Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Years Eve 2015 Party Posters

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Happy SEO New Year 2015


Best wishes on your social media marketing, mobile optimization, local search, YouTube video, backlink management, Schema.org implementation, webpage content development, and SEO strategies in 2015.






Pin It

Monday, December 29, 2014

Finding a Job and Recruiting Talent in 2015



If you're using old fashioned methods to find a job, no wonder you're not successful.
Sending out resumes, filling out applications, going to interviews, attending jobs fairs -- none of these work much anymore.
You need stealth tactics, social media skills, and high tech savvy.
You need to get employers and clients coming to you, instead of you groveling around going to them with that pleading look on your face and desperation oozing from every pore.
How do you get them coming to you?
By proving you can do the job.
By describing how you've done similar jobs.
By displaying on YouTube videos of you solving a problem or showcasing your expertise, answering questions, explaining a mission critical concept.
By discussing typical problems encountered in this position -- and what steps you'd take to solve them.
By trumpeting the horns of your expertise.
Loudly. Relentlessly. Pleasingly. Helpfully. Persistently. Confidently. Calmly. Enthusiastically. Understatedly. Appropriately. Smartly. Humorously. Soberly. Professionally. Strategically. SEO Savvy-ically.
You need to have a blog, website, About.me, Google+, Facebook presence that is overflowing with anecdotes, how to tips, video tutorials, comparison charts, educational information, debate, assertions, affirmations, research results -- related to your expertise or talents.
You must become Top of Mind Choice when anybody thinks about a problem your service can solve.
You must prove yourself to be creative, intelligent, social, leading edge, authentic, authoritative, specialized, tech-empowered, and trustworthy.
You do this via what you post online in easily findable web real estate.
You do this by considering everything you do to be ultimately PR, Advertising, Sales, Marketing, Recruitment, Job-oriented.
Focus on explaining your field, how you've helped clients and employers, videos showing you doing it, articles on hot topics related to your expertise, interpreting industry news, documenting your achievements, displaying testimonials, listing endorsements, linking to your other websites and online presences.
If you seek a job, learn what recruiters are saying about how they find top talent. If you seek to fill a position, find out how workers are talking about that job description and career path.
QUOTE
First, it’s important to understand that employee retention isn’t an initiative, a program or a project. It needs to be a way of life. As managers, executives and business owners, we often spend a great deal of time and expense marketing our company to our prospective clients, our current clients, and even our communities. With that said, it’s incredibly common to forget to market your company to your most important audience — your employees.
While salary and overall compensation are important to just about all professionals, can you guess the number one reason I hear when I ask people why they want to leave their current role?
Give up? The answer is boredom or stagnation. People either feel unchallenged, dead-ended or don’t have visibility into the long-term plan of the company.
END QUOTE




READ MORE:













Pin It

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Streight SEO global reach SEO services



Trusted Source of SEO Expertise


Streight SEO, via the Pluperfecter blog, has been a global source of SEO best practices and web content development expertise.

Since 2000, web usability testing, ecommerce landing page optimization, webpage content writing, YouTube video, CEO blogging, SEO auditing, Facebook promotions, and other internet marketing programs have been designed and implemented.

The newest professional SEO blog, Pluperfecter, was launched in May 2008 after experimenting since 2004 with Vaspers the Grate, Corporate Blog Revolution, Blog Core Values, and other marketing blogs.

Currently providing SEO for banks, hospitals, insurance companies, energy companies, musicians, heavy equipment manufacturers, agriculture test developers, event planners, and tourism associations.

If you need creative, effective, leading edge web content strategy, social marketing tactics, and  Google-compliant SEO -- let's get it done. 


Smart SEO has great ROI.


CONTACT:





Pin It

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Best Facebook Conversation of 2014



Here's what I think is the most amusing dialogue on social media, specifically Facebook, of the year.

(Re: Ars Technica article on Blackberry releasing new retro model.)

Steve Schonberger
If this had been available when I bought my current Android phone, I would have bought it. I still miss the hardware keyboard on my old Blackberry Bold, but not enough to go back to a niche product.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 9:26pm


Jennifer Reed Schonberger
I think you like it because you were using your blackberry in the movie theater and pissing me off while the previews were running. When you turned your phone off I said, "Thank you" very sarcastically. Thus our love affair began.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 11:00pm
Pin It

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Your Competitors Don't Understand SEO



Want a large competitive advantage for your business? 

