My Annual Review 2011: Part 2

By in Personal Development

When I introduced my my 2011 annual review I reflected on what went well and what I struggled with during the past year. I include things across all areas or categories of my life – personal, social, financial, or business related – that I have control over. If something blew up because of an outside influence it’s a drag, but that’s no fault of my own.

I start with this reflection in order to define what is important to me for the up coming year. It gives me a starting point to set goals and actions to achieve. I break my goal setting down into categories, as I mentioned in my previous post, these are based on the outline from Chris Guillebeau. The categories that I typically use during this thought process are:

  • Friends, family, and social
  • Health
  • Business
  • Learning
  • Travel
  • Writing
  • Financial (earning)
  • Financial (saving)
  • Financial (giving)

So what plans do I have for 2012?

There are a few big milestones I’d like to conquer in 2012. These aren’t the gone-by-February New Year resolutions such as “get in better shape,” “get more exercise,” “earn more money,” or “be happier.” They are specific events or accomplishments with measurable actions to help me get there. Here is a list of 10 of the more substantial ones I have set for myself that I believe will greatly impact my quality of life:

Run my first marathon. My lack of a healthy lifestyle was a big issue for me in 2011. I believe that if I have a purpose to train for something, and something to work towards that it would motivate me a little more than simply knowing I need to do it. I have always wanted to run in a marathon, and ran track and field fairly competitively in high school. There is a July marathon in Barrington, NS and a September marathon in Sydney, NS. I would like to be ready by July, but considering I haven’t run more than 3k at a time in the past 12 months, I think I’ll register for both just in case.

Complete P90x in 90 consecutive days (like for real this time). Although I’ve attempted it a couple times before, the furthest I’ve ever gotten is to about day 50. Life always seemed to get in the way – or at least that was my excuse at the time. It really doesn’t take that much out of your day and the program has a great mix of workouts (I hate it, but I love it). Considering I typically work from home and have more than enough space, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to come up with many excuses this time. I will likely be documenting my successes and failures with health and fitness over on a blog I’ve started called Health Redefined so feel free to follow that if you’re looking for updates.

Launch an online local Internet marketing training program. As part of my new business, I would like to launch an online training series to teach small and local businesses how to better compete online. There are many businesses I speak and meet with that simply don’t have the money in the budget to have me (or anyone) execute a proper Internet marketing strategy. That said, many do have an extra 30 minutes a day they could devote to promoting their business online. It’s these people I want to help by offering the tools and knowledge they need to get the online side of their business to where they want it to be. I’d like to have this up and running before summer of 2012.

Learn to say no. I have a tough time saying no to opportunities and projects, which leads to me being stretched thin, stressing out, and doing poorly on one or more of the projects. If something doesn’t fit well with my schedule or theme, I need to learn to say no.

Attend five plays, musicals, or cultural events during 2012. I managed to get to the Jungle Book at Neptune Theatre last month, which was very well done. I realized I didn’t get out to see many plays or shows during the year and wanted to make a conscience effort in changing that going forward.

Attend a weekly networking event. This may require me joining some sort of club, but even without that I would like to make more of an effort to get out and mingle with the local business crowd. I get to the odd 3rd Wednesday or Mingle at Fred but really not as much as I’d like and should.

Enjoy dinner and/or drinks and good conversation with close friends on a weekly basis. This is something I failed at pretty badly last year. In my opinion, getting together with those you care about on a weekly basis for laughs and good conversation will add years to your life.

Plan and book a trip to Ireland for 2013. My girlfriend and I have been talking about heading to Ireland for a while, and I’d like to finally nail down a date and book flights for this trip within the next year.

Read 52 books. I rarely make time for reading, especially fiction books, but always love life a little more when I do. I would like to consume 52 books – a book a week – during 2012. I’m fine with a mix of fiction and non-fiction, but I would like to add more fiction and relaxing books to the mix of things.

