SEO 101

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea whatsoever as what SEO was. I knew I wanted to be on Page 1 Solutions’ bus as a contributing team player, but didn’t have all the knowledge I needed to be a part of the design department. So, Troy told me about an open position in the SEO department. I asked him if it was something that would help me as a designer and he said that he believed every designer should know and understand SEO. I was scheduled for an interview and, while sitting in the reception area, Natalia asked me what I was interviewing for. I old her I didn’t know… Don’t tell Dan or Debby. I pretended I knew. In my interviews, I started to understand what SEO was, a little anyway, and that it was valuable knowledge for a designer. I left my interviews on the edge of my seat, figuratively speaking. I couldn’t wait to find out if I was going to get a ticket for the Page 1 Solutions’ bus. I got that ticket and climbed aboard the bus.

I started reading, as all of us did I’m sure, the “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies” book and learned quickly what I needed to do for optimization and why. It may be because I’m new, but I was excited to learn and couldn’t wait to work on my first site. I got that chance on Friday and it was fun. Some people asked me why I took a non-design position. The answer is very simple, “It gives me knowledge to become a better designer, it is with a company I really wanted to work for, and I find it creative.” SEO is a creative job. You have to think how keywords are going to fit into each page and how tags and descriptions are going to be worded. I love writing. I used to be a Creative Writing Minor at CSU, before I moved into design, and enjoy any chance I can get to be a wordsmith.

I am starting to understand more and more how I can design with SEO in mind and I am noticing where designers can help out in this respect. As an SEO almost-not-a-dummy, I am understanding how to design disclaimers and header tags into sites that do not have them. These two worlds are coming together quite nicely, I think. I am totally willing to learn anything anyone can teach me about SEO and I am willing to help anyone out with design questions. I have a good feeling about this coming together and I love discussing design. (I apparently also love simley faces.)

I am thankful that I have gotten a chance to work at a company that cares about their employees and who’s employees are so nice and fun. I like coming to work everyday, which is a good thing because of my drive.
Thank you, Dan, for giving me a chance to learn SEO and work for Page 1 Solutions. Thank you, Debby, for taking me on and being a great tutor. Thank you, everyone, for being so kind and stopping by to say “Hello,” and meet “the new person in the corner.”

PS- this post was in no way to brown nose. i’m just super excited.

The latest statement by Microsoft’s new patent application about Blogs is that they have grown rapidly over the Internet over the last few years. There are personal journals (Myspace, Xanga, etc) to niche sites (trade Blogs – Semiconductors to plastic surgeons) to widely popular Blogs (celebrity Blogs such as PerezHilton.com) frequented by millions of visitors. These Blogs are increasingly becoming a valuable source of information on the Internet for everyday users.

It is said that search engines are having difficulty identifying Blogs from a normal website and they are working on limiting results from Blogs in searches.

A patent application has been filed where the program learns to classify pages either as a Blog or non-Blog page. Some components that the program might look for is:

• where the page is hosted such as Blogspot, Xanga, Myspace, etc
• spidering for such phrases such as Permalink, Powered By, Comments, Posted at, etc
• outgoing links such as blogger.com, Wordpress.org
• URL in the page that says it is a Blog such as http://www.website.com/Blog
• if the page contains phrases such as RSS feed or ATOM feed

Should you follow the steps above and remove indications that a site is a Blog? I don’t necessarily think that search engines hate Blog pages. But search engines might look down upon those Blogs pages where duplicated articles or content are posted, leaving the impression that the Blog is not a quality site. It could be that the search engines will rank Blog pages higher if the Blog pages’ titles and Meta descriptions are unique with original content.