Your competitors don't understand SEO. That's an Achilles heel you can easily and quickly leverage.

SEO is something you can seize as an opportunity to increase sales and brand loyalty. And divert web traffic away from your competitors and direct to your website.

You can gain this strong commercial advantage in a totally legitimate Google-compliant manner. You simply install correctly written meta tags, H tags, image alt attributes, photo titles, captions, and other SEO values in your website. 

Add some appropriate unpaid directory listings. 

Develop link-worthy, search-friendly content pages that drill down into deep expertise. Promote your web content and blog posts in Facebook and GooglePlus.

Keeping adding frequent, keyword-savvy, informative (not just promotional) content via News page, blog, and social media.

Do these few simple things and you'll zoom past your competitors on search results pages.

With the right types and amounts of authoritative, helpful content, qualified customers will benefit from your website and be more prone to buy something from you.

Implement Schema.org structured markup microdata.

Much more is involved with SEO and web content development, but get going on these issues and you'll be off to a great start.


Pin It

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

More Likely Disgruntled Employee Hacked Sony Pictures?



There is some speculation that the hacker of Sony Pictures was a disgruntled employee. They've done it before and this attack has some characteristics of an inside job.

A professional in the field gives some insight about this in the Daily Mail.

QUOTE

Cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam told the Hollywood Reporter that he finds it hard to believe that North Korea is the perpetrator and instead thinks it is more probable that it was the actions of an employee or ex-employee with administrative access privileges.

"For the studio — which has laid off hundreds of employees over the past year in an effort to contain costs — the possibility of a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc is very real.

If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily," explains Nigam.

"It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked.

Hackers don't use such things as Hushmail, Dropbox and Facebook when they want to engage in what amounts to criminal activity. Real hackers know that these sites collect access logs, IP addresses and work with law enforcement. It is possible that North Korean-sponsored hackers were working with someone on the inside. But it is more likely a ruse to shift blame, knowing the distaste the North Korean regime has for Sony Pictures."

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Monday, December 22, 2014

Americans blaming North Korea for more than Sony hack



Ever since the government started the trend, Americans are increasingly blaming North Korea for all kinds of things, with flimsy or no evidence.

They are blaming North Korea for such things as:

* the fact that chocolate fudge with nuts has nuts in it

* how boring Pawn Stars on History is for time travelers

* the lack of multi-culturalism in chemtrails (they're all white)

* the slow progress in sex robot development

* the complexity of coffee drinking etiquette

* atrocious Christmas sweaters and neckties

* web designer use of light gray text on white backgrounds

* how hard it is to learn C++ when you're drunk all the time

* the redundancy of books on blogging and social media

* the demise of the 8 track music cartridge come-back of 2012

* the refusal of Payless shoe stores to sell wooden shoes in Illinois

* the high cost of amanita muscaria mushrooms and PCP cigarettes at Summer Camp Music Festival

* the low grade humor in Saturday Night Live lately

* the termination of The Colbert Report

* how loudly Keith shuts doors, even though he says it's very quietly

* the scarcity of Dave Clark 5 tribute bands

* the lack of pizza parlors in Barnes & Noble stores

* the unavailability of jet packs so we can fly around in the air

* the failure of New Math venn diagrams to impact our world

* our losing the war against extraterrestrial UFO space invaders



Pin It

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Brogrammers blame North Korea for Sony hack


Brogrammers are merrily bashing North Korea and feeling virile as they do it.

(BROther proGRAMMER) A macho programmer. A brogrammer is tongue-in-cheek slang for a high-tech geek who works out a lot in the gym, is popular with the opposite sex, likes to party and is admired by his buddies for his flair and super coolness. To affect the look, brogrammers are known to wear sunglasses a lot of the time. 

See tech bros.

Others say brogrammers aren't so lucky in love, but like to wildly exaggerate their romantic adventures (assuming they have any) while preventing females from entering the tech field cave they inhabit in cubicles or long desks.

Blaming the Sony hack on North Korea gives the digital druid brogrammers a grandiose opportunity to mock a small cultish dictatorship and brag about supposed US superiority because we invented the Internet.

