How to Become an SEO - 5 Proven Ideas

Do you want a job in SEO (search engine optimization)? Last Friday, Danny Dover from SEOmoz posted a great Whiteboard Friday episode on how to get an SEO job. Having recently gone through this exact same process (you're looking at a new online marketing manager of SEO at Rasmussen College.), I just had to share my experience of becoming an SEO as well. Here are five tips to become an SEO (or anything else, for that matter):

1. Constantly Consume Content

SEO is fascinating to me. There is vast body of knowledge out there on the topic and yet all the factors can change on a daily basis. Reading books, listening to podcasts and engaging blogs regularly is necessary to stay up-to-date. You can count on your potential future employer to ask about the industry during your interviews. It's best you know about it. Raise your hand in the comments below or hit me on Twitter if you don't already have a list of great SEO blogs, books or podcasts. I have you covered.

2. Do Actual SEO

Unlike, say, an astronaut, there aren't that many barriers to entry when it comes to SEO. If you can afford a domain name and a website (like the Squarespace web publishing platform), you can practice SEO. Starting a blog provides practical SEO experience, as well as a platform to show your growing knowledge and experience in the subject.

3. Get an SEO Education

There are now a handful of Internet marketing degrees available through online colleges. While I've taken some courses online in the past, I'm particularly excited about Rasmussen College's Market Motive-backed Internet Marketing degree. Perhaps I'm a bit biased because I work for them, but who wouldn't love a curriculum filled with content from industry experts like Todd Malicoat, Bryan Eisenberg and Avinash Kaushik?

4. Use LinkedIn to be Found

My new boss found me by typing "project manager SEO" in the LinkedIn search box. True story. Once he pulled up my profile, he saw a detailed description of my experience, links to my blog, my Amazon reading list/book reviews and recommendations from people with whom I've worked in the past. Spend some time to fully flush out your profile. Make online connections with your on- and offline colleagues. And just for good measure, make sure to add keywords and phrases relevant to the job you want in your profile.

5. Dive Right in

Danny hit on the most important tip, which was to dive right in. The earlier your start, the earlier you'll start gaining experience and pave the way to becoming an SEO.

If you're an SEO, what advice do you have to become a part of the search engine optimization community? If you've landed a career in another profession, what steps helped you get there?

Squarespace Vs. Wordpress: Both Sides of the Story

Choosing a blog or other website publishing platform is a decision taken too lightly by far too many people. Your blog platform, or content management system (CMS), can greatly influence the size of your audience, the effort it takes to publish new content, and - if applicable - the amount of money you make online. This week, I invited Wordpress expert and Internet marketing entrepreneur Andy Brudtkuhl to engage in a conversation that compares Squarespace.com and Wordpress.org as blogging platforms/web publishing softwares.

I'll concede that the choice of blogging software is not an easy one. Wordpress is the perennial favorite. Squarespace.com(affiliate link) is touted by tech names like Leo Laporte and the guys at Diggnation. Both products have devout users that swear by their respective web publishing tool. And these are just two of many options. It can be hard to get a clear perspective on the pro's and con's of each.

Big Picture Web Marketing is a Squarespace website (See my updated Squarespace review here). Andy Brudtkhul, again, is a Wordpress consultant/pro/ninja. We both agree that there is no single best option and that the right blog or website publishing platform comes down to the one that best meets your goals, abilities, time lines, budgets, etc. We've put together this brief comparison based on Andy's experience with Wordpress and my experience as a Squarespace developer to help you make an informed decision on what's best for you:

Price

• Squarespace - Squarespace services include both web design tools and hosting. Basic packages start at $8/month. To host your site on your own domain, accounts start at $14/month. Coupon codes can save you around 10%. Squarespace provides an excellent value for their slightly higher monthly price tag.
• Wordpress - Free-ish - WordPress is completely 100% GPL open source however you still need to pay for hosting and domain name. The price ranges from ~$3/mo (GoDaddy) to $100/mo (Rackspace)

Search Engine Friendliness

• Squarespace - Squarespace is largely SEO-friendly. It's built on valid XHTML code. You have control of your page titles, alt tags, article links, etc. And while most of the important elements are covered, I'll admit Squarespace's proprietary system does fumble with SEO in a few minor areas. For example, you can't create custom page titles for some of the system-generated content (i.e., tags and categories). But overall, Squarespace will suit all but the most hardcore SEOs.
• Wordpress - Designed with SEO in mind. Everything from semantic XHTML markup to optimized URL's to on page elements and meta information is optimized for search. There are also themes and plugins that can help you along the way. There are even some plugins with built in keyword research tools that help you write better for SEO. It's easily the most optimized solution I have ever used out of the box.

