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A personal blog is, to me, a misnomer. Other than being in the drivers seat as to its contents, what’s so personal about it? Isn’t the point to reach other readers?  Because honestly if I just wanted a personal diary, I’d still keep it between my mattress and box springs.  And I’m not gonna lie… even at my age, it would have unicorns or ponies on the cover and a cute little plastic padlock that couldn’t keep a two-year old out.  Whether it’s posting personal photos, articles I find interesting, music recommendations or random ramblings, my primary audience is friends and family.

But let’s face it. Branching out from that and reaching strangers who want to read what you have to say has its appeal.  And with user friendly operating systems and the plethora of blogging sites out there to get you started, it’s so easy for almost anyone to get into blogging.

If you’re like most people, you want to make your blog special. You want yours to stand out. Or at the very least, as in my case, I want to enjoy looking at it. Because if I enjoy it, then the friends, family and occasional stranger who stumbles across it just might enjoy looking at it as well.

The basic templates available to users are fine for getting started. But who wants a blog that looks like (potentially) thousands of others?  So you have to get creative.  In the interest of full disclosure, I did cheat a bit.  Being barely conversational in html, I usually turn to my lovely sister-in-law for assistance. She’s responsible for my newest blog layout and can read code like she’s reading an elementary schoolbook.  But what to do when she’s not available? (The Holy See of search engines, Google, doesn’t even need to be pushed here, right?) So aside from bumbling around with trial and error,  has some great advice and straight-forward instruction for html, graphics, and coding of all sorts. I’m even tempted to delve into their Java tutorials next.

Another site I found helpful when first starting out was (http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2009/02/04/starting-a-blog-12-ideas-for-blog-posts/) I find #12 especially amusing given my present task, but I vehemently disagree with #6.  That just seems like dirty pool to me.

So go forth and blog. It’s simple enough to do, and hey, it’s the interwebz.  That means someone, somewhere, will probably want to read what you have to say.  And if you feel so inclined, stop by, say “hi,” and listen to the birds.

While many of us in online marketing are SEOs and work on a full time basis with web sites, and keeping ourselves updated with tons of articles from everywhere on the interwebs, it’s possible for some of us to lose track of the basics from time to time.  That’s why it never hurts to review the basics [of onsite search engine optimization] every once in awhile to keep our foundation strong and hopefully never forget these essentials to ranking well!

Title

This may be a no-brainer but there are still a few web sites I’ve been to that have even neglected to add their title!  Or, they leave an obvious default title that is not going to help anyone who’s searching on Google find the site.  It’s important to have a good well-written title!  The function of the title tag is to tell search engines what the page is actually about.  So, be sure to have your major keywords in the title, at the very least.  The title should be around 50-60 characters at the most.

Meta Description

A well-crafted Meta Description is another important on site item on your page.  This is essential because it does 2 things at once:  it tells potential clients running across your listing on search engines what your page is about, and can help convert a lead by enticing clients to click on the link and move forward into your site.  However, it really isn’t used by Google to that much as far as keywords are concerned.  Keep the description to 150-160 characters.

H1s, H2s, H3s

These are all header tags.  They need to be a part of the page because keywords and descriptions within these header tags tell Google what is actually on the page.  It helps to establish a page structure/hierarchy that will actually help your rankings. [Header tags also help break up the various topics on the page for the user, so it makes for a much easier experience.]

Internal Linking

This is another important page item.  Using appropriate internal linking does 2 things at once – it tells people what’s behind a link on a page, and it tells the search engines what to follow, what not to follow, what to index, and what not to index.  In short, links are the backbone of the world wide web.  Without links, you can’t expect Google to do much in terms of spidering and indexing your site.  Use links with anchor text that accurately describes the name of the page.  It’s important not to mislead your users or search engines, as doing so can raise red flags that your site may possibly be considered spam.

Keyword Mentions On the page

There is an age old myth in SEO that’s based on keyword density.  The keyword density myth includes requirements that claim anything from a 10% keyword density to more than 25% keyword density is a ranking factor and can get you ranked.  In all of my experience as an SEO, I have not seen this to be true.  One or two mentions of a targeted keyword on a single page is really all you need.  Anything more than that is unnecessary. [SEO Moz did an excellent article on keyword targeting that deserves a read]

Images

This may be the last thing that you think of when it comes to basics, but it’s probably one of the most important.  If you create images for your site and they take too long to load, that can cause search engines to spider your site more slowly than they would have otherwise, leading to slow site load times and other issues that can have a negative effect on your rankings.  In addition, it can cause a high bounce rate, a major limiting factor when it comes to increasing your lead conversions.  Instead, always ensure that you optimize your images for the fastest download times.  This will make it easier on both your users and search engine spiders who spider your site. [Additionally, if you're adding images, be sure to upload them with appropriate file names. A project I assisted with had a background image labeled skeleton.jpg, and 4 months later it was ranking for "skeleton in desert", "jack skeleton" and other terms, when there was no other reference at all on site in meta text or text about "skeleton".]

