by admin on June 21, 2009
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A nonprofit contacted me about helping them with SEO on their redesign, and I thought how wise they were to consider SEO before they start designing the site. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a list of a few SEO-related items to consider before, and during, your site redesign.
- Use Clean Code: Be sure to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to reduce redundancy of code on your website. With CSS, you can easily indicate your color preferences of H tags or regular text without having to code each block of text in the HTML code. Using clean code also means placing your content at the top of the HTML code as opposed to placing it under a graphic or flash file. A designer or coder should understand this. =-)
- Do Your Keyword Research: Using a tool such as the Google Keyword Research Tool, figure out your target keywords. If possible, you want to select low competition and high traffic phrases.
- Write for People and Search Engines: You want crisp, clean copy that speaks to your audience and keeps Googlebot happy. Use your target key phrases in a natural way in the first paragraph and headlines and as links, when possible, to other pages on your site.
- Think Usability: Usability and SEO go hand in hand. Both Googlebot and humans need to navigate your site. I’ve found it useful to write potential website sections on index cards or post-its and place them on a wall. Subsections can go underneath. The index cards allow you to move the potential sections around to see where they best fit. In addition, use a site map. Google Webmaster Tools provides you with a handy XML sitemap you can place on your site.
Beth Bates offers additional tips on what to consider during a redesign.
by admin on June 15, 2009
Kristen King, Mayra Ruiz-McPherson and Beth J. Bates at the American Independent Writers Conference 2009
Kristen King (@kristenking) moderated our panel on blogging and had a host of excellent questions up her sleeve to keep the panel moving along while getting the most from each panelist’s expertise. One of the big questions was: “Can you really make money online with blogging?”
Thursday Bram pointed out that she’d been making a full-time living with blogging for about four years. She said she’d talked to people in journalism and found she was making more than her colleagues still employed full-time for one company.
Deborah Ager and Kristen King prepare for the panel
Hot Blogging and Freelancing Tips
Thursday Bram (@thursdaybram) discussed blogging for b5media and copyright issues. If your online writing is stolen, tell Google. If you file a valid complaint, Google will often shut down the thief’s website. Bram shared a resource called Help a Reporter Out, which will help you get in touch with contacts when you’re writing a blog post.
Mayra Ruiz-McPherson (@marketingmisfit) discussed how an online writer has only seconds to capture a reader’s interest and suggested using photos to attract and retain readership.
Beth J. Bates discussed how much she’d learned about blogging by starting to do it herself. I think she’s put herself through an admirable crash course, which is what entrepreneurs often do!
The Other Big Question
The other big question was “does blogging count as real writing?” Kristen King mentioned that she overheard someone say that blogging did not count as “real” writing, and she stepped in to say that it did. Everyone on the panel agreed that blogging counts.
I pointed out that online publication is not 100% accepted as “real” publication, because there are still people who prefer to appear in print and the National Endowment for the Arts requests fellowship applicants to use no more than a certain number of online publications in their application. Bloggers and the writing on blogs doesn’t yet have complete acceptance; I think it will over time.
Thursday Bram, Deborah Ager, Beth J Bates and Mayra Ruiz-McPherson at AIW Conference
Mayra Ruiz-McPherson graciously said we could use her photos from the event. All credit goes to her.
by admin on June 11, 2009
by emdot from flickr, used under creative commons
One of the books I turn to again and again is
The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. Twist is a fundraiser, speaker, and author and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and trained thousands of fundraisers to be more effective. She is one of my heroes.
From her website:
Lynne has spent more than three decades working in positions of leadership with many global initiatives including: ending world hunger, protecting the world’s rain forests, empowering indigenous peoples, improving health, economic, and political conditions for women and children, advancing the scientific understanding of human consciousness, and creating a sustainable future for all life.
When I read a blog post this morning (It’s Not Necessarily Who You Know) by DC-area WordCamp organizer Aaron Brazell, I was reminded of a point in Twist’s book regarding collaboration.
Collaboration Creates Prosperity
You could just as easily say: “Partnership creates prosperity.”
If you are looking for a job and work with a recruiter, you and the recruiter have the opportunity to create prosperity. If you have the skills and interview well, you could get a job and the recruiter could get a fee. Everyone wins. If you know a lot of technical information and have no design skills, a partnership with a designer could prove beneficial. Again, everyone wins.