Security

• Squarespace - Being a completely hosted system means Squarespace is not prone to the same security holes as open source systems like Wordpress and Drupal. I'll never have to pay someone to cleanse my hacked blog because I bought my domain on GoDaddy. My site is just plain safe. And with revenues estimates on the rise for Squarespace, the platform is likely to invest even more into its already solid architecture
• Wordpress - You need to maintain your own updates and be careful with plugins. Also - a good host helps. Remember in hosting - you get what you pay for. We prefer to host at Rackspace - but you can still have problems if you don't keep your site updated to the latest version and security fixes.

Adding Features

• Squarespace - Squarespace may not have all the bells and whistles of Wordpress plugins, but they aim to be the best at what they do with the plugins they have. For example, the new Squarespace Twitter widgets download and store your tweets on their servers, so your site will never slow to a crawl when loading because Twitter is down. (And website load time is important.) Plus, Squarespace is compatible with all widgets on the web. The combined effect provides nearly all the extra features one could want in a blog.
• Wordpress - The reason WordPress has grown so popular is it's ability to scale functionality through custom themes and plugins. Themes and plugins can provide unlimited functionality through a "Actions & Filters" API that WordPress provides. This is huge because it allows you to extend WordPress without changing any core WordPress code - allowing for new functionality while maintaining easy management and upgrades. Because of this API and the open source code platform - the WordPress development environment has grown and now there are hundreds of thousands of plugins and themes available.

Visual Customization

• Squarespace - Squarespace starts off with a selection over 60 professionally designed templates. Then, you can customize nearly every element of the interface using their WYSIWYG editor - no knowledge of CSS is needed. It's ridiculously easy to have a completely custom and unique look. And for hardcore designers, Squarespace does allow for full CSS control. I picked Squarespace in part because I didn't want "just another Wordpress Thesis blog."
• Wordpress - The common misconception (alluded to by Josh) with WordPress is all sites look like blogs. While this is true in many cases - it doesn't have to be since you have full control over your design. The theme market place is growing and dozens of free and premium WordPress themes are released on a daily basis. Themes like Thesis allow tons of design control from a WYSIWYG editor and if you really want it to look unique you can customize it to do so. 

Ease-of-Use

• Squarespace - The usability of the Squarespace editor is outstanding. Creating stunning galleries, exceptional blogs and web pages that convert is easy. Getting used to their primary controls,including the Content, Structure and Visual "editing layers," requires minimal ramp-up. Squarespace also provides an extensive collection of how-to's, videos and forums available on their site. Building a site with Squarespace takes a shockingly short amount of time. You can even post to your blog from your iPhone, iPad and (soon) Android device (Perhaps the Windows mobile platform in the future, too).
• Wordpress - Another reason for WordPress' rise in popularity is the ease of use factor. It's easy to setup, customize, and start producing content. Any average web user could setup a new site and be blogging within 10 minutes. There is a thriving online community with blogs, videos, pictures, howtos, podcasts and more on how to use, manage, customize, and publish in WordPress.

Hosting

• Squarespace - You get the web publishing software and hosting with Squarespace. And not just any hosting. Squarespace uses grid hosting, which distributes your website traffic evenly across an entire networks. If you get on Digg, your site won't go down. If you get on CNN, your site won't go down. It's some heavy duty hosting. Plus, you can quickly transfer blog archives from other platforms with Squarespace's blog importer.
• Wordpress - In hosting, you get what you pay for. If you choose to host your site for $3/mo at GoDaddy don't expect to get great support or the fastest server out there. However you can scale at your own needs. Four years ago we were hosting WordPress at GoDaddy and by now we are hosting on the super duper fast Rackspace Cloud. It's not cheap - but it's fast, secure, and reliable.

