Jason's Journal

Why Seo Pays Off! The High ROI from Optimization

2010-04-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

So I attended a meeting at a local telivision station of local businesses and an internet "Guru" Service. The so called "Guru" blasted efforts at search engine optimization as not worth your time.

"How many of you look past the first page in a google search?" he said enthusiatically. To which the majority of the crowd admited they didn't. "Do you know how hard it is to get to the front page of Google?" he chanted."Too hard!" he exclaimed.

Well those of you in the know should be throwing th "BS Flag" right about now. Even the most basic SEO programs will yield signicant results. For about 2 hours worth of work I was able to add keywords and descriptions to a website I was working on Donelson Furniture at a grand cost to the consumer of around $25. I had been doing some social media marketing for them mostly through twitter but then vacation rolled around and I didn't stay on it.

When I returned I found almost 90 people had visited the website from google alone. it is over 125 search visitors if you include bing and yahoo. All from 2 hours worth of work! One of the visitors is even buying a bedroom set.

So why does SEO work if people only browse the first page? Well truth is people only browse the first page when they find what they need. Many people (expeciially us web-dev types) have to look though many pages to find exactly the right site with the right solution for us. Second, just because your website isn't number one in an overall catagory (like furniture) doesn't mean that it won't rank high in a subcatagory (ie Office Furniture). Third, you can use solid seo technique to create a geo-friendly website that can bring visitors looking to shop locally right through your door.

If everything I mention above hasn't convinced you of the importance of seo I have four more points that will!

1. Two hours of Seo will not just increase your visitors for one week. It will have a profound impact on the total number of visitors each week of the year for every year that you have your site.

2. You can and should (SEO is not a one time and leave it alone tool) add to that two hour effort on a daily or weekly basis adding value and visitors progressively and organically.

3. If you do it yourself SEO is often free. That's to say you can do it in otherwise wasted spare time(I have no purpose when funiture customers stay home)making valuble contributions rather than wasting time.

4. Somebody always makes it to the top 10 in google and that somebody is making a lot of money! So why can't it be you?

To leave you with a final bit of irony. The local TV station (an ABC affiliate) actually found us origionally when their Ad rep. was looking for local furnitureand found our website from google! In her initial marketing pitch she even had printed and assembled "About Us" information that she had copied Directly form our website!

Let's all eat are Elephant's one bite at a time, by climbing the rankings ergonomically and taking SEO as it should be taken. Slowly but surely!

Coming Soon Chess Vids!

2010-03-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

Hi I;ve been studying this chess thing vehemptly and I think I might be ready to do some serious blogging on the subject matter so what better way to show you what I've learned than Video's.

I will probably start with Openning followed by mating patterns, and end games.

I'm of course not an expert but I do have good working knowledge of most aspects of chess. This is especially true since their is rarely blunders in Theroretiacl discussion!

Getting off the ground, with EBAY??

2010-03-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

SO in the dog eat dog world of webdesign I'm finding it a little bit hard to get customers to check me out. I've got some ads on craigslist made more than a few tweets and All I've got so far is a few looks?

SO my next attempt? EBAY. starting monday I will auction a $50.00 basic webdesign on Ebay, starting at $1. If I get any decent bids I wil try it again many times, I may even go so far as to EBAY webstore design. We ussually charge about $300 for a fully functional webstore! but someone may get it for just a dollar.

So what's better than a $1 website? One that costs nothing. We are giving away what we call super basic websites for free all this month. the best part is you can try out a free website then have us change the sytle and design again for free with out paying a penny!

2010-03-21T18:19:00.001-07:00

We Started Checking out gyms today

2010-03-21T13:31:00.001-07:00

http://crashcustom.com is now offering full service webstoe design

2010-03-20T17:59:00.001-07:00

Here's a Screen Shot From Legal'sw Mate (in Chess)

2010-03-20T17:27:00.001-07:00

For a limited time we are offering super Basic Websites for free! at http://Crashcustom.com !!

2010-03-19T23:15:00.001-07:00

New Blog Post http://ping.fm/IMHUq
Chapter 2 part 1 in Tales of Civilanious!

One More Barrier! 1400+

2010-03-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

So I've Broke into the 1400's on chess .com and I'm psyched I've learned so much in the past few months finding this site and finding chessBase have been extremly helpful to my game!

I have advanced my knowledge in every level of the game, begging, middle, and end. In my openning I have mastered several openings and I am competent enough in others to survive!

In the middle game I have been working the Tactics Trainer Relentlessly. Tactics is one of the biggest improvements in my game and one of the level's I still need to work on.

