My New Favorite Thing

October 11, 2011 By

October 2011: Dropbox for File Sharing

My new favorite thing is Dropbox. If you’re tired of the limitations put on emailing files back and forth, and carrying around a flash drive (if you’re lucky enough not to lose it) has gotten to be a drag, give Dropbox a try.

With Dropbox, you can share files (photos, documents, vidoes, etc.) with your co-workers, clients, friends or family.  With an interface as simple as Windows Explorer and an option to store up to 2GB of data at no cost, you’ll be sharing files in no time!

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge

The Power of YouTube

October 4, 2011 By

It’s Time to Get Yourself a YouTube Channel!

YouTube is all about videos of laughing babies and obnoxious teenagers, right? Wrong. Very wrong. If your business is not doing video, you should give it some serious consideration.

What can YouTube do for your organization or business?

  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Generate leads for your business
  • Make you part of the #2 search engine
  • Put you in front of at least 144 million unique viewers per month

In case you didn’t catch that, YouTube is the #2 search engine! So, if you’re looking to increase your visibility, you definitely want to get in on the YouTube action.

I know, I know, I hate being in front of the camera, too. The good news is, you don’t have to! So, what do you make a video about if you’re not going to stand there and talk about yourself? Well, that will obviously be specific to your industry. But think about your potential customers (and don’t forget about your existing ones). What are their interests? Hobbies? And even more importantly, what are their problems? Engage them with a topic they want to learn about or shoot a video showing a how-to on something they’re struggling with. If you’re a florist, people might be searching for a video on how and when to prune a rose bush. A photographer might want to show how to clean your camera. Another angle might be to jazz up your portfolio by creating a video showcasing a special product or service (see the vidoe above). Every time someone finds and watches one of your videos, you’re creating a relationship. And isn’t that what marketing is all about?

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge Tagged With: , ,

Tracking Website Visitors with Google Analytics

April 15, 2011 By

So, you’ve done the work to optimize your website & fought your way to the top of the search engine rankings. People HAVE to be seeing your website now, right? Well, there are ways to answer that question for sure with website tracking tools like Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free tool that, once the tracking code is embedded in your website, provides reports, graphs and a variety of data about the visitors to your website. You can see what pages they are viewing, how long they are staying and where they are coming from.

Setting it Up
Setting yourself up to receive data via Google Analytics is as simple as installing a tracking code (generated and provided by Google) into your website. Once you sign up for Google Analytics, you can get this tracking code and email it to your web designer if you are not able to manage the pages of your website yourself. And that’s it! Once you successfully install the tracking code, you’ll start seeing data within a couple of days.

Do You Have a Goal?
So, it’s really great to be tracking your visitors now, but let’s take it a step further. The features within your website are only effective if people are experiencing them. For example, you might have a video embedded into the home page of your website. That’s really great, but are people watching it? Google is on the verge of releasing a “new” Google Analytics (currently in beta), one that includes something called Events Goals. You can use this tool to track the actions of your visitors, beyond simply what pages they’re viewing. Events Goals will allow you to track how many people are watching that video and for how long. Personally, I think that’s really cool. I’ve signed up for early access to the new version & will let you know if it’s really as cool as it sounds.

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge Tagged With: , , , ,

Search Engine Optimization – Tip #3

March 15, 2011 By

My final bit of advice for those of you who are trying to increase your search engine rankings is an extension of the last tip, and that has to do with the words on the page.  In this case, I’m specifically talking about blogging.  Whether you have a blog website or a static website that links to an external blog, every post you publish is like adding a new page to your website.  Imagine that.  A new page filled with keywords – topics your potential customers are searching for – every time you post to your blog!  It is well worth it to take the time to develop and maintain a good blog.

Here are a few tips to make the most of the SEO benefits of blogging:

Create Keyword-Rich Post Titles
I say this for 2 reasons.  First, the keywords in the titles will help you to rank well when your target market is searching for those terms.  Page and post titles are really important when it comes to this aspect of ranking.  And second, if your titles reflect a topic your potential customers want to read about (and they should!), well, then they’ll take the time to read your post!  Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Connect Your Blog to Your Facebook Page
By connecting your blog to your Facebook page, you are doubling your exposure.  Facebook does wonders for your search engine visibility, and by connecting your blog to your business page, you are actively putting your blog posts in front of your fans and again creating another page with which to shout out some keywords.

Research When You’re Stumped For a Topic
If you’re like me, one of the hardest things is to come up with a relevant topic for a blog post.  Well, my very best friend in the world of blog topic brainstorming is the Keyword Question tool.  By entering in some keywords, it spits out a list of questions your target market is asking.  How cool is that?

Well, I hope I’ve inspired you to get out there and start blogging.  You won’t be sorry if you do!  And remember, if you need some help putting together a rockin’ blog site, be sure to get in touch with me!

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge Tagged With: , , , ,

Search Engine Optimization – Tip #2

February 15, 2011 By

Last month, I shared a tip on search engine optimization for those of you trying to improve your search engine ranking. I’ll provide another tip this month.

Tip #2 relates to the content, or the text, on your website. Many of you know about keywords, words planted behind-the scenes that search engines use to categorize your website. Those are important, but at the end of the day, the keywords won’t do a lot of good if many of those words don’t exist within the text on your pages. So, when composing the content for your website, make a list of keywords that best describe your business or organization and what you do, give it to your web designer, then be sure to include those words in the text on your website. The search engines will then put you in the proper categories, and your ranking will improve.

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge Tagged With: , , , ,

Search Engine Optimization – LINKS

January 15, 2011 By

People are always asking me, “how do I move myself up in the search engine rankings?” I, as a web designer, have certain practices that I use to improve a website’s chances at a high ranking. But there are also things that you, as a website owner, can do to help, too. Over the next few months, I am going to share a few of these tips and tricks with you.

The first tip I’ll give you is wrapped up in one word…LINKS. Get as many links TO your website as possible. People are often confused and think that having a page on their website with 100 links to other sites will help. But while offering links to others can and often does create good karma, the thing that most directly affects your ranking is having links FROM other sites TO your site. So, look at any online directory listings you have, associations you belong to, any related website, and ask for a link to your website, keeping in mind that links from highly ranked sites will score you more points. Good luck!!!

Filed Under: Sharing My Knowledge Tagged With: , , ,