A personal blog covering subjects such as gaming, automotive car repairs and news
I’m going to add to this post as I go. This issue has been going on for years. Other than ISP throttling which is annoying, it’s really bad design.
I’m on 37MB/s download speed and can’t get a decant connection above 1080P/60FPS
CHROME USERS
In address bar type chrome://flags – search for “buffer”, look for WebAssembly threads support –> change to disabled
Views – 96The one main thing I’m always trying to do with my website is improving my SEO score so I get higher rankings in Google. It’s proven, higher rankings means more click through rate, and will generally make you more money if you sell products.
My website is/isn’t very niche, it’s an Automotive based website which has repairs, but I use it more as a professional representation of myself for showcasing my knowledge and skills whilst using some additional money to top up my earnings and some pocket money for projects. I didn’t design this site for money however, I designed it to share knowledge for people wanting to fix their cars. I could never find it when working on mine. The main thing that impresses me however, is that over the years, I have managed to develop this website (a personal non business one), into a popular site which drives traffic towards my keywords in Google and gives me good rankings.
Anyway, onto the show for improving SEO scores for your website, the techniques I’ve learned, I’m researching or tips and discussion why it’s needed. This article will be ongoing, so there will always be something new I’m adding to it or updating it. I’m by no means an expert, so feel free to reply to give me advice and tips on improving scores.
Topics you should consider researching and reviewing if you want to improve your SEO scores in my personal opinion and why
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
User retention and analysis is key to identifying ways to improve your website. Ever heard of the “funnel”, basically traffic comes through your website and funnels down. If you get 100 users, potentially 1-10 of them *1-10%* of your users can be converted into something (such as a buyer, member, subscriber). So you lose a lot of people you can’t convert. Having a Google Analytics account helps you improve retention because it allows you to optimise your website following analysis
WEBSITE DESIGN
Optimise it for Mobiles. My website gets around 70% mobile traffic now. So I focussed heavily on making it easy to read on a Mobile at the sacrifice of losing my menus. One step at a time. Secondly focus on speed, I absolutely hate a slow loading website, and if your user can’t see the information they want quickly. It’s another drop out, page has to load in 1-2 seconds. That means minimal ads, pop ups, or windows. This is why my website is primarily static HTML with pictures only. It gets the point across, and I’ve created sections which are slower loading (for now) such as my store and my blog for further discussion on detailed topics.
If you plan on having a Multimedia based website, make sure it’s content rich that will drive traffic towards your website. Having a Youtube video embedded into the website really helps with traffic. This also depends on your niche and target category. I’m looking at embedding videos in my articles as it’s driving traffic to me then from Youtube.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media is key in this day and age. It’s all about brand awareness when it comes to improving your SEO score for your website. No point having a brand if there’s no way for people to talk about it. A lot of my website traffic initially came via my Youtube channel. Over the years this has decreased due to competition on Youtube, and because I stopped making videos. I still get traffic from it however. Going off topic here, I used to be an affiliate with Youtube. Which at the time was rare and if you got this membership you were privelged because they didn’t hand them out much. Then about 2 years later, they changed it so that every new member who joined Youtube was instantly an affiliate who could make money on their videos. This is where Youtube died, because everyone started making videos to try and make a quick buck and flooded the market so more people got interest. I’m looking at starting up again, but using my knowledge to improve as Youtube is a key sector. If you want to focus on brand awarness for improving traffic, personally I’d recommend the following (Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Website, Facebook). Make sure you have a couple of those to go through and your bound to get traffic that points to your website. They’re all great for traffic so anything what boosts visibility of your site is good for identifying you on the www. One point to note however, you can quickly get a reputation: Good OR Bad. As quick as you can build one up, it can quickly be destroyed. People will always remember something negative
GOOGLE TAG MANAGER
I personally didn’t even know about this thing, but I’m looking more into it now after finding out what it is. Basically you can create tags, variables and events tracking which likes up with Metrics dashboards (e.g Google Analytics) that allow you to perform detailed analysis on where your traffic comes from, what they’re doing. If you run a commerce based website it’s good because it allows you to optimise it for more money
KEYWORD RESEARCH
The days of simply dumping keywords on your website are frowned upon. Those people who say they can get you to #1 in Google, I suggest you check their portfolio as proof. There’s no point in simply spamming keywords in the pages of the website. Google generally tends to look for relevancy too. My website for example has VERY high rankings in Google for certain keywords relating to Volkswagen (example “VW Oil Warning Light“), if you search this in Google, my site will normally be somewhere in the top five. This is why when you look at blog posts on my website, ones like this have 10000+ views, because I’m getting large amounts of traffic from Google. This is why it’s important to get relevant keywords. You could spam my website with VW all over and it wouldn’t generate much results, one specific group of keywords however and my blog article exploded with traffic. I’ll delve into this later, but you can do analysis using Keyword Analysis tools and sites. This helps you identifying your niche to use
I also recommend keeping an eye on your keywords. I have an Excel spreadsheet which contains all my keywords that I’m currently analysing, and additionally the ones I want to “Rank” for. These are keywords with large amounts of search volume, but insane amounts of competition (I won’t cover this part up, as it’s related to the context of my site but one of the most important words I want to rank for is the word “Volkswagen”). I don’t feel I need to explain how much competition I have here or the volume of traffic this search has. When I’m in the spreadsheet, I’m making note of any details I can find, search volume, keyword, ranking plus any additional things. This is why you need Google Analytics, it shows you all the keywords people are finding your website with. You need to optimise these keywords first because they’re the ones you’re getting traffic by.
