Archive for the 'work' Category

PageRank – a client guide

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

PageRank is a numerical calculation based on the numbers of links that exist to a site with absolutely no consideration as to their relevance and context for your site.

A part of our web site promotion services, a lot of our customers get worried when their sites drop PageRank, due to a new algorithm Google is ranking sites by usually.

pagerankHopefully, this post should clear up the aspects of what you need else you need to be aware of in the current search marketplace.

PageRank is scored out of 10, and is measured by the relevancy of incoming links, site content and external links.

PageRank is, at best, a blunt geometric measure of the likely authority of a site, but frankly, it is the furthest thing from a real assessment of whether you have good link reputation. It is a red herring, let’s try to stop worrying about it.

To make real progress in SEO you must attend to:

  • Visibility – the technical accessibility and structure of your content to
    Google
  • Content – such that it is consistent with how your prospects actually search
  • Reputation – do things that makes your site irresistible as a link target
    for relevant sites

People spend lots of money that they are wasting every month on that poor linking building and other SEO old school services like submitting to search engines.

The way to get your site ranked high involved little effort, just plain old relevancy. 3 amazing links are better than 10,000 paid for / irrelevant ones. PageRank is great if used properly, along with word of mouth, when journalists write about the URL, make sure they drop the link in the online article or it’s completely useless to anyone.

Videos of the experts explaining current SEO ideas at PubCon:

Interview with Matt Cutt’s which covers these ideas and changes at Google.

Interview with Bruce Clay’s ideas on the future of SEO

Top 5 Time Management Tips

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Everybody could manage time better, whether it is due to a demanding family life, or lots of clients we all need to be refreshed about how we handle and manage our valuable time.

Here’s a list of items that work for us:

1) Spend a moment to plan every day. Start by writing a list of what you need to achieve each day, even when you are not at work to get things done effectively.

2) Write everything down. Whether you do this user a paper and pen, or online using tools like evernote or remember the milk. You’ll be less stressed if are not holding those things in your head.

3) Set a time limit. You’re more focused and less likely to get distracted if you don’t have an open ended time slot in your day for a particular task. I set a time slot in Google calendar to text me a reminder to do it, and I can also measure how long it took me so I can be confident of allocating the correct time to it in the future.

4) Do little and often. Breaking tasks into chunks helps to prevent a build up and is less overwhelming. How often have you found yourself being distracted or been refreshed by doing new work instead of that large project? By working on small increments/chunks you will find you complete more without the stress.

5) Don’t do it all on your own. If you don’t have the knowledge, skill or time. Don’t hesitate to ask for the help when you need it. Either mailing lists or co-workers may have come across the problem before. It’s also nice to be asked for help too!