In the end game I am fairly strong thanks to Jeremy Silman's Complete end Game course.

Launching CrashCustom.Com!

2010-03-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

I'm Launching . My webdesign site! I am still getting all of the templates laid out for the basic websites but the super Basic websites are done and we're giving away all of the super Basics for FREE! If you need a website or know anyone who does it takes about three days to put one together after the forms are filled in.

We also do full service Webstores that are paypal equiped with a strong back end system tahts makes it etremely easy to update and add products!

Back on Track with Css

2010-03-13T10:15:00.000-08:00

So I am still working furiously on Crashcustom.com and I am specifically working on creating some webdesign templates. I will have some available soon. Sorry for the short entry but time dictates I must work instead of type, more later!

Reacces The Secret to my Succes?

2010-03-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

So I've been playing like crazy tring to prepare for this tournament and it's becoming pretty obvious that I'm going to have to step it up a notch if I am going to have any chance of winning. So I'm once again reaccessing my weaknesses.

In the opening I frequently gain an advantage where I'm Familiar, So I'm used to starting the mid game ahead or equalized as black in about 6 openings: Ruy Lopez, French Defense, Sicilian Defense, Queens GAmbit Declined(as Black), Guico Piano, center-counter Defense.

I have an even better game against phildors Defense and have scoreed 2 legal's mates against it!

But I have had some losses against modern defenses, and quite a few losses against Petroffs defense.

This all has pretty much fallen in line with my overall plan of mastering a few openings that I can control and only then expanding to a wider array of opennings slowly.

In My mid game I am playing fairly well, This is probably the point of the game where I could use the most work, So I am working through a chess trainer at chess.com

Legal's Mate: Anything that seems to good to be True Probably Isn't!

2010-03-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

So This is one of Two Identical Games I have Played against Intermetidate/ Novices Both Players were near the 1300 and Both Fell trap to the same trap! So to make thing short If Some one just offers you a Queen for nothing, Think Long and hard about the situation Before you take it. And If you ever see someone playing phildor's Defense Try it out Even If they're smart enough to take the knight with dxe4 you still go up a pawn with Qxg4!

LegalsMate

slowhand79 - zawgdog

Generated with ChessBase Light 2009
Download CBLight for free here

Keeping Up With Things

2010-03-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

So I master of all technology can never find a good way to manage all my blogs projects etc. I've tried Google Calender I've tried Desk Top Solutions I've tried just about every knid of planner and organizer to no Avail.

So Guess What My Big Solution Is?

A good ole white board and dry erease markers! Since I started using them it has become Impossible to ignore the things that I need to (but don't want to do.)

So why do I even write this post? Just to remind you that the internet has become in some senses a Rube Goldstein Device that sometimes improves and some times complicateds your life! So if your looking for a solution to a business or management problem think about old Fashioned solutions too You may be suprised at how well they work!

Ping! The Solution to all of Your Social Promotion Problems!

2010-02-27T13:16:00.000-08:00

So I've found one of the most exciting tools for Web Promoters and Social MEdia Addicts Alike. "Ping.fm"

You can simplify your updates on dozens of social media sites by using Ping to Connect them All!

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Freindster, Yahoo, and Much Much More!

Signing up takes minutes and the time it saves will Add Up to hours and Hours.

SO What Are you Waiting on Use IT! You won't be disappointed.

Welcolme Back 2010!

2010-02-27T11:36:00.001-08:00

Hi Everybody, Few of you that there are, I am Back with big appologies, since I have been writing few entries on many different blogs. I realize now that that is a super dumb way of blogging since no one blog has enough content to make any of it's readers happy so here it is the new and improved AlmostArgonauts.

So what Blogs are getting combined?

1. My WebDesign Blog
2. A Chess Blog
3. My Crash Custom Image Blog(This was Just Putting out Images That I have added to my my Myspace Image Site
4. A Blog About Poker
5. A Blog About Pool(that I haven't launched yet)
6. A Blog About the making of a cooking podcast that I am doing with a friend.
7. Jasons Journal Moble which was my personal Random Blog.

Will all of these things work Out Together? God, I hope so! I guess will just have to see.

The Access Method - Part one

2010-02-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

A long time alog I heard about a famous grandmaster that learnde just from notating and correcting his own mistakes. Now, that I am starting to play chess seriously I know almost all players who care about the game are doing the very same thing. My own contribution to the idea is the Access method of training. It is something I used in my professional carrier as a nuclear operator and in my other chief hobby's pool and webdesign. The Access method is centered around one central principle.