Build my passive income businesses to $3,000 per month. Working online, I have two types of incomes. One for which I have to actively work in order to get paid (client contracts, consulting, freelancing, training, etc.) and one for which I can stop working on and money keeps coming in. Most of the businesses I have are structured around a recurring-income business model that are semi-passive but typically requires a decent amount of work to grow. I have since started creating almost completely passive income streams (I don’t believe something valuable can be totally passive), and its these streams I would like to put more of a focus on growing over the next six to twelve months.

At first glance it might look like a big list – people always over estimate what they can accomplish in a day, but under estimate what they can accomplish in a year. I think if I can hit 80% of the above I would consider 2012 a good year.

I should also note that it’s important that once you have set these measurable goals, that you then define the process and steps necessary to complete them. It’s one thing for me to say I want to run a marathon, but it’s important that I know that by Feb 1 I need to be able to run 3x per week for at least 30 minutes without issues prior to even starting my marathon training. Breaking these goals down into smaller tasks will help make them seem less threatening.

Why do I do an annual review anyway?

Good question. Reflecting on your year to see what you’ve done well and didn’t do well is a great exercise to do. It can open your eyes a bit regarding the things that slipped, while at the same time make you feel like you’ve accomplished something by actually making note of it.

Going through this process will help you identify what’s important for you and what isn’t. These aren’t carved in stone. In 6 months time there might be goals on your list that are irrelevant or non important. It’s the process of defining them and having something to work towards on a yearly basis that is so powerful.

2012 seems to be the year of movement and action. Hopefully it’s a good one for everyone.

I hope you have a happy and safe Holiday season.

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My Annual Review 2011: Part 1

By in Personal Development

Every year in December I like to take a full day and review how the previous year went. I was turned on to this by Chris Guillebeau and have been doing it for a couple years now. This year however, I’ve decided to start making it public. I decided to get back into the spirit of blogging and wanted to add a bit of transparency to this blog (and a lot more content coming up).

The process consists of looking at what I accomplished the previous year and what my shortcomings were. What did I do that was a big success, and what were my ultimate failures. I ignore outside influences – if something happened that I have no control over, I don’t let that impact my outcome, instead, I focus on what I control.

After I flush out what went well and what did not, I then turn to defining what I want to accomplish for the following year. I then revisit my progress every couple months to see how things are going. Some goals turn out to be irrelevant or non important, while other must-dos might creep up and take their place. It’s meant to be a framework and a guide, not carved in stone.

So, what went well for me this year?

I decided not to go back to school. Last August I was having one of those wtf months where I convinced myself I wanted to go back to school for Engineering. Although engineering does interest me, I’m not exactly sure why I wanted to do this. If I were to guess, it would be to put off defining what I was going to do with my life for another several years, or because I had a few back to back bad months as far as business went. Regardless, I’m glad I didn’t throw in the towel, instead, I hustled through it and am so glad I changed my mine.

Started a new business. I launched Bate Media in late September and have signed a couple big clients since. This has done wonders for my stress level and has even helped with my desire for continuous learning as well.

Spent Canada day in Ottawa. My girlfriend and I travelled to Ottawa for Canada day this year. We spent the lovely three day vacation with close friends and family. Being one of the few opportunities for travel this past year it was excellent to get to the Nation’s capital for its big day.

Got cash flow under control. Anyone who runs a small business or works for themselves can attest to the issue of cash flow. In 2011, I was finally able to get my businesses cash flows under control so that I no longer stress over it. This was mainly because of the new business and contracts signed in the Fall, but it has been a huge enabler as far as productivity and developing my side businesses go.

My relationship. Our new living arrangements and a more defined work schedule for me definitely spilled over into a better home life and relationship with my girl friend.

What did not go so well for me this year?

My health. This was the first thing I identified when reflecting on 2011 that was a huge issue during the year. I put on too much weight in 2011 and seemed to live quite a sedentary lifestyle this past year. I did not make exercise a priority and ate rather poorly overall this past year.

