After a little digging I found out they’re called favicons and you typically need a specialized editor to create the tiny images.

I found this nice icon editor that allows you to create an icon from any picture. Works great for making little icon heads of yourself!

http://icofx.ro/downloads.html

Once you make either a 16×16 or 32×32 pixel icon, you upload it to your website and add these two lines within the head tags of your HTML.

It adds a nice branding touch to your sites.

This site has a lot of cool free video tutorials for Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver.

www.tutcast.com

http://www.my-fast-return.com/index.html

When a theme is widgetized, you can simple drag and drop the widgets into the widget editor without having to tweak the theme code directly.

However, one problem is adding Adsense code to a Text Widget. You want to do this because typically you want to a 120×600 tower adsense in that narrow navigation area in the left or right nav bar.

The standard Text Widget, though, strips out the script code of the Adsense block. So to fix this you need to tweak the widget.php code, which you can find in wp-includes directory.

Change this line:

if ( current_user_can(’unfiltered_html’) )
$text = stripslashes( $widget_text[’text’] );
else
$text = stripslashes(wp_filter_post_kses( $widget_text[’text’]

To this line:

if ( current_user_can(’edit_themes’) )
$text = stripslashes( $widget_text[’text’] );
else
$text = stripslashes(wp_filter_post_kses( $widget_text[’text’]

This allows the Text Widget to display script code from your Adsense block.

For more details check out this link:

http://www.thainy.com/2007/05/how-to-use-html-tag-and-script-in-wpmu-text-widget/

http://www.mattbacak.com/2008/04/slap-google-like-rag-doll.html

Very well described in a 9 step process which utilizes a variety of methods. I’m reprinting his text here just in case his site goes down. Be sure to visit his site for more information. Good stuff!

====
How do I drive free traffic to my websites
with just using 1 (ONE) measly article?

I figured that this may help alot of people
reading becuase I always notice the most
of the questions are about Articles.

In this blog post, I am going explain to you the
system that you can use almost immediately and
start implementing to your online business today!

In order to get free traffic flowing to your website, you
need to follow the nine steps in the A9 Process.

STEP ONE: Write an article.

Your article needs to be between 300 and 500 words long. Make sure you are writing good content about your business. The key is to have your viewers learn and benefit from the information you are giving.

Tips to Writing an Article: If you have an information product you want to sell, you should take your product and break it down into small pieces. These pieces will become the articles, so to speak. If you do not like writing articles, or writing at all for that matter, you have the option to outsource it.

Here are a few places you can outsource your article to:

Elance.com
GuestProfessor.com
TheRealArticleFactory.com
ThePhantomWriters.com
Content-Writer.org
ArticleAuthors.net

STEP TWO: Submit your Article

Once you have submitted your article to one article submission website, other websites will pick up your information and pass it around as well.

Here are a few things you need to do before you submit your article:

Create a summary about your article.
Always create a “Call To Action” section at the bottom of every article.

Example: “There are many strategies to making money on the internet, but nothing makes sense unless you have a big list. Email Marketing is the most profitable way to make money on the internet. When you build a list of hot and hungry prospects you control your future. Discover how to use the internet and turn your computer into a cash gushing machine. Sign-up right now for Matt Bacak’s FREE online newsletter to find out how to do exactly that – Go here: http://www.promotingtips.com.”
So where do you submit your article to? Well here is a list of 60 article submission sites that you can go register to and start submitting your articles this task is a little time consuming but well worth it!

Articlebiz.com
Articlecity.com
Articledashboard.com
Ezinearticles.com
Selfgrowth.com
Articlealley.com
Articlecube.com
Easyarticles.com
Ideamarketers.com
Articles.webraydian.com
Site-reference.com
Submitondashboard.com
The-article-directory.com/index.php
tisoftware.biz/articles/index.php
A1-articledirectory.com
Afroarticles.com
Articlecat.com
Articlepros.com
Articlerich.com
Articlebase.com
Articlesbeyondbetter.com
Articleleson.com
Contentdesk.com
Earticleonline.com
Top7business.com/submit
Webmasterslibrary.com
Workoninternet.com
Ams-skins.morethanarticles.com
Articlecrux.com
Articlesyndicator.com
Local-list.us
Commonconnections.com
Article99.com
Articlebankonline.com
Articlecafe.net
Articleclick.com
Articlecrash.com
Article-directory-central.com
Articlegeek.com
Article-junction.com
Articlenorth.com
Articleretreat.com
Articlesbin.com
Article-submission.us
Article-voip.com
Articlezap.com
Bigarticlepro.com
Bigarticlepro.com
Christiannotepad.com
Crixi.com
Electrictext.com
Ezine-directory-express.com
Freearticlepost.com
Gratisartikler.com
Impactarticles.com
Isysi.com
Marketmyarticle.com
Media13.com

