Business General | Brandon Corbin

Apr200904

I tweeted a comment stating that SEO was bullshit - and I fully admit that it deserved a better job explaining it (hey 140 characters is kind of limiting).

When I say SEO is bullshit - I mean SEO not the act of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is just as real and important as having a website that is accessible by all users.

But the sheer number of SEO experts that can not code even basic HTML, is only climbing. These wanna-be-geeks give the entire industry a bad rap. So my beef is not with web shops that build killer usable websites that also are SEO friendly. Or even someone who pushes the limits on what is considered “in the safe seo zone” - I love with you guys. It’s the assholes that read 4 articles online and start throwing words around like HTTP Header, link baiting, keyword density, 301 and 302 - without really knowing what any of them actually mean.

Google changes their search algorithm as many as 300 times a year, so trying to “play the system” is a never-ending mouse chasing the cat game. At some point if you push to far, the cats going to turn around and eat your ass. Just as my junior highschool shop teach used to say “You can not beat an electron” - I say “You can not beat a Google bot”.

Here are my 6 free tips on making a website that the Google bot can easily consume.

1. THE TITLE TAG IS KING.
The first 5 words in your TITLE TAG are the most important part of your web page. If you want to dominate say “denver sailing lessons“, then make your title “Denver sailing lessons - Rocky Mountain Sailing”. This simple Tip that I gave my friend Toby, delivered his site to number 3 (or 4) on Google in less than a month. Also remember that Google does not like the same page title on different pages, so try to make each of your page titles unique.

2. Use the H1 - H6 tags properly.
The H1 tag tells the bots “this is the headline of this page - so it’s important”.
The H2 tag tells the bots “this is a headline less important than the H1″ - but still important - you have all the way up to h4.

3. Meta tags are good - but not crucial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag

3. Don’t overload your content.
The more you game the system by putting in a bunch of text, it not only will lower your overall rank, it will piss off your users.

4. Use the right keywords.
The right keywords in your content, and specifically in your links, makes the Google bot happy. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal There are some amazing tools out there that let you find the best keywords for your type of site.

5. Try to use a Sitemap.xml
A sitemap is.. well a map of your site. They help the bot find additional pages it might have missed. Luckily there are tools out there that help you generate a this XML file - http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. This step is kind of a pain-in-the-ass, and personally I do not do until I have nothing left to do with a product.

6. Signup for Google Webmaster Tools
This free google app gives you information on how the Google bot handles your website. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

7. Bots read rank content from the TOP down.
The most important content needs to be at the top, the least at the bottom.

That’s it folks - can we please now stop over complicating it, and move on to CONVERTING the users that we already have!

For some additional tips - check out Google’s own words on Seach Engine Optimization http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

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Mar200924

brandon.corbin

0

Super simple Ruby on Rails cloud hosting using AptanaCloud

Founder Paul Colton walks us through the basics of creating Ruby on Rails projects with Aptana RadRails, and then deploying those projects to Aptana Cloud.

via Aptana TV.

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Mar200920

brandon.corbin

0

The Hypocrisy of the “War on Drugs” - Warning RATED R.

It’s not that the government doesn’t want us to use drugs - they just want us to use their Drugs.

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Mar200910

brandon.corbin

0

Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture | UX Booth

Information architecture is an often misunderstood job title. Are they Designers? Developers? Managers? All of the above? In this article we’ll discuss what information architecture is, why it’s related to usability, and what are the common tools/programs used in information architecture.

via Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture | UX Booth.

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Mar200901

brandon.corbin

2

The Double Slit Experiment in plain English. Quantum craziness.

I tried to explain the double slit experiment to my dad, aunt and nephew today. However, I completely butchered it - making it virtually impossible to visualize. So I offer up this great little video that helps illustrates the infamous experiment in common terms.

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Feb200908

brandon.corbin

0

Indianapolis’ Pickylist in a Nutshell

Here is my 60 second elevator pitch about Pickylist.com - Indianapolis’ Social Marketplace.

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Jan200927

brandon.corbin

0

Rocky Mountain Sailing - Denver, Colorado

Everyone, meet Rocky Mountain Sailing - a Denver Colorado based Sailing School and Charter (started by my longtime friend Toby Hamer). If you happen to be in Denver, and hear the call of the water - make sure to check out Rocky Mountain Sailing.
Denver Saling

Rocky Mountain Sailing

Incorporated: Dec 2008
Ran by: Toby Hamer
Location: Denver, Colorado USA
Email: toby @ rockymountainsailing.com
Website: http://rockymountainsailing.com

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Jan200912

brandon.corbin

0

REPOST: Sigma Micro - Online Variables: Customer Environments

One of the latest posts of Big Dan Ratliff - over at the Sigma Micro - eCommerce guru’s Blog.

For years the online shopping craze has been thought of as a “from home” experience. You could wake up on Sunday morning, shop in your bathrobe, drink a cup of coffee and avoid all the traffic. As technology progresses, the ability and desire to shop from multiple locations is gaining popularity.

On cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) in 2008, 50% of online spending was done from the workplace as reported by comScore. That is up 15% from last year. Doing this allows shoppers to purchase items over ultra fast and very reliable connections out of view of their family members. I prefer to assume the best in people, and commend them for waiting until a scheduled break to do their shopping. Well done.

Continue Reading - Sigma Micro - Online Variables: Customer Environments.

