SEO

The Almost Perfectly Optimized Website

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It’s taken me a while, but I finally found it. Found what? The perfectly optimized website according to Google page rank… for a while at least!

Ever since I’d learned about Google’s page ranking system, which I really don’t trust (and don’t think they now care about anymore), I wanted to find those pages that were at the very top, to see just what it is that they’d done. Sure, by now we’ve heard that Google says trying to attain high page rank is meaningless. Still, it was one of those challenges I put myself on because, well, it’s just what I had to do.

Buddha Quote 62
Hartwig HKD via Compfight

That search began in earnest, as I first went looking at the top ten sites, based on Alexa’s ranking. Google’s site has a perfect 10, but we can’t count that. Or can we, since none of the other search engines have a page rank of 10? Nope, had to exclude them, if only for bias. I then went through the next 10; nothing.

At that point, I just started searching big name sites at random, hoping I would just happen upon one. But it wasn’t happening, and I was getting depressed. Then I finally decided that there just wasn’t any way to obtain a perfect score, and I would have to be satisfied with those sites I found that had 9’s; that’s very good also.

Lo and behold, I finally found a site that has the perfect 10 rating by Google. I was researching something regarding standards for proper CSS had HTML, and that search lead me to this site: http://www.w3c.org/, or W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium.

My mind was swimming; the perfect website! Not only that, but it had an Alexa rank of 230 at the time; even better. In a weird way, it showed just how diverse ranking properties can be; Alexa says it shows the web prominence of a website, and though 230 isn’t bad, it seems to shake things up, even if only in a minor fashion, because how can such a page be considered as perfect by one company and only #230 in another?

Frankly, I don’t care. I don’t care because I found perfection. And what perfection; why should I have expected anything less than what this pages shows me.

And just what does it show me? Well, first it has lots of content; these people were made to create content, which is easy for them to do because they have so many contributors.

I looked at the source codes; how wonderful they are. When you look at the main page, start in the middle first. This shows how content doesn’t have to be rambling, or even one coherent thought. These people don’t just have a list of content; they have one paragraph explaining what they’re going to give you, with links galore, internal links, which I’ve talked about before. You almost never leave this site.

Along the top and the sides are even more links. Each one takes you to very organized pages, and every single one of those pages have lots and lots of links, all going somewhere else within the site. On the left side of this page all the links are in alphabetical order; on the right, they’re grouped by category designations.

One very special page is their table of contents, which is here: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/. Every single line in the actual table of contents, which looks like a large outline, is a link. Each link takes you to a page, which leads you to many other links and pages, and it goes on and on. Frankly, I don’t know that one person could read this entire site in a week or a month without having to start again from the beginning, there’s so much here.

This is the icon, the standard upon which we are all based. And frankly, I have to admit that I was elated and sad at the same time. Elated because I finally found perfection (though it’s gone now); sad because, unfortunately, I’m never going to attain perfection, page rank or otherwise.

As a sole proprietor, I’ll never be able to match this kind of content, and I write all the time. Even if I add staff, which I hope to someday, I can’t see where we would ever be able to spend the kind of time it takes to put together something like this. Others may not see it the same way I do, but this is a beautifully put together site; I almost want to cry. lol

I can only hope that one day, when I’m old and gray (technically, being black my hair is white), I’ll remember what it was like the day I saw perfection, and knew it would never be me or my sites; how do you feel?
 

Blogging

Why Do You Blog?

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Why do you blog? You know, I’ve kind of broached this subject in the past but I came at it from different directions. First, in 2008 I asked the question Why Do You Write Your Blog, which was based on a couple of articles I’d read on the subject of using one’s blog to make money. The second, in 2010, was part of my Sunday Question blog series asking specifically Why Do You Blog, and in this case I was asking people what they were hoping to get out of their blogs, whether it was business or pleasure.

06-08-10 And With Heart Shaped Bruises And Late Night Kisses
Βethan via Compfight

Goodness, it’s been 4 years since I talked about this subject? Time to broach it again, but I’ll tell you why I’m doing it this time. If you’ve noticed, over the past couple of weeks I’ve put up some posts here that relate to business blogging. Although I talk about blogging often, specifically talking about blogging for business isn’t something I’ve spent lots of time on. Sure, I’ve talked on the subject of trying to make money blogging and why it’s more difficult than people think but that’s not quite the same topic.

