Great news for Blazing Minds today as the guest post from Steph Wood “Has Pixar Finally Jumped The Shark” marked a momentous moment as Blazing Minds hit 1,000 blog posts!

Yes folks it’s been some years in the making but the blog has finally hit that first magic mark of 1,000 blog posts, so this post is 1,001.

So I would just like to say a big thanks to everyone that supports Blazing Minds and to those that have been and are still writing some amazing guest posts for the blog, you guys and gals have certainly helped the blog on its way to hitting the 1,000.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been far too long since I last posted up a Saturday Six here on Blazing Minds, so just for those of you that have enjoyed these little fun memes in the past here’s one just for you.

This weeks topic “Google+” was chosen by @DiTesco so I’ve had to come up with a question or six to get your minds thinking about the topic, so instead of me rambling on about the Saturday Six, lets get straight in to it. Hang on, just a little video for you to watch first

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey there fellow bloggers and readers of Blazing Minds, can you believe that we have got to Friday so quickly, before we all know it it’ll be Friday again, I swear someone puts the clock in overdrive during the week Anyway enough of all this frivolousness banter, it’s Friday, so I’m using today for an excuse to shout out to those on Twitter that have been friendly to Blazing Minds over the last week.

Twitter FollowFriday – Are You Listed!

If you are on Twitter and following me @BlazingMinds you will have already seen my FollowFriday (FF) tweet, if you haven’t then here it is again

#ff @drrus @knitwitshair @commentluv @askkim @famousbloggers @numcrunchingmom @tlb1321 @gingermommy @ditesco @shairbearg (via @ffhelper)

June 17, 2011 3:50 pm via #FollowFriday HelperReplyRetweetFavorite

@BlazingMinds

Karen

Are you in the FF this week, if you are then it shows that you have ReTweetd and Mentioned @BlazingMinds and the blog posts over the last 7 days, so cheers and the drinks are on me
Read the rest of this entry »

Image via CrunchBase

Advertising is a key part of running a business. In the online business world, Google is one of the most powerful forms of advertising that you can take advantage of. However, in order to feature highly in Google search results, you first need to establish a strong web presence. Establishing your company as a brand will really help you to go higher up the ranks.

The question is how exactly do you define yourself as a brand? What does it involve and how can you do it?

Why Establishing a Brand is Important

One of the main reasons why Google will be helping bigger brand names on the site is because it is trying to filter out spam. There is a ton of useless, spam content that the company has to deal with. One of the ways in which they can combat this is by recognising the bigger branded companies.

By increasing your presence on the net, you will gain new exposure to potential clients and you will have a better reputation. In order to improve your brand status you will need to do a lot more than just target a few keywords.

How to Establish Yourself as a Brand

One thing that Google will look for is the quality of information that is found on your site. If you take look at large well known companies such as Sony, you will find that there is very little spam on the site. The information found there is useful and relevant. That is what you need to ensure your website is offering.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image via CrunchBase

Today, the easiest way to start your own business is to develop a website through which you can sell your product or service. It’s becoming less and less necessary to have a high street presence and far more important to have a website through which you can conduct ecommerce. Since the internet has everything you can imagine, and many many things that you couldn’t, and every kind of retailer, from multinational conglomerates to artisanal individuals making their goods in their living room vying for your attention you need to join them. But how do you go about it?

Do you want something tailored or off the peg?

Today many SMEs run on WordPress, it’s a very easy to use CMS which is free at entry level yet can be paid for so that you can have your own .com. It, and its competitors are both extremely powerful and flexible as well as having cost benefits which beat bespoke websites. Going with a bespoke website might be necessary if you have very specific needs but the costs are high and can put you in the position of having to rely solely on your developer for any changes that you might need to make in the future. If you do need to go with a specialist developer make sure they use a well recognised software package so that if you need additional work done and your original developer isn’t available you won’t have to seek out the only other person in a 500 mile radius who knows how to program it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Google has now invested over 100 million dollars in a wind farm in California as a step towards creating cleaner energy sources.  They are not new to the idea, as they have been investing in the green area of life for some time.  Still, the 100 million dollars they have invested in Shepherd’s Flat project drew some attention around the tech water coolers today.  Google seems set on their plans to be a leader in the clean energy field and seems to be saying all the right things.

What makes the Shepherds Flat project so enticing for Google is because of the turbines being used.  They are the first to use direct-drive turbines, allowing permanent magnets to generate electricity instead of the more complicated and frustrating gear box models.  These are considered to be much more efficient in the long run, so it makes sense that Google would invest in them.  Where there is money to be made, it seems that Google is already there and on top of things.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

If you ‘re a blogger then probably one of the things that you are doing to get revenue from your blog is to have advertising running, from either Google Adsense or independent advertises paying you so much for a mother advertising or even more, but what is the best Ad size to have on your blog and which ones do the advertisers prefer.

Since starting Blazing Minds, I’ve had several adverts running on the site and I started off, as most people probably do, with Google Adsense, by placing a banner at the top of the site to bring in a little to help with the running of the site.

My Most Popular Ad Sizes

But when it came to advertisers wanting to buy Ads on my blog that was a different matter and I pondered on what size ads to sell on Blazing Minds, I tried several sizes and there was only one size that seemed to get more offers than others and that was the 125×125 size add.

Now I’m not too sure why this Ad size is popular, maybe it’s the fact that sites such as CMF Ads, EntreCard and a few others have as their default size.

Read on to find out more about Popular Ad sizes