Okay so it’s been a few days since I started tracking my rank. I made a few changes:

1. I built a site map

I downloaded a plug-in for WordPress. An XML file that creates an index of all my blog posts. It’s intended to make it easier for search engines to crawl your content.

2. I changed my blog naming convention

For my blog postings from something like “id=p23″ to “blog-seo-part-2″ – Simple change in the WordPress options (I can’t figure out why this isn’t the default)

3. My last post about “Sean Landry”

Since those key words are now relevant and were present several times I gained points in the relevance category. It’s important to note you’re posts can be considered SPAM if you load them with keywords.

As of January 20th I’ve moved up one spot! I’m #2 now ahead of the basketball Sean Landry

I’ll keep digging up new methods and post them as I move up or down.

Okay I admit it. I “googled” myself (Sean Landry) the other day. I know I’m not alone here. However, I found something unexpected, my page rank. I was way down at #3! There are two other Sean Landry’s out there in the world ranked ahead of me.

#1 – Sean Landry’s Page on 1UP.com

This is a free Blog site for anyone who registered. Not exactly the most popular one out there but I started to investigate. The other Sean Landry had only one Blog post and way back in 2005? So not exactly showing relevance or activity of any sort.

#2 – University of Manitoba: Bison Men’s Basketball Sean Landry

Landry was a member of Mount Royal Cougars 2006 ACAC Championship team. In his first season with the Cougars, Landry registered a 4.1 points per game average and 3.3 rebounds per game in 17 games. He shot a 41.3% field goal percentage during the championship season.

So other than playing good basketball for the University of Manitoba in 2006 why is he #2?

#3 – Sean Landry

That’s me! Number three? I have Sean Landry in the URL, in the title and all over the site and I post frequently.

I’m on a quest to climb to #1. I’m digging up as many SEO tips and tricks I can find. As I find them I’ll post them here and hopefully I’ll show progress! If you’ve got any good techniques I’d like to hear them.

There’s so much information out there on the web sometimes it’s difficult to find just the right level of intake versus filtering. I’m a bit of a visualization junkie. I’m a trained graphic designer turned web designer turned UX designer. I found by combining several technologies it helps me reach the right information.

1. First I search for visualization on del.icio.us

2. Second, I grab the RSS feed from the executed search:

3. Third I add the feed to my Bloglines account

4. Fourth I scan the results…

There are usually about 100-200 new results per day. I scan the list looking for a high number of users who have tagged sites with the term “visualization”.

Here’s an example I found the other day which is great graphic design and information display. It informs in an entertaining way. There are loads of these gems out there. I’s just a matter of being able to find them.

Vampire Energy

You’re hip, cool and into the now. You’ve just purchased a new MacBook Pro, you’ve got your fancy white ear buds in and you’re finally cool. Well… because Apple is cool right?

Be the Apple of everyone’s eyes in thes comfortable eye-catching T-shirts.

Widgets come in all shapes and sizes. They live on your desktop, MySpace, web pages, PDAs, phone etc. They are small applications that are surrounded by other components and other brands. So how do you balance your own brand and still allow your widget to “fit in” with the other ones? Take a look at the NBA widget.

The NBA has a prominent brand which they would like to protect but they also need their creative to compliment the environment in which it is to be displayed. It also needs to look “cool enough” to engage a user enough to include in their personal space.

I looked through many of the web’s top Gadgets and Widgets an found a few similarities amongst the most downloaded:

• Simple – (don’t try to tell me weather trends in the US, just tell me if it’s raining outside)
• 3D – Use shadow, highlight and perspective to make your widgets “pop”
• Use logos and colors to maintain your branding but keep the saturation level low so you don’t conflict/compete with other environments.
• That “We 2.0″ look -Glossy surfaces, large fonts, gradients, textures etc.

I treated myself to a new computer (Dell Inspirion 530 to be exact). An upgrade from the Dell 4400 which was a real dog. An interesting thing I noticed when installing was the Google Desktop and a few widgets. Not Microsoft Gadgets which which is what I expected if anything. I’m not sure how I feel about it. It seems similar to IE loaded on every new PC back in the day before the anti-trust lawsuit.

If you’ve been living anywhere but under a rock you’ve been surrounded by the press and the candidates giving you their best pitch for why they want to be president. I’ve decided to evaluate their main campaign web sites and decide who gets the best score for: information architecture, usability and graphic design. All categories are rated 1-10.

All reviews were done the day after the Iowa Caucus

Hillary wins the website review with 24 points.

Interesting observations: First all these sites placed the “contribute” link in the upper right corner. Very good location for findability but also where the mental model of the shopping cart ($$) is, coincidental? Second, each site has way too much information. If they are trying to attract the media for an audience then this is great. But if you’re trying to sway an undecided voter they should be more concise with the information. Last, a few of the sites were guilty of “scroll block” this is usually caused by a horizontal line (or image or text) to span the entire page leading the user to think they have reached the bottom.