I’m the kind of loser who checks my own name in Google every 6 months or so. I get paid to make sure other people come to the top of the list when they search for their (company) names – but I don’t consciously do much to promote my own name.
Because I have been active online for about 12 years and because of the unique spelling of my last name, I generally come up #1 on Google for [Ann Treacy]. In fact of the top 20 returned hits I generally occupy 15-18 of those spots.
Well one thing I notice this time I searched for myself – the top pages have changed entirely! In the last year or so I have become much more active in blogs – and most of the top ranking sites are blogs. Most are blog I maintain but some are just blogs where I was mentioned.
So what does this mean for you? Start getting active in the blog, by creating your own or getting mentioned in others, if you want to appear more often in Google rankings. (My Twitter account also ranked highly.)
I hope everyone is keeping cool. If you have air conditioning, you can think of me in my sweltering office.
This is a test blog for New Ulm.
Today’s Byte is a little geeky. It’s a tool that will show you how a search engines views your web site: http://gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go
You enter in a web site address and it will return results. The first page will look like Google results. But you can link through to the Diagnostics view to get a look at how a search engine reads your pages. I think it’s pretty interesting – but it’s a fun test to run if you don’t. What you want to see is a good description of what you do or your products. What you don’t want to see if that the site is unreadable or do full of images that the search engines can’t discern what you do. If they can tell what you do – they won’t be able to send you many visitors.
AARCEE Party & Tent Rental has supplies for parties, weddings, corporate events and more. I love visiting their shop because they have lots of beautiful tables with fun, festive and elegant settings.
Well we just did an intervention with a new web site . They have always had a nice catalog that folks have found easy to use. The catalog include hundreds if not a thousand items – so we didn’t want to change anything there. But there page was entirely in php – no html so no visible text for the search engines and therefore the search engines were not picking up the pages.
So we’re recreated the pages in html and created connections from the pages to the catalog. We’ve gone live today and I’ll be keep an eye on how long it takes for Google to find the new site. Some people say it’s not worth submitting a site to the search engines – but I disagree. In a case where there have been major changes that I want tracked quickly I submit (or re-submit) and generally I find it does help.
A couple of months ago I gave a presentation on Web 2.0 with my friend David Erickson. Someone in the audience asked us about whether there was a MySpace or FaceBook for grown ups. Well, I found one. Boomj.com (http://www.boomj.com).
They call themselves the Lifestyle and Social Network for Baby Boomers and Generation Jones (who were born between 1965 and 1965). They have a chat area, groups, blogs, videos, an event area, and plenty of places to buy things. In fact the opportunity to purchase is much greater here than on MySpace.
It doesn’t appear to be as lively as MySpace – but perhaps that because they require you to sign up to see the chat and event spaces. It doesn’t have a Google Page Rank so I suspect the site is pretty new.
OK I wrote the above article on Monday and so far I have seen 2 other articles claiming that FaceBook is now for grownups too. So I set up an account there – but I still get the feeling that it’s for people looking for love or friendship more than business connections – but I also noted that you probably get out what you put into it – and I didn’t put in much.
I want to welcome a new web site into the world – American Appliance & Mechanical, based out of Coon Rapids, Minnesota. I was very pleased to unveil the site last week and completely forgot to mention it in my blog.
One tip – American appliance offers coupons (online and off) twice a year, in the fall to clean the furnace and in the spring to look at central air conditioning units. So, next time you’re cleaning house you’ll have to remember them.
