qualityavatars.com blog
free cool avatars and my musings on all things

Ooh, I just moved from position 10 to position 4 on page one for “cool avatars”. I’m starting to see a small surge in hits due to it, it’s clearly happened in the last few days. This is great news, I must get the version 2 of the site coded and up within the next month or so. The content here is great but the design is not as strong as it should be.
Still, great news !

Onwards and upwards my friends, apparently I may just actually know my SEO arse from my SEO elbow, if that makes any sense at all…

I am now ranking on Page 1, Position 10 for “cool Avatars”. This isn’t the top searched for Avatar term but it is pretty darn close. I hope to see some extra traffic soon. Although if Google would hurry up and completely index this site it would help so very muchly !

This is more for my benefit really. I will list the google search term then the page and then the result number;

babes avatars , 1, 6

conan avatars 1, 4

motorcycles avatars 1,6

fractal avatars 1,4

movies avatars not in 1st 7 pages

videogames avatars 2,5

jennifer aniston avatars, 2,5

Well I’m back from a weeks holiday, which  has left me more tired and exhausted than before I went. I’ve thankfully come back having gained some perspective on life. The problem with juggling so many balls at once is that it’s only when you step away can you see that you don’t need so many balls, and there is a better way of juggling.

So, my personal projects B,C and D go on hold, while my new projects E and F start up as they could make me money sooner basically.

Anyways, site SEO goes well, here’s the latest I have noticed;

free facebook avatars - position 2, page 1 of google

hellboy avatars - position 1, page 1 of google

mma avatars - position 4, page 1 of google

cool avatars - position 22, page 3 of google

all of which are hella cool ! Plus Google has been indexing away and more of my individual pages are now showing as opposed to just the catagory pages that were showing before I went away.

Also, I just had my first 3 blog comments, woohoo! Pity they were spam….

Still here, adding Avatars and tinkering with the site when I get a chance. My big news right now is that this site ranks as #4 for “quality avatars” with google, which has already sent me a few surfers. It’s not the most competive Avatar search on Google ( “free avatars” is )but getting to 4th position really in just a few weeks speaks volume for knowing your SEO techniques.

Have put together a list of features i want to add to the site, things you can do with the Avatars essentially - that should make the site the undisputed number 1 Avatar site on the net. I’ll add them one by one, paying someone to code them as and when the cash is available to me.

The story so far…4800 Avatars. Four thousand and eight hundred Avatars. Ouch. But, they are mine, all mine and I can honestly say every one of them is unique because I made them. You saw them here first.

Site design is coming on nicely, I’ve just had to keep tinkering and kicking her into shape. Marketing and SEO is underway, just baby steps for now but the good ship QA is heading for fairer lands and hopefully higher page rankings in Google.

It’s all been hard going. Truth be told if I had a spare dollar to my name I would have outsourced lots of it. There are still things I could outsource. Plenty still needs done on the site. But, I have to console myself with the fact it’s called QualityAvatars and thats what I am definitely serving, here and now. All the other features I am so keen on will come in time.

Ok, I said this blog would step outside the world of this site and cover many other topics so here goes;

5 GREAT BLOGS I COULDNT LIVE WITHOUT

1 > UK Biz Opps Blog - I spent too many years of my life wasting time and money on get rich quick “opportunities” and all I learnt was the nature of man is to sell overhyped crap to desperate and ambitious naive people (like I was). A great blog that informs and educates.

2 > Philosophy of Infidelity - Cracking blog about a guy who stepped outside the confines of marriage to find joy, passion and to meet his own needs. But it didn’t all go to plan. An amazingly honest, well-written and fascinating blog. Recommended.

3 > Unusual Business Ideas that Work - I love to think outside the box but it’s even better when you realise other people have been there before you and are making money in ways you could never have imagined. A constant source of wonder and ideas.

4 > Self Made Minds - This guys a genius, and keeps blowing my mind with his concepts and how easy he makes making money seem. A true originator.

5 > The Lazyowner - Great blog full of ideas about how you should be running your business and not how your business should be running you. Expand your business mind with regular postings on how to do business the right way.

The problem with building a site like this is the sheer amount of skills you need or skills you have to bluff.

At this point for example I can read php and cut/paste/rearrange it but couldnt write any of it to save my life. The same with css. I also find webdesign very hard even though I can build html well (kinda like being able to lay bricks but not be able to design a functioning architectural thing of beauty).

I also need to SEO my site or no-one will see it. This is why no other website of mine has ever took off in any way, despite some good content (from time to time). Recent readings have illustrated its just not enough to “build it and they will come”, its more a case of driving through town waving a pair of whores knickers out of your window with your website url on.

Driving while waving whores knickers doesnt come easy to me, which is why I’ve been reading up on SEO on popular blogs and forums. The sods there seem like 27th level ninja SEO mage tank commanders while I’m like a caveman that just managed to pass a big crap and don’t know what to make of it.

No-matter where I go online on any subject I need to make progress on, the world seems full of guys who are so far ahead of me, so tapped directly into the flow of all knowledge that I wouldn’t be human if i didn’t get a bit dejected from time to time.

I’m probably old enough now to know that TIME is the secret ingredient, and that all learning is the result of repetition so I’ll carry on, hoping if I read enough it’ll all sink in.

Right now I’m trying to deal with the fact that google indexed my site during the 20 mins a few days ago when all it had up was a temporary holding page, so if you google me you’ll think my site is one page containing the word “soon”.

It’s never easy, is it?

I’ve been working on this site for a few weeks pretty hard now. I’m no expert in webdesing or php (as you can probably tell) and I’ve had to lose some quality time with my girl and kid, but I have to see this through and prove to myself that I can succeed at something when my gut tells me success is there to be had.

Hopefully this site will do fairly well and maybe with some advertising i can get some revenue and get a pro to redesign it for a 2nd version.

In the meantime, I just keep making avatars as fast as I can and hoping that if all else fails sheer volume of avatars will help the site succeed. It’s the work hard ethic whereas in theory i know I should be working smart (web seo to come methinks).