STEP THREE: Rework Your Article into a Press Release and then Submit.

To rework your article into a press release, you need to visit this site: (http://www.prwebdirect.com/pressrel…s.php#format) when you go to this website, it will explain exactly what you will need to do in order to format your press release correctly. A press release needs to be more like an announcement, rather than just news being given (like an article is traditionally written). However, you want to stick with the content you have already come up with, you’re just changing it to fit a different media.

Once you have completed your press release, it is now time to submit it to press release submission websites. There are two different ways you can do this:

1. The FREE way where you go out to all the free press release submission websites and post your information

OR

2. You can use www.prwebdirect.com and pay to have your press release submitted.

Both have equally good ways to submit your article, but obviously the paid is a little less work. Just like submitting your article, you will do the same steps submitting your press release. This step is highly important because press releases get passed around the internet like wild fire. There are thousands of new sites, news rooms, and trade magazines that will pick up your information and post it on their sites.

Here is a list of places you can go to and start submitting your press releases for free today:

i-newswire.com
clickpress.com
free-press-release.com
express-press-release.com
1888pressrelease.com
pr9.net
pressbox.co.uk
pressmethod.com
pressreleasespider.com
malebits.com
prnuke.com
prlog.org
afly.com
press-base.com
pressexposure.com
sanepr.com
prurgent.com
prbuzz.com
prfree.com
freepressindex.com
transworldnews.com

STEP FOUR: Rework Your Article into a Video.

You want to rework your article into a video. This is can get a little complicated. If you are not proficient in using the computer or do not want to learn please hire this stuff out - it will save you loads of time.

What you will need to start out with is some recording equipment maybe a microphone and a program called Sound Forge built by Sony. With this, you can record yourself reading your article. You can also hire a voice talent to do this work; typically a professional voice talent gets paid at least $100 per hour.

When you have your audio created and ready to go, it is time to start creating the video. We use Microsoft Power Point to create template slides to use in our video and we use a program call Sony Vegas Movie Studio to put the audio and template slides all together.

You want to create at least 3 to 5 slides with key bullet points in your article. If more slides are needed, then you can make more (3 to 5 should be enough). When you create your slide make sure to save them as a picture file like “jpeg” so that you can import them into Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Once you have all of these items you will need to import the media into Sony Vegas Movie Studio and start building your video.

If you would like to find the equipment to do this for yourself you can go to: http://www.InternetVideoGuy.com. This is where you can find the right equipment and the right training on how to do this task. Once you’re finished editing your video you will need to create the different video files. You need to make sure to create 3 different file formats. This will help you get more visibility on sites that use different video formats (mpeg1, mpeg2, rm).

STEP FIVE: Submit video.

Now you’re ready to start submitting your videos to video submission websites. To do this, you will need to submit your video to different video submission websites. Just like the article submission, and PR (Press Release) submission websites you will need to create accounts at all the different video submission websites. Then you log into the site and upload your video. This will take a little bit of time because videos take some time to upload. You will then need to create a description for your video so that the video submission sites know what content you have uploaded to them.

The results you get from video submissions are fantastic. Videos have become the staple for the internet today. The Big 3 (Google, Yahoo, MSN) are trying to turn the internet into the next television, so videos get ranked very high.

