Posts Tagged ‘Truth’

25
Aug
2009

Top Five Myths of SEO

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Welcome to my blog, please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed, join me on Twitter or leave a comment.

Here’s my list of the top five myths of SEO and some suggestions for how to work past them.

Meta Tags are Dead

There’s absolutely no proof that major search engines ignore META data, in fact my experience is that well used meta tags are almost always rewarded while horrible meta tags are almost always punished. Make sure that the meta tags you use on each page are specific to that specific content and relevant.

Multiple Domain Names Help Your Business

There’s some truth to this rumor but only if you use them right (Marketing With Sub Domains and Other Neat Tricks). If your business has 100 domain names and they all reproduce the same content, you’ll actually hurt yourself because Google will confuse content as repetitive. Instead, install a copy of WordPress MU (multiuser) and host 100 completely different websites, each with valuable information and resources specific to those domain names or redirect your domain names using .htaccess level redirects to tell Google your domain is pointing to another.

Doorway Pages Help Your Ranking

This is a big one, but it’s completely untrue! Doorway pages are special pages designed as landing pages which are specifically programmed to appeal to visitors but more importantly override major search engines understand of what your website is all about. Doorway pages are only linked from external websites and use a series of ‘black hat SEO’ techniques to override the search engines …. why doesn’t it work? Simple, major search engines such as Google hate being tricked. Remember, Google isn’t a company it’s a culture and the people who make up that culture want to be the best search engine in the world. If they believe you’re lying to them, they’ll kick you off their search engine.

Search Engine Friendly URL’s are Critical

No so fast, they make look great and even show up highlighted in result pages but there’s no concrete evidence to suggest making your URL’s pretty vs. database generated strings has any impact on your rankings at all. In fact, Matt Cutt’s (Google’s voice to the people and all around SEO guru) makes it clear that Google’s smart enough to ignore SEO friendly URL’s. So should you stop using them? Not a chance, they don’t hurt and they make the site easier  for people to use.

SEO is a One Time Fix

Hiring a reputable SEO consultant isn’t a one time fix, there are many aspects to building a great search engine ranking and it takes time, effort and patients.

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Posted in Blogging, Business Advice, Make Money Online, Web Site Advice

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13
May
2009

What Is Your Marketing Face?

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As I have started to look into social networking again, I came to think about the importance of setting up a good profile. There are lots of good tips and pointers out there on how you should promote yourself and what you should never put in your network profile(s). You can see a good example here on WritersCorner:
Setting Up A Marketing Profile

So as I am setting up my profile, I think about what to put in the “tell us about yourself” field. And it hits me: I choose what to write. What I want people to know and what not to know about me. I surely will leave out some things about myself.

“Leaving out some specific things about myself in my profile”. Does that make me a liar?

The truth is that we are all multifaceted creatures.  None of us is never 100% of what other people perceive us to be.  We have many sides and many “faces”, strong and weak sides.  Most of what we put out there when marketing ourselves is pretty one sided – we show the face we believe will be most accepted, the most trust worthy. The side of us that shows us a business people. This isn’t really lying, just holding back some of the truth. We simple just show one consistent side of ourselves.

But what about the “rest of us”?  What about the other faces we carry? The ones that most of the public doesn’t know about, embraces or sees?  Should this side be kept hidden and undiscovered, or could it be brought into the conversation? If I should choose to show of another side of me, would I have to find a different voice, or brand? And surely I risk the connections to my fellow networkers and all the contacts I’ve build up with the face they know, trust and feel comfortable with.

I think we all trust people we feel are genuine and honest. But do we really know these persons? There must be a way for all of us to show our true selves, without risking what we have already built, and all the contacts we have made. So tell me the truth here:  Do you have a marketing face?

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Posted in Blog Posts

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07
May
2009

What’s the first thing I do when you apply for a job with me?

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A few weeks back I posted an articled called What the hell is wrong with young people today? which was about the responses I received from a Kijiji ad for an Online Marketing Assistant. Truth be told, I filled the job via a personal referral from a friend that I trusted rather than go with the people who applied but today I received a fresh reply from somebody and (I swear to god) their application for the job was:

more info please

As if this position was some type of posting for a … I don’t even know what.

So here’s what I thought I’d do today because I’m in a writing mood and that one pissed me off a little bit (OK, I’m just in a bad mood because of something completely unrelated but today is honesty day), I’m going to tell you what I and countless other people do every time you apply for a job with us.

