Posts Tagged ‘Google’

The origin of the name Wheeler (it isn’t what you think)

When I was a young boy, I asked my dad about the origin of our last name.  He wasn’t sure and guessed that it must have come from someone long ago who made wheels.  That is about as uninteresting as me saying I’m an accountant who does taxes.
ExRx.net : Bodybuilding buy clen max Machine seated row | Exercise Videos & Guides | Bodybuilding.com
The actual origin is a little more exciting than what is often depicted as prehistoric man’s first invention.  I did a Google* search for information about the Wheeler family and found “The Genealogical and Encyclopedic History of the Wheeler Family in America.”  This book, published in 1914, gives a well-researched explanation:
The third striking point is the meaning of the name “Wheeler” itself.  For this, it is evident, determination must be made from the earliest form on record.  How significant is this early appearance has been mentioned, a fact all the more remarkable when it is remembered that surnames do not appear in general use until the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  This early spelling “Wielher” is evidently a compound of two Anglo-Saxon words “wel” or “wiel” meaning “prosperous” or “fortunate,” from which derivation the modern word “weal” and “wealth” may be traced; and the Anglo-Saxon word “hari” or “heri” a warrior, a root traceable in the modern word “hero.”  The present spelling of the family name “Wheeler,” therefore, is a spelling of words which in their modern form would be “Weal-Hero” or in the Anglo-Saxon words “wel-hari.”  The meaning of the family name therefore is clearly “the lucky warrior,” or “the prosperous hero.”
I could use the origin of my name to more creatively explain what I strive to do as a CPA: I share my expertise to empower prosperous (successful) heroes (business owners). *I typed one of my ancestor’s names into Google and got 11,900 results in three-tenths of a second.  Search technology is one that I’ve taken for granted, but my ancestor who lived 150 years ago would have been impressed.

Google me, autocomplete me

Out of curiosity, I occasionally enter my name in Google to see how I am doing in my goal to dominate the first page of Google search results.  Today, I decided to take a different approach and see how Google autocompletes searches for my name. According to Google, its algorithm predicts queries based on other users’ search activities. These searches provide some insight into what phrases people have used to search for me and other lucky guys out there that share my name. When I enter “Dustin Wheeler” in the search box, Google suggests the following: Dustin Wheeler AutocompleteThe first one listed is Dustin Wheeler, CPA.  Yes, that’s me!  The next two are not me (though “Dustin Wheeler Chevrolet” has a nice ring to it – it’s a dealership in Hinton, Oklahoma). Next, I went through the alphabet adding a letter after my name to see how Google autocompletes it.  Here is the letter L: Dustin Wheeler Autocomplete L Las Vegas is one of the few cities that comes up.  People could have searched for me using the city where I live to narrow the search results. Moving on to Q… Dustin Wheeler Autocomplete Q Yes, I am a member of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program. Another fun activity is entering a company or product followed by the word “is.”  Searches for “Google is” and “Facebook is” produces some really funny autocomplete suggestions, though they are mostly negative in nature.  Google’s algorithm has some kind words for FreshBooks, however. FreshBooks is awesome Hopefully, Google’s autocomplete will say the same about me someday.

A Tribute to the Bloggers Who Link to Me

Thanks to Google Webmaster Tools, I can find out what other CPA and tax bloggers link to me in their blogrolls.  Below is part of a screenshot showing the blogs with the most links to my site.

List of Sites That Link to Me

If you are interested in tax or accounting, these blogs are worth following.
  1. Roth & Company, PC Tax Update Blog by Joe Kristan in Des Moines, Iowa.  As you can tell by the number of links, this guy is a blogging machine.  My only complaint is that he blogs so much I can’t keep up with every post.  Joe explains tax law in a way that is easy for everyone to understand.  He doesn’t use big words or refer to obscure sections of the Internal Revenue Code.  He also has the uncanny ability to find humor in every tax court case he blogs about.
  2. Beancounter Ramblings by Chad and Donna Bordeaux in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Chad and Donna effectively market their firm with their website and blog.  They blog not only about Federal tax issues, but also state and local tax news.  Like Joe, they have a good sense of humor and are fun to follow on Twitter.
  3. CPA Technology Blog by Brian Tankersley.  Brian is the technical editor of the CPA Practice Advisor and teaches educational courses for K2 Enterprises and Becker CPA Review.  Brian blogs about technology topics that impact the accounting profession.  Brian’s blog, in part, inspired me to create mine.
  4. There are a countless number of blogs on blogspot.  Google Webmaster Tools doesn’t identify which one links to me.  I think that most, if not all of these links come from PRI Tax and Bookkeeping Services, which I became aware of thanks to a few kind comments on my blog with links to their site.  This tax and bookkeeping firm is located in Elgin, Illinois, and on their blog, I am listed as one of only two “favorite blogs.”  What an honor!
I appreciate being listed in these blogs’ sidebars.  They provide me with quality inbound links that contribute to my PageRank in Google.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after Roth & Company added a link to my blog, there was a dramatic increase in traffic from Google searches. Check out the bottom of my right sidebar for more link love.
Enhanced by Zemanta

