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There are an unlimited number of ways to obtain high-quality backlinks. You’ve probably heard about many of them, including social bookmarking, linkbait, guest posting, directory submissions, press releases, etc. etc. etc…
Thankfully, we won’t be talking about those regurgitated strategies today. Instead, I have compiled over 100 out-of-the-box strategies to increase your link popularity and send tons of traffic your way.
This article contains all of my link building secrets, so I suggest you take some time to digest it. Grab some herbal tea (or Redbull) , whichever one works best for you, and don’t forget to bookmark the article for future reference.
The first juicy link building tactic is to create your own Ebay blog. Did you know you can
get backlinks directly from Ebay? That’s right. Ebay provides their members with their own personal blogs. Take a look at SEO superstar, Jim Boykin’s eBay blog. Notice the contextual links within the article which include his desired anchor text. If you check the source code, you will also find that these links are followed. You can create your own eBay blog and start building a few of your own high-powered links.
You can also build links with contests. Holding a blog contest is a great way to grow your blog’s audience, build inbound links, and improve your search engine presence. John Chow and John Cow have both used contests to rapidly increase his blog popularity.
You can promote your contest through the following sites…
Contest Blogger
ThePrizeBlog
ContestHound
DisregardMe
ReviewWow
MyBlogContest
TheLinkBait
ContestBeat
Blog-Contests
TheContestWinner
MyBlogContests
AboutBlogContest
ContestBlogcat
Contester
SubmitYourContest
Overall, contests are one of the best ways to generate buzz, backlinks, and new readers. Ben Cook has written an excellent article on what hosting a blog contest can do for you.
CSS galleries are another untapped source of traffic and links. FreelanceSwitch.com has received over 25,000 visitors from CSS Galleries . If you have a savvy CSS design, be sure to submit it to all of the major CSS galleries.
CSSMania
CSSRemix
BestWebGallery
WebCreme
CSSElite
CSSDrive
CSSHeaven
CSSTux
CSSGlobe
CoolHomePages
Each of these sites can send you quick and easy traffic.
Another site that can send you some good traffic is KillerStartups. They review over 30 internet startups every day. This is an excellent link opportunity and an excellent traffic strategy considering that the site has an Alexa ranking of 5,255 at the time of this writing. You can submit your site to http://www.killerstartups.com/submitted/.
Lists are another great way to build some quality inbound links to your website. No, I’m not talking about creating resource lists for social media sites like Digg and del.icio.us. I’m talking about building links with sites like listible.com.
Listible is a Web 2.0 property that allows you to create lists of resources. By joining the
community, you can create your own list and add resources to existing lists. Where
appropriate, you can add your own link, but remember to add value to the community first. Become a valued contributor to the site before you start posting your own links.
You can use this same strategy on the following sites…
Listverse
ListafterList
Listphile
OnmyList
Whatali.st
Here’s a technique that I was hesitant to share, but I’ve decided to trust my readers not to abuse the following information.
During some of my recent research, I discovered a hidden linking technique on Flickr. This discovery came to me while studying the backlinks of Glitter-Graphics.com. If you examine their backlinks on Yahoo Site Explorer, you will find that a large portion of their backlinks come from Flickr.
For example, here’s one Flickr page that contains their link…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95572727@N00/211239773
Ok, so where’s the link? If you scroll down the page a bit, you will find a butterfly flapping it’s wings. That butterfly is actually a link to http://www.glitter-graphics.com.
Here’s the source code for the link:
<a href=”http://www.glitter-graphics.com”><img src=”http://dl6.glitter-graphics.net/pub/10/10666z5mfbj3yf7.gif” alt=”myspace layouts, myspace codes, glitter graphics” height=”50″ width=”100″></a>
They were even able to include their keywords in the alt tag.
You might also notice that this Flickr page is a pr 4… Not bad.
Ok. I don’t want to spoil any more of the fun. I’ll let your imagination determine how you
might use this nifty little trick.
Speaking of tricks, here’s another interesting find. It’s called Cool Site of the Day. This site lists some of the most interesting sites from around the web. Best of all, you can submit your site as well if you think it’s up to snuff. Not only does this present an excellent link opportunity, but Cool Site of the Day is known for sending thousands of visitors to their featured sites.
If your site is chosen, it will be featured on the homepage and announced to their email list of over 150,000 subscribers.
Much like Digg, Cool Site of the Day also has a ripple effect. The featured sites are often picked up by journalists throughout the world. Some of the previously featured sites have been quoted on the BBC News website, featured in USA Today, picked up by radio stations and quoted in a number of other media outlets.
Sites similar to Cool Site of the Day that you can submit to include…
CoolPick
AskMen
CSOTD
TopsiteoftheDay
Yahoo Picks
Blackstump
Family First
Do you have a unique or entertaining website? If so, you can drop your links at the following websites…
Leenks
I-am-Bored.com
Bored
BoredatWork
Ubersite
College Humor
Stimes
Ebaumsworld
Would you like to turn your blog posts into podcasts without having to do any extra work? Well, I can’t see why you wouldn’t because doing this offers your readers a new and unique way to absorb your content, not to mention a ton of new link opportunities.