First, I Facebook you.

Yep, the very first thing I do before I even talk to you is I Facebook you using your name and email address. This lets me see:

  1. Who your friends are (in case we share any);
  2. What types of things your into;
  3. Your education etc.

Second, I Google you.

You’d be amazed how many totally useless things I find out about potential employees by searching the Internet. For example, I discovered the home address and telephone number of an applicant this weekend which led me to find out that they have a MySpace page which in turn led me to both their musical preference and nude photos of them. Now I’m not saying I would preclude people from a job because their topless tattoo shots are gracing the front of a website but it rarely helps.

Finally I Twitter you.

I’m still trying to figure this Twitter thing out but I think I’m getting the hang of it and what I’ve discovered is that a lot of people post a lot of stuff about their alcohol consumption levels and much like Facebooking, you should never do it drunk.

Why?

Maybe I’m a little damaged but I believe that an employee is an extension of the company and since I am the company, I think an employee is an extension of me and my reputation. With that in mind there are some pretty basic things that I think people should keep in mind with presenting themselves on the web:

  1. As nice as your breasts are, they are unlikely to help my SEO value
  2. Drunk photos of you peeing are also not helpful
  3. Much like Vegas, what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet
  4. If you could Google what happened in Vegas, we’d all be screwed.

btw, I read a great piece today called 8 Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs that had some really funny job related content and as a last minute edit I thought I’d share the link with you all.

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Posted in Blog Posts

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03
Apr
2009

I don’t get Twitter.

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This morning there was an article by Erick Schonfeld called Biz Stone Plays It Cool On Colbert and I have to admit, I feel a little foolish professing this on a technology blog but I don’t really ‘get’ Twitter.

I think my problem ‘getting’ Twitter is that to me it’s a bunch of noise distracting me from my daily objectives. I already have an Instant Message client running as well as Skype, Facebook, an iPhone, iChat and my office phones. Not including my email, RSS subscriptions and usernet group updates … I guess in truth I just don’t understand the need for another source of chatter. 

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s got to be a purpose to it … I just don’t get it.  I don’t think I’m alone either.

Biz Stone (Twitter) was on The Colbert Report last night and even he seemed unable to truly explain what the purpose of the popular social networking tool is. Jeremy Lichtman Lichtman has a point where he states there’s a high ‘noise to signal’ ratio, so maybe my issue with Twitter is the same issue I had as a kid when my uncle tried to get me to listen to the old Ham radio … maybe Twitter users are the modern, Internet version of dorky middle aged men talking to each other in closets?

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Posted in Blog Posts

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23
Oct
2006

Top Ten Features of a Good Web Site

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I’ve been building websites for over 10 years and have created many sites. Great websites have always had a few key things in common.

1) Great Navigation – What use is a website without great navigation? A visitor should be able to quickly find the page(s) they’re looking for as such, navigation elements should be grouped and logical.

2) Great Content – Make your content king, in truth nothing else matters.

3) Presented Well – A great website does not need to be flashy, but the content must be readable. Keep busy patterns and background images off your site, simple white is always your best bet.

4) Include a Contact Link – Let people easily know how to get in touch with you, believe it or not there are a ton of websites out there with no contact details!

5) Fresh Content – People will visit your site more often if you have new items to view.

6) Search Friendly – Include a sitemap or search feature on your site if it’s more than a couple of pages.

7) Remember Your Audience – Focus your website on people who might come to visit, place articles or information that they will care about in easy to find locations.

8) Fast Loading – If you site doesn’t load quickly, people will find the information somewhere else so keep it simple and if you have to have large images, link to them from smaller icons to help people with slower connections.

9) Well Maintained – Nothing annoys your visitors faster than broken links or missing photographs. When you build a site, test it all and when you’re sure it works, make a note on your calendar to recheck the website every few weeks.

10) Avoid Audio – Unless your business is selling audio related services, it’s best to avoid putting audio on your website.

This post came from an archive of my older website, since then I’ve posted a lot more, so please take the time to read some of my other recent work.

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Posted in Web Site Advice

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26
Sep
2005

Logo Samples from 2005

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I’ve lost count of the number of logo designs I’ve worked on over the years, in truth there have simply been too many to count and some of my best never made it to final production.

Here’s a collection of some of my favorites from 2005, click the icon to your right to view more.

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Posted in Print

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