Here is where you can download Texter.

Here are the scripts that I used:
 

10{Tab}ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM{Enter}
20{Tab}ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM{Enter}
20{Tab}ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM{Enter}
30{Tab}ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM{Enter}
30{Tab}ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM{Enter}
30{Tab}ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM{Enter}
30{Tab}ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM{Enter}

Please let me know if you are using this and if you have found any other cool uses for Texter!

Thanks for reading. Quickly Add MX Records for Google Apps is a post from Blake Imeson

Yeah, I know being thankful for a program is cheesy but these programs make my life easier and give me more time in the day.

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             ^^^//\_^^//\_^       ^(___)
               ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^

Internet Browsing

Firefox – powerful internet browsing.

Firefox Addons:

• Firebug – change HTML and CSS with live preview.
• Colorzilla – sample colors on a page and get hex colors.
• Fireshot – take screenshots of web pages.
• SEOtoolbar – great SEO tools, track ranking, PageRank, links…
• Delicious – social bookmarking and tagging of sites you find.
• Window Resizer – see how a site looks in different browser sizes. 
• StumbleUpon – discover new sites in topics you like.
• FoxyTunes – control music player from the browser.

Google Chrome – fast becoming my favorite browser.

Google Reader – best feed reader for all my RSS feeds.

AdBlock Plus – ads were yesterday.

Communication

Gmail – best way to handle the loads of email I wade through.

Skype – great way to communicate.

Trillian Astra  – Keeps all my chat accounts in one client.

Google Calendar – keeps my schedule straight.

Applications

Microsoft Office (2010 beta) – only one on this list that isn’t free. Specifically I am a fan of OneNote, Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Window’s Live Writer – great tool for blogging. Easily add pictures and preview.

Notepad++ – Notepad on steroids. Syntax highlighting, tabs…

FileZilla – powerfully lightweight FTP program.

Texter – text replacement on the fly. Saves much time.

Ditto – clipboard history that allows you to re-paste past items.

Computer Utilities

TeraCopy – move large files and queue up files to be moved.

7-Zip – un-zip, zip, compress, and archive files.

Font Xplorer – preview fonts on your computer even if they aren’t installed.

Launchy  – lightning fast way to launch programs.

Dropbox – keep important files constantly backed up and accessible online.

Ultramon – control multiple monitors. Extend taskbar, easy window moving.

CCleaner – clean up temporary files.

Defraggler – defragmentation to keep your hard drive efficient.

SpyBot Search & Destroy – annihilate spyware on your computer.

Media

VLC – zippy little program to watch videos.

Winamp – keeps the tunes organized and accessible.

Audacity – splice and dice audio files.

ImgBurn – burn CDs and DVDs.

µTorrent – download torrent files.

Any of your favorites I need to check out?

Thanks for reading. Thanksgiving Apps Special is a post from Blake Imeson

I have been doing some SEO analysis and critiques for some new clients lately. It is surprising how some mistakes can be so common with websites. Here are 8 things you should be doing to be on top of SEO.

1. Implement Google Analytics - involves putting a few lines of Javascript in a part of the site appearing on every page (footer is recommended)  This will really help with understanding where visitors come from geographically and how they got to your site. It can also integrate with AdWords. 

• Ease of implementation – Very Easy.

2. Verify the site with Google Webmaster Tools – You will just need to place a blank .html file in the root of the site. (named a certain way) This will give ranking position data (for Google SERPs). You also really need a sitemap.xml file placed in the root directory. ( .com/sitemap.xml ) This will allow Google to index pages it may not have found due to an excessively vertical site hierarchy or a lower level of trust/authority.

• Ease of implementation – Easy to verify. Depending on CMS, you may need to use a tool to create a proper XML sitemap file – that part may be difficult.

3. Prevent Domain Canonicalization issues – redirect http://sitename.com , http://www.sitename.com/index.php , http://sitename.com/index.php (may be .html , .asp etc.) all to http://www.sitename.com/  or http://sitename.com

Google could see each of these as separate sites and could lead to duplicate content issues and PageRank being diluted across multiple versions. You can also specify which version www or non-www for Google to use in Google Webmaster Tools.

• Ease of implementation – Moderate. Depends on how 301 redirects are handled on this server. Linux based usually use a .htaccess file while Window’s servers generally require a tool such as ISAPI rewrite. Windows is more complicated.

4. Use correct Keyword Targeting. – this has the most facets. You need to define a set of keywords/phrases to target per page (avoiding keyword cannabalization). Then titles and descriptions need to be written for each page. (at least for upper level pages) Every page needs a unique title.

• The title is the most important part and needs to be no longer than 65 characters (including spaces) The most important keywords are at the front of the tag and then at the back. You may always need a brand mention in the title due to credibility being important for CTR.
• Descriptions need to be no longer than 165 characters (including spaces) – The description tag is more important in terms of Click Thru Rate than SEO. (still weave keywords in naturally)
• Ease of implementation – Moderate. Research / writing is just time consuming. Implementation may be harder depending on the CMS.

5. Use SEObook’s RankChecker - to track position in the SERPs by keyword. Need Firefox for this to work. (You can install firefox on a USB drive if need be)

• Ease of implementation – Very easy. (assuming you have Firefox)

6. Linkbuilding - this may be the most difficult but if you can figure out some opportunities for backlink acquisition will greatly help SEO. May involve reaching out to sites, submitting directory listings, local listings, partnering with relevant niche blogs. Good internal linking can also be a good strategy.

• Ease of implementation – Difficult. (time consuming) 

7. Use Google AdWords – Identify long-tail keywords and run a global campaign and a local campaign. (if applicable)

This has the most obvious calculation of ROI. You can see how many impressions your ad(s) got and the click-thru-rate and then have a goal set up  (like requesting information) – when you see how many people clicked thru or completed a goal you can get a cost of acquisition.

• Ease of implementation – Depends. Easy- if you hire someone that knows what they’re doing. ) Moderately difficult – learn it yourself.

8. Sculpt which pages are indexed – by using no-follow on links to pages you don’t want Google to crawl or index. Also the use of a robots.txt file to exclude those pages from being indexed by robots. Certain pages like “register”, “legal”, “privacy policy” that you don’t want in the SERPs.

• Ease of implementation – Difficult. Putting the rel attribute on links is easy. Making a robots.txt file that is properly formatted is very important, otherwise you could exclude indexing of your whole site.

Bonus:

Use Website Grader Tool to get a quick SEO snapshot. Take with a grain of salt.

(this was modified and depersonalized from an SEO critique I performed for a client)

Thanks for reading. 8 Solid SEO Tips Your Business Needs to Use Now is a post from Blake Imeson