One of my favorite tools, Odiogo.com, will instantly give your blog a voice. Odiogo will automatically convert your RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to iPod-ready audio files. Once you’ve installed their free service, you can then submit your new podcast to all of the podcast directories, generating tons of new backlinks to your site. If you sell software, you can generate 1,000s of links by distributing demos of your software to directories across the Web. All you have to do is convert your demo software into what’s called a PAD file . You can create your PAD file using a free PAD generation tool known as PADGen.
You can then submit your PAD file to over 1,000 download websites.
If you want, you can automate this process at SubmitMySoft.
Utilizing this technique will bring you lots of high quality links and can also increase your sharware sales.
Keep in mind that you can distribute a number of different types of files on download sites, including screensavers, widgets, toolbars, Firefox extensions, Internet Explorer Add-ons, and much more. Get creative with your marketing strategies.
You can use a similar technique to distribute a demo of your software, pdf ebooks, videos, and audios to torrent sites.
Submit your content to the top 35 torrent sites.
Michelle MacPhearson has a step-by-step guide to getting traffic with torrents on her website. I strogly suggest that you check it out and start benefiting from this unique traffic and link building strategy.
Releasing your content on torrent sites is one of the best ways to seed a viral marketing campaign.
If you’re distributing a free ebook, then you’ll want to submit it to all of the most popular
ebook directories…
MindlikeWater
ebook2u
Jogena
WisdomEbooks
GetFreeEbooks
EbookPalace
EbookMall
Scribd
Published.com
Ebook88
Virtual-Ebooks
EbooksTemplateSource
Ebook Tags
Ideamarketers
EbookJungle
Syndicating your ebook is an excellent strategy for building your list, increasing your traffic, and building links to your site.
If you run a web application, you can add your site to…
SimpleSpark
Web2List
Go2Web20
FeedmyApp
Makeuseof
Emily Chang
Find Apps
Listio
AllthingsWeb2
Search Free Apps
2.0 Websites
BuzzShout
Web2.0Searchr
NeoBinaries
Reflexz
Social media campaigns are one of the best ways to build links. Unfortunately, most marketers are still not taking advantage of the many benefits provided by a strategic social media campaign. In 2008, viral marketing will be one of the best ways to generate hundreds of inbound links, increase your search engine rankings, increase your RSS subscribers, and build buzz for your website.
Some of the best social bookmarking sites for sending a flood of traffic to your website include Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Propeller. However, keep in mind that there are also a number of niche social bookmarking sites and upcoming stars like Mixx.com that can send hundreds of targeted visitors to your site.
Andy Hagan provides the Top 29 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic) on his blog.
Best of all, you can leverage these smaller social bookmarking sites to help you get to the front page of the major players like Digg and Del.icio.us. In fact, vandelaydesign.com has a step-by-step guide on how to do exactly that.
For an extensive list of social bookmarking sites, check out this list. You’ve probably heard about building links with Youtube, but you may not have uncovered this unique strategy revealed by Neil Patel.
Basically, if you embed one of the YouTube videos on your website, they link back if you are one of the top 5 sites to drive traffic to a particular YouTube video. A link from YouTube is a good link, regardless of whether it’s no follow or not. People get way too
hung up on the whole “no follow” deal. The key is to build links where it makes sense.
Website reviews are another way to generate some excellent inbound links and get valuable feedback on your website.
There are a number of websites that will review your website for free. However, make sure you get involved in the community before you ask for a review. Here are some of the best forums for getting feedback on your website…
UK Webmaster World Forums
Anizone
DigitalPoint
NamePros
GameMakerGames
Webmaster-Talk
Webmaster-Forums
Webdev Forums
Webdesign Forum
Web designer Forum
Ozzu
Critics-Corner
Site Owners Forums
Sitepoint Forums
Warrior Forum
V7n
SeoChat Forums
Search Engine Watch Forums
DnForum
DevShed Forums forums.devshed.com
aBestWeb
KillerSites
Successful Blog
CreamAid
Site Critic
Hallway Testing
Want to exchange reviews with other blogs?
Here’s another interesting find…ReviewBack. This site allows you to exchange reviews with other blogs.
Reviewback is an excellent alternative for those who don’t want to spend their money on ReviewMe.
There are numerous sites that do blog review trading. Here’s an excellent list from Courtney Tuttle.
Do you comment on other blogs? If so, why not get some more attention by becoming a top commentator. There are many blogs which feature their top commentators in the sidebar. You can see an example of this at JohnChow.com.
Here’s a list of sites that have this plugin installed.
