Brandon Sheley » Websites http://www.brandonsheley.org Sheley Enterprises in Topeka Kansas Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:56:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Proud new owner of Admin Talk – Forum Administrator Support Center http://www.brandonsheley.org/webmaster-forum/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/webmaster-forum/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:53:45 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.brandonsheley.org/?p=2561 I’ve been buying and merging forums now for a little over a year and up until recently I’ve merged all of them into my general forum. I recently picked up a nice little admin forum called Admin Talk as well as a smaller one called AdminGang that was merged into AdminBB last week. I’ve been on the lookout for a nice webmaster site for a while.
My general forum site has a webmaster section but it’ll never take off like a site dedicated to admin stuff. Not to say the general forum isn’t doing well, in fact it’s doing very well as far as I’m concerned. We’re constantly getting new members that are coming on and posting and the spam isn’t bad for our small 3 man team.
I’m really looking forward to this project, and so far with what little I’ve done, the stats are looking great. We’re still in the process of moving it over to my servers. Once that happens and I can make sure everything is secure I’ll really start diving into the site. It already has a link directory running on phpld that’s dedicated to forum listings. I think this is a great opportunity to make my investment back and limit the amount of ads on the forum itself. I’ve had success with phpld link directories in the past and things have only gotten better in the 3 years since I’ve used the script.

Here is a quick screenshot of the stats since I picked up the site, you’ll see the jump halfway through when I added AdminGang and some of our search engine referrals started to pick up. I have several goals for this site. One of them being sub 17,000’s in Alexa and yes I know that Alexa doesn’t mean much but it is a somewhat decent way to measure webmaster type forums. Also my last webmaster forum hit 18,000 so I figured I’d shoot to get lower with this one.

I’m looking forward to the future of this forum, the acquisition has been positive and the members are active.


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/webmaster-forum/feed/ 2 Starting a Free Blogging Network http://www.brandonsheley.org/free-blogging-network/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/free-blogging-network/#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:58:44 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.brandonsheley.org/?p=1832 When I first heard that the 3rd version of WordPress was going to have the option to run the site like WordPressMU use to, I was very excited. I’ve had some experience with networking blogs on one of my first URL’s, Sheley.org had WordPressMU on it for a while. It’s where my original Brandon Sheley blog started, as well as, a blog for wife and a baby site for the family. I also ran dozens of WordPress sites to show off the free WP styles I was giving away at the time. I eventually shut that script down and went straight to WP for those sites, merged some info together and dropped WPMU altogether.

I wanted to start a network back up but had to make sure I had a good URL. I picked up AlienSoup.com from a forum purchase and merged all their forums and members into General-Forums. This is a 10 year old domain and it’s defiantly brand-able, I’m going to give it a new life as a free blogging platform. We already have a few forum members that have picked up their own personal URL and I see some are already getting indexed. I’m going to do everything I can to get all new blogs indexed, the AlienSoup domain already have 10 years of backlinks, I will of course be adding to those in the next few months. I’ve already added a few of my favorite plug-ins, you’re more then welcome to add whatever ones you like through your control panel. I’m going to be scouting some nice themes to add soon, I believe you can also add your own styles through the control panel as well. It’s a pretty nice setup to be honest, I’ve always been a big fan of WordPress and what you can do with it. I’m looking forward to building this network and watching it develop.

If you know of a great plug-in for 3.x that works particularly well with the network feature, please comment and let me know. One of the things I’d like to do is be able to get one RSS feed of all the forums and sites so I could promote that to help get every new post indexed. Another thing I’ll be looking deeply in is social media, I have a working retweet button on all the blogs, I’d like to get a Facebook “like” badge also. I have the wp-greet box enabled on all blogs, this will help with return traffic.

This will be a long project and I don’t expect it to take off overnight, but it’s something I’m not going to give up on. It will be a success sooner rather than later.

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/free-blogging-network/feed/ 0 I’m addicted to vBulletin Forums http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-addiction/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-addiction/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:30:21 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.brandonsheley.org/?p=755 Let’s face it, I’m addicted to vBulletin (3.8)

I couldn’t stay away from the backend of a vBulletin forum for long. With the vBulletin Services that I offer, it’s very helpful to have a site setup to tweak  settings. The dev server wasn’t cutting it and I’m not really fond of vBulletin 4.0.

