That Figures

I’ve been doing some work for www.figures247.com to get their website indexed in Google… so I’m hoping this might help jump start the index.  I’ve already done a Sitemap and submitted it to Google – but no luck so far – hoping they will crawl the site through my blog. 

Ready to Paint Dots - World Record On The Way

It’s been two months in the making – but www.paintadot.com is finally here. 

You can buy dots for just a dollar - paint them – invite friends to help and become a part of the biggest collaborative artwork ever in the history of the world.  Last year in Israel (2009) 28300 people stuck their fingerprints down to create a giant Israeli flag - the current world record. 

I’m looking to smash that – and I have a million dots to paint.  Can you spare a dollar for a dot – or even better you can have a large role to play and paint a whole bunch.

When the painting is finished – we will hopefully have not only a new World Record, but also have a piece of artwork to auction for charity.  The charity that has been chosen is the orphans of Kamphon Cham in Cambodia.  You can see pictures on the www.paintadot.com website.

Visit now – Paint a Dot.

SEO Work for Coopers Store

In Sydney is a wonderful family business – Coopers Store.  They specialise in timber furniture that is hand made, especially timber dining tables and timber coffee tables. 

This is the website address for Coopers Store, and below this post are some of the keywords we are seeking to optimise for.  Coopers is a great business and if you live in Sydney visit one of their showrooms, or if you love great furniture – give them a ring and get something on a truck to where you are.

Coopers Main Keywords

1. Timber Dining Room Tables


2. Coffee Tables


3. Dining Room Tables


4. Dining Rooms Table


5. Furniture Dining Room

When we first took on SEO work for Coopers Store - they did not rank in the top 100 listings in Google for any of their keywords.  Now we are proud to announce that in just one month – we have them in 15^th (Page 2) for their main keyword, Timber Dining Room Tables. 

Why the Keyword Efficiency Index (KEI) Doesn't Work Properly

The Keyword Efficiency Index is a concept developed by Sumantra Roy and used by thousands of webmasters and search engine optimization experts to try to choose more effective or efficient keywords for targeting in search results. 

The basis is that a keyword (let’s say pink elephants) is searched for X times per month, let’s say 1000 times.  The same keyword is targetted by Y number of websites (let’s say 25) and the maths looks like this.  KEI is X*X/Y.  The formula is X times itself and divided by Y. 

So in the above example Pink Elephants is searched for 1000 times a month.  1000 times 1000 is a million, divided by 25 leaves 40000 as the answer.  The answer is the KEI of the keyword. 

In another fictional illustration, the keyword Yellow Elephant is only searched for 9 times a month but 100 websites are competing for that keyword.  The maths says that 9X9=81 divided by 100 = 0.81. 

So the first keyword (pink elephants) has a KEI of 40000

The second keyword (yellow elephants) has a KEI of 0.8

The higher the number the more likely the keyword is to bring success to the one doing the research.  With this model you would focus on targetting pink elephants and ignore the yellow elephants. 

Or at least that is the theory.

What this model neglects to mention is that not all competition is equal.  If your website is competing against Facebook or Youtube for position you might not be likely to win… because they are too big.  But if your competition is the Country Women’s Club with its 3 old ladies… you have a better chance. 

Google has used a system of Ranking Pages to work out which websites are more valuable than others in terms of their power to rank.  This system scores every website page on the internet out of ten.  Ten is the ultimate score and only a few websites have that.  Zero is nothing, and a score of 1 is the median webpage score.  It goes from Zero to Ten in a hyperbolic curve where each increment is essentially something like ten times more valuable than the preceding number. 

So back to the keywords.. If pink elephants has a KEI of 40000, but all its competition has page ranks of high numbers like 8, 9 or 10, what is the chance of succeeding with that keyword.  Not much chance.

But if the yellow elephants has competition which is non existent in terms of page rank and it all has ranks of 0, what is the chance of succeeding with that keyword.  The Likelihood is almost certain.

So another factor should be included… the quality of the competition.  For this purpose we can take Google Pagerank to be that factor. 

So the revised formula could work something like this.

