The Girlfriend’s Guide to Blogging

Posted in: Blog Management | November 22, 2011
The Girlfriend's Guide to Blogging

This week I received an email  from a longtime girlfriend who is interested in launching a blog.  I was actually surprised by this, because Mary (name has been changed to protect the innocent) has a fulltime job already and it is not marketing related.   She had an idea for a blog and wanted advice on how to get a blog started. My girlfriend is not alone.  I receive dozens of emails each week from people wanting blogs and websites created for their “idea” and I can tell at least 75% have no clue what to do or where to start.  The classic signs of this state of confusion are the Read more

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Stand Back! The Geeks Are Coming

Posted in: Website Design | November 8, 2011
Web Design Geek

Last night I met with a business partner named Scott.  Scott is an engineer and his engineering brain loves SEO.  I’ve been teaching SEO 101 while we build Scott’s website.  Last night as we moved from SEO 101 to SEO 201, Scott couldn’t understand why I didn’t do this with every client.  The truth be told, 99% of my clients don’t care.  They pay me to make sure their website and SEO are taken care of and they don’t want to worry about it. We All Make Mistakes Very few clients have Scott’s thirst for knowledge.  They don’t understand it, or care, or have the time to Read more

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Keyword Research for the Average Joe

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | August 8, 2011
SEO Word Cloud

Good keyword research is imperative for organic SEO.  We SEO consultants typically view this practice as common sense, but it’s only because we do it all the time.  In the real world, keyword research isn’t necessary easy for the average marketer or webmaster. But keyword research doesn’t have to be some big crazy formula.  I read a lot of SEO articles and blog posts and the internet is full of great content and advice for performing elaborate keyword research.  While this works, the activity of keyword research doesn’t have to be so convoluted that the average person can’t do Read more

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Why You Should Treat Your Website Like the Family Dog

Posted in: Website Design | August 7, 2011
Sniffing Dog

Friday afternoon I had a call with a client I built a website for back in March. Before I realized it, I was comparing their website to the family dog. Not a typical analogy, but it worked in the situation and the client understood the point I was trying to make. Who’s Taking Care of Fido? In my house I take care of the family dog. I’m not a big fan of our English Lab, but I’m still the one who makes sure he is fed, watered, and let in and out four hundred times a day. I am the caregiver even if I’m far from a dog lover. I much prefer my three cats, which pretty much take care of Read more

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The Magic Formula of Great SEO

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | February 7, 2011
Traffic Source Overview

This weekend I looked back at SEO related statistics for a B2B website I launched in November of 2009. A full year has passed and I wanted to see the progress this company made over a twelve-month period. After launching the new WordPress website, the client retained me to work on their internet marketing efforts. It helped free up time for the client, it gave their internet marketing a cohesiveness it would not have had otherwise, and it gave me time to nurture my new baby. I believe it was a good year for SEO and Google Analytics agrees with me. The Data Doesn’t Lie I decided to Read more

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Do Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers Really Matter?

Posted in: Social Networking & Social Media | December 22, 2010
Like Me and Follow Me

Facebook likes and Twitter followers do not equal success. If you are a fly-by-night, wannabee internet marketing consultant, then yes, by all means, use Facebook likes and Twitter followers to measure the success of your online marketing efforts.  Otherwise, dig deeper to see if your social media efforts are worth the time and money spent. Social media is about engaging with your audience, increasing brand awareness, and providing value to the visitors who land upon your Facebook page or Twitter profile. Notice I started with the concept of engagement, because at the core of social Read more

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Google’s Search Results Skews Your Self Image?

Posted in: Search Results | March 30, 2010

What is your view of your current website traffic and Internet marketing campaigns? Are you receiving as much traffic as you’d like or are you scoring as high on your top keywords as you had originally hoped? No, this isn’t my sales pitch; there is a point to these questions. If you’re the average small business owner, you know enough about organic search engine optimization to make you dangerous. You know a little about SEO (search engine optimization) and you periodically check your keyword rankings to make sure you are still sitting on page one. Did you know these results are Read more

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When a Website Designer’s Good Intentions Go Bad

Posted in: Website Design | November 23, 2009

Today I am meeting with a client to review the design and build of his new website.  Quite frankly I’m not looking forward to this meeting.  I am the barrier of bad news. When I originally accepted this project, I could see Google had indexed about 1,000 pages within his domain.  While it would take some time to migrate and optimize this many pages, I was up for the challenge.  The goal is to give him a more SEO friendly site that he can maintain himself in WordPress. If that meant throwing in some plugins and optimizing 1,000 pages, so be it. Last week I reviewed his Google Read more

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Web Analytics 2.0 Hits the Stores

Posted in: Internet Marketing | November 13, 2009

Today I ordered Web Analytics 2.0, which is the second book by Avinash Kaushik, the best selling author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.  As an avid website designer, SEO nut, social media fan, and overall Internet marketing addict, I can’t wait for delivery of my new purchase. I already subscribe to Avinash’s very popular blog Occam’s Razor, which provides insightful discussion on Google Analytics and the software’s newest functionality.  I enjoy his blog entries and cannot wait to immerse myself in an entire book of his Internet intelligence. You can learn more about Avinash Read more

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