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LinkedIn Profiles – Tips from one of the top LinkedIn members
February 9, 2012I recently attended a seminar by Kevin Knebl promoting LinkedIn. It is always reassuring to hear someone reaffirm the tried and true princicples of Dale Carnegie and Napolean Hill. Kevin’s first portion of his presentation was focused on building realtionships. One of his headlines was:
“Relationsips are Everything”
He spoke about how Dale Carnegies, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” has impacted his career and how we should all embrace these principles in our daily life and in our online approach to social media.
Kevin Knebl reminds us, “People do business with people they Know, Like and Trust”:
- Building positive relationships
- Clear, complelling social media presence
- An understanding of how to use technology to build, maintain and leverage relationships.
But as Kevin so rightly said, “You Can’t Out Run Your Character”. LinkedIn is a glorified resume. It is a way to tell the world about you and what you want them to know about you. But it is also a way to have other people back up what you say about your self. It is one thing to tell the world how great and wonderful you are, but if 10 other people talk about how great you are, then it has a profoundly stronger impact on the reader.
Kevin talked about 4 fundametal truths:
- Meaningful dialogue leading to selling
- Where there is strong trust and rapport, selling becomes simple
- When trust and rapport are weak, the selling pressure becomes strong
- The more you learn from customers, the more likely you are to have a positive relationship with them.
It is all boiling down to Carneigies principles here.
Six ways to make people like you. As Kevin reminded us a couple times throughout the seminar, if more people liked us… it would be that much easier to do business.
- Become genuinely interested in other people.
- Smile.
- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
- Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
Kevin challenged us to “Be the most positive person in the room”. Here are three key steps:
- What You Think – Your Mind Set
- What You Ask – The Info That You Gather
- What You Do – The Actions You Take
Find out more about Kevin Knebl
Website Definitions and Common Terms
February 8, 2012PDF (Portable Document Format):
A document file format developed by Adobe. Most often used for text documents.
API (Application Programming Interface)
An interface for letting a program communicate with another program. In web terms: An interface for letting web browsers or web servers communicate with other programs.
Banner Ad:
A (most often graphic) advertisement placed on a web page, which acts as a hyperlink to an advertiser’s web site.
Bandwidth:
A measure for the speed (amount of data) you can send through an Internet connection. The more bandwidth, the faster the connection.
Blog (Web Log):
A type of website (most often maintained by an individual) with a log of comments, meanings, descriptions of events, etc.
Blogger:
A person maintaining or writing content to a web log (blog).
Blogging:
Writing or adding content to a web log (blog).
Bookmark:
In web terms: A link to a particular web site, stored (bookmarked) by a web user for future use and easy access.
Bounce Rate:
The percentage of web site visitors who view only one web page before they leave (bounce out).
Browse or Browser:
Term to describe a user’s movement across the web, moving from page to page via hyperlinks, using a web browser.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol):
One of the most common methods for sending files between two computers.
FTP Server:
A web server you can logon to, and download files from (or upload files to). Anonymous FTP is a method for downloading files from an FTP server without using a logon account.
Google AdSense:
A paid web advertising program provided by Google.
Hits:
The number of times a web object (page or picture) has been viewed or downloaded. (See also Page Hits).
Home Page:
The top-level (main) page of a web site. The default page displayed when you visit a web site.
Host:
See Web Host.
Hosting:
See Web Hosting.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language):
HTML is the language of the web. HTML is a set of tags that are used to define the content, layout and the formatting of the web document. Web browsers use the HTML tags to define how to display the text.
Hyperlink:
A pointer to another document. Most often a pointer to another web page. A hyperlink is a synonym for a hotlink or a link, and sometimes called a hypertext connection to another document or web page.
Meta Tags:
Tags inserted into documents to describe the document. Meta tags are also used for search engine ranking and search engine optimization (SEO)
MySQL:
Free open source database software often used on the web.
OS (Operating System):
The software that manages the basic operating of a computer.