The Keyword is Pink Elephants (using real statistics now)

This keyword is searched for 14800 times per month.  It has 462000 entries competing for this keyword. 

Now we find out the page rank for the first ten competing websites (because you want to be on the first page) and average them.  The average page rank on the first page of Pink Elephants is 3.9 (comprised of 5 pageranks of 4, 2 pageranks of 5 and 3 pageranks of 3) 

My proposed new formula works like this

X is still the number of searches per month

Y is still the competition

Z is the page rank

A is the inverse of the page rank (10 minues Z = A)

The formula is now X (Searchs) Times A (Inverse Pagerank) Divided by Y (Competition) equals AKEI (Adjusted Keyword Efficiency Index)

So for Pink Elephants the KEI with old formula is 474

However the AKEI for Pink Elephants taking into account the fairly stiff competition is 14800 times 6.1 divided by 462000 is 0.19 – a LOT lower. 

Part of this is that we don’t multiply by itself and we only multiply by the amount left over after competition.  So if there is less competition we get to multiply by a higher amount giving an increased number to divide by. 

This new AKEI formula is more accurate. 

——————————————————————————————————————

Author: David Alley – Freelance Web Designer

Permalink: http://www.webtechnologyqueensland.com/why-the-keyword-efficiency-index-KEI-doesnt-work-properly

Guinness Records Gives Thumbs Down to Record

I heard back from Guinness World Records last week in regards to my website which I believe has the world’s largest webpage.  After examining www.worldsbiggestwebsite.com and considering my application they had the following to say… very sad. 

Claim ID: 3xxxxxx
Membership Number: xxxxxx

Dear Mr David Alley,

Thank you for sending us the details of your recent record attempt for 'Biggest Website Page'. We are afraid to say that we are unable to accept this as a Guinness World Record.

While we certainly do not underestimate your proposal, we do however think that this item is a little too specialised for a body of reference as general as ours. We receive many thousands of record claims every year and we think you will appreciate that we are bound to favour those which reflect the greatest interest.

Guinness World Records has absolute discretion as to which Guinness World Record applications are accepted and our decision is final. Guinness World Records may at its discretion and for whatever reason identify some records as either no longer monitored by Guinness World Records or no longer viable.

As your record application has not been accepted, Guinness World Records is in no way associated with the activity relating to your record proposal and we in no way endorse this activity. If you choose to proceed with this activity then this is will be of your own volition and at your own risk.

Once again thank you for your interest in Guinness World Records.

Yours sincerely,

xxxxxxxxxxx 
Records Management Team

The World's Biggest Website

One month ago I built what I believe is the worlds biggest website – or at least its the world’s biggest web page.  The page is over 8 square kilometres in size… 2 kilometres wide by 2 kilometres high. 

If you start scrolling it will take you over half an hour to get to the bottom or side of the site.  If you want to see the whole website page at once you will need over 100 million computer screens. 

I applied for a Guinness World Record about one month ago, and my application was received.  I was told that I would be contacted within 4 weeks.  Well, 4 weeks is up and I still haven’t heard - so it will be anyday now.  Finger’s crossed. 

The World's Biggest Website

One month ago I built what I believe is the worlds biggest website – or at least its the world’s biggest web page.  The page is over 8 square kilometres in size… 2 kilometres wide by 2 kilometres high. 

If you start scrolling it will take you over half an hour to get to the bottom or side of the site.  If you want to see the whole website page at once you will need over 100 million computer screens. 

I applied for a Guinness World Record about one month ago, and my application was received.  I was told that I would be contacted within 4 weeks.  Well, 4 weeks is up and I still haven’t heard - so it will be anyday now.  Finger’s crossed. 

Work for Rockhampton Builder

I have just finished building www.howtosucceedintoughtimes.com which is a website based on a book Scott Kilpatrick wrote.  I am also currently working on www.affordablequalityhomes.com.au which is his main building website. 

