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Yael’s Variety Hour: MMA, BJJ, Fitness, Lesbian Badasses, Martha Beck and a Petition (How’s That For Variety?)

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I’ve been doing a ton of MMA writing lately. This will change pretty soon, as I have a ton of non-MMA writing in the wings (business writing, SEO work, copywriting, medical writing, etc.) which is actually a bit more useful for paying the bills. If you’re not a mixed martial arts fan, rest assured that the link topics in this weekly feature will be changing soon enough, true to its name. Until then…

My Small Smattering Of Non-Martial Arts Links (there’s also two more under the shameless self-promotion section…fitness related)

  • Video: Conflict. “The nature of conflict means you can’t set a boundary in your life and take care of someone else’s feelings at the same time,” Martha Beck reminds us.

BJJ and Wrestling

  • Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Mama: Candace Stump Candace beautifully balances motherhood (with all the nurturing and decision-making and issues therein) and being a demon on the mat. I’m also proud to call her my friend. Here’s a photo of her (in her onesies, no less) for the Female Fighter Project. Isn’t she beautiful?

Shameless Self-Promotion (Lots Of It This Week!)

  • Post-Baby: Photo Shoot Round-Up. Experience Life’s web editor, Jamie Martin, was the model for an article I wrote on body-weight training for the November issue of the magazine. Here is her beautifully written account of the photo shoot.
  • Performance Menu: Issue 79. The latest issue of this kick-ass online journal is out. It contains an article I wrote entitled Minimizing Consumption of Pesticide Residue (Without Breaking the Bank), which is a look at the “Dirty Dozen” and the “Clean 15” foods. There’s also an excellent article on developing the right attitude in athletes, a piece on four debated areas of lifting technique, the first in a series on integrated mobility, satire, recipes and more. Yours for five bucks.
  • Contender on the Cusp was my profile of MMA fighter Tyron Woodley, who just defeated Paul Daley at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson this past Saturday.
  • Wombat Sports Podcast: Women’s MMA Roundtable. I was lucky enough to join host Marq Piocos and fellow guests Lacey Neher and Cheryl Ragsdale on this podcast, discussing the women’s MMA bouts from last weekend and their effects on the sport.
Feel free to leave your comments on any of these links–or any links of your own–in the comments!

 

 

Yael’s Variety Hour: Applied Science, Insecurity

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Welcome to my weekly variety hour, where I briefly describe my favorite posts from the past week, and list any recent articles or projects I’m working on.

Insecurity

  • Success Dysmorphia Viewing success through someone else’s mirror leaves you feeling grossly inadequate–how do we find new ways to define and celebrate our success?

Applied Science

  • The Scale Of The Universe is an awesome sciencey site that allows you to “zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!” Enlightening and fun.

Shameless Self Promotion

  • For Shimer alums, Mike Anderson is writing up  travel logs. He briefly mentions meeting up with me in Milwaukee.
  • The new issue of the Performance Menu is out. It includes a piece I wrote on the top ten strategies for dealing with injuries. There’s also an article on pain management, a piece on the power phase of weightlifting and and a wonderful piece on the lessons of physical culture history, written by Chip Conrad of Body Tribe. The entire issue is yours for five bucks.

 

 

 

 

 

5 Steps To Improve SEO For Your Brick & Mortar Business

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3D Team Leadership Arrow ConceptWhether you own a gym, cafe, bike shop, recording studio or some other kind of business operating out of a physical location (as opposed to an online business), chances are that you want to increase foot traffic. Listen to this 17-minute audio file for five steps you can take to improve your web presence, increase your visibility in search engine rankings and get more business.

[audio: http://yaelwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/SEO_Part_1_1.mp3]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Shownotes

Intro:  Your unique selling proposition (USP), ethics/karma, and why it’s a bad idea to try to trick readers and/or search engines.

(I mentioned that I knew some great WordPress designers. DeLorenzo Media is one of them.)

Step #1 (5:49): Help people find your site by making sure your web copy includes words they’d be searching for, which is usually the type of business you offer, and the name of their city and state.

(Examples: “Kickboxing” + “Tucson” or “fair trade coffee” + “Seattle, WA”)

Shining Example: Catalyst Athletics. (You don’t have to list all surrounding cities for your area, especially if you live in a large city, but if you are in a small city or town, it might be a good idea.)

Step #2 (7:22): Use the alt tag for your images to describe physical products, or to work in the name of your business, type of business, city and state (see #1).

