Reflection: SEO

This week we learned more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There was some great information. There are some small, easy things you can do, such as good keywords in your title, meta description, and alt tags. However, no matter what you do to try and manipulate the algorithm, NOTHING will beat quality content. If you do that, the other biggie for ranking--backlinks, meaning when somoene else links to your site, is a sure thing. I've decided my focus has to be on the content.

I'd been preoccupied because my other classes have huge projects. One of them is building a complete front end for a website from scratch. No website builders, such as WordPress or Wix. We can't even really use any middleware, unless you can demonstrate you can do it without it first. The other is a major backend project with database capability through MongoDB. This has kept me from really putting great content on my site.

However, as a reflected on this, I realized that is just an excuse. I'm always going to be busy. ALWAYS. The key is time allocation. Sometimes, things won't go my way. For instance, yesterday I had an all day conference. I used my lunch break to do the discussion responses required for this class and my dinner break to do an assignment for another. My plan was to do this reflection post after the conference ended at 9 PM. Then, one of the attendees invited me to participate in a project that could jumpstart an important aspect of my career. He wanted to meet right then. I met with him thinking I'd get this post done as soon as we were done. We met until well after midnight, which meant I missed the deadline. I learned a valuable lesson on planning in a way that if something unexpected comes up, it doesn't derail me.