Support and Maintenance

• Squarespace -  Squarespace boasts a 99.98% uptime. And because there is no Squarespace free plan (i.e, no forced advertising), they only have to support paying customers. It's their jobs to make you happy. End of discussion. Their email ticketing system is amazingly fast. Their service level is 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. Submit a ticket, get a coffee, come back and get your response. And you'll never have to worry about upgrading your blog with the endless patches and upgrades of an open source platform. Squarespace takes care of all of that.
• Wordpress - WordPress support and maintenance is DIY... If you are uncomfortable with technology than you should have a WordPress guru (or me... wink, wink) in your contacts for those times when you need them. However WordPress does make upgrades and maintenance EXTREMELY easy through it's administration interface. It is imperative that you keep it updated (I mean c'mon it takes 1 click of a button) to avoid any security issues that may be fixed. 

Bottom Line

Ultimately, both Squarespace and Wordpress are great web publishing tools and can most likely meet the needs of most businesses' blogs' or websites' marketing strategies. Andy and I hope this post has given you the perspective you need to make your choice based on your own personal goals, skills and resources.

Are you in the process of starting a blog? What questions do you have about Squarespace or Wordpress? If you've already selected your platform, what has your experience been like so far? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and we'll be sure to reply.

Speed Up Your Google Analytics Install on Squarespace

Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics software today. It's free, it's easy to implement and it's a powerful way to measure your website's performance against its objectives. Recently, Google announced the new Google Analytics asynchronous tracking snippet, which helps solve two major issues its users have been facing: data accuracy and load time. Today, we'll explore the benefits of the new Google Analytics asynchronous tracking snippet. And as a bonus, I'll also show you how to add it to your Squarespace blog or website.

As I mentioned before, Google Analytics is one of the greatest things since sliced bread when it comes to measuring online objectives. But all this time you've been using the tool to drive awesome insights, there have been two minor issues under the surface:

• Data Accuracy - Experts will tell you that you'll never have 100% data accuracy with a web analytics tool. Sometimes visitors will have their Javascript disabled. Sometimes your visitors will move off of your web page before the Google Analytics tracking code actually has a chance to fire. Web analytics enthusiasts accept this fact and move on with what's available. 
• Load Time - It's important to have a website that loads in as little time as possible. Many visitors will leave after waiting only seconds if a site is unresponsive. And Google's Matt Cutts himself expanded upon the search engine's decision to incorporate site speed into their search algorithms. Extra pieces of code like the Google Analytics tracking code can start to affect the load time of your site.

Enter Google Analytics asynchronous tracking. The new tracking snippet is placed in a different spot on your website and now loads much faster, improving both your data accuracy and your website's load time.

Installing Asynchronous Google Analytics on Your Squarespace Site

It's easy to convert to the new tracking code if you're on the Squarespace web publishing platform. Follow these simple steps:

1. Locate and delete your traditional Google Analytics tracking code from your site. You may want to copy this to a text file for backup purposes.
2. Select the Code Injection tab within your Squarespace Website Settings in the Website Management interface
3. Enter the new Google Analytics asynchronous tracking snippet within the Extra Header Code editor. Be sure to enter your specific Google tracking ID (e.g., 'UA-XXXXX-X').
4. Click Update Information. You're done. Easy, huh?

(Note: Most custom tracking works the same. Check the new Usage Guide for more details.)

(Click to enlarge)

What do you think of the new Google Analytics tracking snippet? If you're using it already, are you seeing more traffic? Better load times? If you've grown skeptical of the free web analytics tool, does asynchronous tracking help improve your opinion of Google Analytics? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Twitter, Flickr and Squarespace: Social Media Widgets are Live!

If you're a blogger, you know how social media networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can be a great source of traffic and engagement for your blog. That's why I was super excited last week when Squarespace, the blog/CMS platform creator and platform of choice for Big Picture Web, rolled out their new Social Media Widgets functionality. Today's post takes a look at the new Twitter, Flickr and RSS features of the Squarespace.

I've been looking forward to the social widgets roll-out since Squarespace founder Anthony Casalena announced them in his recent Squarepace 2010 Roadmap post on the Squarespace blog - which was written thanks, at least in part, to this Big Picture Web post on the quest for the best blogging platform.

Anyway, I heard rumors Wednesday morning that the social widgets were in place. I rushed to log in to see that they were indeed available for configuration. As with most Squarespace website development, I had the Twitter widget in place and functioning within minutes. A few minutes later and I had my new Twitter widget styled to my exact liking. What you see in my right margin took a total of five minutes to configure. So far so good!

