SEO Basics: Doing it Right, Getting Results!

By Antoine M. | Published June 9, 2011

A thing to remember is that SEO is not a magical Gauntlet. It’s important, but no one knows the exact algorithms Search Engines uses, and each one is different so all you can do is optimize the best you can. There happens to be a few things that you should just always do whenever you make a new website. Don’t stress over every little thing, just make sure you are doing it, this should just become kind of automatic for you.

Make sure you fill in your meta-tags with a good title, description, and the right keywords. I personally don’t think the keywords meta-tag is nearly as important as everyone else on here does, but it gives me a way to organize my keywords list for me to reference. When you start having many different websites, it’s good to include whatever notes to yourself you can. When you come back to work on an older site you might not remember everything you were thinking before. The meta-tags help you remember your site info as much as it helps the SE figure it out. A good rule of thumb is that anything that won’t hurt you for SEO and might help, you should use and use correctly. Definitely use the title meta-tag, try to include keywords in the title. Definitely use the description meta-tag, Google will normally use this for the summary it displays in the listing. It isn’t used for indexing so write it for humans; this is what gets people to click on your link when they see it in the SERP. Don’t use the same meta-tags for every page on your site. Take the time to make them be specific to each page.

Create good content. Make sure you have some decent content. Content is what the internet was invented for. If you have unique and quality content, then all the SEO and backlinking you’re doing is just to get the ball rolling. Give them what they want, show them where it is, and they’ll start coming. If it’s good enough then it’ll eventually start building on its own naturally because people like what they found. That’s the idea anyway. So whenever possible use the best page design and the best content possible. Avoid duplicate content between different pages on your site; the SE will most likely penalize your site for that.

Remember, your content isn’t just something to get Google to like your site, it is the whole point of your site. The content and how you structure it is what will make visitors do what you want when they get there. If it is junk they will just leave, and 99% of them won’t leave by clicking on your adsense or affiliate link, they’ll just close the window or use the back button.
Include your keywords. Structure your content correctly, make a few title headers in the content that include keywords (use header tags h1, h2, etc.), try to have a keyword density around 2% in your content, and maybe 4% for the whole page including the meta-tags, alt tags, anchors, etc.

Be sure that your .htaccess is set up correctly. Decide on which way you want your url to be and stick with it. If you decide to use www then always use it like that in your links, don’t use both. I usually set up a 301 for all www requests to redirect to non-www urls. If you don’t set that up then every single page on your site can appear to Google as having at least one duplicate. If that’s the only thing wrong on your site it isn’t going to kill you, but it’s so easy to fix. If you don’t know how to set up a redirect in your .htaccess file then just do a search, there are many other threads explaining it. Check Google if you can’t find it here. Also, .htaccess only apples if it is on an Apache server, Windows servers do it a little differently, if that applies to you then just search Google to find out how to do it. If your consistent in your linking, then the only time the redirect will come into play is if you get natural backlinks that you have no control over. You should also specify which you prefer, www or not-www in Google tools if you use it. (If you don’t then you really should, I recommend you set yourself up an account for webmaster tools and analytics.)

Make a robots.txt file and I like to include a favicon because without them the robots will trigger file not found errors on your server. Be sure to configure your robots.txt correctly. Make a custom 404 page. If your site has more than just a couple of pages then also create a sitemap.xml file. It’s not a bad idea to just create a sitemap anyway no matter what; it lets you define the structure of your site to the crawlers. Just search Google if you don’t know how to do any of that, it’s very basic and you can find exact instructions within a minute when you do a search.

Other than that there isn’t a lot more you can do for on-site SEO. When people ask about SEO they’re always thinking of on-site SEO, but that is the easy and quick part. Just do it and get on with it.

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Reaction to Latino in America

By Antoine M. | Published June 7, 2011

Latino in America is a documentary presented by CNN about the complications and struggles of being Latino. CNN took us through the life of a Dominican family that lived in New York then relocated to the south in search of a better life. UF sponsored the view of this show and opened the floor for questions and comments to relay how people felt being Latino here and now.

