If you own a website, or are in the business of optimizing websites, you’re obviously reading plenty on what do to optimize the site for search engines by focusing on one-way links, keyword rich content, taking care of your meta tags, description tags, and so on. But there’s one area not to forget–your internal link structure.
Optimization is all about seeking an advantage, executing at the tactical level to satisfy all of the SEO strategy requirements that will improve your search engine rankings (although, truth be told, most people likely only have google come to mind). Part of that advantage is internal links–or links within your website that point to other pages within your same website. Besides having keyword links pointing to your site without you pointing back, internal links create the structure on your website that search engines follow like breadcrumbs in a forest.

What should you do from an Internal Links perspective?

1. Have text links to all important pages in the navigation and footer
   Search engines like google work like a train–they need a track to follow, and text links that point from one page to another within yoursite provide that track. Fancy images can’t be read by google or other search engines, at least not as well as they can read text links (I know, you’re thinking, “I just read google can read Flash”, etc., but it’s not that simple yet.) Make sure you have text links pointing to every page you want to optimize.
2. Use the rel=”nofollow” HTML tag
   Google and other search engines use algorithms to measure the importance of the various pages on your website. Part of those algorithms is that your internal pages may not rank the same, which makes sense based on a number of factors. One of those factors is the worth or value the page has based on its having a link from the Homepage, which will probably be a high ranking (if not the highest ranking) page on the site. If your pages are all relatively equal in terms of optimization factors, but you don’t want them to be, use the rel=”nofollow” HTML tag to ‘push’ all of the importance from one page away from itself and to other pages.
3. Be descriptive and alternate keywords in your quest
   The goal is to get the search engines to rank your pages highly on search engine results pages, or SERPs. Make sure you use anchor text that uses the same keywords on all of the different text links on all of the various pages where you have links pointing back to a particular page. If your anchor text is ’search engine optimization,’ for example, make sure to vary the words. So, for instance, you may have anchor text that becomes: “great search engine optimization,” or “search engine tactics,” etc., so you’re getting ranked for different terms that refer to the same or similar subjects.
4. Links within the content on the page
   This is probably the simplest seo tactic for internal link building. Blogs software such as the software that level2wo’s blog (this blog) use allow for quick and easy internal link building, which is great for people who don’t know how to write code and think HTML is some foreign language that only geeks speak. Basically, if you’re writing content for your website, and you’re including keywords for which you want to rank, turn those keywords into text links pointing to other pages rich in content on your site. It’s that simple.
5. There’s no place like Home
   If you’re a Wizard of Oz fan, I hope I just got a smile out of you. In SEO, your homepage is very important, as it is for your users. But text links that point back to your homepage, while they should be easily found, should not necessarily say ‘Home,’ unless that’s the word you’re trying to rank for on search engines. Be creative–but be user friendly, when creating that obvious link back to your homepage.

You’ll notice that every single link in this article points back to another page within the Level2wo blog, with the exception of the anchor text link pointing to Wikipedia’s definition. I did that on purpose here, obviously, to show how I built the internal links on my page–which you’re reading. So, hopefully, I’ve shown you as well as told you (which is also one of the main rules of fiction writing, in case you’re a fiction writer, as I am, and can’t help point such things out! ).

Enjoy.

I was thinking today about the industry I’m in, and while it’s not a shocking revelation, it did occur to me again how young the industry actually is. Many of the professionals in the industry (myself included), were not in this industry a decade ago. And why would they be, when the industry had really just begun–at least as we know it. But it gives light to the fact that it’s the skill sets that matter–not so much the industry, per se. Although yes, it does help if you come from a related industry. Marketing, advertising, programming, project management, copywriting–these are all areas within interactive media that are crucial to what we do–and if you’re in one of those areas in another industry, you’d probably be able to make the leap.

If you are, my suggestion is that you do a little messing around on your spare time. Figure out what you like to do, and practice it. Build a website. Run a PPC campaign. Write some copy on a blog somewhere, and see if you can use a little SEO magic to make it show up on the first page or second page of google. It’s not easy, but it’s not that difficult. In fact, I landed at the third spot on the first page of google a few weeks back for ‘Project Management Steps’ without even trying to. (No, it’s not there any more, but hey, I did it without trying). Good luck.