My Plot to Take Over Google Searches for my Name

Many villains in TV shows and movies have evil plans to take over the world.  I have a much more attainable goal: take over the first page of Google when my name is searched for! *insert maniacal laughter here*

Google me!

I thought it would be a good idea to “take over” Google when I read this blog post in the Harvard Business Review: Forget the business card – just Google me.  I love the business card in that blog post (which just shows a Google search box with the person’s name). A side benefit of this blog – although I didn’t create it solely for this purpose – is people being able to find me through my blog when searching for me on the Internet.  I recently Googled my name and found my blog in the first position among the search results (see below).  I used a few simple search engine optomization strategies to accomplish this.  My domain name includes my first and last name, my name is in the title tag of the blog, and the “about me” page is written in third person (even though it would have been more natural to write it in first person).

Google Results for Dustin Wheeler

Another strategy I recently began to implement is commenting on other people’s blogs.  The main reason why I comment on blogs is to add value to them, but search engine optimization is a side benefit.  The Google indexing robot finds my name and a link to my blog in each comment. Now that I have a presence for my name in Google searches, I can finally think about getting one of those fancy Google business cards … and ponder another devious plan.

Why It Took Me Months to Start Blogging

First, let me describe my background in regards to web design so you know where I’m coming from. I built my first web page in the year 2000 using Yahoo Geocities’ WYSIWYG site builder.  It was simple.  I just typed out some text and dragged it where I wanted it, and put pictures where I wanted them on the page.  It was fun and sparked an interest to learn more about web design. Shortly after that, I took a web page design class in college.  The course almost entirely focused on html code.  I enjoyed the course and felt proud to finally be a sophisticated “hard coder” creating web pages with Notepad.  I created several websites by just writing html code and CSS, including the website for my company, a Las Vegas CPA Firm. However, I soon discovered that creating a website this way has its problems.  For example, changing a navigation bar for all pages in the website required me to cut and paste new code to all of the twenty-or-so html documents that comprised each page of the website. My eyes were opened to a better way of managing a website at the AICPA Technology Conference in June 2009.  One of the speakers demonstrated how he used a content management system (CMS) to pull content from other sources on the Internet and automatically create html code.  Another session of the conference was entirely about “blogging, podcasting, and social networking” which covered how a blog can benefit a professional.  I left the conference with the resolve that I wanted to learn to use a CMS and become a blogger! It was a long journey from June to November 2009, when I posted my first article on my blog.  Why did it take so long?  Consider that I did all of the following:
  1. I carefully observed several other CPA bloggers and picked out things I liked and didn’t like from their blogs.
  2. I researched several CMSs and blogging platforms, including Joomla, Drupal, Blogger, and WordPress.  I finally settled on using self-hosted WordPress so I could have total control over my blog and customize it as much as I like.
  3. I purchased my domain and web hosting after a few hours of researching several web hosting services.
  4. I installed WordPress on my web server.
  5. Among more than one thousand themes (or general designs) on the wordpress.org website, I had to choose my favorite.  I then had to further customize my design so my blog wouldn’t look exactly like other blogs using the same theme.
  6. I installed several plugins and widgets (programs for backup, security, and sections of my blog, such as the Twitter and Google Reader feeds on the right sidebar).
  7. I started an account with Feedburner to create an RSS feed.
  8. I opened an account with Google Analytics and configured it to work with my blog, which I have discovered to be a great resource to see statistics of the traffic to my site.
  9. I also opened an account with Google Webmaster Tools to observe how Google indexes my blog.
  10. I created an “about me” page and a disclaimer (every blog should have one!)
  11. At this point, I started writing blog posts.  Every blog post has to catch the reader’s attention, be informative, and be entertaining.  I wouldn’t write anything I wouldn’t want to read myself!  It’s not easy.
This might all sound overwhelming to someone who has never created a website.  If you’re in this category, I have some good news.  It doesn’t have to take months to start blogging.  In fact, I created a simple blog using Blogger and finished it in about an hour.   This blog (dustinwheelercpa.com) took me so long because I created it the hard way, and I’ve learned a lot in the process.