Interweb Junkie.

It’s been a while since my last post, and I’ve been experimenting a lot with different types of sites that accept user generated content.  Squidoo has been around for a long time, and has a whole boatload of content.  You can pretty much find content on all types of topics.  You can also make money from Squidoo, which attracts a lot of people to go to the site.  It’s neat, but as I created a few lenses this week, it made me realize, if Squidoo is a place where people can really take advantage of?  Well, yeah!  But many people can relate that we all would love to make money online, and there are many people that do everyday, so why can’t I, right?

If you’re curious, here are the Squidoo lenses I made, and honestly, it was a lot of fun to make them and learn about the topics.  I think my contribution to the Squidoo site isn’t salesy, but simply helping out the person who gets to it.  That’s all!  It’s all about quality content for the reader to get something out of and if they decide to click through other links, then cool!

Golf is a sport I want to get into, and I think this also helped me understand the sport by writing this.  It’s a golf tip for beginners guide.  I need to practice more before I step onto the course, by the way.  I also created another series of tips on beginner’s golf instruction.

Another set of Squidoo lenses I created was a pure experiment.  They center around fighting traffic tickets.  From that one lens links to a bunch of related lenses on the topic of how to fight traffic tickets.

If you’ve ever made Squidoo lenses, what was your experience with it?

There are so many people out there who say they are an SEO guru, or a social media guru, but in all honesty, I really don’t like that label at all:  “guru”  I rather just be known as a person who “knows their stuff” or “smart.”  When referred to as a guru, you’re almost expected to know everything and anything about that topic.  But there is so much to SEO, such as linkbuilding, page optimization, copywriting, and keyword research.  I’m probably even missing something that pertains to SEO.

If you’re just learning about SEO, or search engine optimization, you definitely need a good foundation and good guidance.  I’m currently going through SEO 101 over at Search Engine Guide and it’s a great refresher.  There are about 15 parts so it’s definitely a series I’m going to try and read through them all.  I usually find out something I didn’t realize or know from reading from SEO 101 type posts.  Every person that has learned or works in SEO has learned differently, thus, it’s great to see how their version of “basics” is like.

I was reading a post by Tamar at Techipedia and it brought me back to the basics.  By no means am I an internet marketing expert, but I am familiar with a lot of internet marketing working in the field for over 2 years.  It isn’t a bad idea to go back to basics sometimes,  to reassure what you know and maybe pick something up you never even realized or knew about!  In the post, Tamar explains that when you’re a beginner, it’s best to have a specific concentration and get really good at it.  Each concentration in internet marketing can be quite extensive.

The main concentrations include – SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Affiliate Marketing, Link Building, PPC (Pay Per Click), Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing.  As someone in the field, it is really difficult to be an expert at everything.  I know this first hand because it gets busy and learning gets really overwhelming if you want to know about more than one concentration.  There really isn’t enough time in the day.

How do you choose?  Well, it all depends on what you enjoy doing.  I personally like to write, but I could be better at it – blogging is fun for me.  I am also very familiar with building websites, and I love WordPress – the installation, the coding, the design of it all.  So with that, I also enjoy doing SEO.  Link Building is another aspect that I work with at my day job, but I could also know more about it.  And I find the concept of Affiliate Marketing fascinating too!  Social media is also an interesting topic, as we all participate in it and it’s always advancing.

So, see?  How do you choose when there are so many different interesting topics?  Well you just need to find an area that you enjoy and find yourself comfortable in doing it.  I feel comfortable in blogging and creating content the most, especially about food and life outside work – sharing photos (via my iPhone).  SEO and linkbuilding is something I feel I’d like to be an expert of, so I would say that would be my expertise goal.  I feel this way because there are just so many sites out there, and getting your site visible by using SEO and linkbuilding tactics gives your site that boost.  This definitely goes hand in hand with content marketing.

What do you think?  Have you defined your expertise, or at least your goal expertise?  What will you do about getting there?

I’ve come to realize that SEO can be done in so many ways.  I’ve struggled with wanting to do things the right way, but is there really a right way to do SEO?  Search engine optimization, if you do not know is the optimization of a web page in order for that page to appear in the search engines.  Ultimately, people do SEO to better their chances in getting in the top 10 results of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.  Because Google is the most common used search engine, we usually focus on Google.

The very first thing to do is to define your goals!  These goals should be clear before doing anything.  They should be written down and put in front of you all the time to make sure that you don’t forget.  Are you a WordPress theme creator who wants to promote your newly made themes?  Or a local restaurant that wants to have an online presence?  Are you a copywriter who wants to find writing jobs online?  Those are just a couple examples of goals.  They’re nothing crazy, but at least it’s defined.

When optimizing a website, the very first step is to determine your targeted keywords.  What keywords best describe what you do, or what your website is about?  Choose a few keywords.  If I wanted I sell sunglasses online using eBay, my targeted keywords would be such like, “sell sunglasses on eBay,” “buy sunglasses eBay,” or “find sunglasses using eBay.”  From there, you will then have to do some research.  But before doing that, having a few written down will help you.

And, that’s only the beginning!  There is a lot more to SEO that I will be writing about on this blog.  But defining goals is the most important thing!

Interweb Junkie?  A funny sounding name for a website, huh?  But that pretty much describes me.  Ever since I had access to the internet in the late 90s, I’ve been pretty much hooked.  Back then, the internet was more like a privilege, and now, it’s a necessity!  It’s amazing how technology has advanced from then and now.

With what I do now as my career, it makes the internet a lot challenging.  With so many websites around, competition with a website being found in search engines has become a job in itself.  I’ve been in the internet marketing field for over 2 years and always learning.  Sometimes I find myself re-evaluating with how I do certain things because the search engines always seem to change the ways they rank websites.  With that said, you really have to keep up with the times!

Other than search engines and trying to help websites rank, there is social media – you know, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.  That is another way to essentially get traffic to your website or blog.  These sites constantly change, improve how they work, and of course – we as internet marketing professionals need to keep up with that.

Like I mentioned before, technology always gets better, and we all constantly have to keep up with it.  So this is the purpose of my blog – to help myself and you all keep up!