graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way, unlike some other graphic viewers, whose whole "creativity" is based on feature cloning, stealing of ideas and whole dialogs from ACDSee and/or IrfanView! (for example: XnView has been stealing/cloning features and whole dialogs from IrfanView, for 8+ years).

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support.
One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support.
The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.


Some IrfanView features:
Many supported file formats.
Multi language support
Thumbnail/preview option
Paint option - to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
Toolbar skins option
Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
Fast directory view (moving through directory)
Batch conversion (with image processing)
Multipage TIF editing
File search
Email option
Multimedia player
Print option
Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF
Change color depth
Scan (batch scan) support
Cut/crop
IPTC editing
Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
Capturing
Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
Lossless JPG rotation
Unicode support
Many hotkeys
Many command line options
Many PlugIns
Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired"
No registry changes without user action/permission!
and much much more

Read More

Wish you a Happy New Year !!!!!

Read More

A Benchmark Strategy to Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

In the frenzy to attain or maintain the highest ranking, it's easy to get caught up in keyword bidding wars. Don't give in to this temptation. There's a better way and it begins with finding a breakeven cost-per-click benchmark.

Cost-per-click the sensible way

Let's say that you sell golf clubs online. A set of golf clubs retails for $500. Your cost to manufacture or purchase the clubs is $300 per set. If you reserve an additional $100 per set for other operating expenses, you are left with $100 per unit to spend on marketing efforts such as cost-per-click campaigns.

Now assume that of every 100 visitors to your website, one visitor buys a set of clubs (a 1% visitor-to-customer conversion rate). You have $100 to spend to attract those 100 visitors, which translates into a $1 break-even per-click benchmark. If you exceed $1 per click, you will lose money. If you pay less than $1 per click, you will make money.

It's essential to understand this benchmark when buying cost-per-click advertising. When you know the conversion rates for each of your keywords, you'll be able to bid the appropriate amount - more for the keywords with higher conversion rates, and less for the keywords with lower conversion rates.

Now, let's look at this in action. The Google Analytics Revenue per Click (RPC) metric can give you insight into how much you should spend per click on a given keyword or cost-per-click campaign. You should not assume that Revenue per Click by itself provides the correct number for your business. Revenue per Click assumes that you can spend 100% of your revenue on cost-per-click advertising. Since you will want to factor in your production and business operating costs, you should consider what percentage of your revenue you can actually spend on cost-per-click advertising, and adjust your bid accordingly.

For example, let's say that you have an RPC of $11.66 per click for "beginner golf tips". If you can spend 10% of your retail price on cost-per-click advertising, your actual bid should be 10% of $11.66 or $1.16 per click. Spending more than $1.16 per click for this keyword would cause you to lose money. Spending less than $1.16 per click for this keyword would result in profit.

I don't understand how my competitors can afford to outbid me

Maybe they can't afford it - and haven't yet discovered that they can't afford it. They may simply be caught up in the bidding war machinery. But, it's also possible that lower operating costs or higher profit margins allow them to spend a larger chunk on cost-per-click. Or, they may be getting higher conversion rates for certain keywords than you do. Study their search ad copy and research their website - you might pick up some tips on improving the conversion side of the equation on your site.

In the meantime, know that you are bidding the amount that fits your business requirements and your conversion rate.

But I don't sell online

Even if you don't sell online, you may be able to attach some monetary value to each of your website goals. Consider how much each lead you gain from your website is worth and use that to determine how much you should be spending for cost-per-click.

If you are a B-to-B site, you may convert your leads into sales offline. If you know that your sales staff closes 5% of your website leads for an average transaction profit of $1,000, you can calculate your break-even benchmark as follows:

Break-even benchmark = website conversion rate x 5% x $1,000

For a keyword that yields a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2%, and assuming that you can allocate $1,000 per transaction for cost-per-click, your break-even benchmark will be:

2% x 5% x 1,000 = $1 per click

Managing, not just measuring

Getting the most out of cost-per-click means that you must continually monitor your results with Google Analytics so that you don't over-bid. Think of web analytics as an online marketing management tool - experimenting, testing, and always improving your cost-per-click strategy to maximize your website ROI.

Read More

Google Analytics Interface Tutorial

Read More

SEO Tips - improve Google ranking of your website

Search Engine Optimization activities can be divided into two sets of ongoing processes: on-site optimization (ways of building and improving your website) and off-site optimization (outside factors, such as links from other websites). These techniques may be further divided into “good” SEO, that is accepted by the search engines, also known as “White Hat SEO Practices”, and the bad, techniques, such as spam, link farming, etc., that can get your website penalized or even banned from search engines like Google or Yahoo.

Here are some of my tips for working your site’s SEO:

On-Site Optimization


Choosing the right domain name
One of the first choices that you have to make when starting your website is the choice of your domain name. This is important because Google and other search engines look at your domain name when determining the relevancy of the search engine results page (SERP). It is therefore beneficial to have the keywords that you are targeting present in your domain name.