Didn’t save enough money. Granted I had a couple trips this past year, but I did not save as much money as I had hoped this year. While my income increased, my spending seemed to as well for the most part – and most of it was tossed away or eaten.

I didn’t make as many in-person connections as I had hoped. This was another big fail for me in 2011. I spent a ton of my time online. Even though I have connected with many influential bloggers and online business owners, and learned more this year than probably my 6 years of University combined, I lacked the same social interaction and connections in person. I am a very social person and it hurts me to notice that this was such a bad area for me this year.

It appears as though 2011 was the year of the business. I’ll admit that I am happy with the progress made in my online income and online businesses, however, reflecting on what sacrifices were made throughout the year to make that happen is eye-opening for sure. More balance is definitely needed going forward.

I’ll leave my goals for 2012 for another post next week, but I encourage you to take some time – even a few hours – to review how your year went. What went well for you? What could you have done much better? Leave a comment with a link to your review, I’d be happy to read it.

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Google Places SEO: add your business to Google Maps

By in Online Business

This is an increasingly popular topic in the local business SEO industry. For many local search terms, Google will display 7 local results above the regular 10 organic results. This is what is referred to as the Google Maps A to G listing. I have included a screen shot of this that you can see.

Being included in this listing is equally if not more important as having high organic results for local keywords. The reason for this is because it is displayed about the organic results in most cases. If you are wondering how to get your business on Google Maps, you’ll first need to make sure you exist within the system.

How to add your business and website to Google Maps

Adding your business website to Google Maps is as simple as creating a Google Places listing. This process can take up to a couple weeks so I suggest you do it sooner than later when launching a new website or business. The reason for the delay is because Google will send you a PIN that you will need to enter to verify your business and address.

Once you have created the Google Places account and completed the verification process, your website will start appearing in Google Maps. However, it doesn’t end here. There are ways that you can increase your changes of being listed in the A to G listings.

Optimizing your Google Maps and Google Places listing

When it comes to Google Places SEO there are a few things that really help boost your ranking in the A to G listing. Most of these things can be done quite quickly on your own and will help with whatever local SEO initiative you are running.

Get links from local business directories

The more Google associates your website with the specific town or city that you compete in, the more likely you are to show up in the local business listings. One of the great ways to do this is to get listings from local business directories, such as a city listing of businesses or the local chamber of commerce directory.

Cite your address on other websites

Wherever possible, include your address when you link back to your website. For example if the local directories allow you to include a description, be sure to add you address as well. This way Google will associate your business and website with the address and you are more likely to be shown on the A to G list. You don’t need to use the address as the anchor text, just try to include it wherever possible if it looks natural.

Promote your Google Places page on your website to get reviews

Have a link to your Google Places page on your website. You should be able to find the URL in your Google Places account – it will be in the following format: http://maps.google.ca/maps/place?cid=#########. It is also very beneficial to encourage customers and visitors to leave their reviews of your business on your page.

Follow good organic SEO practices for your website

The higher your website ranks in the organic search results for local keywords, the more likely your site will be included in the Google Maps list. Promote your website to get back links and make sure your on page content is optimized well and the listings will follow.

As always, remember to be patient. Good things don’t happen over night.

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Business owners: answer your damn phone.

By in Online Business

Seriously. You are losing business by not picking up your phone. It blows my mind the amount of people that are willing to spend an entire day optimizing their website so it loads a half second faster to try to lower their bounce rate, but avoid picking up the phone when a client or potential client is calling.

I get it – we live in a text/IM/email world now and very few people actually pick up the phone to call someone anymore. Heck, I rarely call a store to ask for their business hours, instead I’ll spend 5 minutes trying to navigate their crappy website to find if they are open or not. It’s not the most convenient thing, but it gets me out of making a phone call, right?

If you run any sort of business you should be so pumped when the phone rings. Phone calls = money. I’ve worked with companies that have paid me per phone call that I can generate from their website – do you know how pissed I’d be if they weren’t picking up their cell because they didn’t recognize the number? Many business owners get this, but there are a surprising number of them that don’t. Know how I know? I used to be one of them.

