BirdingGirl

On the advice of my neighbor John ( Bird Man of Bridgewater ) I recently joined the South Shore Bird Club . I attended their annual member's dinner last night, held in Norwell. It was a lot of fun to meet other South Shore birders, and it was certainly inspiring to watch the slide shows of the pros. There was a short presentation from Joan Walsh , Coordinator of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 2 , and I have to say her speech was motivating- I would love to participate and help them finish the breeding atlas. I'd definitely need to go out with a pro and have some coaching on how to look for breeding behavior, but the biggies (like if they're carrying sticks/nesting material, and obviously if you see them going back and forth to their nest) I think I've got down. Has anyone participated in a breeding atlas before?

This week's SEO tip for Birders (image optimization) is an important one since most bird bloggers like to post pictures of their sightings. Many of you have noticed that when you search on a bird species there are image results blended in with the rest of your search engine results. Example of bird species image results: SEO Tip for Birders : Optimize your images for bird species names. Bird Blogger Image Optimization Tips: • Always use the species name in your image file name - do this when you are reviewing and editing your digital images for your blog post. To rename a file simply right-click on it in the folder and choose "Rename." If you have multiple images of the same species use a - (hyphen) or a _ (underscore) to add a numeral to the end. For example: female+common+yellowthroat.bmp and female+common+yellowthroat_2.bmp If you are unsure of the exact species name then get as close as possible- "sparrow.jpg" Every little bit helps when it comes to SEO! •I...

In my last post I covered the titles of your blog posts and how you should include the most important words at the beginning of your titles. However, I didn't mention how to determine what the most important words should be. That brings us to my next SEO Tip for Birders- keyword research. SEO Tip for Birders : When doing keyword research identify words that a lot of people are searching for, but that you also have a chance of showing up on- it's a fine balance. There are many ways to generate ideas for your primary keyword phrase (the word/phrase you want to put at the beginning of your blog post title, and include in the body of your post), and your secondary keyword phrases (related terms that should be sprinkled throughout your blog post). Here are just a few ways to generate ideas for your targeted keyword phrases: 1. Your content : If you have a picture of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker then by all means choose it as your primary keyword phrase! In addition to the names of rar...

Some of you may already know that I work in Search Engine Marketing. I shared a few tips when I met up with the BwBTC (Birders who Blog, Tweet, Chirp) group this past summer, but I thought it might be nice to reach out to the rest of my readers, and make it a regular occurrence. I'll be sharing one SEO tip, customized for bird bloggers, each Friday. Some of you may be wondering, "What is SEO in the first place?" SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Other names for it are Natural Search or Organic Search. This is to differentiate it from Paid Search, also called PPC (pay per click) or SEM (search engine marketing). SEO is the practice of crafting your content (in our case our bird blog posts) so that it shows up at the top of search engine results. And most importantly, so that you are showing up on the keyword phrases (things like "peregrine falcon pictures" "binocular buying tips," etc.) that you want to be found on. The first tip I want to sh...

I was so happy to be home this past weekend so I could do some backyard birding, and count birds for Project Feederwatch. Actually, I recently connected with another Bridgewater birder, the " Bird Man of Bridgewater ," who also took pictures in the snow over the weekend. John is good at identifying the gender of birds in his pictures, something I blogged about last spring. I love this picture- I'm excited to have my very own picture of a Carolina Wren at a suet feeder. It's such a common picture for carolina wrens, and I'm glad this guy came around on Saturday to pose for me. This suet actually was a Christmas gift from my mom- it's a Berry blend and the birds love it. Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker: On a related note- not sure how to tell the difference between a Downy Woodpecker and a Hairy Woodpecker ? I wrote a post about it nearly a year ago. Red-bellied Woodpecker: Winter Goldfinch: Dark-eyed Junco (I like how you can see the darker feathers with it...

You can tell where I get my love of birding- my mom always takes good care of her backyard birds. You can see how she sprinkles bird seed on top of the snow for ground foraging birds like dark-eyed juncos. These pictures were taken Christmas Day. I didn't need a bird blind- I just had to open a 2nd-floor window and my zoom lens did the rest of the work. Dark-eyed Junco (with a mouthful of black-oil sunflower seed): Song Sparrow: There were also lots of black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, and northern cardinals. Great backyard birdwatching and great holiday! It was so nice to have some days off and spend time with my family.