SITE SEARCH
I haven’t added this to my site yet, but have you ever typed a Keyword into Google and it comes up with a website then with a little search box for that website with a breakdown on articles? That’s what site search is, helps keep users on your website from bouncing as it makes them easier to navigate
SITEMAP / NAVIGATION
Pointless having a cool website, if you can’t navigate it, or Google can’t find he website. This is important, because there’s no way to find or reference your website if Google doesn’t know what’s on it. This file is a special file called Sitemap.xml – there’s various ways of making them. I used “Screaming Frog SEO Spider”. Great program, shows you all the broken links before you create the file, and relatively painfree. I’d like the pro version, but I’m cheap and only spend money when needed and work around the rest. So it’s one of those things on the back burner to buy at a later date. Free shout to the makers of this software however, it’s bloody good and I love it. For Blogs, you can use “All in one SEO”, it has a Sitemap creator which does it all for you. Once you gets the sitemap.xml files, you need to submit them to search engines (Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console) so their bots can crawl your website and find the content. The Sitemap.xml file is how they find it, it shows them the links to the files and shows them where to find them. Like a digital directory / phonebook.
SEARCH CONSOLE
This used to be called something else, but I can’t remember it’s name at the moment. Search Console is where Google gives you a breakdown on your site performance, queries, rankings. It integrates well with Google Analytics allowing you to monitor the data better
AWSTATS
This is normally accessible via your website host, but also another way of checking where your traffic comes from. It works the same way as Search Console / Analytics, but makes it a bit easier to read on the ey
SITE SECURITY
I haven’t tested this yet, but I suspect https:// based websites get higher scores in Google. A lot of sites tend to focus on selling a product, so I personally can’t see why having a https:// website wouldn’t improve your score because it helps protect the user data
ADVERTISING / ADSENSE / AMAZON / EBAY PARTNER NETWORK (EPN)
OK, this isn’t really something you should do. If your site is popular enough however, it will generate you traffic and sales without adverts. For smaller websites however, it’s a nice little source of income which helps boost your profits. I just wanted to make a post on this with my own opinion. This needs a lot of experimentation. Personally I hate banner ads and think the way forward is text links. Why?
Well firstly, a lot of people now are using pop up blockers. So some ads can be blocked. Secondarily, having banners/visual ads on the website slows down the website because it calls from secondary sites and uses additional resources. Not good if you like speed on your website. Now this in itself is a trade off, because HTML 5 based ads seem to perform better (for me personally). Users tend to like things that grab their attention. Personally I think text links are the way forward, they don’t interfere with the users reading the page and keeps things to a minimum. Plus it allows your articles to flow better. Just some food for thought. It’s why I keep my ads to the bare minimum. I find them as annoying as everyone else. In terms of affiliates, EPN used to be the best for money. They’ve changed things now however so you don’t get as much. I haven’t explored with amazon, although they have (or did not sure) a 30 day cookie period. A lot of users tend to buy at a later date, so this is good for retaining the tracking. for Google Adsense, yeah, it’s OK, I’m starting to earn more money with it. I run alot of experiments as I’m trying to find out what works best with my website. Ideally I’d like to create direct affiliates with my website and cut out the middle man selling, I’d rather have a bigger percentage of the pie directly. This is better because I can promote products I stand by when working with people directly, where as with Affiliates I have to rely on them without actually knowing the product unless I’ve used it personally. This is why I tend to limit the links, I only tend to use affiliate links to product I’v eused myself, or ones I find good rankings for.
