Tuesday, September 23, 2008

New Product Reviews!

My goal is to always provide you with meaningful and helpful content. Today I want to share the latest product reviews from my CoolToolAwards.com web site. This trio of utilities will help your PC run smoother, faster and more safely.

Registry Booster

Do you know how to repair your PC's registry? Don't be ashamed. Most people have no idea what the registry is let alone how to clean and maintain it. This tool removes the mystery and helps your PC's registry remain free of junk, resulting in a better running system.


http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/registrybooster.htm


SpeedUpMyPC

Is your PC slowing down? Does start-up take forever? Do programs seem to take longer to load and run? This tool will examine what you have running and make changes to
speed up your PC's operation. Most people see noticeable speed differences. Before you buy more memory or invest in a new PC, check this inexpensive tool out first.

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/speedupmypc.htm

AutoSave Essentials


This is the best backup software I have ever seen. It's easy to use and incredibly powerful and flexible. Protect your music so you don't have to buy it all over again!
Protect your photos and videos. Archive the stuff you don't use but is still important to you. Protect your business' critical files. Try it, you'll like it!

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/autosaveessentials.htm

All my best,

Steven

Monday, September 22, 2008

On Being Rich and Famous

Good day readers. Steve Schneiderman here. I have survived my first Boy Scout camp out (hold your applause, please). It was, um, interesting. We made catapults and rockets and ate Sloppy Joes and listened to the coyotes howl while we tried to sleep.

Which brings me to an ongoing argument my wife and I are having about the word "coyote". Coming from NYC, I say it has 3 syllables and is pronounced CAY-YO-TEE as in the famous cartoon character Wiley Coyote. My wife, coming from the Central part of the US, says it is pronounced COYOT -- the "e" is silent.

I further argue that COYOTE rhymes with PEYOTE.

These arguments are important! What say you?

And as I was writing this update, my 11 year old daughter came home from school and told me she wants to start a band with her girlfriend. She wants to grow up to be a rich and famous singer ... or sculptor ... or ballet dancer ... anything so long as she is R-I-C-H and F-A-M-O-U-S.

What is it about being rich and famous that gets everyone's heart a flutter? Do you write to be rich and famous or to share your voice and knowledge?

When I first started writing, I wanted to be Stephen King or Woody Allen. I sent all of my horror short stories to the same magazines and editors that made Stephen King famous. That did not work.

Then I thought I would focus on humorous pieces (I always wanted to be a stand-up comic).

Are you ready for the ultimate irony? I could not get my stuff published if my life depended upon on it. Then an old professor called me and asked me to write a "student" essay on cause and effect for a new thematic reader he was compiling. A few days later and $50.00 richer my essay was accepted for publication in his book, American Voices, published by Harper & Row.

OK, ready for the ultimate irony? My humorous cause and effect essay entitled "Artificial Stupidity" was published between essays written by Stephen King and Woody Allen! My two favorite writers.

So I didn't get rich or become famous, but I did get sandwiched between two rich and famous authors. That counts for something, right?

What about you? Why do you write? For fame? For fortune? To share? A lot of people I meet online believe they have written the next million dollar book. And when it does not sell magically by itself, they point the finger of blame towards everyone but themselves. They figure they did ALL
of the work by writing the next million dollar book, so someone else should do all the work promoting it.

Yeah. Right.

It doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did because then we would all be rich and famous. So we need to find other ways to achieve our goals.

EbookoMatic is certainly one way to get your stuff out
there.

I think there are two ways to pursue fame and fortune. It all starts with writing something that truly is very good and very commercial. That means it is well written and people want it.

Then you either need to share it simply to develop an audience who wants more of what you have or you promote it through as many different vehicles as possible. That means distribute it everywhere.

I remember when Stephen King first experimented with the ebook in 1999 with The Green Mile. He started giving away chapters to the ebook for free and then started selling the follow-up chapters for like a buck a piece. He made $500,000 almost overnight! See what I mean?