Title
Title of your web page (specified with the use of the title tag) should be descriptive and relevant to the content of your website. It is beneficial to include some of the targeted keywords and/or keyphrases in the title of your site. Also, be sure to have unique titles for every each one of your sub-pages, as it is more descriptive and increases the amount of keywords that you can use.

Keyword density
When writing content for your website, try to include all your keywords within the body of your pages. That way, when a search engine bot (crawler) indexes your website, it sees the keyphrases included in your copy, and thus can determine the relevancy of your website for a given search querry.

Header tags
Divide the content of your site into certain parts and begin each with a relevant (keyword-rich) description bound by the header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.).

Links
Make sure that your site does not have any broken links, for it is frowned upon by the search engines. The anchor text (name that your link is displayed as) should be relevant, and keyword rich. If certain keywords are more important to you, you may increased their value in the eyes of search engines by using one of the bold and strong tags or putting them as a header.

File names
Make sure that the file names of your web pages contain the targeted keywords. For example instead of calling your gallery page gallery.html, call it fast-cars-photogallery.html (for a gallery of sports cars). Remember not to go overboard with sticking too many keywords into one file name, because it may appear too spamy to search engines.

Image alternative text.
Remember to include the alternative text for all your images . Alt text is important for a variety of reasons: it helps visually disabled people to read your website, helps when somebody is using text only web browser, it is standards compliant, and of course it is yet another place to put some more keywords.

Meta Data: description, keywords
In your html code, be sure to put adequate, not too long, not too short description of your website and the list of your keywords.

Url rewriting
Remember that you can manipulate your urls and make them more search engine friendly with such tools as .htaccess on an Apache server or the IIS on a Microsoft platform.

W3C compliant syntax
Make sure that the html you are coding is compliant with the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium. You can check your site at validator.w3.org. Some people believe that having valid html helps with your SERP, some think otherwise. In my opinion it is a good prudent and proactive step to take; it won’t hurt, but it may help. I myself, try to always use valid strict xhtml (specified in the doctype statement in the top part of your code).



Off-Site Optimization


Link building - you can submit your link for free to many websites such as:
Yahoo & Google Locals
At these sites you can submit your business listing, and not only get a valuable link from an important, high PR site, but also increase your brand awareness and potentially land some business deals.

Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo Directories (paid listing), etc.)
There is an abundance of online directories floating on the internet. Some of them are free such as DMOZ (very hard to get listed, but extremely beneficial to your SEO and eMarketing efforts), some offer paid inclusion (Yahoo directories, I think annual fee of $290), and some offer you a listing in exchange for a link back to their site. Be careful with linking to those directories because some might be treated as link-farms and will get you penalized by the search engines. If linking to a directory, find out if it is a legitimate website first. Also, try linking only to those sites that are related to yours in some way.

Video sharing (Youtube.com, Google Videos, etc.)
If you have some skills at shooting interesting videos or making video tutorials (such as a SEO tutorial or a witty Photoshop technique tutorial) you can post them on a variety of video-sharing networks, and put a link to your website in the description of your input.

Social Networking (MySpace.com, Facebook.com, etc.)
Social networking sites are a great way to show of your business along with your website to the world. A profile on MySpace or Facebook can gain you new clients, help to stay in touch with existing ones, develop business relations with other companies, and be a source of links and traffic to your website.

Blogs (blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.)
Blogs, similarly to social networking sites, are a good way of sharing information about your business/website with the world. By writing relevant content, you can gain links and exposure

Message boards, forums
Digg.com
Wikipedia.org
Google Pages
Link Exchange
Email Marketing/Newsletter
A company online newsletter can keep your visitors updated and in touch with your website. Marketing emails can also attract possible clients for your business. If you decide to engage in an email marketing campaign, keep one thing in mind: “Don’t SPAM!”

Read More

How to Become an SEO Specialist?

STEP 1: Learn the Basics of SEO

This step should be relatively easy. There are many sources out there that will explain what exactly SEO is and what activities are involved. If you prefer books, you can look up some kind of SEO book, like “SEO 101″ or some such, but as I said, all this information is available online. Feel free to read up about the subject on my blog, the SEO and Web Design Guide. To learn the search engine optimization essentials, make sure to read on my article entitled: “Improve Google rankings of your website.”

STEP2: Start a SEO Website

Whether to a prospective client or an employer, you will have to prove that you have some knowledge and experience in the field and what better way to do that if not starting an SEO themed website? Don’t create the website ad hoc - go through the actual Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of the website. Start with the planning phase and have the whole concept ready before you start the design and coding parts. I’m a firm believer that to work in internet marketing you should manage at least one website from grounds up - from design and content writing to SEO and PPC.

STEP3: Get Ranked

Use your newly acquired knowledge to optimize your website - remember to write lots of quality content and get some good inbound links - submit a press release or two. Do your keyword research and decide what phrases to target. Don’t shoot for the stars right at first, pick something that you can achieve relatively quickly just to show some results for your efforts. Target your geographical area. Good keyword examples would be “New York SEO Service”, “Detroit SEO Consultant” or “Florida SEO Freelancer” for instance - Chicago SEO in my case. Rankings for such phrases might not necessarily bring you a ton of traffic but it’s a start and you will have some proof of your SEO skills.

