I don’t post that often on this blog, mainly due to the fact of putting client’s work first, as with most SEO and web designers.
Anyways, this post is really about the correlation between learning a musical instrument and SEO. What you say, another mindless analogy.
Well, analogies work if you are familiar with the analogy example presented. If not, it can confuse, but for those who play an instrument or have done, as i have for many years, then the similarities in some respects are close.

If you learn a classical instrument – piano, flute, violin, etc., you usually go down the graded route, learn formally, learn pieces of music and you aim is to nail those pieces of music to the best they can be played.
In the ‘pop’ instrument world – guitars, bass, drums, etc., you take lessons, teach a bit yourself, learn songs, bit of theory, etc. Arguably a more creative route, but more haphazard.
But, in the pop instrument world, the main advice from the top players is – emulate then inovate. In other words, copy your favourite artists/players, then come up with your own stuff. After learning a piece, pull to bits how they play, how they phrase passages, how they contruct a tune – tune structure, chord progressions, melody lines, do they favour one scale over the other….the list can get lengthy, but you can just practice until you know a tune second nature then let something come out by osmosis.
The greatest composers had to do this – Mozart apprently wrote his first symphony at age 4….wow! But he really didn’t just come down stairs one day and thought, i’ll just tinker on the piano never played before and rattle off a symphony! No, Mozart’s dad was a well know music teacher who sat young Mozart down from age 0 at a piano. That linked with an innate musical ear was the difference, but he did emulate to come up with those first melodies. Led Zeppelin – listen to their very first recordings, i think their first b-side, its a blues tunes by another artist with different lyrics! Emulate then inovate.

The same then with SEO or really SEM/internet marketing. You need to emulate the best in the field – emulate then inovate.
But again, great analogy, but your saying i’m lost……..i only played the recorder for a month at school because i was made to!
Well, you have a market, you picked a niche you have wittled down your keywords to see which are best to go for from – relevance, traffic, competition and if they can be montised. Thats your research.
But then you have to look at the top competitors.

What are they doing to be at  the top? Pull apart (not literally) their landing page that is ranking – what elements are they covering on page, do you have those elements in place on your landing page?
Is their site optimised covering all the on site items needed, again same check with your site.
Content – does the content appeal to a human and the bots, does it have a call to action.
After all on site stuff – offsite stuff – what backlinks does your competitor have, where are they coming from, are the links quality or there on mass – all the link criteria covered that make a good link.
The list can be as indepth as you like, but the deeper the information you have on a competitor and more familar you are with their site, the better you will spot what they are doing or not doing.
Implement, then innovate, but the inovate bit, like in music can work great or fall flat on its face. Again, see what has worked for your competitors if they have added new content, features, functionality, offerings, layout. They may have done the research before you.
All this takes work and time. Some stumble across a successful way to promote their sites, others have to work every step of the way, which is most of us, so by emulating the best of the competition, you will at least be near to what is expected to be no.1.

Benefits – let your visitors view your events, locations, places of interest on the move and once downloaded, viewable offline.

If you would like an iphone viewable 360 tour, please call us today – info@bassmedia.net

Newsnight had a feature on Sarah Palin from Alaska at some kind of snow race thing, being all smiley and showing her ‘recreational’ side. No worries there, apart from Sarah was only half taking notice of the interviewer and did comment that the event was really no place to talk politics – (if you want to run for the big title in the US you have to be on it 24-7 -  its expected, as you will be running the country, remember.)

What was frightening is the shots from her folks house/homestead – first the outside shot of nice skulls of presumably animals long shot by the family, then a cosy inside interview where the nice folks, talked about Sarah Palins victimisation by the media in general, but on the walls, behind the nice folks were most of the wilderness, skinned and pinned to the walls. Well, maybe not the whole wilderness, but i spotted a full bearskin and a few other outwear garments from animals.
Ok…..be accepting, but after that, to a firing range where kind locals, made practice with automatic weapons. An ak-47 for the first man and what looked like one of those machine guns the transformers have bolted to their arms was being rattled off like they were practicing for world war 3.
Follows -  bit more politcs speak from Sarah, etc.,  then back to the studio.

From a UK perpective, if we saw on the TV a political candidate’s parents talking from there home covered in animal skins, proudly despatched and skulls on the outside of the house and gun dragging locals, we would think, do not go within a hundred miles of that candidate. They are clearly barking.
While from the Newsnight piece, Sarah and co. looked proud of this aspect to there lives.

In the UK and in Canada, we feel we can protect ourselves mostly without bullets as we have advanced to the level of discussion, diplomacy and debate to solve stuff….this we have found causes no one to die.

If the US are going to elect Sarah for her policies and they believe in them, truely, then fair enough, if its to support the American right to arm and shoot things – while on a skiing holiday, then put Ted Nugent in the presidents seat. At least he can play guitar…..

Coming from a Teaching back ground, i’ve found trying to get information across in an understandable way, always works when put in an easy to digest format.
I always remember a documentary on ‘John Craven’s News Round’ (i’m old!) where ‘proper’ news reporters would sometimes research the program, as it put forward news stories in a child friendly format  that kids could easily understand.
As the program was expert at the ‘child friendly’ way of presenting news, it was gold for how to explain what could be complicated topics.