But they don't appear to grasp just how vulnerable US corporate networks are, due to resistance to investing in adequate up-to-date network security, risky email distributions, and socially engineered users.

Nor do they seem to understand spoofed IPs, malware propagations, advanced persistent threats, or anything else about cyber warfare.


If you're young and combative and want to make a difference in this world, consider the career of Defensive Cyberspace Operations Engineer (CSFI-DCOE).


Pin It

Saturday, December 20, 2014

More movie releases canceled by Hollywood


Due to the precedent established by the Sony Pictures hack and subsequent decision to not release "The Interview," more Hollywood executives have followed suit and halted the release of a rash of new and eagerly anticipated films.

Upcoming movie releases that have now been canceled:

How to Brainwash Your Dragon: canceled due to green technology environmentalist claims that fire breathing dragons cause global warming and should not be trained, hypnotized, or even allowed to exist.

Twilight of the Moon Orbiting the Planet of the Apes: canceled due to rumors that PETA fanatics threatened to show up in suicide vests -- or at least lime green leisure suits.

The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Leno: canceled due to serious concerns about the possible jealousy of David Letterman, who resents the fact that no movie has ever had his name in it.

Enter Duller (sequel to Interstellar): canceled due to junk science related to rogue astronauts who travel through warped and worn-out worm holes to discover planets that are far more boring than planet Earth.

The Eggo Movie: canceled due to militant vegans threatening to stage Die Ins all over the USA in protest against building things with non-nutritive waffles (that were originally called "Froffles" -- a portmanteau of "frozen waffles") that smell and taste like real eggs or GMO derivatives.

Annie (Gets Her Gun and Kills a Rogue Cop): canceled due to concerns that racial unrest and militarized law enforcement might clash in peaceful but disconcerting confrontations where nobody's sure what rights anybody has.

Saving Private Ryan's Mom: cancelled immediately after theaters realized the entire film involved the concept of mothers who join their sons in war, which was very similar to terror, but with more rock music, beer, and flag waving.

The Theory of Nothing: canceled due to fears that astro-physicists would revolt in acts of unseemly immoral calculations when they found out the film focuses on Steven Hawking arguing with Richard Dawkins about whether we should worship a Magic Big Bang or an ancient pseudo-deity called Random Chance Operationus.

Forrest Gump in The Matrix Unloaded: canceled due to fears that activists who protest the unsympathetic portrayal of a mentally challenged person might use boxes of chocolates as dirty bombs in diabetes clinics.

Mrs. Doubtfire Returns (And Doubts Fire): cancelled due to junk science deniers related to piles of evidence that fire does indeed exist and had to have been invented by lab-coated technicians, plus reports about a creaking theater entrance door that sounded like a terrorist attack (even though Keith said he closed it quietly).

The Unequalizer: canceled due to the convoluted math involved that might cause Common Core to appear to be a Cuban plot to separate children from their parents, who still can't figure out New Math venn diagrams, modular arithmetic, algebraic inequalities, matrices, symbolic logic, Boolean algebra, and abstract algebra.

Batman & Robin Go to Disneyworld: cancelled by studio executives who found the pair looked too "romantically intertwined" which might provoke Westboro Church to bomb theatres or at least boo and hiss at those who stood in line to buy tickets.



Pin It

Friday, December 19, 2014

Hackers Question Idea That North Korea Hacked Sony


Evidence Pointing to North Korea as Source of Sony Cyber Attack is Flimsy

I'm increasingly skeptical that North Korea is responsible for the Sony hack. I'm just not buying it, in spite of all the pundits clamoring for the spotlight to condemn North Korea.

Some hackers are saying it looks more like an inside job. I also wonder about file backups when the goofy CEO of Sony says all the computers were wiped of all data.

When they had passwords stored in a file called "passwords" -- that's the kind of incompetence you'd expect from a grade school kid.

Many are saying this is a brilliant marketing ploy of Sony. I'm not prepared to go that far, but there are many red flags that indicate we cannot PROVE that North Korean hackers did this.

Wired magazine questions the idea that North Korea hacked Sony Pictures

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/evidence-of-north-korea-hack-is-thin/


There is growing skepticism that anybody really KNOWS who hacked Sony Pictures.