Why people don’t answer their phones

You’ve been there. Looking down at your caller ID and wondering, who the heck is that? Or thinking, I really don’t want to talk to them right now. I bet there are few people who haven’t experienced that on multiple occasions.

It’s my opinion that for the most part people don’t answer their phones because they are afraid. What if it’s an unwanted phone call? What if it’s an awkward phone call? What if I don’t have the solution? What if they yell at me? Who cares, answer your phone. I’m willing to bet that 99% of the time it’s a great conversation.

Don’t let fear of the unknown keep you from answering your phone and making more money.

You don’t have to waste the day on the phone, just pick it up

I’m not saying spend the entire day on the phone – there are definitely more effective and efficient ways of getting things done. A prime example of this happens to me and my business quite often. We don’t typically offer tech support via the phone. That is, we don’t breath in your ear while we fix your issue and give you second-by-second updates of what we’re doing. It’s way more efficient for us to handle support via email whenever possible. That said, we answer the call, take the info and follow up when the issue or request is fixed or completed.

If you want to be successful, answer your phone. It’s that simple.

Every phone call is a potential sale. It’s an opportunity to connect with someone again, to touch base, schedule a meeting or cup of coffee to catch up. It’s a chance to strengthen a relationship or start a new one. Every phone call is more money in your pocket – stop throwing it away.

I remember my phone ringing on a Friday evening while I was waiting to board a plane to go to Toronto back in March. I didn’t recognize the number (or the area code for that matter), was two beer in at the airport bar, and had every reason not to answer. I picked it up and talked for 6 minutes and I’ve been earning $30 per month from that person since March. Six minutes, and two quick check-up emails for $240, so far.

If you don’t answer your phone, I’m going to call someone else and they will. Then I’ll be doing business with them instead of you.

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Choosing the best keywords for your local business

By in Online Business

Choosing the right keywords to target on your website or blog post is likely the most important aspect of any Search engine optimization initiative. I believe this process is what divides traditional blogs from business-oriented websites. The reason for this is because the keywords you choose are the foundation of your work and everything else from optimization to promotion will be built upon the keywords.

Why is keyword research important?

The major reason to do proper keyword research while you are building or optimizing a website is so you learn how your customers are searching for your products and services online. You can stop the guess work and learn the exact keywords they are using to find you – they may be different than you thought. Having this information allows you to better tailor your content to attract these searchers without having to pay for them.

Using the Google Keyword Tool

There are a lot of paid keyword research tools out there that do an excellent job at finding you excellent keywords. For the sake of this lesson, I wanted to assume that most local businesses wanted to operate on an extremely tight budget when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (read: no budget).

The best place to start your keyword research is with the Google Keyword Tool. This tool gives you a variety of information on keywords such as global and local search volumes and the cost to advertisers.

Using the GKT isn’t that difficult, but I have made a quick 4-5 minute video to help you better understand what to look for and how we use it to determine the best keywords for our clients. This video is the same process we use to start any keyword research.

Note: click the expand button on the bottom right to get the video in a larger screen.

How many keywords should I target?

This really depends on how much content your website has, how many pages and articles you may be creating, and much more. To keep things simple, we recommend 2 core keywords for your main home page. Most of the time, these are city keyword and keyword city (eg. Halifax web design and web design halifax).

For your product and service pages, you may want to target a service-specific or product-specific keyword such as buy keyword in city or just buy keyword (eg. buy fishing rod in Halifax).

Every blog post you write on your website, should also be somewhat targeted toward a keyword. Even if that keyword only has a dozen or so searches per month, it is beneficial to capture those visitors with your blog post and have the opportunity to convert them with your website. Without proper keyword research, they wouldn’t have found your site in the first place.

Need some help?