So, why can’t all information and learning be like this and why can’t this be applies to SEO?
If you had a comic book you started writing and wanted to tell everyone in the real world how great it was and they should buy it regularly, how would you do it, especially on a limited budget?
Answer – you get creative and keep it simple and obvious. Start with all easy local contacts, then go from there.
Without noting here  patronising ways to do this, everyone can promote themselves and knows their industry and who is important or not in the areas you work.
Online – the methods are the same, but you need to play by online rules (mainly search rules), but keeping it simple, straight forward and to the point is needed.
Online can be more complicated, with more data and things to keep track off and as online is getting more competitive, the market place is slowly getting more crowded.
But, with planning and a little strategy, you too can have a winning comic!

Flash, these days, as it really always has been, has had its supporter and detrators.
The common points of why not – cannot search content properly, plugin technology, Apple hate it, only good for banners or arty animated intros.
The common points of why – simple to get basic animation going, a whole site can be built in the environment-with text, images, animation, etc. years before html5 was even thought of….any many more.

So, why from an SEO point of view do i like flash?
Mainly, nostalgia!….No, really i have used or dabled with flash over the years since version 4 and used it in a variety of ways (yes, i have built a full flash site in the past, but it was only my 3rd website…ahem!)
Flash, personally shouldn’t go away. It is too useful.
It should be thought of as what it can do, not its ailments.

Think more on-page/user experience/on-site worth than, ‘the content is not searchable’,  ’iphones cannot see it.’
View a flash banner on Amazon or Ebay – does it catch your eye more than a static banner?
Applications, yes applications. Flash can make an app. easy and all in one environment. Where can you use it? Internal use, where you have control over the technologies.

The debate will rage on and will get most interesting when html5 has its full use of weaponry, but for now, the pub debates will continue……

Your competitors or your successful competitors, will hopefully have put in the ground work for which keywords/phrases to use, which landing pages are the best to target, all on page optimisation covered on those landing pages, a blog to backup that landing page, articles out there for the landing page, which products they are promoting/stocking which you are not and the list goes on.
But the main thing to watch if nothing else, is the backlinks to your competitors and how they rank for those keywords.
All these backlinks will give an idea of the sites to get links from, how specific the theme of the backlinks to your theme of site and how much reciprocal linking they have.
This builds a picture of the activities of their SEO/SEM. Follow their lead, then 10% better your self.
Study your competitors and then plan your own campaign.

You know that your business needs a website. You know that to have a website you must have a webhost. How much do you know about web hosting? And furthermore, what type of web hosting is best for your business endeavor?

Types of Web Hosting Accounts

Free Web Hosting. May sound good on the surface, but you get what you pay for. There are definitely free web hosts out there who make money putting ads on your content. Your upside is that you get to share your content with the world for no money. Free web hosting also has the smallest bandwidth, and visitors to your site may have to deal with the dreaded pop up ad.

Shared or Virtual Web Hosting. This is the most common type of web hosting available, meaning that you share your host server with all of the other clients of the host. This is also usually the cheapest type of web service, but since your host is trying to maximize profits, usually the host is actively trying to have as many clients on one server as possible. More clients means less space for you and more regulations about what you can put on your site. You will have control over your site, usually through a control panel, but not the server.

Virtual Private Server Hosting. If you need to control the resources of your own server, but are still cost conscious, virtual private server hosting may be for you. You are actually still on a shared server, but through better resource allocation, your site will look and act like a dedicated server.

Dedicated Web Hosting. If you are seeing the pattern of trading higher prices for more resources, you are right on track. Allowing even more control than a virtual private server is the dedicated web hosting solution, which means that your web site, or web sites, have the vastly superior resources of its own true dedicated server. The dedicated server is what the virtual server emulates; however, the dedicated server allows more customization of your web applications. Also, server uptime is not contingent upon anyone else’s problem or website, which allows you, the owner, to make much more truthful promises to your customer base about the uptime of your website. On the downside, a dedicated server is like owning a house rather than renting an apartment. You are responsible for paying to have technicalities fixed, and should you choose to outsource system administration, that too.

Managed Web Hosting. If you are in need of the greater resources of the dedicated server, but you do not have the expertise to administrate the server yourself, the next most expensive option is the managed web hosting solution. Of course, for your money, you now do not have to worry about fixing administrative problems yourself, but can instead yell at the company running the service you hired. Of course, you will pay for this privilege, as the managed web hosting option is usually the penthouse of options offered by web hosting companies.

Server Co-Location. This is usually an option reserved for technical professionals, because with this option you are just housing your own server at another location. It’s like renting a storage unit. If you have to ask, this probably is not the option for you.

Your Choice. Which solution makes for the best ecommerce hosting, which is mostly likely relevant to your business? Usually, if you spent the money on incorporation, setup, inventory or service, and personnel, the best bet is the managed hosting account, or managed web hosting. This solution provides the level of autonomy needed, room to grow, and no need to learn technicalities which would just impede the actual operations of your business. One of the best places to get this service is at webhostingsearch.com, which specializes in tailored web solutions to the small businessman.

Hope you all make your Xmas money!

Manchester Business Directory