If you write about web design ,graphics, or programming, there are hundreds of tutorial
sites that will link to your tutorial. Here are just a few of them…
Good-Tutorials
Tutorialized
Pixel2Life
Photoshop Roadmap
Flash Perfection
Dzone
Rnel
Design Float
CG Tutorials
Pslover
Tweako
Tips Clique
Fstutorials
Graphics World
Tutorials Garden
Photoshop Pack
Tutorial Kit
Kaos-Tutorials
Total Tutorials
These sites do not duplicate your article but rather link back to it on your own website.
Many of these tutorials receive 100’s or even 1000’s of visits.
(Quick Hint: Tutorialized.com also has a section for SEO and marketing tutorials.)
Tutorial sites are an excellent avenue for extending the reach of your content.
Speaking of web design. If you are an experienced programmer, you can use your skills to obtain thousands of inbound links with your own custom wordpress themes. This is one of the strategies that Carlocab.com used in achieving a frontpage ranking for the highly competitive keyword phrase “make money online”. Wpdesigner.com and Performancing.com are some other websites that have used this tactic extensively.
If you know how to design your own Wordpress themes, they can provide you with a goldmine of links. However, if you don’t know how to program your own theme, you can always have someone create one for you.
You can also create a design in Photoshop and then have a site like Wpcustomization.com create a customized Wordrpess theme based on your design.
Once you have created your Wordpress theme, it’s time to promote it.
Here’s a list of places where you can submit your wordpress theme for increased exposure…
Wpdesigner
Wordpress Theme Viewer
Weblogs Tools Collection
Wordpress Theme Codex
JohnTp Wordpress Blog
Blogflux
ThemesBase
BloggingThemes
Wpskins
Wordpress Theme Forum
Fresheezy
EmilyRobbins Blog
WpSnap
WpThemesFree
Blogging Themes
Wordpress Wow
Wordpress Theme Base
Free Wordpress Themes
iThemes
Rock-Kitty Themes
Web2Feel
Themes-wp
There is also a growing list of forums that will happily take your theme listings.
DigitalPoint Forums
Theme Vibes
Graphic Design Forum
Easy Wordpress Forum
Bloggeries
Webmaster Talk
Each of these websites will help to increase the number of people who download your Wordpress theme. There’s always a sense of satisfaction everytime you see a blog using one of your creations.
The Web 2.0 world has transformed article syndication. Article marketing is NOT dead. It’s just different.
In fact, one unique website has turned article marketing into a social networking activity. It’s called Gather.com. Check it out and submit your own articles. Get involved in the community and you can then share your articles with all of your friends.
You can also expand your article marketing by converting your articles into PDF files. Once you have done this, you can then post PDF versions of your articles to Scribd and FreeIQ.
Another site I like to submit my articles to is Work.com. This is a very valuable site to
get backlinks from, especially if your website is related to business or marketing.
Search Engine Journal has an excellent article on how to add Work.com to your link building campaign.
One of the best linking strategies that people take for granted is the power of their own internal link structure.
I suggest that you read the SEO Fast Start Guide by Dan Thies to learn about optimal internal linking within your own website.
Simply by optimizing your internal link structure, you can increase your search engine
rankings.
Do you have an ecommerce website? If so, here’s a list of sites where you canlist your products.
Wikis are another excellent source of inbound links. The key is to become a valuable
contributor of the community before you drop any of your links into related articles.
Here’s a comprehensive list of wikis you can start contributing to.
Another one of my favorite link building techniques is interviews. Interviewing other
bloggers can generate lots of buzz and incoming links. One blogger who has benefited greatly from interviews is Leo from ZenHabits.com.
Neil Patel provides some excellent tips on how to leverage interviews for links and traffic.
Don’t be afraid to ask for an interview. I promise, most bloggers don’t bite 
Hold on to your seat, because I’ve saved one of the best link building tips for last.
It’s known as widget marketing. Widgets are mini internet applications that are offered via a 3rd party. They can easily be integrated into web pages, Facebook profiles, iGoogle start pages, and more.
Because of this, a widget can spread your link to thousands of other websites.
The web is quickly becoming a world of widgets. Amazon.com has their own widget to let customers show off their favorite Amazon products. USA Today offers a widget that enables bloggers to display the latest new updates.
Why shouldn’t you have one also? If you don’t know how to program, don’t worry. You can instantly turn your blog into a widget at WidgetBox.com.
Blue Hat SEO has released an interesting article on how to use widgets to funnel hundreds of links and visitors into your sites.
You can promote your widgets on the following websites…
Widgepedia
Google Widget Directory
Yahoo Widgets
WidgetBox
SpringWidgets
Widget Gallery
Snipperoo Widget Directory
RateitAll Widgets
Friendster Widget Directory
Netvibes Widget Diretory
Xanga Widget Directory
You can also turn your widget into a Facebook app with App Accelerator. Popular Facebook applications can send thousands of visitors to your site per day. It’s just a matter of being creative and taking action.
Start implementing some of these strategies, and you will quickly see increases in your traffic and search engine rankings. Taking action on just ONE strategy each day can make an incredible difference.
