SEO's next move: Badges?

Today I read an article about the potential next step in education:  badges.  It seems that education is slowly moving away from the traditional degree, and adding badges of accomplishment when you learn something.  In an educational setting, this is essentially recognizing every task or sub-task level skill that is learned on the way to the degree.  And for those who are anxious to see progress in their studies, it gives them incremental feelings of accomplishment that can continue to motivate them to complete their degree.  It also shows potential employers the level of understanding and skills accomplished both during and when the degree has been received.  A granular view of skills is great for employers, as well as all other students.  

But how does that work into Search engine optimization?  It seems that Mozilla is working on a way to provide any website with the ability to display badges earned for resume pages.  But taking it a bit further, suppose badges are awarded experts and content for their helpfulness?  Enter the Google +1 and Facebook Like buttons, but that is not very telling beyond it being liked.  Why was the content of the page liked?  That is where badges come in.  

If a badge system were developed for websites, it would allow visitors (i.e., consumers) to communicate what about the page that they liked.  Was it informative, funny, designed well, or helpful?  Do they like the services, the company, or just the picture?  This information can then translate back to the company's design team to find out what works on their site, and therefore they can increase their focus on better badges.  

So is this system likely?  I think so.  Google already provides badges for articles read in the Google News site based on content.  It would just be another logical step to provide badges for sites based on what the user likes about the article/web page/site.  Perhaps it would be too much work for the user to add a reason, though by clicking on a +1 they would just need to tick a prefilled reason why.  Or, should eye tracking software mature enough to see what someone is reading, perhaps it could be automatically assigned.  

The concept is there, the proof has been established.  It just comes down to the wide-spread implementation.  Though if Academia is moving in that direction, I don't imagine Google will be far behind.  After all, the whole Page Rank system was based on academic reviews of papers.

New SEO Evaluation: Johndaughters.com

This week, off hours, I have been working on a new SEO evaluation. John Daughters, a hypnotist and hypno-therapist. He has been working on getting a web presence for his business, and has an excellent website. The only problem is, he needs more hits on his site.

He came to me and asked if I would take a look at his website and give him some pointers. The site is written beautifully, by a master web designer. But there are some things that could be added in order to increase his search engine optimization, and increase his search ranking.

Back Links
The website is beautiful, but is missing one major thing: Back links. While the website is designed well, according to the tools at SEOChat.com he does not have anyone linking to his website. Now, back links are a major need for any website and his website is no different. What can he do?

One thing that can be used is Web 2.0 technology. Blogs, Wikis, and other web presence options can be used to increase back links. One thing that I think will work for John is an entry in WIkipedia.org. Of course, the entry would need to be topical, and benefit the community as a whole (with accuracy).

Keywords on Website
Flash on a website is wonderful, but only if the flash is backed up with text on the page. John's main website is all flash, and as such it doesn't have many keywords in the body of the site for recognition. Luckily, his other pages do. That being said, he has plenty of meta tag keywords. Why are keywords in the body so important? Because Google doesn't utilize the meta tags for ranking. So page content is necessary. What counts for page content? Image Alt tags! And they are friendly to the American Disabilities Act. ^_^

Videos, Videos, Videos!
Search engine optimization is more than just getting to the top of a search. It's really all about bringing more traffic to the website. Two great ways to bring more traffic to a website is to post videos to YouTube, and/or to post podcasts regularly. If you are a performer this is ideal. It's like a free audition for your potential clients! You also want to make sure they are made well, with great angles and topical scenes. These then bring recognition to your website, and hence to your business.

If you are interested in more SEO ideas and techniques, or want to understand how an SEO analysis can work, feel free to sign up for the SEO class at the University of Utah's Continuing Education website. I hope to see you in my class! ^_^

Search Engine Optimization: Consulting!

I have been teaching a search engine optimization class through Continuing Education for a year now, and I have to say that as much as I had learned at eBay while I was there, I have learned three times more. The concept seems pretty simple: increasing your chances of being in the top ten within a specific search engine. Seems simple, doesn't it? But with the multiple ways it is possible to increase your footprint, it becomes more complex to do it the 'white hat' style.

Currently, I have been working with a rafting company, Colorado River and Trail Expeditions, who asked me to do some consulting work for them. I've never really done any paid consulting work before, though I have been rather eager to get into the consulting field. Last Thursday I had a presentation at Cyprus Credit Union, and since I would be off the clock at the U anyway, I made an appointment and headed down to their office.

I was first impressed with their site code. They hired a consultant to assist them with that as well, and he did an excellent job with their code. It was clean, concise, and a joy to look at. It made identifying locations to add keywords simple and easy.

Next, their traffic has been great overall, even without their increased Google standing. That being said, they are coming to their slow season (expected when the water is running low and Autumn is coming), so traffic will continue to dwindle because of the seasonal nature of the business. It also means that this is the perfect time to make the change.

There were a number of other marketing suggestions that I had made that will increase their back links for free, and still remain very optimal. It will be interesting to see how their footprint continues to grow during the next few months. I'll be monitoring the website for a while, and may (with the permission of the company) use their website as an example in my class.

This, of course, all comes back to the class itself. We are going to be focusing on Search Engine Marketing a bit more, which from my past students has become the real interest. It seems that people have finally come to the realization that the search engine isn't the only goal in marketing, but rather increased traffic. The class will still focus on techniques to optimize for search engines, but will now include some information on quantifying your return from search engine marketing overall.

*end shameless plug here* ^_^

Web Analysis: Looking at International Query Results

As most, if not all, of you probably know, I am an analysis at heart. I can sit and review material for hours, looking for patterns and trends that make sense to me. Today I checked the query statistics from Google's Webmaster Tools, to see how queries getting to my site pan out, based on location. Lately I seem to be getting a lot of international interest in my website (Welcome!), and I was curious as to why the international attention. I have such a wide variety of topics I cover, and would be interested in the results based on the Google international searches.

