I’ve been working on my own Google Rankings now for quite a while.  Some of the key terms that I have been using include: Fort Wayne Web Design, Fort Wayne Website Design, and Fort Wayne SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  My results have been pretty good.

If you search for the term “Fort Wayne Web Deisgn” I appear in the top 5 on Google, and I appear number 1 on yahoo and bing!

So, I thought I would take the time and just share a few simple steps (my top ten list) that I’ve been trying to utilize for SEO:

1. Setup Canonicalization and enforce WWW on all pages – this can sound really confusing, but basically it means making sure that regardless of whether I type in WWW.YOURSITE.COM or just YOURSITE.COM – my browser will ALWAYS end up saying the same thing – i.e. the WWW. is always added.The reason for this is simple – you don’t want Google to see two different options for your site – one with WWW and one without WWW.  You want all the Google Juice going to the same site – no matter how people link to it.
2. Submit to the three major search engines:Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/
   Bing: http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx
   Yahoo (becoming BING): http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
3. Submit to DMOZ – the Open Directory ProjectThe DMOZ (www.dmoz.org ) is an open-source / volunteer directory.  It has real humans who are compiling a list of web site into categories.  Visit the site – look at the categories and start to DRILL DOWN by clicking on categories until you find one you think your site should fit into.  Then, look for the SUBMIT URL link on the top of the page.  Click it and fill in the information.The approval process can often take months (or longer).
4. Update TITLES on all pages – pretty much everyone agrees that the <title>YOUR TITLE HERE</title> tag is the most important on-page factor for determining Google ranking.  Your Title should be around 65-75 characters long and include your keywords.  Titles should also vary from page to page – to accurately reflect the content of the page – and to also continue to reflect your keywords.
5. Update meta Keywords and meta descriptions.  Now, Google freely admits that meta keyword tag has absolutely no effect on Google ranking.  However, I still think it is important to get the meta keyword tag correct.  Of course, the same is said about meta description tag.  Generally this is used for the description that Google shows in a Search Result Page.
6. Create relevant H1 and H2 tags – your keywords should be at the top (first 1,500 characters) of the page inside of H1 tags.  Google looks at anything inside of H1 tags as more important – after all (goes there reasoning) anything we make a header must be more important, right?
7. Use ALT and TITLE tags on Images.  Make sure EVERY image has an appropriate ALT and TITLE tag added.  While Google can’t see what your image is – you can tell GOogle (via the ALT tag) and thereby win some valuable ranking.
8. Ensure that your HTML and CSS both validate:CSS Validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
   HTML Validator: http://validator.w3.org/.  If you site doesn’t validate, you’ll need a little bit of technical know how to fix problems.  And, some times it really isn’t a big deal, but it is always good to keep things “valid”
9. Create and Submit XML sitemaps to all major search engines.  Sitemaps are simple XML files that tell the search engines which pages exist and which pages should be crawled.  Creating and submitting a sitemap helps to ensure that Google, Bing, Yahoo, et al will actually find your pages.  The best way to learn about sitemaps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps
10. Create and use a Robots.txt file to help search engines index your content.  Using a robots.txt file is a bit more complicated than a sitemap.  And, typically a Robots.txt file is used to EXCLUDE areas of your site – like an admin site, etc.  But, you can do a TON with a good robots file – including blocking pages for a while and than unblocking them to gain google points.  Again, want to learn more, try Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard

So, there is my top ten list of Search Engine Optimization.  There’s a lot more to do.  And, all of these are what we like to call On Page Factors – meaning things you do to your own web page.  This didn’t even start to touch off page factors – like incoming links (another HUGELY popular topic).

Take a look at my list and let me know where I’m wrong or what I left off my list.  I’d love to hear about your top ten…

Just got done listening to a webinar by the good guys at HUBSPOT.

I love what these guys do and what they have to say. This most recent webinar was called “Viral Marketing: How to Create a World Wide Rave”.  It was really awesome.

My favorite part of the webinar was one of the introductory stories.  It’s the story of when 7 equals 350 million.

The story was told of the lady who was tasked with the job of marketing the brand new Universal Orlando Theme – The Wizardly Word of Harry Potter.  She had an almost unlimited budget for marketing.  She could do anything she wanted.  So she thought about her options:

• Direct Mail Marketing
• TV Commercials
• Super Bowl Commercial
• E-mail Marketing
• and, I’m sure a ton of others

So, what did she come up with?  The slickest super bowl commercial ever?  A million dollar give away?  

Nope, she set up a special – by invitation only – webinar.  The webinar was scheduled at midnight (you know – the whole Harry Potter wizard thing).  Invitations went out to a whopping SEVEN people!  That’s right – only seven.

