Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’

Free Videos From Fantastic Conference on Blogging

Friday, September 17th, 2010

For today’s Productivity Friday Post, I want to point you to some great, free videos if you’re a business that wants to start blogging.

Here’s the link for all the videos, if you want to see everything.

Here’s the opening keynote address, from a bunch of bloggers on the topic of why they blog, which isn’t as easy a question to answer as you might think. Take particular note however, of Teresa Boardman who writes the St. Paul Real Estate blog. She routinely RECEIVES LEADS thanks to her blog. No matter how many times I say money can be made online, it’s critical that I show off people like Teresa, because she’s living proof of it. (a blog post on Realtors in Minnesota who blog is coming down the pike).

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

Meanwhile St. Paul Pioneer Press technology critic Julio Ojeda-Zapata and others talked in this video about how easy some of the blogging platforms are. I haven’t used it yet, but I recommend businesses who want to blog on their own domains, but don’t have a tech person on their team, may want to try Square Space. I haven’t used it yet, but the buzz on it is that it’s a lot less hassle than Wordpress even. And based on the tutorials, I can believe it. No longer do you have to find a separate company to host your blog. And it’s only $8 a month!

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

A huge part of blogging is studying your traffic. Which posts were popular? Who is coming to your blog? It ought to be called online trafficology, instead it’s called analytics.

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

And finally, there was a great session on optimizing your blog for search engine optimization value.

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

Let me know what you think about these videos. And have a great weekend!

How to get on Page One of Google in 10 Minutes

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

I just wanted to share how easy it was for me to get a Facebook page for a new class I’m offering on not just page one of Google’s search results, but the top slot of page one of Google. It’s not as hard as you think, and it should always work, so long as a little thought is put into what you’re naming your Facebook page.

Analytics and search engine optimization basics

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Big a welcome to those who attended our Search Engine Optimization and Analytics sessions at the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce August 2. As promised,  here are the notes on our class on getting started with analytics and search engine optimization. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me via e-mail. You can send a message to me via the link to  your right, or on Twitter @Garmoe.

  • 1. Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/
  • Http://www.googleanalytics.com is the service most companies use to track what they’re doing on the web
    • You can see all sorts data that tells you:
    • How many people are coming to your site
    • How long your visitors remained on the site
    • How many people visited just one page and left (bounce rate)
    • How many pages overall were viewed
    • What brought them to your site (referring sites):
    • Was it that they typed in your url (www.)?
    • Did they click on a link you had in your e-newsletter?
    • Did they click on a link you posted on Facebook or Twitter, or from a YouTube video perhaps?

Search Engine Optimization

  • Pull up the back end of a website, to show the kinds of places
  • If Google Analytics is the test, SEO is all the homework required to get to the test.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art (not an exact science) of getting Google to like your site better, and then rank it higher.
  • While there are hundreds of things you can do that help Google decide whether to rank your page higher, here are the basics every site owner should do.
  • To understand the basics of where to install keywords, visit: http://www.puredriven.com/organic-seo/

To learn more about the basics of SEO, visit http://www.seomoz.com