Checking your final grades.

Checking your final grades.

It is easy for our teachers in the New media and Web Development program at BCIT to run through their final grade check, and make sure all spread sheet boxes are filled in, while still making a few mistakes along the way.

I recently benefited from checking through a final grade and making sure all the proper points were recorded for assignments and exams.  Even though this a bit of a mundane task, there is no way a teacher will know they are making mistakes without students finding the mistakes.

I would recommend all students should check through the breakdown of their final marks, not only to make sure they are given the grade they earned, but also to help the teachers that do make mistakes learn from their mistakes.  Both parties can benefit from this.

Who knows, maybe my omitted grade was mixed up with someone else’s and they received my marks for an assignment they didn’t complete.  Maybe that was you?  You wont know unless you check.

7 Steps for better SEO

1. Relevant keywords

The first step is to research related and relevant keywords and phrases that customers or website visitors would be searching for.

Example: if your your bike shop is in Vancouver BC, Vancouver bike shop would be an Important key-phrase.

Your main focus should be understanding your customers language that they might be using while searching for your company.


2. Optimize the content of your site

It is really important to create rich high-quality content when driving traffic to your site. In todays age, content is extremely critical for internet users and search engines.

Testimonials, customer reviews, and Q&A's are highly recommended, information about your staff is also very useful for users and SE.

Take full advantage of your contact page, for localized business it is said that other than the home page the contact page is second most important page. make sure to include:

• company name
• phone number 
• address
• embedded geo site map

The more content you have the better, making sure it is all valid and useful.

Once you have all your metadata and keywords in place,  now you can start looking for non related factors that will benefit your site.

3. Be consistent 

Inconsistency is a big no-no when it comes to SEO, Google and Bing both have a disliking for content of this nature as it can negatively effect your online presence.

Use the same details throughout your social media platforms, websites and local listings.

4. Legitimate and genuine reviews 

Ask customers who actively use your site for genuine reviews. When I say genuine reviews I don't necessarily mean positive, constructive criticism is highly recommended to benefit services. 

Give your  users several ways and options for commenting and reviewing.

5. Social profile optimization

To reach out to all potential customers its important to stay active on all social media platforms.

Make sure that all your social profiles are linking to each other and include your location and region, as well as your business name and a URL back to your website.

Listing your Facebook page as a local business will improve the chance of reaching the top listing in Facebook search.

6. Mobilize your site

There is over 1 million new users a day accessing the internet from their phone.

For customers in local regions mobile access is highly convenient for users on the go.

Be cautious of software like Flash and PDF that aren't fully supported on more popular devices.

7. Update and analyze results

Once you start working on your local SEO, its important to analyze your results. The best way to do this is to use tools to monitor and analyze.

First off is monitoring your selected keywords. A good tool to do so is AWR Cloud.

Moz Analytics is also a good source for monitoring rank.

Check your rank on a weekly basis and keep note of noticeable changes.

Once you have the previous tools i mentioned set up, now is time to use Google Analytics for a organic analysis of your website to monitor its improvement. 

So if your doing these steps properly you should be able to track and noticeably see an increase in traffic :)

ENJOY!

Hip Hop Hippity Scotch

November 24th, 2014

Hop Scotch festival was this past weekend and it was truly a blast. It was my first time attending and, based on the video from last year’s event, I had a particular set of expectations: busy, packed, loud, and busy. As it turned out, it was most of those things, but they were far from being the negatives I was expecting. The crowd was boisterous but civil and friendly, and there was more than enough beer and spirits to go around.

They even brought out a pipe band! Pretty cool.

Don’t ignore the Scots

Naturally, you might say, I was there for the beer. But I did get to try some phenomenal whisky as well. The two notables for me were the Macallan 1824 Amber and the Penderyn Madeira Single Malt. The two were vastly different, and not least because the latter is from Wales. Whisky like these two were good reasons to sample not just the beer at this year’s Hopscotch Festival.

But on to the beer

Yes, on to the beer. Boy, was there ever a whole lot of beer! The best part was the preponderance of our Metro Vancouver and British Columbia craft breweries. Bomber, Main Street, Yellow Dog, Four Winds, Parallel 49, Postmark, among others from around Vancouver. Howe Sound, Lighthouse, Bad Tattoo, Longwood, Mission Springs, Phillips, and many more from farther afield. There were literally too many beers (for me) to try, even considering that I went with two friends and we each got different samples at each booth and shared them. Not that I’m complaining. It was great.

The stand-outs

So any post about Hopscotch by default must include a top arbitrary number of beers from the event. I’m so arbitrary that I’m just going to pick two:

1. Yellow Dog Shake a Paw Smoked Porter
2. Longwood Whisky-Infused Stoutnik Cask

Yep, I’m just that arbitrary. Not to say that there weren’t others beers on offer that were phenomenal, but these two really stood out from the crowd. They Yellow Dog is the recent award winner for Best in Show at this year’s BC Beer Awards and it was well worth it. A great, flavourful porter whose richness is augmented by the smoky, campfire aromas. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.