It's extremely strange, and possibly unprofessional, to state with certainty that North Korea is the culprit. Since investigations are classified, it's hard to know what the sudden assertions are based on.

Cybersecurity expert, Graham Cluley, formerly at Naked Security from Sophos states in the following two quotes:

QUOTE 1

Here’s what we do know:

* The hackers initially emailed Sony executives days before the “skull attack”, and demanded money. No mention of “The Interview”, no mention of North Korea.

* The hackers then plastered grisly skull images over Sony computers, and threatened to release the company’s data unless their demands were not met. No mention of “The Interview”, no mention of North Korea.

* Suddenly the media, following the Re/code report, starts linking the attack to “The Interview” and North Korea.

* We also know that state-sponsored attacks don’t tend to put skull images on the computers they’re targeting (it makes the attack kinda obvious!) or demand money.

If it was all a plot by North Korea (or N. Korean sympathisers) to attack Sony because of the movie, why didn’t the initial demands or the malware mention this?

Similarities have been drawn between the Sony Pictures attack and the DarkSeoul malware that hit South Korean broadcasters in 2013. That attack wasn’t shy of using skull imagery either.

And, if unnamed White House sources are now pointing an accusatory finger at North Korea we need to ask ourselves:

* Why are they unnamed sources? Why won’t they go on the record? What do they hope to gain by making the claims anonymously?

* What proof do the US authorities have that North Korea is behind the attack?

* How do the US authorities explain the malware and the demands not making a reference to the movie or N Korea? (Yes, we know that a later anonymous PasteBin post started ranting about the movie and made 9/11 threats.)

END QUOTE

QUOTE 2

"All I know from police investigations into cybercrime is that they are incredibly complex and can often take years. To complete this kind of investigation, the US would need the support of North Korea to look at the computer that made the attack. Hackers can make it look like they are coming from North Korea when they are really coming from Belgium, or the computer could be compromised and a computer in North Korea could be being controlled from somewhere else. To make this announcement so quickly seems a bit rushed."

END QUOTE


READ MORE about the Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Japanese company Sony, and the cyber attack on them supposedly by North Korea:


Krebs on Security apparently accepts the FBI statement that it was North Korea, but to me, the evidence is flimsy at best still.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/12/fbi-north-korea-to-blame-for-sony-hack/


A highly detailed and deep analysis of what happened and why the Sony hack was probably an inside job by a disgruntled employee.

https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-analysis-of-the-december-2014-sony-hack/


Caroline Baylon, a research associate in cyber security at Chatham House, discusses why the North Korean government was probably not behind the hack of Sony Pictures.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2014/dec/18/north-korea-probably-not-behind-sony-pictures-hack-cyber-security-expert-video


Cyber security expert Mark W. Rogers gives 10 reasons why it probably was NOT North Korea that hacked Sony Pictures. This article is buttressed with links to other cyber security experts who are also extremely skeptical about the FBI's rash accusations.


http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-unlikely-to-be-the-work-of-north-korea/

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Early SEO Success for Accounting Firm



I'm doing SEO and blogging for a brand new accounting firm with a brand new website.

If you understand SEO even a little, you know that a brand new website takes a long time to curry favor with Google, because Google doesn't trust new websites, and factors their lack of longevity as a negative SEO value. 

This is because spammers generate new websites all the time, as Google catches on to their black hat gimmicks and removes them from search results pages.

So my client has a website that is only about 2 months old and does not have very many blog posts yet. Regarding competitors, Manta lists 83 accounting firms in Peoria, IL. There are more than that, businesses who are not listed on the Manta directory.

I'm happy to state that tonight, using "small business accounting peoria il" as search query, my client ranks #2 on page 4 of search results, in other words, #42 already. The goal, of course, is to rank #1 on page 1, but this is an excellent start for a new website and a new company.

This means that already my client has defeated half of his competitors in this search category. They have beat 41 competitors for this search query. And we have only just begun.

SEO is never an instant success story, especially for a brand new company with a brand new website. So we are very excited and happy to see this great start for their ongoing SEO program.

Pin It

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

33 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer



Ask your web designer these questions BEFORE giving them the job.


