Who cares?

Search engines are complicated, proprietary, heartless machines that chew up poor, unsuspecting websites and spit out a category based on what it tastes like. These categories are used to literally rank a site’s individual pages based on their relevancy for particular word or phrase. The rank, as it is referred to, is the key to getting more people coming to your website (called traffic) which can lead to more sales/appointments/contacts (called conversions).

Unless you don’t actually care if anyone goes to your website, you should be concerned with how findable you are on-line. Studies show that unless you’re on the first or second page (mostly just the first), you won’t get clicked on very often, your page will get minimal exposure, and your time and effort creating the site in the first place will be for naught.

Your rank in a particular search engine for a particular word or phrase is, simply, a combination of the following (more or less in this order):

1. How many other sites point to you as a reference, particularly for that word (known as incoming links)
2. How regularly that word is used on your page and where it appears (page titles, meta information, content)
3. How “good” your site is (lots of focused content, continual updates, age of site)

If you want people to see the information you have, if you want to turn web browsers into customers, and if you want to take advantage of the biggest marketplace of potential customers, you’ll give more than a second thought to how you are seen by a search engine.

Why is SEO important?

Consider what it would be like if no one could easily find your place of business, or even your telephone number. Most businesses could not continue for long in such a situation. The same thing can happen with your web site if people cannot easily locate it. Traffic volume, if it existed at all, slows to a crawl. Potentially valuable customers never even know you are there.

Key word strategy & generation

I’ll start off by saying that this is the single most important thing that needs to be done for a site… and, of course, it’s the hardest thing to do, the easiest to get wrong, and the most lengthy process. There is a lot of information available online about keyword strategy so this description will be brief.

Keywords are the words for which people are searching. Keywords for your own website are the words that people are searching to reach your website. Picking the right keywords is partially an exercise in putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and partially in avoiding words that are too common. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes means that you’re thinking about words that your customers would use to find you. Avoiding common words means that you’re not competing directly in search results with sites that have a very strong presence and might be in a totally different industry.

Here are three simple steps towards picking keywords that can work for you.

1. Choose words that you think people might be using to find your site. Come up with about 20. These are probably not the words you’re going to use.
2. Go to google.com/keywords, type in your words, allow synonyms, and search. You should have a list of potentially hundreds of different words.
3. Pick about 5-8 words that have low-ish advertiser competition (under half), a good amount of searches but not too many (different for every situation but I usually pick words that are under 10K monthly searches), and a flat or upward trend (current month is higher or the same as the average).

These keywords should be used as-is throughout the site, it’s structure, image descriptions, and the text content.

Each step comes with it’s own set of complexities but, if you’ve walked through these steps, even if you’re confused by the end of it, you’re a step ahead of many, many people on the web.

Building a functional keyword strategy is not something you just do once. Seach engine optimization is something you need to do on a regular basis. I see it as a scientific process. You start with an idea, a hypothesis (”my clients will find me by searching ‘eye care’ and ‘cataract correction’”). Then you design an experiment to test your original hypothesis (”We’re going to write a few pages of content, each one concentrating on a different part of the keywords we chose”). Data is gathered and analyzed and a new path is chosen (”Our traffic went up 30% with these keywords… are we getting all the benefit that we can?”). Time and culture will change search patterns so what used to be a golden word for you, may become stale and unpopular. Keep checking those analytics reports!

Need help?

If you’re looking to increase traffic on your business website and need some help with all of this, give me a call (contact info on the top left of this site), I’d be glad to help. SEO techniques are important and confusing and it helps to have someone there to guide your efforts.

Ha! I thought forgot about the last one, huh? Nope.

On Friday, I posted the 5th step to a great resume, writing a “final” draft.

Step 6: Lay it out as you go through it again (and again [and again])

blueprint by dog on wheels on flickr

This is the final step and possibly the most important one. This is called “checking your work” or “avoiding the if-only-I-had’s.”

If you haven’t formatted the document, now is the time. You’ll probably want to check out my guide on simple typography in any document to give you an idea on how to keep it simple and effective. Remember to style for the position. If you’re applying to a law firm, keep it tight, simple, and classy. If you’re applying to a graphic design company, spice it up a bit, use some color, and show them you know a thing or two about alignment.

I like to style as I read - as long as it is the first re-read of many. Reading concurrently keeps the flow of the document in mind as I put it together. It also breaks things up because reading, re-reading, and editing can wear a little thin, especially if it’s your writing.

Read it through normally once or twice, then mix it up a little bit:

• Read it out loud to yourself or someone else. If it sounds awkward, it’s probably wrong. If it’s awkward to you, the person who wrote it, imagine how it will be to someone else. Toss the sentence out and re-write it or consider breaking it up. Sometimes, the only problem is a missing period and another capital letter.
• Read it “backwards.” Start at the end and read each sentence in opposite order. This is annoying and a bit frustrating but it does work. Since you wrote this masterpiece, your brain knows what is coming next. If you read it in the wrong order, it forces you to think about each sentence individually. This is a good thing.
• Give it to someone else to read. This is a critical step, especially for resumes. It’s improbable that a second set of eyes WON’T catch something that you missed. Bite the bullet and hand it off to a spouse, friend, or parent.

