Tag: blogging

Categories
SEO for Wedding Vendors

Making Your Blog Savory for Clients and Delicious for Google with SEO!

You want Seo Consultant to just give your site all the love and attention that you think it deserves. You want to be at the top of all the search results. You want your site to be usable, something that has everything that your clients need so that when they find you through Google or any of the other search engines they can figure out how to book you. But you’re lost. You have no idea where to start. You’re a photographer, wedding planner, florist, cake artist, caterer or (fill in the blank) — not a website designer or Search Engine Optimization specialist. How on earth are you supposed to do it all?

That is ok! The time has come – I’m here to help! (I feel like I should have a superhero cape on as I type that.)

For over 10 years, I’ve helped people build better websites. (Garden Ridge, Canyon Ranch and even Jewel (the singer) are on my list of companies I’ve worked with.) I’ve studied, researched, attended conferences, and learned so much over the years. Now it is your turn. I want to share my knowledge with you. This is your chance for your very own SEO, Better Blogging & Site Review! YAY!!!

SEO, Blog & Site Reviews will consist of an initial conversation to discuss what your target market is and who your primary competition is, and any goals you might have for your website. I will then review your site from top to bottom and behind the scenes for SEO, usability, and overall things that can be improved.

With Amazowl’s Amazon Marketing Training, you need to have a process for handling shipping, providing tracking, responding to emails, and every other aspect of the interaction between yourself and Amazon, and yourself and Amazon’s customers (most important of all).

When all that is done, I’ll prepare a CUSTOM report of my findings, going over different specific things that you can do to improve your site immediately, and boost your Search Rankings for the long haul. Full of tips to make your blog and your website better, from best practices to things that will make your business rock. We will then set up a 1 hour call (or meeting if you’re local) to discuss the report and any questions that they might have. It is all about you and what you need!

SEO Site Reviews will be $500 through the end of 2009. Want to sign up right now? Just can’t wait? Want a special deal? The first 10 clients to sign up and pay for their review will get a special rate of $250!

If you set up a One-on-One Workshop with me, even after those first 10 spots are gone, you’ll be able to add on the SEO Site Review for $250 through the end of 2009. All sorts of business goodness in one package!

Ready to have your site reviewed? Don’t want to sit in a workshop or read books and learn about things that have nothing to do with what you specifically need? Feel like you need more support along the way? I can’t wait to work with you! You can use this form to contact me. You can click here to learn more about me and click here to read about other things I can do for you. Want one of those 10 half-price spots? Hurry up before they are GONE!

Update: THREE of the first ten spots remain! (as of 10/9/09 at 3pm)

Categories
Getting Down to Business

WordPress + SEO = Awesome!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all the buzz these days, especially with photographers. When I work with clients to help them find ways to improve their SEO, my first suggestion is to blog – and my specific recommendation is to blog using WordPress. That recommendation has nothing to do with my past history with WordPress (yes, my maiden name is Selleck), but rather because of what WordPress can do for you.

Matt Cutts works for Google with the search team. He also loves WordPress. Earlier this year, he spoke at WordCamp, and afterwards he posted his slides online. [via Bare Feet Studios.] There it is, right there on slide #12, where he states:

“WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)”.

Straight out of the box, WordPress is awesome for your search engine results. Optimize it just a bit between your titles, categories, tags, alt titles for images, and good, rich content and you’ll be rocking SEO in no time.

There is one myth that needs to be debunked though. He has pointed out that Google does *not* use meta keywords in their search algorithms. He posted about Google & keywords on his blog recently:

“Google uses over two hundred signals in our web search rankings, but the keywords meta tag is not currently one of them, and I don’t believe it will be.”

I know people ask me all the time why they should use WordPress over Blogger. The awesomeness that is WordPress is probably my #2 reason – right after hosting your blog at the same URL as your portfolio site to keep SEO all in one place.

Want to move to WordPress or improve your SEO for your blog and need help? Let me know!

