Jackie R.’s SEO article “SEO your Site to Obtain a Good Search Engine Ranking” is a look at the benefit of optimizing an online business’ website leading to increased visibility. Jackie R. goes over some of the imperative techniques of SEO including keyword research and implementation. She doesn’t go into a lot of detail into keyword research, selection or placement into a business’ website. Jackie then moves right into what information should be on the website, which is mainly keyword rich content. She is correct, content is one of the main keys to successfully optimizing a website. She also mentions that there are other methods to a good SEO campaign. Link building and inserting keywords into tags in a pages script are important. This article was just grazing the top of Search Engine Optimization, but it does offer good keypoints and a solid beginning overview into SEO. 

The last day of eComXpo came and went today. There were some positives and some negatives for this event. The positives were it was a well-designed virtual convention. It was easy to navigate and find the different booths for affiliate marketing and search engine optimization. The classroom events were easy to find and subscribe to and the speakers and debates were a lot of fun to listen to. There was plenty of networking going on and I wound up meeting a number of people from Denver through the Expo. I feel I got my name out into the playing field and hopefully those contacts will be of benefit to me and Denver Fabrics in the future. I referred a number of people to our Share a Sale page (http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=9338) and we recruited a good number of people to become our affiliates.

The Expo contained very few negatives. The biggest and most blatant mistake was that you could not tell when exhibitors were already chatting with other attendees. In some booths there would be 15 people working and not one responded to my chat invitations. In the beginning it was hard to tell if people were just ignoring me, but as time went on I realized there was no way to tell if they were ignoring me or chatting with someone else. The only other downside to this point is that I have not won any of these prizes. Do I not deserve them?

I had a good time the last 3 days meeting many new people and setting up some important contacts which will improve Denver Fabric’s business. I will definitely be attending the Expo in October of 2007 and hope to meet some new people.

My girlfriend is a very special person to me. We have been dating for almost 3 years and she has always stood by my side through good and bad. She has an infectious smile and can get the most shy person in the room to open and start talking. She is very smart and quick-witted, but these are nothing without passion. One of the reasons I love her so much is because when she devotes herself to something, she gives everything she has to do the best she can. She is passionate about people even though they frustrate her and sometimes let her down. She has taught me many things in the time I have known her and I have grown much more adventurous. I was a shy person when she met me and she has opened me up, taught me to take risks and to understand that as long as you are honest and try your hardest that everything else will work out. I love this girl with all my heart and I hope she feels the same way about me.

I have never been to an online expo before yesterday, so I had no idea of what to expect when I signed up for eComXpo which runs from March 19 – March 22. When I first arrived into the “Convention Hall” I was pleasantly surprised. It was more professional than I thought it would be and it has tons of useful information. The speakers I listened to didn’t really pertain to my area of business, but it was still interesting to listen to industry experts and how they leverage their knowledge on the Internet to make money for themselves and their clients/businesses.

I am more interested in today’s presentations, especially the debate moderated by Sean Collins regarding Web 2.0 and the evolution of the Internet. Web 2.0 is distinctive from Web 1.0; Web 1.0 is comprised of applications offering products containing private data and Web 2.0 are platforms offer services whose information can be shared across different users. Data is shared freely across different sites, companies, databases, etc. The Internet is becoming a more cozy place with more people actively participating in the wide reach the Internet provides.

Blogs and social networks (My Space, Xango, etc.) are already huge and they will continue to grow in popularity. The ease of setting up a personalized website has never been easier as companies share their platforms with average people using the Internet.

Business is at an all time high on the Internet, from advertising to retail, the Internet has never had such a high level of commerce. Many companies are rethinking their antiquated marketing plans and readjusting them for the present state of the Web. It is not just big businesses on the Internet in 2007, the majority of commercial sites are smaller niche sites trying to make their way by compiling the massive amount of data shared across the Internet. The future is in companies that can develop cost-effective services and trust users to submit data to further improve their business model.

I will check back later in the day after some of these speakers and debates.

I just finished reading a website trying to sell an E-book that claims they can help you make $500,000 with little to no effort. It is sick that people would actually buy these products from people who are self-proclaimed Internet Marketing Gurus. What is really amusing to me is that when I click on this certain person’s other websites that I found in Google, the pages are so poorly designed it is literally impossible to read. It is like he used CSS to purposely mess up the website. If people actually did some research and saw this “Internet Guru’s” other websites would they still make that e-Book purchase?

