Benjamin Barlow

I did a recent search on Google to find where my page ranks and it is not pretty. Page 4 on a search of “Benjamin Barlow”! How can the URL that is entirely my name not be returned prominently when I search that name? Hell, my IMDB has a higher rank with only one movie! (Yep, I am on IMDB as “Teen with Polaroid Camera”)

Admitting faults is an opportunity for growth, or so I am told, so I am admitting that I do not know much about SEO. Should web design and development be in my future, then this is one area I need to improve on. What better applicable experience than my own website!

All efforts to get www.benjaminbarlow.com to get up to SEO snuff will be chronicled in this post and I won’t be using and SEO Services. This is entirely organic and most important free.

LINKS LINKS EVERYWHERE

I have to get Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/Google+ to all link to the URL. Not only that, but I have to have links to those accounts on my site! Does that accomplish one of my three user goals? In addressing those that are checking me out for professional consideration, these links could prove valuable, especially since I have a fairly robust social profile. Most of these profiles are low security and for good reason, I really don’t have anything on there that I am ashamed to have available. Again, the links can provide a better overall sense of me as a professional candidate for… really anything.

One particularly useful piece of linking is the rel=me tag that Google can use to link my (rarely used) Google+ account to the website in the search. I hear Google particularly likes people doing this and should reward this action favorably.

AUTHORSHIP/RICH SNIPPET

Since Google is the king of search, it’s reasonable to climb on board with what they want you to do with your site. This includes Google Authorship. I can’t quite say exactly what it is yet, but I’m learning!

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-authorship/

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1408986?hl=en

HTML META DATA

The only existing (at this time) meta data that I have is in the Title of the page. Fortunately, I just piggy backed on the generic WordPress theme for this, as it takes in the Page Names automatically… good ol’ PHP. The other meta data? Yeah I got to get on that. It really isn’t that hard…

HTML HEADER TAGS

I should be smarter with my <h#> tags, that is for sure. The one think I know I did right though is putting the big Benjamin Barlow inside <h1> tags.

SITEMAPS

According to Google, they really like Sitemaps (with a capital S by the way…) so in order to please those Google gods, I better do so.

GUEST BLOGGING

Not something I’m entirely interested in, although it would help in SEO. Maybe if particularly relevant opportunities come up, I’ll take advantage, but not something I’ll be actively pursuing.

ps. I am listening to the greatest musical theatre song. Written by the less known William Finn, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is among the greatest musicals and the “I Love You Song” is tops among a rich score. It is indeed the best.