Without sounding too…something, I can’t stress the importance of teamwork. Not only in the sense of your coworkers helping you achieve the goals you need to achieve and vice versa, but in bringing together ideas and perspectives that, when combined (again, sorry to use this word, which I’m sure you’ve all heard plenty of times just in the past few weeks alone) create synergy. It’s what makes projects succesful, initiatives succesful, and, to go a little further, it’s what makes communities, country, and the world succesful.

But with teamwork comes personalities, egos, opinions, and every other factor you can imagine that has the potential to throw teamwork off track and away from the goals you’ve set for that team to begin with. Though not always the case, gathering groups of people, especially in business, means that you’ll often have to deal with adversity, often have to defer when you think your points may be valid, and, the true test of your understanding of situations and benefitting from teamwork–you’ll have to be able to open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours, right or wrong.

It’s through that process that the best ideas will emerge–be it for a direct mail piece, a larger marketing strategy, creative, or even what type of venue to have for company outings. Let me stress that again: open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours. You’re not going to be right all of the time, and I’m not going to be right all of the time. I learn from you, and you learn from me. It’s what makes the wheels turn, and what brings the good ideas to better ideas.

Rarely will you encounter that genius who’s ideas and insight and execution are perfection incarnate; rarely will you have anyone single-handedly, at least in a company of any size, be the end all be all for whatever product or service you’re hawking.

Knowing how to be a teamplayer doesn’t mean giving up your place in the food chain–it means securing it through smart decisions, an open mind, and the realization that we’re all consumers of good ideas and bad, and we’re all producers of them as well. It’s the end result we’re after by participating in a team of any size or structure–so don’t sabotage it, because you’re the beneficiary.

When you’re out there in the middle of techville, managing website builds and SEM campaigns and thinking about Search Engine Optimization, and writing copy (that, obviously, needs to be keyword rich), and you’re thinking about CTRs and PPC and maybe viewing your client’s business from the actual business perspective rather than from your point of view, and you’re google-ing things to help you cram in the minor bits and pieces of technology and the latest trends, you often for get the best resource of all (in my opinion): Books!

Below are a few books I find helpful when managing interactive media projects, some better than others–but I’ll stay hushed on which ones, as you may find some more interesting than others and I don’t want to skew your opinion in any way.

1. Managing Interactive Media: Project Management for Web and Digital Media by Elaine England and Andy Finney
2. Managing Interactive Media Projects by Tim Frick
3. Fundamentals of Technology Project Management by Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch
4. Lean Project Management: Eight Principles For Success by Lawrence P. Leach
5. The Project Management Memory Jogger: A Pocket Guide for Project Teams (Growth Opportunity Alliance of Lawrence) by Paula Martin and Karen Tate
6. Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites by Ashley Friedlein
7. IT Project Management: On Track from Start to Finish, Second Edition (Certification Press) by Joseph Phillips

If you’re an experienced project management professional, or a newbie, the above books are good. I didn’t include the Project Management for Dummies book, but I’ve actually read it and it’s a good resource to keep at home–but don’t bring it to the office if you have a copy or buy one–not that you should be ashamed of it, because it’s a good resource, but you want to look your best, especially in front of clients–and Dummies books aren’t always the best way to project professionalism to the PM craft (or, likely any other professional position).

Today is the 4th of July, and I thought it would be appropriate to show some patriotism. We’ll be up and publishing again on Monday. Have a great holiday weekend.

Monday is our big move to Atlanta–and we’re going to be heading cross country for two weeks, hitting what are, in my opinion, the prettiest and more interesting places in America.
We’re going to have a guest blogger on Level2wo.net–founding partner and world-class web and design wiz, E. Themmen. I hope you enjoy his posts.

But from my end–it’s time for the fun stuff–showing off pictures of the places we will go! Below are some pictures from the national parks we’re going to–some of which I worked at during my youth–though, truth be told, I don’t feel it was that long ago.

