told him.

Joey folded the drawing and stuck it back in his pocket. Later that evening Joey dug the picture out from his pocket again. He looked at the big red circle and then ran into the kitchen to get a pencil. He wanted to finish the drawing before he showed it to his father. Joey smoothed out all the wrinkles and laid the picture on the floor near his dad’s big recliner.

            “Daddy, how do you spell—-?”

“Joey I’m reading the paper right now, and I don’t want to be bothered. Why don’t you go outside and play? And don’t slam the door.”

Joey folded the drawing and put it in his pocket. His mom found the drawing the next morning while she was doing the laundry. She threw it in the trash without ever opening it, along with a small rock, a piece of string, and two marbles Joey had found while he was outside playing.

When Joey was twenty-eight years old, his daughter Annie drew a picture. It was a picture of their family. Joey laughed when five-year-old Annie pointed to a squiggle stick figure and said, “That’s you daddy!”

Annie laughed too. Joey looked at the big rd circle his daughter had drawn around the stick figures and began to slowly trace the circle with his finger.

“I’ll be right back,” Annie said as she jumped off her father’s lap. When she came back she had a pencil clutched in her small hand. Her father moved the drawing aside to make room on his lap for his small daughter.

Annie positioned the pencil point near the top of the big red circle. “Daddy, how do you spell LOVE?” she asked.

Joey gathered the child in his arms and guided her small hand as he helped her form the letters.

            “Love is spelled T-I-M-E,” he told her.

CAREGIVER

I would like to share to you a story about a wife and her husband. I got this true story from a book, ripples of joy, which was given to me by my brother. Reading it did inspire me and touched my heart.

I am a caregiver. My forty-year-old husband, David, has a little known genetic disease called Huntington’s disease. He can do almost nothing for himself.

I can tell you that caregivers experience a wide range of emotions, depending on the largely upon the person whom we are caring. Lately, I have to admit; I’ve been feeling there’s really no reward for what I am doing.

David has difficulty feeding for himself, and swallowing is accomplished only with great deal of effort. One day, with more food landing on his shirt than in his mouth, David and I were going through the usual “ change the shirt” game.

“David lift up your arms,” I pleaded. And then, “if you do, we can go and have ice cream.”

David’s garbled speech made his response to my urging impossible to comprehend. I did figure out, however, that he had no intention of lifting his arms or cooperating as I changed his shirt.

I felt myself tense up, and I sighed in frustration. I didn’t need this today. Try as I would, I simply couldn’t understand what he was saying. And we weren’t moving any near our goal-getting him into a clean shirt.

‘David,” I finally said, “my job is to feed you, make sure you take your medications, and help your doctors and nurses. Your job is to help me help you. You need to lift your arms, please.”

With an endearing smile so like that of the man I had married before the ravages of Huntington’s disease took him away, David said, “No. My job is to say ‘I love you’ in as clear voice as possible.”

Care giving is not something I would ever choose to do. Imagine most people would not choose what is usually an almost thankless job-especially without pay. Still, there are rewards. Remembering David’s smile and his comment about his “job” is a nice memory I can pull out on days when things get really tough. We all have our Jobs, and David’s job is to say, “I love you.”

David, I love you too.

DEATH OF A FRIEND

Today I was informed that the father of Joy, my sister in law, passed away this morning. It was so sudden that the family was not prepared. Joy’s father is now in Cagayan de Oro and will be brought back to Pagadian City tomorrow. 

The cause of death was due to the swelling of his right part of his brain. I cannot describe what it is but it is surely painful.  A good man is taken again.

BUSY DAY

I have been busy lately because of my work as a blogger. I find it very enjoyable and challenging to accept tasks. It is a good way to exercise my mind in thinking creative ideas as I post it in my blogs. 

Last week, I have already updated our group paypal account for our earnings. We have already partially withdrawn few of our earnings in blogging. I just hope that there will be more task for me and for my group friends so that we can generate more income through our blogging work.

If you do have some ideas on how to earn more in blogging, please feel free to inform me. It will be a sure help for me.