The other day Lizzie put me on the task of finding at least one SEO Intern since the work has been coming in at such a break neck pace. It seems like every week we are getting a couple new clients…coming out of the walls I tell you. Anyway, I seemed to have let that task slip buy when I was checking out a TechCrunch article on IntershipIN a relatively new startup that was began for just $500. The idea is to enable college students who are looking for internships, and for employers who have positions available for interns, to go to just one place.
Creating an account on InternshipIN is free and posting Internships like the SEO Intern position I have listed, are free through the month of November. They are working on some premium posting options which should be reasonably priced.
Want to be an SEO Intern?
Do you live in the Philadelphia area, and want to learn SEO while getting paid? Check out the listing on InternshipIN and send your resume on over.
As promised in the last SEO Tip Video, here is the SEO Tip for optimizing your pics. If you are just into hosting your pics and don’t care about traffic, then this does not pertain to you. I have actually gotten a lot of traffic due to certain photos, so tweaking your pics could generate some decent traffic.
SEO Tip Video Summary
Two primary things that you should use are alt tags and title tags. Use them both, but make them the same.
No keyword stuffing in alt tags and title tags.
Have a picture for each of your keywords, to include plurals and different versions of the keyword.
What ever the picture is of, try to make that the title and the alt tag.
Using Flickr
When using Flickr, put keywords in title, and in the tags. Use the tags.
Write a good description and feel free to put a link into the description, but put the link within the first couple of lines of the photo description.
Add the photo to related groups to increase exposure.
I was just reading a post by Wayne, Using HTML to define an image, which kind of parallels this post. If you have no idea what an alt tag or title tag is or what the code looks like for them, check out Wayne’s post.
Alt Tags and Title Tags
The primary purpose for Alt tags is that when a visitor drags their cursor over the photo, the text that you put into the alt tag will appear in a little box while the visitors cursor hovers over the photo. It also allows those who are visually impaired to know that their is a photo of some widget or another on the page..that’s why you want your alt tags to be accurate.
Title tags give a title to the picture that is only important to the search engines. Do your visitors really care what title a picture has? No not at all.
To see the title and alt tag of the picture to the left hover over it with your mouse first to see the alt tag, right click on the picture, and scroll down to properties to see all the information for the photo that I have given including both alt tag and title tag as well as a bit of other info. And no, I didn’t optimize this photo with good keywords, just me with a glass of pond water.
Adding photos that use these tags, will give your pages a bit more information for the search engines, and adding pictures in general will help to liven up your pages.
Do you use these types of tags for your photos for SEO purposes?
Have you been trying to increase traffic to your site? Maybe you have considered hiring a SEO specialist to help you out. I’m going to save you a lot of money and effort by telling you about Blog Carnivals. Blog Carnivals are the experts best kept secret. Not many people use it and It’s not surprising that their web sites get lots of traffic and customers. At the end of this post you will also find a special gift to all readers of this blog that will help you build backlinks and increase traffic to your websites.
Blog Carnivals are free for anyone to use. Just visit blog carnival’s website and you can start using them right now. They help you build backlinks to your online business from other similar web sites. Not only will you get a lot of additional traffic, you will also get a lot of targeted traffic. Best of all it’s free.
To take advantage of blog carnivals there is only one condition. You need to have free posts on your site. Informative articles or how to posts work. If you have a blog on your site with posts that also works. If you don’t, then you might want to consider writing free articles. Search engines love fee articles and they will send you a lot of free traffic. You can link to your products or other parts of your website from the bottom of those articles or posts.
I recorded the Video Optimization video last Friday before I headed out for a weekend of festivities with my bro, cousin, and son. I was planning on putting this SEO tip video up on Friday, but technical difficulties prevented me from getting it up. I got most of this tip from Li of Searchmarketinggurus.com at podcampphilly.
Last year Lizzie and I attended the BlogPhiladelphia Unconference and we had an amazing time. September 6th and 7th, we will be attending the second Unconference which is a combination of Searchcamp Philly and PodcampPhilly.
SearchCamp is a group of sessions that is totally designed for people who are into Search Marketing…so I am sure I will be checking out more than a few of those sessions.
If you are in the Philadelphia area, or even several hours away, I would suggest checking out the tentative list of session and registering if any of the sessions peak your interest.
Some of the sessions which I want to attend are “Turning Buzz Into Business for B2B”, “New Media Marketing”,”How to use social media for business AND be a real person”, and “Social Media 101″.
After PodcampPhilly, in December, Lizzie and I are planning on attending the Search Engine Strategies in Chicago. If your going to this, I look forward to meeting you in Chicago. so please let me know. If you decide to go, please click through my affiliate link on the banner below. I am sure I will blogging more about this event as the time approaches.
Yesterday, I received news that my last day working for the local search marketing company I had been working for was yesterday. Benefits(health insurance) would end at the end of the month which happens to be Friday. This does not come as a shock, since Lizzie and I both had worked for the same company for several years, and downsizing has been occurring over the past year.
So if you need any SEO/Social media work to include consulting, link building, or general site evaluations, please keep me in mind. My Plan of Action
Get the word out to various contacts which could offer assistance.
Update resume and post on various sites.
Visit various job sites to include careerbuilder.com, montster.com, and Oaseo.com an SEO job community.
Visit various job boards such as the Problogger job board.
Keep working on existing freelance clients.
Contact previous clients.
Back-sell other services to current clients.
Keep on networking.
Cut back extraneous expenses.
Prioritize my efforts.
What would you do in my situation? How would you generate leads? Any advice would be appreciated.
Update: A project that was in the pipeline came through today. We are actually ahead of the game.
Factoring in lost income, tax advantages of paying our own health insurance, income from the new contract, expenses of the new contract, increase availability of time due to having less clients; we are way ahead of where we were yesterday.
pace. It seems like every week we are getting a couple new clients…coming out of the walls I tell you. Anyway, I seemed to have let that task slip buy when I was checking out a TechCrunch article on IntershipIN a relatively new startup that was began for just $500. The idea is to enable college students who are looking for internships, and for employers who have positions available for interns, to go to just one place.
Unconference which is a combination of 
yesterday. Benefits(health insurance) would end at the end of the month which happens to be Friday. This does not come as a shock, since Lizzie and I both had worked for the same company for several years, and downsizing has been occurring over the past year.
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