Even in retirement, I am still attached to this computer.  Some friends wanted me to help them with their websites, so I recently took an online class on SEO. At first, I had no idea what SEO was or that anyone needed it. Well, I thought it couldn't hurt to check it out. A local design company helps a very small class at the community college. It was cheap and figure I would probably learn a few things. At my age anything computer and 'new technology' is always overwhelming. I barely go on Facebook. But it's the only way I get to see my grand kid's recent photos.

Then I took the plunge and took a local community SEO class. To my surprise, they broke the information down and started at the basics. I am excited now to see what I can do to get my 'site ranked.'

This is what I've learned and I will try to break it down the best I can.

The first step before tackling any SEO on your website:

In preparing your website for search engine optimization (SEO), it helps to take a look at the web's top sites at the Alexa 500.

In order of popularity; they are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Baidu, Yahoo, Amazon, and Wikipedia. Do everything you can to have links to your website on these major internet sites. You can benefit greatly from piggybacking off of their success. SEO methods require that you cater your search engine outreach to your local area - doing a local search. Look up the Wikipedia article and make sure that your company website is on the list of sources at the bottom. All this requires is creating a free Wikipedia account and discretely adding the web link on the list of companies. Make sure that your company has an article. Here is a link on how to set up an Wikipedia account.

Ok, so that seemed pretty simple.
Many SEO strategies involve SEO content marketing. This means creating valuable content that is effective using key terms that relate to your business. I was trying to come up with the right keywords that other people like to type in for a major search engine like Google. The same goes if you are doing it for a particular term like 'consulting'. While this is helpful, have a broad strategy in mind. Do not just focus on Google because everyone else is doing so. When everyone is doing something, your competition will be stiffer. Look at the social networking sites. Having a YouTube channel can be a big boost to your brand. Sell stuff through Amazon. Write a clear and impartial article about your company on Wikipedia - like I mentioned before. These are all helpful steps to improving your brand's image. In my case 'consulting' was a little too broad - so I started to use the example 'Austin SEO Consulting'. Being in Round Rock - I would have a better chance of ranking when using the term 'Austin'.

Another very simple step to take is to write a blog using Blogger. Blogger is fantastic - a free site for articles relating to what you do. I started to use this and its pretty easy. Did I mention it's free?

Another option is to post stuff on Reddit. I mean stuff like videos. If you have viral videos on YouTube showing your staff doing weird stuff, this can help draw attention to your company. Often, people fail to distinguish themselves from the competition because they are afraid to try something different. For the example 'Austin SEO consulting' themed your keyword terms around something unusual and attractive, like beer, cows, trucks, bar, cowboy, etc. I know its hard to relate the two - but I know I can be creative. When people type this in, your site will be more likely to pop up. Having embedded links on pages like Wikipedia, Amazon, and Facebook is also really important.

So there are a few random things I learned.  Each on their own don't mean much.  But if you're lookigng to increase the visibility of your consltant or small business, they are a good start.

CP/M This was my first exposure to microcomputers (Wow!  64k!) and, though the IBM PC sported 640k, it was two years before my personal programming started feeling cramped.  After seeing the Print Screen key on the IBM PC, I enhanced this operating system to give it a Print Screen function — Zilog80A Assembly was fun. 

MS-DOS It was really the floppy disks that I got tired of — rather than actually running out of real memory.  Thus, my upgrade to an IBM XT-compatible with a 20meg hard drive was like sheer heaven to me.  Oh, and that 8mHz Turbo button seemed like pure genius.

IBM OS/2 &MS Windows 3.1 I outgrew that 20meg hard drive long before I finally bit the bullet and bought an IBM AT-compatible computer.  I went for a full tower this time because I had also outgrown the expansion slots.  I was also tired of command-line prompts (CP/M was the same way) and DOS-SHELL, but I wasn't overly impressed with "Windows" either.  OS/2 was getting a lot of fanfare, at the time, so I went with a 33mHz (turbo), 16meg real, and 128meg storage system (later, I had to add a second 320meg drive).  Wow!  Who could want more?

MS Windows'95 & '98 Before I retired, I ran on a 450mHz, 192meg real, and 11gig storage system which is peer-to-peer networked with two other personal computers — and we're talking about my home here! 

Surprisingly, perhaps, I have no (what I call) "formal" experience in the microcomputer world.  However, I bought my first microcomputer in 1982 — a Zenith/Heathkit Z90 — after IBM unveiled the "PC" (or, Personal Computer) to the world and, since then, I've broadened my own horizons by exploring programming on the personal level, i.e., at home and for myself.  From there, I've even sold and installed a custom-built application at a client site.  The table below will give you a glimpse into where my explorations have taken me.

Hint:  Don't forget what a "PC" is — a personal computer.  Don't try to make it into a corporate-wide computing solution unless you (#1) get all the facts, (#2) know exactly what the company needs, (#3) know exactly where the company is going, and (#4) have absolutely no doubts that the "PC" will be able to take the company there with the minimum amount of trouble as compared to all other possible solutions.  Nine times out of ten, the PC will not be the corporate-wide answer that many people make it out to be; however, this does not mean that the entire corporation will not benefit from a "PC on every desk" scenario.  It will just not be the total computing solution for the corporation.

The majority of my experience has been in the mainframe area — as that is what I normally work with in my employment-type opportunities.  Almost all of that experience has been in non-MVS-type environments, too.  However, I'm confident that I still have much to offer (even in MVS-type environments) after the many years of strong experience and much accumulated knowledge in the areas listed in the table below.

Hint:  Don't believe all the hype that the mainframe is an outdated and overpriced concept that can easily be replaced by a minicomputer or a microcomputer network: achieving a significant reduction in staff and hardware costs without sacrificing power and functionality.  That is a myth.  For example, today's microcomputer (a.k.a., a PC) may seem cheaper and more powerful than a mainframe on the surface, but this is only because it services a single user.  Try attaching upwards of 10,000 users (which mainframes can easily handle, and more) and just see into what kind of troubles and costs you will run.  J

Something I wrote quite a few years ago, that I thought I'd copy for posterity...

With the explosion of public and commercial interest in the Internet, I would have been a fool not to expand the repertoire of services that I have to offer, to a potential client, into the Internet.  As a start, this takes the form of web page and web site design & coding services which may, eventually, go all the way to web hosting services — we'll see.  J

Believe it, or not...  It was my son who actually got me on the ball to undertake a little adult education into the language of the Internet — HTML and its permutations.  How?  Well, first he reached the point where he was heading off for college and he made the "old man" proud by deciding to get a degree in programming.  Then, he started asking me questions about web page design & coding that I couldn't answer.  So, not to be outdone, I set out to find the answers and to make sure, from now on, to keep pace with the computer industry.