If you know of other untapped linking strategies, please feel free to share them in the comments below.
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You’ve heard of the olden days when people would hunt for potential link partners. Well, those days are long gone and smart web masters are moving on to greater things,
while decreasing their effort to build incoming links.
If you are wondering what this new technique could be, it’s actually quite simple… in theory. It is known as linkbaiting. This is a strategy that brings links to a website simply because of the unique and popular content on a website.
With the rise of the blogosphere and social bookmarking sites, all it takes is one person to notice an interesting page and link to a site. Once a link is passed around once, it becomes
easier for it to spread further.
Bloggers around the net constantly use linkbait to encourage other bloggers to mention them or to get their content passed around the blogosphere. However, many traditional web mastershave not quite latched on to this powerful technique.
The benefits of creating quality, unique, or even controversial content go way beyond what one might first imagine. When a web site offers true value to the visitor, they can create hundreds and even thousands of backlinks without even asking.
Unfortunately, simply having good, quality content on your site doesn’t always work. To gain the full potential of linkbaiting, you need a good hook. Some of the most popular ones include:
News
Controversy
Resources and…
Humor
News Hook: Everyone loves to read about industry news. However, the key to attracting some real traffic is to add a twist to the latest news. Find out exactly how it affects your web site visitors. If you just give a rehashing of what everyone else has already said, no one will care.
However, if you inject your own twist or personality into your news story, then you are prepared to catch someones eye.
Look at CNN.com as an example. What do they offer? They provide the latest news every day of the week. In the world of information that we live in, news is a commodity. Because CNN offers such appealing content, thousands of sites are linking to them. Do you think CNN sent these sites a little email asking if they would be interested in a reciprical link?
Of course not.
Instead, they employ linkbaiting. Their fresh and interesting content automatically encourages other people to link to it. Luckily for us, we can use this same technique on our own web sites.
News is one of the best ways to attract incoming links, especially if the news is controversial.
Controversy Hook: Before we move on, I must warn you that this hook can be very powerful and also very dangerous. It involves contradicting what someone says, preferably someone very prominent in the industry.
When used correctly, controversy can be very effective in bringing traffic to your site, but always be careful.
To begin, look for articles and stories in your industry. Some of the best places to find this type of content is on blogs, news sites, and social bookmarking sites. Once you
have found a good story, take an opposing viewpoint or give it some sort of twist. This will make your content stand out from the hum drum of what everyone else is publishing.
The next hook is actually one of my favorites. It is known as the resource hook.
Resource Hook: Information is powerful online. If you have information that is not available anywhere else, you become an authoritative resource. Many of these resources come in the form of a list.
You would be surprised at the power of a list. You can organize:
a list of helpful tools that would be beneficial to your readers
a list of the best blogs in your niche
a list of popular news stories within your industry (When you
are doing this kind of list, be sure to sprinkle in some of your
own commentary)
One of my favorite lists is located at http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html,
where they offer over 150 SEO tools. Simply by linking out to their favorite SEO tools they get tons of traffic each andevery day.
Robin Good of MasterNewMedia is a webmaster who uses lists especially well. One of his most popular resource pages is a list of rss and blog directories that web masters can
submit to. You can take a look at it at:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ .
However, not only does he show you over a hundred places where you can submit your blog and rss feed, he also gives you an overview of each service, some commentary on which of these directories are the most influential, and exactly how to submit to each one.
This one page alone has thousands of incoming links to it because it is an invaluable resource.
Another popular resource hook is to create a useful online tool that your visitors can download for free. Once they have downloaded your free tool, let them rebrand it and give it away on their own sites.
Humor Hook: Have you ever received a joke or some other sort of humor in your inbox? If you are like most people, then you probably have. Jokes, funny stories, and weird pictures are some of the most viral hooks on the Internet.
Within your own web site, you can add your own touch of humor. However, you must make sure that it fits with your personality. People on the internet want to see your true self.
Many companies have made their web sites an impersonal void. This is not the way the web works. The Web is an engaging and interactive community of people. When you start giving your web site some personality, people will start taking notice. The ordinary is simply too easy to pass over.
Another key to remember when employing linkbaiting is that your article or news story should almost always link out to leading industry web sites or influential bloggers. There are so many web sites who are afraid to link out to other sites. However, by mentioning other web sites and bloggers, you would be surprised at the number of people who start
linking to you.
Bloggers are a group of web masters who realize the power of linking to others. Within the blogoshpere, links are spread willingly to those who provide great content. As a result,
they all receive more traffic than they would alone.
Final Verdict
The term linkbaiting itself may sound a little fishy, but it’s not. If you are a good web master, you should always strive for your content to be linkbait. This simply means that your content is of such quality that others simply can’t help but link to it.
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1. Basecamp - Over 1 million people have found a new and novel way to approach project collaboration. Basecamp provides tools that improve communication between people working together on a project. Using Basecamp, you can keep track of what needs to get done and who’s responsible. Share files quickly and easily with co-workers or with clients. Track how much time is spent on each task and schedule due dates.
