Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I Love It When You Read My Mind

Don't you love it when you are thinking about something and it magically appears? Me too. Of course I like it best if it is brownies that I'm wishing for and they appear, but now I digress.

What I am really talking about is that feeling of accomplishment you get when you put in a full string of words in your Google search bar and accurate and relevant results are instantly returned. Now of course Google, and the many other browsers get a lot of credit for this too, but so do the web sites that do a great job of search optimization. From great product descriptions to relevant and timely content, sites that are continuously working to improve their content get high marks and great conversion rates.

I recently ran across this article that helps websites to improve SEO and customer satisfaction too. How to Generate Content Ideas For Your Site provides concise tips and and useful tools to help you make small changes that provide customers with better ways to find just what they are looking for.

My favorite is a great site called Wordtracker Labs. They have a Wordtracker Keyword Tool that lets you put in one single word and find out the most popular search strings that are relevant to your topic. It helps you identify trends and new ideas with just one quick search. Talk about easy!

Now I am going to try my luck with wishing for those brownies. Happy searching!


Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I Want to Buy "Good"

Everyday the news is filled with things we should be concerned about. The toys we purchase for our kids, the food we buy at the supermarket, even the water we drink. It becomes overwhelming to try and sort out the hype from the truth. As a time starved mom and consumer I would like to make good buying choices, but who has the time to do the research.

Yesterday I ran across a site that does just that, they aggregate the information on products and the companies they come from to help you decide. The Good Guide is a site run by Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. See the full article in the NY Times.

Not only is the site easy to use, it also has an iPhone app to make it portable. This is definitely as site to feel good about!