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Dec200819

brandon.corbin

0

5 Exciting Things to Look Forward to in HTML 5 - ReadWriteWeb

HTML 5 is the upcoming major revision of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the main method of marking up content for sharing on the World Wide Web. HTML’s development stopped at HTML 4.01 in 1999, and since then web content has evolved so much that current HTML specifications are inadequate for today’s requirements.

via 5 Exciting Things to Look Forward to in HTML 5 - ReadWriteWeb.

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Dec200817

brandon.corbin

0

Toms Twelve Laws of Life

I just got finished reading Tom’s immutable laws of life by Tom Hoobyar (StreetSmartCEO.com) Here are the 10 basic points - Tom’s full post is absolutely worth the read.

Self-Management and People Skills are the Keys to your Success and Happiness.
Your are the Center of your Universe, stay there.
What you think about the most, is what you will get.
You make your habits, and then your habits make you.
Guilt Enslaves You. Responsibility Liberates You.
Obligations are a fraud.
Expect Less from Others and More from Yourself.
Nobody wakes up in the morning choosing to be the villian
There is no “happily ever after” in the real world.
There is a hell, and it starts early.

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Dec200809

brandon.corbin

6

Roll your own Wordpress Tiny URL and Capitalize on your Domain’s Brand.

I am tired of TinyURL getting all of the domain “brand share” from my Blogs tweets. So I wanted to come up with my own solution to create short urls using my blogs domain: BrandonsHead.com.

Yes, my domain is longer than “TinyUrl”, and I assume that yours is too - however, those 5 or so extra characters are well worth the brand awareness (especially if you are cross posting to other social media outlets). And thanks to Mod Rewrite and Wordpress, pulling this off is relatively simple.

By adding a rewrite rule to Wordpress‘ .htaccess file (in the root of your Wordpress installation) - you add 1 line of code, and poof you can have a Short URL like http://brandonshead.com/go446

Here is the code that I added to my .htaccess to achieve this:

RewriteRule ^go(.*)? /index.php?p=$1 [R=301,L]

This code is simply saying, any time a user goes to http://mydomain/go123 take the 123 and treat it like a blog post ID, then the rest of Wordpress’ rewrite rules will take over.

Here is what my Wordpress’ .htaccess file looks like:

# BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / #Short URL Processing RewriteRule ^go(.*)? /index.php?p=$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] # END WordPress

Also, we want to make it easy for us and our users to copy and paste this new short url. So I went in and added the following code to my Single.php file (that is part of the theme you are using).

<div class="shorturl"> <label>Short URL</label> <input type="text" value="http://YOURDOMAIN.com/go<? the_ID(); ?>" onclick="this.select()" /> </div>

Disclaimer: This might or might not make your Wordpress installation completely blowup, this is only for the brave of heart. I repeat: This might make your Wordpress installation come alive and eat your entire city - so please proceed with caution.

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Dec200809

brandon.corbin

0

Monster Cable = Monster Dickheads.

In another monster dick head move, Monster Cable is suing the bejesus out of a Mini-Golf company called Monster Mini Golf. While these lawsuits are completely faceless, they are super affective at bankrupting small companies - so far Monster Mini Golf has spent around $100,000 fighting these monster dick heads - and according to the owner they will continue to fight, simply for the principal.

Monster Mini Golf as created an eBay auction to raise money to fight Monster Cable and specifically their CEO (Chief Ego Officer) Noel Lee (who has tried to do this to countless other companies.)

Help the small guy, Boycott Monster Cable! As an added bonus - not buying their insanely over priced audio products will save you lots of coin.

Here are a few other resources for you Audiophiles to replace Monster Cable with -
http://www.bluejeanscable.com
http://www.signalcable.com

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Dec200802

brandon.corbin

17

The End of JobFu - The Dying Resume

UPDATE: Download the LinkedIn PHP Class that powered JobFu.

Recently, my little side project JobFu (turning a LinkedIn Public Profile in to a nice looking Living Resume) was slammed on LinkedIn by M. Joyce the Creator of IDEA Masters Online Real Time Magazine (thats a mouthful).

She clearly states that she is partly outraged, not surprised and basically really really hates the idea of my product.

While I always enjoy making people emotionally respond (both good and bad), I really never intended Jobfu to be anything other than a way for me to have a Resume that was always updated from a single place. After a few friends asked for the same thing, I used my JobFu.org domain and created the ability to claim a resume from their LinkedIn Public Profile.

However, after reading the replies from other LinkedIn users - it is fair to say that they would rather not have JobFu promoting their Public Profiles (even through they are publicly available and cloned all over the web, http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:iJMiWqfOaTYJ:www.linkedin.com/in/tribecanineinc+tribecanineinc&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari)

UPDATE: Download the LinkedIn PHP Class that powered JobFu.

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Nov200817

brandon.corbin

0

IDEO’s Tom Kelly talks about being an Innovator for Life #video

I have always loved IDEO - the most amazing global creative/design firm that applies their creative abilities on virtually any type of project (not just visual design/marketing). Tom Kelley, the general manager at IDEO, talks to Standford students about the five core practices that promote creativity and innovation in even the most boring organizations.

Archive for 'Business General'

Apr200904

Here are my 6 free tips on making a website that the Google bot can easily consume.

Mar200924

Mar200920

Mar200910

Mar200901

Feb200908

Jan200927

Rocky Mountain Sailing

Jan200912

Dec200819

Dec200817

Dec200809

Dec200809

Dec200802

Nov200817