(1) Can I see an online portfolio of websites you've designed?

(2) Do you design in HTML5? Schema.org? Why not?

(3) Do you use templates or custom design from scratch?

(4) Do you create wireframes (sketches of where content will go) before designing the site?

(5) How easy will it be for me to access the admin panel and make changes to the HTML and content, and upload photos and video?

(6) Where did you learn web design?

(7) Will you install Google Analytics on my site?

(8) Do your websites use light gray text on white backgrounds (which is difficult to read)?

(9) Do you do responsive web design (so the site looks good on any device)?

(10) What are the 5 worst mistakes that can be made on a website?

(11) How long will it take you to get my website up and running?

(12) Will you test my website for cross-browser compatibility? (So it looks good in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.)

(13) How will you accommodate my business goals for this website?

(14) How will you differentiate my business from my competitors?

(15) How will you implement a strong Call To Action on every page of my site?

(16) What will the top navigation links be?

(17) How will you test my website for usability?

(18) How will I be able to add fresh content to my website?

(19) Where will my website be hosted?

(20) How will you form the URLs for each webpage (should be keyword rich, like www.example.com/products/organic-seeds/pumpkin-seeds and notwww.example.com/1433793)

(21) What kinds of non-stock photos do you need from me and how do you plan to use them on my website?

(22) What kind of Contact form do you plan to use?

(23) Where will you put the business address, phone number, etc.?

(24) How will you implement social sharing links (like, share, plus one, retweet) for my business Facebook page, GooglePlus, Twitter, YouTube, etc.? How will you link to my social media pages?

(25) How will you make my website mobile friendly (mobile optimization)?

(26) What CMS (content management system) will you use? WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, proprietary? NOTE: Proprietary CMS is often used to trap you into a CMS that only the designer understands, so you can't leave. Other times proprietary CMS is created to accommodate a client's non-standard needs.

(27) How will you implement a blog for my website?

(28) Do you plan to use Flash or iFrames? (These are not good for SEO.)

(29) How will you implement a site search functionality (for larger websites)?

(30) How will you implement internal linking?

(31) How will you format content to comply with Google Hummingbird semantic search?

(32) What SEO values (meta tags, H tags, robots protocols, site map, etc.) will you build into my website?

(33) How will I be able to track results from my website, to get an ROI and ensure that it's productive?

NOTE: If you need further explanations of these issues, contact me.


steven.streight@gmail.com

Pin It

Monday, December 15, 2014

3 Reasons Why Businesses Won't Use Social Media



"Our top competitor isn't blogging or using Facebook -- so why should we? They're very successful without it."

My answer: Because this is a vulnerability of your competitor. You can take advantage of their cluelessness about social media. You can be better than your competitor.

Slavishly imitating a competitor is a sure way to destroy your own business. That successful competitor may be bankrupt a year from now. They may be doing many things right, but some things wrong, and if you imitate the things they do wrong, you'll suffer for it.


A consultant like myself will analyze the competitor and find the Achilles heels.

I fear that the 3 main reasons a business resists promoting themselves on Facebook or a blog are:

(1) They just don't care about customers as people with needs. Customers are just wallets that open. They don't want to engage in conversations with them, or provide their expertise to them. They just want to customers to spend money, without the CEO having to have any human warmth or social interaction with them.

(2) They think "if we build it, they will come." That silly phrase is used to justify not having SEO and not blogging. So their website just sits there, with nobody coming to it. They don't understand that Google wants to see fresh, original, relevant, frequent content -- not a static website with sparse content, no News page, no new information.

A blog is a great way to grind out fantastic content, that Google will take into consideration when driving customers to websites that seem relevant and up to date.

They don't understand the marketing power of blogging, they don't want to spend time writing blog posts, they aren't good writers, or they don't want to pay someone to write good blog posts for them.

(3) They believe in old fashioned media, like TV and radio commercials. They don't understand how wasteful those investments can be. They don't understand that their customers are on Facebook and are influencing each other about what to buy.


Pin It

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Current state of SEO and what clients need to know



What Clients Need to Know about the Current State of SEO


A friend on LinkedIn, Chris Abraham, was musing about how SEO is evolving. He said some SEOs now proclaim that you must remove all meta tags from HTML. This is ridiculous.

