Success Through Inspiration
Giving Yourself a Reading Boost
September 21st, 2009 by kmcinerny
Finding yourself with too little time on your hands? Yeah, me too.
When I leave work, I put on one or many of my other hats, Mom, Wife, Volunteer, Jazzerciser, etc and don’t think about work until the next day. I want so badly to read more books in the business and technology (in the web seo/design/marketing
That’s why I recently recalled a website my company created a while back (it was sold off, so Radius3 no longer hosts or maintains it now): www.BusinessBookReview.com. They have a staff that reads the books for you and provides a 300, 600 or 900 word synopsis for you. It’s not as good as reading the whole book cover to cover, but it sure saves some time!
I’m considering joining for $195/year (Individual membership; cheaper if your company signs up 1-many employees). If I were to buy the books (library is an option too but I know I can’t finish a book in 2 weeks and I’m bad about renewing), they would cost approx $15-ish each at at one/month, that would cost $180/year. What if I bought a book and never finished it? Wasted money! I despise waste.
Now if I were to read one review/week = 4 books per month => $60/mo =>$720/year value AND I could talk intelligently at business gatherings. No more… “so what do you do?” rather “I’ve just read the book [insert book name here]. … ” and hence an intelligent conversations and business partnership starts to blossom.
Maybe it’s worth a look into if you have a short attention span, short amounts of time free, a wanderlust for information gathering…
I signed up for the newsletter to get a taste: Newsletter Signup – Business Book Review
Tell your company about it or call BBR at 1-800-653-2726 (x2218) - tell them that someone at Radius3, their original programmers recommended it; maybe I’ll get a free subscription for a year before I decide to join.
-NotesFromKris (Twitter)
CSS: Inline, Embedded and External
August 5th, 2009 by kmcinerny
For those of you who want to dig in deeper. Tiny URL: http://ow.ly/j9mu – See this guy’s post for examples on the differences between different methods of css. (Long URL: http://designorati.com/articles/t1/web-design/1041/basic-css-inline-embedded-external-whats-the-difference.php)
The next articles will bring SEO up a few levels; typically I’ll try not to get too deep.
SEO Differences
July 31st, 2009 by kmcinerny
Ok, so you’ve been told you need SEO work so your site can get found. Prerequisite: read this before continuing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
What types of SEO are there? Short answer: 2.
1. On-Site / Internal / Natural / Organic
or
2. Off-Site / Link-Building / Pay for Service
On-Site optimization is when you pay your web developer to update your meta tags for each page, align your content copy with your keyword strategy, update your page names/images/alt text/variables to all align with your keywords and keyphrases. That’s the short of it. You have (depending on your content management system) direct control over this and the search engine “spiders” and “robots” will find you and draw you into their database of 1 Trillion other sites. More later on local advertizing on the search engines.
Off-Site optimization is when your website development company determines keywords and phrases and then pays a service to push your optimized landing page (select one page and optimize the heck out of it) to searchers searching for a specific targeted key word or phrase. Then, you pay this third party per click (PPC). Downfalls: if you don’t target the right audience, you’re paying for a click to your site for a customer that won’t produce a conversion (won’t buy anything/call you). This is a tweaking process and you should not expect immediate or one time fees. It’s like finely tuning a recipe; you take some stuff out, you add some more stuff, taste it and go back again.
Off-site optimization also includes linkbacks, search engine submissions and the ever growing social media-sphere. The more links you have back to your sites – the more RELEVANT links – the higher your site will rank.
You could try it yourself first for a few months – the key is tracking tracking tracking.
For example, I’m on this nutritional cleansing “diet” (for lack of a better word) and I’m losing more inches around my body than weight. If I hadn’t been measuring, I would have been discouraged about my 2-3lb weight loss. But, since I’m taking the time to measure 15 parts of my body, I have a baseline to start with.
So…learn how to add the Google Analytics code to your site. Start here: http://analytics.google.com – watch the tutorials and be prepared to be overwhelmed. Don’t worry about learning how to use all of the features – your first task is to just add it to start your baseline. Kind of like getting a mammogram at 35…
After Rumination, Then Determination
July 13th, 2009 by kmcinerny
Using keywords for optimal copy placement…per NotesFromKris’ last post – that’s me – I asked you to generate a keywords and phrases list and then to think about it. Now, select only 2-4 key phrases per page and relate the keywords to the copy on your page. You don’t want to saturate the keywords in the copy, just be true to your message and they (the search engines) will come. How do we lay out the copy for an anti-gravity chair.