If you’ve read it more than 3 times, tried all three tips above, and feel good about it, then it’s time to get it ready to print.

Final steps to get ready to send these out

I said six steps but here’s a few bonus ones that bring this process home…

Save a copy of each document with some kind of indication in the file name telling you the position to which it corresponds and the date it was finalized. Obviously keep an editable copy but also make sure you’re making PDF versions and sending those out. A PDF will look the same on every computer in every program without exception and that’s a good thing. Get yourself a free PDF maker (CutePDF works great if you don’t have the Word plugin or Adobe Abrobat) and make yourself some PDFs.   Make sure to review the PDF before you send it to make sure nothing changed during the translation (rare but it happens).

Keep a copy on a USB drive if you have one with you, in online storage if you use it, or email it to yourself so it is always accessible. There’s nothing worse than needing your fresh, amazing resume and not having it. Plus, keeping it in your email makes it easy to forward out at any time. Google Documents now allows PDFs so you have no excuse to have this important document handy.

Finally, make sure you have some printed copies around. Go to Kinko or FedExko’s or whatever and have them print it out on nice paper. Don’t go crazy with the marble-finish, 98% cotton paper, just get something nice, relatively thick, and nice to touch.

Following this process to a “T” will make sure that your resume puts your best attributes forward. If you need helping writing or deigning your resume or want to put together an online presence to promote yourself, please get a hold of me!

Yesterday, I went through the fourth step in my resume-writing process, creating a rough draft. We’re in the home stretch!

Step 5: “Final” draft time… buckle down

Greyhound Racing: Home Stretch by sombraala on flickr

OK, you have a resume, you’re about 80% there. Now it’s time to bring it all together.

First, lay it all out. Personal statement is first, then what? Education? What is the most important thing about the job you’re applying to? If you’re applying to be a web developer, your skill set is probably more important than your BA degree from a few years ago. If, however, you’re applying to be a college professor, your education is probably pretty darn important. Don’t stress too much about the order, however, because there’s plenty more to do.

Once you’ve got everything in place, it’s time to start collecting, cutting, and collating. In your skills list, group similar skills together and cut out parts that are non-essential or just distracting. Use commas, connectors, and creative words to cut down on length and content.

Next, take a hard look at your positions and do the same. You want to reduce the length of your resume as much as possible but include the most important things. This is a delicate balance and it might take a few iterations to get it right.

You also want to be telling an interesting story about your employment. Stop laughing, I mean it. It’s all connected and you had the jobs you had for a reason. For each position, you want to show your progression and why you were important at each step of the way. Just because you did the same thing everyday for 3 years doesn’t mean you weren’t an integral part of the process. Make sure that the progress and the story you’re telling ALWAYS relates back to the job for which you’re applying.

A few tips:

• Watch your tense. If it was a previous job, then use the past tense (you “were responsible” for this and “facilitated” that). If it is a current position, then use the present tense (you “are responsible” and “facilitate” this and that).
• Go easy on the stock “jobby” words (like the two I used above). You can only say that you were responsible for so much before it gets a bit repetitive. Be creative in your speech and color it up a bit. Say what you need to say but inject your personality in there.
• There is no absolutely correct way to write a resume. One place might look down on a super-corporate, dry, humorless resume while another might expect it. The only thing you need to be sure of is the grammar and the punctuation. If you suck at either or both of these, there are services out there that can help you for cheap. It’s worth it to spend a few bucks to make sure it’s right instead of ending up in the “no” pile just for a mis-key.

Get it written, make sure it’s not over a page (unless it really needs to be [show-off]), then give it a rest. The more you work on something so boring and important, the more you’re going to hate it. Crank it out and put it down for a day.

Yesterday, I wrote about the 3rd step in the Josh Can Help resume process, writing personal statements. Check it out!

Step 4: Put it all together (rough draft)

Writing Tools by this is your brain on lithium on flickr

Now, we’re going to take those personal statements, skill lists, and positions, and start building the different resumes. Don’t worry too much about formatting right now, just build the information (baby steps).

Create a new document for each resume and paste the completed personal statement at the top. Next, give your skills list a heading and copy and paste each relevant skill from the major list. Don’t be too concerned about the length or how specific/general you’re being. Writing a resume is better as an iterative process (step by step, doing and correcting). What you want to concentrate on is relevancy to the position you’re going after. The more targeted your resume is, the better you’re going to look.

Now, list your positions from newest to oldest, grouped by company. Under each of the positions, paste the experience that is relevant (see a pattern with that word?). If you think it qualifies you, put it down. If you think it doesn’t really relate, leave it out. For now, do these as bullet points and you can convert it to a paragraph later.

By the end, you should have a “completed” resume: statement, skills, and experience. The quote marks around completed means that you aren’t actually complete but this is  the meat of the task. You still need to list relevant education, awards, certifications, and experience. These can be all together in one section or separated depending on what you’re going for.