2. Backpack - Keep your to-do lists, notes, ideas, and calendar online with Backpack. Used by over 300,000 people.
3. Campfire - Allows you to set up password-protected chat rooms in a matter of seconds.
4. Highrise - Takes communication to the next level. “Highrise is great for salespeople who want to keep track of their clients and leads, journalists who want to keep track of people and companies they’ve covered, real estate agents who want to keep track of their buyers and sellers, and plenty more.”
5. Tadalist - the Web’s easiest to-do list. Ta-da allows you to make lists for yourself and share them with others.
6. 43things - Making a list of your goals is the best way to achieve them. Why not share them with the world at 43things.com and find others who have the same ambitions.
7. 43people - Who do you want to meet? Share it with the world at 43people.com.
8. 43places - Where do you want to go. Share it with the world at 43places.com.
9. Coolchaser - Create your own customized Myspace Layouts.
10. Invent A Story - Collaborative story writing, one sentence at a time.
11. DiggFeedr - If you like Digg, then you’ll really love DiggFeedr. This Ruby on Rails application pulls Digg items using the API in order to syndicate the content through Feedburner.
12. Smarkets - A prediction market for Amazon products. Allows you to buy stocks in everything from iPods to video games. Prices change based on Amazon sales ranks. Traders can buy, sell, short, and cover.
13. Tastyplanner - upload and share your favorite recipes.
14. ElectricCheckBook - As noted on the website, “the fast and easy way to manage your checking, savings or credit card accounts.”
15. 123PC - Build your own computer!
16. Coastr - A social networking site for beer lovers.
17. DCRails - Find the nearest Metro to your destination.
18. FutureMail - Email your future self.
19. Livingto100 - Find out how long you might live with this life expectancy calculator.
20. Odeo - Create your own podcast online.
21. Simply Done - web based accounting that allows you to manage your personal accounting at anytime, from anywhere in the world.
22. Userscripts - Cool site developed on Ruby on Rails. Userscripts.org offers free Greasemonkey scripts that allow you to change how your favorite pages behave and look.
23. Blinksale - Send invoices online.
24. Bubbleshare - Create and share slideshows online.
25. Chainreading - Designed for those who are addicted to reading. Chain Reading allows you to share what you’re reading, suggest books to your friends, browse books recommended by others, and write book reviews.
26. CommunityWalk - Create informational, interactive, and engaging maps. CommunityWalk allows you to build maps with photos, videos and more in just minutes.
27. Getharvest - time-tracking software.
28. Golfbuzz - Social networking site for golfers.
29. ForecastAdvisor - Get a 5-day forecast for any US zip code or city.
30. Feeddigest - Put automatically updating news and feed content on your web site.
31. Favoriterun - Track and plan where you’re going to run.
32. Dealplumber - Social network for savvy shoppers to find, save, and share deals.
33. Happycarpools - Find a local carpool.
34. Podomatic - Create, Find, and Share Podcasts.
35. Suprglu - Gathers your content from popular web services (i.e. del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr, etc.) and publishes them in one convenient place.
36. Yubnub - A command-line for the web.
37. Wayfaring - Create personalized maps and share them with your friends.
38. Twitter - Allows you to stay in touch with your friends, family, and co-workers through the use of mini-blogging.
39. Blingee - Customize your pictures with glitter, graphics, and comments.
40. Revver - Video-sharing site built with Ruby on Rails.
41. Kongregate - Enables game developers to meet up, play games, and operate together as a community.
42. Vodpod - Collect, share, and watch videos. Allows you to aggregate all of your favorite videos from YouTube, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, DailyMotion, and others.
43. Customize - Download Themes, Skins, Wallpapers, and icons for your desktop. As a member of Customize.org, you can upload your own creations as well.
44. Eons - Social networking site for those who are 50 and over.
45. Shopify - Create your own online shop with ease.
46. Corkd - Social networking site for wine lovers.
47. Stikipad - Hosted wiki solutions that allows you to organize your information and share it with others.
48. Justsayhi - Online dating site built with Ruby on Rails.
49. Zevents - Discover things to do in your area.
50. Menuism - Social community that allows you to review restaurants and discover new places to eat.
51. Collectivex - Create a free private or public Groupsite for sharing and keeping your group connected. Great for social networks, alumni associations, memberships, non-profits, and social groups.
52. Tanga - Sells one great deal each day.
53. Unfuddle - A project management solution similar to Basecamp.
54. Backchannelmedia - Free web-based media search engine. One of the largest dynamically generated TV listings database to ever be created.
55. Eponym - Blog directory built with Ruby on Rails.
56. Gydget - Create your own widget to promote bands, sports teams, etc.
57. Flippingpad - Social networking site for those who are interested in real estate investing.
58. XMGimage - Upload, edit, organize, and share your images.
59. Growsonyou - Social networking site for gardeners.
60. Vroomr - Social bookmarking site for automotive news.
61. Competitious - Organize news and data about your competitors.
62. Isabont - Web based application for job hunters. Keep track of the positions you’ve applied for, resumes you’ve sent out and contacts you’ve established along the way.
