During Voices That Matter Web Design Conference in Nashville last year, I sat down with Nikki McDonald, a senior acquisitions editor for PeachPit. One of the questions she asked me, well, she asked of everyone she interviewed at the conference: how to best rank highly in search engines for this very podcast. And by search engines she meant Google.
Nikki McDonald: Okay now to move to the very last question. It’s kind of complicated, but there could be a prize involved.
Christopher Schmitt: Okay.
McDonald: There will be a prize involved. We are asking everyone. Okay. Think about this: I want to know what is the best way readers, you know, designers can ensure, whoever is listening, can you show that the website where rank highly in Google. But in your response I need you to optimize your answer to make a search engine friendly.
And, if your podcast, right now, ranks the highest, you could win a prize to be determined later.
Schmitt: To Be Determined Later? That is a great prize!
McDonald: That’s the best contest.
Schmitt: I haven’t won To Be Determined Later yet, so that’s great. Something to look forward to put–
McDonald: I know.
Schmitt: –on the resume: “To Be Determined Later Winner”…
McDonald: Contest prize later. Who doesn’t want to enter?
Schmitt: I would say that who ever make the title for this podcast should be–
McDonald: Then what should be the title be?
Schmitt: Should be… Just put a lot of buzzwords CSS, Ajax, you know. “Christopher talks about these things.”
McDonald: Give me some best words. Come on. Spit them out.
Schmitt: Put them all in there: CSS, Ajax, PHP, Microformats–
McDonald: Microformats?
Schmitt: Yeah, we haven’t really talked about, but we should put that in there, too.
McDonald: Just in case.
Schmitt: Yeah, just in case. Also, put a transcript of what we are talking on the video, too, so Google can index that, too.
So, if you do that I should definitely be walking away with Prize To Be Determined Later.
McDonald: Because it’s yours?
Schmitt: And I will raise it above my head and just like, “Hey!” and everyone else is jealous.
McDonald: Thank you, Christopher Schmitt, for sitting down and talking with me here in Voices That Matter Conference and enjoy the rest of you stay in Nashville and have a good conference and hopefully we see at the next one.
Schmitt: Thank you so much.