Our Web design package includes basic on-going SEO optimization and promotion. If you currently have our service, simply send us an email and we’ll be happy to give you a hand. If you’re not currently a subscriber, we will still offer a free keyword and competitive analysis on your website free of charge. Just contact us through the contact form above.

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Local SEO: What to consider with a local SEO service

By in Online Business

Local SEO is quite a bit different than most search engine optimization initiatives. It involves a few additional things to consider, as well

Identify The Best Keywords

Doing proper keyword research and identifying the best performing keywords is extremely important when it comes to local search engine optimization. Both companies and consultants can waste a lot of time if this step is taken care of before any work is started.

I have a video outlining the best way to identify keywords for local businesses. Follow these steps to make sure you are starting at the right spot.

Get Your Website on The Map

The local search engine maps, that is. Both Google and Bing-powered search engines have a local Maps listing with most of their local keyword results. The starting point for this is to get listed on Google Maps by creating a Google Places account. This will take a couple weeks since you will need to wait for a verification PIN to be sent via snail mail, so the sooner you start on this the better.

Getting on the list can often be more valuable than having a number one spot on Google. These are the coveted “A to G” where Google returns 6 Maps results. The reason these are so sought after is because they are not necessarily the top ranked results for the organic search, but they are displayed above the rest of the results. This means your website and business has a chance to getting a top ranked Google Map result in addition to your organic result, which will double your exposure on the first page.

Research Your Competition

One of the main reasons why local seo services are typically less expensive than if you were competing for a global keyword is that local search terms are are typically – although not always – less competitive than their root keyword. If less people in your market are using local search engine optimization techniques, your hard work will have a quicker and greater return.

The best place to start is by seeing who has the top results in the search engines. Once you know who is ranking, take some time and use free tools to check where they are getting their links and promoting their site. Is there a local business directory site that is proving most of their value? Get your site listed as well. Many local links can be duplicated relatively easy and then you can typically outrank most sites with a little extra hard work.

Track Your Results

It’s important to know where you started with your local seo service as far as rankings and traffic goes. Make sure you have Google Analytics and Google Web Master Tools. These are two excellent free tools for tracking your traffic and rankings.

Test and Optimize Your Conversions

An increase in targeted traffic is only good if you convert that traffic into value for your business. Most of the time this is done through converting the traffic into leads and sales. Test your site’s layout and call to actions to see what works the best to get your visitors to stick around. This is one of the most important steps in local SEO that is often overlooked.

When it comes to local traffic, it is very important that it is easy for them to contact you – have your phone number easily accessible on the website and make sure it’s easy for them to connect with you if need be. One of the things I noticed that really works is to add a live chat option to your website so you have the chance to connect with visitors in real time while they browse your site.

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Blogging for cash: 12 step guide

By in Online Business

Blogs are great. They provide a medium for people to express themselves and document their lives like a virtual diary. These days, everyone and their dog has a blog. People will blog about almost everything, from what they eat to where they f**k. Many people wonder if blogging for cash is possible and the short answer is yes. I have recently been testing a variety of aspects of internet marketing and blogging for cash. I have started a few new sites and as you might have been able to tell, indulged in a few new niches on this site as well. I have compiled a list along the way of what, in my opinion, were the essentials for making money with a blog.

1. Blogging for cash isn’t blogging, it’s marketing

Forget everything you know about blogging and start thinking marketing. If you want your blog to make money you are going to have to learn how to do at least one of a few things: make people click on ads, persuade people to buy a product, or encourage people to use a service. Almost every post you write on your new for-profit blog will be focused around doing one of those three things.

Affiliate marketing – selling a third party product or service, or pay-per-click advertising are the two primary ways to make money with a blog in the beginning. Your posts will be a lot different than the usual story of the run to the grocery store. Write informative posts that will encourage people to take action

2. Understand how search engines work

This is probably the most important thing to understand before trying to make money off your blog. Everyday bloggers don’t necessarily need to dive into SEO and internet marketing, but if you want to drive targeted traffic to your blog it is required.