More to be added… ongoing
Views – 687One of the things I’ve wanted with my Home IT Setup is as much control as possible. My Internet service (and analogue telephone line) is provided by British Telecom (BT).
Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just simply prefer to have a lot more control over the phone line when it enters my household, and coming from a technical background being able to view the statistics for the phone line and how it’s connected. Plus the call control features you get with Asterisk PBX are way more advanced.
I like being able to control my calls, and being able to record all calls and leaving voicemails whilst ignoring unknown numbers appeals to me. I’ve been familiar with Asterisk PBX now for a few years, so looking into developing a system I can use with it.
Ideally I’m going to need an Asterisk PBX Server. Should be simple enough. The technology is cheap enough to purchase. A cheap old PC should do the basic functionality.
I’ll need to integrate the phone lines. BT provide their Analogue phone lines of POTS. Which means I’ll need at least an Interface card which offers FXO functionality (may aswell get FXS card too since Fax Machines are old technology but you never know when you might need it). As I plan on integrating them with VOIP phones (I’m familiar with Avaya) I’ll need to buy a card that supports an FXO Gateway.
I’m still researching at this point. I only have one phone line entering the household (which is both my phone calls / internet)
If I’m using multiple VOIP phones (I’ll need at least two), does that mean I’ll need two FXO gateways, or can I get away with one and it’s looking after with Internal routing via my network switch?
I’ll keep posting as I go
Views – 401Thought I’d make this post to help save some time if someone else came across it. I was recently asked to fix a Windows 8.1 64-bit Laptop with no sound. The problem being specific to Windows 8 laptops
Talk about a night mare. The sound wasn’t working basically because the “Windows Audio” service wasn’t started. The problem is this thing relies on 3 other dependancies before it can work
– Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
– Multimedia Class Scheduler (MMCSS)
– AudioEndpointBuilder
Everything would start except for the AudioEndpointBuilder. It would fail with an error code 193:0xc1. The log in even viewer said it was not a 32-bit application
After going through various troubleshooting procedures after going through the usuals. I trailed the web and checked everything suggested
None of it it worked, the only thing I could do would be either reinstall windows or find a solution
Luckily I found a solution (or rather a bodge)
Basically to fix the Windows 8 audio problem I did the following after finding it online…
– Open the registry
– Navigate to Microsoft\Windows\Current Control Set\Services\AudioSrv
Look for the path which talks about dependancies, there will be 3 entries
– RPC
– MMCSS
– AudioEndpointBuilder
You need to open this and delete the values for AudioEndpointBuillder and Rpc
Save it and reboot. The audio, should now be working
Views – 645
For a longtime I’ve had a Canon Inkjet MP180 Printer. It has been reliable and served me well, it still works to this day but it’s a bit iffy. When I first purchased it, I was on Windows XP. Since then I’ve done many migrations up to the current version Windows 10. Since then Canon have been a bit reluctant to update their drivers however for the MP Navigator software and it’s a bit finnicky when trying to connect the printer for printing off jobs. I’m guessing this is most likely due to planned obsolescence, and to force people to upgrade or buy new printers.
It was causing problems for me when trying to print documents off, because I had to troubleshoot every time I printed something. I’d been meaning to replace it as part of my Home Office update, I’d always wanted to upgrade to a more Business-class printer, so I thought why not : time for a replacement!
The printer that I decided to replace it with, and add to my home network is something I’m familiar with. It’s a business class printer, that’s capable of high demands. The one I purchased was a HP Laserjet 4350 Printer (with Duplexer) to add onto my home network. These printers are true Business class. It wasn’t uncommon to see them in large offices because they’re solidly built and reliable. They’re still widely used now because they’re robust, and the support packages are still there for them
Not only is this printer more Universal (the printer drivers are bundled with Windows 10), it’s a lot higher quality to use and saves me money in the long run for printing.
The HP Laserjet 4350 isn’t a colour printer (although you can get Colour Laserjet’s, that’s the next addition), this printer is a Mono A4 Laserprinter. It’s a high speed reliable and robust Business printer capable of printing off thousands of A4 documents before it eventually breaks.
As this printer is designed for printing only in Mono (Black and White), it’s designed for high-efficiency, and also for money saving. Here’s a comparison between my old Canon Pixma MP180 printer, and the HP Laserjet 4350 Printer
The MP180 uses two Inkjet cartridges. It uses 1 for Colour documents, and 1 for Black/White documents.