That until you correct one or many utterly weak parts of your game you can't improve on any part of your game.

That is to say that as a begginer you may give away pieces through lack of attention and even if you learn to play for astute positional advantage as long as you give away minor pieces it won't matter you will be overwhelmed and beaten.

Therefore you always get the most bang for your buck by correcting your biggest problem.

So How Does this Knowledge help You? Simple If you METHODICALLY ACCESS your weakness and systematically eliminate them you are always Imporving the area of you game that gives you the biggest skill jump per amount of time. This Yeilds to Better and Better Results In shorter Time!

This is the second Chess Entry I am Including in this Blog If you want to check out the two or three posts I had in the other blog that I have moved from the link is .

Wild Ups and Downs

2010-02-27T11:27:00.001-08:00

Accelerated Chess Development #1
As I try to both learn and teach I realize that it's a delicate balence. So you have to be very agile in your desision making to have everything your doing fall into place. This is especially true since life and chess are both primarily about making multiple parts and plans work together seamlessly.

So Now I realize...
1. There is no way to improve my chess significantly in 6 months and write a full book.
2. My other Blogs are suffering as I go through intense Chess Addiction(Not that there's any thing wrong with that!)

So I'm adjusting

As of Now I am going to be Moving all of my Blogs to my main blog.

As an additional note I will be changing the way I blog about chess. IF I just wrote a book by writing a blog it would probably be pretty disappointing for my blog followers to just get a book of the same old stuff that they have already read! So from Now on the Chess Part of my blog will be me pointing out cool things from my games or Games I've Found Online!

Alterneative means of profit 1(Affiliate Sells)

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

So I've started a blog and of course I'm trying to monitize it. I know I know what an asshole thing to do. But the truth is that I don't think that monitizingis truely evil so long as you don't bombard you readers with Ad after Ad.

So besides good 'ol Adsense I thought I might find other means. ie Affilliate sells!

Now I want to mention thatmostof you will choose amazon.com as a good place to start. It's Affilaite program even lets you create a mock store whos only link is to purchase or back to your brog and website. So what's the down side?

4% commision. Ouch, Not enough! It is still quite worth while if you want to refer to specific sections or types of products. Because Amazon is so big you can perfectly target your readers. If you do a weekly book review you can probably direct you readers to the exact book your reviewing.

Your Next Best option: Commision Junction http://cj.com you can choose multiple campaigns from thousands of companies and you should be pleased to know that many of the referal customers offer up to 20%. Thats a pretty hefty sum!

and my favorite new affiliate site: http://cj.ringrevenue.com this is a pay per call service that pays you for every call over 2 minutes to their customers. They only have several dozen companies but their are several good one's like allstate. Of course this is perfect for audio blogs or podcasts.

Want to Amp your Blog Stats? Try Google Analytics

2009-12-28T00:15:00.000-08:00

You check your subscribers and nothing, or else you find much fewer regulars than you like? So have your ever wanted to know how many people your missing or were your losing them. You need great stats! Absolutly nothing else will do to let you know whose following and where your losing them!

First I would always sugest a feedburner account. From But the even better step is an analytics account from google!
1. Check out .
2. Follow the Instructions to create a new analytics account.
3. Add your blog URL as new website and google will give you a tracking code that
you must copy for pasting later.
4. Open your bloger account and go to your dashboard.
5. Click the Layout Setting and choose the "Edit Html"Tab.
6. Paste your Analytics code in between the "body" tags.
7. Wait a day. 24 hours is the minimum amount of time Analytics takes to set up.

I fisrt learned about Analytics when creating websites for myself and my clients and it is very effective for testing content, tracking add campaigns and improving SEO results. I only recently started using it for blogs but I apprieciate the rich data it gives me and the insight into what my viewers liked and didn't.

Speeking of which If you Liked this atricle or didn't leave me some feed back!

When's it time to give up blogging?

2009-12-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

So I wrote about my first blog and now I want to write about my last. Okay, Okay this is not my last blog but I do think that there's a great deal of value in determining when you would give up bloging. So heres the only reason that I would give up my blog:

1. Lack of time- Lets face it if your blog becomes bi-annual it's time to let it go. Not ever blogger can blog ever day. I sure as hell can't but when it gets ridiculous give it up your readers deserve that much.

2. Lack of interest- On the part of your readers of course. If you write for you I say write for yourself forever and who cares who does or doesn't like it but if you write for money or fame you have to have a little interest or it's just not worth it. So how much is enough? It depends no your personal goals and the amount of time you have invested. So am I saying I'll quit this blog if the numbers say no? Well, I might but more than likely I will try to change the topics or focus on stronger subjects. (I can track strong subjects by Bounce Rate and feedback)

There are a host of other reasons that might make me throw in the towel but almost all of them relate to one of the two above.

