Pages

Monday, March 6, 2017

Google SEO Basics


Search Engines like Google scroll text. Decisions are largely based on words whether or not your site will rank in their result pages. High quality text thus should be very important in your SEO strategy. Of course your website should be very nicely designed and the user interface should be amazing. And all the technical stuff that makes your site able to rank in Google should also be totally covered. But still, without text, ranking is impossible. It thus is very important to write quality content! In this book we will help you to optimize the content of your website for SEO purposes

How does Google find your site?

Search engines like Google follow links. They follow links from one web page to another web page. A search engine like Google consists of a crawler, an index and an algorithm. A crawler follows the links on the web. It goes around the internet 24 / 7 and saves the HTML- version of a page in a gigantic database, called the index. This index is updated if Google has come around your website and found a new or revised version of it. Depending on the traffic on your site and the amount of changes you make on your website, Google comes around more or less often.

For Google to know of the existence of your website, there first has to be a link from another site in the index - one it already knows - to your site. Following that link will lead to the first crawler-session and the first save in the index.

After indexing your website, Google can show your website in the search results.
Google has a specific algorithm that decides which pages are shown in which order. How this algorithm works is a secret. Nobody knows exactly which factors decide the ordering of the search results. More- over, factors and their importance change very often. Testing and experimenting gives us a relatively good feel for the important factors and the changes in these factors.

Google’s result page shows 7 or 10 links to sites which fit your search the best. We refer to these results as the organic search results. If you click to the second page, more results are shown. Above these 10 blue links are two or three paid links, most of the time. These links are ads; people have paid Google to put these links at the top of the site when people search for a specific term. Prices for these ads vary greatly, depending on the competitiveness of the search term. Similar ads could appear on the right of Google’s search result pages as well.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Op-Ed Checklist

One of the best ways to gain credible visibility for a corporate client is to have that company's CEO submit an opinion piece to a major newspaper and have it published.  In an op-ed piece, you essentially state your conclusion first. Make your strongest point right up front, then spend the rest of the op-ed building your case, or "back-filling" with the facts. Done right, it's persuasive writing at its best. Results garner converts and publicity.  Many major newspapers today accept timely op-eds by email. Check the paper's Web site first to be sure what its policy is.

Here's a checklist to help you:
  • ·         In your first paragraph, focus tightly on one issue or idea and be brief.
  • ·         Express your opinion, then base it on factual, researched, or first-hand information.
  • ·         Be timely, controversial, and the voice of reason.
  • ·         Be personal and conversational; it can help you make your point.
  • ·         Be humorous, provided that your topic lends itself to humor.
  • ·         Have a clear editorial viewpoint -- come down hard on one side of the issue.
  • ·         Don't be ambiguous.
  • ·         Provide insight, understanding: Educate your reader.
  • ·         Near the end, clearly re-state your position, and issue a call to action but don’t  philosophize.
  • ·         Be enthusiastic and passion to accompany your logical analysis.
  • ·         Don't ramble or let your op-ed unfold slowly.
  • ·         Use clear, powerful, direct language.
  • ·         Emphasize active verbs. Forget the adjectives and adverbs.
  • ·         Avoid clichés and jargon.
  • ·         Appeal to the average reader. Clarity is important.
  • ·         Write 750 double-spaced words or less (fewer is always better).
  • ·         Include a brief bio, phone number, email address, and mailing address at the bottom.
       Here's a list of business publications that have Op-Ed sections:
        
Alaska Journal of Commerce
Arkansas Business
Washington Business Journal
Florida Trend
Georgia Trend
Pacific Business News
Idaho Business Review
Mainebiz
Business Review West Michigan
Mississippi Business Journal
New Hampshire Business Review
NJBiz
Business North Carolina
Oregon Business
Utah Business
Vermont Business Magazine
Virginia Business
The State Journal
Wyoming Business Report





Thursday, January 5, 2017

6 signs a PR career is right for you

Considering a career in PR? U.S. News and World Report has ranked PR as the 
No. 3 best creative media job.      
Here are six signs that the job is right for you:

1. You are constantly looking at your phone.

2. You thrive on deadlines.

3. You are a master at building relationships.

4. You focus on the details.

5. You write well.

6. You can handle rejection.

PR Daily breaks down all the details for you in an article:
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/22015.aspx