You get the point.
In The Soul of Money, Twist says:
‘Philanthropy is not just for rich people who feel magnanimous, guilty or embarrassed about having more than they need…
We have an opportunity now to retire traditional charity as we’ve known it, and in its place create partnerships in which a shared vision is realized through solidarity and the collaboration of know-how, hard work, and cash resources. This is the new philanthropy, contribution and service in collaboration. When you are in that space, that place, problems dissolve, miracles abound.’
What do we need to succeed in a collaborative partnership?
1. Know how
2. Hard work
3. Cash resources
Although Twist discusses this idea in terms of fundraising and philanthropy, the idea applies to business. Take your good idea. See who you know. Look inside yourself. Outline your passions and aspiration. What do you want to create?
At WordCamp Mid Atlantic, I attended an excellent presentation by Sri Nagubandi and John Shehata on SEO for WordPress blogs. Those of you who know me well know that I’ve been a fan of using WordPress as a content management system and as a way to gain traction in the search engines for years. I often had the sense people thought I was nuts, and they would ask me why they would want a blog as a website. I can’t blame them, because back then there were not that many instances of a website (not a blog) being run on WordPress. Now, we can find superb examples of using WordPress as a CMS if we know where to look. At times, you can’t even tell a site is running WordPress! They certainly do not have to look like blogs. [click to continue…]
I had the pleasure of writing an article for the Network Solutions Women Grow Business blog. Jill Foster is the editor of this educational blog geared towards business owners. I highly suggest you visit Women Grow Business and read through the articles. Jill has found a number of entrepreneurs to share their take on business building, entrepreneurship, lay offs and team work.
This month, I wrote about SEO techniques you can use to help people find your content and gain more traction in search engines. You’ll get to read a search engine optimization case study in which I let you know how I helped a company attain top two Google rankings. The result? Read the article, please. Did you think I was going to spoil the ending?
To get high rankings with your blog, you have to write articles. The search engines — those darling robots — are hungry creatures. They hunger for your blog content. If you are using SEO copywriting techniques, the robots will be able to “read” your content and classify it properly.
First, though, an article must be written. The actual writing of the article is often the most difficult part for people.
When it comes to writing, I notice that procrastination takes up the most time. We talk about writing blog posts when we could be sitting down and finishing our blog post in the amount of time we spent saying we have no time to write one. Okay, maybe it takes slightly less time to say we have no time than it does to write one. [click to continue…]
Several clients have mentioned how they tried to use Google AdWords and lost a lot of money. Losing the money has turned at least a few off to using AdWords in the near future, and that removes one potential method for them attracting new clients. As a result of these conversations, I thought I’d put together a tiny guide to using Google AdWords. This will by no means teach you all you need to know about PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, but it will steer you away from some of the more common AdWords mistakes I’ve seen people make. [click to continue…]
When the topic of social media is raised, a comment I often hear is that social media takes up too much time. People want to know how to keep social media from becoming a time suck; it definitely can become a time management nightmare if you’re not careful.
I take a few steps to ensure that I’m not spending 99% of my time uploading photos to Facebook and Twittering with all of the interesting people on Twitter.
- Limit Yourself: Choose a certain amount of time each day you’ll spend on social media. You might choose to spend 30 minutes to an hour each morning. I know one person who Twitters from his car while his daughters are in dance class.
- Pick Your Platform: Another comment I’ve heard from dozens of people is that they don’t know which platform to start with first. Focus is the key. I ignore Plaxo requests at present. I avoid MySpace. I use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. That’s about what I can manage right now.
- Give Up Something Else: If you need, and want, to find 30 minutes to an hour to use social media for your business, then I suggest giving up something else. For instance, I don’t text and I only rarely IM. I used to be able to say I watched no television; then, I discovered Hugh Laurie on House. When I watched no television, I had oodles more time.
A few years ago I read Dan Kenndy’s No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, which helps you see where time is wasted so you can get more time out of your day.
Kennedy suggests turning off the phone, running errands and commuting to work at off-peak times, limiting email, and limiting meetings. Instead, return all calls at the same time, respond to email all at the same time, etc. Batch processing tasks saves you from being interrupted and an interruption can cost you 5 minutes several times a day, which can quickly add up to an hour.
