5 Ways The Internet Has Made Me Better

I know this is quite controversial. A lot of people (me included) think the Internet can cause a lot of trouble in family life. I recently met a man whose wife left him after 'hooking-up' with her old sweetheart on

Facebook. 

People have been known to rant about their bosses on social networking sites; a stupid mistake which often lands them in the unemployment line. Admittedly, some kids spend far too long on the Internet, meeting dangerous strangers, or wasting time on violent games. All this being said, the Internet has its advantages too. I know that it’s made me better in some ways.

I’m more careful about what I say to people

I always keep in mind that whatever I say on Twitter or Facebook etc, is there for the entire world to see (and stays there forever). Sometimes leaving a short message can sound blunt or rude, especially when in a rush to visit the next page - and the next.  Having to manage this daily, has made me better at expressing myself in few words.

The Internet saves me time

I do a lot of research for my articles and books. I used to spend hours at the library, or reading entire books just to get one piece of information. Having the Internet means that I can write with several windows open and search for exactly what I need. Of course this means that unscrupulous people can copy others’ work with abandon. I’ve had that done to me several times, but I think it's a small price to pay for the amount of time I save doing my reading/research with the readily available and accessible search engines.

The Internet saves me money

I know several of you will agree that buying on the Internet saves an absolute fortune. Not only can you get exactly what you want from the comfort of your living room, you can also snap it up significantly cheaper. The indirect savings of time, petrol costs – driving to stores, and frustrations of shopping, also considerably mount up.

I keep in touch more regularly

The Internet makes it fabulously easy to stay in touch with family, long lost friends, and colleagues. I’ve found several of my old friends by being on the Internet. My presence there has also enabled them to reach out to me. I don’t think this would’ve been possible otherwise. Not many people want to get involved in the long, drawn-out process pre ‘social-network’ entailed. I know, I don’t. The Internet keeps me in contact with my relatives who live far away. And for people who don’t get along with family members, the web keeps them close enough to maintain a connection, but far enough away so they can’t cause trouble (although some of them still manage to tick you off).

The Internet allows me to have a wider network

As writers and bloggers we know how crucial it is to maintain a large and healthy platform. Publishers value them, and so do potential colleagues. I can get my new blog post to a thousand people (potentially tens of thousands) in two minutes flat. Facebook, Twitter, Google buzz, Stumbleupon, Digg etc, are only some of the sites from where my creations can springboard to friends, fans, and fans of friends in minutes – literally!

How about you, has the Internet made you better in some ways? Do you think the positives outweigh the negatives?

Alexa.com And Your Blog

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Alexa tracks and provides statistics on web traffic and other important information about your blog. It's a very influential site on the Internet. Not only will potential advertisers consult your Alexa rankings, but pay per post sites will no doubt consult Alexa to find how your site is valued in the web. This information is then used to govern how much you will get paid. Some affiliate websites won't even accpet your blog unless you have a suitable rank on Alexa. 

This is not to say that Alexa has a definitive way of measuring a site's real worth, but since a low Alexa ranking has a negative impact for your blog, it effectively, is instrumental in how your blog is perceived in the web. When or if you come to sell your site, your Alexa ranking will determine how much cash you get for it. In other words, you can't ignore Alexa. Even if you have Google Analytics, Alexa provides a variety of very helpful and interesting data for you about your blog. The following is the information Alexa holds about your site:





Traffic Stats

• Traffic rank: This tells you how you're rated in the world, in America (Alexa's home), and in other countries. It also gives you an idea of how your site has performed in the last three months (whether it's gone up or down). Please note that sites rated less than 10,000 on the web have limited stats.


• Reach: The reach of your blog tells you what percentage all web searches are directed to your blog. You're given a table which enables you to see how your reach has changed over the last 3 months.


• Page views and page views per user. 


• Bounce percentage: It helps to know how many people are visiting just one, or several pages on your blog.


• Time on your site. 

Search Analytics

• This is the kind of information you can get on your Google Analytics, but I found Alexa's tools to be very detailed and simple to understand (even though they're updated monthly as opposed to daily or weekly). These analytics show you exactly which terms are bringing traffic to your blog and how much of the web's overall traffic you're receiving. This feature doesn't stop there. It goes on to identify how said searches have performed and weather they've declined or increased over the last month.


• Impact factor of your query terms (words or phrases which bring traffic to your site) is then broken down to show how you perform despite high or low advertising competition for said phrases. Mouse over each question mark icon for explanation of terms you don't fully understand.


• It also tells you how often people search for the terms found on your site. If you know this, you'll be aware of how well (or not) those phrases or words work for you.

Audience

• A fantastically well laid out chart shows you exactly who's visiting your site, where they're from, their gender, and how your site is rated in their country.

Related sites

• If your blog has been on the Internet for some time, Alexa will provide a list of similar or related sites readers may like. Note that new sites aren't included in this feature.

Other things you can measure on Alexa

• Average time your site takes to load.


• An audience snapshot. This is extremely useful as it helps you to target your posts and ads on your page. For example Alexa says that my site: The Relationship Supermarket. com, based on internet averages, is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 18-34, have children, are college educated and browse my site from home.


• Top search queries found on your page. It also tells you what percentage of the overall traffic (for each query) arrives on your blog.


• High impact search queries on your blog. This information assists you in post targeting because you can clearly see which terms have high or medium search results on your personal blog page. 


• How many sites are linking into your blog.


• Ask your friends to review and rate your site on Alexa. The more the better.

Just go to Alexa by clicking on the link. Type the url of your blog in the search panel and away you go. You can also type in the address of any site on the Internet to see how Alexa has rated them.  You will notice that Alexa's home page shows you the currently hot topics, updated every 5 minutes.  This is a wealth of information which you can use to write your own take on these topics to steal some of the limelight. Alexa also provides the most popular sites on the web at any given time. 

Do you use Alexa and what do you think of the service?

How to Resize Facebook NetworkedBlogs widget

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Have you just embedded your Facebook NetworkedBlogs widget on your site? If you’re just starting out with this widget, unless you’re Internet famous, you may only have a handful of followers showing up so far. 





Does it look a bit sparse? Do you feel stressed to fill up all the space they’ve given you with random faces of followers? Well, there is an easy solution! You can make the widget smaller so it looks full even with just 4 followers. I made some screenshots of the 'before and after' NetworkedBlogs widget on one of my other blogs.

BEFORE

The panel in which I've done the yellow squigglies is the empty white space I want to get rid of. The black arrow points towards the 'quick editing' tool mentioned below.

1. Go to your ‘Layout’ page on your blog. If you have a quick editing tool on your blog just use that instead, as it's more straightforward.

2. Identify where (on your layout page) your NetworkedBlogs widget is and click ‘edit.’ You should see something like this.

3. Look towards the top of the widget. In the second line, just about where I've  circled, you will see, ‘style="height:360pxpadding.'





4. Change the 360 to any number you wish.





5. Important: Click ‘save’ when you’re done.





6. Voila! Your NetworkedBlogs widget fits nicely on your page without a large white space at the bottom.

AFTER - NO UNSIGHTLY SPACE.