Well, it has started. I logged on today to about 36 spammer direct messages saying things like

“You have to see this video” and

“Hey, I got a free Iphone, check it out”.

I now have to go through and delete all these annoying arseholes. I was being naive in hoping that Twitter would stay pure and free of spam and junk but like everything else, these losers invade and make it tough for the rest of us.

Twitter will hopefully find some good anti spam strategies to help us fight the spam but until then, you’ll just have to unfollow and unsubscribe to twitter email alerts so you aren’t bombarded. You can also lock your Twitter so that you have to manually approve followers.

The worst part is that some of the spammers are using others’  Twitter names in their tweets, causing you to think it’s someone else. I now see on some of those pages that the victim is having to add tweets saying “If you received a message about… It wasn’t us”.

Once again spammers making it tough for the rest of us. And to top it all of, Celebs and super users got their Twitter accounts hacked including Bill O’Riley and Britney Spears.

Speaking of spammers, check out Shoemoney’s great list of seven deadly sins of people trying to make money online.  

Not using Twitter yet? You should. There’s even a new Twitter book. How it improves your business, connects you with customers and lets you eavesdrop on what people are saying about you.

Need to find Twitter followers in bulk to save time? Mr. Tweet lets you  find people who fit in to what you’re all about so you can easily follow them. I found quite a few really good ones that I wasnt finding through search.

Happy Monday and Happy New Year!

Finding good quality (free) icons take a lot of time. I can spend hours searching for icon sets that are free to use. Paying for an icon set is really pricey so a free one that looks great is a must to save on your budgets bottom line. Whether you use them to snaz up a sidebar or enhance a header, these free icons that I came across are a good source to bookmark.

Here is my list of the best free icon resources online.

IconEden
This site has some really beautifully made icons.  They also just added a beautiful set of free vector icons. Free and you can use them for personal or commercial use. Big plus for commercial users! If you decide to purchase icons, they offer a super affordable pack that is bright and colorful. The site is put together very well- easy and clean with two simple categories, free and premium. This site is definitely worth a look. I likes their icons so much, I added a few to my header. Thank you IconEden!  If you use their free icons, be sure to pay it forward and give them credit. it’s all they ask.

Icon Galore
These icons are for non commercial use only but come in really handy if you need a custom icon set for print or applications. The icons are beautifully created/animated and have a wide variety of XP styles.

FastIcon
A wide variety of icons for personal use including social icons, fish, books, RSS feeds, shopping carts and web 2.0. The icons are well made and creative. Their commercial packages are extremely affordable if the freebies don’t float your boat. most packages are 59.00 to 99.00.

Iconzworld
A huge selection of free icons and png files. The site also offers a fav icon generator for those of you who do not know how to make your own fav icon for your web site. The generator creates it for you easily and free!  The site also offers some beautiful wallpapers. You need to dig deep to find all the icon packs because they are listed per post. Just click on “continue to older entries” to find gaming icons, apple icons, and other interesting little freebie surprises.

Free Icons Web
Over 15,000 high quality free icons for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Desktop icons,Windows icons,Windows XP and Vista, Mac OSX, Linux and PNG. The site also offers over 5,000 GIF icons. Definitely worth your time to browse through these icon sets.

CrystalXP
Check out this exhaustive list of icons and PNG’s. A broad variety of icons for gaming, desktop, print and web. Free. Did I mention free?

DryIcons
I love the icons on this site. They offer so many categories and the designs are so well done. The site also offers a great deal of free graphics. All high quality and worth the bookmark. Plus they are free to use for commercial and personal use. All they ask for is a link back.  You must put a back link with credits to http://dryicons.com  on every page where DryIcons’ works are used.

Mintywhite.com
I really like this site because it has free icons (a pretty long list of great resources) and free fonts and wallpapers. I’m always looking for new and interesting fonts.  The site also has some great free utilities that I find useful like screen capture and multi media tools.

Smashing Icons
Finally, a list created by smashing magazine that lays out the highest quality icon sets.  Over 55 sets of super high quality icons for desktop and web use. Also, don’t forget to check out our list of the best free Wordpress themes to compliment your icons.

Enjoy!

Website Magazine is a  great resource. I refer to it often and subscribe to their print and digital editions. They get right to the point and study the industry deeply. It’s worth your time to subscribe to their media. The magazine and tips are free online!

Rethink the Use of Broad Match
Several months ago, Website Magazine addressed the different types of Adwords Match Types, and the feedback I received personally was slightly disheartening. Most advertisers new to PPC simply had no idea that by default, their Adwords campaign was set as a “broad match” campaign. For example, if WebsiteMagazine.com were to bid on the on the keyword “Website Magazine” on a broad match level, we’d receive a lot of unrelated traffic from queries related to “magazines” - which is not what we want. So if you have done the required keyword research (check out these keyword research tools WM featured back in October) and are confident with the effectiveness of a few keywords, use the “Phrase” or [Exact Match] instead of Broad Match. While there is certainly a place for broad match, it’s meant for those in pursuit of a lot of traffic, not necessarily a lot of qualified traffic (yes, there are advertisers out there that just want a lot of traffic and don’t care about the actual amount of spend).