Shining Examples: Blonde Chicken Boutique. (I learned about alt tags from the Blonde Chicken herself!) It’s hard to take a screen shot of an image alt tag, but if you go to that site and hover over the upper right corner of each photo, a yellow box will pop up with a description of the product. Copyblogger always uses alt tags for their images.

I didn’t mention this in the audio, but on my own site, I use a WordPress plug-in called SEO-image. (It is available at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-image/). If you have a WordPress site, simply install it and then go to  wp-admin > Settings > Seo friendly images and set it up. You can choose from setting up alt/title tags for images based on the post title, file name, category name or tags.

Step #3 (8:52): Use map listings to improve foot traffic by making sure all addresses are spelled exactly the same (including the same abbreviations or lack of abbreviations). Locations to check include Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local Listings, YellowPages.Com, CitySearch.com, Local.com, Hotfrog and Goguides.org.

Don’t forget to research the “reviews” for your competitors on the Google map listings, and look up all those reviewing sites, too! Make sure your business is listed and the information is accurate and consistent–again, abbreviated and non-abbreviated words are not considered according to Google and other search engines!!

Step #4 (12:45) Work on getting local incoming links. National exposure is great, but usually serves more to energize your existing (local) customer base. Focus your media strategy on local sites. Hone your connections for this: local tourist sites, any professional groups with local chapters (or local groups) that you’re a member of, local newspapers, Patch.com business listings if there’s a Patch in your area. I also mentioned Google Analytics for analyzing incoming web traffic. It is invaluable.

Step #5 (14:27) Use your website and social media to get people in the door. I’m sure you can come up with your own examples! We all love Facebook and twitter, but a mailing list (keep a clipboard in your store) is even better, so that you can send coupons, specials, event information, etc. to your raving fans directly. (Mailchimp and Aweber both work well for email list management. Mailchimp is often free, and Aweber is a bit more user-friendly. There are many other services to choose from as well.)

NEED MORE HELP?

For a limited time, I’m cutting my price in half and offering 30-minute SEO consultations/brainstorming sessions for only $32.50. Interested? Simply pick two or three possible times through my Tungle page, and I’ll send select a time and send you a short questionaire and we’ll get started. I’d be thrilled to work with you!

I’m also available for SEO copywriting, map listing and blogging, so feel free to contact me with your specific project.

I’m not a know-it-all SEO expert, but I do know enough to get good traffic to my website. I wasn’t sure that doing an SEO consult with Yael would unearth a ton of new ideas, however, I left our call with three specific areas of improvement to address and improve. The thing I like most of all about Yael’s advice was that she took into consideration my unique non-creepy marketing approach in her suggestions. Her background in copywriting is a definite asset and she never told me to sell my soul. In fact, I’m already seeing results from her suggestions and feel excited to implement the rest! If you’re tempted to get SEO advice from Yael, you’ll appreciate her customized suggestions and enthusiasm! –Jennifer Hofmann, Inspired Home Office

Yael’s Variety Hour: Wheelin’ Deals, Overtraining, Bacon & More

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This week’s Variety Hour features links on overtraining, making deals, getting annoyed and whether or not that waitress was actually hitting on you. There’s also a recipe and links to two pieces of mine: an article on adapting BJJ for self-defense and a blog post on this really awesome BJJ gym I visited in Milwaukee. Check it out.

Links o’ the Week:
  • Sweet potato, Bacon and Egg Salad. My boyfriend made this, and I ate so much that I had to make more. Definitely the recipe of the week. Doubling it is a good idea.

Shameless Self Promotion

  • For those of you who live in the Twin Cities, BodyTribe will be doing a Brutal Recess clinic on the 31st from 1-3:30 at the Athlete Lab on 3225 Country Drive in Little Canada. $40 fee. Be there!
  • Stay tuned to this site for some really great information on search engine optimization (SEO). We’ll first discuss SEO for brick and mortar businesses (those with physical locations) and then expand into SEO for online businesses. I’ll be offering a big discount on SEO consults as well. Make sure to keep checking back.

Send Me Your SEO Questions

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I’ll be posting some audio sessions on improving search engine optimization sometime soon.

I’ll start with SEO for brick and mortar businesses (i.e. businesses with physical locations: cafes, gyms, studios, shops, etc.) How do you increase foot traffic to your business?

Please e-mail me any questions you have, so I can make sure to answer them!