Filed Under: On A Personal Note
Does Your Website Have Direction and Purpose?
Lewis Carroll once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” The same is true for your website. Lacking direction and purpose is one of the most common problems that face small businesses who want an online presence.
Countless times I’ve talked with prospects and I ask them, “What do you hope to achieve with your website?” More often than not, they just stare at me confused. It’s almost like they didn’t realize they needed to have a purpose. So let me give you some ideas on what types of direction your website can have.
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A Personal Update
Yesterday a wrote a post on updating everyone on what’s been going on with me. Since it isn’t search marketing or business related, I published it on my personal blog. If you’re interested in reading it, you can find it here:
Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern and offered support. I appreciate it!
Cheap Web Hosting That Doesn't Suck
Finding cheap web hosting that doesn’t suck is sometimes easier said than done. When I launched my first blog, I had no idea where to begin. I did some Google searches, I asked some blogger pals, and I checked out the hosts that WordPress recommended. In the end, I pinned the proverbial tail on my virtual donkey, going on about my business hoping I’d made a relatively decent choice. Since then, I’ve been thrilled with the shared web hosting provided by midPhase.
Affordable Web Hosting For Bloggers
CC 2.0 BY - jamisonjudd
I was on a quest to find affordable web hosting for bloggers, and I certainly believe I found it. I have been a happy midPhase customer for about a year and a half now. Because of how pleased I’ve been with them and in the spirit of full disclosure, I’d like to point out that midPhase also offers hosting services through ANHosting, IK2.net, VPS.net, and WestHost.com and I am part of their affiliate program.
I’m not a corporate shill and I won’t recommend a product or service I know nothing about. I don’t become an affiliate for just any company that offers an affiliate program. When a company provides me with exemplary service, I believe I have an obligation to share that experience with others. Becoming an affiliate is a great way to do that.
I have been very happy with the level of service provided by midPhase. They’ve given me a very reliable and unusually affordable web hosting solution. I host several domains and have developed several separate web properties using each of my two accounts. The tools provided by midPhase, which I can only assume are similar to the tools they provide through their other web hosting properties, make taking complete control over your online presence a breeze.
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Choosing The Website Audit That Is Best For YOUR Needs
A website audit is an essential first step toward identifying the issues that may be causing your site to perform poorly in the organic results of search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you are. But before deciding who will conduct the website audit you should determine what your plans are for resolving whatever problems may be uncovered.
The information contained within many a website SEO audit is a confusing mix of technical jargon and a laundry list of problems with very little information that you, as the small business owner, can take action on. If the audit states the site is suffering from canonical URL issues, poor internal link structure, duplicate content problems, keyword cannibalization, etc., what does all of that mean to you? If you’re like most small business owners, it may as well be written in Chinese. Many SEOs create these audits specifically to result in your hiring them to resolve the issues for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this practice, but it’s important that you understand that to be the case.
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My Near Death Experience
Okay…before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I’m not being funny and there is no exaggeration involved here. Now, on with it…
As many of you may know, I left Jacksonville this morning headed to Nashville to be in the audience for a “CMT Invitation Only” concert with Reba McEntire that will air sometime later this spring or summer. I was VERY excited when I was chosen to be in the audience, as Reba is (and always has been) one of my favorite people – famous or otherwise.
As soon as I hit the Tennessee state line, it began to rain…no big deal. It’s just rain. I’m a road warrior. I’ve driven thousands of miles in the rain. That said, I’m not one of those idiots that drives 100 mph on wet pavement. I’ve seen the results of hydroplaning and I never wanted to experience it for myself. Alas, the universe had other plans for me today.
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Use Twitter As A Tool – Don't Be One
photo credit: www.ericcastro.biz
I read a post recently that made me laugh, but not for the right reasons. On the other hand, it also made me think about how easy it is for someone who is new to Twitter and the Social Media sphere in general to make a huge mistake and alienate a lot of people who could have shortened the learning curve for a n00b significantly.
In a few keystrokes the potential to build a rapport and some quality online relationships is lost. Not only that, it’s also pretty easy to make yourself look like an ignorant tool. I’m not picking on people who are new to Twitter. Twitter is so new that it hasn’t been long since EVERYONE was a rookie.
That said, there are some who navigate the learning curve really quickly and others that don’t. There’s nothing wrong with being among the latter, provided that you recognize you’re still learning and don’t make the mistake of pretending that you’re not. The blog post that amused, as well as sincerely disappointed me, was entitled “Stop Twitter Spam PLEASE!“.
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SEOAly Makes the TopRank "BigList"
I was pleasantly surprised when I signed in this morning to find that my blog had earned a mention in the TopRank “Best Blogs On The Net” list. What a nice thing to find on a Monday morning! :)
This seemed like a good time to provide a little bit of history about SEOAly and how it has evolved to its current state. I started this blog merely as an information resource for small business owners. I spent more than two years providing SEO consultation for one of the largest small business marketing companies in the United States. Being that it was such a large company, you can imagine my frustration being repeatedly told that only “approved information” was to be shared with our customers.
The world of search marketing is simply too fast-paced to fit into that kind of corporate structure. By the time the powers that be finally get around to approving changes to our SOP, the winds of change had blown through again. I was equally frustrated by some of the company’s standard operating procedures, which included touting “submission to over 400 search engines…” as a major part of their service offering – a task that we all know is futile and pointless in today’s world of search marketing.
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