63. Dimewise - Web-based application for financial management.
64. Flagr - Share cool places. Add photos, videos, and descriptions of your favorite places. Find new and cool places to go.
65. Gusto - Find travel blogs, hotel reivews, hotels, photos, travel journals and more all personalized you to your own preferences and lifestyle.
66. Triptie - Plan your travel by remixing the trip plans of others.
67. Insiderpages - Find businesses, share your opinions, and ask questions in your local community.
68. Tutorlinker - Find local tutors.
69. Rentometer - Find what people are paying for rental property in your area.
70. Funadvice - Social Q+A site where members can ask & answer questions, share photos, send private messages, and syndicate their content via widgets.
71. Brainreactions - Online Brainstorming and Idea Management software.
72. Jiploo - Website monitoring tool.
73. Crazyegg - An excellent tool for tracking which portions of your website your users are clicking/viewing. Ideal solution for webmasters looking to optimize their revenue.
74. Bigcartel - Allows you to easily create a shop to sell your goods online.
75. Doodlekit - Free online website builder.
76. Inklingmarkets - Online community for prediction markets
77. Stikkit - Application that allows you to create your own sticky notes online.
78. Calendarhub - Online calendars that you can access from anywhere.
79. Numsum - Create and share Web Spreadsheets.
80. Soulcast - A blogging community.
81. RSSmixer - Combine all your favorite feeds into one.
82. Ninjawords - A really fast online dictionary.
83. Dormitem - Free college classifieds.
84. Feedmyapp - Web 2.0 directory.
85. Simplyinvoices - Create great looking invoices in minutes.
86. Darenotask - Submit a question and see if people agree with you.
87. Jjot - Sticky notes for the Web.
88. Reelcomp - Video sharing site that focuses on skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing videos. Built entirely with Ruby on Rails.
89. LifeJot - Online grocery list tracker.
90. Slamdot - Makes web hosting easy. Allows you to manage your website, domain registration, billing details, and support all in one place.
91. Curbly - A social networking site for those obsessed with home decorating. Post pictures of your house, share design ideas, and get expert advice.
92. DesignRelated - Social bookmarking site for designers.
93. Feedmarker - A free web based bookmarker and newsreader with tagging.
94. Stockicons - Offers the widest variety of professionally designed, royalty-free stock icon collections anywhere. Built with Ruby on Rails.
95. IconBuffet - Another leading provider of royalty-free stock icons and digital artwork. Lots of great resources for web designers.
96. SportsSpyder - Makes it easy to find and subscribe to sports news for your favorite teams.
97. URL.com - Top results from Google, Yahoo!, and MSN ranked by you. Allows users to collaborate with one another to improve and rerank the top search results.
98. ATopSites - A “clone” of Alexa.com that uses the Alexa Web services.
99. Tourb.us - A better way to find live music. Track your favorite bands. Get reminders before concerts. Find tonights shows in your city. Meet friends for shows. Post reviews and photos of shows.
100. Fluxiom - Makes it easy to organize and share your digital assets with clients, partners, and co-workers.
101. MyPunchBowl - Web-based application for party and event planning.
Etch-a-Sketch hit the shelves in 1960. Since that time, people have transformed this little toy into incredible pieces of artwork.
Etch-a-Sketch Artist: Jeff Gagliardi
Etch-a-Sketch Artist: George Vlosich III
If you’d like to create your own digitized Etch-a-Sketch creations with Photoshop, check out this tutorial.
P.S. If you’re wondering how these Etch-a-Sketch artists preserve the creations, it’s actually pretty simple. They just drain the powder from the device, leaving their artwork permanently intact.
The right colors can captivate our attention, elicit a variety of emotions, increase
conversion rates, increase memory, improve readership, and increase brand recognition. In fact, A study by the University of Loyola, Maryland found that color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent.
Lots of research has gone into the art and combination of colors. Here are the basics.
The color wheel is the foundation for combining colors. It was first invented by Isaac Newton in 1666 to show the relations of colors.
The color wheel is composed of three different types of colors: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Primary colors include Red, Yellow, and Blue. All other colors are derived by combinations of these colors.
Secondary colors include Orange, Green, and Purple.
Tertiary colors are created by mixing primary and secondary colors. They include
red-orange, red-violet, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-violet and blue-green.
Today’s most common version of the color wheel contains all 12 of the preceding colors.
As a designer, color is one of the most important elements of anything you create. It doesn’t matter whether you’re designing a logo or an entire website.
Using the color wheel, you can arrange color schemes that complement your design.
Color schemes come in many forms. We will be covering some of the most common ones, including Analogous, Complimentary, Triad, and Monochromatic.
