5 Untrue Myths About Making Your Dream A Reality

There are many reasons that people don’t follow their dreams. Most of them have a single underlying theme: fear.  Please don’t misunderstand me: I don’t mean the kind of fear that you can conquer “by just doing it.” Our deepest fears, I’ve learned, don’t work that way. Often, that fear comes from survival: at some point in our lives, someone told us that we could not survive unless we followed a certain set of rules. If you’re told that you shouldn’t walk alone at night because of the danger, you will start to become more alert and anxious when you…read more >

What is SEO?

Although SEO is a term that’s tossed around a lot these days, not everyone understands what SEO actually is and what it is not. SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine optimization specialist is someone who helps you optimize your website for search engines. Or, as I frequently say, an SEO specialist is someone who helps you get your website listed in search results on Google or on other search engines. Search engine optimization is a combination of many pieces. One, it’s helping a website improve the actual site structure so that a search engine – from here…read more >

How Search Engines Use Keywords

It used to be that search engines could only read an exact keyword match in order to understand what a site was about. That is no longer the case. Instead, Google, Bing and Yahoo! all have the ability – some more than others – of recognizing the context of a keyword; they are capable of understanding that “SEO Services Washington” is basically the same as “Washington SEO Services.” Not only that, but they’re even so smart as to understand that the two above are basically equal to “Washington Search Engine Optimization Services.” All of this is fairly new, which is…read more >

Can I Make Money Freelancing Online?

Yes. The answer is yes, you can make money freelancing online. There are a lot of scams and pyramid schemes out there, however, and it’s no wonder people get confused about how to go about actually finding a way to get paid for work they do online. Step 1: Figure out what your skills are.   What do you already know how to do? What skills to you already possess?   If you have problems coming up with answers to these questions, don’t despair. Start by asking friends, family member and co-workers or ex-coworkers. What do you have on your…read more >

Why Isn’t My Website On the First Page of Google?

It’s a slippery slope: most people know that they want their website to show up on the first page of search results, and they don’t understand why they aren’t there already. When potential clients come to me and tell me that they’ve done SEO work to their website already – whether they’ve done it themselves or someone has done it for them – I start off by asking them a few questions to see where their website SEO actually stands.   1)    Do you have specific keywords that you’re trying to rank for? 2)    How much time has passed since…read more >

Working for Yourself: Time Management

  I work for myself and it seems like I’m working 24/7. How can I manage my time more efficiently? As the owner of my own business, this has been one of my biggest challenges to overcome. For a long time, I felt like I was constantly working and had more than I could ever finish, but I still wasn’t quite able to pay the bills. There are several pieces that were essential parts of making self-employment work for me; hopefully they’ll help you, too.   1)   First, I listened to this podcast on productivity by Chris Kresser and it…read more >

Why Do I Need a Sitemap?

Brace yourself, I'm going to tell you something unfathomable: Google doesn't know everything. Well, ok, maybe they DO know everything, but they don't know everything right away. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you need a sitemap. What's a sitemap? A sitemap is basically a map of your website that is readable by search engines. If you think about it, the menu on your website that shows what all your pages are about is map of sorts for your site's visitors. A sitemap is similar, but it's made specifically for search engines to read and understand what's on your…read more >

Website SEO: The Importance of Quality, Readable Content

This post is part of a series where I go into detail about the items in the initial analysis I perform for any potential client, allowing them to better understand the pieces that need to be in place to improve their website's SEO. Last week I talked about how to make changes to your website's meta data; this week I'm going to talk about the importance of good content. When I say "content," I am talking about pictures, videos and written words - articles, blogs, etc. All of these pieces are important as far as user engagement is concerned: you…read more >

Adding Meta Data to your Website for SEO

Last week I talked about the in-depth analysis I do for your website. This is going to be the first in a mini-series where I break down the items in the analysis and give you more information about them.  This week, I’ll be talking about meta data. First off, changing the meta title and meta description of each page on your website is important because that is the information that will most likely show up in a search result, like so:     It is true that Google and other search engines may not always use the meta description (the…read more >

What does an SEO Specialist Do Part 2: The Initial Analysis

In my last blog post I started to unpack what a search engine specialist does, starting with some of the very basics. The in-depth analysis of your website is an important part of the puzzle, and one that will take up several blog posts in its own right.   I do an in-depth analysis of your website to tell you what needs to be changed/edited/fixed or improved.   Although I can do an analysis of your website without having access to your website’s administrative login and without looking at Google Analytics (if you don’t already have it set up), access…read more >