Pep Talk

I recently took a trip down memory lane when I came across a free online games site by chance. I am now in my forties and playing video games is not really my ‘thing’ any more. But whilst I was doing some research for a software developer I happened upon one of the many games sites now available online.

I was amazed at the variety of free games now available to the consumer. Its a far cry from the first games when your only choice was table - tennis or ‘Pong’ as it was called. You did have a choice, you could play single or doubles! Its no wonder that when ‘Space Invaders’ came out in 1980 that it was such a big hit. Saying that, not even I remember the very first games which are documented as being conceived at MIT in 1961. ‘Spacewars’ as it was called was a computing exercise at the time and it would be twenty years before the full extent of the commercialism of games would be realized.

We have, of course, been playing games for centuries. The first recorded games of note were the Olympiads of Ancient Greece. Thought to date back to before the records show, the first games started in 776 B.C. and took place every four years for nearly 1200 years until Theodosius I, a Christian roman emperor abolished them. It would take 1500 years before they would be revived again and the first modern olympics would take place in Athens, Greece in 1896 as homage to the original founders.

The playing of games though may be traced back even further than the Olympics. There is a more primal issue at work involved in the playing of games. It can be related to tribal behaviour in the earliest forms of man where competition for dominance and leadership of the tribe were fought out in competition. Even earlier than this and more primeval is the very nature of evolution and the need to reproduce. The expression ‘Survival of the fittest’ can be as easily attributed to gaming as it can to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. The winner takes all mentality is ingrained in all of us from birth as part of our genetic make-up.

So it is not surprising that with the coming of the computer age that mans innate need to satisfy the desire for competition has found a new horizon on the internet. Free online games can now be found to meet all genres of sport. Whilst there may be concern for the hours that our children spend playing such games, it is not surprising as they are just finding the most accessible form of playing out their most basic of instincts.

The gaming business has come along way from the early days of invention at MIT. It matured through the console wars when the big players such as Nintendo and Sony did battle with Microsoft and X-Box. The future, as with most industries today, lies with the development of the internet and the integration of the computer into our televisions and phones and who knows where else. What we can be sure of though, is that wherever the evolution of gaming ends up, our most primal of instinct will be there forcing us to compete. So in the best tradition of the Olympiads, Let the games begin!

About the Author

For the best in free games online. You can find all categories of games to play at net games

There are literally millions of holiday home owners now advertising on the internet. Some people set up their own website and just sit back and hope that they will be found by prospective holidaymakers looking for their vacation property. After a while they start to realize that there is a little more to getting seen on the internet than just creating a website.

The next step for most is using one of the myriad of advertising sites to create a listing. With many of these they are attractive to look at and after about an hour of work you have a respectable listing showing your vacation property or villa in its best light. Once again they sit back and wait for the inquiries to pour in. Once again they are disappointed.

The fact is there are several things you should do if you are a villa or apartment owner if you want your property to be seen on the internet. One of the things not to do, is to sit back and think that things will happen all by themselves.

As a quick guide to getting your property seen on the internet, we will fore-go the setting up of your own website. If you are a novice at things such as SEO, (if you dont know what SEO stands for then your a novice!) and move straight onto where to list your property and how to get your listing seen by the most people.

The first thing is to choose the site to advertise your rental with. There are many ways to do this but I recommend two fairly standard procedures to follow.First make a list of all the keyword search phrases that you would use if you were looking for a villa to rent in its location. A keyword phrase is the words or phrases that you would type into the search box if you were a holidaymaker looking to book a rental.

For example if I had a villa in Moraira, Costa Blanca, Spain I might come up with a list that included the search terms, Moraira, Moraira villa to rent, holiday villa in Moraira, Moraira villa rentals etc. Make the list as long as you can and even ask a friend or two to repeat the exercise. Remember to include general terms as well. Sometimes these can be the most search phrases that actually get the most traffic. For the example above, the top searched terms include, villa rentals spain and villa rental Spain, Spain rentals and rentals Spain. Once you have made your list, put it to one side because you will need it later.

Now you will need to use some tools that will show you where people actually search and in what volume. The key to successful advertising is getting the maximum number of visitors to your listing page. This is best done by first using a site that receives a lot of traffic for the type of property and the area you are renting in. The best single tool to use is the Google Keyword tool. To find it just type ‘Google keyword tool’ into your Google search.

here you will be able to type in some keyword search phrases from your list to find out where people actually search. The tool will give you the terms with the most volume on average and the volume for the previous month. Start working through your list of general and more specific terms ranking them in terms of actual search volume. You should then end up with a list for the most searched terms by volume for the highest traffic general terms as well as your localized search terms.

Now go to Google and type in the highest traffic terms. make a note of the websites that appear on the first page results for each term. What you are ideally looking for are the websites that cover not only the high volume general terms, but also rank well for your local keyword searches. Once you have been down the list you should start to see a pattern of which sites rank well in all areas. If not, then look to split your advertising between a mixture of sites that provide high traffic and those that provide more localized result rankings. Remember to avoid the Pay per click sites that advertise at the top and bottom of the page and down the right hand margin. These sites pay a fee to advertise on Page 1 of the results page. If their advertising budget runs out then so does the traffic to the site. The organic results are most likely to give you stable traffic in the long term.

You should now have a list of maybe half a dozen potential websites to choose from. To decide which ones to choose will depend on a number of different factors that will be covered later.

About the Author

Neil Ebsworth is the founder of AMLASpain, the Spanish MLS for property Spain and holiday rentals Spain