The Linkbait Generator is here to help you come up with a topic that will sure to grab eyeballs. 

For those of you outside of the blogging circle, let me explain what linkbait is. Linkbait is something posted or written about that people will notice and link back to.  By linking to your site, other sites are saying they value the content of your site and that they think other people will be interested in it, too.

Now the Linkbait Generator might be a little tongue in cheek, but I am going to use it for a while – and see if the headlines really inspire me to come up with the greatest blog post ideas ever created.  Go bookmark it for your own use at: linkbaitgenerator.com.

WooRank is an impressive new web site analysis tool worth singing the praises of.  I have several of these types of online tools bookmarked, and I have written about most of them.  The thing that separates WooRank’s analysis of a domain over any other tool is the plethora of information they provide to you.

After submitting mitchelaneous.com to the site, I found out tons of information I can turn around and use to make my web site even better.  Here are some of the details this online tool provides to you:

• Visitors
• Content
• In-Site SEO
• Home analysis
• Inside analysis
• Website compliance
• Off-Site SEO
• Popularity
• Directories
• Social Media
• Usability
• Website information
• Server
• Domain
• Related websites

WooRank is definitely my new favorite tool to find out how I can make my web sites better.  I got a WooRank of 53.1.  Can you beat me?  Plug your own domain name into WooRank.com and see what score you get.

Are you looking for a way to spark your creative fuse?

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

- E.L. Doctorow

I love to write, and have done so semi-professionally for the past seven years or so.  Sometimes though, a good topic to write about it hard to find, or you might be out of creative muses to inspire you.  That is where the web site Write for Ten comes into play.

This web site serves as a writing sketchbook. Writers from all skill levels and of all types can come any enjoy this resource.  It is handy for a number of reasons.  It can help inspire you with an idea.  It can keep you in writing shape, if you have a hard time finding the time in the day to do so. 

Via the Write for Ten web site, here are several ways you can participate:

• Take ten minutes now and write! Grab a notebook, open a text editor, sign up for an account, or post a blog.
• Write a ten-minute post using the Write for Ten site. Your posts are published at http://writeforten.com/users/username.
• Grab a timer and write a blog post for ten minutes. Add our badges to the bottom of your posts.
• Make a habit of writing everyday. Use this site or your favorite blogging platform (e.g., Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous )
• Tweet your posts with the hash tag #writeforten or #wf10.

This free writing exercise is an excellent way to get over writer’s block. 

Want to join in on the fun?  Point your browser towards writeforten.com.

MindMeister.com – With mobile, offline and online mind mapping tools, this brain storming tool is perfect to mind map with, no matter where you need to do it from.

XMind.net – XMind is the self proclaimed coolest brain storming and mind mapping software package out there.  It does provide a great way to share ideas, and comes in both free and paid for versions.

Mindomo.com – Mindomo lets you organize your ideas, solve everyday problems, plan and track projects, manage tasks and define goals.  One of the better mind mapping tools, and worth the price.

Web.DropMind.com – Collaborate, and share your ideas with others.  This unique mind mapping tool is a little more affordable than the others. You can create FREE mind mapping account in 40 seconds, to test it out too!

Know of any more mind mapping tools, either free or premium, that are worth checking out?  Be sure to leave them in the comments so we can all check them out!

Well, you could spend a lot of money for a program like Photoshop, take hours learning how to create custom banners, fonts and designs, or you could just go to magcover.com.  I’ll let you pick how you would like to spend your Christmas week.

How does it work? With this web site, you can easily create your own unique magazine cover.  All you do is pick your photo, edit your headlines and you are ready to go.  There are over 100 magazine templates to choose from – so the only thing limiting you is your imagination.

You can also get your custom magazine covers printed, framed or put on a shirt.  Might be too late to create one for Christmas this year – but might come in handy for your egotistical friend’s birthday.  To create your own magazine cover, go visit magcover.com.

Once you load the tools up, you can pick from a number of different template designs, or browse through some of the most popular ones.  Then all you do is pick a color, change it – then move onto the next.  The entire thing is a very zen-like experience.  Well, it is if you were ever into coloring as a kid.

Here is a little ‘bit more about the tool from the developers:

Use themeleon to customize the way Twitter looks for you and how your profile looks to others. Use any of the more than 685,085 background patterns & 1,043,054 color palettes on COLOURlovers or customize any of the colors or patterns to get just the right design for you.

Here is what I was able to do with my own Twitter page after just a few minutes of playing with the Twitter design tools:

You know, you can always come tweet with me @mitchkeeler, anytime!