After reading Kennedy’s book, I listened to an educational CD in my car and it perfectly filled a 20-minute ride. When I worked for another company, I arranged to work from home a few days a week; that saved me four hours. My to-do list keeps me on track and means I’m not having to waste time remembering what I need to accomplish each day.
Easy-to-lose items, like keys, are kept in the proper place so I know where to find them (instead of wasting 5-20 minutes searching like I did before).
One suggestion in the book is to link all of your tasks to your overall life goals. Then, you can ask yourself if you are making the best use of your time in this moment. Sure, we’ll goof off sometimes. However, we also want to make time for what’s important to us.
Last night, I had the pleasure of organizing and attending DC Web Women’s Social Media Extravaganza with five DC-area social media strategists — Mayra Ruiz-McPherson, Beth J. Bates, Jill Foster, Jen Consalvo, and Terri Holley — presenting on a variety of social media subjects at TRAK Staffing in Washington, DC. An additional bit of excitement was the motorcade for the Pakistani and Afghani presidents that rumbled by at 18 and I Streets, NW and delayed a few participants.
These are notes. As such, the writing is a bit choppy as I chose to take notes the old-fashioned way — with a pen and paper!
Used with permission from Jen Consalvo
Jill Foster took the stage first and said social media is the “relationship fertilizer business.” Her goal for every tool she’s used to promote the Women Grow Business blog for Network Solutions has been to develop a long-term community as opposed to making an immediate sale. She said she found posting a question on LinkedIn to provide a “massive, immediate” response. She found Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook helpful in promoting and connecting with her communities on this project.
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I’ve been blogging for more than five years and have bought multiple WordPress themes (aka designs) and used countless free themes. Although I liked many of them, none provided easy code and design customization and stellar support until I found the Thesis WordPress Theme.
I’ve been using this theme for several months as part of a content management solution for websites and to run blogs, and I can say I’ve found the theme I’ll use for the rest of my blogging days.
Why is the Thesis WordPress Theme so Great?
- Support: When you buy Thesis, you are able to join a community of Thesis users who offer you answers and suggestions on how to use Thesis better to manage your website and achieve your goals. An additional plus is that you can see how other people are using the theme and get ideas and inspiration.
- Design Freedom: Thesis comes out of the box looking plain ‘vanilla’ yet attractive. If you had to do so, you could use Thesis without graphics. Most people don’t want to do that, so it’s good news that Thesis can be customized with graphics and color changes. With a few edits to a ‘custom’ file, I can change the background and outline colors of my theme and change how my header navigation looks. I love this feature because I can see how a variety of options look before making my final decision. If I change my mind, it’s easy to make a site-wide change.
- Creating Pages: When you create pages, they are not automatically placed into your site navigation as they are in other themes. Since you might want to create pages that don’t appear in your overall site navigation, this is quite handy. If you do want a page to appear, you check a box and you’re done.
- Multimedia Box: With this box, you can insert video, a photo, or a series of rotating photos or even advertising. What makes this remarkable is that your multimedia can be changed page by page and even post by post. If you write a post about Thesis, this one for instance, you can include a related graphic of link to an affiliate program on the same page. (To see an example of this, be sure you click on the title of this post.) It makes so much sense that you would tailor your ads based on what the visitor wants to see. Brilliant!
- Search Engine Optimization: For my small business clients, this theme is attractive because it makes optimizing a blog post simple. A few input boxes allow you to add meta tags, a description and a custom title tag.
I’m wondering if this theme can wash my car, too.
Are there drawbacks? Yes. If you know absolutely nothing about PHP or CSS and don’t want to learn, then you’ll want to get some help. That’s where the helpful support forum comes into play. You can ask any question about Thesis and receive a reply rather quickly. I’ve always received a reply within 24 hours — often less.
To make the most of the design modifications, you’ll want to make some modifications to the code. The good news is that you can find cut-and-paste code on blogs related to Thesis, and these posts show up when you put your question into Google. I’m far from a PHP programmer, yet I’ve done fine with adding code to customize my sites.
I encourage you to look into getting this theme. If you already use it, please let me know what you think about it in the comments.
When I spoke to a group of small business owners about starting blogs, many of them wanted to know more about WordPress. I’m always happy to discuss using WordPress as a content management system. When I told them that they could use a free piece of code to continue updating their blog while they travel on business or vacation, their eyes lit up. If you’re already a WordPress user, then you know that this piece of code is called a “plugin.” This group wanted to know the best WordPress Plugins.