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)
A technology allowing the insertion of server executable scripts in web pages. Mostly for Unix, Linux and Solaris platforms.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer):
Software to secure and protect web site communication using encrypted transmission of data.
Upload:
To transfer a file from a local computer to a remote computer. In web terms: to transfer a file from a web client to a web server.
Website Address:
See Website URL
Web Host:
A web server that “hosts” web services like providing web site space to companies or individuals.
Web Hosting:
The action of providing web host services.
Website URL(Uniform Resource Locator):
A web address. The standard way to address web documents (pages) on the Internet (like: http://www.romeowebdesign.com)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
February 8, 2012Learn how to Rank in the Search Engine with these Search Engine Optimization tips
With over a decade in the industry, I have personally watched many changes take place with search engine rankings and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The way the search engines work has changed, and the way they view and rank our webpages has changed, but there are some consistent core methods that have stayed throughout all of the changes. Some things have been modified and some things have been removed. What I know for certain in this industry is Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Ranking will never stop changing. This is an ever evolving process. Most people find this overwhelming as it is such a large area to consider venturing into. But take it one things at a time. I’ve listed some key items below to consider. Keyword rich content is a great place to start when you are considering Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Here are some tips to hel you get started: It is a good idea to identify targetted keyword phrases on each page. You should not try to target a broad spectrum of phrases and words, but you should narrow your list down and target a few good, strong words and phrases.
Some questions you can ask youself during this process are:
- How do I want people to find my webpage in the search engine?
- What will people type into the search engines on the topic that I am providing information on?
- How would I search for this information on the internet?
- What results come up when I do a keyword search in Google?
- What does Google recommend for search phrases?
- What other keywords are other sites using?
Once you have considered these questions, you can start to see what is working, what is not working, and what people are actually going to type into the search engines when they are looking for content on your topic. Once you have decided on what your keyword rich phrases and words are, you can use them in the following ways:
- Use your keywords in your meta tags and page titles
- Keywords in your URL
- Keywords in your image ALT tags
- Keywords in your outbound links
- Keywords in your heading tags.
- Keywords in your body text, but especially focusing on the beginning sentences.
All of that being said, please note my strong word of caution. The search engines are smart. Do not think that you are smarter than they are. Play by the rules and you will find success that will stand strong in Google Rankings. If you abuse, and overuse your keywords or any techniques listed here, you will not succeed. You may for a short time, but search engines are smart and they will revise their procedures and eventually find you out. Follow the Rules: They are simple, don’t mess with them. Do it they way the search engines want you to do it and you will get the results you want.
Creative Passion
October 20, 2011“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before. ”
— Neil Gaiman
Do You Know What Words Your Audience Uses?
October 19, 2011It’s not about keyword research. That phrase is thrown around alot these days, but it is so much more than just researching the keywords.
The secret to driving traffic to your website is to sit in your clients shoes, and to know what they think and how they think.
When you’re creating your website you can easiliy create a list of keywords or phrases that you want your site to rank under, but are those phrases and keywords really the ones that your clients are using? Is that what the rest of the world is going to type into Google when they need to find you?
Keyword optimization is ultimately about knowing your client at a very deep level. Knowing what your client will type into their Google search. What will grab their attention and entice them to click on your link? That is what this is all about.
Do Your Ideas Persaude?
October 5, 2011Do Your Ideas Persaude?
Are your ideas attention grabbing and compelling enough to movitate your reader?
Do you know how to motivate your reader and direct them to a specific outcome?
Here’s a great article that talks about original ideas, compelling thoughts and where to get your inspiration from. It opens our eyes to realize that our inspiration and our next big idea is all around us. We just have to open our ears and sometimes close our mouth to be able to see clearly what is right in front of us.
Forget trying to search within, or to go on some grandeous adventure to “find yourself”, all we need is right here around us. The problem is most of us are to busy looking within ourselves to stop and see the potential that is right in front of us.
Here’s the article to get you writing, to inspire you.