The following keywords are words I’m optimising for Scott – so I gladly use this blog post to link these words to his site:

• Rockhampton Builder


• Yeppoon Builder


• Gracemere Builder


• House and Land Packages Rockhampton


• House and Land Packages Yeppoon


• House and Land Packages Gracemere


• Build a house Rockhampton


• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Yeppoon



• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Gracemere



• 
  

  Display Home Rockhampton



• 
  

  Display Home Yeppoon



• 
  

  Display Home Gracemere.

 

 

Steps in Construction of a Brick Veneer Home

It has been said that having a new home built is almost as stressful as getting divorced.  Whilst in reality that seems unlikely, the truth is that building a new home IS a stressful experience – mostly brought on by ignorance of the processes and what to expect.  This article will help by going over steps in the construction of a new brick veneer home under Australian building conditions.

IMPORTANT POINT: No new home is a perfect creation – it was made by human beings and not by a factory.  Many people think that their “new” home will be like other new products they buy in the shopping mall and it will have no defects.  This is not true of homes becuase they are built by people and each new home has a number of minor defects.  There is no such thing as a perfect new home.  Understanding this point and expecting this will relieve a great deal of stress for anyone having a new home built.

Step One: Design: You will need a plan.  You can look at plans that a builder already has, and which are costed with prices, or you can design your own.  If you design your own it will need to be quoted.  When designing your plan, consider things such as what direction the house will face, prevailing wind direction (and where to place windows), rainwater tank location, solar Hot water System placement and other things.  Ultimately your friendly builder and draftsman will help you with some of these finer points.

Step Two: Costing: You will want to know how much it will cost.  Typically a home is costed with a “base price” which means that the house will cost this much with standard fixtures and fittings, and typically no soft furnishings, driveways or other landscaping.  You will want to obtain a list of what standard fittings and fixtures your home is costed with.  For exampe this may mean you get a standard plastic bathroom tap instead of the pretty brass fixture your wife is wanting.  Understanding what comes standard in your home means you will know what extra money you will need to spend to bring your new home to where you want it to be.  Each builder should be able to give you a document showing what is standard and what is not.  They should then be able to give you estimates for the ‘extras’ like driveways, curtains, carpets/floor-coverings, landscaping, pools, lawns, extra fancy kitchens (marble tops etc) and such.

Step Three: Pre-Contractual Agreement and Deposit:  At this point the customer will make an initial deposit (don’t forget to get a receipt) which will cover drafting, costing, soil tests, and other early incidentals.  Some builders will accept deposits as low as $1000.  This deposit is to get the ball rolling with many of the things needed before any building can take place at all.

Step Four: Finance: Most people don’t have enough cash to just buy themselves a new home – so they need financing.  At this point you will approach your bank and obtain the backing required to proceed with the project. 

Step Five: Contracts: Your soil test is back – hopefully the soil is no reactive which means the house will not cost any extra.  If the soil is Highly Reactive it can add up to 10% to the cost of your home.  Plans are now drawn up and contractual agreements are ready to be signed.  You get your lawyer to go over the detail and once you are happy with everything - sign on the dotted line.  Make sure you understand the terms and conditions that have to do with going over time with construction, and to do with unforseen circumstances.  Make sure you count rainy days that hold up construction (the builder will be counting them).

Step Six: Selection of Colours & Fixtures: Plans are now submitted to the local building authority for approval – this can take from several weeks to several months.  While this is happening, now is your time to pick the colours of everything in your home – BEWARE, this can be a big process.  Paint colour, brick colour, concrete style, tiles, bathroom fixtures, bath & toilet types, kitchen colours, roof and window colours, door types and door knob types…. the list is long.  Make sure your builder gives you a list of his suppliers and what things you need to select.  Take your time and proceed to choose everything in the home.  If you choose better quality items - this will cause the cost of your home to rise.  Also, be careful not to take too long in selecting everything because if this holds up construction (the builder can’t order if he doesn’t know what to order) – it will be your fault and you will not receive penalty delays in your favour. 