Enjoy!

iPhone Applications and More…

According to a CNN article, Apple “will charge $99 a year for its new MobileMe service, which sends e-mail, contact and calendar updates to users’ devices.”

Normal. Completely normal, at least that’s what we’ve come to expect–pay lots of money and you’ll get all of these cool services that we can’t live without–I mean, what’s a phone without texting, without email, and without the ability to input important events in my day like going to the mall to shop for my new, ergonomic headphones to listen to the little reminder from my iPhone that it’s time to go get my new ergonomic headphones?

But the phones are dropping in price. The reason? Because they’re being commodotized. Applications are where the money comes from for a lot of the companies in the cell phone business these days–applications like all of the ones mentioned above, but also applications for music downloading (the obvious one), as well as applications for mobile banking (somewhat obvious, but picking up speed here in the U.S., although already prevalent in other countries–I think Spain has a big one going already).

Like Facebook’s barrage of applications, Apple and pretty much any other technology company offering some sort of platform will be looking to make tons of cash through applications–an application being, for those of you who don’t live, breath, and sleep geekdom, being (per Wikipedia): a subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform.

Applications make people lots of money, which is why you tend to get all of those inane and often ridiculous things happening to you on Facebook–someone challenging you to a game of cyberchess or throwing a rubber chicken at you. Fun, I suppose, if you’re 12, but if you’re a grownup and not drunk on one too many martinis or stiff drinks, a wee bit stupid and pointless.

But it’s where technology is today. Social media has exploded, and applications fall nicely into that realm, even when the applications seem more an uber-geeks pet project than anything worth the time it took to create.

The sun is out today in Seattle, and we’re going to reach the abnormally hot 80s and 90s. What does that mean for you and Level2wo’s blog entries? It means it’s list time. Today I thought I would provide you, dear consumers of everything marketing and web, with some resources on Interactive Marketing, in particular Interactive Marketing Blogs that I read (though, perhaps, not as often as I should). In either case, that shouldn’t stop you from checking them out, and brushing up on your Interactive Marketing skills.

Again, I try to incorporate a variety of blogs, perhaps not the big ones out there but rather ones that I either find interesting or that you might not find on your own.

• Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog
• Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (http://blog.mima.org/)
• AdverBlog
• Mobile Marketing Blog (Punchkick Interactive)
• Diva Marketing Blog
• Interactive Marketing Trends
• Interactive Marketing Blog

Hope you have some sunshine in your neck of the woods like we’re having here. Happy blogging!

Hyperlinks are good. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. But what’s a hyperlink?

A hyperlink, in Wikipedia’s words, is ‘a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on or part of a (different) domain. This is a hyperlink to Level2wo.

For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, hyperlinks are good because they are valuable to website visitors looking for content on a particular subject, and hyperlinks allow the user to navigate to other resources where they can continue researching whatever it is they are researching.

Hyperlinks are one of the most important elements of google algorithms out there, competing with the whole ‘content is king’ aspect of seo. Hyperlinks should have the keywords you want to promote within them, but the basic concept is that the search engines will pick up on the fact that this link (whatever hyperlink we’re talking about here) redirects the user to this page (whatever this page is), and that the content on that final page is relevant to the content (or word) that is hyperlinked.

So, for example, if you’re trying to promote your site for the words ’search engine marketing’ (SEM) or, say, the phrase ‘content creation,’ then you would make either of those a hyperlink in content on a site, and that hyperlink would point to your page, where you would have more content on the term ‘marketing’ or ‘content creation.’ The search engine magic, given everything is fine outside of the tactic of using a hyperlink, will work it’s way over time and the more hyperlinks pointing to your site the better in terms of results for your page on search engine results pages, or SERPs.

For the novice, even creating a hyperlink is a difficult proposition. But once you know how to do it, it becomes second nature.

Blogging is a great way to learn the basics of hyperlinking to other locations within your blog–try joining a blog or creating your own with the various free software out there and you’ll understand how easy it actually is. Blog software such as wordpress makes hyperlinking as easy as a click. If it didn’t, you’d probably not be reading my blog right now.