Let’s select as our primary keyword/phrase “executive office chair” and our secondaries as “ergonomic back support”, “anti-gravity lumbar support” and “chairs with back support”. I picked these at random – there’s a whole process that your SEO expert can determine the best words for you.
So…when you lay out the page, use your H1 tag for the primary key word and h2, bold and placement for your secondaries.
<h1>Executive Office Chairs for Everyone</h1>
Chairs with back support and ergonomically designed for the boss, but affordably priced so you can have one too. The anti-gravity support system offers lumbar support for aching backs that are tormented day after day with 8hrs of sitting (or more!). The anti-gravity lumbar support system is the first of it’s kind. Accept no imitations!
<h2>Ergonomic Back Support</h2>
Supporting your back is our job #1. Easy to move from place to place that you won’t hurt your l4 or l5 lifting or moving this chair. Optional foot rest available to the first 5 chairs ordered each day (starting at midnight:01:01:01 EDT). Chairs with anti-gravity lumbar support will actually make your job enjoyable – not guaranteed – by providing ergonomic back support with adjustable height from the floor and adjustable arm rests (also removable). Feel like a top-notch executive in this chair whether you work from home or in a dingy, cold, damp, flea-ridden, wolf spider infested, stinky office.
end example
So, the lessons learned here are:
- select your keywords/phrases
- use them in prominent positions in your copy
- use bold to make the key phrases stand out (some experts disagree on this – I say – can’t hurt)
- don’t overdo it!
Always remember that ranking is not immediate! Once you have set your keywords, use Google Analytics to gather your data and analyze or hire an expert. If you can’t retain one on salary; pay for a one time analysis with the result being concrete tasks for you to carry out.
Don’t change your keywords every week unless you are experienced enough to know how to do this. Removing a keyword/phrase from a prominent position will affect your ability to properly track successes and failures.
How do I find keywords?
July 1st, 2009 by kmcinerny
I’ve been talking about keywords, but what I really mean is keywords and phrases for search engine optimization. Our anti-gravity chairs (see other posts if you don’t know why I talk about these) are the best on the market, but is our target customer going to type into a search “best anti gravity chair”…maybe.
One of the free keyword research tools I use is from – no surprise – Google https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal This is related to the display of ads on Google. This will help you see what related word searches your ad will show on. Go ahead – click it – then swap back here.
Be sure to notice your options for ‘Descriptive words or phrase’ and ‘Website content‘. Also to the right, there are tiny arrows that will expand to fit other options. Selecting ‘descriptive words..’ option type in ‘ergonomic anti-gravity chairs’ (don’t forget the captcha image input).
Analysis of results: one word: holymoley! I sure picked a competitive market!
- Select/click on ‘Local Search Volume’ to sort the most used keywords to the top. We’re only going to look at the local market for now.
- Select Advertiser Competition to sort by that column. Select the keyword/phrases and select Add>> to add it to a list on the right.
- Note: as you look through the words, try to narrow down the scope of your product focus, for example, our chairs are not meant for outdoor, mostly office or sit-down jobs.
- On the right side you can now add more words and then select ‘Get more related keywords’.
- Go through that iteration until your keywords/keyphrases fit your target audience – you HAVE already done the market research….right?!?!
Think of this as an exercise in brainstorming, but you’re using Google as another brain.
Next step after searching for keywords and phrases, how about searching for keywords actually searched for on Google? Search based keyword tool: http://www.google.com/sktool/#
‘ergonomic office chair,executive office chair,ergonomic computer chair,comfortable office chair,executive desk chair,zero gravity chair,ergonomic back chair,zero gravity chairs,anti gravity chair,cool inventions chairs’
Copy and paste the final keyword list you obtained from the aforementioned. Click ‘Find Keywords’. Now look at different sorts by column and print them out, save them to a file…just ruminate over them for awhile and determine your target. You never want to compete (in my opinion) in the highest bid area. For one, it might be cost prohibitive, and 2nd, you prefer 2nd or 3rd or even 4th place since that can sometimes provide a better return on investment. Looks like I should start thinking about mixing anti gravity with zero gravity some more.
This is to give you a start with:
- creating copy
- adding meta tags (keywords, description, title)
- formulating a budget for PPC campaigns
All exercises are stepping stones to the final answer. An SEO expert has the experience with PPC and can offer good insight, but don’t expect to get it for free.