In this vein, it’s talking about having some kind of business and using blogging to either help promote the business in some fashion, show expertise or actually using the blog as the business, not specifically a make money blog but making connections so you can sell product or services.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I use my main business blog as a way to show my expertise on certain subjects and, hopefully, to get clients of some kind from it. I haven’t talked as much about this blog and how I work on using it for business but truthfully, one speaking engagement I got locally came mainly because of this blog. Nah, I didn’t get paid, and I didn’t even get a nibble for business, but it was still fun being seen in a professional light by some folks in my area, since more often than not I work out of town or my clients are out of town.

Over the next few months, I expect to have more articles on this blog about business blogging in the vein I was talking about above. However, I know that there are a lot of people who don’t see that type of thing as the reason for why they write their blogs. So, I’m throwing the question out there, asking what I asked in 2010 and seeing if some of the responses are different.

See, I think it’s an important question more for you than for me. The one thing I get asked over and over is how do I come up with so many ideas to write about, especially after I passed 1,500 posts back in March. One reason is because I have a passion for the topics I write about. The other reason is because I do market some of my writing services, I charge a pretty nice dollar, and I like to be able to show someone just how proficient I’ve been in my own space, and then possibly point them to other spaces. In the end, even though this is my “fun” blog, it’s also my portfolio of diverse topics; wouldn’t you agree?

This should be fun; let’s see what you have for me. 🙂
 

Blogging, SEO

5 Reasons Blogging Helps Your Website’s SEO

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One of the biggest recommendations many SEO specialists offer to their clients is to add a blog to their website. That’s because it offers great SEO benefits if done right, as well as helps your potential customers see you as an expert in your field. You might not always have someone tell you the reasons why it works, so here are 5 reasons that blogging helps your website’s SEO.

1. Search engines like new content.

blogging
Sean MacEntee via Compfight

Search engines send bots out through the internet looking to see if your website has made any changes in awhile. If there’s none for a long time, they stop sending the bots and your web presence declines. With some kind of consistent content, even if you only write once or twice a month, your website keeps some kind of relevance.

2. You get to reinforce your expertise in what you do.

No matter what your industry is or if you sell products, being able to write about either on a consistent basis helps the search engines definitely show everyone what you’re about. Sometimes all it takes is having more niched content than the next person to help you stand above the crowd.

3. You have multiple opportunities for internal linking.

Something you don’t hear a lot of SEO specialists talking about is linking to your own content, whether it’s other blog posts or pages on your website. One of the best optimized sites on the internet is the W3C Organization, which has almost no external links but internal links like you wouldn’t believe. Not only does it help your SEO but it encourages your visitors to check out other pages of your website.

4. It’s easier to gear your content towards multiple keyword phrases.

With just a website you can only cover so many keywords and keyword phrases unless you have hundreds of pages. By adding a blog you can write multiple posts with multiple keywords and phrases that helps you compete with all of your competitors.

5. If others like your content, they’ll share it.

They could share it on their own blogs or through social media, which not only drives more visitors to your site but ends up creating backlinks to your site without your having to do anything except have exceptional content on your blog. It’s always great with others promote you because they think you’re content is awesome.

Motivation/Inspiration

Fighting Anger And Depression

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Can I tell you a secret? It’s personal but I figure if you’re a regular reader you won’t mind it. There might even be something in this for you.

Halloween is Bloody Fun
Billy Wilson via Compfight

Quite often I’m holding in a lot of anger and a bit of depression. I don’t know that the first has always been with me but the second has.

What makes me angry? Goodness, what doesn’t make me angry. I get angry with a lot of things I read in the news. I get angry when I see a lot of the things I read on social media. I get angry when I have to hear things about politics or religion or racism or… name anything where people show hate towards someone else.

I get angry when I feel someone demeans what I do. I get angry when people speak to me in a manner I don’t like. I get angry when people don’t show courtesy to me or others when I’m in their presence. I get angry for many of the bad ways that people treat each other.

Because I fight all these things, as in work hard to keep them suppressed, I then get depressed. I get depressed because at a certain point I realize that there’s nothing I can do to stop any of it. There’s probably little I can do to change anyone’s behavior because, frankly, if people don’t already care about themselves then what the heck would I ever be able to say so someone to get them to change right?

Now that I’ve said that I want to say two other things.

One, luckily I don’t manifest my anger all that often in public. There are so many people I just want to smack or hurt in some fashion for their being jerks. But I don’t, which is smart for more than one reason. Instead, I get quiet, get introspective, and try to find something to move my mind to a calmer place, a happier place, a place where I can regain my perspective if needed. After all, no one wants to hang around a person who’s angry all the time, right?

Two… I know I’m not alone. As a matter of fact, I’d bet that most of you are angrier people than I am and probably get even more depressed than I get. But you probably have outlets for your anger, things you do that maybe you want to or need to apologize for later on, things that I don’t do.