And the Stoutnik cask was amazing. Sure it was the end of the night, and it was strong, and a bit sweet. But Stoutnik on it’s own is a great. Infusing the beer with whisky was a master-stroke. Too bad it was only for Hopscotch, but I feel privileged to have tried it.

And one final shout-out

Finally, I need to once again give a shout out to the organizers for providing a free shuttle bus and transit tickets to keep people out of their cars. That was genius and we took full advantage, even getting treated to a freestyle rap battle on the way downtown. Already looking forward to next year.

Time Management

As the saying goes "their aren't enough hours in a day" it really seems like this is true when living a busy lifestyle. Balancing work, school, your social life, eating, and even sleeping, can really start to get you unorganized and exhausted. 

In this blog I will show you a few tips and tricks to make time work for you. 

The first tip and one of the most important is, keeping notes, either in a journal, a white board or even sticky notes on your fridge. it may not seem like its that important but this is the easiest way to stay organized.

the second tip is to prioritize your projects and most important stuff going on in your life. I know it can be a burden and seem like a chore but starting with cleaning your personal environment doesn't only help improve your time management but will help you work more comfortably in your own space which will lead to better time spent. 

The third tip I'm going to share with you is to get a regular routine or schedule. This will come as second nature but sometimes its easy to fall back on bad habits and procrastinate what really needs to get done. Start by creating a daily hourly schedule. this will really give you a great visual representation of what you need to accomplish in a day, enabling you to manage your time in the most effect manner.

If you follow these three simple steps in your daily routine, you will find your time being spent at the utmost potential.

cheers!

After Effects Project

View from BCIT Vancouver Downtown Campus

About Me

My name is Sarah Christie and I am currently in my seventh month of the program, "New Media and Web Development" at BCIT in Vancouver. 

Today we're in our Social Networking class and we're learning about blogging. Every week I'll be updating on my experience of how my portfolio work is coming along.

Week One

After Effects

This will be one of the busiest weeks of the term because of midterms and projects. One of the bigger projects I am working on is an After Effects project. We're supposed to choose a myth and make an animation based on it. Hence why it's known as the, "Mythbusters Project". My myth is wondering if Vancouver is the rainiest in Canada or not? Believe it or not, Vancouver is not the rainiest in Canada.

Sneak peek of the Mythbusters Project

                                                    

Challenges

One of the challenges I find for this project is that I want to create more complex effects, but can only do so much with what is given by default.  I hope in the future I can explore more of the plugins especially for the upcoming music video that I will be creating. 

Youtube Channel

Eventually I would like to have these videos I created on my youtube channel, but that is in the works right now. I might even show the video of where I "acted".  Stayed tuned for more incoming projects and yes, I will leave on cliffhanger.

You know your life is hard when you have to talk about yourself

How do you build a portfolio when you've never built one before? How do you show off your work? How do you choose the projects that define you as a person, as a professional? What is the narrative that these works create? What do they have in common?

I'd like to say that this struggle has been going on for ages but let's be honest here: it only began six weeks ago when my first portfolio class began in the New Media program at BCIT.

Up until now, I've rarely shared any of my creative works, and now I need to come up with a minimum of six to show off; and ones that have a specific message or theme that conveys something about me that will help people know me. This is a big ask for someone who has a tough time sharing things online at the best of times.

I'm used to internet anonymity. Until recently, all of my email accounts, let alone any accounts on burgeoning (or established) online social networks, were all under pseudonyms or names fictional characters. My fist email address had my first name but some other letters that kept people guessing as to their meaning (I was consistently inconsistent, always changing it up). Other usernames are taken from characters from my favourite books or plays, almost as if I did not want to be found.

And here I am now, slowly changing some (but not all) of these accounts to be associated with a real person. A real person who needs to show who he is, and what he's capable of creating or accomplishing for a future employer. This is a scary thing to have to do, particularly as someone so accustomed to disguising his identity and historically fearful of having his work judged by others.

I guess I have to start somewhere....

Bike Vancouver Promo Video

The Idea:

Hi! My name is Ocean Mattei-Tomlinson, and I'm in a New Media Design and Web Development program at BCIT. 

Todays blog is on a video project I did for my video shooting and editing class.  It was my second project in the class and a lot of fun to create.

The idea for this promotional video was derived for my passion and my project partner’s passion for cycling. We decided to show case the designated bike streets and pathways in Vancouver to promote cycling in the city as it is not only a great way to get around town but also a great way to lesson the carbon footprint.

Production:

This was our first project where we had to shoot all our a-roll and b-roll footage, create music, and mix down the audio, and edit the entire project. We ran into some minor challenges and speed bumps due to weather and mic issues but managed to successfully complete the video.

Enjoy!