Release Day

2009-12-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

This is the release day for CrashCustom.com free website give away. We are giving away web design for the first 2000 people who want it. At

These are all 5 page websites with your choice of colors, patterns or designs.

If sIFR was good then Cufon is Better! Maybe?

2009-12-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Cufon is a sIFR an impressive replacement. It doesn't have all of the bells and wistles but unlike sIFR it only takes a few minutes to learn and even less time to implement. Now I'm not rewriting for my help so I'm Just posting the links to everything you need to know.

The first link is the Generator. And the second is the documentation. Enjoy.

Add Meaning with Style! sIFR is the latest and greatest way to add style to your headers!

2009-12-09T08:31:00.000-08:00

Welcolme to the beginning of something big. sIFR is the a web technique used to replace lines of text with cool stylized fonts even if you end users haven't intallsed them.It reliese on using javascript to replace text with flash style movies and it replaces those movies with any font you can dream up. I could tell you more but I'd just be repeating what I read from
.

So What are you waiting for? Check it out!

Are You Ready For Christmas?

2009-12-03T23:54:00.000-08:00

Give your Friends a Website!
SO for Christmas this year I will be giving away between 10 and 2000 websites... Assuming I can get my staff trained and ready. So I have been Coding and teaching night and Day to launch the whole free website campaign and it looks as though it will be ready for the season.

I'd Write more but I don't have time wish me luck and
God Bless You this Christmas

Social Overload!!

2009-11-30T16:08:00.000-08:00

So here's my next question. Do you ever get to much social media too many games, too many ideas to possibly pursue?

Well I sure as Hell do! And after hour wasted on Facebook, hundreds of mindless Tweets and little ROI for your efforts. Well, after a week of getting caught up in the fun I have a plan for making myself useful again in the social media world.

Step 1: Google Documents
So having been a big fan of countless excel sheets and a frequent loser, misnamer, and Oh No I'm on the wrong computer..er. Google Docs are the answer to my and maybe your prayers. Available at you can create spreadsheets, word documents, databases and a ton of other documents that you can create online and access from any computer!

Step 2: Create Campaigns and the Share you Google Documents
When preforming a big job I usually do best when I share the work load, so find a friend link to dissimilar sites or just try to use your accounts in tandom. Then enable your to do spreadsheet to be shared with your friend or friends account.

Step 3: Share This! Why Do twice when you can do once
Sign up for a share this account it allows you to pass your blogs to your facebook accout. And link your Twitter to both you facebook pages and your Blog!

Step 4: Twitter With Purpose
This is the final thing I have learned about Twitter, It can be damn pointless if you let it be! So plan out your tweets to be only appropriate and helpful my plan update, updates! At the end of this blog and everyother twitter is getting a link that says hey check this out! Of course I may have to tweet about footbal but only if the Titans keep scoring at the last possible seconds!

My first Week of Blogging

2009-11-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

Blogs About Blogging
So this has been my fisrt real attempt at blogging for promotion and Maybe profit. I've Enjoyed it but I'm a little annoyed that I have yet to get one full time follower :-( So It's time to get serious This weeks only Blog goal is to get at least one full time follower and maybe a damn comment is that too much to ask?

Improving Your (my) Blog's Chances
As in webdesign I always turn to the experts in this case it is http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/03/11/how-id-promote-my-blog-if-i-were-starting-out-again/
ProBlogger.Net produced a Blogging book that I greedily skimmed through at barns and Noble this week so they seem like my perfect first source!

Learning From The Best
So I read this article thouroughly and checked out about half of the articles related to this articles and discovered sereveral Pearls of wisdom.
I won't Spoil his great Article by giving the ending away but he used and I will use a variety of techniques from guest writing, to social media( Which is something I use to promote my websites as well).

This Weeks Conlusion
I should have bought the book! A mistake that I will quickly correct and my excessively beautiful girlfriend will not talk me out of it this time NO MATTER WHAT!

Caution Blogging may be Addictive

2009-11-18T22:45:00.001-08:00

So I've Started 5 more Blogs
I think I'm addicted to Blogger. I decided after this blog that it may better to blog specificly about my specific web sites so I will add this to my Blog roll soon.

My Next experiment is with Moblie Blogging.

I have added the feature to a quick blog on blogger and I will probably mirror it on twitter.

So How am I doing? so far not well I am still having some trouble promoting this Blog so I'm still looking for ideas.

