Tag Archives: blogging

I Missed You, So Check This Out

April 12, 2012   Matthew Racz   No comments

How’s it Hangin’? I Missed You.

What’s up “Small Amount of People Who Still Visit This Vlog??” Nice to see you again Yeah, I am back for good. You thought you lost me there, but no worries – I won’t ever leave you again. Unless of course I finally become a ninja *crosses fingers* Am I even talking to anyone?

Anyways.

I interviewed Thomas Frank a while back on Start It Up TV because “Frankly” he is a super interesting guy. I stumbled on his blog, College Info Geek, when I was just starting out with my vlog and it seemed he was only a few months into the launch of his site.

I was inspired. Here was a college student writing articles about stuff he loved and found interesting; he learned how to do his own graphic design work, which is pretty awesome stuff; But most importantly it seemed he was having a blast running his experiment and was building traction.

Fast forward half a year and he has now inspired me again to get back on Start It Up TV to continue my own experiment. Thanks Thomas!

Contests…a Game Dynamic That Engages

So why am I getting back into writing articles and doing interviews for SIU TV? I’ve been pining to do some more interviews with college entrepreneurs as well as write about my experiences being a co-founder of a startup. I’ve been sitting on it…not really knowing how or when to get back into it.

Then WHAMMY! Stumbled on Thomas’s blog post about a contest he is hosting where the winner gets a 2012 16GB iPad. Pshh count me in! So how does one wishful dreamer win this iPad?? Here is how he explained it:

You have to build your own personal website.

Yes. I know, take it all in. What a brilliant idea for a contest. How does building a personal website enter you to win the iPad? Well, again, here is how he explained it:

1. Create your personal website, using my guide or any other method.
2. Create a blog post or page that links to this post, in order to prove that the website is yours.
3. Use the Rafflecopter widget above to enter your site’s URL. You must use the URL of the page that links back to here.

Let’s talk about why this is a genius idea. One of the most important elements to SEO is getting backlinks to your site. The more backlinks you get to your site, the better Google and other search engines rank you (those bastards, the nerve!). What better way to get people to talk about your blog, share your content, and win new fans than to have that be the contest itself?! Touche!

Thomas ultimately wants to help his fans out. He wants them to have fun with the Internet, start their own experiment, and have success. Here are the two main benefits (other than possibly winning an iPad) Thomas gives for entering the contest:

1. Build your personal brand
2. Enhance your online presence

If you don’t think either of those are a big deal and you’d rather shoot pigeons, chug Tabasco Sauce, or whatever it is you do in your spare time, check out this article he wrote: Read more about why you need to build a personal brand.

Having the iPad as a prize is just icing on the cake. Sweet, sweet icing that lets you play Draw Something and touch the web.

I’ll be honest, those two reasons were enough inspiration for me to sack up, put time aside for SIU TV, and get back into the groove of things. Good stuff. Good vibes. Good shit.

Is it cliche to say “I feel like I already won?”

….yes. yes it is. On that note…This isn’t “goodbye,” it’s “I’ll see you later.”

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What Really Matters in Todays SEO Landscape

September 21, 2011   Matthew Racz   No comments

 

For a lot of us, understanding SEO can be similar to understanding quantum physics. While things like social media, SEO and the Internet in general are fairly new concepts (within the past 30 years), SEO has traveled a long and winding road to being well-understood.

Companies have spent years trying to outrank competitors and experts have spent years trying to predict the future of SEO. Google is always evolving their algorithm, so SEO best practices have adapted throughout the years.

Search Engine Journal published an awesome infographic, titled “The Evolution of Making Page 1.”

The infographic shows us how far SEO has come. We see practices that were important years ago, that no longer even apply to ranking today. We see where we started with SEO and where we are now.

So where are we now?

What do we need to consider when investing in SEO? If Google’s algorithm is so sophisticated, what custom web solutions do we need to apply today that will help us get ranked? Most of us have limited marketing budgets, so what should be top priority?

Content

If there’s one thing you’ll notice when you look at this infographic, the one thing that stays constant and is never over-valued is quality content.

After all the tricks and shortcuts companies have tried over the years, the one thing we always come back to is: there is no substitute for good content.

Content should be relevant, sharable and interesting to your audience. There used to be a time where we could publish garbage blog posts stuffed full of keywords and that’d be enough to boost our rankings. No more. Google is smart enough to know if you’re writing content about great-tasting hamburgers and shoving keywords about washing machine maintenance into your posts.

You shouldn’t want to trick people into clicking through to your website. The best way to do this is to create content that’s valuable to your audience.