I’ve always said I wouldn’t start a vBulletin forum without vBSEO, so when a pair came up for sale at a decent price, I had to snag them up. So now I had the script, now what type of forum should I run? Well I’m not interested in another webmaster type forum, I’ve thought about starting several different niche forums but I defiantly don’t have time to manage all that, so I’ve decided to try a “general forums” type forum. Finally it was on to search for a domain; I scanned all over the webmaster forums trying to find a short brand-able .com but wasn’t having any luck. The domain I found has a hyphen it in which I’ve never been fond of, but I think I found a pretty good one considering the site I’ll be running.

I picked up www.General-Forums.com from godaddy.

My plans for this forum are to actually merge several smaller forums into it. I’ve already picked up a small database that has been imported. I’ve put a few bids down on some at digitalpoint, if you know of a quality (no warez or spam) database and/or site, please contact me and send me a link to the auction page.

I’ve been blessed enough that a few people that saw me tweeting about this have offered to help out! I truly have great friends and appreciate every one of you!! If you would like to help than what I would suggest is to register on the forum and shoot me a PM or email and I’ll set you up in the contributors group so you can see the forums as we piece together all the databases.

Once I have a good selection of forums & content put together (shooting for 500K post) and well organized, I’ll open everything up for spiders, guest, and open up public posting for registered users. I’ll than put together an email newsletter to blast out to all the members of the forum. This will be a reminder for everyone across what may be upwards of 20+ sites/databases.

I’m looking forward to seeing this site grow as much as you are.

Do you think it’s wise to start general forums? Would you ever start a forum on such a broad range of topics?


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-addiction/feed/ 12 Social Bookmarking For Dummies http://www.brandonsheley.org/social-bookmarking-for-dummies/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/social-bookmarking-for-dummies/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:48:45 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.brandonsheley.org/?p=592 Social bookmarking has been around for quite some time now. More number of people are resorting to social bookmarking through popular networks – Twitter, Stumble Upon, and Delicious.  So what is social bookmarking? To put in simple words a social bookmark is similar to your book’s bookmark where you keep a placeholder to start reading again the next time you open the same page.

Social bookmarks categories your website based on its niche. You could submit your website on all popular social bookmarking sites based on the categories – Social Media, Business, Websites Updates etc. You may get to choose your site as blog or content management system or any other platform.

Tags, Title and Description of your website are some of the essentials that you would require while marketing your website through social bookmarking sites. It is imperative to note that social bookmarking also draws a sizable amount of traffic on your website. And if you have been wondering how is that possible? The answer is that major search engines including Google and Yahoo are friendly to the bookmarking sites. You can achieve a higher indexing rate if you bookmark, needless to mention that they also act as a source of a back link for your website.

Bookmarking your website is pretty simple and easy. You can explore some of the popular social bookmarking sites by creating an account with them and submitting your website. Within few days you would experience an increase in traffic and better indexing of your content on all major search engines. You are all set to earn through affiliates once you start to get a sizable amount of traffic through bookmarks. So what are you waiting for? Get set going and submit your website or blog to major social networks and start realizing the benefits.


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/social-bookmarking-for-dummies/feed/ 12 Do you Constantly Build Links to Your Sites http://www.brandonsheley.org/constantly-build-links-to-your-sites/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/constantly-build-links-to-your-sites/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:39:11 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://brandon.sheley.org/?p=104 Building backlinks to your websites is something you should always be considering when surfing on the web. You can comment on blogs and forums with links back to your website. You can do article and link directory submissions to build links. You can ask other bloggers to write about you or your services on their blogs. You can also ask your friends to link up to your webpages.

One of the best ways to get linked to is by posting quality content that will naturally be linked back. This is the best way to get links are requires the least about of effort on your part. This is called “Link Bait” marketing. This is because you are “baiting” everyone to link back to your articles without them even knowing that this was your intent the entire time.

The first step when I’m starting off with a new website is social networking, link and article directories. This is one step that can take a bit of time, that’s why I like to use automated software to do the boring work for me, or subcontract it out.

