From time to time someone at work will bring their computer in (laptop, PC) to fix from a possible virus (System Tools Virus or one of the Toolbar Trojans) and I start it up while on break and fire up some fixes when I get home with it or on my lunch break. This was the simplest fix I’ve had.

Is your fan running really loud? It might just be caked with dust, and a $3 can of compressed air might be the easiest fix. In fact, on this latest laptop brought in to me, I used a half of the can on my server in the office (it’s collecting dust too) and about 1/3 on this laptop. That whining sound from the fan just going crazy while running one program (yes only one), Malwarebytes, is gone.

Now all I hear is a very slight whish of a fan that’s not being overworked and I anticipate that this thing won’t shut off by itself while this guy is watching movies anymore.

Of course I’ll finish the scan and check a couple of other things first too.

Note of caution: If you think you want to save $3 and just blow on it yourself, keep in mind that you’re also blowing some moisture in there too and that could fry the whole thing, plus, unless you’re an Olympic balloon blower upper, you won’t have the torque that a compressed can of air can offer.

:0)

Filed under: Tech Support by Matthew
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So this is the first post in a possible series called, of course, The Perfect Work Day.

Actually no, perhaps I’ll follow up someday on a different Perfect Work Day, but for the next few years at least this post signifies what I will consider the perfect work day (in general terms).

Come in to work, say hi to everyone on the way in. “Heya, Howdy, How’s it?” Each person may get a different greeting depending on how well I know them or whether or not I’ve met their pet. :0)

Morning to dos:

Look at list of sites/applications to code, update, debug
Prioritize that list

Code
Design
Code
Code
Design
Content updates & SEO
Code

Meanwhile, in between all the coding: Test, debug, eat something & take a 20min nap to recharge, test, debug.

Code
Design
Code

Wrap up the day and say goodnight to anyone left in the office and head out for a surf.

Oh, there aren’t any meetings/committees/pow wows in there I wonder why (because this sounds like my perfect work day).

Filed under: Just Stuff About Me by Matthew
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While I myself am not a Social Media junkie, nor am I altogether very social in general, I realize the importance of Social Media for business.

Linking to your site from Social Media channels is a necessity if you are going to build links and drive traffic.

Your gaining a Twitter following should, like your Facebook ‘Likes’ and LinkedIn connections, be related to your business’ niche market. Having a bunch of Marketing and Sales followers on your fashion ‘feed’ isn’t nearly as useful as having a smaller group of fashionistas like yourself trading information and connecting on a personal and professional level.

Social Media self promotion is mentioned in hundreds of other posts and the consensus is, I guess, an 80% – 20% approach, retweet, connect, post and mention others and other resources 80% of the time you’re online and promote your brand the other 20%. Yeah, just sprinkle it in there, links to your products, specials, coupons and more.

It’s totally up to you what your Social Media presence displays and communicates. It shouldn’t be left up to an outside resource to ‘manage’ your online presence because realistically, who knows your business better than you? Also, what happens to your brand (the reputation you’re trying to build) if users find out that the person they thought they were interacting with at your company is an agent of a marketing firm ‘posing’ as someone from your business?

Getting local front page results in search for your products and services can be attributed in part, to how many links from your Social Media channels, especially others’ ‘retweets’ or ‘shares’ or posts about your sites, so go socially into the night and day and connect with your customers.

Set up a Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Pinterest/Instagram/LinkedIn account, add your name and info, add a button(s) to your website, search for ‘tweeps’ or other users in your niche and users that you want to follow for fun and just enjoy it. Even if you spend about 10-15 minutes a day skimming and connecting on some small level like I do with a couple of small businesses, it will make a big difference.

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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No matter what business you’re in, a local front page search result is key to driving more traffic to your site and hopefully to your business, thus increasing sales. This all comes together if you’re providing useful, relevant content to your visitors and if you can achieve national search results for keyword listings then you’re winning the SEO game.

But how do we get there from here?

Today I’ll talk about meta descriptions as they relate to SEO and more importantly, helping your potential users and buyers find you online. Whether your business is just starting out or you need to update your site’s content to achieve better results, it all starts with your content.

Your on page content should be relevant to your product or service, the title of your page should entice users to click, but more importantly give users an idea of what page they’re on when visiting each page of your site. Your page ‘description’ should be a short sentence, 150 words or so, that describes your page’s content clearly and resides in the head section of your page.

So where is the page description?

