The time has  come to knuckle down and get’er done with the MC Rally site update. I have been working on it some today. Mostly I have been looking at what it is that I have and deciding how it is that I want to present it. I did install the comment system and put a comment box up on Sam’s Page, my tribute page to Samantha Morgan aka: Morgan Storm. I intend to get a gallery index going on the home page, as the galleries are the biggest part of the site. I also want to add comment boxes with all of the pictures to try to engage some of my visitors. Of course, I will update the Rally list and even bring  some of it into the next decade. There are many decisions to be made as far as the presentation. I have the tools so that implementation will go relatively rapidly when the format and decisions are made.

Once the site is updated I will try to build the traffic up a bit. I do get a steady stream of traffic, but I am sure that with a bit of promotion I can improve that a good bit. These sites have been up for over a year and a half. I thought that the word might get around, but I am learning that traffic to a site does not just happen. There may be a rare instance where something goes viral but those times are few are far between. There are a number of free ways recommended to promote sites and I will be exploring some of those methods over the next few months.

I will let you know how this all works out and make a post when the update is complete.

I discovered that I had uploaded a work-in-progress page to the PC App Store site. I had begun to rework the site some time back. When I started the work I renamed the original home page and the WIP page with the proper name. I recently added some Google code to most pages to gather some additional information for Google Analytics. I did this with a find and replace function of a text editor, so I did not actually view any of the pages. I then uploaded the modified pages, wholesale. When I selected the files for the PC App Store site, the WIP page had the right name, so it is the one that I selected for upload. This site has been getting a little search engine traffic recently, and I knew that it was not in the best format, so I stuck my nose in there today. I was amazed to see the wrong page displayed, and it took me a minute to realize why that could be. I renamed pages and uploaded my old home page to the site. It is not a good page, but it is much better than the work-in-progress page at this point. I have a lot to do on that site!!

Oh, I do still have the itch to put up some new sites. Good, available domain names keep coming to me. It would be easy to get distracted from the maintenance and updating that needs to be done on the current crop of sites. Then there is the matter of site promotion that needs to be addressed if all of the work that I put in on the sites is to pay off.

I have been working on my Anjolee pages for the Closet Online site. I put up their press release and pages that display a couple of their blogs, and I got started on some catalog pages. You can view the results at http://www.theclosetonline.com/stores/anjolee/. I will be putting up more catalog pages, but there is a problem with some of the available catalog items that are provided by Anjolee. Some of the descriptions do not match the pictured items. I have notified Anjolee, and they are working on the problem.

I reworked my comment software to display in the left sidebar column on this site. I basically like the way that it came out and will probably use it on other sites. Putting the comments in the sidebar makes them visible without scrolling to the bottom of the page. I think that this might serve my purpose a bit better for some things. I needed to adjust the software because the minimum width did not fit within the space available. I think that I still have a tweak or two, but you can see the current result on the catalog pages of the Anjolee store linked above.

I am updating a site and building some catalog pages. I thought that it would be a good use of the space below the sidebar nav section to add a comment section. This proved to be a bit of an adventure. I needed to make changes in both the css file and the index file to accomplish this. In other places on the site I want the standard format for the comment section. I now have two stylesheets and two index pages in this comment section. The linking is not a problem (I don’t think) because the call code is easy to edit. I got the sidebar comments working on my test page so all should be in order when I go live with the site. I will have to check and see if it all works as planned.

I may also get fancy with the catalog nav section. I am thinking of a css drop up or down jump menu. There will be several pages in this catalog. I will have previous and next buttons on the pages, but I am thinking of also having a jump menu to get to other sections and pages in the catalog. If I get this going it will be another tool in my bag of tricks. Be assured that I will post to let you know how this all turns out. I will link to the new pages so that you can look them over.

I have begun an update of The Closet Online. I will be adding some catalog pages. Then I will be trying to direct some traffic there. The catalog that I am putting up now is a custom jeweler. I am thinking of putting up a Squidoo lens to direct some traffic there, and maybe a hub page as well. I may also try a few articles.

I have a lot of studying to do, and a lot of work. I need to start generating some income from the sites. This becomes a job if one is to derive the benefit. I will drop some links here when I go live with the update. Subscribe to the RSS feed so that you can keep informed.

I have comment boxes on a few sites. There have been no comments up to this point, but I am noticing higher than normal traffic counts today on all of the sites with live comment sections. I also was looking for external links via a Google links search for the Mixing Live Sound site and noticed that Google had picked up the comment section already. The script was not advertised as something that announced itself to the world, so both the traffic and the fact that the comment box is indexed are probably coincidence. I did add a heading with a question or some specific call to comment on the main sites. Maybe this helps. Time will tell if the traffic levels keep up. I will pay attention when I add the feature to additional sites to see if there is a noticeable increase in traffic. I expect the value to be greater on some sites than on other sites, but I can use all the traffic I can get.

Another way to add interaction to sites is to use a pole. I have not looked for a poling script, but I bet that they are out there. Google knows where they are, I am sure.

I am getting the itch to put up some new site. I came up with a few good domain names today. They are marked down in my web ideas list. The key will be an overall strategy if I am to put up some more sites at this time. I really need to develop some of the sites that I already have, but I have been learning some things as I have trod this path, so may a couple of focused new sites are in order. I may try one or two experimental sites as well. I could use to twist the Internet teat a bit about now. The budget is a bit tight without my major August contract this year.