Below are seven plugins I use now or have used in the past.
[click to continue…]
by admin on April 14, 2009
WordPress (WP) is one of the best content management systems out there, and one reason has to do with its price. It’s open source and free.
Not everyone who visits this site is a tech geek, so I’ll explain that “open source” means software, developed by programming volunteers, that people can use for free.
Now on to the reasons why I think you should at least consider using WordPress to run your website:
[click to continue…]
by admin on March 20, 2008
Lately, I’ve had people asking me questions about the meta keyword tag. It’s dead. It’s been dead for years, yet I have a hard time getting this across to people.
Back in the old days of the web, the search algorithms were simple and the meta keyword tag was offered as a way for webmasters to let search engines know what their site was about.
It was simple. People liked meta tags, and they were easy to fill in with related data.
Unfortunately, spammers took advantage and started stuffing the keyword tag with unrelated words that they thought people would search for on the internet. If they thought people would search for “healthy hair,” then they would add that into their keyword tags even if their site was really about cars.
Spammers sometimes want traffic even if it’s junk traffic. I have no idea how this really helps their sites. To each his or her own.
What do you use instead?
Instead, you can start by become an SEO expert, writing stellar content or hiring an SEO copywriter. Content is king, my friends, and it’s hard to go wrong with quality content that people want to read.
by admin on February 12, 2008
This is part two of my article on becoming a SEO expert. You can read part one of this SEO Education series first if you want.
By spending time in online marketing forums, you may find you absorb a lot more search engine optimization (SEO) information than you realize. When I joined my first tech forum, I was baffled by the techie language. Within a few months, I could hardly believe I’d ever not understood what they were talking about.
This article shares seven SEO forums and two excellent online marketing blogs with you.
On SEO forums, you’ll find a mix of people managing niche websites, people wanting to market their brick and mortar, black hat SEO types, and prominent leaders and “gurus” in the SEO field. As with anywhere in the world, some people will be kind and others rude.
Read on to get the list of seven SEO forums and two blogs.
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by admin on February 11, 2008
Are you curious about how to improve your SEO skills? Are you a small business owner who wants to know a bit more about SEO?
Recently, someone emailed me to ask what resources I use and think are best for learning about search engine optimization (SEO). With some of these resources, you may wonder what is the relation to SEO. Magazines.com may seem like an odd choice, yet it works to help you with your website and SEO if you let it.
Below are the first nine of my top 27 resources, including websites and online training, that have helped me develop my skills.
This list is in no particular order. Here you go! [click to continue…]
by admin on January 16, 2008
Well, gosh. Here I was going to write the best ways to use LinkedIn and the company itself beat me to it.
I’ll share a few of their ideas and then a few of mine: [click to continue…]
by admin on January 14, 2008
You, too, can use LinkedIn for socializing and job searching. In this three-part series, I’ll discuss:
1. What steps to take for LinkedIn success.
2. How to use LinkedIn for networking, new work, and collaboration.
3. When you should use Facebook instead of LinkedIn.
When I first joined LinkedIn, I just didn’t get it. I signed up, plugged in some of my information and let it sit. Where was the magic I expected?
[click to continue…]
by admin on January 11, 2008
Imagine looking at the time, realizing two hours went by, and you haven’t completed your major project for the day.
Has this ever happened to you?
It was August and the scent of lavender and mint blew in through an open window. Somewhere a neighbor was mowing a lawn, and I could hear children at the playground. Ah, the sounds of a home-based office.
And then I wondered:
[click to continue…]
by admin on January 9, 2008
I won’t give the same old advice about not visiting Starbucks every day. Instead, I’m sharing seven steps I personally used to save money as I moved into the role of entrepreneur.
As a home based business owner, you’ve already got a head start since you won’t be paying rent. Other ways you can save: [click to continue…]
by admin on January 2, 2008
DoshDosh at the Make Money Online blog wrote about 8 ways to optimize yourself in your business, in your personal life and in your living space. Essentially, he shares how to optimize yourself.
Since it’s that goal-setting time of year, I’m sharing three ways to keep your business and personal goals realistic and possible. [click to continue…]
by admin on January 1, 2008
It’s easy to spend thousands of dollars quickly (and accidentally) with Google AdWords campaigns. I’ve heard the horror stories.
