This is already the 2nd roundup of the MIC competition. And I’m glad to announce the winners…

Pay your attention, that I have written all the counted votes separately. It shows how many votes you got per certain posts.

Winners of MIC in February, 2010

1. Ileane – 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1

   She won again! I guess, that until I run this contest, her banner will be shining on my blog :)

   Ileane, I have already reviewed you once :) What if this time you would have written some special guest post for me instead of a review?

2. Kiesha – 2, 2

   Kiesha is a great discovery this time! She is beautiful, thankful, kind and very smart blogger :) Looking for more of your comments, Kiesha!

3. Imran Yousaf – 3

   Imran has commented only once on my blog, but he got 3 votes for it. And though there are other commenters having a total of 3 votes, I decided, that Imran deserves to take the 3rd place, because of the ratio (made comments/votes for comments).

Other great participants, commenters and excellent bloggers

Commenters, who got also 3 votes:

• ppo – 1, 1, 1
• element321 – 1, 1, 1
• Tom – 1, 2

Commenters, who got 2 votes:

• Thebondgurl – 2
• Hesham – 1, 1

Commenters, who got 1 vote:

• Ari Herzog – 1
• Arun Basil Lal – 1
• chandan – 1
• Dragon Blogger – 1
• Fazreen – 1
• James M. – 1
• Jeffrey – 1
• Jimi Jones – 1
• Henri Junttila – 1
• Keith – 1
• Kissie – 1
• Lee Ka Hoong – 1
• Marko – 1
• Ralf – 1
• Rose – 1
• Selurus – 1
• Shirley – 1
• Simon – 1
• tech money – 1
• Tycoon Blogger – 1

Special attention to her:

jess – 1

She left one nice comment, but not included her website.. Too sad, isn’t it?

Vote for each other

I know that for most of you this contest means nothing and you don’t take it seriously. But is that too hard to vote for good comments? You, actually, express your opinion this way, and it makes other people pay attention at good and helpful comments. And what I also believe in is that all made good things.. even the smallest ones.. somehow, somewhere will come back to you, just like a boomerang.

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Video Dessert: «Dramatic Lemur»

A very relative video dessert this time:) This lemur is amazed by the winners, you can see it in his eyes!

Thanks to Ileane, I’m writing this post because of her recent question: How many it takes to make up “too many”?

This is highly important question, because I see there so many blogs overfulled with plugins, that make page load time up to 30-40 seconds. It is impossible to call such page load time acceptable.

According to the current topic, acceptable page load time is no more, than 7 seconds. It is too controversial though, but, let’s say, it is fair enough as well.

Why?

The Rule of «7 Seconds»

I have found this rule on webmasters’ forum under the topic: How many page loading seconds are acceptable?

The guy says:

My rule of thumb is that you have 7 seconds to sell a prospect that they have reached a page of interest to them. You don’t have to make a sale in 7 seconds, you just have 7 seconds to keep them for a while longer.
Here is the skinny, if your initial page takes 6 seconds to load, you have 1 second of selling time. If your initial page takes 1 second or less to load you have 6-7 seconds of selling time.

This is a good point to start from. Though, aim to decrease you page load time. Less, than 7 seconds would be acceptable enough.

Visitor’s Internet Connection Speed Also Matters

Plus – do not forget about the visitors’ Internet connection speeds.

If you have a speedy connection, then multiply your blog’s page load time twice. You will get the result of the page load time of those users, who have Internet connection twice slower.

Now take a look at the map of «Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World»

You can easily see, that U.S.A. has relatively slow average Internet connection speed, which means there is almost nothing to worry about for U.S. users. I mean that if you are from U.S.A. you can focus on yourself, when you want to optimize site’s page load time.

Detect & Optimize Page Load Time Using Only 2 Tools

I am speaking about Mozilla Firefox’s plugin «FireBug» and the great web service «WooRank».

Using WooRank to detect your site’s page load time:

This web service is extremely easy to use. But all you can do is to check your SEO details, including site speed. Although, it will give you the main idea whether you need to improve or to optimize anything or not.

1. Just type in your website’s domain name – e.g. example.com.

2. Follow the simple instructions:

Note: WooRank shows the time, when your page loads enough to read. But that’s not enough at the same time. There is always some extra time you should consider as well.

Using FireBug to detect and omptimize page load time:

Now this tool is the one you should be always using. It seems to be the best one for webmasters and bloggers, who want to achieve success in SEO.

Using FireBug you can detect:

1. Which scripts and plugins load time is not acceptable;
2. Which images take a lot of time to load;
3. What works well;
4. Compare performance of cached pages and pages without cache;

That’s it. No other tools or web services needed.

Acceptable Page Load Time Depends on the Type of Web Traffic

Yeap, your traffic vary by age, gender, character, profession etc. You can use Alexa’s service to analyze your site’s audience demographics. It will give you the approximate idea of what page load time you need.

In any case, the less – the best.