How were the seven people picked?  Again, did she pick major news people, journalists?  Theme park revieweres (assuming they exist)?

Again, nope.  She simply picked the seven most popular Harry Potter bloggers and invited them to this special invitation event.

All seven agreed.

Her bosses, of course, were beside themselves.  I can only imagine the questions – why aren’t you buying magazine ads?  Why aren’t you buying tv commercials?  Why aren’t you hiring a super exspensive Ad Agency?

She didn’t have an answer UNTIL 24 hours AFTER the event.  

So, what happened?  Of course, we know the story.  All seven bloggers immediately wrote posts about the event.  They posted pictures about it.  They put information on facebook, they tweeted about it.  And, within 24 hours, over 350,000,000 (that’s right – million) had heard about the new park.  

And, it isn’t just a random collection of 350,00,000 people.  It was 350,000,000 people who had some sort of interest about Harry Potter – exactly the kind of people you want to know about your brand new Harry Potter theme park.

All I can say is “WOW”!  The simple truth is that you can’t buy that kind of publicity.  Literally – no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy that.

So, the question is what does a story like that mean for you and me?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Here’s a couple of my very short and very brief thoughts:

• NEVER underestimate the power of social media
• Be real – form a TRIBE – get the book TRIBES from Seth Godin to see what I mean
• Giving up control can have AMAZING results – to do something like this – you have to be willing to give up some control.

Other thoughts?  Let me know.

As most of you know, I work with The TQM Network here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Recently TQM had a Learning Session about Information Security.  I just finished posting the youtube video.

Check out the TQM (shareToGain) blog entry here:

http://www.sharetogain.com/2009/01/individual-information-security-corporate-security/

Here’s a taste of the session:

As I’m sure anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock lately has heard, there is an economic recession going on around the country.

But, what I find very interesting is how despite the “recession” certain areas of the economy seem to be holding their own or even growing.  

Web Development might be one of those areas (interesting that a web developer would notice this).  According to odesk.com, several areas of web development continue to grow.  Odesk is an outsourcing job board sort of web site.  They match up freelance people to available projects – sort of a job board deal.

So, on the Odesk blog, they just recently talked about how web development jobs are growing rapidly:

“Knowing and being professional in at least some of the skills below to maximize your prospects for being employed.”

Odesk says jobs in PHP, AJAX, Javascript, XML, MySQL, CSS and Graphic Design are all growing.

According to their information, PHP related jobs are growing the fastest

From their own blog:

“PHP is by far the most in-demand web development programming language right now. As you can see from the graph, it has enjoyed a steady climb from November 2007 leveling off in July 2008 at a spectacular 1400 jobs posted. The demand for PHP development work has tripled over the period of a mere 9 months.”

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.odesk.com/blog/2008/12/stay-employed-web-developer-skills-in-most-demand-php-ajax-mysql/

Of course, here at EH Design, we specialize in exactly these areas – PHP, mySQL, CSS, Javascript, and more.  We are a Fort Wayne based Web Design firm that specializes in web development.  CONTACT US if you would like to talk!

I just updated my Content Management System to WordPress 2.7.

For those of you who haven’t been following the news, WP 2.7 is a pretty significant update to WordPress.  A bunch of things have been moved around.

Here’s a few initial thoughts:

Plugins:

- Oz Admin Drop Down – one of my favorite back-end plugins is no longer needed – as a matter of fact, it breaks the admin pages.  So you need to delete it, deactivate it, etc.  Otherwise, you won’t be able to see the menu on the left.

-  Custom Admin Branding – no longer works – well, it works, but not as nice.  WP changed the look of the log-in screen so my custom made log in no longer works.  That’s not a big deal for me, but can’t wait to get this fixed for other clients.  Being able to put in a custom Branded log in screen is a big deal.

Back End Menu:

- I love having the menu on the left hand side.  I love being able to shrink the menu to just the icons – giving me more space for writing and other things.  In short it is a big deal.

- The dashboard is now actually a useful page.  Before it was nothing more than just a waste.  Now, I’m looking forward to seeing it in action a little more.  Things like quickPress intrigue me.

OK, that’s it for now.  I’ll have more thoughts later as I work through everything.

I’ve been using a tool by Market Leap (marketleap.com) to help me evaluate where my site is on various search engines.

Using the search term “Fort Wayne Website Design”, here’s what I’ve found:

AOL Search: 9 (page 1)
Google Search: 9 (page 1)
Lycos Search: 1 (page 1 – obviously)
MSN Search: 2 (page 1 – again obviously)
Netscape Search: 9 (page 1)
Yahoo Search: 1 (again, still page 1)

So, I feel pretty good about the results.  I’m still wondering why I can’t seem to creep into the top results for Google Local (which appear at the top of the page when using Fort Wayne Website Design as the search term).