The problem is the people selling these piles of junk, however, it takes two to tango and these people that buy pieces of garbage deserve to have their money taken from them. It’s not to say that there aren’t good e-Books out there, but it is the e-Books that have no new information that are a joke. I find it funny to read their advertising and sales pitch on their websites trying to sell their e-Books. They tell people the value of their book is $2,000. But wait! We have a sales price of $1300 for today only! And just for visiting we will cut that $1300 in half! A 50% discount, INCREDIBLE! But wait, if you act in the next 2.4 seconds we will reduce the price further, to . . . wait for it . . . still waiting . . . the unbelievable price of $7.99. A $2000 value for just $7.99! That is a savings of . . . $1992.01!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn’t really surprise me that these creeps are out there peddling their product or the people that spend money on these supposed “Goods and Services”. These people pollute the Internet with their lack of knowledge, and all because they have been taught the wrong information, outdated information or no information. I like that some people in the know are starting to take a stand against people scamming people out of their money. In a way it is good these people are out there because in many cases they are ruining their own chances of being successful on the web, giving people who have learned the correct way to make a name for yourself an easier path with less resistance.

My new project for the day has me attempting to optimize our Sewing Forum on www.denverfabrics.com. It has been set up nicely thus far and is moderated by an in-house sewing expert. We have roughly 600 members and we feel that by optimizing the forum not only can we attract new and old customers, but we also have a place where we can answer people’s questions or concerns.

I am going to try and stay away from other terms that we have optimized and I am currently analyzing data to see which keyterms we can optimize for successfully. I am tending to stick to terms that have a lower level of competition, but still a decent amount of searches per month. I don’t feel that it will be that difficult to begin ranking highly in SERP’s for the keyterms that we choose as there just aren’t that many sewing message boards. Well, good luck to me, and us on this endeavor. To take a look at Sewcial Circle, visit: http://forum.denverfabrics.com/phpBB2/index.php

Search Engine Optimization is very frustrating. You attempt to make your website better, add more content here, change some keywords there, add dome H1 tags and you expect it to make a difference. Well, it sure did for me, but a difference in the wrong direction. We were well placed with our two main keyterms on Google, 1st page sitting in the top 5. We make some changes to our site, not even to that page, and yet, www.denverfabrics.com plummets back to the . . . (gasp) . . . THIRD Page.

This is a pretty big deal for us because in the long term we are reliant on those keyterms and the massive amounts of traffic that Google used to send our way. Now we are in no man’s land, on the third page, hoping that something is going on with Google and that whatever it is they will forgive us and let us regain our old positions. My boss said he was having heart palpitations from all this waiting. He isn’t really having heart problems, but this has been a big blow to our company. As long as our keyterms aren’t ranking well our fabric competitors are taking more of the pie that we used to eat.

Today we made one more change, adding Alt tags to our pictures and labeling them. We have one final avenue that we are going to explore in the near future related to our backlinks, to try and clean them and optimize that area of our website as well. We also found out that we are moving offices in a month or so, and that is truly exciting!

I began working for Denver Fabrics back in early February of 2007. I was initially brought in as an intern to help out with SEO work for the site as well as help manage our 650 affiliates through Share A Sale. I worked hard, albeit for only 3 days a week before I was offered the job full time. I also received a new title, Affiliate Manager.

Affiliate Manager is by far the best title and best job position I have ever held. While still in school at the University of Denver working on my marketing degree I cam to find out that the job market in Denver for entry-level marketers isn’t very strong. Everywhere I interviewed with told me that I needed more experience to be able to break into corporate “Marketing” America. Well, how was I supposed to gain experience when no-one would hire me. That is except for all the sales jobs (inside, outside, upsales, blah blah blah). Don’t get me wrong, I am actually a pretty good salesperson, but it is not the job for me. It offered no intellectual stimulation, and on top of it, many marketing firms don’t consider sales as relevant job experience. Then I found Denver Fabrics on the University of Denver job search page.

I realized it was just an internship, but they were offering real live marketing experience. Most of the work I would be doing for Denver Fabrics would have a direct effect on web-site performance as well as their bottom line. I though what a great experience to make a name for myself and to try something new and challenging. So far since I have lead the affiliate program, we have experience growth in revenues every single week, as well as a record amount of people joining our program. On the SEO front, we are waiting for our rankings to settle. We have had two keywords for us drop off the 1st page in Google back to the 3rd page. These terms provide roughly 10% of our daily sales, so this hurts big time. Hopefully we will regain our page position and my SEO efforts will prove beneficial to Denver Fabrics.