What does a Search Engine Optimization Specialist Do?

I get this question a lot – although actually, what I really get are people coming to me who hired someone to do SEO for them who are pretty sure they just took their money and didn’t do anything for them. I don’t know if it’s just my industry, or I just hear about it more with SEO because I’m actually working in my industry, but there seem to be a lot of people who offer SEO services who either don’t know what they’re doing or don’t know how to manage the expectations of their clients. Yes, there are definitely…read more >

How to Pick Keywords for Your Website

  If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times: “We want to rank on the first page of Google for {this term.} Can you help us do that?” A lot of times, I can. Even more times, however, I’m going to do some research and come back to you and say, “You may want to rank for that term, but I don’t recommend it, because no one is searching for it.”   Recently I’ve started working with more business owners who offer alternative healthcare options: Naturopaths, acupuncturists, energy healers, reiki practitioners, etc. This sect of healthcare is…read more >

What is Backlinking?

People often ask me if I do backlinking. For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, or how it’s related to SEO, guess what? You’re not alone.   I know what backlinking means – geez, I need to, it’s my job – but I really hate the term. Although its meaning has changed, I first started hearing the term in the midst of when creating SPAM was considered a good SEO practice – when it was ok to go onto Yahoo! Answers and tell whoever would listen that Acme SEO was the best place to go to get your question…read more >

Social Network Marketing Tips Part 3: Resources

After having done a lot of research on social network marketing, I realized that I needed to be keeping track of where I found my information so I could refer back to it. Here's a list of resources that will help you better hone in on using social media to promote your business, both through regular business accounts and through paid advertising:   General   Tools to help manage social networking 10 Mistakes to Avoid with Social Network Marketing 5 Ways to Best Use Social Network Marketing How to get traffic from social network marketing – also a lot of…read more >

Social Network Marketing Tips Part 2

Last time I posted some general tips on how better to leverage Facebook to increase your social network marketing presence. Here are some more tips -- some apply not just to Facebook, but also other social media sites, such as Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.   Facebook interaction guidelines   ♦          “Like” and comment on other relevant pages as your page. ♦          Be sure you’re posting the majority of your content on your page as your page instead of as you personally. ♦          Ask your customers and friends to “like” your Facebook page and to leave recommendations for you. Always ask…read more >

Social Network Marketing Tips for Facebook

Social network marketing for businesses can be an intimidating thing. Here are some tips to help with using Facebook to market your business.   Create a business page for your business – don’t just use your personal page. You should feel free to “advertise” on your personal page, but there are some tools that facebook provides to business pages that make it easier to understand how many people are viewing your pages and posts. As with every part of marketing and advertising, both online and offline, knowledge is power.   Once you’ve created a business page, post on that page…read more >

Step 2 to Living the Dream: Promoting Yourself

It's going to sound simple, but for many people it's much harder than you can imagine: if you want clients, you have to be willing to tell people that you have the skills to help them. A lot of people think of a used car salesman when they think about promoting themselves - suddenly they've transformed themselves into a guy with slicked back hair, a tweed suit and a fake smile. Many people want someone else to do the marketing for them, just so that they never have to imagine themselves in this light. And you know, the hard sell…read more >

Step 1 to Living Your Dream: Giving Yourself Permission

Well, that’s a weird thing to start with, I imagine I hear you thinking. I thought she said she gave practical advice about living the life I’ve always imagined. What the heck is this foo-foo crap about giving yourself permission? Of COURSE I give myself permission! So you say, dreamer, but if that’s true, why haven’t you started living your dream before now? What’s been stopping you? Instead of trying to guess, I’ll just tell you what stopped me: I’ll never make any money doing {insert pretty much anything here} I don’t have time to work on my dream I…read more >