To get the same amount of pages on my MP180 I would need to purchase the following 10,000/490 = 20.4 Cartridges
Total Cost would be 20.4 x £13 = £265.2 for same level of print outs on the Canon MP180 vs a 10,000 page “Toner”
The fact is, Inkjet will usually never beat Laser printers for the price tag. Technology has probably caught up now to the point where Inkjets that use smaller droplets are on par, however laser printers are always going to be the better technology to use for me. Generally Inkjet printers are used when you are printing something with lots of detail that needs to be crisp (for example Photographs). Where a Laserjet printer is normally something used for printing something with a high quality of legibility to it (for example Text documents).
Documents printed on Inkjets have a risk of smudging because you have to wait for Ink to dry. As soon as a document comes off a Laser printer it can be handled. This is because the Toner for Laser printers isn’t Ink in a tank that’s squirted on. It’s physically in a powder form that is heated/burned onto the paper. So it’s dry as soon as it comes off. This is another good point with Toner’s. It tends to store better, Ink dries up within tanks. Due to Toner’s being a powder it’s normally fine long term and you just need to shake it up
As you can see a Laserjet printer is more efficient at saving money when printing off jobs. Not to mention it’s faster. The MP180 prints 17ppm. The LJ4350 prints 55ppm. It will benefit me for my home network and when printing off information for eBay sales and general documentation. Already installed and chuffed with it because I’m used to the equipment. Due to the printer drivers already being supported in Windows, it was just a case of plugging in a network cable into the printer, and installing it like a normal printer. Microsoft Windows recognised it, and installed the drivers for me.
Another benefit of having a Network card on the Laser printer is that you can logon to the HP JetDirect Admin portal. It gives you a lot more features and customisation options. These allow you to monitor progress, increase quality or introduce cost saving features, like the Toner Density or Power Saving options
I purchased the printer from eBay. The total cost was £99 including Toner and delivery.
This printer itself is in the region of 20 years old, and still widely used because it’s cheap and reliable. The bonus for me is that when I eventually need to replace the Toner in the printer they’re still made. If you own a HP Laserjet like me, you can buy the Toner/Fuser from Cartridge People below (They sell both aftermarket and OEM toners). If not, but you’re considering buying a Inkjet/Laser printer. Check out the following site below. Grab a deal, save some money
This is probably something which someone may question at some point so here are the main reasons why I’m not (or currently haven’t) migrated my website into a WordPress or Content Managed Website
Eventually, when I find something I like the entire site will be migrated. The PROS of having a WordPress or CMS based website outweight the CONS, but for the time being I can’t be arsed.
Until I find something which suits the purposes and how I write my articles I’ll just keep going as needed then eventually change it over when I have it how I like it. Content becomes easier to maintain and increases my score in Google overall, so it will be done for end benefit
Views – 661
I recently decided to go back to the gym again, one of the things I wanted to do was get another iPod Nano 4th Generation music player. I can use my phone, but personally I always liked the nano that I had, I found them comfortable to use and they seemed to suit me for the gym
Problem was I sold my previous one, I didn’t want to spend the money to buy a brand new one or second hand one. I like repairs so thought why not carry out a repair on one.So off I went on eBay and found 3 broken iPod Nano 4th Generation 8GB models for £9.99 – can’t complain at that, should be able to salvage the components
A selection of the iPods I purchased for repairs
The iPods I purchased for repair had 3 issues (from left to right)
Reading this I thought I may be able to at least salvage one of them, the cases on them were all scratched, but as it was for the gym I wasn’t particularly bothered. One of them had a good case, but this was also a problem with the screen.
My first train of thought was the following repairs;
Now that I had decided what I was going to do, I set about a plan of action. The 3rd iPod was hopefully the one I was going to use, merely because it was in the best condition, but I still wanted to try and repair at least one of them to have a go and see what I’ve got to work with
I first powered up the iPod to confirm the fault, indeed, it powers up. Screen was fine, seemed to load the operating system fine, but no luck nothing else. I tried cleaning up the click wheel to make sure no grease had got under it. Carried out a system restore but none of this worked still the same problem. Issue now is either hardware related, or cable related. Kept it for spares, since I knew the iPod had a working screen
I first needed to find out what was busted on this. I tried to connect to the computer as initially I thought it was a USB issue, I received no connection. I couldn’t go any further to test with this because the battery had no charge, so decided to dismantle it. Turns out the battery was damaged as it had swelled in size, so it’s possible this can be repaired. I couldn’t go any further with this because the lower data cable connecting the battery to the board snapped on removal as the battery made it a tight fit and I ended up cracking the screen on removal…..bugger… 1 down two to go.