The implementation was so fast and easy, in fact, that I had time to implement the new changes, break the news on Twitter and congratulate Senior Squarespace Designer Krystyn Heide all before it was even officially announced. Heide responded that they were still officially in soft launch but the big changes were unveiled later that day via the blog. It took less time to master the new widgets than it did to fully roll them out.

Squarespace doesn't mess around when it comes to implementing new features like the Twitter widget. Creative Director Tyler Thompson explained this week via Twitter that Squarespace imports and hosts all your Twitter information for use with the widget. That means if Twitter goes down, your tweets will still show up on your blog.

Plus, you won't have to worry about Twitter gumming up your blog's load time by trying to fetch new tweets each time the site loads. Especially considering that Google has come out and said that they look at a website's load time in their ranking algorithm - that fact is thanks to last week's episode of Marketing Over Coffee, the best online marketing podcast ever - it's nice to know that Squarespace is hosting and (quickly) serving your tweets through the new social widgets functionality.

The new Squarespace social widgets are just the first in several new social features, according to Casalena - next up are Digg and Delicious. I've implemented the Twitter, Flickr and RSS widgets here on Big Picture Web and really like what I see so far. Squarespace, if you're listening, I really hope you consider incorporating the new Facebook Like functionality as well. Ultimately though, I'm very pleased with the social widgets and can't wait to see more features like these rolled out on the Squarespace platform.

What about you? Did you like the new Squarespace social widgets? Did you implement the Twitter widget? Flickr? RSS? Was this worth the wait or does Squarespace need to roll out more features, more often?

How to Build a Blog Following and Trust Online

Do people trust you enough to follow you? To believe you? To buy your product? Many experts will tell you that your online success comes down to that one essential question: do people trust you?

For today's post, I've brought in a friend and ringer to add his perspective. Kareem Ahmed is the Internet Marketing Manager at the McNally Smith College of Music, a social media/SEO/online marketing blogger, and the very first person I ever met through Twitter. Kareem has helped hundreds of people on the interwebs and has agreed to share his thoughts here today on how to build a blog following and trust online.

Big Picture Web (BPW): First impressions can make or break whether a visitors stays on your blog or website. There are dozens of mental triggers that alert us when we should be wary of new sites, according to books like Neuro Web Design: What makes them click. When you help people build blog and websites, what are some of the most important things you can do to quickly establish trust with the visitor of the website? Are there any musts for a homepage, for example? Anything that should be in each blog post?

Kareem Ahmed (KA): It really differs from site to site and what the objective of the site is. Perception is reality, so if you are perceived as a trustworthy source, then you will be one. In terms of selling a product or service, I always find it extremely valuable to include testimonials and/or recommendations...and not the ones that are ridiculously overpromotional. If you really believe in yourself, and the product/service you are pushing, there should be no problem in getting folks to believe you.

BPW: Trust online is very important to search engines, too. In fact, trust and authority are two of the main factors for Google and how they determine how to order their search results.  What are your favorite tips for building trust with search engines?  What should our bloggers do to gain Google's trust?

KA: Trust with search engines is very easy to obtain. Play nice, and they play nice back. White hat strategies work best.

BPW: Follow-up question: Link building is a much advised, yet little undertaken effort that can dramatically improve search results for bloggers. Do you have any killer techniques for building links to blog in order to gain new followers through harnessing more search traffic?

KA: Link building is essential for any successful SEO campaign. I like to start with directories because they are easy to obtain, I have a huge list of them that I begin every link building campaign with. Then I find out where the competition is getting links and I get links there too. The best links come from government and education sites. They provide great authority. I've said it before and I'll say it again, 3 or 4 ultra powerful links are better than 100 crappy ones.

BPW: Best-selling authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith describe being the go-to person at the center of your network in Trust Agents. Building trust is ultimately about relationships, being helpful and leverage, among other things. What are your tips for building your personal network to gain trust? How might this help you add to your blog following?

KA: Do favors for people, they return them.

And there you have it. I officially owe Kareem Ahmed a favor. Big thanks to Kareem today (follow him on Twitter, seriously) for lending his time and expertise to Big Picture Web. 

What tips do you have for building a blog following? What little tidbit of extra effort or technique goes the extra mile for you? Leave a comment below to share your tips on building trust online.