Learning search engine optimization isn’t difficult. There are equally as many how-to programs as there are SEO consultants – a lot. If you are looking for a good program to start with, consider The Keyword Academy.

The basics of what works for search engines, what doesn’t, and how to optimize your site for both link building and content will make or break your success in blogging for cash.

3. Keyword research: write for others, not yourself

Do proper keyword research with tools such as Google’s Keyword Tool. It’s important to write around keywords that people are searching for as it will bring in more traffic once you reach a high ranking.

Gone are the days of writing entirely for your benefit. Start with good keywords and write interesting posts – do your research first.

4. Write for yourself

Writing entirely for other people is boring. Before starting your research decide on what things you enjoy writing about and see if you can’t find some good keywords within these areas. This way, you can write for yourself while still focusing on the targeted keywords.

Being passionate about what you are writing and blogging about can also make or break your success with making money with your blog. If you enjoy what you are writing about, you will be far less likely to give up 6 months down the road after not making any money.

5. Create link-bait content

Inbound links to your website and blog posts are the most important aspect when it comes to how well your posts will rank in the search engines. Making people want to link to your post naturally, and making it as easy as possible are the best ways of doing this.

Attacking or challenging the status quo is a great way to attract attention and links, in any industry. Look at popular social media sites such as delicious or digg and note the common traits of posts that make it to the front page – how to guides, detailed lists, and strong opinions.

Make your posts as bold and/or informative as your topic will allow.

6. Have an opinion

This goes hand in hand with getting links as well. Take a stance, have an opinion, or challenge something. It will make your blog, whatever the topic, that must more entertaining and interesting.

7. Build trust and authority

Write from experience and research. Don’t start a blog on car repair if you don’t have the first idea about how to fix a car. I’m not saying you won’t eventually be able to make a couple bucks off of it, but you likely will never have enough knowledge to become a trusted source or an authority.

Building trust in your industry or niche will not only benefit you by selling more products or services, but search engines will also notice it as well.

8. Leverage social media

Social media is a great way to spread great content. Follow and interact with those in your industry and use social media sites to promote your new posts. Along with search engines, social media sites are a great source of traffic.

I typically use twitter and facebook along with bookmarking sites like Digg to promote content in hopes of it catching someone’s attention.

9. Build a list

Building an email list is extremely important. It is a great asset to have when it comes to promoting your own product or service online. Although it can be used to promote affiliate products, its real value is if and when you develop a product or service to sell on your website.

You can build an opt-in list by using services such as MailChimp or AWeber. Give away some free bonus content in exchange for signing up to your newsletter – you will be surprised at how quickly the list will grow.

10. Have a lot of patience and focus on traffic not money

If you are really looking to start blogging for cash don’t expect miracles over night. In fact, if you already have an established blog you might be able to make some money a little quicker than someone just starting out, but don’t expect much in the first 8-12 months.

This takes time and you will need patience. Focus on writing high quality content and driving traffic and don’t worry about the money in the beginning, it will come.

11. Test, test, and test

Nothing is carved in stone here. Once your site is getting a decent amount of traffic, perhaps 200 or so visitors per day, you can and should start testing.

Placing ads? What arrangement gives you the best click through rates? Test ad placement as well as color and layout. Test continuously until you find the optimal layout that provides you the most amount of clicks and money.

Promoting a product or service? Test a variety of ads for each product, as well as a variety of products in your industry or niche. Just because one type of widget doesn’t sell, doesn’t mean another won’t. Test click through rates and conversions to optimize your revenue per visitor.

12. Treat it as a business

Treat and think of this new adventure as a business. Track how much time and money you have put into things like writing your content, building links, and testing your site. Do proper research before considering what type of monetization and

Although blogging for cash can be extremely time-intensive, as always, you can trade cash for time and outsource most of this new “business”. If you are not that much of a risk taker, the worst you will lose is some time writing about something you are passionate about.