If you want to follow me on twitter it is CrashCustom
This is of course named after my website CrashCustom.Com

Who the hell is Craig?

2009-11-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

Should I Promote in Craigslist?
So I'm Experimenting as always with promotions and I think I'll give Craigs List a try. I'm planning on posting a serveal Adds for HandymanTN.com a new websites I have made for some of my friends who do various handyman Jobs. I've seen a lot of trafic from the free section before and hope that I can drive some small amount of conversion worthy traffic to my site.

Completing the list!
I've finally completed a few of my to do list projects and now I need to complete the whole process of preparing templates, etc for web design. I am hoping that in another few weeks I'll be ready to under take 20 free websites!

Craigslist Conversion!
I was quite pleased after posting the craigslist Add I have already recieved one job to bid only 1 day later I hope that this will turn into the first conversion for HandymanTN.com if Nothing else it shows the power of Craigs list for free advertisement!

Looking for new Ideas
I am always looking for new ideas on promoting so if you have any ideas leave me a comment!

Press Releases GO!

2009-11-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

So Having started this blog as well as almost 10 websites...
I need to promote I as an amature am going to try to promote this blog in a big variety of ways and I'm hoping to find out which ones are great and which ones are not quickly and easily. So please help me out if your following and know more than I do.

My first Attempt is Press releases!

I have created myself an account with prlog.org and I realy hope that free PR's work but I have a few problems.

1. I have no idea what the best way to track feedback is?
2. I don't have enough time to retype everything thatI write on one blog or site on to multiple PR sites or blogs for that matter.

Check out My Cooking site if you like at Eatzu.com
I am commiting here and now that the first few episodes of Never Trust a skinny chef are going up as a podcast soon. Joey our cook is phenominal but of the 14episodes that I have I haven't officially published even one Yet. Guess that's why I need this Journal to pull my ass back in line
from time to time. We do have one episode online already so check it out and tell me what you think!

Oh No More todo!
So I didn't even scrath the surface of yesterdays todo list so by the time people start following this blog I want you to send me shameful messages about things that can be done today should be, But at this point THERE IS NOBODY FOLLOWING THIS BLOG. So I think I'm scott free.

If you find yourself reading this please tell others about me or tell me about your blogs and websites as I am a big fan of link and blog exchanges and as I get more settled in with this whole blog think some of the Programing and promotional things that I am working out the hard way might help some of you out there!

To Do
1. Everything from Yesterday!
2. Post a PRlog.org release about the blog and about Eatzu.com
3. Wait for the kudo's and date requests to pour in(lol)!

Upcomming
The big reason I'm jumping into this is that once I get the full to do list done I'm going to be shelling out 30-100 free websites designed by me at no cost to their new owners. More details are coming when I'm ready to launch but if you know someone looking for a site tell them to stay tunned because it's damn hard to beat FREE!

November 12th

2009-11-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

Facebooks Going down
I have recently relized that facebook games are bottom feeding zombies thatare slowly sucking out my Brains!

I have wasted half a dozen hours on bejewelled alone in just the last week. However, I also realized that since these undead abominations hold their audience for long periods of time its time to become a dealer!

So watch out my friends I just created my first PHP web app a simple form. But as soon as I can convert my game maker games to web apps. Beware because they are Fun!!

This brings me to my Comming Soon List...

1. Downloadable Games from CrashCustom.Com

Daily Goals(this is just my personal stuff to do I will try to not list laundry but no promises as this is the main reason for my web journaling. Increased effectiveness.)

1. Finish current step of CrashAuto write Program(Step 3 of 7)
2. Find info on using ActiveX controls to run a game maker EXE on the website. (If any of you know this Answer Please send me the link)
3. Import this blog into my facebook Account!

This Day Forward

2009-11-12T15:08:00.000-08:00

My Story So Far...

This blog is dedicated to my goals my websites and all of you that may have similar interests. I have 8 websites currently and all of them are underdeveloped and under monitized. I have become interested in podcasting, game design, professional website design, and writing. My websites mirror my hobbies with one on poker, chess, webdesign, books!, and food. I also have two business oriented sites on furniture and Handyman Services and I have created a handful of websites for friends and customers.

So why Blog?

Because mediocre is no longer good enough!
I have finally mastered some of the tech that I've been trudging through and I am sick and tired of having second rate sites so I'm going to do something about it. Starting right now from this day forward this journal will keep me managing my time right and pushing my websites to new heights!

If any of you out their are webdesigners graphics guy's or internet addics and have Ideas Send them this way because I'm listening.

Jason Williams