Sources-
seoconsultantbanglore.in

Categories
Know the Code

Shortcodes for WordPress…

Back from Austin, Texas where I was for Dane Sander’s Fast Track Photographer Roadshow Workshop (Use the code “Christine_workshop_new” if you would like $75 off a future workshop). I love to travel, I really do — but I’m so glad August is officially over tomorrow! 4 days in New Orleans, 4 days in Las Vegas and 4 days in Austin all in one month have made it a bit craaaaaaaazy to say the least! But what an incredible, amazing month it has been. I have met so many AWESOME people and I’m looking forward to the road ahead!

I’m busy catching up on email and phone calls (if I owe you one, I promise you’ll hear from me soon), but meanwhile I thought I would share a tip from my friend Jennifer, aka the ScriptyGoddess. She wrote a post recently about using Shortcodes to make line breaks in HTML in WordPress. Definitely something worth checking out if you’re in to messing with code behind the scenes and have been wanting a way to make the
tag work properly!

She also linked to these really helpful posts – Mastering WordPress Shortcodes and 10 Incredibly Cool WordPress Shortcodes — check them out!

Want something photography related? How about 50 Free Resources that will Improve Your Photography Skills – lots of good stuff there!

Categories
Geek Love

What Does Your Title Say About You?

Stop what you’re doing and open a new browser window and pull up your website. Now look up there in the window’s title – where it says “Christine aka Big Pink Cookie” as you read this site.

What does it say?

If it says something that you think people search for in Google and is a way to identify you, excellent! That is exactly what we want! (I want to be the #1 Christine again, so that is the first word in my site’s title. I know, I’m aiming pretty high.)

But if it says something like what I saw earlier today – “Home” or “About” or even worse the name of the company that designed your Flash template for your photography portfolio, you’ve got a BIG problem. Search engines consider you just another one in the crowd. One of a zillion “Home” pages out there, or one of thousands of templates with that same name.

Make sure your site is set up to display unique, meaningful titles. Your search engine results will improve, and when people go to bookmark your site it will actually have a name that is your own show up in their list so they can find you later!

Categories
Social Media

The Flaw in the Social Media Consultant Concept…

Back in 2006, when I was in the process of selling the hosting business, I talked with a friend about working with her as a consultant. I knew what I wanted to do – I wanted to help people get their brands online and generate buzz from the community. I didn’t realize though that this was an emerging trend at the time of Social Media Consultants – I just thought it was a cool idea. I didn’t do it at the time because all of the sudden I was going through all the challenges of setting up a wedding photography business – and getting a workflow really flowing is hard, no matter how prepared you think you are.

To be honest, I still think it is a cool idea when you dig down to the core concept behind it. The problem is that there are so many people out there that will tell you that you can hire them as a Social Media Consultant … so they can tell you to start a blog, get on Twitter, and place some ads on Facebook.

That isn’t what Social Media is about. Well not the bulk of it. And they are turning it into a trendy buzz word. The flaw is in so much bad advice out there, be touted by people that don’t know much.

Social media is about getting people to talk about you. It is no different then marketing before the latest buzz term came along. You have a product, and you want people to know about it. You then find any avenue possible — and preferably narrow your target down to the best possible paths to follow — and start to get the word out. Same package, new label.

The key? You have to engage with the community.

And in this day and age, where transparency is becoming more and more important, it should be *you* doing the engaging if you’re a small business. It isn’t something you can really hire someone else to do for you – your tweets should come from you. Especially in the case of creatives. We’re marketing the experience of working with US. It is a very specific experience. It is what makes you unique, and it is what sells you.

There are fabulous Social Media Consultants out there, and they can definitely help you hone what you’re doing so it is excellent. But before you hire them, maybe just try going out there and being nice? Building relationships? Making friends? I love the internet because I can become friends with someone in London and someone just a mile down the road. It flattens everything – take advantage of that! Genuinely connect with people – you’ll be amazed at what happens!

Then if you need help building a campaign, go for it! Use these 10 tips for evaluating a social media expert as a good place to start to make sure you’re getting the right one! (I really love this article because it is so true!)