#4 for brian keith- seo timing and site design

Now that I am #4 for Brian Keith in Google, I can’t very well stop there, can I?

Still to beat: Wikipedia, IMDB, and Frank’s Reel Reviews.

But I haven’t been blogging

Here’s the thing- I have been blogging very rarely the past month, and now I am rising. This shows that you can’t make a change one day and see results the next. SEO is a long term deal, and if you are not willing to wait for results, you shouldn’t be playing.

But it’s ugly

Also, SEO may require you to make your site less pretty. Just now I changed the title from All For You, which I like, to All For You by Brian Keith, which sounds narcissistic and no fun. But, I bet I will be #3, and maybe higher, as a result of this change.

Would you rather have the prettiest site, or the one that brings in the dollars? Ian always says that the designers want an image-only design, while the SEO people want a page of only text.

You have to decide

You as the decision maker have to decide the balance. For now, the coolness (and proof that I know something about what I am talking about) of being #1 for my name is more important to me that the aesthetic appeal of a clean, simple headline.

The balance between aesthetics and high rankings is up to you.

search engine optimization: #5 for ‘brian keith’ in google

Earlier today I advised patience as key in SEO because it can take a while to move up in the rankings, even when you are doing all the right things.

I spoke too soon in regards to getting high rankings for my name.

I am now #5 (I was #9 this morning) for my name ‘brian keith’ in google.

I wrote on February 14th about the seo changes I made to start moving up in the rankings.

And this without changing the title tag… part of the lesson here is that the sites I am up against for top rankings are not working on their SEO, while I am, which puts me at an advantage.

I’ll keep you posted.

talk with jeremiah owyang of podtech and ian lurie of portent interactive

Just got off a call with Jeremiah of Podtech and Ian of Portent (my CEO).

Here are two questions that arose:

1. Old measurements aren’t working as well as they used to. This is not new information. What is new for me is seeing how Jeremiah (who deals with social media and larger companies) sees the future as compared to how Ian sees the future of measurement.

At Portent we are advising small and medium size companies about their overall internet marketing strategy, so we say “out of all the options available, we recommend putting resources here,” and then we carry that out. So for us measurement is how we decide which of the many things we do that we should do more of.

Example: should we put more hours this month into email marketing or SEO? To decide, we look at verifiable ROI from each source, but we also look at the larger picture of how email and SEO influence the company overall.

For Jeremiah, he is asking a variety of people how they plan to measure. His most recent conclusion:

“So what will me measure?
We each define and measure it in different ways, and it really leads me to suspect that the future of measurement (and Eric agrees) that will likely be a flexible type of measurement that depends on the environment, client and industry.” -Jeremiah

2. How do you communicate the value of social marketing? This discussion is just beginning. Jeremiah has been involved in this for years, at Hitachi and now at Podtech. At Portent we are including more of this as one of the many ways we market for our clients. Yes, if you are a client of mine, we will discuss blogging at some point. Should that be separately mentioned? We will also look at PPC, SEO, how you respond to blog posts about you on blogs, email marketing, usability, how you follow up with customers, and other things… so when does social marketing get its own line?

Good conversation.. thank you, Jeremiah.

seo changes to blog to get higher rankings for ‘brian keith’

I want to be above the fold on the first page of google for my name, so I just made two SEO changes to my blog.

On the right, it now says Brian Keith and Portent Interactive, where before it said More about Portent Interactive. The principle here is that people who want to find Portent by name will. Whereas on google I am #13 right now for my name, and it would be nice to be above the fold.

Second, I changed the subhead of the main title bar, which will change slightly the text that shows up in search engines.

Above the fold, here I come.

To learn more about SEO, look at our SEO services page.

not addicted to rankings…

No, really I’m not. I only found out that I am #9 for the Google search Brian Keith because someone came to my blog based on that search term.

So when I am in the top 3 results for Brian Keith, I will let you know.

Why do you care? Because I did not spend mega-hours or mega-bucks getting there. Just blogging interesting stuff, tagged appropriately, for 3 months.

Are you on the first page for your name? Your brand? Your category?

ADDED: Seth Godin tells people to search google for Seth to find him. Just his first name. How cool would that be? We can say, just search google for internet marketing agency.

What? Bragging? No! Because I can also say search google for Groomsmen Gifts, or Sea Salt, and you will find one of our clients at the top.

#13

It is hard to have the same name as a famous person. Seth Godin smugly tells people to google ’seth’ to find him. But Brian Keith will not bring me up in google.

Till now.

As of right now, I am number #13 in google for Brian Keith. Not first page, but at least within striking distance.

So how to get on the first page? First, I need to get more links to this blog where the link text is Brian Keith. Also, I need to say my name more often in my blog.

Also, a URL with my name (like www.brian_keith_allforyou.com) would help.

When I hit the first page, I will be sure to let you know.

Oh, and one other thing I can do is tag my posts Brian Keith. That will help a lot.