BlueCapra

Using Technology To Solve Problems and Create Solutions

1st on Google – Week 9

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Welcome back to my journey to being 1st on Google. If you missed the first few posts, you can find the first one here, 8th Week update here, and the ones in between on my Project page. Below are the results as of Sunday, 03-18-12 (click here to do your own search):

  • #4 – My LinkedIn profile (up 12 places from last week at #16)
  • #12 – My profile on Vimeo – check out my video series Can You Etch It (up 5 places from last week at #17)
  • #32 – The About Me page from my personal blog, BlueCapra.com, with picture (no change from last week at #32)
  • #34 – The post, How Would You Use a MeTag™? from CoachRadio.tv about one of my laser engraving products, the MeTag™ (up 6 places from last week at #40)
  • #59 –  BlueCapra.com tag page; posts tagged ‘Alan Reeves’ (up 28 places from last week at #87)

This week showed a nice turnaround from last week.  My first occurrence is at #4 and overall, my top 5 results increased 51 places.  I showed up 6 times in the top 100 search results,  which is not as high as I had hoped, but not as bad as it could be.

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1st on Google – Week 8

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Welcome back to my journey to being 1st on Google. If you missed the first few posts, you can find the first one here, 7th Week update here, and the ones in between on my Project page. Below are the results as of Sunday, 03-18-12 (click here to do your own search):

Do you hear that?  That whistling sound is my ranking plummeting.  This week pretty awful for my journey to 1st on Google. I dropped to the #16 spot for my first occurrence.  Overall, my top 5 results decreased 70 places.  I showed up 5 times in the top 100 search results,  which is 3 less than last week.

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1st on Google – Week 7

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1st on Google - Alan Reeves - 7th Week update Welcome back to my journey to being 1st on Google. If you missed the first few posts, you can find the first one here, 6th Week update here, and the ones in between on my Project page. Below are the results as of Sunday, 03-11-12 (click here to do your own search):

  • #3 – My LinkedIn profile (down 1 from last week at #2)
  • #14 – My personal blog, BlueCapra.com, with picture (no change from last week)
  • #17 – My profile page on 48Days.net (up 54 places from last week at #71)
  • #29 – My profile on Vimeo – check out my video series Can You Etch It – (up 48 places from last week at #77)
  • #59 – BlueCapra.com tag page; posts tagged ‘Alan Reeves’ (up 20 places from last week at #79)

This week was pretty good for my journey to 1st on Google. I dropped to the #3 spot for my first occurrence which is not so good, but progress in other areas made up for that drop.  Overall, my top 5 results increased 121 places with 1 spot down, 1 spot the same, and 3 spots up.  I showed up 8 times in the top 100 search results,  which is 2 more than any of the previous weeks.  Even though my first occurrence was down one spot, 4 of the first 5 results were in the top 50 which was an improvement over previous weeks.

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1st on Google – Week 6

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1st on Google - Week 6 Update - Alan ReevesWelcome back to my journey to being 1st on Google. If you missed the first few posts, you can find the first one here, 1st Week Update here, 2nd Week Update here, 3rd Week Update here,  4th Week Update here, and 5th Week Update here. Below are the results as of Sunday, 03-04-12 (click here to do your own search):

  • #2 – My LinkedIn profile page (no change from last week)
  • #14 – My personal blog, BlueCapra.com, with picture (down 3 places from last week at #11)
  • #71 – BlueCapra.com tag page; posts tagged ‘Alan Reeves’ (down 19 places from last week at #52)
  • #77 – Comment I made on AndyTraub.com around the middle of December 2011 (down 17 places from last week at #60)
  • #79 – Comment I made on CoachRadio.tv  around the middle of December 2011 (down 2 places from last week at #77)

This week was not so good good for my journey to 1st on Google. I stayed at the #2 spot for my first occurrence which is good, but lost a ton of ground in the other places. Since LinkedIn occupies the 1st spot, it will be tough to overcome such a large site but that is my goal and I will keep at it until I’m there.  Overall, my top 5 results decreased 41 places with all spots either the same or down for the week.  I showed up 6 times in the top 100 search results with the last occurrence being my Google+ profile at #100.

I am a bit disappointed this week.  I am pleased about remaining at #2 but with the big drop this week, I am not as confident with my strategies than are in place. [Read more…]

How to start a blog – Step 1 – Theme

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Start a blog - buttonThere are thousands and thousands of people that will start a blog today.  Each one will have high hopes for the success of their creation.  They will be dedicated, at least in the beginning.  But in the end, most will let their blogs die, unable to consistently feed their new creation the diet of content needed for survival.  How could this have been avoided?

If you are reading this, chances are that you are at least vaguely interested in how to start a blog.  What steps do you take?  Where do you go for answers?  What is this blog thing everyone keeps talking about?

First off, what is a blog? According to Wikipedia, a blog is a personal journal published on the internet consisting of discrete entries or posts displayed in reverse chronological order.  Does that make much sense to you?  If not, a good working definition for me is this: A blog is a website that gets updated often.  In the past, websites were very static; once built they rarely changed.  Now, you and I want to interact on the web, not just read the same information that was published years ago.  The benefit of a blog is the ever changing content.  That’s what keeps visitors coming back.  So, how do you start one? [Read more…]