Hey fellow bloggers working on your branding. Have you ever thought about who owns your name in terms of the web? For example, if a client, prospective boss, potential follower, family member, or friend did a Google search for you, what would they find? If they don’t find you, who do they find? A competitor or just something completely wrong? If you don’t own your name, someone else will. Can you afford to let that happen?
For example, if I do a Google search for “Jes Cady” the first 6 results are me and my sites.
Another very popular and much respected blogger is The Pioneer Woman. Now P-Dub is not her Christian name. Her real name is Ree Drummond. If you do a Google search for Ree Drummond, her website, The Pioneer Woman, pops up but so does the url reedrummond.com. She owns her name. The url just brings you to a simple page with a rotating photo and links to her blog. It’s that simple. Now, no one else can utilize that url for something that is not associated with her or her brand. Are you doing this? If not, I strongly suggest you purchase your name as a domain name today. If you do nothing else with it for now, at least you have peace of mind that no one else is doing anything with it either.
Here are some sites you can use to purchase your name as a domain name:
Last night I had a dream about this new tool that Twitter launched. I hadn’t had a chance to check it out and been hearing a lot of hype. In my dream I got to use it and it was like an angels singing, cure of cancer type of moment. Today, I actually got to use it and to be honest it was kind of a let down from my dream, but it had a lot to live up to.
On May 4th 2010, Twitter announced a new tool that would allow you to embed tweets in your blog posts and websites. The reason for this is because it has been mentioned that “tweets are the new quotes“. And in the past, people were just taking screen shots of the tweets. But now they can do much more. The actual tweet itself and all of it’s clickable links can be incorporated on your site.
One thing to note is that it’s not officially a Twitter “feature”. It’s just a hack that someone who works for/with Twitter created and shared. It is a rough prototype of a simple script, but it allows you to have click-able links and it takes on some of the styling of your site to provide design continuity on your site.
How it works is you just visit Blackbird Pie (I have no idea what that even means). Once there, enter in the tweet url and that’s it. The tweet URL can be found when clicking on the timestamp of the tweet. You will be brought to a page that contains only that tweet and it will have a url that looks something like this http://twitter.com/jes_cady/status/13428883539. Copy and paste that URL into Blackbird Pie. It will automatically generate some code for you then you can embed it into your post or web site.
This is what it looks like embedded into my post and taking on the style of my blog.
If you find this blog post lame, then maybe you might find my yellow lab playing in her pool entertaining. And if you don’t think she is the cutest thing ever then you are just cold and heartless.
The Facebook F8 Conference really fed my suspicions that Facebook is taking over the planet, or at least the internet. The big hype from the conference was the release of Facebook Social Plugins. The plugin of particular interest to me is the “Like” button. According to Facebook, the Like button enables users to make connections to your pages or posts and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click.
So now, rather than just “liking” someones status update, pictures, and links, I can actually start “liking” stuff that I read, see, and experience out in the great wide web.
If you doubt the power of a simple “like” button, then you must still be browsing the internet with IE6 on your Gateway desktop computer. According to TechCrunch 50,000 websites have already integrated Facebook’s social plugins. Think about that for just a second. In one week, 50,000 websites began utilizing these tools. And beyond how many websites are using the application it was estimated that there would be 1 billion “like” buttons scattered through the internet within 24 hours of the release of the plugins.
I’m pretty geeked up at the potential this plug in holds. It is a great marketing tool for websites and bloggers because it allows you to tap into the 400 million members of the social networking site.
Do you use Facebook? If so, do you think expanding the “like” button to the internet is a good idea?
I’ve been a enormous fan of Shakespeare since I was 11 years old. His writing was like a puzzle to me and cracking the code was part of the enjoyment I got from reading his work. Yes, the engineer geek in me has been there since birth.
My favorite plays were Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and the absolute best, Much Ado About Nothing. As a young girl, I didn’t entirely understand why I loved these particular stories, but as an adult I can only conclude it’s because of the strong female roles Shakespeare wrote. I mean, Beatrice was probably the first female character I can remember who matched, if not exceeded, her male counterpart’s witty quips and jabbing retorts, line for line. Take even Juliet, some may think her just a silly love sick puppy. But I saw her another way. I saw her a young girl that was brave enough to be open with her heart and to trust in her love and sacrifice for that love, which I find Juliet very courageous.
So you can only image my pleasure when I found out that one of Shakespeare’s most notable plays, Romeo and Juliet, is being acted out on, of all things, Twitter. (The sweet voices of angels and gentle trumpets rejoice). Just like ice cream cake, the world has joined together two wonderful things to create one mega amazing thing!
So here’s the run down. There are five characters (Juliet, the friar, the nurse, Tybalt, Mercrutio) and you follow them on Twitter. Their tweets ‘act’ out the play in modern English over the course of 5 weeks. You can check out their website, Such Tweet Sorrow, to get more information.
