Posts tagged SEO

New Media and SEO at the Nevada Interactive Media Summit

As I posted previously, I had the honor of presenting at the annual Nevada Interactive Media Summit again this year. The Nevada Interactive Media Summit seeks to “bring together business owners, non-profit advocates, publishers, newsmakers, bloggers, podcasters, filmmakers, media, PR and advertising professionals and anyone else interested in interactive media from every corner of Nevada together for hands-on learning, rich discussions, opportunities to meet with local companies working in interactive media and plentiful networking opportunities.” I felt fortunate to be the only presenter to give two separate presentations – one on the New Media landscape and one on the strategy behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the second year that I’ve presented New Media 101, and it was just as thrilling for me this year as it was last year. I really love the opportunity to take these seemingly complex (and to some people, scary) concepts and bringing them back down to Earth where they belong. The SEO presentation was a first timer for me and while I was pleased with it, I’d like to further refine it, and bring some more examples and humor into it. The conference was well worth the price of admission for attendees ($25), and there were so many intelligent minds in one space, and so many new and exciting ideas that it made for a wonderful experience. Thank you to the Summit coordinators who invited me to present my ideas and knowledge.

I’ve embedded the two presentations below. If you’d like me to present either of these for your business or organization, please feel free to contact me.

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You Oughta Know (Inbound Marketing)

This is a fun little video put together by HubSpot‘s Rebecca Corliss about inbound marketing vs outbound marketing. Her disturbed lamenting is set to the tune of Alanis Morissette‘s “Oughta Know.” It’s not the coolest, most impressively produced video – don’t worry about that. Yeah, it’s kinda corny and gimicky – don’t worry about that. 

As I watched, I thought – OK, how are they going to end this thing? What’s the call to action? I expected to see a URL. But, no. We are given a shot of somebody entering “inbound marketing” into a Google search bar. 

I had to do it. Sure enough – the top result is a post on HubSpot’s blog called Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing. I love the switchup from simply putting a URL at the end of a video. Plus, it completely proves the point that Corliss was making about the importance and potential of search. Well done : )

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Measuring Your Online Personal Brand

Ever Googled yourself? If you haven’t, don’t get all high and mighty, thinking that only narcissistic people would do such a thing. Today, you need to be aware of your online presence, and your ability to be found. I strongly suggest that everybody be highly aware of their personal brand, but things rings especially true if you have any interest in being a thought leader in your industry. When somebody searches for your name, what kind of information do they find first? That helps dictate your personal brand. When somebody searches for the kind of things you know about, will they find you? You should want them to.

Google is the best search engine to use when evaluating your ability to be found online. Why? They dominate the world of search. According to Hitwise, Google occupies approximately 72% of searches in the United States (although most stats I see put them in the 60-70% range). Yahoo is second with about 17%. There isn’t much else to go around after that. Google gets several hundred million searches each day. You need to have a presence.

We can talk a little bit more in another post/conversation about how to increase the chances you have of showing up on these Google search engine results (SERs), but it should be clear that your personal brand is affected by how you fare in Google SERs. 

Today, I was turned on to another evaluation tool (I know there are some people who abhor evaluation tools, but I see value in them, so deal with it). Phil Barrett wrote a post about the Online Identity Calculator – a tool that asks you a few questions (really only takes a few minutes) and then leverages Google to evaluate your online identity and measure it by placing you in one of four quadrants.

You know I like these kinds of evaluation tools – anything that you use to track/measure/evaluate your personal brand?

Here are the results of my Online Identity Calendar:

Mike McDowell's results - Digitally Distinct

Mike McDowell's results - Digitally Distinct

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