Go color your own Twitter page over at the Twitter Profile Designer, and leave me a comment if you are impressed!  Would love to see what design you come up with using this Twitter designer toolkit.

Need to share a screencast in a hurry?  Have a Twitter account?  Screenr will help you create and share your own mini tutorials from your desktop with the world.  The benefit here is that you can use a web-based recorder, on Macs or PCs to share how to do something or how something might look.

Here is the video tutorial I created, while testing out the service:

Screenr is simply the easiest of the online desktop screen capture solutions out there to use. All you have to do is hit the record button, choose the size you want to record and start capturing.  While I did not, you can also record a video track if you want to do commentary as you record. I like the fact that you can also download the video (as a .mp4 file) or publish to YouTube too.  I wish the video screen was a ‘bit more customizable, but hopefully that will be a feature to come in the future.

Once you are ready to publish, you can instantly share it on Twitter – or wait, and publish it elsewhere first.  You can tell the target for this tool is to be another Twitter companion, however you don’t have to use it that way if you don’t want to.  The developers have kept that part of the equation very free and open.

When push comes to shove, I could see myself using this tool again to create more quick tutorials.  Screenr is simple, to the point, and doesn’t waste your time with fluff.

Far from being just another off topic service, in a world filled with them, the new Web Hosting Show Coupons and Deals page will deliver, and impress you.  This was a quick project I cooked up over the weekend, to better serve the public at large by delivering a better way to keep track of the latest coupons, deals and special offers from the entire web hosting world out there.

Point your browser towards: http://www.webhostingshow.com/coupons/

Once you navigate yourself to the web site, you can browse through 15 of the most recent offers that have been featured, as well as get a little description of what the offer is all about.  Then I try to link back to the source, so you can get instant gratification in the quickest way possible.

Want more web hosting coupons and deals? You can follow the Web Hosting Show’s coupons and deals on Twitter @whscoupons too.  The third content delivery method you have is the RSS feed, which you can subscribe to – to have all the deals streamed to you for free, into your favorite news reader of choice.

• Follow @whscoupons on Twitter!
• Subscribe via RSS to our Hosting Coupons!

Are you a web host? Good!  I need your help too.  Just like the Web Hosting Show podcast itself, I am looking to serve both the web hosts and the web hosting clients with this tool. Want to see your own special web hosting coupons and deals listed here? Contact me, with your web hosting special, coupon or offer and I will get it listed with the rest. For more on what went into building this new coupon tool, I would suggest you listen to podcast 198 of the Web Hosting Show where I go into a little more detail.

Having a timer can come in handy for all types of jobs.  Lets say you wanted to work on your novel for just one hour a day, or perhaps you needed to get up from the computer a stretch a little bit every 30 minutes?  The online tool, e.ggtimer.com is perfect for that.

An egg timer, for those who have never heard of such a device, is something that’s function is to measure a set amount of time.  Where do eggs come into the picture?  It is most commonly used to aid in cooking an egg in water.  What e.ggtimer.com does is it brings that classic idea to the Web.

The web site’s interface is simple.  In the text box, you simply enter your time you want to set it for, and hit the go button.  You can also set the time by typing in the time into the address bar, such as:

• http://e.ggtimer.com/2minutes
• http://e.ggtimer.com/1hour14minutes35seconds
• http://e.ggtimer.com/5years3months
• http://e.ggtimer.com/30 (when you just put a number it assumes seconds)

When the time is up, it will make a “dinging” noise to let you know your time is up. Filed in the bookmarks where I keep my other simple web application I love, e.ggtimer.com is possibly the best online timer around.

There are many services out there that offer widgets you can embed into your own web site layouts.  How do you know which ones are the best?  Well, I am not an expert. Since this is the Internet though, I can pretend.

Here are my top 10 favorite widget related web sites.

Widgetbox – Tons of free widgets to put on your site.

LinkWithin – Post related stories and thumbnails on your web site.

ShoutMix – Free shoutbox/tagboard chat widget.

Wowzio – A lot of random widgets to choose from here.

SpringWidgets – Web site tools for blogs and social networks.

YourMinis – Widgets for your blog, website, start page, and desktop!

Monitter – Real time live Twitter watch and badge creator.

Widgipedia – Your ultimate web site widget resource.

Widgiland – A social network based around awesome widget production.

FeedWind – The free online feed widget.

Know of another great place to grab online widgets or tools for your web site?  Drop in a comment and let us know.  I’m looking for the best of the best in online tools, embeddable items or fun sidebar distractions.