Analogous colors are those that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. You can pick any range of colors between two points of either triangle on the color wheel (ie yellow to red, red to orange, orange to violet, red to blue, etc) and you will have an analogous color scheme.
Using an analogous color scheme can help you to create vibrant designs that are pleasing to the eye.
Some websites that use an Analogous color scheme include:
www.thinkvitamin.com
www.jasonsantamaria.com
www.orbitz.com
Complementary color schemes are those that are located opposite each other on the
color wheel. Some examples are green and red, yellow and violet, and orange and
blue. These colors always go well together, hence the term complimentary.
These combinations make each color look more vibrant. In fact, when placed next to each other, a phenomenon known as simultaneous contrast occurs.
Some websites that use Complementary color schemes include:
http://www.ufl.edu/ (University of Florida)
http://www.federatedmedia.net/ (Red and green are complementary colors.)
Triad colors are those that are three hues equidistant on the color wheel. They are evenly spaced around the color wheel to form a triangle. This combination will give you a design that is colorful but balanced at the same time.
A monochromatic color scheme is composed of one single hue and a number of variations in terms of tints, shades, and saturation.
A monochromatic color scheme is almost always visually appealing, but lacks color contrast. While using a purely monontone chromatic color scheme can get a bit boring, using it with white or black, white, or gray can create a very attractive design.
You can see an example of this color scheme at Neatorama.com, which sports a
variety of shades of gray. Another good example can be found at ColourLovers.
Fortuanately, in today’s high technology world, you don’t have to create color schemes all by yourself. There are a number of excellent online resources available to help you pick the perfect color scheme for your next design.
http://kuler.adobe.com/ - This color scheme tool will allow you to quickly create analogous, complementary, monochromatic, and triad color schemes.
Color Schemer Online is an application that will quickly and easily create perfectly matching color schemes. All you do is select a color to start with, and it will immediately output an attractive color scheme.
It also allows you to lighten or darken the scheme simply by pressing a button….one of my favorite features 
ColorBlender is an online tool that will help you to create matching colors and palette designs. Once you’ve have created a color scheme that you like, you can then save it to your computer.
To check out a large gallery of color schemes, go to http://www.colourlovers.com/.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create your very own etch-a-sketch drawing in Photoshop.
Step 1. To begin, find a picture of an etch-a-sketch. You can use the one below if you’d like. Copy the photo into a new Photoshop document.
You will be creating a sketch of spiderman so you must first find a good render of Spiderman. I got mine at PlanetRender
Step 2. Copy this render into a new Photoshop document as well. Make sure the background of the document is transparent.
Step 3. Erase the left side of the background so that the photo now looks like this:
Step 4. Desaturate the render. You can hit Control + Shift + U key to desaturate the photo.
Step 5. Set the foreground color to white (#ffffff) and the background color to #828282.
Step 6. Click on Filter > Sketch > Graphic Pen and apply the following settings:
Step 7. Press Ctrl + A to select everything in the photo. Now copy and paste it onto your
etch-a-sketch photo. Make sure this layer is placed on top.
Step 8. Resize Spiderman (Ctrl+t) so that he fits inside the etch-a-sketch screen.
Step 9. Change the layer mode to linear burn and you’re finished!
Step 1. To begin, open a new document (400px x 300px) with a transparent background.
Step 2. Fill layer 1 with black and rename it “background”.
Step 3. Create a new layer and type the word “Speed”. (white 50pt font) I have used a font called ‘Neuropol’, which can be found here.
Step 4. Rasterize your type before moving on. Make 6 copies of your text layer using Ctrl+J. Move your original copy to the top.
Step 5. Click on the layer just below your original copy. Click on Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply the following settings.
Step 6. Select the layer directly below the one that is currently highlighted. Click on Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply the following settings.
Step 7. Select the layer directly below your current selection. Click on Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings.
Step 8. Select the layer directly below your current selection. Click on Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and apply the following settings.
Step 9. Select the layer directly below your current selection. Select the Custom Shape Tool. Select “Arrow 2″ and place it like the picture below.
Step 10. Copy and paste this shape to the left side of the text.
Step 11. Click on Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply the following settings.
Do the same thing for the left-side arrow.
Step 12. Select the layer directly below your current selection. Click on Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings.
You should now have something that looks like the following.
Step 13. Apply the following blending options.
Step 14. Now let’s add some color. Apply Color + Hue/Saturation (Ctrl + U)
Congratulations! Your final product should like like the preview below…
This tutorial will show you how to create an easy Web 2.0 logo.
Step 1. To begin, open a new document.
Width: 370px
Height: 100px
Background: White
Step 2. Select the Type Tool (T). For this project, I will be using the text “ZanyPixel” as an example. However, you can use the text of your choosing.
At the top of the screen, you will see an area for selecting your font attributes (font, color, size, etc.)
Use the following selections.
Rasterize Type before moving on.
Step 3. Now let’s add a light gray border using the following blending options.