• Are you a medicinal chemist going for a senior scientist position? You’ll want a section for education (very important in the chemical industry) and another section for publications (also important).
• Are you a furniture maker going for a lead construction position? You’ll want to include any awards, mentions, published work, and education, possibly in one general section.
• Are you an experienced manager going for a VP position? List your education prominently if it relates to the industry but make sure your great ability with people shines through (soccer coach for your kids? Volunteer somewhere?).

This “misc” section really depends on what you’ve done and what you’re looking to do. Remember that you want to highlight the most important things kin your past based on the job. For some jobs, your education is paramount. For others, it’s your knowledge. For others, it might be your unpaid work. Think about what makes you unique, what makes you stand out, what gives you an edge, and lean into that.

Check out yesterday’s post, the second step towards writing a great resume, listing all of your experience.

Step 3:  Write a personal statement for each of the resumes you need to create.

write by the trial on fickr

This is the worst part of writing a resume (well, next to the cover letter). Some people will tell you that these are unnecessary and I rarely see a company that requires one but better safe than sorry. Also, it’s a good exercise and won’t look BAD on there.

A personal statement, also known as an objective, is, in your own words, why the job you’re trying to get is good for you. It’s really the only time during the resume process that you get to be selfish. Why, in your grand plan, in your overall scheme, does this job help you? Why are you applying? Why do you care whether you get it or not?

What you DON’T want to do is to make this one of “those” statements. You know what I mean, the two-sentence mush-fests that, at the end, say nothing about you except that you read 20 personal statement examples on the internet and “came up with your own.” There’s no need to say that you’re looking to “develop professionally” or “improve your career skills” or “practice your expertise.” If you say something in your personal statement, ask yourself “does everyone else in the world want this as well?” If so, what you said is painfully obvious and should probably be trashed.

Examples of what you might want to say:

• …that you want to work with people because you’re an extrovert and like to connect, hence applying to be an outside sales rep.
• …that you love children and try to spend as much time with them as possible, hence applying to be a neo-natal nurse.
• …that you get a kick out of writing creative code and want to learn from people who do the same, hence applying to be a software engineer at a start-up.

Write the statement for the job you want and tell the interviewer why you want that job. Be honest, let your personality come out, and keep your mind open. When you’re done with this step, you should have one personal statement for each resume in a “final draft” form.

Oh, and if you’re finding it impossible to write a personal statement for the job you’re applying for, maybe you should re-think applying for that job.

Read the first step towards writing a great resume, write down the positions you want

Step 2: Write down all of the jobs you’ve ever had (within reason) and brain dump everything that happened for each one.

Ready for class...

Yikes! Are you ready for this one?

Start with the company you worked for, then list all of the positions you had for that company. If you’re 40 and you worked at McDonalds when you with 18, this probably isn’t too relevant… unless you were a manager after a year and worked there for 3 years. Longevity means something in this age of indecision!

With this list of positions, write down EVERYTHING you did in that position…

• What were you responsible to do?
• What teams did you interact with?
• What goals did you reach?
• How did you help that group?
• What did you do in the morning? On Mondays? Every October?
• Did you write reports?
• Did you close the place down?
• Did you work closely with the CEO?
• Were you critical to sales?
• What did you do 8 hours a day?

Don’t worry if you’ve got a few (or several or many) pages of information; we’ll cut the fat later.

What you want is an information bank that you can use now and forever. The more you write down, the more you will remember and the more you have to pick from when it’s time to pick out content for the resume. This is something you should save, backup, and keep indefinitely. 5 years from now when you’re applying for a different position or a promotion, you will have a bank of experience to draw from. I wish I had done this years ago.

After you’ve gotten down all the experience you’ve earned over the years, it’s time to parlay that into an overall skill list. Skills, aka Qualifications (much more business-y word), are things you are capable doing right now. There are two general groups of skills: “hard” and “soft.” Hard skills are the ability to use Quark or Adobe products or code PHP. Hard skills are easy to qualify and easy to demonstrate. Soft skills include things like customer service, teaching, able to be a team player. Hard skills are easy to list but soft skills are tricky. Think about situations that you are comfortable in that other people are not. Think about what you can handle well that otehrs can’t. Think of ways to differentiate yourself. Being patient and skilled enough to teach people on a regular basis is a skill. Being very organized and dependable is a skill. Communicating well, both verbally and otherwise, is a skill. Don’t forget about the soft stuff.

While you‘re thinking about positions and companies, get the addresses, names, and numbers of the companies for which you worked. You might not be able to track down your former boss but find a way to verify your employment at that organization. The person that is managing your hire will also, inevitably, want to see when you worked for each of these places. Make sure you include month and year to be specific. If you’re off by one or two, that’s fine but if you said you worked form 2006 to 2007, that could be almost two years or just a couple months; make the distinction.

Come back tomorrow and read the third step in Josh’s resume writing process!