Image Alt Text

This is usually incorrectly referred to as the image alt tag.  It’s not actually a tag.  It’s the alternate text attribute of the image tag.  The reason it’s an attribute is because it’s something that you add to the image tag that tells it what to call the image.  See, by default Google does not read images – while they may spider and index them by file name, Google sees images as a blank space on the page.  So, you need to have some kind of text that appears in place of the image to tell the search engine what’s really there.  Enter image alt text.  Keyword rich, appropriate image alt text can actually help your rankings.  But, be sure that it describes the image itself and isn’t just laced with a number of keyword repetitions that are useless to the user.

Valid coding practices

This is true whether you’re a designer, SEO, or developer.  You need to have good coding on your site.  If you don’t or you’re not sure, then you’d best get over to the W3C and crack open your site with their HTML validator to ensure that you have valid code.  Or, you can utilize any of the cheap or free HTML validator software that’s available online.  Valid code ensures that your site design is going to work on many modern browsers on the market. [Remember that with all of the various browsers, and various versions of those browsers that site rendering may be different on each platform, and browser specific elements can be established in your CSS code to adjust for this. Additionally, more outdated browsers are now getting messages from places like Twitter that their browser is outdated, and should be updated.]

These are essential basics [for onsite optimization] that must be on your site to help it rank well.  Even if you know these by heart already, it’s always a good idea to review them from time to time to ensure that you’re optimizing your web sites correctly.  Remember – only you can prevent web site penalties!

Why Did You Hire An Expert You Ignore?

This is the first thought that immediately comes to mind, for me is, “If you believed so solidly in your own website marketing/design prowess then why did you reach out and HIRE someone to make these changes?”  Seriously. I know what I’m doing and have justifiable reasons for implementing changes, so why won’t you just let me do my job?

Understanding Your Clients

Now with each of these situations, it has been a sole proprietor/small business owner, and that gives us a clue to unravel the mystery. These are people who have made the bold decision to strike out on their own, and have obviously made a living at their profession and have a wealth of experience in their industry/niche. As a website marketer, we need to understand and harness that experience, and hopefully guide those decisions in the right direction.

Downsize The Ego And Listen

If there’s anything bigger than my Ego around here I want it trapped and shot. – Zaphod Beeblebrox -Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

So the first step is to take your EGO out of the equation, and simply ask them why they think that it’s a good idea to have a flash introduction to their website. Do they need a flash intro? No, but hear them out and understand where they got the motivation for their bad idea. HERE’S THE KEY: Let them continue explaining until they actually ask for your opinion. This will put you back into the position as the authority in the situation, if you are addressing them and trying to convince them that their idea is bad they may be simply defending their past actions and their ego. By allowing them the chance to (attempt to) explain, it moves the situation out of the personal realm and will give you the power to logically construct a valid reason to dissuade them… If you’re successful then you’ve assisted the client in not only avoiding a bad decision, but to truly understand your reasoning and logic that brought you to that conclusion.

Personal Opinion: Email = Destroyer Of Compromise

On a personal note here, I have worked in some form of web related customer service for the past 6 years. Out of all the hundreds of situations where there’s been a heated difference of opinion between me and a client, the majority of the time it’s resolved by actually talking, and not via email. This is mostly because you don’t have to actually read and understand an email…you and your client can just skim over the email and gloss over the arguments/facts/scenarios presented so that each of you can then hit them again with an opposing opinion. Aside from that, it’s much harder to be snarky and sarcastic over the phone than it is through digital communication, ask anyone who’s been flamed on a forum/twitter/blog. (This is my opinion only..any one out there actually have more success with email?)

What if they don’t change their mind?

So you listen to them explain and bring up the most elaborate and thorough treatise on the proper use of meta-tags that mankind has ever heard..and yet they still decide to restore that tag to it’s spammful position. Who knows they may have found some small reason for bad design/marketing choice, and are still be convinced by their own argument… At that point, it would seem wise to remember the saying:

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!