Before any of this, you must SEO your site, make sure the title tags are in place, and that your META info is updated and unique on every page. I could go on and on about how to SEO your website, I’ll wait for another blog post to go on about that.

Keep building those backlinks and quality content, and your websites will be a success.


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/constantly-build-links-to-your-sites/feed/ 8 vBulletin Setup is Releasing Photoshop Tutorials http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-releasing-photoshop-tutorials/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-releasing-photoshop-tutorials/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:36:41 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://brandon.sheley.org/?p=87 I’ve been able to find a guy who can do great Photoshop Tutorials for me over the last few months. It’s been a great addition to my forum, it was lacking some quality graphics content. Here is a book that will teach you how to use photoshop in a day.

Are you confused by most manuals when learning Photoshop?
Do you get frustrated by messy instructions?
Does more jargon make you want to give up?

Photoshop In A Day will save you time and save you effort.
At last, a clear and simple way of learning Photoshop.

You will be able to start immediately with the easy-to-follow tutorials.
The step-by-step instructions give faster learning and more progress.

Imagine working on genuine Photoshop projects within 15 minutes.

Correcting and improving your own photographs can begin in the shortest possible time.

I’ll list off some of the recent photoshop tutorials that I’ve posted in the forum. We are always looking for more, so if you are one of the lucky people to get a hold of this book, please share with us what you’ve done with your new talents.

Blog Templates Tutorial
IGN.com Navigation Interface.

Eco Style Navigation Interface
Futuristic Hologram Design.
How to create a 3D Footer
News Portal Template Design
Gaming Content Box.
Fresh Natural Theme Header
Web 2.0 Header Design

As for my family members that might be reading this, it’s just a blog post to help promote my forum. Currently getting 320,000 hits a month, I’m trying to get it to half a million. :D


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-releasing-photoshop-tutorials/feed/ 0 I've been doining a little cleaning and updating http://www.brandonsheley.org/been-doining-little-cleaning-updating/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/been-doining-little-cleaning-updating/#comments Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:45:52 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/ive-been-doining-a-little-cleaning-and-updating/ If any of you know me from my other websites you’ll notice an overal update on all sites.. I did have 15 domains setup with small turnkey sites on them but they’ve all been parked at sedo.com.
My vbulletin forum is doing pretty well, we’ve even been listed in DMOZ. Thats a pretty good Link Directory to get into if you don’t know.

I just finished the 3/4 part of the class this year.. This next course if going to be aimed at Novell’s eDirectory. Right now, or I should say this week, we’ll be building a mock database as a company would have. I’m really looking forward to it, I’m not as fast of a type as well.. pretty much everyone can type faster then me :( I’m getting better tho, it’s so cool.

For those who had seen my blog post at the vBulletin Blogs will have seen me talk about my wife not feeling well.. Long story short, she had sinus sugery and is about 97% of what she was :)

We had some snow this weekend, it was crazy.. just out of nowhere, 3 inches feel.. I wouldn’t of cared but we had been planning on heading to Emporia for a night out :(

Anyways, all is good overall :)

-BLS


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/been-doining-little-cleaning-updating/feed/ 0 vBulletin Setup has a Page Rank 5 http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-has-a-page-rank-5/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-has-a-page-rank-5/#comments Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:57:36 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/vbulletinsetup-has-a-page-rank-5/ One of my sites that I’ve been spending most of my free time on has picked up some Page Rank from google. The blog ( the main page ) has a Pr 4 and the forum index has a Pr5. I’ve seen that several of the forums and better threads have a Pr4 also. :)

So what does this mean ? well, not much other then its a bit easier to sell advertisment. This couldn’t of came at a better time. If you seen my last blog post then you see I sold a few of my babies. One of the buyers got a great deal as the Pr hadn’t hit when the auction was over. I’m talking with this person and may make a few custom directories just for him.