It’s not visible anywhere on the page, well, to front end users it’s not, but your site’s meta description is visible to search engines and it gives their algorigthm a snapshot of some data that describes your specific page. While this is only a portion of the value that determines the final ranking of each site, having a relevant site, relevant content and relevant page descriptions in your meta description tag goes a long way toward placing your site at the top of the search engine results page for local search listings.

There are a number of ways you can add a description tag. If you know HTML, then you can add thetag to your site. Otherwise, maybe you know someone who can do the SEO tags for you.

If you have a Content Management System like easyCES or WordPress, it’s much easier.

Use the easyCES CMS

easyCES has the simplest way to add your meta description tag, click the description button, type in your page description and save by clicking update. That’s it, now your page code is updated. Each step in updating your site is simple and easy. Click, Edit, Save.

easyCES Description Box for SEO Updates

Do you use WordPress?

If you have a WordPress blog, I love the Meta SEO Pack plugin that you can install from the backend. Once it’s installed, you enter the description in a text box under your page/post and save by using the Save Draft button or Publish button. I’ve included an image below, see, just a little text box.

Meta SEO Pack Description box

Page one gets all the traffic, seriously, so add a description to any page of your site that you can to help in achieving your front page SEO results in a local San Diego market or where ever you do business,  or nationally for that matter.

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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Achieving a local front page search result is key to driving more traffic to your site and hopefully more sales to your business. This all comes together if you’re providing useful, relevant content to your visitors and if you can achieve national search results for keyword listings then you’re winning the SEO game.

Using Title Tags

Today I’ll talk about Title tags because in search engine results, that’s what users see first.

Have you done a search lately?

The page’s title tag is usually the big bolded link that displays on the search engine results page when you search for websites and the key to a good title tag is to let your prospective customer/user know, clearly, what your page is about. Target users with relevant content summaries and using keywords like Local, Cheap, Discount, Wholesale, Custom along with your service or product (i.e. Widgets, Bicycles, Lights) and your area (i.e. San Diego, Santee, La Mesa) will get you to the top very quickly. A great Title tag for a specific product would be Wholesale Custom Bicycles in San Diego, La Mesa, Santee, California assuming you sell  custom bicycles at wholesale prices in San Diego, La Mesa or Santee, CA and its surrounding areas.

Essentially you want to use descriptive keywords along with the product/area specific keywords that your customers might use to find you in an online search. In your page’s Title tag, most search engines will pick up and display 60 characters (including spaces) so either count or use Microsoft Word’s Word Count in the Tools section to optimize space(s) and then copy that text over.

Where do I put it?

If you know HTML or have access to your html page, you can type it in the head section and the title tag element.

Using easyCES you can just log in, click the Title section, add/edit your text and click update. Done.

easyCES Title Tag Box

WordPress User?

If you use WordPress, the title of your blog post and a combination of your blog title will usually be your title tag.

There are many other CMSs out there (Drupal, Joomla! and more) so a quick search will tell you where to put your ultra targeted title tag so you can drive more visitors and sales to your site.

Remember, there is no substitute for good, unique relevant content and a title tag that points to that relevant content will get you to the top of the heap when it comes to users finding your product(s) or service online.

Cheers!

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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Lately I’ve been writing about organic SEO in terms on both human visible and bot visible content, Title tags, meta description tags and on page content. All of these factors are but a small piece of the puzzle that results in front page local and national search results for your site’s product or service keywords.

Images Matter

Images play a big role in our lives, online or not. Product images give us a better idea of the item we’re interested in almost more than the spec sheets and user manuals and images that describe a service or activity evoke some sort of emotion from us. For this reason, having compelling images on your site that guide the purchasing process has been a goal for many online retailers and service providers.

The thing is, images can garner unique visits to your site all by themselves. I’ve always optimized images for e-commerce sites to drive traffic to those sites by naming the image properly. How many product images simply are called IMG2002.jpg? Too many, my image is called my-simple-product-grey.jpg because it will show more prominently in the image search results for users/customers looking for that type of product. Also, using img alt tags or alternate text tags is not only helpful for screen readers and users without images displayed, but helpful for search engines to catalog content on your site more efficiently.

Images for SEO

Any time I’m optimizing a site for search engines, image optimization is present so you would do well for your business if you did the same.

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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Hey, do you want CSS3 rounded corners quickly and easily?

Simply add these lines to your CSS document for the element you’re targeting with the border-radius attribute.

I want my content div (it has an id of ’rounded’) to have rounded corners.

