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What is SEO Optimization? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure. What is Google Pagerank? PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is referred to as the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E). The name "PageRank" is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million. What are Affiliate Websites? Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner. Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies. What is the difference between a website and a portal? A portal is generally a vehicle by which to gain access to a multitude of 'services'. A web site is a destination in itself. As such the term website refers to a location on the Internet (see this) that is unique and can be accessed through a URL (see this). By that definition a web portal is in fact also a website. However there is a distinction between the two terms based on the subject and content of the website. A website is also a web portal if; It transmits information from several independent sources that can be, but not necessarily are, connected in subject; thus offering a public service function for the visitor which is not restricted to presenting the view(s) of one author. Undestanding domain names? A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are also hostnames that identify Internet Protocol (IP) resources such as web sites. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). Domain names are used in various networking contexts and application-specific naming and addressing purposes. They are organized in subordinate levels (subdomains) of the DNS root domain, which is nameless. The first-level set of domain names are the top-level domains (TLDs), including the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, net and org, and the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Below these top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users that wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, run web sites, or create other publicly accessible Internet resources. The registration of these domain names is usually administered by domain name registrars who sell their services to the public. Individual Internet host computers use domain names as host identifiers, or hostnames. Hostnames are the leaf labels in the domain name system usually without further subordinate domain name space. Hostnames appear as a component in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for Internet resources such as web sites (e.g., quorium.org). Domain names are also used as simple identification labels to indicate ownership or control of a resource. Such examples are the realm identifiers used in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the DomainKeys used to verify DNS domains in e-mail systems, and in many other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). An important purpose of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource (e.g., website) to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name. Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the top-level development and architecture of the Internet domain name space. It authorizes domain name registrars, through which domain names may be registered and reassigned. The use of domain names in commerce may subject strings in them to trademark law. In 2010, the number of active domains reached 196 million. Fundamentals of Project Management A project is a unique venture with specific start and end dates. This is different from an ongoing task that doesn't have an end date. Projects are run by people and often involve different parts of an organization. Constraints on project include cost, schedule, resources, and quality. There's a give and taken between these items i.e. you can't have it all. Usually projects are divisible in to stages or phases each with their own set of priorities and goals. Project management is a combination of techniques, procedures, people, and systems focused on the successful completion of a project. It is also a discipline that will support the planning, implementation, tracking, and control of projects. There are many methodologies for running projects. Typically, they consist of the following high-level phases:
Projects are rife with politics. Understandably so as everyone is jockeying to achieve the goals they deem the most important. Managing these politics is an essential task for the project manager and team members. It also falls to the project management to help others navigate the political waters. Key to managing the politics is keeping people informed. The bigger the project, the more time it will take to communicate with interested parties. Balancing Priorities A project will consist of a set of priorities. These priorities can be classified in to what must be achieved, what should be achieved if possible, and what would follow from the previous choices. What's not so obvious sometimes is that the priorities of various stakeholders will vary and they will vary over time. It is the project manager's job to manage the inevitable conflict that arises from this situation. Project Scope The objective of this step is to define and agree on results that the customer expects. There are project success criteria and personal success criteria to consider. It is best to use various methods to understand what is really being asked for. This means using words, pictures, graphics, and one-on-one discussions. Graphs, mock-ups, and prototypes will also help. Consider using brainstorming sessions to get the ball rolling. Formal methods and documentation help this process, but it's important to aim for clarity and not just length. This step is also the start of the requirements capture process. Ideally, the project team is involved as much as possible as it will help build their understanding. Project Feasibility The feasibility of the project should be assessed before the project proceeds. Consider whether the project is technically feasible, has organizational support, and has the financial backing to be completed. A business case can help with the feasibility analysis and should at a minimum include a cost/benefit analysis. For some large projects, the feasibility study could be a project in itself. The end result is a clear reason to proceed with a project or to shelve it. Project Risks Risk management should start as early as possible. The goal is to identify and record the major issues that may affect the project including uncertainties and assumptions. As the project progresses, the list of risks should be reviewed to ensure it remains comprehensive. Some items will disappear while others will need to be added. The project objectives are a critical reference for the project. They act as the definition of success for the project manager and the goals for the people involved in the project. This document also serves to summarize the contract with the customer and therefore can be used with the change control process to address new requests. The objectives document should contain the project goal statement and a list of project deliverables. A face-to-face meeting with stakeholders is a good way to build the objectives document. During this meeting, the project manager should ensure that everyone's view is being heard and that everyone is participating. After the meeting, craft the objectives document and distribute for sign-off. Project Goal Statement This is a short statement (around 50 words or less) that accurately reflects what the project is setting out to do. It also outlines the conditions in which it is being done and defines constraints of the project. This statement should not get in to details of implementation. It should just cover what is going to be implemented and when. Defining Project Deliverables Deliverables are always tangible and measurable. They are the things that external project stakeholders are going to receive when the project is complete or at the completion of each phase in the project. These deliverables can be equipment, completion of a report, installation of new hardware, etc. Before implementation work on a project can begin, it is necessary to define project tasks. The most common way to do this is through a work breakdown structure (WBS). Other methods include the Product Breakdown Structure, Organization Breakdown Structure, and the Cost Breakdown Structure. Regardless of the process used, the idea is to break large projects in to many smaller components. These smaller components should be small enough such that accurate estimates and costs can be determined. Aim for the amount of time per component to be around 40 hours for a person or group. Anything bigger and there's a good change the item can be broken down further. However, the ordering shouldn't be determined at this point. Good estimates are necessary for the success of a project. They can help with obtaining approval to start or continue a project. They're also useful for setting priorities based on expected ROI. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to estimates. A lot will depend on where the make up of the project team and the project itself. Exploratory projects are going to be much harder to estimate for than a project that has been done several times before. The most important thing is to try and provide estimates as the act of doing do can help with everyone's understanding of the requirements. Some other things to keep in mind include:
Once the project tasks have been identified and the time required for each estimated, it is necessary to create a schedule and determine the sequence of events. The key to sequencing is looking at all the tasks and figuring out dependencies. Those that are dependent on others will need to be done in sequence. When a task has no dependencies it can be worked on in parallel assuming there are sufficient resources. Once the sequence has been figured out, the critical path, the longest sequence of time through a network of tasks, will become apparent. This path will then form the basis of the project schedule since, by definition, the project can't be completed in less time than what the critical path requires. By laying out the tasks end-to-end on a timeline, you will, in effect, create a Gantt chart, which is the most common project planning chart. In large projects, there may be too many tasks to plot so they should be grouped together to ease the work. It's part of the project manager's job to try and find the best fit between a task and a resource. The better the match, the more likely the estimate will turn out to be accurate. In an ideal world resources are available whenever you want them. In reality, resources are often coming from a shared pool. This is one of the first things that can impact a schedule right. Once work has begun, it is important to review the resource issue regularly. You want to detect as soon as possible. You want to determine if there are problems so that you can request more resources or, in some rare cases, release resources because there isn't as much work as expected. There are many tools that can be used to level resources, but don't aim for perfection. Instead, aim for good enough and focus on getting the project done |
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