All of this makes me thirsty. Hope this helps in your strategy research. Sometimes you have to step back a few feet to see where you are going. Free keyword research tools are out there; some are low cost…you need to determine if this is what you want to do with your business time when you should actually be out there selling.
Creating Relevant Links
June 22nd, 2009 by kmcinerny
How many of you have put ‘Click Here’ on your website or ‘Download Now’ then linked those to a document?
How many of you have gone the extra mile to request your site be linked from another website? Did you ask them to post your link as ‘My Company Name’?
Let me guess; your business name is the same as your URL. Creative. Good start, but not the whole cheese. The company which employs me is Radius 3, but the website is AdvanceYourWebsite.com. We use Radius3.com for our direct sales team. Long story.
Search Engines will index your link, company name and such, but are people searching on ‘company name’ or ‘click here’?!
A link (as well as a page name and domain name) should describe what you do. For the example I’ve been outlining, if you’ve been with us from the beginning, we create ergonomic chairs (excuse me while I go see if ErgonomicChairs.com is taken…it IS…and it’s first page has chairs on it. Astounding!)
Our ergonomic chairs are supported by anti-gravity technology which sets us apart from the rest. So search for a domain that supports your keywords and sets you apart from your competition (antigravitychairs.com is taken – lol).
When creating a link, say for your anti-gravity chair assembly, use a link named “Anti-Gravity Chair Assembly Instructions” and create an title property for this link named “Downloadable Instructions for the Anti-Gravity Chair by Company Name”. Both will greatly help your page or link get found.
To finish today’s lesson, you get the idea that people will remember first what you do or provide before they will remember a company or other. Think about yourself or your company from the outside looking in.
You can find any of these SEO Notes I’ve been creating over the past few weeks if you can remember 2 things: anti-gravity chair and seo notes which is what I’ve been phrasing in each post.
Go to Google or Yahoo (only 2 I tried) and search on 
“anti-gravity chair seo notes” – this blog will appear at or near the top. You could also try “anti-gravity chair entrepreneur”.
It all comes down to one thing – honesty and keyphrases in advertisement. Ok 2 things.
Find Your Core
June 15th, 2009 by kmcinerny
As I read through my last post, I’m wondering if I’ve given you a hammer, a few nails, but no plan. Why don’t we step back a bit and do some homework on the business plan…fail to plan and you plan to fail…yada yada…
Determine your core pages and your core focus.
If you already have a site and a business, it wouldn’t hurt to pretend that you are starting over with a fresh look; don’t lament over the cost, rather look to the future of your business. You might find that time spent on SEO work now will provide nice returns.
Home Page, About Us, Contact Us and a Product/Services page – just the basics are our focus now. We will talk about page layout in a later blog.
Homework:
List the following to come up with your core focus:
- What do you provide; affordable comfortable chairs for the ergonomically challenged for office use
- Where do you offer this? Are you restricted geographically in your offer? Where do you provide this service? US, Canada, UK
- How would your customer benefit? Relieve back stress and pain
- Who is your customer? 30+ male/female in an office job, where sitting is a big portion of their day (like me!)
- When can you deliver this product? Delivered in 2-3 weeks depending on your location; Georgia, US residents can pick it up or have it within a week.
- Why should they buy from you? Our chairs have been tested in our facility for durability and by independent Drs of Ergonomics. Tours available.
- How does it provide safety, comfort, reliability and cost effectiveness? Our chairs
- Something fun…comes in lots of color flavors: Lemon Lust, Avacado Amore, Pink Persuasion, etc.
You could even expand upon these. #4 Who is your customer… factory worker on their feet all day – computer nerd on the pc all day – financial advisor working from home on the phone a lot – etc etc. If you’ve worked out a business plan – because we ALL do that when we start a company….right?!
Remember who, what, where, when, why, how…and throw in your twist (colors) or your competitive advantage. I would like to buy one of these, wouldn’t you?
When you work out, what do all instructors say to work on? Your CORE strength, around this everything else will evolve or revolve.
From your core you will extrapolate your keyword phrases: comfort chairs relieve stress, back friendly ergonomic chairs (does anyone love that word ergonomic?!)
All pages will have this core focus; but be careful how many times you use this phrase. I’ll show you how to use these later for:
- meta tags
- content copy/text
- page naming
- link backs
Your website must be ‘dense’ – filled with – your core focus, but cross that line with too much and you’re just bragging a little too much and that looks bad for search engines.