See, I’ve never cursed, never had a drink, never taken any illegal drugs. I’ve never hit anyone first, never really beat anyone up, rarely have said hateful things to intentionally hurt a person’s feelings… wanted to, but didn’t.

I have been sarcastic though, and I’ve had a mean streak. For me, my mean streak is to make someone feel belittled without my having to have said anything.

One of the reasons I push myself is because I want to be better than any detractor who ever believed I was less than them, or couldn’t achieve something I said I wanted to do.

Yeah, I can be spiteful. I never forget, and I’ve never quite gotten that forgiveness thing down. Most of the time I let things go, or so I tell people, but I never forget; of all the gripes I’ve had about my short term memory as I get older, I want to smack myself because it would be nice to forget the slights, or perceived slights.

Why am I talking about all of this stuff?

grouch
greg westfall via Compfight

One, because it’s a bit cathartic, as today I end my self imposed week away from all social media. I needed time for myself, time to do things like editing my latest book some more, time to lay back and relax and watch a few movies.

Two, because of the words of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix coming back to me when I felt like I was being split in two:

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

Of course that’s just a version of an old story where a man tells his grandson a story about two wolves going through the same battle, mentions that each person has this within himself, and answers the grandson’s question of which one will win by saying “The one you nourish.”

I know many of you go through these same things. Luckily, the overwhelming majority of you are probably like me in not hurting someone else physically, trying not to hurt someone unintentionally, holding those emotions in until you’re alone and then finding your own way of dealing with them. Hopefully, you recognize that you’re not evil and that you are a good person and can and will eventually overcome these feelings and distractions.

And if you need to step away for a while to do so then do it. If you have to write about it then do it. If you have to eat lots of cake and ice cream and cookies… well, do that also! 🙂

The real words to follow: “don’t let the haters get you down“, which appeared there first and then was plagiarized here, but looks better at the second link.

Man, I hate thieves… makes me so angry… 😉
 

Race Relations

Independence – Emancipation Day

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In what could be seen as a controversial stance I take, I actually consider today, July 9th, the real Independence Day. That’s because, for me, the day the 14th Amendment was passed, which brought equal rights and protections to all citizens of the country, was the real Emancipation Day, which many misinformed people think was January 1st, when Abraham Lincoln gave his decree known as the Emancipation Proclamation.

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What’s the truth? The reality is that when Lincoln freed slaves, he only freed slaves in the southern states during the Civil War. And let’s face the fact that it didn’t free a single slave, and probably 99% of them never even heard of it at the time. Not that he didn’t have encouragement to do so, as it was believed that putting it out there would encourage free black people to join the army and fight for the cause, which did happen although Union military leaders really didn’t want them… that is, until the losses started to pile up.

What many others don’t know is that many of the states that voted for it did it under threat of not being established as a state again, which pertains to those southern states that had to bite the bullet after losing the Civil War. And in truth passing it did little to equalize things or make them fair in any way… at least at the time. Actually even now, even so many years, a bill has to come before Congress known as the Civil Rights Bill; that’s just a shame…

I don’t get political on this blog all that often and I don’t necessarily want to go there now, but I feel like I have to. I go that way because of the topic of immigration and how there are so many who are fighting this, even though it’s a protection that was granted, to a degree, by the 14th Amendment.

There are many who believe that just because someone was born in this country that it shouldn’t automatically give them citizenship. Not only would this violate the Constitution because of this amendment (which was supported by United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, but it throws out history in general as that’s how this country not only came to be in the first place but how it grew.

The attack is also against those who came to this country in an unorthodox manner (I’m preferring that to “illegal) and have not only lived here a long time but many have served in the military and done great deeds for this country. Many people say they should be deported and not be allowed to remain, that they’re a drain on the financial resources of this country (like they care since they don’t want to take care of people who have been citizens of this country for centuries) and that they bring heavy crime (uhhh, who’s in jail more than anyone else by the numbers?).

You know what? Yeah, there’s some criminal elements, and there are some folks who live off governmental benefits. That’s going to happen. But the overwhelming majority work hard, travel hard, make little but are honest, proud people who have tried to be great examples of the opportunities this country has to offer.

I’m not saying that the borders shouldn’t be tightened so that people would be forced to go the correct route to get into this country; goodness knows that if uneducated people can get in from one country terrorists with a bit more education can also get in, and do. I’m saying that if someone has been here a long time and proven their worth, which is the majority, that they not only should be allowed to stay but should be given the opportunities for citizenship that, in my opinion, they’ve earned.

There; that’s my political post for the year… I hope!
 

Blogging, Social Media, Writing, Motivation and General Stuff