by Cris Blackstone
Search Engine Optimization or
Stacey’s Experiences are Outstanding
Cruising through anyone’s Instagram tells a story – a story they crafted intentionally or a story you put in to the stream of photos because of your own experiences. In the case of Stacey Hirvela, that story could be overwhelming. As I scrolled through her #gardenstacey site, I was impressed with how her photos are shot with such honesty, telling the story her captions enhanced, but not taken over by the ways Instagram pics can be overthought and overworked. We learn a lot about Stacey – one of her top three favorite Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs is the Ginger Wine Ninebark; or that she’s been busy digging and prepping a garden plot and showed a multileveled shot of bones, pottery shards and glass bits she found doing that work. And the Icelandic knit sweater! That was where I stopped and went back and saw more in the photos I skimmed over, where she showed handspun yarn for a different project she was tackling! She really drew me in with that shot of the sweater ready for blocking. Iceland=my favorite vacation place! There was a part of Stacey’s story I wanted to connect with besides everything we’ll learn during her webinar on “SEO Rising to the Top-Getting to the Top of Search Results” scheduled for February 24, 2 PM EST.
Stacey Hirvela brings this topic to us, with her strong interest in people being successful with gardening and accomplishing what they want to with their personal connections to gardening. As a child, she remembers picking lily-of-the-valley flowers in her grandmother’s yard. In her first garden, she learned a lot about pruning, or maybe better said, how NOT to prune, since her severe cutback of lavender plants in that garden never quite recovered from her attempt. She’s shared that story countless times, so people realize that to garden is to grow! Grow our knowledge, confidence and that if you find what you love to grow, you’ll explore that plant and be successful. “Passion is far more crucial than knowledge or experience,” is her driving statement shared with gardeners, especially key in becoming a life-long gardener.
And, now with this role as the marketing manager for Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs, Spring Meadows Nursery and GreatGardenPlants.com, Stacy brings her outstanding experiences to her art and craft of marketing plants. During this webinar, the focus is on how to gain traction with the gamesmanship of search engine algorithms, but the person behind this webinar sharing that knowledge has a complex algorithm built from working as a landscaper during her college years, where she earned her degree in Linguistics. Hands in the dirt, boots on the ground, and seeing firsthand this type of gardening and intensive schedule gives her the strength of conviction when she recommends a plant or when she’s taking photos of plant trials which need to show, realistically, what a plant looks like and what the plant’s performance means in the garden.
Maybe it was also the Linguistics degree which led her to other outstanding experiences, such as her Sirius radio program, “Homegrown.” Her internship with Jeff Mendoza working on urban rooftop gardens, may have led her to continuing to cultivate dream jobs such as being a horticulturist for the Tavern on the Green in Manhattan. She now includes being able to work on large scale floral design work as a consultant for corporate events.
For the Garden Communicators audience, we have in Stacey Hirvela just about every aspect of garden communication work. Radio shows, content writing, horticulture for commercial clients, Rodale press author, and successful student in the NY Botanical Gardens Professional Horticulture Program along with marketing expertise AND the skills needed for internet search language – it’s tough to define Stacey succinctly.
She’s based in Western Michigan, but has a worldly sense of plants, gardens and the ways we can utilize the worldwide web’s ability to reach as many people as possible. With this webinar, you will learn what’s needed to get the results you want and your work deserves in a google search. Stacey says she will help “make sure your work doesn’t end up in the content graveyard.”
Want to learn more about SEO? Tune in to this podcast episode with Chris Sabbarese of Corona Tools and Stacey Hirvela as they discuss SEO strategies and website optimization.
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