Why not join EbookoMatic and then start feeding the public your next great work in chapters. Give them away for free and then make them buy the rest of it? It could be a cheap way to get your name and work noticed and you might make a few bucks doing it, too.

All my best,

Steve Schneiderman

Friday, September 19, 2008

Tarantulas, Scorpions and Snakes, Oh My!

Good afternoon readers. I am presently getting ready to
go camping with my son and his Boy Scout pack tomorrow. Can
you believe I am turning 50 and have never gone camping
before. Hopefully, the tarantulas, scorpions and snakes
will stay far away. Cross your fingers for me!

I've had a very busy week, working on multiple client
projects as well as my own. I spent some time running
reports on my domain traffic and was pleasantly surprised
to see I have a number of niche sites that are pulling in
between 10,000 to 20,000 unique visitors each month. Now I
need to figure out a way to monetize these sites better to
take advantage of that traffic.

There's lots of ways to do this. Most would agree that
filling the site with lots of good content related to the
domain name would be a good start and then add Google
AdSense ads to make some money on click-throughs. I tend to
write a lot of product reviews and re-purpose that content
across all related sites, and no, I have never been
penalized or "slapped" by Google for duplicate content.

Another tactic is to look for affiliate products related to
the domain name and content and include links to those
affiliate products throughout the site. Reseller products
and PLR products may also be available for this purpose.

Of course, it always helps if you have your own product to
sell. I've written ebooks on a number of subjects and
developed software and see the occasional sale come
through. That's money that drops to the bottom line.

Sometimes I don't have anything of my own to promote so I
will simply redirect the domain to another product's URL
via my affiliate link. It's easy to do and can generate
sales pretty quickly. For instance, I was developing a
product called Ebook Cover Animator, but stopped when I
lost interest. Well, recently another person has released a
site called AnimatedeCovers.com. So I know my domain is
going to start getting traffic. Unfortunately, this new
product does not offer an affiliate program, so I decided to
fight fire with fire and have redirected my domain to a
competing product that creates animated ebook covers among
other types of sensational Web 2.0 graphics. Check it out
at:

http://www.EbookCoverAnimator.com


FreakingBargains.com is another site of mine that is
getting lots of traffic but I have not monetized it well.
So I am going to change it into a shopping directory of
sorts using a Buy Me A Word script. If you are not familiar
with this script, then please read the review here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/business/buymeaword.htm


This is another low-cost, simple way to generate money from
a busy domain.

I've also decided to sell a bunch of domains I have been
holding for some some time. I have them listed in many
places including here:

http://www.milliondollarsites.com

I'm also using Moniker.com and SEDO.com to list them, and
will be experimenting with SitePoint.com next week. I'll
let you know how it goes and if I have any success.

Been checking my placement on the search engines for some
of my latest reviews. Did not make page one for my review
of Virtual Smart Agent but made it to top of page two.

My review for IM Templates Supreme did make it to page one
on Google in 4th position. Interesting thing here is that
Google did not pick it up on CoolToolAwards.com but
rather on WebDesignAssistance.com which just goes to show
that good content is good content even when it is
duplicated.

Likewise, my review from last week for Header Ads is at #5
on Google's 2st page.

And lastly, my review for PromoDashboard is at #3 on page 1
of Google.

If you are not getting your pages ranked this quickly and
in this high a position then you need to read my ebook:

http://www.rocketsciencerevealed.com

Study my formula for success and you can see improvements
in your ranking, too.