#rounded {
  border: 1px solid #ccc; // 1 pixel wide, solid grey border
  border-radius: 8px; // 8 pixel rounded corner on each side
}

Now I want older Firefox and Safari/Chrome browsers to show the rounded corners as well so I’ll add the -moz- and -webkit- prefix to target those browsers.

Same selector, just add:

#rounded {
  border: 1px solid #ccc; // 1 pixel wide, solid grey border
  -moz-border-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
  border-radius: 8px;
  padding: 10px;
  width: 250px;
}

Enjoy!

Filed under: CSS3 Tips & Tricks by Matthew
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The biggest part of having an online presence is the idea that customers will find you, your site, your products and/or your services. A website is like any advertising piece, you have to get it in the hands of your users or in this case, on their screens.

Content is King

That is the most repeated mantra of Search Engine Optimization for any business entity. Relevant content drives conversions (sales/signups/etc.) for local front page listing and more importantly, your relevant, useful content increases both site visits and conversions.

If you’re selling widgets in San Diego or anywhere else, your site should mention your widgets, the style of your widgets, the color of your widgets and the value of your widgets at every opportunity. The right combination of keywords and links to your site regarding those widgets can help you achieve local front page SEO results in as little as a few days.

This is most easily accomplished by utilizing heading tags, strong text highlights and page links from other sites to validate your information and build its popularity. If you’re not an expert at doing it yourself, having a bi-weekly or monthly SEO Package for as little as $50/mo will do wonders for your site’s visibility online for the San Diego market or anywhere you do business.

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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So all in all the reboot I underwent helped me get to a more manageable 233-235lbs. That’s 22-24 pounds I’ve lost since late July 2011, mostly fat, slowing me down, extra weight. I feel solid, fit, healthier months later and still eat salads regularly with grilled chicken as opposed to the all the time fat and carb laden meals.

My regulars:
Coffee and teas without sugar cut probably 300 calories per week out of my diet.
Salad greens and veggies add more fiber and nutrients in place of rice and other carbs (bread, fries). Romaine and Spinach are the mainstays, Kale was just too bland. Cut 400-500 ‘empty’ calories per week out since I don’t eat much breads or rice or tortillas.
Regular exercise including, but not limited to a 30 minute vigorous workout 3 times per week.

Fridays have been about: 235, 233, 232 pounds for weigh in usually.

Rebooted and moving forward.

Filed under: Reboot Challenge by Matthew
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Throughout a series of blog posts I’ll talk about achieving front page SEO results for both local and national listings. Essentially your site’s relevance and popularity both locally and on a national level will determine its rank in the search engines.

Keep in mind that there are millions of websites online and probably thousands that sell or offer the same products and services that yours does. Plus, there are probably (though hopefully not) a hundred or so in your local area that do just that. Also, there are a number of websites that offer links to sites that sell the product(s) or service(s) yours does.

So how do you get to the top of the search listings?

There are a hundred or so factors that, when all added up, determine the listings that the search engines display when you click to search for a product or service. Today I’ll talk about links.

Step 1

Links within your site (internal links) will help search engines find your content on your site’s pages. A navigation bar usually fulfills the need to link to every page on your site whether it’s the top navigation or additional footer navigation that points to copyright info and/or terms and conditions. Ideally every page on your site should in some way be able to be found through or visited from any other page of your site. Drop down menus and search fields usually do just fine so create your site’s navigation with that in mind.

Step 2

Links from other sites are important because they count as a ‘vote’ for your site and carry more weight and have a higher quality if they come from a resource that is relative to your site’s product or service. Getting as many quality links to your site is important to your SEO results.

Writing a blog post and linking to your site and a specific product gives you a quality link if that blog post is related to the product or service you’re featuring. Having an industry leader(s) write an independent blog post about your product or service and linking to it is another high quality link building strategy.

Adding your site to micro site’s like Squidoo or shopping sites like HotFrog or Kaboodle give you a chance to write a bit more about your product/service and display them on another store front type site. Using Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook or other micro blogging/social media sites and providing links to your site via status updates does well to improve your high quality link building efforts.

Asking vendors to partner with your site by trading links is a great way to build quality links if your vendors can benefit from your links or you can benefit from theirs.

There are many ways to build high quality links to your site, but just don’t EVER buy links or opt-in to link farms and for that matter, signing up for a bunch of link directories isn’t recommended either. Those are big SEO no-nos and can get your site banned from search engine listings if you participate in many of the ‘get links quick’ schemes.

Cheers!

Filed under: Small Business SEO by Matthew
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