SEO?? What is that?

SearchEngineLand (The same people that made the SEO Periodic Table) have also created a very beginner-style intro video for people who want to know “What is SEO?” Since I still get asked “What is that?” every time I tell someone that I do SEO, I thought that this would be worth sharing. (I’m still not sure why I don’t tell people that I’m in “Internet Marketing” or something more easily discernable when they ask me about my job… maybe next time.)

The video touches on the basics of search engines, their ranking algorithms and the simplest ways to get traffic through searches. Essentially, search engines are the librarians of the internet …except they have complicated recipes (recipes? Don’t ask me, it’s not my analogy :P) to help you find the information that you are searching for.

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ProWeb SEO – April Update

My “day job” has been taking up entirely too much of my time: An entire month has gone by and I’ve completely neglected this (very, very important) website. In reality, Search Engine Marketing should be my day job, but I haven’t had the time to implement the new ProWeb WordPress theme and I refuse to directly tell anyone about this website until I consider it to be “finished” enough to be viewed by potential clients. Until then, I will be working on ProWeb sporadically when I’m not giving SEO advice on Quora or sharing silly, drugstore-related anecdotes on Twitter. (See: drugstore tales and drugstore purchases for my random observations from work.)

In addition to the questions that I’ve answered on Quora, (a website that I highly recommend,) I have also been semi-active in the category for Search Engine Optimization on Reddit. (For those of you that are unfamiliar: Reddit is, if their site is to be believed, “a source for what’s new and popular on the web.”) I responded to one user about an SEO issue that was shared in public and this is the message I got in response:

“I really don’t know what to say, Nick. I think this is the best SEO advice I’ve ever gotten. It explains that impression of being lost in the anonymous wash of [...] sites. It just makes perfect sense. Thank you so much.”

He also purchased me three months of Reddit Gold, (the premium Reddit service without ads,) in exchange for my help and allowed me access to the Google Analytics data for the site.

It’s still too soon to see any effects on his website from the changes that I recommended, but as soon as I have that information I will share it here. Hopefully, I will have the new theme in place before then, but until either of those things happen: in real life, I will be working in a drugstore and online, I will probably still be answering questions on Quora, because I find the community more engaging than Reddit and, honestly, it’s kind of addictive.

The SEO Consulting job I didn’t get

In February, I interviewed for a Search Engine Optimization position at an insurance company based in Las Vegas. It was easily the best job interview that I’ve ever had, but they were looking for someone with more experience. Since I was turned down for the job, I’ve continued to (occasionally) monitor their site and, while they have made some minor changes, they definitely haven’t experienced any significant movement in the search engine rankings. Sadly, I think they hired the wrong guy and, at this point, I’m not sure if I should even mention it to them. All I know is that I would have produced some results by now and they seem to be in the same place as before. In the same amount of time, this completely new, mostly content-free SEO website has been entered into the Google index and I am already ranking for several different keywords. Granted, “seo services las vegas” is no “health insurance” when it comes to keyword phrases, but it’s a start.

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