Sunday, May 20, 2007
Preakness
As a side note I attended Preakness over the weekend. It was a great time and my first experience going to a horse race. Tough luck for Street Sense but it was a good race and a fun day all around.
Final Wiki edit
For my last Wiki edit I edited the Gorham High School page. When I went on the age I noticed that the picture I put up for my previous edit was missing. I can only assume the picture was deleted because it was copyrighted material I put up. I deleted the line of hypertext that referred the the picture. Next I added the grades that GHS serves (9-12). I did this because not all highs schools have the same grade structure and it might be good to know. Lastly I added another external link to a page that had some more information (principal contact info, office hours, etc.) that a person can access if they wished.
Over the semester this article did not change substantially, mostly only with personal edits, save for the deletion of the picture. The page is pretty sparse, but I have laid a good base for someone to come in and add greater detail to it. It was a good experience building my own page from scratch, but it was difficult at the same time. I began, similar to how you suggested making a web page, by copying someone else's page and tweaking it to make it my own. The hardest thing I did was add a picture and the easiest was making the incremental edits. I hope someone from GHS finds the page and adds to it or maybe another GHS alum can do the same.
Over the semester this article did not change substantially, mostly only with personal edits, save for the deletion of the picture. The page is pretty sparse, but I have laid a good base for someone to come in and add greater detail to it. It was a good experience building my own page from scratch, but it was difficult at the same time. I began, similar to how you suggested making a web page, by copying someone else's page and tweaking it to make it my own. The hardest thing I did was add a picture and the easiest was making the incremental edits. I hope someone from GHS finds the page and adds to it or maybe another GHS alum can do the same.
Monday, May 7, 2007
stiuqxela
Since there seems to be an individual who has made it his personal quest to win a contest he has no stake in, seeking glory he has no right to, this is my feeble attempt to freeload off his misguided efforts and use the Google algorithm to increase my ranking. Since he has already endorsed other bloggers in his article The Mystery Behind Stiuqxela, I may still be handicapped but its worth a shot.
Adsense
Today I added an Adsense element to my blog. While a classmate of mine went to the Google site to sign up for the program, I did it through the Blogger site. The ad that was selected for me advertises a relief fund set up for Katrina victims. I'm not sure how this is going to make me money but I'll see if the ad changes in the coming days.
Wiki eddit 11
Today I made my final Wikipedia edit for Mykonos, Greece. For the edit I moved the location of a picture. As it stood the picture offset the formatting of the page and created a big white space. By moving the picture, which may have been misaligned by another editor, I was able to restore the proper layout and aesthetic to the page.
Over the semester this page has not changed substantially. There have been random edits to the sections of "Nightlife" and the "External Links" but the only major changes to the content of the pages has been done by yours truly. The "Attractions" section that I created has had several edits done to it but the integrity of the section has remained. I do not foresee many changes in the future for this site, save for incremental changes created by vacationers like myself who want to shed some light on the little island of Mykonos.
Over the semester this page has not changed substantially. There have been random edits to the sections of "Nightlife" and the "External Links" but the only major changes to the content of the pages has been done by yours truly. The "Attractions" section that I created has had several edits done to it but the integrity of the section has remained. I do not foresee many changes in the future for this site, save for incremental changes created by vacationers like myself who want to shed some light on the little island of Mykonos.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
SEO
On Monday we had a guest speaker come in to talk about his business, SEO by the Sea, which is a search engine optimization company. We covered some major strategies in SEO in class on Friday. These strategies include relevant keyword identification, matching pages to keywords, embedding keyword into the body of the page, and having appropriate ingoing and outgoing links. The whole point of SEO is to have your page rank higher on a Google, yahoo, or MSN search than others. Higher ranking means more views, clicks, and for businesses, more revenues.
For SEO by the Sea the process to SEO for a client begins with a conversation about what the client would like to achieve with their site. When a goal is established the focus is then put on identifying the company's major competitors, drafting a list of target keywords, and composing a basic SWOT analysis. One of the most strategic moves a site can make is to categorize the different element the site offers. The categories begin very broad, like clothing, as the speaker suggested, getting more and more specific. So the categories may descend from clothing to men's apparel, to dress shoes, to brown leather dress shoes. At each level the key words get more specific, indicating a more refined search. While this stratification is good for new sites, it may be more difficult for older, more established sites with an ingrained structure. This can be surmounted by adding content and pages to the main page of the site.
As we learned in class, the main strategy of SEO is to put the key words in strategic locations; in the title, in the context, and in the anchor text of links to and from other sites. All of these measures improve the sites probability of being picked up when certain key words are searched. It adds Google Juice to the page. The overriding feature of SEO is to be persuasive. A site wants as many people to visit it as possible and it must persuade, overtly or covertly, people to click on its link. This means matching it with the right key words so when the searcher sees the page it is the exact one they want. On top of this the page must be optimized so that if there are others like it, serving the same needs, the site is selected over others.
A final element to discuss is the issue of SEO ethics. By optimizing a site one is essentially manipulating the site to be more desirable to the search algorithm. As the speaker put it to the class; "When we type in the key word Nike, should Nike.com be the first site to come up or should it be a critique of Nike?"
For SEO by the Sea the process to SEO for a client begins with a conversation about what the client would like to achieve with their site. When a goal is established the focus is then put on identifying the company's major competitors, drafting a list of target keywords, and composing a basic SWOT analysis. One of the most strategic moves a site can make is to categorize the different element the site offers. The categories begin very broad, like clothing, as the speaker suggested, getting more and more specific. So the categories may descend from clothing to men's apparel, to dress shoes, to brown leather dress shoes. At each level the key words get more specific, indicating a more refined search. While this stratification is good for new sites, it may be more difficult for older, more established sites with an ingrained structure. This can be surmounted by adding content and pages to the main page of the site.
As we learned in class, the main strategy of SEO is to put the key words in strategic locations; in the title, in the context, and in the anchor text of links to and from other sites. All of these measures improve the sites probability of being picked up when certain key words are searched. It adds Google Juice to the page. The overriding feature of SEO is to be persuasive. A site wants as many people to visit it as possible and it must persuade, overtly or covertly, people to click on its link. This means matching it with the right key words so when the searcher sees the page it is the exact one they want. On top of this the page must be optimized so that if there are others like it, serving the same needs, the site is selected over others.
A final element to discuss is the issue of SEO ethics. By optimizing a site one is essentially manipulating the site to be more desirable to the search algorithm. As the speaker put it to the class; "When we type in the key word Nike, should Nike.com be the first site to come up or should it be a critique of Nike?"
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
wiki edit #10
For my final edit of the Pi Kappa Phi page I added the address of the national headquarters. This will help people if they are interested in contacting the fraternity or visiting its headquarters without needing to go to the official website.
Over the course of the semester this site changed only in certain areas. For one, an individual tried to add a complete list of chapter names , which lasted for a little while before someone moved it to another page. Also the notable alumni section seems to be growing daily, which may continue until it gets too large. I focused on the history for my edits and that has remained unchanged. At this point the site is fairly complete. Most of what is public knowledge is already on the site and any future changes are predicted to be editorial in nature.
Over the course of the semester this site changed only in certain areas. For one, an individual tried to add a complete list of chapter names , which lasted for a little while before someone moved it to another page. Also the notable alumni section seems to be growing daily, which may continue until it gets too large. I focused on the history for my edits and that has remained unchanged. At this point the site is fairly complete. Most of what is public knowledge is already on the site and any future changes are predicted to be editorial in nature.
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