The SEO Pro - Sean Carlos and Antezeta

SEO and Web Analytics for professional website management

For those of you who do not know what SEO stands for, it’s Search Engine Optimisation. What this means is that through the use of various techniques which are backed up by healthy doses of technology, people using the internet via search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN etc) will find your website more easily. If you run a business, this means that leads, and thus sales, will increase.

In order to achieve the increase in internet search generated leads and sales, an SEO expert, such as Milan based Sean Carlos, Antezeta’s president, can help you.

Sean, who has worked in various big name organisations, including Pirelli and Hewlett Packard, knows plenty about SEO. This is something to which I can attest seeing as, as one expat to another, he has been helping me out with the SEO aspects of this blog. Sean is also up to date with the latest technology and, through his knowledge of Italian, German and English, can help sites raise their profiles in a variety of European markets.

In addition to its SEO related work, Antezeta can help unravel the complexities of Web Analytics. For the uninitiated, Web Analytics is the interpretation of the heaps of data that the average website collects on site usage – pages, visitors and the like. Through the analysis of such data, an SEO expert, such as Sean, can understand what works and what does not with regard to a website. Indeed, Sean has worked with the Web Analytics Association and the University of British Columbia to produce what is probably the first known Web Analytics course. This indicates that Antezeta really can help you to interpret and benefit from all those statistics your site creates.

Personality, or your website’s theme

However, SEO is not as simple as just sorting out the statistics, oh no. Many sites have a particular personality, and attract visitors with particular characteristics, and Sean can help webmasters understand how to keep a site’s character closely matched to its visitors, both existing and future. Antezeta also offers site usability advice to help you keep those visitors once they’ve reached you.

As Sean well knows, SEO can be an ongoing process, and results often do not happen over night, unless paid advertising like Google’s AdWords is employed to draw visitors into a site. Sean does advocate a merit-based SEO traffic model for the best medium to long-term results. Perhaps a better term may be ‘authority related traffic‘, for the secret to this technique revolves around a combination of good content and efficient SEO optimisation. The relationship between these two elements raises a site’s authority in the ‘eyes’ of many search engines, with the net result being increased well targeted traffic. Read higher sales, ad income, etcetera.

SEO in Italy vs. the UK

Now, although many in the UK have yet to cotton on to the benefits of good SEO, Italy is even further behind. According to Sean, in Italy’s case, this is partially down to the reduced level of internet usage here, and partially due to a basic lack of understanding of just how essential search engines are to the performance of a website or web based business. In Sean’s estimation it’s going to be around five to ten years before Italy catches up with the rest of the world in terms of internet usage. However, I beg to differ. Why? Because things like Wi-Fi, WiMAX and better more portable internet surfing devices will mean that more Italians get on-line. And once mobile phones provide good fast internet access at a low cost, I believe that Italians will be all over the world wide web.

Ready to profit from Milan’s 2015 World Expo?

Even if you agree with Sean, or tend towards my view, adopting an SEO strategy now is going to give your on-line businesses a head start over slow off the mark rivals. And, for Italian webmasters who wish to attract visitors from outside of Italy, SEO will, literally, pay dividends. It may also be worth remembering that in 2015, the World Expo is coming to Milan, and this event will raise the profile of the city both in real terms and virtually. Thus, a site that has worked at SEO will be in a much stronger position with regard to attracting business generated on the back of the Expo event. The same obviously goes for non-Italian web based businesses who wish to create Expo generated leads.

Next steps for SEO success

If you would like to face the future confidently, and you run a business with a sizeable web presence, then contacting Sean would be a very wise thing to do. For the moment, Antezeta is concentrating on the more far sighted medium to big business market, but that is not to say that Sean’s company will never be offering its services to smaller companies.

As a matter of interest, Sean has already carried out a brief SEO audit of Blog from Italy, and, I’m pleased to report that my mainly inadvertent SEO tactics just about passed his initial examination. He also kindly told me what I need to improve to achieve the results I’d like to see. Thanks Sean!

For more information about Antezeta SEO services and Sean, visit the Antezeta site, with free SEO resources, also in Italian and German. And don’t forget to check out Sean’s SEO related blog.

Free Wi-Fi in Parco Sempione, Milan!

Yes, the service is now here and, most probably, works. I did have a little fun tracking down just where I needed to go to sign up for this wifi service, and the lady in the bar next to the children’s play area in the park did not really know, although she did say that lots of people had been asking the very same question. She pointed me in the direction of the library, so wandered over there.

Nothing, apart from a man using his laptop next to the library. I asked him about this not well publicised service and, initially, he told me to go to a place on the other side of town to sign up. He must have read the expression of disbelief on face (…as I started mentally cursing Italian complexity…), because he suddenly remembered another place where one could sign along the dotted line and go wireless for free. And this place was the much more conveniently located Aquarium (- on the map), about five minutes walk away.

Once you are at the ‘Aquario’ , which is virtually in the park, mention ‘wireless’ or point at your laptop and say ‘Internet’, or just try speaking, slowly, in English. And if you have made yourself understood, you will be asked to complete a simple form and to show some form of identification with a photo on it - a passport should be fine. Then, you will be given the top portion of the little form which has the wireless system logon info on it, plus instructions in English on how to connect. Now you can wander off into the greenery and try out the service for the next 3 hours, for this is how long your wifi authorisation will last. Although I’m not sure, I imagine that this 3 hours can be broken down into shorter time periods, so you can connect for 10 minutes one day and then use up the rest of your allotted time next week or something. As you may imagine, after having finally signed up for the service, I was eager to see how it worked.

Alas, I did not manage to use the service. Try as I might, I just could not get my pocket pc connected. However, before putting anyone off, let me just add that trying to connect with a Windows Mobile 5 pocket pc will not be as easy as hooking up with a normal everyday wifi enabled laptop. I’m sure the service will work fine for those of you with normal laptops, and at some point I’ll pop down to the park with my own ‘real’ pc and see if I can connect. For those of you who do have Pocket PCs and who would like to be able to use this system, I think that with some playing around and a little more knowledge, I will be able to get my Dell Axim to hook up to this wifi service. And I’m sure others out there, more capable than me, with have no problems connecting pocket pcs to this network. Before I next attempt to connect with my ppc, I shall also visit Guglielmo, the wifi provider’s web pages, to see if there is any specific information about Windows Mobile 5 devices.

I know Windows Mobile devices do not interest everyone. However, something which might be of interest to more people is that the Parco Sempione wifi service has a VOIP capability, so you can Skype your friends and make inexpensive phone calls from a park bench.

And finally, a word of warning.  Parco Sempione is a pretty safe place, but it is frequented by some ‘interesting’ types, so, especially if you are not male, do not try to find a spot that is too out of the way to do your wifi thing.  Try to stay near to one of the bars in the park, or the library, or any other area that has a constant flow of pedestrian traffic.  Now, I’m not saying you will have problems, and, most probably, you will not, but computers are a) not cheap b) crammed full of photos and other information that most of us would hate to lose.  The application of a little bit of common sense should ensure that your Parco Sempione wifi experience is a good one.  Have fun.