What Say You?

So, are there any SEO/Design Horror stories out there? How did you handle the situation… any you might do different now?

Bottled at the Source!

You’ve all done it…you stare at your Google or Raven seo analytics trying to figure out why your bounce rate is so high. You follow the click paths, create client funnels, follow referral sources, and pour over charts and graphs until your eyes bleed but you STILL can’t figure out why the client left the page. ..You’re missing the most obvious source of feedback! The purest source you can ask for is your client! They have a usually have a “pretty good grasp” on why they would want to visit your website, what they’d like to have as a feature, what web content they’d like to read and why they might not like your current site! So how do you tap this reservoir of recommendations??

All You Gotta Do Is Ask Her Nice

Here’s my recommended tactic that you can use to get feedback from your clients to discover problem areas, services you don’t offer and type of content people are looking for. A simple interview.  First, Jot down a set of questions like:

• What would you expect to see on a site for (insert industry here)
• Is there any services our business can do for you online that would make you more likely to be our client? Like Schedule appointments?
• Do you have any unique ideas that would be neat to see on our website?

Second, is to set the client at ease first after approaching them for the survey. Perhaps a cup of coffee or a soda or if you’re a restaurant treat them to a free meal (you’ll definately make a bigger return on the investment of a single meal).

Lastly, make them feel like they’re special, and that their feedback matters deeply(which it should!). The  benefit from this tactic is that beyond drawing out some possibly new ideas, or reinforcing your current methods,  it will make an impression on that person! That additional level of contact could lead to word of mouth advertising as they tell their freind about their experience. If  your lucky, and the person is web-savvy then you could even garner a Yelp review, a blog post, tweet, facebook post or myspace comment about it as well!

Have you used this method to get feedback? Do you have some tips to making it go smoothly? Please feel free to share!

BTW:

Find the best paid search engine marketingservices from an interactive agency.

From “Today’s Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen”, displayed with special permission. For many more cartoons, please visit Randy’s site @ www.glasbergen.com

I got a ping back for my recent Storm Trooper Disco blog post, and looking into it I saw that the link went to a junk wordpress blog that had scraped part of my post. At the bottom it had 4 links to different sites as “site design” credits. Obviously, they are attempting to get link juice/value from comment spam, then pass it on to their sites/clients sites. Looking at these sites receiving links from this spammy blog, it looked like they are real, valid businesses. Perhaps, I thought, their webmaster/SEO is using underhanded tactics and not telling the actual owners of the company… that would mean that possibly these legitmate business owners are inadvertently funding comment spam, so I decided to contact them and make them aware of the spamtastic web tactics that were being used to “promote” their website. Naive? Maybe, but I felt I needed to take action! Here’s What I emailed and submitted via their contact form.

Fight the Source

“I don’t know if you are aware, but the person who is doing your internet marketing is using bad business practices.I received a spam comment that referenced a blog that had scraped some of the text on my site to make a small post, with a link pointing at my post, in order to get a “pingback” and hyperlink to the page. At the bottom of this spamtastic blog website, it says:Designer Webdesign Coded by MCSE, Noise Survey, Mock Theory TestMCSE and is hyperlinked to your website!
This tactic is obviously an underhanded trick to attempt to gain links and pass the value on to your website. I beleive that you should check your webmaster/SEO’s business model/practices immediately because these types of tactics could be at worst cause for a penalty and at best send little or no real long lasting value to your website. If you are paying a marketing service, then you are actually supporting a type of spam, much like those companies who pay for email spam to be mass blasted to email inboxes. Please, take the time to review this problem, I think you’ll see it’s the right thing to do!”

What About You?

We’ll see if they respond to my email and messages… What about you? Are you doing anything to fight blog comment spam? Have a better approach? I’d be really happy to hear anyone’s thoughts on other methods… or perhaps..it’s a lost cause.

Youtube is now the 2nd largest search engine online, with 15 hours of video uploaded every minute it also is one of the fastest growing mediums online. This represents a vast opportunity when it comes to generating video content for your business. This is becoming even more crucial, as Google’s “Universal Search” is becoming more and more prevalent, and gives even more exposure to businesses than ever before.