Ideally, you should hire an AdWords expert to manage your campaign. If you can’t afford that, then you can at least take three steps to improve your campaign results.
These may not be easy steps for you. Whether you find them easy will depend on your comfort with technology, your AdWords experience, and your comfort level with risking a possibly expensive mistake.
The top three problems I commonly see in AdWords campaigns are: [click to continue…]
by admin on December 30, 2007
I joined Facebook 4-5 months ago. I committed at least one embarrassing mistake, at least one social networking crime.
I would like to help you avoid my pain.
When you join Facebook — and it’s a great networking and marketing tool, so you should — do the following. [click to continue…]
by admin on December 28, 2007
That is the phrase I typed into Google recently after rebooting my laptop for the third time in a row.
Two weeks ago, I expressed gratitude for having such a great computer. This week, I wanted to pitch it against the wall.
Now, I’m back to thinking my PC the best thing since SEO. I’ll let you in on a few of the steps I took to increase my PC performance. I ended up saving myself about $1,000 or $2,000 since I didn’t have to buy a new computer or at least several hundred to hire a computer expert to come fix my machine. [click to continue…]
by admin on December 21, 2007
The fancy term for this is “internal linking strategy.” However, that’s more for the search engine optimization greeks like myself. This step-by-step explanation should help you increase your conversions over time while giving your visitors what they really want from your website.
1. Use Analytics to Discover Your Most Popular Pages: In your analytics program, find out which pages were the most popular for November. Make a list of the top five. (An excel spreadsheet works well for this task.) Do the same for October and September. If you see a certain page popping up more than once in the top five over those three months, then you know it’s probably not a fluke. Keep in mind that if you had a promotion going on for a certain URL on your site, you could end up with a “false” result for that page. Most likely, a promoted page won’t work well for this exercise.
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by admin on December 19, 2007
In the past few months, I’ve talked to numerous prospects and have a good sense of the most important action they could take to improve their online marketing efforts.
The secret, dear readers, is in the sauce.
The sauce, dear readers, is marketing research.
Too often business owners have not done the market research. Too often someone starts a business with the idea that “I love to make hats, so I’ll start a hat business.” However, they do not think, “I’ll start
a hat business because I’ve received a lot of requests to make hats.”
See the difference?
Is your business idea a good one?
The answer lies in the market research. Do people want what you want to offer?
[click to continue…]
by admin on December 18, 2007
When it comes to search engine optimization, I don’t think you can read too many of the good online marketing blogs.
Since search engines often change how they rank sites, it pays to keep up to date with other webmasters and online marketers and hear the news straight from the front lines.
That said, these are the blogs I turn to again and again for online marketing news, perspectives that help me increase site rankings, and even occasional entertainment.
[click to continue…]
by admin on December 15, 2007
This is part two of How to Rank in Google. Writing quality content is one of the most important actions to take in search engine optimization. Clients who come to me with a lot of content ready to place on their site will perform much better than clients without content.
The Beauty of Quality Content: Quality content provides relevant and valuable information to your audience and uses proper grammar. Quality content also:
[click to continue…]
by admin on December 14, 2007
Recently, a colleague asked how her website could rank high in Google. She said she had her metatags in place and searched on her keywords, yet the site did not come up.
While metatags still have a certain amount of importance, the search engine optimization game has changed bit by bit to combat spam websites. If you have the time and a website with quality content, you can take a few steps to help your site increase its rank in the search engines.
Part 1
The Beauty of Backlinks: Backlinks are links that come into your site from related websites. Backlinks that come into your computer repair site from a website about fly fishing will not help your rankings. Instead, seek out links from related sites.
Search engine optimization is not a one-size-fits-all method. That’s why it’s best to work with an organization that can develop an ongoing plan tailored to your business. The following suggestions will work better for some businesses than others.
1. Blog Comments: One way to get backlinks and visitors is to leave blog comments on respected, high-traffic blogs. Your comment should be relevant to the post, and the post will ideally be relevant to your business. If the blog discusses tennis shoes and you have a tennis shoe business, it’s a good match.
2. Articles: If you like to write, you will greatly enjoy this method. If you have a lot of articles from your past newsletters collecting dust somewhere, this is a great way to use them. This strategy requires you post articles to article directories such as ezinearticles.com and include links to your website in your bio. You’ll get backlinks from the Ezine Articles site and from the sites of people reprinting your article.
