20 February, 2011

New Blog – Spider Web Design

So I’ve been having problems with my hosting company. The redirects I’ve set up only seem to work when they want to. My sub-domains hardly ever work (blog.tomfogarty.com, archive.tomfogarty.com). And now I’ve found out I’m nearly out of space.

This is a pain in the arse because I’m  regular blogger at the moment, and I like to upload pictures.

My hosting company is French by the way, making communication with them almost impossible. I can’t remember why I decided it would be a good idea to opt for a French-speaking web hosting company. I was probably drunk at the time.

I will probably switch hosts at some point soon, but it’s somewhere down on a very long “to do” list. Somewhere behind “Natalie Imbruglia”.

What I’ve decided to do is this: I’ve set up a new blog: www.spiderwebdezign.com/blog

I will use this to blog about the current projects I am working on – web design, web development, photography, art etcetera – and the bulk of my photos will be uploaded there. As that blog is tied to my “professional” website (www.spiderwebdezign.com), I will try to be sensible and keep the nonsense down to a minimum.

I will continue to post my stupid stories, rants and rambles on this blog. Any pictures I do upload here (homemade tattoo misadventures, embarrassing drunken pub jaunts etcetera) – I can host on Flickr or Picasa and hotlink to them.

13 February, 2011

Search Terms

Filed under: SEO, Web Development — Tags: , , , , , — spiderwebdesign @ 20:02

Here’s a list of search terms people have used to find my blog in the last 30 days. Mainly tattoo and moustache-related but I found it quite interesting, nevertheless.

10 February, 2011

New Site URL Listed in Google

Filed under: Announcements, SEO — Tags: , , — spiderwebdesign @ 22:49

The very next day after making my “tom-fogarty.com has moved” page – Google re-indexed me! I don’t know if this was a coincidence or not, but I’m very please about it. I’m currently ranked 7th and I’m sure I can get higher than that.

My old school mate, Brian, put both domains into Google Fight to see who came out on top: www.tom-fogarty.com still comes out the winner, but the results are improving daily:

After this I got a bit carried away with tracking my personal stats, and started monitoring the route of one of my jobbies at www.flushtracker.com (this URL was given to me Breaking Travel News journalist, no less).

29 January, 2011

New Facebook Page

Filed under: Announcements, Photos, SEO — Tags: , , , — spiderwebdesign @ 21:39

A couple of weeks back I deleted my facebook profile as it was getting on my nerves: http://tomfogarty.com/blog/facebook-begone

As a result of this my blog views have taken a serious drop, so I had to come up with a workaround for the problem.

I’ve now had the brainwave to create a facebook page instead. It doesn’t have any fans/followers yet so I don’t have a custom username/URL to send you to yet. You can find it by searching for “TomFOGARTY: Spider Web Design“.

The good thing is that as a follower, you will be informed of my latest blog posts, pictures, events etc… but you WON’T have to put up with me posting nonsense on your walls and photos. Everyone’s a winner.

I even made this cartoon logo to go on the page, inspired by the 90s cartoon, Daria.

22 January, 2011

Facebook Begone!

Filed under: Announcements, SEO — Tags: — spiderwebdesign @ 16:38

I decided to delete my facebook account this week, as it was getting on my nerves. The only thing is, my blog hits have plummeted as a result. That’s still nt enough to make me sign up to facebook again. Yet.

The main problem I have with facebook, is that instead of being a useful tool for keeping in touch with friends – it becomes more of a competition; who has the most friends? Who is tagged in the most photos? Etcetera..

Now normally I consider myself too aloof for this nonsense, but I ended getting drawn in to it all. My original intention for signing up was to promote my websites (www.tomfogarty.com | www.spiderwebdezign.com) and this blog. And I did have some success with this (averaging between 45 – 100 hits per day). Now alas, I get 2 visits – if I’m lucky.

The trouble with facebook is that there’s a fine line between posting genuinely funny/interesting status updates – and being a pest! And I found myself pandering to the audience too much i.e. posting updates that I thought would get the most replies, rather than saying what I wanted to say.

I also started waking up in the morning, only to think “Oh my good lord! Who did poke last night?”. And when that statement is in a cyber-sense, rather than a real physical sense – you know that it’s time to change your life.

And there’s also the problem of colleagues adding you as friends…

Having to build up followers to this blog organically might be more of a challenge, but at least I don’t have to feel ashamed with myself after every status update…

14 January, 2011

The Power of Twitter!

Filed under: Random, SEO — Tags: , , , — spiderwebdesign @ 23:28

Up until recently I didn’t really understand twitter. I used it to plug my site and get more hits, but I never saw the point of using it. Lately though, I’ve found it you can make contact and get news with some really cool cats. And can also be really funny if you follow the right people.