Strategy For Creating Video Content

First off you need to get yourself any decent type of video camera, which at this point could be anything from a phone to a professional camera with a tripod setup. I personally recommend a GorillaPod, so you can setup and film on any surface, even uneven surfaces. Next you need to look at your business, what do you offer and how can you interpret that into video. I myself believe this is where many people give up, and walk away because they don’t feel very creative, however I suggest taking a pen and pencil, and writing down every time you find yourself describing something your company does that takes more than 5 minutes to explain. You’ll find all sorts of topics in your industry that need explanation, and chances are that your clients are online looking for that information. If you are the one to present it to them, then you are likely to be remembered when services are required, or be contacted to become the service provider right then and there. Also remember that you don’t have to simply take videos of EXACTLY what it is you do…for example, a Realtor might take videos of vintage homes in different neighborhoods around the city. This would give the viewer an idea of what the community is like, and possibly affect their future home purchases. Here are some more random thoughts on local based video opportunities.

• Neighborhood tours- short little 1-5 minutes talking about the different neighborhoods, and showing people around to give them a feel for the community
• Neighborhood info- Video of you on camera talking up the area, providing the highlights and low lights
• Local Events- Is there a local celebration, parade or problem you could video and describe?
• Homes/Architecture- Take videos of different style homes, especially of ones you are selling- You can do an overview of what makes this home part of that architectural style ( Bonus for Realtors, you can also let the viewers know that the home is for sale and how to contact you.

Tactics To Get The Most of Your Youtube Video

There are many opportunities to promote your website through the use of your Youtube video. First and foremost, make sure that you use an accurate title, a full description using complete sentences and tag the video with relevant topics. Be sure to add your hyperlink to your full URL first thing in the description of your video, example http://www.yourwebsite.com, because your video might be exported to other platforms, and if you add your full URL, it may be seen on a whole host of various websites. Make sure that you create a “Channel” for yourself, and give your site proper credit through a link where they allow you to add it, as well as again adding the full URL to the description. Also be sure to “Geo-Tag” your video, in the settings when you upload it. This allows you to set a specific geographic location for your video, which might be used as a trigger to appear in specific searches. One advanced tip for you is to make sure that your Business listing in the Google Local Business Center will let you associate up to 6 videos with your online business profile. This cross reference can strengthen the value of your business profile, as well as the value of the videos themselves.

Do you use video with your business? Have some thoughts on creating video content, please share!

Update: Wanted to add this link in to a list of other video sites where you can add your video, and a break down of how they link back. From @seosmarty

After hammering down the details of how much the suit was worth and how many hours I would spend, we put it down on paper. 1 month later, he’s now listed and getting business from online referrals, and I have a beautiful custom suit.

A Tropical Paradise for a Website Redesign

I was talking to Heather Rhoades, at SMX West this last week, she is a technical services manager over at The Search Guru.  She was telling me how she recently went out to a long planned vacation in Belize, South America. When she arrived her host started talking about the troubles she was having with her site about it not being user friendly, and completely useless. After talking at length to the owner of the vacation home, they agreed that they could help each other out. By creating a new web site layout and design the owner got a substantial improvement in her business and Heather got a free week long stay at the hotel! I asked Heather if she thought that this was a good or a bad practice. Her thoughts are that this is a continuation of the regular economy, and since you may not be able to afford their goods you need, businesses do need your services. So it’s a natural market exchange.

Barter Smarter

Reaching out into the twitterverse, there was a mixed bag of responses when it came to bartering services.  Sean Carlos was worried that there might be a lack of commitment and follow through on both sides of the table.  I think this is a valid concern, but Oliver Amar, of Compucall Web Marketing makes a fantastic point about the system of bartering.

We have (bartered for services) and if you do just make sure the contract is very specific about what is expected i.e hours, results etc

It would seem that you have to be very upfront about what you want, and what they’ll get in return, even more so I’d say than a cash paying client. When I worked with Miguel Cruz, I provided him with a printed copy log of hours worked and what was gained from that time spent, which went a long way to satisfying both sides of the barter.

A Paying Proposition?

What about your experiences? Have you ever bartered? Did it work out well or did it cause more problems than it was worth?

“Isn’t it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously.”

It looks like I was tagged with this meme by David Harry, known as @thegypsy on twitter to write a post elaborating on 7 facts about myself. Although his name always gets me thinking about Gogol Bordello, he has been a good inspiration to me recently in being less controversial and more focused on “just the facts, ma’am”. Well.. here are some interesting facts about me.