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Personal Branding Tips: Dominate your personal Google results

By in Personal Development

Personal branding has been a hot topic for the past several years. You won’t make it through university without hearing a number of lectures and speeches about the importance of personal branding. Within the past few years, online personal branding has become extremely popular as well.

With controversy over getting fired due to facebook details, the importance of how we present ourselves online is raising. Here are some of my personal branding tips to keep you on top of the game.

What exactly is your personal brand

In my opinion, our personal brand is both how we market ourselves to others, whether it be employers, friends, or co-workers, and how others perceive us. It is important to align both of these aspects – the closer these things are to being the same, the better.

Although we may have been taught how to brand ourselves in person through interviews and elevator pitches, people have often formed an opinion of you before ever meeting you through social media and your Google results. This online branding is now getting more attention than ever.

Why is online personal branding important

Employers are googling you when you apply for jobs. They’ve been doing it for years so it shouldn’t be a surprise. Not only do many employers search for you online, but 80% of college and university admissions officers use Google and social media to research potential candidates.

I’m not saying these results will make or break whether or not you get a job or accepted into university, but with growing competition for both, it’s no doubt that they are playing an increasingly important role.

Your personal branding tool-kit

There are a lot of tools that you can carry with you as far as personal branding goes, both offline and online. Your resume, cover letter, business card, portfolio, and elevator pitch are all great tools. Even what you wear, how you shake someone’s hand, and how you hold eye contact all play into how other perceive who you are.

It is important to round out your tool-kit with online branding tools as well. These include personal and professional blogs, social media profiles, online references, and much more. Once you have established yourself with a number of profiles and a personal website the trick is now making sure people find what you want them to find.

Online branding tips to dominate your Google results

Here are the Canadian Google results for my name, as of March 31, 2011, along with a few notes on what each result represents:

Click on the above images to get a larger view with notes. Here are the main takeaways I learned while doing this:

Get a semi-professional / personal website

This is by far the most important thing you can do to increase exposure for yourself online. The best thing to do is to register the domain firstnamelastname.com or another extension like .net or .ca. Getting your name in the domain will help with your rankings in Google. Another benefit of having your own website is that you own your content and control what you write about. If you are building a brand for yourself as a world-class kayaking instructor you can choose to write about kayaking-related topics so that others see this side of you first when they search for you.

I chose to do two sites with my name in it – one a little more professional and the other much more personal. It’s important to remember that even with your personal sites you need to keep them semi-professional looking and sounding.

Build your social media profiles

Having a clean facebook and twitter account will go a long way both with how people perceive you and how well you rank in Google. Although these are the two main profiles I recommend, I’ve had great success with Naymz, Pros on the web, and Google Profiles. When selecting usernames at these sites it’s important to choose the name you want to brand online, typically your full name. It’s also beneficial if you can write unique biographies for each profile instead of using the same cut-and-paste bio for each.

Between your personal site and your social profiles you can usually dominate the top results in Google for your name with the right amount of links.

Use work or community profiles if available

If your organization has employee profiles online, be sure to submit a well written bio for the website. This is a great way to get exposure online. Also, your involvement with community organizations or sports teams is another great way to diversify your online profiles.

Building links to your website and profiles

Depending on how popular your name is your results may vary. Luckily there didn’t seem to be any celebrities by the name of Adam Bate, however there are other professionals out there with the same name.

Like any website, the amount of links and the anchor text of those links play a huge role in how well it ranks in Google. It is important to get links to both your website and your social profiles. Ask friends who also have personal websites to link back to yours using your full name. Alternatively, you can write articles for sites such as Ezine or HubPages that allow do-follow links in return for great content.

It’s also important to link between your profiles. Each profile usually has the option to define your work site, personal site or blog, other profiles, etc. Make sure your core group of profiles are well inter-linked as well.

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If you follow the above personal branding tips I guarantee you will be well on your way to dominating your Google results.

If you have any questions about setting up your own website or how to best built your online profiles feel free to ask away in the comments below and I’ll be happy to answer as best as possible.