Anyways, I need to get back to cooking supper, Everyone think of my wife, she is having sinus sugery tomarrow.
-Brandon

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-has-a-page-rank-5/feed/ 7 sold 2 of my link directories to help with the bills http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-link-directories/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-link-directories/#comments Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:59:17 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/sold-2-of-my-link-directories-to-help-with-the-bills/ Hey guys, how have you all been doing ? :)
Well, i ended up selling a few of my top directories that I’ve built. Link2Share.com and Free-Link-Directory.com have passed on to a few great new owners :)

My wife is going to be having sinus surgery next week and that is one reason why i sold those site, To a pay..lol

I’ve also been buying some more domain names and will be devloping them soon. One of my goals for 2007 was to have on average, 100 domains by the end of the year. i’m up to 25-26 now :D

My forum vBulletin Setup hit 1000+ visits in one day this week, the next goal is 2500 a day.

Oh, my school is going well, we should be installing linux soon. Yeah !

Back to work I go,

-Brandon

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-link-directories/feed/ 0 A-Sheley Studio is now using a Blog http://www.brandonsheley.org/alissa-sheley-studio-blog/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/alissa-sheley-studio-blog/#comments Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:41:39 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/a-sheley-studio-is-now-using-a-blog/ I just finished adding a new wordpress blog to my wifes site. A-Sheley Studio I still have a few tweaks that I want to do with the Gallery, but it’s pretty much set.

Well I hope you had a good Christmas, I know I did. My wife and I got some great stuff from the parents and grandparents like usual. We’re getting ready to run done to her grandmothers house tomarrow, then over to a friends house to bring in the new year.

Hope you guys all have a good time and travel safe.

-Brandon Sheley


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/alissa-sheley-studio-blog/feed/ 0 vBulletin Setup wins BOTM in only 3 months http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-wins-botm-in-only-3-months/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-wins-botm-in-only-3-months/#comments Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:03:08 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/vbulletinsetup-wins-botm-in-only-3-months/ Hello guys,

Just want to post a short update of whats going on with me. My newest forum ( vBulletin Setup ) has won the Board of the Month at vBulletin.org and the site is only 3 months old. yeah !

That site is taking off nicely and I’ve had about a dozen jobs just from it. It’s more then paid for itself and will continue to for years to come.

Tonight I moved the last of my sites over to the new host, and on the 6′th I’ll no longer be with allreseller.com, They have been a decent host but the uptime and support is 100times better with my current host ( FluidHosting )  If you decide to use them, please tell them Brandon of Sheley.Org sent ya :D

School is going good, my teacher pointed me at two jobs, one deals with websites and one is fixing computers. So between those two, hopefully I’ll pick something up and then I’ll quit my part time job at the liquor store and do the computer stuff full time.

Alissa had an Art show at the Classic Bean here in Topeka an didn’t sell a thing :( but.. Usually when she has shows there is more importance to the artist, and when there is an opening there is at least a sign that says * featured artist Alissa Sheley * there ppl there didn’t even know we were going to be there on her opening.. She will be showing at New City Cafe` in December. Last year she sold a few pieces at New city, so it should have better results the classic bean. She did however get a lot of good comments about her at at the Bean, just no one bought one.. Oh well, it’s all for fun anyways ;)

I don’t have much time to post here, just wanted to share a small update that I moved all the sites over, that we won the BOTM ( IN ONLY 3 MONTHS ) and that school is going well. :)

See you on the flip side.

-Brandon Sheley

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetup-wins-botm-in-only-3-months/feed/ 4 Still have a few Sites to move http://www.brandonsheley.org/still-have-a-few-sites-to-move/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/still-have-a-few-sites-to-move/#comments Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:40:23 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/still-have-a-few-sites-to-move/ For those who know me online might have heard that I had to bump my hosting up to a better package. I was having way to much "downtime" with my last host, So I had to pay a little more for a better host..

Now the rest is for my family. :)

My grandfather was up last week having a pacemaker put in. Grandma stayed here a few night because we are a few blocks from the VA Hospital. His surgery went as plan and they are back home now resting. Grandpa wasn’t enjoying staying at the hospital at all, and I don’t think he was a good patient..lol Who is when your getting cut open though..

School is still going along great, still holding a strong B as of last week. I have a 15 page term paper that is due next Monday, I have had a month to do it..lol Oh well, I’ll get it done just fine I suspect ;)

I’ve been spending a Lot of time working on my site. As I mentioned I have been switching host because my last one was giving to much unexplained downtime. One of my newest site " vBulletin Setup " has been doing very well.. It has just under 200 users, at just over 2 months old.. Not to shabby :)

I just wanted to make a small update, I have work to get to.. Talk to everyone later and your welcome to post a comment.. I might even answer you.