Step Seven: Construction: Building commences - and takes place in a number of stages.  As each stage is completed, there is often a building inspection and it must be approved by the local building authority before construction can continue.  Once each approval is obtained, the builder submits the approval to your financier to recieve a progress payment.  This is a part payment towards the total cost of the home.  Under a normal building contract the stages of construction are:

1. Base Stage (concreting, underslab plumbing, initial electrical, site survey and house layout etc)


2. Frame Stage (frames and trusses are erected – roof is sometimes installed along with guttering and fascia)


3. Lockup Stage (prewire electrical completed, plumbing rough-in completed.  External walls completed with all external doors fitted.


4. Pre-Paint Stage (the internal walls and doors are completed, plastering finished, and the house ready to be painted.)


5. Completion (all other jobs are finished including kitches, tiling, electical, plumbing fit-off, floor coverings etc)

Step Eight: Handover: The builder usually does his final inspections, the house is cleaned by a professional, locks are changed, final payment is made and keys are handed over.  In most houses this happens without incident, but sometimes there are disputes.  Very simply this is what usually happens… The builder will not usually hand over keys until he recieves all his money, and the owner will not usually pay until he is satisfied with the new home.  So at completion, as an owner, make a list of your final fixups and other requests, give the builder time to organise them and then make the final payment.

And… pray that your home is not being built in the leadup to Christmas…

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Reproduction of this content is permissible as long as this Footnote Remains in place and credit and links remain with their rightful owners.
Permalink: – http://www.affordablequalityhomes.com.au/steps-to-building-a-new brick-veneer-home
Website: – http://www.affordablequalityhomes.com.au
Author: David Alley, SEO Consultant, Web Technology Queensland

The following keywords are words I’m optimising for AQH P/L, the builder who hired me to write this article – so I gladly use this article to link these words to his site:

• Rockhampton Builder


• Yeppoon Builder


• Gracemere Builder


• House and Land Packages Rockhampton


• House and Land Packages Yeppoon


• House and Land Packages Gracemere


• Build a house Rockhampton


• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Yeppoon



• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Gracemere



• 
  

  Display Home Rockhampton



• 
  

  Display Home Yeppoon



• 
  

  Display Home Gracemere.

 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 

The Best Builder in Rockhampton, Gracemere and Yeppoon

If you don’t count working as a paperboy in High School, my first real job was for Scott Kilpatrick’s Affordable Quality Homes P/L.  I started there in 1995 fresh out of school and the plan was that I would learn drafting and end up as a draftsman.  Plans didn’t work out that way however and in my first two years there I did a huge variety of work which included:

• A six week stint as a carpentry apprentice (replacing an apprentice who broke his neck)


• Sales work in several display homes in Gracemere and Rockhampton


• Wheeling big barrows of concrete around building sites


• Cleaning houses ready for handover.


• Supervising untrustworthy clients viewing their houses prior to handover (they try to change locks without paying)


• Data Entry – hours and days of it.


• Accounts Clerical work – where I saved more money by scrutinising invoices in 12 months than I earned. 


• Quasi Site Supervisor work – spending many days driving around building sites delivering gear and organising subcontractors.


• Professional Floor Sanding – I only cost $10 an hour and soon learned how to sand timber floors saving my boss a tradesman’s wage.


• Customer Relationships – handing over houses, dealing with customer requests and colour selections on new homes.


• Maintenance on new homes – changing lightbulbs, locks, installing air conditioners and much more. 


• One whole week of my life was spent popping and glueing magnets on brochures – a job I was glad to finish.


• And many more fun tasks… I think I learned a lot from Scott.

In my second year with Scott – the building industry was tight, and a number of builders were going out of business.  Scott diversified and opened a second company called Quality Relocateable Homes P/L which built houses on-site in Gracemere and then shipped them on several trucks to location in various places around Queensland.  This brought a whole new set of experiences which included travel, dealing with specialty construction and much more. 

