Month: December 2011

Search engine or site engineering optimization has been a hot topic for years, and considering the continuing growth and success of e-commerce, it’s likely to get even hotter. Since Google has such a dominant position in the search industry, focusing your SEO efforts around their recommendations is the smart thing to do.  Google provides a ton of top-quality resources to help you understand exactly how they rank sites and how to improve your site’s listings.  As usual, all the tools and methods described in this post are free!

The first step when it comes to SEO is signing up for a Google webmaster tools account so you can get some insight into what search terms your site is showing up for, how many impressions (times your listing shows up on a page of Google results a user views), and clicks (actual visits to your site) are being generated on Google.  Before you even think of spending money on an advertising campaign, you owe it to yourself to do a little market research and find out what people are searching for, what they’re interested enough in to click on, and what your top keywords and search terms are.  Webmaster tools will help with all of this.  Setup is a very straightforward process of uploading a single HTML file to the root directory of your server. 

Webmaster tools may seem a little boring, after all search terms, keywords, and click through rates may not be the most exciting topic, however this is fundamental information about your site’s relevance to the customer that you simply can’t ignore.  Webmaster tools is also your portal for controlling and updating your site’s visibility and sitemap.  If you don’t already have an XML sitemap available you can head over to XML-Sitemaps.com to have one generated for free.  Upload to the root of your web server as you did with the verification HTML file, submit it in webmaster tools, and you can rest assured that all of your webpages will start showing up in search results.  Last but not least, setup an RSS reader or subscribe to updates from the official Webmaster Tools blog, or subscribe to the YouTube channel if you’re more the visual learner type.

The next major phase in optimizing your site is to setup a Google analytics account.  Another free signup that only requires a Google email account or that you register your email with Google.  Setup on analytics can be a little more involved, since you need to embed the tracking code that Google provides during signup on every page you want tracking enabled for.  Ideally this script will be embedded in the footer for your site so that the rest of the page will all render out as visible for a user before the script is executed.  Putting the code anywhere should work, but it could slow down your perceived page load times.

Google analytics is truly an incredible tool: you can get information on everything from real time reporting on current visitors to your site to how many pages visitors view, how much time they spend on your site, and even what order they enter and leave from.  Analytics is all about understanding how users interact with your site, and understanding what potential frustrations they might be having.

With the two basic intelligence components in place you’re ready to start fine-tuning your web presence.   Google has a pretty definitive downloadable PDF guide to SEO that I highly recommend reviewing your site against once you have all your setup complete.  This will get you through the basics of making certain that your site is as easily visible and intelligible as possible both to your potential visitors and the Google bot.  For more in-depth training on SEO and analytics, or to work towards a certification of your knowledge from Google check out the Conversion University.

A lot has changed since I wrote my last few posts, so here goes-

For the last 18 months I’ve been working (where I can find it lol) as a freelance IT professional based in Seattle.  after 10 years spent with fluorescent lights of retail shops shining on me, I had to make a break for it.  before my break I’d spent 3 years seriously diving into all things IT, so at this point I’m nearly 5 years into my journey shifting careers from retail to IT.  I’ve been lucky enough to find a few part time and temporary positions to keep myself afloat, and have possibly more than my fair share of fun along the way.

There have been some incredible ups and downs!  On one of my first gigs just a week or two after getting my website up, my business licensed, etc, etc, my car was broken into and my stereo was stolen in broad daylight, at about 9:30 AM.  The thugs even harassed me when I saw them circling the street (they had been chased away by the police, and left tools in my car, which I assume they were after.  I was so pissed I wanted to drag the assholes out of the car, but of course that wouldn’t have helped my case any so I just let them know the cops were on the way back to take my statement and would be there momentarily and I thought a group conversation would help.  They left, obviously, but my car was thrashed for about $1000 worth of damage on a job worth only about $200.  Obviously my strategy needed to change.  I mixed things up and focused on longer term contract positions, and found a couple of more legitimate companies to work with.

A few months later I was given the gift of a lifetime when my grandfather got me a new vehicle since I was in no position to fix my old one.  I also got lucky enough to do a few retail trainings for Microsoft around the country, rack up a few frequent flyer miles, and even sit in first class a couple of times.  The option of being a full-time traveling trainer seemed real, but way too surreal.

The truth is that the road gets lonely, and there’s nothing so rewarding as seeing the people you care about succeed. That takes work, generally in the same place everyday. There are plenty of days where I’m so confused and frustrated that I hardly know what to do, and then there are those rare, beautiful days where something just clicks, and no obstacle seems to great.  I live for those days.

Expect a series of posts on technologies, platforms, and projects that anyone can use to help build businesses.  I’ll be focusing on free platforms and a DIY ethic, recognizing that even with a 3 year head start on learning IT I’m constantly looking for help or support from the community, and I’m hoping to start giving back by sharing some of the resources I’ve learned about and helping others with them as well.  Since I’m building with FREE open-source technology, I feel the least I can do is give the products I’m working with a mention in my blog or MyLinkedFace-twit here or there in the hopes that the author’s will get at least some of the credit they deserve as well.

Here’s a sneak preview of the feature of my next article on building http://business2way.com, an ecommerce site on the well established Zen-Cart platform.

Zen Cart offers a mature feature set including integration with common payment platforms, as well as shipping providers, and even offers fairly easy to configure ACCURATE calculation of taxes based on your shipping customer’s zip code, thanks to the handy TaxCloud module.  Between community support on the forums and a variety of service providers with experience developing Zen Cart modules, there is always someone to turn to if you have a question or just need to get it done, fast.

Stay tuned, or subscribe via RSS.