Just wanted to let you know that I reformatted this awesome book for the Kindle and it is now available for download at Amazon.com. You’re welcome.
Author Archives: Michael Montez
Optimize website META data for a more appealing SERP
Found this article in my RSS reader and thought I would give it a shot. The goal: make my SERP (search engine result page) more appealing. Now I’m just a humble web developer, so the thought of my site (michaelmontez.com) ranking for anything other than “Michael Montez” is pretty slim. So I Google’d Michael Montez and this was the result. Sure it’s number one, but it is boring. It needs to be more compelling and give you an idea of what you are about to get by clicking. Similar to an AdWords Ad.
Before the META data update
Let’s take a look at the BEFORE. The title (blue first line) is plain. It just says “Michael Montez <<.” Imagine this was your company site and it just said “XYZ Land Place.” The searcher would get nothing from your listing. First thing you want to do – OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE TITLE. On your website, each page has a TITLE tag. Fill the tag with a nice description of your site/service/company. You only get 70 characters to do this, so keep it simple.
The next section is the URL (the green text). It’s going to be the page the search is linking to. Not much to do there.
The third area is the sweet spot. This is the page/site description. You will want to customize this on all your pages. For the homepage, you will want to have a nice description of the overall site. You only have 156 characters – use them all. If you do not use the “DESCRIPTION” meta tag, Google/Bing/Yahoo will just pull the first 156 characters from the page. These first characters may not be what you want to show. In my BEFORE example above, they took the the publish date and some misc. text from the first blog post. Having a date be the first thing someone sees (especially if this were a business) is not great for click-through or phone calls.
So I made all these changes, and TA-DA, 14 hours later, this is what my SERP looks like when I search for “Michael Montez”.
14 hours after the META data update
I think that looks a lot better. The title is more compelling and descriptive. The DESCRIPTION section actually tells you a little bit about ME, what a concept!
Now that you know how to manipulate the data, get to it. One missed opportunity I see all the time with business website is that they do not put their phone number in the title or description tags. WTF – I thought you wanted the phone to ring? Try this page title: John Smith Real Estate – Portland – 123-456-7890. Or this DESCRIPTION: Work with a NAR certified agent or search the Portland MLS. Click here or call me today. Something something else to fill space.
So simple and so often overlooked. I hope you find this helpful and I hope you optimize your SERP listings.
Inspiration: 4 Steps to Making Your Search Listings Stand Out on Google by Neil Patel
Webapps are still a good idea
Webapps were the future. Steve Jobs and Apple originally wanted the iPhone to use web pages as Apps. Then people started throwing billions of dollars at Apple so they said Apps were the way to go. However, you can still turn your simple website into a standalone iOS App using some simple META DATA.
This article on using the iPad as a Kiosk is a great starting point. I took incorporated the tips into my site (michaelmontez.com) and you can now save the page as an App.
- Hid the browser chrome (URL bar and buttons) using
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />; - Created a bookmark icon for the home screen and linked to it using
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/path/to/icon.png" />; - Set the color of the status bar (the options are black, gray or black translucent) using
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black" />; - Made all events
touchevents, as opposed tohoverevents, to accommodate the limitations of the touchscreen.
The iPad was originally all about webapps. For that reason, you can still turn any webpage/site into an app, no Apple approval required.
Read the full article at Smashing Magazine
UPDATE – once you try this, you will find that you site links open in a new Safari page. You can prevent this by adding the script found here: https://gist.github.com/1042167
Managing Google Play Music Devices
Every three or four months I like to reset my Android device and return it to stock. Why? I like that new phone/device feel that you get with stock Android…and then I ruin that feeling by adding back all my apps and content.
After my last reset, something went wrong. When I tried to download my workout music playlist, I got the following error: “Can’t download songs right now. Check your internet connection.” I received the error on 3g/4g, and wi-fi. My data connection was working fine on all connections…so something else was wrong.
I found some blog post but didn’t find a step-by-step guide…so I made one.
The data connection was not the issue. The error is a Device Authorization issue. If you are experiencing this error, you have too many (more than 10) devices associated with your Google Play Music account. Here is how you remove devices.
– In your desktop or none phone/device web browser, go to http://play.google.com/music/
Click the GEAR icon in the upper right corner and select “Music settings“.
Go to Google Play, Select Music Settings from the GEAR
– At the bottom of that page, you will see the Device section. Here are all the computers and devices associated with your Google Play Music account. DEAUTHORIZE any devices you no longer want to keep associated. (DO NOT DEAUTHORIZE THE COMPUTER YOU ARE ON.)
At the bottom of the Music Settings section is the Devices section.
– Once step 4 is complete, grab your device. Launch the PLAY MUSIC app. Once launched, go to the Settings section and make sure your account is selected.
– Go back into your library and select an album, artist, or playlist. From the pop-out menu, select KEEP ON DEVICE.
Select “Keep on Device” from the Play Music App
– This will send a request to authorize the device and the download should start.
Your download will start once the account is authorized.
– You should now see your phone/device listed in your Google Play Music devices section.
Starting Over
Image by Matze Meyer of Stock.xchng
The theme of today’s post is ‘starting over.”
I was looking for a new default, minimalist, WordPress theme based off the Twitter Bootstrap code. I couldn’t find one I liked…so I started building my own…from scratch…it’s hard. After a week or so, I began to get frustrated with the process (I am not a great PHP developer, but I also don’t pretend to be one) and started looking again for a new default, minimalist, WordPress theme…etc., etc.
When I was 13 I found a BMX bike frame in the street. It was white, wheel-less, handle-bar-less, it was just a frame. I thought this would be a great opportunity to start over and build a custom bike. I purchased a killer chain, handle-bars, mushroom grips, and freewheel gears. It was going to be an epic ride. But then I received a new BMX bike as a gift and the parts of my epic ride still haunt the garage of my parents home in Southern California.
I went to college for three years before I really knew what I wanted to do as a career. I started as an environmental engineering student. I (kinda) made it through my first year. The second, and third year were at a series of community colleges. During one of my required classes, I realized that completing the classes and transferring to a college was more work than benefit. At the end of that day, I dropped out of that community college and enrolled as a new student at California State University, Fullerton. I was starting college over.
I was an advertising major (creative track). My mind was focused. I was determined to finish this time and I did. But I never worked for an ad agency or created any ads for any companies. Instead, I develop, code, and market websites.
When websites are done correctly, they are great pieces of advertising. If you need a website, you should spend some money to have it made (I know someone good). You could teach yourself HTML and CSS. You can take a class on Internet Marketing, SEO, SEM, and graphic design. It’s hard…you’ll just end up starting over…with a professional website builder…like me.
Yes – I found a base theme. It’s The Bootstrap and it’s built and maintained by Konstantin.
Got an eye-exam this week. They took pictures of my eyes. I turned the pictures into this graphic. Please feel free to use it for your kids birthday or wedding invitation.
The left eye is worse than the right eye.