STEP4: Build Your Portfolio

To close a deal with any serious client, you’ll need some references - a nice portfolio might come in handy here. Go for some smaller, less demanding clients for start - the bigger fish will come when you make a mark for yourself. You can help your friends and family with their websites, pro bono or for a small fee - the choice is yours. You can also simply design some websites for yourself and get them ranked (if they start getting some nice traffic, you can always sell them or load them up with AdSense), just to have that portfolio ready.

STEP5: Get Some Leads

By now you should have enough skill and credentials to go out there and get some new clients. Your website can be a valuable source of leads, if you don’t get enough traffic yet, then a Pay-Per-Click network, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo! Marketing Solutions, might be a good source of conversions. PPC campaigns might turn costly, but if you can afford it, then you could kill two birds with one stone. On one hand you’ll be getting clicks from potential customers and on the other you will gain valuable experience and insight into PPC management - a services that you can offer your future clients. Other ways of getting leads include the word of mouth (do as much networking as possible, invest in business cards and be extra nice to your friends and family!), freelance websites (client sends a Request for Proposal and freelancers submit their bids), email blasts (try not to cross the thin line on the border of spam), and cold calls, among others. If you decide on cold calling people, you’ll have to steel your nerves. Many people don’t appreciate being solicited and may have a few unkind words for you or will simply hang up on you, so don’t get discouraged! A good tip for cold calls: look for people that do PPC (sponsored results on the right hand side of search engine result page), if they already spend money for every click then you know that those clicks are important to them and you are about to offer them FREE clicks!

STEP6: Land Those Deals!

When trying to close the deal, make sure the client knows the full benefit package that he’s getting - this will help double time if the client is already doing PPC - they understand the worth of traffic and you’re about to considerably cut their costs. Another important thing is being honest. Don’t try hiding every thing. If the client asks what have you done or what your plans are, be open about it. You can safely disclose your strategy to the client - they’ll defer to your expertise and experience. If you are overly close-mouthed, your client may accuse you of lack of communication or simply lack of service (if you can’t tell them what you’re doing then you probably aren’t doing anything). Besides, the client spends his hard earned money with you, so he or she is entitled to be informed.

STEP7: Do Your Work!

Did you get that deal? Nice, now lets go to work. You should know what to do by now but lets go through it again - do your research (Word Tracker or Google AdWords keyword tool are great resources). Make sure you cover all the basics of on-page optimization: titles, meta tags, headers, bold text and inter-linking will give you basis for your further work. Write some good, keyword rich text but avoid keyword stuffing! Start your link building campaign - submit the site to DMOZ and other directories, start local listings and do a fair amount of link begging (hey, lets be honest…). When the website gets re-crawled - review and reinforce. Remember: content is the king, links are when the king goes to war!

STEP8: Follow-up With Your Client

Make sure that you periodically follow up with your clients. A quick email or a simple call once in a while can do wonders in terms of customer satisfaction. If you’re calling to let them know about some good ranking that you just achieved for them, have them open up Google and type in their keywords and tell you what they see - you may be pleasantly surprised at their reaction! You can always reinforce your emails with an attachment - a nice report from Google Analytics with increased traffic has a way of keeping a client happy.

STEP9: Up-sale

Even the most satisfied clients have room for improvement. A redesign of their website might increase the conversion rate, optimizing their AdWords account may lower their cost per click (CPC), a nice press release may drive significant, and I mean SIGNIFICANT, increase in traffic for a period of time. If you’ve proven yourself to the client and gave him or her a good bang for their buck, they will be willing to listen to you. If you make your case and show them how the additional services that you provide will make them more money, they will go for it. Make them money and they will be more than happy to pay your fees - sky’s the limit!

STEP10: Get Referrals and Update Portfolio

Make sure that you have nice recommendations from your very satisfied client - stick them on your website, update a portfolio and shamelessly take advantage of it when closing a new deal. It is always worth the time and effort to write a nice case study after a successful campaign and upload it to your website - several nice ones and your conversion rate will soar!

STEP11: At this point you should be able to tell which is more feasible for yourself - staying a freelancer (freedom, sweet freedom) or joining an agency (benefits+paid vacation time+sales team handy). By now you should have enough evidence to support your resume to get an agency job without much problem, so the choice is yours!

STEP12: Go back to the first step and go over the cycle again - this time try just a little bit harder. Don’t ever assume you know everything, because there is always room for improvement. There are new techniques and new ways of accomplishing your goals. Look at this as a process of ongoing improvement, we live and learn.

Read More

Free Clipboard Manager for keeping the clipboard history

The contents of the standard Windows clipboard constantly change as you use it to copy and paste various information. But your data isn't stored for a long time - when you turn off the computer or just copy some other text, the data is lost.


In most cases, that isn't a problem, but have you ever needed the text you copied 30 minutes or an hour ago? Maybe your computer is hanging and the program hasn't saved the data, or maybe you copied some interesting information from a web page, but got distracted and forgot to paste it where you wanted? Or you may simply want to recall what you were doing at the computer a month or a year ago. There are many cases in which you might want to review your clipboard content.

Read More