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Web Design

Written by Tony

Thursday, 08 December 2011

A WP-Robot Review

I've been using the WordPress plugin WP-Robot for a little while now. I thought I would write up a review of this product since I have used other autoblogging type systems before (like WP-o-Matic and others).

Setup is rather simple. It installs like other WordPress plugins. I bought the developer edition. After install, it prompted me for the email address used so that my license could be applied. I then proceeded to the configuration options and to set up a campaign.

What's really nice in the options is the help/tips that are there. Other programs will say that you have to register for an API somewhere and leave it up to you to find out where that is. With WP-Robot, the help mouse overs contain links of where to go to get the API key. This really speeds up campaign creation.

I personally like using Yahoo Answers for creating websites about a specific topic. Google seems to pretty much like those kinds of sites, too - even though you're reusing content (so far, anyway). I was able to set up several of these sites (or replace the old tool I was using) very quickly. The new ones I made are already getting traffic. Pretty amazing.

In addition to just using Yahoo Answers, I'm now able to mix in Amazon products and eBay auctions on items related to the topic of the website. Images are imported from Flickr, too, which make the posts look even better. I like the flexibility of changing what are called "templates" within the system so that my WP-Robot sites don't act and work like all the other ones out there.

Probably the most impressive feature of WP-Robot was not the software itself, it was the support that I got. I sent in a question to the developer and although it took him a little while to get back to me, I could tell that my issue stayed on his radar and he wanted to make sure every customer of his was taken care of. Since that was his goal, it's really no wonder why it took a little while to respond and that's perfectly fine.

The software is also very bug free. It's well written and I can tell since I'm a programmer and website tester. You're paying a bit for this software but it's quality software and you're getting good value.

If you are interested in WP-Robot, then I do have a promo code that gets you a $40 discount on the full version - use the WP-Robot promo code: TONYHERMAN

-TH

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Thanks, Matt!

Written by Tony

Thursday, 02 June 2011

I just noticed that Matt Cutts replied to my tweet to him back in December - this kind of made my day:

I'm trying to get back into Twitter again.

-T

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SecurityMetrics Fail

Written by Tony

Friday, 12 March 2010

Well, I was recommending Security Metrics to one of my clients today so that they could pass their PCI Compliance scan but when I went to the SecurityMetrics.com website, I saw this:

Um, oops.

Yeah, they don't have their domain set up correctly to forward to just the "www" version of their domain and have set up their SSL certificate just for the "www" version of their domain name. So Firefox users would see this terrible looking message if they just typed in securitymetrics.com. It's an easy fix.

-Tony

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The Award for the Clunkiest Website Goes To...

Written by Tony

Monday, 23 November 2009

I'd have to say that GoDaddy.com has the clunkiest website. Since I've been their customer, I think this is about 3rd or maybe the 4th version they've had. At first, I was very reluctant to move domains to them because their site was so hard to use. I was keeping them at Dotster. The pricing at GoDaddy was better, so I reluctantly switched to them to save money. You don't mess with your domain info that much, so I thought I'd just deal with them anyway.

The next version of their site was a little better. I liked the improvements but it still seemed like what they were promoting and selling was bigger than what their website could handle.

Later, they tried to integrate things like SSL certificate registration with their site. It used to be a 2nd login at Starfield. That improved that process at one point. Right now, it's more integrated but more clunky than it used to be. You have to keep logging in to get to things where you used to get a link in your email to download the certificate. More steps.

They've done yet another "upgrade" and things are still messy. There are a ton more clicks to get to what you need to. I'm trying to put in authorization for domains and no matter what I do, I get error pages. It's such a mess.

You go to the main page, you appear to be logged in, then you try to do something with your account and you are asked to login. What? Am I logged in or not? Make up your mind. Don't tell me I'm logged in when I'm really not. How annoying.

And could you create maybe another 10 links between the login page and the page I want to get to? That would be great and make things so much easier. The existing 50 pages I have to click through are not quite enough.

You'd think that with all the advertising they do, they'd first have their website working well enough so that you can actually get things done. That would make sense to me.

-Tony

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Website SEO is About People

Written by Tony

Monday, 26 October 2009

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to call some attention to a blog post I did recently on the Webstix site. It's about how SEO is really about people. Things like PageRank matter but it's not a meter for website success. Anyway, it's a good post and not too long - check it out: