Now, when I log out of Google (because Google also changes your search results based on your Google login and previous searches you’ve completed) and I search “new orleans tutor”, the following happens.

1. Google Local results: #3, behind The Princeton Review and The Tutoring Center.
2. Google search results: #11, first on the 2nd page.

I am very pleased with my progress: pretty good for someone with very few resources for advertising and absolutely no resources to hire SEO consultants, marketing consultants, PR folks, etc. It’s all come from hours of dedicated hard work, research, and old fashioned linking, etc.

One problem: I commented on a number of Wordpress blogs with links to my site. I was always relevant, but someone must have marked a comment of mine as spam. Now Akismet is blocking all of my comments as spam on any Wordpress blog, including my own! I have contacted Automattic to no avail so far. I will have to work on that.

Food for thought: Google and other search engines give users credit for both relevant links to users’ own sites and for relevant links to other sites. I am going to go against the normal spirit of competition here and link to some other private tutors in the New Orleans area that I have found online. I am curious to see if that has any effect on my search results and/or theirs. Regardless, it will help individuals combat overkill from agencies, large corporations, and sites like Wyzant (which takes 60% of your hourly fee!).

New Orleans Independent Tutors:

• Martha Stout Tutorial Services
• Tutoring By Sharon
• Tutoring By Tracy

Actually, those are the only three competitors I can find from a basic search. If you are a local private, independent tutor and want to be linked here, contact me.

Obviously, I am not going to give away all of my secrets here, but the following are some important rules that applicants writing personal statements and application essays for college/grad school should follow:

1. Answer the question. This sounds obvious, but you should always make sure you answer the question in your college’s essay prompt. The answer to the question should come in the form of a thesis. If your college/program does not supply you with any specific questions, you still need to have a thesis. In that case, your thesis should answer a question of your own choosing.
2. Tell a story. Do not answer in block format or paragraphs marked 1, 2, 3. Write paragraphs that flow together and that build off one another to explain your thesis. In this case, then, your thesis is the moral/climax/point of a story about yourself. (But make sure you answer the question!)
3. Be interesting. Don’t write about a cliche. Don’t write about something you might have written in the writing section of the SAT. Don’t write about something that Miss America or a political candidate might say. Write about something particular to you. If you are interested, then your reader won’t be bored or annoyed at you.
4. Follow directions. This also sounds obvious, but many students don’t follow the directions on the applications. Read them carefully. Adhere to any formatting, word count, and other directions.
5. Show that you understand the school/program to which you are applying. Colleges and graduate schools want applicants who are interested in them. You should indicate your familiarity with their academic programs and the social/cultural life on campus. Additionally, knowing your schools is a good insurance policy that you are applying to the right places. If you aren’t familiar with these things already, start reading and visiting. I’ve met numerous students who are unhappy because they’ve enrolled in schools/programs that they knew too little about and ended up hating because of this. Finally, it’s always good to mention majors, courses, and professors that might be relevant to you.
6. Communicate that this particular program/school is the right thing for you at this point in time. In fact, your thesis may simply be that this school/program is right for you now because …
7. Talk about yourself … but don’t be bombastic. First person is fine in this type of essay; actually, it’s required. You want to highlight a few of your accomplishments, but only in terms of how they prepare you for school. You also want to show that you are intellectually engaged in something that might relate to your school, but don’t come off like a know-it-all smart ass. Don’t be afraid to show your personality, either–colleges and universities want interesting people who can contribute intellectual, artistic, and political energy to their campuses, be good citizens, and even show school spirit. If you’re funny, you can be funny in your personal statement.
8. Show flexibility. By this, I mean, demonstrate through anecdotes or through your style that you are willing to learn, interested in broadening your horizons, open to new experiences, open to changing your mind, etc. Many colleges actually look kindly upon students who are willing to recognize contradictions and complications. You don’t have to pretend to be super-positive about everything, or that you are completely polished and fully formed as an adult, or that you are a golden child who does everything right … unless you really are one of these things, in which case you are pretty boring.
9. Finer points: grammar check, spell check, read aloud to yourself, have a friend read it, and revise. Hire a tutor or editor if you can.
10. Don’t use: contractions, the second person (you), slang (unless necessary), old-fashioned language (because you think it sounds smart or formal), words from a thesaurus that you don’t understand, quotations from Roget’s that you don’t understand and to which you have no connection, curse words, or essays you found on the internet.

Good sources:

• Carleton College
• U. Michigan
• Conn College
• U. Virginia

As of today, I appear 14th in the listings (D on the 2nd page). This is a step up from 20th in the listings, but only part of the way there.

The funny thing about all of this is that my Google AdWords ads (in pink) appear at the top of the listings for these results. But I don’t want to rely on paid advertising for search placement … Wouldn’t it be nice if ads counted for your rank in Google?

Anyway, I ‘ve done a few small things that I think helped me to move up in the rankings a few places here and even in regular Google searches:

1. I started blogging and linking to other sites, which helps build your clout with search engines like Google and Bing.

2. I changed my Google Local entry to contain the word “Tutoring” as part of my business name.

3. I got listed in a couple of more business directories.

My next step will be to ask clients for reviews.

Sources I’ve consulted in this project:

-http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

-http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/neil/seven-ways-raise-your-local-business-listing-rank-google

-http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-rank-for-your-local-keyword-in-google-maps/8547/

-http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/06/05/how-to-rank-higher-in-google-local

Clearly, many of my writing lessons require in-person meetings for full efficacy. It is difficult to work on long-term skill-building without face-to-face contact. Students usually learn better through direct contact that allows them and their teachers to ask questions, interpret body language, and follow up with each other over a period of time.

That said, there are certain projects that definitely lend themselves to eTutoring: short term and single assignments, and simple editing/feedback. For these types of assignments, I can act in the clients’ long-term best interests, provide good value, and help my clients succeed over the web.

Recently, while in New Orleans, I have served clients from New York City and Connecticut via email in the following two areas:

1. College application essay / personal statement editing

2. Term paper editing and advice.

For both types of projects, there was a specific goal to work towards. Both projects involved emails, phone calls, and the sending back and forth of MS Word documents (using “track changes”). Additionally, I always provided detailed cover letters with written analysis of my clients’ work.

The benefits to my clients were clear:

1. Value: I am in New Orleans. In New York City and CT, where the above clients live, tutors charge upwards of $100 an hour. My distance allows me to charge less, which can be crucial on personal statements and research papers that often require 3-4 hours or more to complete. If I were still living in New York City, in fact, I would charge at least double what I charge in New Orleans. My clients benefit by receiving the top-quality services from an elite tutor, writer, and editor at a much lower cost.

2. Speed: Online tutoring gives me the flexibility to work on projects wherever I am, however I like. I can usually turn around an assignment in a few hours. My online tutoring clients receive the same detailed feedback and careful consideration from a Columbia MFA/former writing instructor as any of my other clients, and they only have to check their email to receive it. In this case, technology works in everyone’s favor.

To order etutoring/online tutoring, please contact me first. Clients who only require college application essay help, may order those services here.

Because I am a local business without a storefront, my ranking in Google and other search engines matters a lot in terms of prospective clients being able to find me. I started a website and signed up for Google Local early on, but my rankings have been pretty bad.

On Google Local, I found that as soon as I changed my listing name to “Harrington Writing and Tutoring Professionals,” I started to appear first on searches for “Writing Tutoring New Orleans.” However, I am still on the second page of results for “Tutoring New Orleans,” which doesn’t help me a lot. Who browses to the second page of those things? Some people have said that review counts and distance from city center matters, but there are pages ranked ahead of my business that have no reviews and are further from downtown New Orleans than I am. Any advice on how to move up in that ranking would be welcomed.

Page 1 and Page 2 (where I am item J on Page 2 as of 11/21/09)

On regular Google, I assumed that I could jump up in the rankings by getting linked from as many top rankings as possible. A couple of weeks into my efforts there, and that isn’t quite turning out to be true. A lot of the top results for “tutor New Orleans” tend to be listings like Craigslist, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc. I am listed in all of those pages. In fact, my business is often the top business embedded within those search results. Yet, my business itself is not at the top. The reason is that most of those services mark their links “no follow”, which effectively blocks Google from counting them as a vote in your favor. The web, after all, is just a popularity contest.

So what do I do about that? My next tactic is to comment on as many relevant blogs as I can using links back to www.harringtonwritingpros.com where appropriate. Those blog links may not count as much as a real link from a reputable site, but they will be permanent links, and they won’t be marked “no follow.”

Current “follow” links www.harringtonwritingpros.com:

• StayLocal.com – A project of the Urban Conservancy, this site seems to be a good web citizen in allowing fully-followable (search engine friendly) links. Great news for small and local businesses! Good for your Google ranking too.
• Brownbook

Current “no follow” links to www.harringtonwritingpros.com:

• Nola.com
• Craigslist.com
• Yellowpages.com
• OLX.com
• Yelp.com
• Topix.com

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Oh well. I understand that “no follow” links discourage spam and keep traffic focused on the sites providing the links.

All of that said, Harrington Writing Professionals has been a success. Briefly, I am going to offer some tips to people who are looking to start their own tutoring businesses:

1. Choose a niche and know it. I am a writer. That’s my training. That’s what I am good at. I don’t tutor math or other subjects that I am less than 100% comfortable in. A niche helps a tutor to build a good reputation. I will branch out some for younger clients, but I want to deliver a stellar product. If someone asks me to tutor their child in Trig, I won’t do it even if I did reasonably well in Trig because that’s not my thing.

2. Advertise locally. Most of my clients come from posters that I have put up at universities and businesses in my target areas. It takes hours of touring campuses and main strips to get any payoff from the gruntwork, but it really is worth it in the long run.

3. Get listed in every business listing website/directory you can find.

4. Google Ads! They are expensive, but they work. Google Ads draw targeted clients to your site: people who are looking for exactly what you offer in your area. As a caveat, Facebook ads drew lots of web traffic, but no real business. Facebook visitors spent an average of 12 seconds on my site compared to 3:15 from Google visitors.

5. Don’t spend too much on overhead. A car can be important, but meet people at their homes, at libraries, and at coffee shops.

6. Network. Get business cards and pass them out to people you meet. Stay in touch with clients. Ask clients to serve as recommendations.

7. Choose your work/clients carefully. You are your own boss, so set your schedule and choose the type work you do on your own terms.

8. Don’t rely too much on the internet. You need a website these days, but it should be informational; it should help introduce clients to you and your services. Nevertheless, human contact is the key. Although I do edit/tutor writing via email, that is a tiny percentage of my business. Moreover, it’s hard to get readers to visit your website and it’s hard to get a good ranking in Google. One of the best ways to improve your Google rank for certain key words is to get other websites to link to you. That means you need help from friends, you need to be listed in directories, and you need to comment on a lot of other peoples’ blogs/websites and link back to your site. (But don’t spam!)