All interesting/creative/cool/funny people to follow:

@DogstarBrixton

@tojofo

@paulshinndraws

@abbiehas

@agevio

@TheFilthyTab

@ArinaOrlova

@bkmorse

The biggest twitter mistake I made was following Stephen Fry, but everyone does this when they first sign up. He says some clever and witty things sometimes. But only sometimes. Most of it utter tripe – and he tweets a LOT.

I made the Gary Glitter Twitter Bot over the Xmas period (read about it here) – and the tweets that come in through that usually cheer me up every morning on the bus. The only thing that concerns me is that it will end up with more followers than me. But then again, Gary Glitter was the greatest rock ‘n’ roll Britain has ever produced, so who am I to argue with greatness?

Here are some of my favourite Gary Glitter tweets it has produced:

There’s a Gary glitter bot haha

Name cool people? — Allah. Adolf Hitler. Josef Stalin. Gary Glitter. Michael Barrymore…

OMG I was retweeted by a Gary Glitter bot!

Gary Glitter has won the auction for Michael Jackson’s PC.

society is obsessed with youth. especially gary glitter and jonathan king.

Dear Gary Glitter, Stop retweeting me. You creep. Behave. Sincerely, me.

Gary glitter bot will be all over you after you mentioned his name!

And again! If we can get Gary Glitter bot to retweet himself we could crash twitter.

WHY IS THERE A GARY GLITTER BOT!? THAT’S JUST WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS.

I though I was special… Till I met all the over kids in the van. Damn Gary glitter and his lies. :O

Is gary glitter on twitter?

Gary Glitter is my best friend.

Did anyone go to Gary Glitter’s show for new year

What did Gary Glitter do that is so sick and shocking? I actually have no idea. :/

Love the way every time someone tweets gary glitter you get the gary glitter bot!

piss off. And there is no Gary Glitter bot!

My first kiss was in Gary Glitter’s basement

The creepy landlord that may have murdered that woman in the UK, looks like Gary Glitter and a Oompa Loompa had a baby.

haaaaa Gary Glitter spat in my mouth once :(

Can’t believe Gary Glitter got an OBE!

The only way Eastenders could have been more depressing is if when Ronnie got back home Gary Glitter was waiting

Is it just me or does Jo Yeates’ landlord Chris Jefferies have more than a passing resemblance to Paul Gadd / Gary Glitter?

5 January, 2011

Top of Google and Bing Rankings!

Filed under: Announcements, SEO — Tags: , , , , , , — spiderwebdesign @ 13:12

Just a quick post to say that today – finally – I’m top of the google rankings (based on the search term “Tom Fogarty”.

It’s only part of the “Google Dance” rejig that happens every month, but I’m still happy.

I’m also proud to announce that I’m top of the Bing rankings too, and they’ve even got tomfogarty.com listed there too (which will eventually replace tom-fogarty.com)

30 December, 2010

Site updates – share & follow links

I’ve been a bit busy lately, so I’ve neglected this blog somewhat – but I am going to try and catch up over the next couple of days.

I’ve introduced some new features:

There is a list of the social networking sites I use (facebook, linkedin, myspace, twitter etc) over on the right-hand side – please feel free to follow me/add me.

Each blog post now has share links for facebook, twitter et al – please share any blog posts that you enjoy – thanks!

I’ve also added a facebook “like button” – please use that if you like any of my posts, cheers.

These updates were made really easy using the wordpress follow and share plugin – really easy to use and set up so check it out.

Future updates:

The link colour on this site has really started to annoy me – the green colour doesn’t really work – so I’ll be changing that pronto.

I also want to sort out the photos section so that the thumbnails link to larger versions.

I also need to sort out the CSS for Internet Explorer users..

Thanks for your patience – feedback always welcome.

16 December, 2010

New Tom Fogarty Domain

Filed under: Announcements, SEO, Web Development — Tags: , — spiderwebdesign @ 22:18

Just a quickie update today, nothing exciting.

Went to see Scissor Sisters last night and had a really good time. Not going to blog about that now though, because that would be too obvious. Will do at the weekend though I’m sure.

Nor am I going to  mention that I had lots of fun in Brixton on last Saturday night, oh no.

What I will mention is that I managed to get my hands on the tomfogarty.com domain! Please update your bookmarks to:

www.tomfogarty.com

and:

http://blog.tomfogarty.com

I also have a new email address: tom@tomfogarty.com

No more hyphens for me! That is all..

24 November, 2010

Third and Fourth in Google – The Power of Blogging

Filed under: Announcements, SEO, Web Development — Tags: , , , — spiderwebdesign @ 21:38

Got really excited this morning when I saw that I’m third and fourth in Google rankings (when searching for Tom Fogarty). Yesterday I was ranked at six.

I’ll probably drop down again tomorrow but for now I’m dead chuffed.

This is probably because I’ve been doing a lot of blogging lately, and I seem to get quite a few hits from that. When I first started blogging my intention was to focus on technology and web development/design… but gradually it’s become a channel for me to spout my nonsense!

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