Speaking of SEO

I've found it helpful to think about Search Engines like people. What I mean is, if Mrs Google comes to your site, she is looking in particular places to figure out what your site is about, and then validating the pages against the indications that higher level data gives her. She sees a domain named "www.tatertots.com" and thinks "this might be a site about tater tots". She goes to the home page and sees the word tater tots in several areas. She follows a link title "Tater Tot Ingredient Information" and goes to a page with the url "www.tatertots.com/tater-tot-information.html" - where she finds a page that lists all the ingredients but doesn't say the word "tater tot" anywhere - just a list of food ingredients! The page obviously should have certain basic areas that repeat this phrase or variations of the phrase so that Mrs. Google doesn't feel confused or ripped off.

This is a simplification of course - there are many gotcha issues with seo, such as duplicate content issues, keyword stuffing, spam, link syndication, etc - and Mrs. Google will look at all of these and negative marks against you as an information authority as it regards tater tots. But it gives you an idea of a common sense way to look at search engine optimization.

The New Information Authorities?

I attended SearchFest '08 yesterday at the Portland Zoo. The lack of cellular and wireless internet coverage made for unforeseen levels of attention from those in attendance. It was amazing to watch internet professionals pay actual full attention to something for once. On the other hand, the panelists HAD ethernet connections and seemed to be furiously blogging whenever not engaged with presentation tasks. I found this to be an apt analogy for the state of the web as described by both Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz and Marty Weintraub of aimClear.

Rand made it clear that the people that you are marketing to, especially with social media related SEO efforts, are NOT your customers but rather the "linkerati" - the small group of bloggers and high authority sites/hubs that can immensely boost your visibility in both natural search and social media sites like Digg, Delicious, etc. And as Marty said: "Don't piss off the natives". In other words, be genuine (or simulate it....?), don't try to sell (blatantly), and be unique.

So as I looked at these panelists furiously Twittering and blogging about what they were doing at the moment, I could only help but think that this is just a new version of traditional media. You've got power users who have built up authority, sometimes due to compelling and engaging content, sometimes because they are the loudest/most persistence voice with the most technical tricks up their sleeves. They hold the keys to your customers. You've go to figure out how to talk to THEM.

Anyway, cynicism aside, it really was a good conference. Hats off to Rebecca from SEOmoz, who had a Towelie (from South Park fame) slide. I learned a lot of details that will be helpful to our SEO practice here, including a bunch of new tools to check out. Paid link detection seems to be something that is really changing the face of the industry as well, so we'll see how that shakes out.

Wim Hof

I promise to post something more relevant later, but I am up at the SearchFest conference at the Oregon Zoo (a likely place for this collection of geeks, hipsters, and sick monkeys like yours truley). I just had to share this though - in his excellent keynote, Rand Fishkin from SeoMoz used Wim Hof as an example. This guy is incredible! He is completely immune to the cold - climbed Everest in shorts!!! Look him up...

Erasing the Past (do the 301)

Sure, the digital landscape is littered with detritus. I think my original geocities website is still even floating out there, complete with Java applets, my resume, and a link to my thesis about Jazz Autobiography. And the world should really be spared all that - it is the kind of memorabilia posted with half baked intention that gives the internet a bad rap.

But at the same time as we've cultivated this "data neglect", mostly through underhwelming apathy, we've also become a culture of deleters. Perhaps it is sheer rage that allows us to delete emails we've never read, or perhaps it is simply a philosophy of good old pragmatism - when the shrubs are a little overgrown you trim them, but if they are wildly overgrown you take a machete to them.

That's the idea.

So is it any surprise that companies routinely skip the step of creating 301 redirects when creating a new website? I suggest it goes beyond lack of knowledge - most experienced web builders with a little Search Engine Optimization knowledge know about 301 redirects - I think it also belies this new change in attitude towards information. Digital bits themselves have little material value, and this is fostered by the overgrowth and instant repetition of content and ideas. This is a cookie cutter approach towards information and users that further cheapens things.

Creating a new website without creating 301 (permanent) redirects from the old content paths to the new paths is equivalent to throwing all the search engine equity you had down the drain. If that's not bad enough - assuming you at least remove the old site files, if you instead use a different kind of redirect, you may even be penalized (all engines on reverse).

Do the 301s.

I Google I Misanthrope

I was reading through some whitepapers from Enquiro yesterday. They're the folks who have done extensive research into how users perceive and use search engines. They've heat mapped how folks perceive a search results page and done extensive lab studies on the complex nature of search engine usage. Anyway, one interesting conclusion is that "We found that Google has created an inherent contradiction between their mission and their business model that results in a interesting dynamic with their users. " (that's from "Inside the Mind of the Searcher" by Gord Hotchkiss)

The thinking behind this is that Google has purposefully created a sharp visual distinction between the organic results and the paid ("sponsored") results by placing the paid links in areas commonly used for advertising and treating them different visually. This 'honesty' to its users has helped develop a loyal Googlerati. However, the types of users who value this honesty typically ignore and distrust paid listings - and don't click on them.

It will be interesting to watch Google's continuing effort to build a subscriber base of distrustful misanthropes like me.

SEO Babel

I use no fewer than 7 different applications when compiling SEO reports for clients. I need Excel and Powerpoint to assemble and present data, Wordtracker and/or Overture/Google keyword tools to understand keyword spaces, standard analytics packages to understand and report on traffic, pay per click and other 3rd party campaign reports, and SEO specific packages (like SEO Studio) to run reports on rankings and competition. This is all supplemented by queries on sites like Alexa, Digg, etc.

This can be quite wearisome, but I am not asking for your sympathy. I believe I can typically pull the data together into a presentation that makes sense for the client, but without getting crazy and using way to much budget, I can't typically present the type of eye candy that my client would like to present to *their* boss.

Google Analytics is a good example of this problem. Although it doesn't pretend (and can't) assemble all of the data I currently get from disparate sources, this tool is clearly intended to be experienced first hand. Its snappy flash graphs and intuitive presentation really impress and demonstrate, however it's a trick to print the pages, let alone embed the charts in a presentation. To extend the point - Google Analytics probably has the BEST visuals out of all the tools I use.

I guess I will just stick with Excel graphs and verbal explanations, supplemented by Webex sessions. But it would be nice if someone would just hear my plea and design the meta-meta-ultra-analytics aggregator for me. Thanks.