PS! Take a look also at these 2 articles on page load time and its optimization topics: Acceptable Response Times, Let’s Make the Web Faster – Google Code

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Video Dessert: «Phax amazing! – Slow motion»

Amazing Phax performs the unbelievable slow motion effect.. or dance.. or moves.. or emotions. Just watch this:

Today I’d like to introduce you to the great blogger (or if to say better – the bloggeress), Ileane Smith, who is also known as Ms. Ileane Speaks.

She won the «Most Influential Commenter» competition in January, so it’s time to make a review of her outstanding blogging way and her ways of getting web traffic.

Before I begin, I’d like to add also, that what I’m going to speak about next, is written with all my respect and sincerity. It’s not just because of the prize for the competition, it’s not just because I promised to write a review for the winner. It’s about the reason to write about her. And I’m glad, that the winner is Ileane Smith. So, let’s look at the way Ms. Ileane is blogging and getting visitors to her blogs.

First of all, Ileane Smith is an extraordinary multi-tasker. I hope it doesn’t sound bad, because I think of it, as of a really positive factor.

Where you can find her?

I know 5 main blogs, that she has.

1. msileanesblog.blogspot.com – The one I like the most. The atmosphere of this blog makes you relax.. somehow.. and find the way.

   Oh.. and how she describes it:

   Need help choosing between wordpress.com and blogger for your free blog? I’m MS. Ileane the blog queen with the pros and cons of blogger and wordpress to help solve the mystery.

2. ileane.wordpress.com – This is probably her #1 blog. Ileane shares there everything she learns about blogging and social media, creating interesting podcasts.

   You can find out a little bit more about this blog on her about page.

3. bloggingwire.com/msileanespeaks – Speaking about this blog, I can say, that it was created as symbol of engaging with BlogEngage blogging community, where Ileane takes very important role.

4. bloggingwire.com/podcast – This one’s her latest blog. It’s about Ileane’s favorite topic – podcasts.

5. msileanespeaks.posterous.com – If you want to know about Ms. Ileane a little bit more, you should check this blog. It’s about her achievements and places, where she was mentioned.

Well, not bad, huh? I cannot imagine, where she finds the time for them all, but she definitely does, and all of these blogs bring her very nice amount of traffic!

Why Ms. Ileane differs from other bloggers?

She, actually, absorbs social media trends. What’s so special? Well, you can do that as well for some time. But it will take a huge peace of your energy. Not everyone can handle it. She’s the one, who can. And I really admire her from this point.

By this moment we know, that Ileane is the podcaster and the social media follower. Did I mention, that she comments a lot and engages with other bloggers.. very successfully? It must be like this because of her passion for blogging and for being a part of blogosphere, which is crucial for achieving success. Within the last month she deserved (yes!) several banner spots on various blogs. And it’s not about being lucky. I think people simply love her, because of her openness to everybody.

Did I explain her way of getting web traffic?

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Video Dessert: «Funniest kid ever!»

This kid gets the worst case of stage fright ever. You gotta love him!

The results of MIC competition for January:

1. Ileane (23) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 8 (3 times voted at BlogEngage + 1 retweet); Points for submission: 5 (1 digg submission);
2. ppo (20) – Points for starred comments: 20; Points for voting: 0;
3. Jordan Cooper (18) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 8 (2 times voted at BlogEngage + 2 retweets);
4. Karl Foxley (14) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 4 (2 times voted at BlogEngage);
5. Suresh Khanal (12) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 2 (1 digg);
6. Henri Junttila (12) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 2 (1 retweet);
7. chandan (10) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 0;
8. binit (10) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 0;
9. Abdul Akbar Banwa (10) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 0;
10. Justin Fiores (10) – Points for starred comments: 10; Points for voting: 0;

Several words

Thanks to everyone for good comments. It’s my great pleasure to read your thoughts and opinions.

I also bet, that some of you didn’t expect te be listed here, but you are :) I hope you don’t mind and looking forward to your future comments, votes and submissions.

Tips to Get More Points

1. Just share you thoughts and opinions in comments – this is the most right way to get your comment starred.
2. If you wish to get points for submissions or voting – just leave you profile names in the end of comments, so I could know, that those were your votes or submissions. Sometimes it’s rather hard to identify you, because your nicknames differ. Demand points – they truly belong to you! :)
3. Submission is counted only if it has unique title, unique description and the right category.
4. Sites (that I count) for submitting posts are now: Digg, BlogEngage, Sphinn and plus 1 more – Mixx; You get 5 points for the submitted post;
5. If you submit one of my posts, just let me know (through the contact form, twitter, or a comment) about the link!
6. Learn more about the MIC competition.

Winners Get…

• Ileane – #1: Gets free 125-125 banner place for a month, review of her blog, highlighted comments during February and #1 position on the home page;
• ppo – #2: Gets #2 position on the home page;
• Jordan Cooper – #3: Gets #3 position on the home page;

More details – on the MIC competition page.

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As for the prizes.. All of them will be active by tomorrow :)

When is the next MIC competition?

Actually, it has already started :). Remember, that only comments made for the latest post are counted (submissions and votes too). Good luck!