I had spares from the first iPod, I swapped the logic board and battery over to the iPod which wouldn’t charge up or switch on. It came to life, but had the same issues as the first. The problem followed me so it meant the logic board was damaged as I was using a different clicker wheel this time. This may be a possible repair in future, but I wanted to see what I could do with the 3rd one.
OK, first iPod knackered needs a new board. Second iPod, busted battery, cracked LCD (now no longer working) and connector cable. I have a 3rd one that’s working, great. Swap the screen over, still dim…. well that’s a problem. If you have a dim screen on an LCD, normally you replace the digitizer. All the power controls and assemblies are built into the screens and the logic board circuitry.
I had swapped the screen over, and had the same problem. That means the battery was OK, but the board was gone…. board from iPod 1 was a nono, board from iPod 2 required repair with soldering iron so what was my options
I ended up having to fork out some money, and kept an eye out on eBay because I needed either a good battery and board, or a good board. As this was all pot luck I kept my eyes open
Success, I found an eBay seller who was selling what was listed as a working board and battery. After some back and forth emails I took the risk and purchased them with the spares they came with for £16.99
I received them a couple of days later, swapped over the units working screen and replaced the logic board. Then came the moment of truth….
I powered it up, it worked! It connected to iTunes and said it needed a restore but then I received a low battery warning message. Damn it, usually low battery means it’s knackered. I figured it was working, so went to bed and left it on charge.
Lady luck was shining down on me, the battery really was just low, once connected to iTunes I restored it and now have a working iPod for the gym again.
OK I could have probably found one for the same price, but as I will also be repairing iPods for my business it makes good practice for me to understand how they work and the problems that you can encounter when working on them. Plus I like to tinker about with electronics.
This concludes my article on How I built a working iPod for £25 from spares
A repaired iPod built up for £25
Views – 1015
Apologies for any downtime caused on this site, I recently decided to change web hosts because quite frankly I’m sick of my old one. I had constant never ending problems and in the end I carried out a Server Migration to a different webhost
As you can tell by this post, the server migration was carried out. Eventually! I had so many problems to sort out and still do. Everything about my old configuration was completely muddled on with by my old host to get it working, as such the server migration wasn’t a straight forward process.
The account restore didn’t work, I had to manually download the databases because they had to be restored. Had to alter the database names, had to manually edit the server names in the configuration files and carry out a db restore. Also had an issue with the .htaccess
I’m happy now, I’ve found a new host, in the name of Tech-Hosts. I love them so much I migrated to them with my personal site as well, highly recommend you check them out
Views – 1289
OK, OK, my computer has finally been bugging me long enough about carrying out the Windows 10 Upgrade. My past experience with Windows is painful, I always lose files, or had to back up things and reinstall applications. So I decided to bite the proverbial bullet, I was sick of hearing Windows 7 moan on at me about the upgrade being available. I decided the hell with it, and carried out the upgrade after backup of all my files
The result…. pleasantly surprised, the upgrade went smooth. I checked the compatibility report first and backed up everything I could lose before hand. Luckily, nothing went amiss and everything was reinstalled. All my internet shortcuts, desktop shortcuts, installed applications. Nothing failed.
Props to Microsoft, my Windows 10 Upgrade was flawless and you have redeemed yourself. For I did not lose any files, nor did I have to reinstall any applications or find anything new.
OK, there is a down point, I have a new interface, which I sort of don’t like. I was used to Windows 7, but that’s just a change. I really don’t like the sounds, and the Cortana search. Hey, I consider myself a power user though, I’m no amateur when it comes to PCs. So overall my experience with the upgrade was a positive one.
Just learning the new features now, I’ll be updating this blog if I find anything amiss.
Views – 899
One thing which is becoming apparent to me since owning a business, when reading all the posts people are making who run their own businesses, is how many people seem to offer legitimate Windows installations for cheap prices or blatantly offering cracked Windows installations.
If you are running a business, not only is it unethical, but you are running the risk of serious issues if uncovered. That’s why I will only use genuine copies of Windows when reinstalling software, or making sure I have a valid COA key. IF there is no genuine key then I won’t carry out a cracked Windows Install. I’ll simply advise the customer to purchase a genuine COA key / Install of the software.
If they refuse, they’re business is turned down
Views – 954