Now, do your homework. Let it stew for a while; share ideas with friends, have a wine, add some more (more wine, more friends, more phrases, whatever it takes…) Don’t be concerned if it gets too lengthy. We can whittle it down later.
SEO Your Images
June 12th, 2009 by kmcinerny
Thanks to Jon for letting me post to his blog…I am much more responsible when I am held accountable to someone else. So when Jon asked me to be a guest blogger, I jumped at the opportunity…ok, last month I jumped at the opportunity. But I DID jump.
The purpose of this “guest blogging” by Tweeter: NotesFromKris. aka Kristina McInerny, is to impart my vast source of knowledge on website SEO. It’s actually just a ploy on Jon’s part to get free advice for his own website. It worked!
Let’s start small…
Let’s talk about images…
Search Engines (Google, Ask, MSN, Jeeves, etc) cannot “SEE” images; all they see is text. For images on your website, you need to be concerned with the following:
- file names
- alt property
- title property
Your filename needs to have hyphens between key words, no spaces, norunons (ha!), and it must consist of KEYWORDS. Keywords are a whole other discussion for advanced users. For this discussion and all future blogs, we will use an anti-gravity chair as our example product/marketing
An anti-gravity chair defies gravity. It is built for those who sit on their butts alot. It is comfy and ergonomic. We’ll assume that your optimized keywords are the following:
- anti-gravity
- comfortable chair
- floor vibration
- custom chairs
- comfort sitting
- sore back
- ergonomic chair
(Questions I asked myself in coming up with these: what problem are you trying to combat with this chair; what would people search for?)
So, before uploading your image, name it “comfortable-anti-gravity-custom-chair.jpg”.
IF you have control over your content and IF you know how to update your image properties, add the ‘ALT’ property to the “img” tag (or select image properties from your content management system; CMS). If you don’t have access to your website and don’t know how to update the source code, why are you reading this?
ALT stands for alternate; additional text that describes the photo, originally added for the browsers that didn’t display images or back ‘in the day’ when internet connectivity was slower than honey on a cold Northern day. Nowadays, internet is fast we don’t have to worry about turning off images. The ALT property is ADA compliant for the visually impaired.
So.. your html tag will look like this:
<img src=”/images/comfortable-anti-gravity-custom-chair.jpg” alt=”Black Anti-Gravity Chair to support your back and provide ergonomic support”>
Search engines can dig deeper into indexing your site with this.
The TITLE property is what displays when you mouse over an image…I believe there are some differences among browsers about which one (ALT or TITLE) appears on mouse-over. If the image is not available, ALT text will display, but if you don’t have a TITLE property, I believe that the ALT shows up upon mouse-over.
So.. your html tag will look like this:
<img src=”/images/comfortable-anti-gravity-custom-chair.jpg” alt=”Black Anti-Gravity Chair to support your back and provide ergonomic support” title=”Support a Healthy Back with the Anti-Gravity chair for ergonomic support.”>
Yes I like the word ergonomic.
Yes, your designer (assuming custom design) should be providing you with images that have seo-friendly file names. Yes, you should be paying them to do this extra bit of work. Yes, every little bit helps. Yes, the html provided to you should be optimized. Yes, you can do this later, but the earlier in the process you start this, the more likely:
- you will actually DO it
- it will be cheaper
Search Engine Optimization is a big puzzle. You can usually make out what a puzzle is going to look like with most of the pieces, but the more the pieces, the more clear the puzzle picture for the search engines.
Introduction, SEO Help, Social Media, Starting a Business, Twitter
‘Web Design for ROI’ by L.Loveday/S.Niehaus
June 1st, 2009 by kmcinerny
If history is our basis for learning, why do we repeat the past? Maybe we haven’t adapted fully to discern similarities between different medias (or is it mediums?).
Designing brick and mortar stores depended upon product quality and “if people are interested in what we have, they’ll buy”. (All quotes are from the titled book.)
It’s the ’sell it and they will come’ mentality with no regard for spacing in the aisles, lighting for the mood, layout for visibility,etc. Websites should be the same way.
I’ve just started this book and am excited to share the findings with you here on this blog. Maybe this will encourage me to read until the end. And if you don’t have time to read an entire (almost) 200 page book, maybe you can learn something here. So far so good.
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