All my best,

Steven

P.S.: I am going to be launching a new service soon that will
provide you with custom mini site designs and sales copy. I
don't know anywhere else on the Net where you can buy this in one

place from someone with my level of experience. We're experimenting
with prices. Imagine the next time you need to launch a product
through a mini site, we will design the one page site and write
your short-form sales copy for you. A totally turnkey service.
One stop shopping. OK, here's the test price: $499 for graphics
and copy. But I am only going to do this at this low test
price for 10 people and 10 people only. If you want in -- even
if you are not ready to use the service yet -- then I urge you
to send an email to me at info@schneiderman.net to tell me you
want to reserve one or more spots. These are going to go fast,
so act now! And I guarantee you the price will go up fast.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Pixton Redefines Comics


I found a new tool that enables you to create and share your own online comics. It has lots of applications for schools, business and blogging. It's called Pixton. First, you create your own profile and then you can start creating your own comics either by selecting layouts and characters from existing galleries or by starting from scratch. Once published you can send them to friends and add them to your blog. Here's my first comic.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Good morning readers. I came across something which I
wanted to share. It will be useful to those of you who have
a web site of your own. It will virtually eliminate web
harvesters from being able to steal your email address from
your site for the purpose of sending you junk email.

This tool will also provide your visitors with multiple
ways to communicate with you and share information about
your web site with others. It is very easy to install and
setup -- it will only take a few minutes in most cases.

The tool is called My Contact Station and the full review
with screenshots may be found here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/mycontactstation.htm

Late last night, I also received a review request from a
very neat service that enables you to create your own
comics online in multiple languages and share them in an
online social community. The review will be forthcoming
later this week. At first blush, it looks like a lot of fun
and may also be a "rogue" way to promote yourself, your
product and services, or your site.

OK, one last thing. If you pay attention to web site
popularity and ranking -- what some people call search
engine optimization -- most folks want to know how to get
their web site to the top of the search engines home page
for their respective product or service or business name.

SEO/SEM experts charge people thousands of dollars a month
to achieve this. But you can do it on your own for nothing!

Next time you visit my site, http://www.cooltoolawards.com,
make note of the Alexa Traffic Rank box that appears in the
upper left side of the screen. The site presently ranks at
150,630. That means of all the web sites in the world --
millions of them -- billions of web pages -- this site --
CoolToolAwards.com -- is ranked in the top 150,000 --
that's pretty high.

At one point the site was at around 42,000 making it among
the top 50,000 web sites in the world! I'm trying to get
back there -- with your help. Visit the site often to see
our new reviews. Every visit helps!

Of course, I use a lot of magic, too, to keep the site and
my review ranking high. My reviews usually appear on page
one of the top search engines. For instance, for Marlon
Sanders' new PromoDashboard (which you should look at if
you are doing any business online) appears in the 7th
position on the first page of search results on Google for
the phrase "PromoDashboard." My review for VideoStacker
appears in the 3rd position. My review for "Action Popup"
also appears on 3rd position.

How are your pages ranking?

If you want to get a better understanding of what I am
doing and how you may be able to apply my methods for
better ranking in the search engines, please check out my
ebook on the subject:

http://www.rocketsciencerevealed.com

All my best,

Steven

Friday, September 12, 2008

Remembering 9/11

I stayed up late last night with my wife, watching the original footage of the 9/11 attack.
Have 7 years really flown by so fast? That footage never loses its power and always makes me cry. It's one of those life-changing events you will always remember, much like the days when the Kennedy's or Martin Luther King were assassinated.

At the time of 9/11, my family and I had flown down to Florida for my best friend's wedding. We had just left Boca Raton for Orlando and we were on our way into Disney World.
As we were listening to the radio, we heard about the first Tower. It was unfathomable to me.

I am a born and bred New Yorker and lived there for the first 34 years of my life. I'd been to the Towers many times on business. In fact, my best friend -- the one whose wedding I was attending in Florida -- worked in the Towers. He lost dozens of co-workers that day.

And yet with all of the heartache, there is a sense of wonder -- for me at least -- that we still have hope for the future. Since that fateful day, I have made friends all over the world through the Internet and I now list close friends in far-off places such as Lebanon and Pakistan and
India. The Internet brings us closer than ever before and makes it possible for us to transcend physical and religious borders and to truly exist as an online brotherhood of man.

That's it. No marketing hype today. Just a moment to remember the past and consider the future.

Until next time,

Steven