Google Webmaster is not saying that. Google gives a list of "meta tags we understand":

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en

Chris also said that many big SEO clients are re-writing their hobbled together websites to comply with new search engine algorithms and rules. Many websites of larger companies have been stitched together without much rhyme or reason, due to departmental feuds and time constraints.

It's good to re-write corporate fluff into engaging, customer-centric content.


I offered this comment:

Title and meta description and H tags are valid, but meta keywords tag should be empty. Fresh, original content that answers customer questions in an FAQ format is how to do SEO services now.  

The big challenge is convincing clients that: 

* new subpages need to be created for major keyword topics customers are doing searches on, but there is no corresponding webpage in the client's website

* each webpage must have a single H1 tag that identifies the main theme

* keyword ranking is dead (since the Not Provided change at Google)

* page level metrics is all we have now, so we start optimizing the pages that get the most traffic or have the best financial payoff value

* they need to have more definitions and explanations from the customer viewpoint (you-oriented conversation, not we-oriented fluff)

* they need to define Conversion Goals and track them through Google Analytics so they can see the ROI of SEO

* Schema.org structured markup microdata code is now mandatory for implementation in the HTML, though very time consuming to do so manually.


Pin It

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Inspirational Quote Troll



New troll variety spotted in the wild -- the Inspirational Quote Troll. 

First seen, by this researcher, on Facebook.

I saw this long string of inspirational quotes and their authors, all jammed together, in a long unbroken block of text, being deposited as a comment by The Amazing Post user on Facebook.

The dense cluster of  inspirational text was on a The New York Times thread about insomnia leading to dementia. 

The comment also included a direct link to The Amazing Post's profile page on Facebook, so the comment was clearly a misguided attempt to, not participate in the topic, but to drive people to their Facebook page.

This falls into the category of the Lazy Underachieving Troll species.

Instead of structuring an insincere abusive argument designed to be inflammatory, these Inspirational Quote Trolls copy some group of positive affirmations.

Then they hop around, pasting the clipboard text wherever they feel like disrupting an online conversation, but without exerting much effort.

What's this world coming to when even the criminals and spammers are miserable slackers? Have they no pride anymore?

Very similar to the Recipe Troll that I told you about a few days ago, which posts actual recipes and cooking instructions (prefaced with "I don't know what to post as a comment, so I'll just give you my recipe for blueberry muffins") as comments.

Being disruptive, but in a very slothful manner.

My comment is that dementia is more often caused by dosing non-psychiatric nursing home patients with anti-psychotics to make them easier to manage.

And now...

Here is the actual Inspirational Quote Troll spam, in its entirety:

QUOTE

“Just know, when you truly want success, you’ll never give up on it. No matter how bad the situation may get.” - Unknown“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown“I don’t regret the things I’ve done, I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.” –Unknown“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” - Joshua J. Marine“Its hard to wait around for something you know might never happen; but its harder to give up when you know its everything you want.” – Unknown“One of the most important keys to Success is having the discipline to do what you know you should do, even when you dont feel like doing it.” - Unknown“Good things come to those who wait… greater things come to those who get off their ass and do anything to make it happen.” - Unknown“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude.” - Denis Waitley“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby“Go where you are celebrated – not tolerated. If they can’t see the real value of you, it’s time for a new start.” – UnknownDont be afraid to stand for what you believe in, even if that means standing alone.. - Unknown“The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra“Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will.” - Unknown“I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. Its because of them I’m doing it myself.” –Albert Einstein“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs“Life is short, live it. Love is rare, grab it. Anger is bad, dump it. Fear is awful, face it. Memories are sweet, cherish it.” – Unknown“When you say “It’s hard”, it actually means “I’m not strong enough to fight for it”. Stop saying its hard. Think positive!” - Unknown“Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop.” - Unknown“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield“The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow. For every challenge encountered there is opportunity for growth.” - Unknown“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray“The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible.” – Joel Brown“Self confidence is the most attractive quality a person can have. how can anyone see how awesome you are if you can’t see it yourself?” – Unknown“We learn something from everyone who passes through our lives.. Some lessons are painful, some are painless.. but, all are priceless.” - Unknown“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. it means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” - Unknown“Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don’t have a plan.” – Larry Winget“Three things you cannot recover in life: the WORD after it’s said, the MOMENT after it’s missed and the TIME after it’s gone. Be Careful!” – Unknown“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard“When the past calls, let it go to voicemail, believe me, it has nothing new to say.” - Unknown“Rule #1 of life. Do what makes YOU happy.” - Unknown“Walk away from anything or anyone who takes away from your joy. Life is too short to put up with fools.” – Unknown“Love what you have. Need what you want. Accept what you receive. Give what you can. Always remember, what goes around, comes around…” – Unknwon“Just remember there is someone out there that is more than happy with less than what you have.” – Unknown“The biggest failure you can have in life is making the mistake of never trying at all.” – Unknown“Life has two rules: #1 Never quit #2 Always remember rule # 1.” - Unknown“No one is going to hand me success. I must go out & get it myself. That’s why I’m here. To dominate. To conquer. Both the world, and myself.” - Unknown# Like_Like_like https://www.facebook.com/TheAmazingPost?ref=tn_tnmn

