21 Jul 07 Who is amung.us, how many visitors you have?
The title and domain is not so easy to type and remember correctly,but this new service is a funny and interesting application to see how many visitors you have at this precise moment in your blog or site. We are talking about Who’s amung us and it is so simple that the only thing you need to do is to insert a couple of lines of code such as:
<a href="http://whos.amung.us/show/e8627c40"><img src="http://whos.amung.us/widget/e8627c40" alt="hit counters" width="81" height="29" border="0" /></a>
and you will get a nice counter showing your visitors.
Another catchy way to get info on your visitors, don’t you think? 
18 Jul 07 Blog Juice Calculator, your blog rankings
Thanks to TechTear I have found an interesting tool provided by the guys of Text Link Ads named Blog Juice Calculator. In fact, it is a checking tool similar like DNScoop or the Spanish Checker to get some numbers from your blog site and be able to compare it with other similar blogs in your category. You get a comparison table with the readers in Bloglines, Alexa ranking, Technorati position and incoming links. All this gives you a mark that you can use to publicize your blog much better.
11 Jun 07 ShinyStats, counting your sitevisits
Whether you have a succesful blog ( like this one,LOL) or a website, you have most probably one, if no more, applications to check your statistics. Although many people use Google Analytics or the new Reinvigorate, I’d like to talk about another system that also being free, has surprised me and prove powerful enough, in its free and basic version, to be considerer as one of my traffic analysis tools.The thing that I like most on ShinyStats, is the simplicity and easy look of their reports, coming also with a simple HTML code to be installed in your pages for those where a Javascript code is not permitted. You get every week an email with the basic data of the week/month so to keep, in a quick glance, the status of your site. The free version comes with 10 reports including total visits, page views, unique visitors, referrals, location, etc. You can get up to 40 reports in the immediate next version. The limit in the basic one is also 1000 pages per day, so good to start for any site.
09 Jun 07 Bandwidth Monitor
A very simple tool, but useful to see if our internet connection is working and at what speed, is BandWidth Monitor. With a half-transparent background, you can keep the monitor running on your computer while doing you usual stuff, and whenever you want to see why the internet is so sloooow or what is actually the speed you are getting from your provider, just need to move the mouse over the running icon and you will get the Download and Upload rates. Just a small tool to be always aware of your connection to the world.
13 May 07 ThinkBigsites, and make buzz about your webpage
We have reviewed, in the short but intense life of Review the Market :-), several companies that helped us to improve the way our website looked or the traffic it was getting, but never so far an entreprise we have seen got as a slogan the promise to design your page on a way that it would create a buzz on the net :-).
We are talking about ThinkBigsites, a website optimization firm that focus in offering to you more website traffic and website optimization services to boost your visibility on the net.
On this last point in which I was particularly interested, they offer blog design optimization, SEO, webdesign and hosting, custom webprogramming, link building and even designing newsletters for you to reach potential customers or readers by email.
There is also a Blog marketing section where they work with us on improving and/or giving a more profesional look, to create a plan and strategy for your blog ( which is something I actually did not know was something it had to be done….mmmm…. :-)) or increasing the presence of your business in the blogosphere.
If all that was not enough, we can also get online support in the form of a webmaster to do the maintenance of our pages, or to fix quickly any problem that may arise. In summary, I guess the whole offer sums up as a good and complete package for bloggers like us, that may be passionated about blogging and writting, but sometimes may need some help in the rest of necessary work to keep the blog live and kicking all the time.
08 May 07 Apogee Search, helping you to get money from your site
# Sponsored Post # Apogee Search is a SEO company that has been around in the market already for a few years . One of the reasons we are writing about it today is to let you know about an interesting section they have and the service they offer because I guess it could be pretty useful for all of us, working a bit to improve our positions in search engines, rankings, visibility, etc. The topic I am talking about is how to Avoid Search Engine Marketing Malpractice, a hot subject on the network these days as there has been some big news about companies ( one hotel chain) being blacklisted in Google and their pages completely removed due to the use of those black hat SEO techniques.
The company offers specialised services on a variety of online marketing methods that include paid search, natural search, affiliate marketing, and pay-per-call ( not sure if I missed something else :-)). In fact, you could simply ask them to review your blog or website and let them do the job of improving every single page on it so you can earn some more cash and exposure. Their solutions seek to drive qualified and targeted visitors to B2B and B2C websites, so if you are a shop for example you will attract more leads, customers, revenues and profits. Something I was impressed when I read about them was that it become since its creation in 2001 one of the 25 larges Search Engine Marketing firms in the world, which is indeed not bad at all just for a 4 years old firm :-).
08 May 07 ShareThis, tell everyone about your favourite sites
Not to be confused with AddThis, the application to submit your blog posts to several social sites and readers, ShareThis is a new useful tool allowing you to share with your group of people the websites you like most, you find interesting, or you simply want to share for the sake of making someone aware of it :-).
Although we are being invaded by tons of ways to sharing content, and most of us finally end up sending the typical email with the url included, at least Sharethis is quite simple and does not make it complicated to spread the word about interesting stuff you found out surfing the web.
To use it you basically need to create an account, where you can import your contacts, and use the toolbar they provide. When you find something interesting, just use the features in the toolbar to send it to whoever you want. It is as easy as that :-).