I'm posting this information, not to provide a scope of what my blog has covered, but to give you an idea of how analysis can help you with your Search Engine Optimization goals. Even with this little information, you can see where the International community has been looking, and succeeding in locating my blog. The same techniques can be used for your own websites, provided you know your Query statistics.

**please note that these are for Google search results only, which contributes to 68% of my total traffic.**

Google Belgium Results
Looking at the Google Belgium results, it appears the main interest is Macintosh related. Specifically, they were looking for information on NetBoot imaging for Mac Minis for a diskless deployment. It's a very interesting subject, one that I hope will soon be answered by this blog. I want to try a "diskless" NetBoot image setup for our lab for a generic Mac utility. This can be accomplished by having a NetBoot server and a Home Folder server on different machines. Yay! A topic to look forward to!

Google Canada Results
Our friends in the Great White North have a different focus. Sure, they seem to be interested in the release of Mac OS X v.10.5 (Leopard), but that isn't the primary search term. It seems that they are more interested in Hydroponics, and my Cob Greenhouse project.

This doesn't surprise me completely, as Vancouver is one of the central locations for Cob construction within the North American continent, along with Washington State. I hope there is something here that relates to your project. I'll be working on my foundation this weekend (if all goes well), and will probably post some pictures. In fact, my cob brick is doing wonderfully, having survived two drops to a cement floor with only minor cracking. ^_^

Google France Results
Google France brought up a primary search for training information. It seems my posts on the ADDIE system was helpful, or at least of interest. If you have any more questions, I will be providing periodic postings on ADDIE, but also feel free to check out Laura's Blog, to which I currently link. She just finished her Master's degree, and is beginning her PhD in Educational Psychology here at the U. She will have plenty of information for you. ^_^

Google India Results
India didn't surprise me at all. The few hits I received were specifically on mail servers. With India's reputation for technology professionals, I would expect nothing less. Unfortunately, that's one topic I will probably not cover. I'm not particularly interested in going the rounds with Mail servers for a while, but should I ever do so it will be a result of an Open Directory implementation in my home office. This means probably about 2 years out, or so.

Google Italy Results
Ahh, Italy. Beautiful country that captured my imagination through Roman history. It seems that Italian interests have focused primarily on getting an integrated contact/calendar system working on Mac OS X Tiger. Well, I hope to have more information on that subject, as I am running into the same problems.

Hopefully the review of Calgoo (which I am still using) has helped. It looks like it is working out well for the moment. Once they have integrated additional updating tools to various other Calendar servers (provided you have the rights, of course), and allows for direct integration of the new iCal server (or Darwin's Calendar Server), and perhaps integrates with Wiki tools and a shared Address Book server, then I think they have a decent Entourage Killer on their hands. ^_^

Google Mauritius results
I have to be honest, I had to look up Mauritius to find out where it is, which is off the East coast of Madagascar. What interested them about my blog was the comparison of Linux certifications that are out there, or more specifically CompTIA's Linux+ to the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certifications. I hope that their answers were reached, as the LPI is more comprehensive, and preparation for the LPI almost gives you the Linux+ certification right off the bat.

Google Mexico Results
I have to admit, I'm rather confused with their search terms, as it was quoted as being "back on the train again". It looks like it was related to a post I made in December, so what ever it was, hopefully there was something that was useful. Most of my posts at that time were related to training, so perhaps that was it.

Google South Africa Results
My website has drawn a lot of interest in South Africa because of the Cob posts. It seems that using Cob has become more popular around the world, because of all the earthen building materials it seems to be more earthquake resistant. This is because of it's monolithic structure, and the use of straw or other fibrous plant material as the tensile component. Like steel reinforced concrete, the plant material holds the cob together.

Google Sri Lanka Results
Sri Lanka seems to have liked my ADDIE course design steps. I have to admit, I still think that it was one of the best series that I have posted on my blog. The ADDIE method is quite universal though, and I am currently using it to write a work of fiction. I quite enjoy the organized approach that allows me to tackle most any problem with a logical process. That, and a lot of time is spent in analysis. ^_^

Google UK Results
These results seem to have surprised me the most. I have posted quite a review on British Comedies that I enjoy, and I had thought that the posting would have provided some interest across the Pond. But it seems they were more interested on my postings regarding the Macintosh, farming, and gardening. Well, the English are famous for their gardens, so perhaps I shouldn't have been too surprised.

Well, that is pretty much how I viewed my Google results. Overall, the three main topics that I have been focusing on have been the most popular. Perhaps I should begin posting more about course development, as I have neglected that section for a while. Also look for a new post soon on NetBoot imaging, as I have been working extensively on that project for quite some time. ^_^

Spam Comments: Coming of Age in a Blog

Yes, I feel like I have finally made it! After starting the blog back in September, I finally feel like my blog has made the big time. I got my first spam comment posted! I had wondered why someone would post something so obviously unrelated to the topic, but as we all know, websites are about exposure. Posting your website in another blog that has a higher rating than you do is an old (if cheap) SEO strategy.

So, this means that my little blog with it's average 10 visitors a day has a higher perceived rating than a website that sells software. Based on the grammar, it looks like it's an off-shore company, and that just raises all sorts of red flags. Needless to say, I would highly recommend that you do not utilize the link at all. Of course,considering that I have very few postings about World of Warcraft, that probably wouldn't be an issue. ^_^

Tomorrow I will have a quick update on the design for my little cob house that I will be building in the back yard, and will even post a picture! There's another first for the blog!