END QUOTE

Pin It

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Schema.org Introduction to structured data



HTML5, Google Hummingbird Semantic Search, Linked Data, and Structured Markup -- how the web is moving from web page to data set as the atomic unit.

This is the path to competitive superiority, via enriched SERP snippets.



Enriched SERP snippets -- that's where your SEO focus should be now. Schema.org structured markup in your HTML5 website code is how to get there.

Google Webmasters explains "snippets":

QUOTE

Snippets—the few lines of text that appear under every search result—are designed to give users a sense for what’s on the page and why it’s relevant to their query.

If Google understands the content on your pages, we can create rich snippets—detailed information intended to help users with specific queries.

For example, the snippet for a restaurant might show the average review and price range; the snippet for a recipe page might show the total preparation time, a photo, and the recipe’s review rating; and the snippet for a music album could list songs along with a link to play each song. 

These rich snippets help users recognize when your site is relevant to their search, and may result in more clicks to your pages.

END QUOTE

The web is evolving from being a system of interconnected documents (web pages) to a set of linked data.

Web pages have been linking to each other from the beginning. Now data sets within web pages, and in other types of content, are being linked. So they will benefit from detailed instructions to search engines, code that will further explain the data set embedded in, or converted into, HTML.

Microdata, semantic web, structured data, it all relates to  more specifically identifying, and differentiating, the information found on a web page. The end goal is for people to more quickly and accurately find the information they seek on the internet.

This will help clear up any confusion about a name being the name of a record label, or the name of a fruit, or the name of a company in any particular usage of "apple," for a simplistic example. It goes much deeper, into the intricate aspects of store hours, location, founder of company, product offer expiration date, types of payment accepted, and so forth.

One of the controversial issues regarding this markup is how some have figured out how to spam it, adding unverified glowing reviews from spurious review sites, thus adding 5 stars to the "aggregate rating."

This deconstruction of web content is a revision of Tim Berners-Lee's original idea of the web page as the atomic unit of the web. Microdata for semantic purposes means that the data set, as few as one word or an entire tome, is now the new atom in the web universe.

This fits in perfectly with the Google Hummingbird semantic search engine that was installed recently. Google is now paying more attention to the intention of a search query, than to the keywords used. 

Google wants to be able to correctly guess that a give instance of "silver apples" is referring to an early electronic band, not a decorative item sold at Hobby Lobby. Or that "place for Italian" means a restaurant that serves spaghetti, not a class teaching the Italian language.

So now SEOs, web content developers and internet marketers must think about not just the major theme and keyword density of a web page, but also the building blocks of that page content. 

How that web page content can be subdivided into individual questions and answers, like an FAQ, but beyond that -- into the realm of all the minutiae of corporate structure, product types, offer packages, date founded, logo, parent organization, and other small, precise details.

Even within the About Us page, for example, there can be subsections (or subpages) on Company History, Founder's Welcome, Annual Report, Mission Statement, Staff Bios, Financial Data, Community Engagement, Associations, Photo Gallery, TV Commercial Videos, and so on.

This is part of the semantic web, where search engines understand more deeply what you're looking for, and why you're looking for it, what your intentions are, rather than just what keywords are being used.