I’ve only been following the tweets for a short period of time, but I’m hoping that modern day tweeting Juliet doesn’t play into the angsty, whiney teen role but rather is true to the young, strong, and determined young woman I have in my mind.
Thank you internet for being so awesome and thank you England for introducing me to my new favorite word, “nob”.
There are many elements involved in search engine optimization. SEO is like tiny pieces of a puzzle. When you have one piece, you don’t really see anything and it doesn’t really do anyone any good. If you have a couple of pieces you can start to make out what the puzzle is going to be. Once you get them all together, you have a pretty awesome picture of spring flowers. Or , in terms of SEO, people that conduct a search for a topic that you blog about are able to find not only your blog, but they are able to find content that is pretty gosh darn close, if not exactly, to what they were looking for. Isn’t that a wonderful thought. It’s like digital matchmaking or something.
But no matter how many pieces of the SEO puzzle you have, none are really quite as effective as providing QUALITY CONTENT (the one I need to work on most, yikes!). For example, someone might find you blog easily on a search but if you haven’t added a post in 6 months they may be unlikely to come back. Or if they find your blog and the content stinks, again, the are not going to link to your content (a.k.a. recommend your site to friend).
I don’t know about you guys, but for me, the content is often times the hardest piece of the puzzle. To try to overcome that I follow several blogs that are about improving content.
Copyblogger – Copywriting tips for online marketing success
If all else fails, I look for inspiration in my daily Google Alerts, which are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. They are pretty handy at helping you to stay current on a particular topic or industry.
The point of the story is, if you write good content, they will come. But if you couple good content with Search Engine Optimization and marketing, the right readers will show up faster.
I have decided to create a new weekly series of posts covering the topic of Search Engine Optimization for bloggers. I will post a new tip every Monday for the next several weeks. Some of the tips you may already be familiar with but I’m hoping that with each tip you get a better understanding of how Google robots crawl your site. Ultimately using that knowledge to apply those principles to other areas of your web site.
Now I’m not claiming to have hidden secrets that will send you to the top of a Google search. Also, there are no guarantees on how this will all work for your site. Anyone that promises these things isn’t telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the principles I will discuss will not only help visitors to your site but will also help search engines index your site. So in my opinion it’s a win-win.
So okay, I may have gotten a little ahead of myself since for the past four weeks I have been diving straight into ways to tackle SEO on your blog. So how about I back up about 10 ft and start at the beginning. What the heck is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. The way I like to explain it is that SEO is a bunch of concepts you can get in the habit of using to organize content and information on your site that makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site. But SEO only influences ORGANIC search results
The higher your site shows up on a search result, the more likely it is that you will have more visitors to your site. However, if you want to show up in the paid results area all you have to do is visit Google AdWords. But keep in mind you “PAY” for those results.
What I’m concerned with, as I’m sure many other bloggers are, is how can I affect the organic search results for FREE by doing it myself. And actually it’s pretty easy. There are some key areas of your blog that you can focus your SEO attention on to get started I’ve listed them below:
Don’t worry I’ll go into more detail on these later. For more information check out Wikipedia’s definition of SEO.
I have decided to create a new weekly series of posts covering the topic of Search Engine Optimization for bloggers. I will post a new tip every Monday for the next several weeks. Some of the tips you may already be familiar with but I’m hoping that with each tip you get a better understanding of how Google robots crawl your site. Ultimately using that knowledge to apply those principles to other areas of your web site.
Now I’m not claiming to have hidden secrets that will send you to the top of a Google search. Also, there are no guarantees on how this will all work for your site. Anyone that promises these things isn’t telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the principles I will discuss will not only help visitors to your site but will also help search engines index your site. So in my opinion it’s a win-win.
I have mentioned before my addiction to Etsy. It’s just such a fun place to easily find creative and unique items without leaving the comfort of your own home. And let’s face it, I’m all about comfort and never having to get out of my pajamas. On the weekends my husband is lucky I actually shower, let alone leave the house. But that’s another story for another day. Today I’m focusing on, not only the convenience of online shopping, but how small it seems to make the world.
Last night I received a tunic in the mail from Mexico. That’s right an authentic Mexican blouse (from my Mom, Thanks MOM!). It is beautiful. As you may know I grew up in Oklahoma and now live in New England. Now I can get my fair share of lobster, cable knit crew sweaters, and boat shoes here in New England. But growing up in Oklahoma, my style is a bit more bohemian and western than that. I love gauzy blouses that help keep you cool in the unforgiving heat of the summer. I love a good pair of jeans that you can wear in any occasion. I can’t get enough turquoise jewelry. And above all else I love mexican food with a cool mug of Dos Equis with salt and lime. But these things are a bit difficult to come by in the land of Brooks Brothers and clam chowder.