Take Negative Keywords Seriously
Just like the unawareness associated with Broad Match, many advertisers are unfamiliar with negative keywords and as such don’t use them. Negative keywords enable advertisers to ensure that they do not, under any circumstances, appear under certain keyword or key phrase combinations.  The beauty of negative matching when used correctly is that advertisers can filter out keywords  for which they do not want their ads shown. For example, if I sell a white paper on selecting domain names and want to attract aspiring domainers, I might bid on the term “domainer” with a broad match ad type. However, I know through my keyword research that I don’t want to receive traffic for “lazy domainer” (a name of a popular blog on domaining. In that case, I would add “-lazy” to my keyword list. Over time, and through trial and error, I have learned that Its absolutely essential to have negative keywords if you have a lot of broad/phrase match keywords in your campaign. If you are confused about your negative keywords, go to Adwords Keyword Tool enter your keyword and choose the “Negative” in the drop-down under Match Type. This will show you a whole bunch of negative keywords that may suit your primary keyword.

Restructure Your Campaign:
If you have ever had the opportunity to look inside the PPC advertising account of another, you might be surprised at how that account is structured. The most efficient PPC campaigns that I have seen have a few things in common; they group similar keywords together in individual ad groups, develop sets of ads for those individual groups and point those keyword focused ad groups (and often times on a keyword level) to designated landing pages. In a world wherein every first tier PPC ad provider has some degree of quality score, restructuring your campaign along these lines does improve click-through rate but also, and more importantly, improves overall conversion. Structuring a campaign based on your objectives is imperative to your success, so once complete, focus on basic and advanced PPC budgeting and PPC bidding techniques.

Use Ad Scheduling:
Use Ad Scheduling to time your ads to match your requirements. Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your AdWords campaigns appear. So if you are running “Special offers” for Fridays, you can use Ad Scheduling to only show ads (a specific one) on Fridays. Try to think of a time when your ad would actually matter to your customer. By default, your ads will run for 24 hours in a day by trial and error you might be able to find out that running ads on a specific time of the day gives you more conversion! (e.g. People would search for “morning headache” usually in the morning after getting up from bed..)

Consider Vertical and 2nd Tier PPC Providers:
Many advertisers are hesitant to start pay-per-click advertising campaigns with vertical (industry specific) PPC networks like Kayak.com or what are known as second-tier PPC providers. Many second-tier PPC providers (such as Miva, Marchex, ABCSearch, 7Search and the hundreds of others) do not receive the attention they deserve. The argument (from the first tier providers and unfortunately the second tier engines themselves when speaking of one another) is that traffic and quality is low, and that it’s simply too time consuming to manage multiple sources of paid traffic. The counter-argument (and one that I hold to be true) is that these smaller ad networks and traffic providers have closer relationships with their publishing partners, are more nimble in response to advertiser questions and concerns and across the board offer a lower bid price and provide a higher return on investment (should quality traffic originate from there). There is without a shadow of a doubt, life beyond Google and other top tier providers and it’s high time advertisers take these opportunities seriously.

When working in internet marketing- especially, a nice color them can go a long way. Blue seems to sooth the reader while red is better for video and graphics sites. Green’s always a pretty good bet too because it reminds us of money. Here’s your chance to set aside some time and update your blog with a new fresh look. Or, if you just started your blog and you’re using a very generic theme or template, you can change it to a more impressive look.

It’s very easy to implement a new theme. Simply download the files and upload them to your themes directory on your website, you activate it through the admin panel of your Wordpress blogging page. I like to customize mine further by editing the php files. From there I can change the text design and add my own custom header.

First impressions are everything so a desirable look is clean, fresh and not cluttered. Stay away from HUGE text and cheesy graphics. You want your readers to trust that your opinion matters, no matter what the topic is.

The best links I’ve found for free Wordpress themes and website templates are listed below.

Some really nice themes you may have not seen before: 
Smashing Magazine has a nice list of themes that range from personal to professional and everything in between. Some nice layouts at this post.

WPHacks Theme Gallery: 
Has some whimsical and colorful themes along with standard business themes that offers both 2 column and three column layouts.

Widgetready Themes: 
Has a pretty large selection of free WP themes including magazine layout, casino themed and general use themes. What I like is the number of colorful themes that I havnt seen elsewhere. If you have a gossip blog or shopping site, these colorful themes may be just what you’re looking for.

Best Magazine Layout Themes:
This list of magazine style themes is the best I’ve found. It’s extensive and offers lots of variations for the user who wants to create a lot of varied content in a clean style.

ThemeForrest: 
This site is so cheap that I had to list it. It has full PSD files for as little as 6.00 and themes for as little as 10.00. The themes are submitted by designers who want to extend their exposure as “theme makers” and thus, you get a way better deal than hiring a designer for much much more. I purchased a PSD file  today for 8.00 and it’s simply stunning. I will implement it soon on one of my niche sites.

WPZOOM:
A very nice collection of  Wordpress themes and goodies.  His best list of themes for 2008 is rated by unusual design and distinct features that make these themes stand out.

ThemesPreview:
Has some nice girly and colorful themes that work well for coffee shops, beauty salons, gossip or celebrity blogs.

83 beautiful WP Themes:
Another great and lengthy post showcasing some very creative themes that can fit into any type of business no matter what it is. The themes are bright and inviting.

Worth Mentioning:
Not a lot of themes but the few that are there, are well made and very creative. They’re clean and bright and the designer has clearly put a lot of time into making them perfect. Offers a nice Facebook theme.

I noticed already on some of my Google Adwords campaigns that things are picking up. I’ve been tweaking my keywords, both long and shortail to maximize my advertising dollars.

I’m starting to see my positions come up and my cost go down, which is exactly what I needed. It took a lot of patience and fiddling.

To get you off on a prosperous new year, here’s a great post to help you handle your PPC and SEO in 2009.