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Halifax web design: a different approach to web development

By in Online Business

I have co-owned and operated a web hosting company for the past seven years. Seven years. It still boggles my mind every time I say that. We have worked with hundreds of clients mainly within Halifax Nova Scotia, but also across the Country and World. It has been and continues to be a great learning experience in so many ways.

Recently, we launched a Halifax web design initiative to trial a new set of packages we are offering. These plans were developed in partnership with some of our resellers after a lot of feedback from our existing hosting clients. We identified some pretty major issues with how the web design and development industry operates today and are very confident that our new web design packages will solve them.

Major problems with the web design industry

After surveying many of our customers based on their experiences with web designers, freelancers, and design firms we noticed consistent feedback concerning relationships and communication, ongoing support issues, and management, among others.

Support issues

Coming from a web hosting background we are familiar and efficient with handling support requests, as long as the customer knows to contact us. There seem to be too many parties involved in the process: a domain registrar, web host, project manager, and designer. The client is confused as to who to contact and when, often getting passed back and forth between the parties involved.

Relationships and communication: expect a service but get a product

This is definitely the biggest issue from all of our feedback. The client will pay for a new website, get a wonderful looking site, but often rarely or never hear from their designer again. The business is expecting a service, but often gets a one-off product (the website) without any service or support.

Once the designer gets paid, they rarely have a vested interest in their client and from what we are told, often fall out of touch.

Management of the website

This ties into the above issue of not having an ongoing relationship. The client will often have to reach out to others in order to get their website updated – which is an additional cost they were not expecting. They are often left with a great looking and expensive online business card.

How we plan on solving them

We have combined all the core services and features for getting a website and business established online and bundled them into an extremely convenient and affordable monthly package.

Our monthly model eliminates the up-front cost of getting an excellent looking website that stands in the way for so many businesses. We include domain registration, unlimited web hosting, around the clock technical support, monthly updates, and so much more.

We even went as far as to offer a monthly SEO initiative along with in-depth, one-hour monthly consultations where the client can ask anything surrounding Internet marketing, search engine optimization, social media, or anything else they can think of.

This way the client gets the convenience of having all services in one location, the absolute best bang for their buck, an ongoing relationship and a vested interested in their business doing well.

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A different approach to job hunting: building your network and free work

By in Personal Development

You’ve been rewarded throughout your entire life for showing up and playing or working hard. You got yourself involved during your school years and managed to get through it all with decent grades and only $50,000 in debt. You’re a new grad – eager and passionate and deserving of a well-paying, intellectually-stimulating job, right?

Welcome to the real world. It doesn’t take long to realize that you’re competing with more than just classmates born within the same calendar year. You won’t be rewarded for just showing up anymore and you’ll need to prove that you deserve that dream job – but how?

Build and use your network

The easiest way to find a great job is through your existing connections and network. Get the word out on what you are interested in and what your skill sets are. Blasting a hundred resumes to various employers may yield something but the odds of that job being something you are passionate about is slim to none.

A great way to build relationships in an industry is by offering free work.

Embrace the idea of Free Work

Many people can justify spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a degree but couldn’t fathom the idea of working for free for a few months to gain much needed experience and relationships.

Charlie Hoehn describes free work in his e-book as being different than an internship. In an internship, the employer usually feels they are doing the intern a favour and the intern is usually force fed mundane work and rarely given any real responsibility.

Free work is done strategically. You are able to research an industry and employer that you are genuinely interested in and propose a project that you will be passionate about.

Charlie mentioned the importance of removing all risk from the employer – not just financial. He recommends doing this by arranging a remote working environment. Not only are you working for free, but since you are not working at the office they will not have to worry about any overhead or training that would be involved.

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There are jobs out there. If you are struggling to find a job you are passionate about start asking why. Reevaluate how you are approaching your search and spend your downtime more productively than watching reruns of Golden Girls all day.

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