Thank heavens for the internet. I can order all of those things I really love, even barbecue from a local Oklahoma restaurant, and have it delivered to my front door step. I can have a little piece of home when home feels a million miles away.
To top it all off, I received a special handwritten note with my blouse that read “Gracias, with love from Mexico”. That simple, small note made me feel connected to this woman who I’ve never met and have no idea what she looks like. But in receiving her product and her note I feel there was a lot of love put into my blouse and that makes it special.
Where else but the internet could I feel connected to a complete stranger who my mom ordered a super cute blouse from for my birthday to help cure my home sickness? No where I tell you.
HubSpot is the maker of some pretty amazing inbound marketing tools that can be pretty useful for big organizations. However, as a blogger, you probably don’t have the resources or even the need for the super strong tools they offer. However, what you do have a need for is some of the free grading tools they offer. According to Grader.com they are a family of tools that help measure all that matters in inbound marketing. And it’s true they offer a Twitter Grader, a Facebook Grader, and a Book Grader just to name a few. But for your blog you will want to use the Website Grader.
The Website Grader is really quite simple to use. You only have to know your own url and email address and they take care of the rest. After you submit your information they take less than 5 minutes to scan your site. They compile all the information they gathered into a report provides you with information about when Google last crawled your website, how many pages Google indexed, the readability level, the number of incoming links, and so much more. You can then use your received grade and feedback to improve upon your blog.
I have decided to create a new weekly series of posts covering the topic of Search Engine Optimization for bloggers. I will post a new tip every Monday for the next several weeks. Some of the tips you may already be familiar with but I’m hoping that with each tip you get a better understanding of how Google robots crawl your site. Ultimately using that knowledge to apply those principles to other areas of your web site.
Now I’m not claiming to have hidden secrets that will send you to the top of a Google search. Also, there are no guarantees on how this will all work for your site. Anyone that promises these things isn’t telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the principles I will discuss will not only help visitors to your site but will also help search engines index your site. So in my opinion it’s a win-win.
The quick answer is yes. The longer answer is you should register your domain name for the longest period of time you feel comfortable registering it as a blogger. The reason for this is that spam sites typically have a domain that will expire relatively soon. Because of this Google is cautious with any domain that has an approaching expiration date. So today’s quick lesson is for you to renew your domain registration early and for an extended period of time to remain in Google’s good graces.
I have decided to create a new weekly series of posts covering the topic of Search Engine Optimization for bloggers. I will post a new tip every Monday for the next several weeks. Some of the tips you may already be familiar with but I’m hoping that with each tip you get a better understanding of how Google robots crawl your site. Ultimately then using that knowledge to apply those principles to other areas of your web site.
Now I’m not claiming to have hidden secrets that will send you to the top of a Google search. Also, there are no guarantees on how this will all work for your site. Anyone that promises these things isn’t telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the principles I will discuss will not only help visitors to your site but will also help search engines index your site. So in my opinion it’s a win-win.
I recently found out that CBS is planning to make a TV series out of a Twitter account. I’m sure many people may think this is a bad idea, but I am not one of them. I love the idea and the reason it is because of the Twitter account they will be using, <a href="http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays" mce_href="http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays" target="_blank">S*%#@ My Dad Says</a>.</p> <p>The Twitter account was created by 29 year old Justin Halpern after moving in with his 74-year-old father. And just like the title of his Twitter handle would suggest, he tweets all of the stuff his dad says. Justin has gained a lot of notoriety with this Twitter account; he has over a million followers. Beyond the rumors of book deals and tv shows, it has also been hinted that <a href="http://www.realtvaddict.com/2010/02/22/william-shatner-cast-in-pilot-for-shit-my-dad-says/" mce_href="http://www.realtvaddict.com/2010/02/22/william-shatner-cast-in-pilot-for-shit-my-dad-says/" target="_blank">William Shatner will play Justin” alt=”" />. If that doesn’t smell like fame and notoriety, I don’ know what does. Besides the fact that the gems of wisdom Justin’s day provides, the situation can be related to by so many people. We all know the crotchety old man/woman/grandparent that says the most ridiculous things, that you can really only laugh about.
CBS is doing something remarkable. The show might end of flopping or it might do well for several seasons. But no matter what, CBS is doing something that has caused some chatter. As more people continue to embrace social media platforms like Twitter it will continue to shape our culture and marketplace. Or at least give us a high from semi-direct contact with famous people.
My name is Jes. I'm a web and numbers geek. I live in The Great White North. I've always dreamed of being a blues singer in a rockin' band. But I guess if you're the kind of person who uses the word "rockin", you were never meant to be in a band; so I blog instead. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy!