Here is a list of video sites you can start submitting to:

AtomFilms.com
Blip.tv
BoFunk.com
Eyespot.com
Flurl.com
GoFish.com
GUBA.com
LiveLeak.com
LiveVideo.com
MegaVideo.com
Motionbox.com
Revver.com
Sharkle.com
SPIKE.COM (ifilm)
Stickam.com
SUMO.tv
Twango.com
Veoh.com
Video.google.com
Video.yahoo.com
vidilife.com
vMix.com
YouTube.com

STEP SIX: Turn your audio into a Pod Cast.

Since you already have your audio file created (you used it in the video presentation), you need to pod cast it. Pod casting is one of the quickest ways to start your own radio station. With iTunes having over 200 million users, there should be no reason why you would not want to start pod casting today. When you use iTunes 4.9 or later, Apple has taken pod casting mainstream by building everything you need to find, subscribe to, manage, and listen to pod casts right in iTunes. You can publish your podcast to iTunes (as long as it’s free of copyrighted material and overtly explicit content) and reach a potential audience of millions. There are video tutorials on Apple ’s site to help you get through this task. To make it easier, visit this site: http://www.apple.com/itunes/tutorials/.

STEP SEVEN: Create a blog entry.

By taking the code from your video in YouTube and using the content from your article, you can create a blog entry.

Simply copy your videos code and then paste it into the code section of your blog. Next you need to copy your article and post that in the view section of your blog. Then you hit the publish button and that’s it!

Blogging your content will help you create another media to pass your information. Plus the blog “pings” different blog search engines (which is just a fancy way of saying your blog automatically tells these places that it has content.). These blog search engines will post your information on their site creating more back links to your website.

STEP EIGHT: Create a Squidoo Lens.

To make a Squidoo Lens, you use your video and audio content. Squidoo is an insanely easy-to-build page online. It’s popular way to drive more traffic to your website. If you want to get the word out about something, sell something, share information, or just love to create and express yourself, then you shouldn’t miss out on this task.

It is super easy to do - Squidoo has a wizard that walks you through creating the lens. It’s also very simple to add your video from youtube because you can search for it through Squidoo and they will create the video code for you. This is a great site to be on because it is considered an authority site on the internet and it has a page rank of 7. You can also put links back to your website on their site for free! This should be a no brainier as to why you would want to use this site to drive traffic.

STEP NINE: Bookmark Your Video Links.

The last step entails you to social bookmark your video links. This will help you boost your videos higher in the search engines. Ultimately, this will boost your main site even higher. A social bookmark site is just like using the bookmark tab in your browser. It bookmarks the sites you’re interested in. Although, rather than being on your computer, a social bookmark site allows you to save them online… so you can visit these book marks from any computer.

Just like the other sites, you have to create an account (login and password). Title your link, create a description (that is where you can put your call to action) and create your custom tags (in these are the keywords your are trying to promote). Once you’re finished with one site, you move on to the next and do it again.
Here is a list of social bookmark sites you can use to start posting to:

Propeller.com
Slashdot.org
Digg.com
Technorati.com
Del.icio.us
Stumbleupon.com
Twitter.com
Reddit.com
Tagza.com
Fark.com
Newsvine.com
Furl.net
swik.net
Connotea.org
Sphinn.com
Blinklist.com
Faves.com
Mister-wong.com
Spurl.net
Netvouz.com
Diigo.com
Backflip.com
Rawsugar.com
Bibsonomy.org
Folkd.com
Linkagogo.com
Indianpad.com
Plugim.com
Myjeeves.ask.com
Buddy Marks
Connectedy
MyLinkVault
Google Bookmarks
Jumptags.com
Fetch
OYAX
A1 Webmarks
Bookmark Tracker
myVmarks
Mixx.com
Wirefan.com
Danogo.com
Symbaloo
Ximmy
Health Ranker
Ka-Boom-It.com

Once you have completed these nine steps, you are now
ready to start driving free traffic to your website.

I am always tweeking this process
====

This site doesn’t have anything strictly to do with SEO. It’s just that I was developing a site and I needed to have a nice clean way to do an image popup for a picture gallery.

This link had a couple of very nice CSS solutions and I didn’t want to forget about the site.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/csslibrary/category/C4/

http://www.articletrader.com/distribution/list/

http://www.squidoo.com/online-earning

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

I like how it lists both positive and negative factors for on and off page optimization.