One of my favourite (or interesting) memories was one afternoon when we were jacking up a house to put onto the back of two prime movers to send out West to Emerald or somewhere like that.  Scott had invented these amazing jacks which were big fly wheels which spun and crawled up poles gradually lifting the house slowly inch by inch.  Each half of the house had 6 of these jacks which required 6 people to operate simultaneously – me being one of them.  I had been given a shirt by KB’s Frames and Trusses and it was XL (extra large) and I didnt’ have it tucked in.  The word came - we all hit our magic buttons to start jacking and the flywheel on my jack spun.  My shirt got caught on the flywheel and wrapped right around pulling me into the jack.  I yelled loudly to stop - but the noise of all the jacks whirring meant it was a little while before everyone else realised to stop.  They all had to “wind the house down” to my level and then we all lowered further until my shirt came out.  It was covered in grease and had a “grease track” right across it.  It looked like I had been run over by a motorbike.  The main thing was that I was safe.  I tucked in my shirt - we wound up the house - and sent it on its way out west. 

Scott is an excellent builder – he lives between Rockhampton and Yeppoon, but builds houses in both places as well as Gracemere, Mt Morgan and the surrounding area.  He also has a display home in Rockhampton where you can look at plans and get prices on construction etc.  I recommend his building services. 

I enjoyed working for Scott – in total for about 7 years and did a lot of interesting things.  In all that time my esteem for Scott has grown and I highly regard him.  Now I’m working for Scott in a different kind of way – I’m building and maintaining his websites.  I have just finished building www.howtosucceedintoughtimes.com which is a website based on a book Scott Kilpatrick wrote.  I am also currently working on www.affordablequalityhomes.com.au which is his main building website. 

The following keywords are words I’m optimising for Scott – so I gladly use this blog post to link these words to his site:

• Rockhampton Builder


• Yeppoon Builder


• Gracemere Builder


• House and Land Packages Rockhampton


• House and Land Packages Yeppoon


• House and Land Packages Gracemere


• Build a house Rockhampton


• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Yeppoon



• 
  

  Build a house Rockhampton Gracemere



• 
  

  Display Home Rockhampton



• 
  

  Display Home Yeppoon



• 
  

  Display Home Gracemere.

 

 

What is a Website Worth?

Just for intersests sake I discovered that you can find out what a website is worth is you want to buy it.  Visit www.getwebsitevalue.com

New Multi Level Affiliate Program

I am proud today to announce the launch our new Multi Level Affiliate Program for Web Technology Queensland.  We invite users to join us in promoting our products and services to receive commission.  We also invite users to promote the program itself and earn more commission from sales that other users make. 

You can read moe about it at our Affiliate Program page or at our Frequently Asked Questions page. 

Typically when you refer a sale you will get a straight ten percent commission, and if anyone else you signup to the program refers a sale, you get 3 percent of that sale too.  And, it goes like that down 7 levels.  Potentially you could make a self supporting income from this program.  I hope it appeals to you. 

 

What Does Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals & the Greens Believe

If you are a Christian with what you consider to be biblical values, you might be surprised to see what our major political parties think.  Courtesy of Australia Christian Values who have questioned all of the major parties, here is an Australian Christian Values Checklist. 

My Sortfolio Listing

Hello World – I now have a sortfolio listing: http://www.sortfolio.com/listings/8743-web-technology-queensland

The Dangers of Sunday School

It has been long known that people learn values by observation and osmosis, rather than by specific teaching.  The education of values just helps them understand, but not to obtain those values. 

Schools, sunday schools and other places have an important part to play in the education of children, but in terms of teaching children values, – this is mostly done in the home. 

We noticed in our church many years ago that our children grew spiritually better when we cancelled sunday school.  We were in between buildings and unable to hold Sunday school for a long period of time.  So instead of sending our children out during the sunday service to a “children’s meeting” we kept them in with the “big people.”  Although this was unintentional it had the result of teaching the children to value what their parents value.

When you send a child out to his or her own thing, you are saying subtly that what the parents are doing is not important enough for the child.  Later in life the child holds the same values – “church is not for me.”  So we discovered that a sunday school, if held concurrently to a service, can teach bad values.  They learn is by osmosis. 

So for me the things that matter in youth work is:

1. The environment the youth are in,


2. The adults they are surrounded by,


3. And the values of that those adults hold. 

To produce good outcomes in young people, its the atmosphere they are surrounded by that untimately makes all the difference.  Teaching kids morals, or doing programs will only ever have a limited effect.