Valuable content isn’t content that doubles as a sales pitch. People are online searching for solutions to their problems, answers to their questions. They want to be informed or inspired – not always blatantly sold to.

Offsite SEO

There are two types of SEO – onsite and offsite. Onsite SEO refers to the stuff you’re saying on your domain or subdomain: website, blog, etc. Offsite refers to the stuff you’re saying, or others are saying (and linking) everywhere else. If there are websites linking to you, people sharing your content, etc., that is offsite SEO.

Offsite SEO accounts for nearly 40% of all search-ranking factors. So if you’re ignoring it, you’re not doing SEO correctly.

How do you do offsite correctly?

Guest-blog on someone else’s blog. Create content on high page or domain authority sites that are relevant to your audience. Content that links back to you is valuable. If you’re creating inspiring or informative content, your audience will want to share it. If your content is being passed around the Internet, that will affect how Google perceives you.

No Shortcuts

Google now has the ability to determine the user experience you’re offering. This means that if the people coming to your site are quickly bouncing off, it implies they’re not finding what they want from you. The user-experience is poor.

Conversely, if people come to your site, click through clear calls to action, it implies their user-experience was valuable and helpful.

Testing your calls to action on your website and blog couldn’t be more important. See what works and what doesn’t. If your CTA isn’t getting clicked, it’s worth the time and money to change it.

Additionally, optimize your site for mobile users. Smart phones have taken over in the past few years. Mobile traffic has seen a giant spike. If you’re not giving people a mobile experience, you’re probably missing out on substantial traffic.

No matter how far SEO has come, or where it’s about to go, there are a few things that we can invest in that will remain the same with regard to how we’re perceived in search. Content, context and user-experience will always matter.

Guest Post By: Justin Shimp

Bio: Justin Shimp is a digital handyman and content author at Smallbox, an Indianapolis custom web solutions consulting firm. You can follow Smallbox on Twitter, @Smallbox

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Where I Want to Be – David Siteman Garland’s “The Rise to the Top”

August 11, 2011   Matthew Racz   6 Comments

I understand this site is still very much under construction. I suppose even though I may not have any viewers as of right now, which is probably a good thing considering how rubbish this blog appears to be (believe me, if you’re reading this after the fact….it’s hopefully not still as bad as it is right now), I am writing this post more for me to get a clear head. This is a post dedicated to those people who are out there right now doing exactly what they love to do. It is for those people looking for answers and by a miracle you stumble upon something that kicks you in the face and says, “DUDE! This is the answer you’ve been looking for all this time!! Don’t pass this up!”

OK! I literally just stumbled upon a blog called “The Rise to the Top” created by a man named David Siteman Garland (I am addicted). This guy is doing exactly what I want to do with Start It Up TV in the sense that he interviews big time entrepreneurs about their experiences in running a business and offers his viewers a way to gain insights into their methods to success. David’s blog is truly inspirational to me and I will surely be using it as a way to benchmark my own successes with Start It Up TV.

When I look at The Rise To The Top – I almost get way too excited. It is like looking into the future. It helps me put my mind at ease regarding whether or not this type of a project is worth pursuing. David is a way for me to gain the inspiration and required perseverance to make Start It Up TV not only happen, but thrive.

I mention this on my own blog because I want to have it documented that this is how I am going to learn to start a video blog based around podcast interviews. This is important. As I am providing all of you with resources to start your own college business, I too needed to find and acquire the necessary resources to take that next leap. To be honest, I have only been working on the idea of this project for about a month or so – and I have already been having many doubts, concerns, and problems with it. This is totally common for almost all entrepreneurs…it’s scary business leaping into something unknown. I mean, we’re not all as brave as Chuck Norris.

Finding The Rise To The Top and seeing first hand that David has proven a successful method to this kind of system is a fresh of breath air for me. It is truly inspirational and I cannot wait to conduct my first interview (hopefully posted by September 1st)!

I hope that stumbling on Start It Up TV will be as inspirational to you as stumbling on David’s The Rise To The Top was for me. That is the whole point: Inspire, Educate, Create. Let’s go out there and make life happen…no one else can for us!

Please enjoy this interview session between David and my personal (and apparently his personal) idol, Tim Ferris – author of The Four Hour Work Week and The Four Hour Body. Hey, Dave, thanks.

Cheers,

Matthew

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    I Missed You, So Check This Out

    April 12, 2012 By Matthew Racz
    How’s it Hangin’? I Missed You. What’s up “Small Amount of People Who Still Visit This Vlog??” Nice to see you again Yeah, I am back Read More »

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