-Brandon Sheley


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]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/still-have-a-few-sites-to-move/feed/ 4 vBulletin Setup is officially open http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-setup-is-officially-open/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-setup-is-officially-open/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:45:23 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/vbulletin-setup-is-officially-open/ I’m very proud of how well vBulletin Setup is doing. It’s not even two months old and has past 100 members, with almost 1,000 post. I’ve been doing as much work as I can to it, and have picked up a dozen clients since its initial opening. Right now I’m saving up to pay for a 1/2 year or a year of hosting on a high speed server. My host now is good, but this site is growing at a much faster rate then I expected and we need the room. I currently have one of my sites for sate at DP, its my arcade game site, this is to help raise money for the new server, plus I just don’t have time to mess with it.

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletin-setup-is-officially-open/feed/ 4 vBulletin Setup – my latest Project http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetupcom-my-latest-project/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetupcom-my-latest-project/#comments Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:25:18 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/vbulletinsetupcom-my-latest-project/ I’ve registered a new set of url’s vBulletin Setup. It will take me a few weeks to a month to get it setup how I want, but my goal is to make some $ and get new vb clients. So far I’ve found 3 and make a few $’s off them, so I’m hoping this will help me get new clients and keep track of different tweaks and hacks.

Other then that, I turned down a job in Lawrence for the paper, I was only going to be working 15-20 hours a week. After gas and the turnpike with 20 hours a week I’d make a whopping 80$ a week :( So I’m still looking for a job and in the meantime I’m going to work on websites.

I’ve closed locoforum.com down :( it wasn’t making me much $ and I’ll direct all traffic to http://www.locomacheen.com/ after I have it pointed to my new site for a week or two. I might even point it to this blog, I haven’t decided yet.

-Brandon

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/vbulletinsetupcom-my-latest-project/feed/ 2 Sold a Few of my sites, and a job update http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-a-few-of-my-sites-and-a-job-update/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-a-few-of-my-sites-and-a-job-update/#comments Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:31:07 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/sold-a-few-of-my-sites-and-a-job-update/ Well guys I decided to sell a few of my sites to take care of some bills.

I sold 1pxy.com last night and just got the payment for the free-myspace-styles.com this afternoon. I really didn’t want to sell either, but honestly I needed the cash for the house and car, or ya and for food.

I picked up a job this week to build a database for a company here in town, but it was just temp and I’m done with it. So I’m on the hunt again, but I did get a call today from a newspaper in Lawrence, I have an interview Tuesday morning. I think I have the job so that’s cool. It’s only 15-20 hours a week, but the last 2 ppl that had the position have been promoted, so I that’s good. The job is something to do with websites, or placing ad’s in the paper or something. I’ll have more info after Tuesday, the job starts at 5 pm, so I think I’ll be finding another job for during the day.

Anyways, I need to get back to cleaning the house, hope you all have a good weekend. I’m going to try to, we might be going to the parents house this weekend.

cheers

-BLS

]]> http://www.brandonsheley.org/sold-a-few-of-my-sites-and-a-job-update/feed/ 5 trying a new style http://www.brandonsheley.org/trying-a-new-style/ http://www.brandonsheley.org/trying-a-new-style/#comments Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:20:13 +0000 Brandon Sheley http://www.sheley.org/trying-a-new-style/ After searching on support forums and in the back end of this site I finally found out how to change the URL’s to display how I want them, Yeah for me.

I’ve also changed the default style to something a little more to my likings.( don’t know if thats a word )Â I’m not sure I’m going to keep this one but after searching threw 40 pages of styles, I’m ready to stop messing with it for now.

We are having some friends over tonight and I need to get into the kitchen to get things ready. Also I need to run to the liquor store to stock up on drinks..looolz.

So for now, This is all that you get to see. I do have some good ideas for this site. Or at least I think they are good ideas, we’ll both find out I guess.

With that said, I’m signing out for now.

-BLS

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