This CNN special really touched people because they noticed the importance of being Latino and how their culture is desecrating through customs developed in America. Some of the people felt that their language was and is the most important feature of understanding their culture and roots. As any other race in America, there is the factor of racism and some form of discrimination, based on factors beyond one’s control. CNN attempted to bring these ideas to the surface. Children who are immigrants, who committed no crime, are treated like prisoners or delinquents. The real question is; Is this fair…? Depend on your idea of America and the way it’s run, your answer may defer. Overall, CNN wants to make people more aware of the growing population of Latinos in American and how the Latino population, as any other race plays a crucial role to the suitability of the country.

In between the showings, we asked people what they thought as well. Most people had very strong feeling about some aspect of being Latino in America or another. Most said, it’s no different they other races. But others, who were not born of America soil, had a completely different point of view. They felt as if they were aliens here. They are in a world that completely different. Some said they learn English through school and interactions with other people. Also these Latinos felt that because of their language barrier, some people did not like to deal with them because of the difficulties understanding what is being said or some outrageous stereotype.

Many people forget that no matter where you are from, human rights are always the most important aspect of any country especially in America, the land of the free.

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the Irony of “500 Days of Summer”

By Antoine M. | Published June 7, 2011

he film “500 days of Summer” was complicated yet simple love story.  It told a tale of a woman who is exploring for something, yet wants the freedom to be herself.  Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel is the type of girl that every man or person in general, would want.  She doesn’t believe love is something that really exists. Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fell deep into something that he could not handle.
The film tracks the amount of time passed in Tom relationship with Summer before new season arrives.

Now the fun stuff…

This movie was an excellent combination of romance and comedy. The movie taught the views that “one does not have to be in a labeled relationship to have the benefits of a relationship.” As in that old cliché (in which I am about to ruin but), “A relationship always goes best when the person you’re dating was your best friend first.” The most important part of this film was the part where the director set up parallels of Tom expectation versus what actually happened. In his expectation or illusion, he wanted Summer to desire to be in his arms forever. He wanted her to be the focus of his attention. Yet, instead he got the “Friendship treatment.” I consider the “friendship treatment” to be someone who lets you get just closes enough… simply to pat you on the back in a hug for a job well-done.

My favorite part of the film, as far as camera action, is how we see the bad then a quick cut to a good time in which the same event happened in Tom’s relationship. Another of my favorites, was when they made love for the first time (I think that’s a good way to keep it PG) and his afterglow effect. I love the way evenly, he and the other random people on the street broke into dance to celebrate this wonderful feeling Tom was experiencing. Is this really how a person feels after being with the person they have always sought out? I don’t know but for the purpose of the film it makes Tom even cooler and more of a person who deserves such a woman…

A change in the story was when summer invited Tom to her house. And of course the narrator explains the importance of the scene, but in a broad scene. Really, what this meant for Tom was he is getting closer to Summer… Summer said, she has never told anyone her stories. It seems we are forgetting that Summer initially wanted nothing but friendship. Usually best friends tell secrets to each other about one another because of their closeness.

The bar was when the question of “what we are” in terms of relationships really became defined in Tom mind and in Summer eyes. Also this is when the relationship changed pace.
Tom’s job is an important factor of this film. His job represents exactly what he said when he quit. “People buy greeting cards to say what they can’t themselves.” As the movie progress, Summer begins to realize that being friends with someone she actually “Loves” is much harder then she imagined. What is really happening is the question we should be asking ourselves…

On day 488, the largest discovery of the movie is revealed. At the beginning of the movie, it showed Summer and Tom holding hands with summer wearing a ring. That foreshadowed something happening such as engagement or marriage between Tom and Summer. Instead it was a misleading jester that was later revealed to show summer finding another lover. The irony is while sitting on the bench, she explain to Tom that had he just be forward and said what he wanted, they would have thrived. Her current arrangement for marriage is with a guy she met at a bar who casually approached her and asked to marry her. I cannot describe the kind of woman Summer is but she is certainly a thrill seeker.

Tom learned from Summer that each person has a purpose in life. This purpose is not going to be simply handed over; you’ll have to take it. So now pursing his dream to be an architect, he has another chance… with Autumn.

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