Think of it as your website having a heart-to-heart talk with Google, patiently and meticulously explaining what is content is and means and for what kinds of customers it's best suited.

Schema.org is the structural microdata that needs to be implemented in websites for eventual search ranking improvements, matching customer queries, and enriching SERP (search engine results page) snippets (bits of content describing the web page and motivating people to click on the link).

Add Schema.org structured markup to your top priority webpages, then all pages. Your list of major SEO values must now include micro data.

SEO HTML5 code optimization should include:


(1) title tags
(2) meta descriptions
(3) page download speed
(4) image titles and alt attributes
(5) H tag hierarchy
(6) robots protocols
(7) XML site maps
(8) Javascript minifying
(9) CSS compacting
(9) Google Analytics code
(10) viewport configuration
(11) resource compression
(12) tap target sizing
(13) browser cache leveraging
(14) font legibility
(15) Schema.org markup

Here is the Schema.org section for LocalBusiness.

http://schema.org/LocalBusiness


Moz Blog "The Lowdown on Structured Data and Schema.org"



W3C "What is Linked Data?"



Google Webmasters "About Structured Data and Rich Snippets"




Monday, December 8, 2014

SEO for Peoria, IL Area Businesses


When you need SEO services for your website, you know your goal is to drive more qualified customer traffic to it.

It's nice to know that your SEO provider has expertise in Google compliant techniques. It's also helpful if your SEO provider has experience in your specific field of business.

My clients are primarily local, in the Peoria, IL area.

Here are the industries in which I have experience providing SEO services:

* banks
* hospitals
* insurance companies
* agriculture machinery
* agriculture soil testing
* dentistry
* law firms
* construction
* home remodeling
* restaurants
* event planners

Need some help with SEO?

CONTACT me:



Pin It

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Build SEO into your website




Be sure to build SEO into your website. You do want qualified customer traffic, don't you?

Prevent brogrammers from laughing at your website, looking at the source code, and seeing poorly written title, meta description, and H tags.

Get Google-compliant SEO.


CONTACT:



Pin It

Saturday, December 6, 2014

SEO is your secret weapon



Why SEO Gives You Marketing Superiority


You gain a substantial competitive advantage when you implement Google-compliant SEO (search engine optimization).

SEO is mysterious to most business people and web designers. It requires extensive reading and experimentation. SEO is easily bungled. Some mistakes can be incredibly expensive, or time-consuming, to fix.

Chances are, your competitors, even the largest, are either not doing SEO or they're doing it with out-of-date techniques or even old, dubious gimmicks that no longer work. 

You can prove this yourself. 

Just use any free SEO tool, like the SEO Quake diagnostic tool to do an evaluation. Just paste their website URL into the tool.

Use it on any competitor's website. Pick one that's wildly successful, one you would bet is doing SEO fantastically. You'll probably see many SEO violations, errors, or missed opportunities.

I'll bet the HTML title, meta description, and H tags are misconfigured. This is extremely common. Or perhaps there are a lot of img alt attributes missing from their photos. Maybe they have no site map, robots protocols, web feed, favicon, or Google analytics installed.

Their content may be poorly written. There may not be sufficient information to explain a topic, issue, problem, need, process, or product. Slim content is not valued as highly as rich, keyword-savvy content that matches a customer search query.

If your competitor has no blog, then they're not grinding out fresh, frequent, relevant content. Your company can now exploit this deficiency by hiring a professional with expertise in your field to blog regularly. Google seeks recent, well written, authoritative content that is original and not being duplicated all over the internet.

Website content also tends to be "we-oriented". It's not written as a conversation with a customer, but rather it's presented as corporate bragging.

We have the best products and selection. We have this great facility. We do this and that. We've been around a long time. We provide superior service. We have affordable prices. We. We. We. All the way home.

Customer-centric web content results in more sales and brand loyalty. Use "you" and "your" as much as possible and translate specifications and features into real world, simplified benefit statements. Use strong calls to action.

Each mistake by your competitor is a serious vulnerability. Each bad SEO choice they make is an opportunity for your website to be better than theirs, and to attract more qualified customer traffic to your business.

Want more SEO tips? A comprehensive SEO audit? SEO website content?


CONTACT ME

steven.streight@gmail.com






Pin It