Step 4. Select your text by pressing the Ctrl key while clicking on the Layer containing your text. Use the Eliptical Marquee Tool to make the following selection. Make sure that you have “Intersect with selection” chosen in the options found at the top of the screen.
Fill in this section with the color #f749d8.
Step 5. Now it’s time for the second-half of our text. Select the Text tool and fill in the following attributes.
Directly beside your first word, type “Pixel”. You will probably need to use the
Move Tool (V) to position the text together.
*** Rasterize type before moving on.
Step 6. Right-click on the “Zany” layer and click “Copy layer style”. Right click on the “Pixel” layer and click “Paste layer style”. This copies the border from the Zany text onto your new text.
Step 7. Select your text by pressing the Ctrl key while clicking on the Layer containing your text. Use the Eliptical Marquee Tool to make the following selection. Make sure that you have “Intersect with selection” chosen in the options found at the top of the screen.
Fill in this section with the color #30acde.
Congratulations! You’re finished.
This logo also looks good with a black background.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create your own Web 2.0 layout.
Step 1. To begin, open a new document.
Size: 800 x 700 pixels
Background Color: Transparent
Step 2. Create a new layer and name it header. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, make a selection at the very top of the document that spans the entire width and is about 70px high. You can use Photoshop’s built-in rulers to help (Ctrl+R).
Once you have created your selection, fill it in using any color.
Step 3. Right-click on the “header” layer and select blending options.
You can also access the blending options by clicking on the layer style icon in the bottom left-hand corner and clicking on blending options.
In the styles section on the left, click on Gradient overlay. Apply a gradient overlay using the settings below.
Step 4. Create a new layer. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make a selection
directly under the header. This selection should be about 3 px tall and should span the entire width of the document. Set your foreground color to #67ae1b. Select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill your selection with this green foreground color.
Step 5. At this point we are going to step ahead for just a moment to create the footer because it is basically a duplicate of what we’ve just created. So, select all of the layers in your pallette.
You can do this by holding shift and clicking on both layers. Right-click on one of the layers and click on “Duplicate Layers”. This will create a replica of both layers. While these duplicated layers are still highlighted, right-click on either one and select “Merge Layers”. Name this merged layer “footer”. Move this layer to the very bottom of the document.
Now, transform this layer by clicking Ctrl+t. Right click on the selection and click
“Flip Vertical”. You should now have a nice header and footer in your layout.
Step 6. Ok, it’s time to get back to the header. Create a new layer and name it “Shadow”.
Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, make a selection directly under the green line. Your selection should be about 50px high and should span the entire width of the document. Fill
this selection with white (#FFFFFF). Apply a gradient overlay using the settings below.
Set the opacity of the shadow layer to 80% and the Fill to 30%.
Step 6. Now it’s time for the navigation menu. Create a new layer and call it “Navigation”.
Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool and change the Radius to 25px and the color to white.
Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool to create a navigation menu like the one below.
Rasterize this shape.
Let’s style the menu with some blending options.
Step 7. Now let’s create the content area. Create a new layer and name it “Content”.
Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool, using a radius of 25px and the color white.Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool to create a content area like the one below.
We’re going to use the same style of the navigation menu to the content area. To do this, you need to right-click on the “navigation menu” and select “Copy Layer Style”.Now right-click on the “Content” layer and select “Paste Layer Style”. Your layout should now look similar to the following.
Step 8. Now that you have completed most of the overall design, let’s fill it with some content. First, we’re going to add some links to the navigation menu. BelowI have used Verdana font with a text color of #343d46. The text size is 12px.
Now label the categories with a header that is 18px with font color #aeb0ab.
Step 9. Add a dotted border below each link. To make this dotted line you will need to open a new document.
Size: 2px x 1px
Background: Transparent.
Zoom in 800% using Ctrl and the + key.
Use the Pencil Tool with a 1px brush to draw 1px inside your canvas using the color
#aeb0ab.
Here is how it should look.
Now go to Edit > Define Pattern and name your pattern.
Switch back to your layout area. Create a new layer and call it “dotted line”. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select a 1px selection below your first link.
Select the Paint Bucket Tool and fill the selected area with the pattern you just created.
Copy and paste your dotted line below each link.
Step 10. Now we’re going to add a green arrow beside each link. Click on Custom Shapes and select Arrow 2.
Create a small green arrow beside each link. Create one beside “Link 1″ and then simply
copy and paste your image beside each link. To help align each arrow correctly, you may
want to use the Grid tool (Ctrl+’).
Step 11. Now it’s time for the fun part… the logo! Create a new layer and call it “logo”.
In the top, left-hand corner, you’re going to place some white (#FFFFFF) text. I’ve used 26pt Alba font.
Once you’ve placed your text in the upper left-hand corner, apply some styles using the following blending options.
You should now have a completed Web 2.0 layout that looks like the following.
Congratulations!
In the future, I will be creating Wordpress themes. If you would like me to turn this layout into a Wordpress theme, please say so in the comments.