I started working at age 14 on an Apple Orchard

That’s right, it was a U-pick apple farm in Oak Glen, called Riley’s Log Cabin and Orchard. I worked there every fall for 4 years, as a jack of all trades. From parking cars, running the grill, leading tours, helping people press their own cider, teaching archery, Tomahawk throwing (I’m deadly at 7 paces), and Knife Throwing.

Despite my “Pale Face”, I am Native American

The first question I always get when I talk about  this is “Do you have a casino or stacks of cash?”. No. I don’t. Unfortunately, my tribe has had issues getting federally recognized as an existing tribe, even though we built the San Juan Capistrano Mission with our hands, muscle and blood. unfortunately, squabling over who’s the leader has lead to our band being left out of any real benefit of uniting.

My life goal is to own a large bathtub

It sounds a bit nuts, or a low ball of my abilities…but really since I was about 13 I haven’t fit into any bathtub. I figure that the point at which I have a house in which to put the tub, the finances to have a custom tub built to my specifications that I’ll be sitting pretty.

I used to be a Microsoft Paint artist

I was fascinated by geometric artists, and since I couldn’t really afford art supplies, I spent a good amount of time in high school, playing around with MS Paint and creating geometric drawings of various colors and shapes.

I want to be a Polyglot

Well, ok, if you have ever spent time with me at some point I most likely have said something to you in German or Japanese or French or whatever it is I’m studying at that time. A polyglot is someone who is fluent in multiple languages, here’s the run down of my current fluency.

• English, Fluent (Native language)

• German, Mostly Fluent ( Years of Practice, but still miss big words)
• Spanish, Conversational (Just enough to sound like I know more than I do and get in trouble)
• French, Tourist (Enough to kick around Paris with little problems)
• Japanese, Tourist( Enough to tell if the shop owner is insulting me * funny story when I visited Hawaii I went into a shop, and asked if they had an atm he shook his head and said in Japanese “mita no ginkoo desu ka” to his wife*Do I look like a bank?*, to which I replied “Gomenasai, ginkoo wa dooko desu ka?” *Oh Sorry, which way to the bank*…the look on his face was priceless!)
• Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Hawaiian, morse code, sign language- thank you, good bye etc
• I want to learn xhosa(bushman/!kung), which is the language from The Gods Must be Crazy

I had a Teepee in my backyard

That’s right. A teepee. Well, wat can I say, when your father starts riding in the annual christmas parade, dressed in war paint and starts calling himself “Red Horse”, you really get a taste of your culture. My culture just happens to let me camp out in my own back yard where I practiced throwing knives and tomahawks.

I grew up in Yucaipa

Say it with me, “U- Cai- Pa”, not “U ca ipa” or “u cape a” . It’s a little town between LA and Palm Springs…known for…uhm…nothing remarkable at all. Our one joy is being slightly larger than Calimesa… Woot!

Alright well, I hope that was quite enough out of me about me, now for my victims..er next participants.

Jon Henshaw of Raven Seo

Brian Harnish

Michelle Rivera – My beautiful Wife

Brian Nelms (Yes, I’m aware that you don’t YET have a blog, but this is a push in that direction)

SMCuter

Erin Maher

annnnd… Alex Guillen

This is just a small sampling of Yvette’s bridal website. There are not enough words to describe the catastrophe that this website represents. Like some Frankenstein monster, this grotesque site is none the less MORE mesmerizing than the Hypno Toad…

Let us try to learn from this monstrosity of a website:

URL/Domain Mistakes:

First off, the domain takes you to a landing page, where they have not re-directed the @ Root domain to re-point to www, poor Google-bot when it crawls here not only see’s this monstrosity, but may see a duplicate site and it wonders DEAR GOD WHY!

Intro Pages are a Mistake:

Secondly, that page is not even the “homepage” of the site, you have to click on the picture of a girl with a lamb ( under the neon text) to get to that…

In general Intro pages are a mistake, because they are confusing to the visitor, take up additional amounts of time, typically have less content than the homepage, and since you usually want people to come to your homepage(I’m not really sure if that’s actually this website’s intent though..I think it’s intent is to make people nauseous), it’s best if you have it be located at the root domain. Now I beleive that this website was created in 2003 using Yahoo hosting… I think if the proposed Yahoo SEO program saw this page it would blow it worse than Jerry Yang.

There are so many different issues with this website, I’ve decided to break up this miles long post into a series. I hope you tune in next time to see what other lessons we can learn from the WORST WEBSITE EVER.