After One Month of Google Instant, Are You Feeling the Change? I Didn’t Think So.

Now that you’ve had a month to digest Google Instant, here’s a question for you: has anything really changed?

Sure, you may have found that the “instant” results that pop up in mid-type are, in fact, quite helpful to you, and maybe you’ve actually saved a little time every day if you do a lot of searches.

But other than that, have you noticed? That’s right -- search as we know it is just like it was a month ago! There was no huge SEO Armageddon as announced by virtually every columnist who’d barely had time to play with Google Instant before they predicted “The End of Search As We Know It.”

Which of course, it wasn’t.

That sure didn’t keep them from speculating, though. Why let a couple days worth of research stand in the way of a deadline? Here are links to three people with month-old egg on their face:

“This kills the need to bid on long-tail keywords.” (Oh, really?)

“Make sure you have a page ranked for all the important variations. Show up, no matter what final keyword string the searcher commits to.” (Uh, no.)

“What they really did is kill SEO.” (Yeah, right.)

It got so bad that Google had to put out a press release to let people know that no, Google Instant wasn’t going to change how you planned your SEO strategy; it was exactly what it appeared to be – an effort to save people a little time. Period.

That’s right, Google was merely doing something nice.

Here at Secret Underground Headquarters where I work, it may surprise you (although probably not) to know that when Google Instant went live, sure, we all got on to see what the excitement was about. And the general consensus was what you might expect in a business largely staffed by computer geeks: “Cool.”

We didn’t immediately assemble into the conference room with poison Kool-Aid, like all the SEO columnists seem to do every time Google announces that someone in research just went to the bathroom. We didn’t start wondering if our clients were going to leave in droves, because we know that most of them are too busy running their businesses to worry about an improvement that Google made to their search capabilities. That’s what they hire us for. They know we keep a cool head and actually understand link building and search, so they don’t have to. And we knew when we looked at it that Google Instant wouldn’t change anything overnight. Or over a month.

We’re still here, like we were a month ago, helping our clients to get the rankings they need. We use Google thousands of times a day and it’s safe to say we appreciate the suggestive help from Google Instant. But you can be sure that the next major announcement that comes out of Google is not going to make us blow a gasket. We know better. I know better. And so should you.

Next time, maybe cooler heads will prevail in the press. But don’t get your hopes up.

HOW YOUR LINKS ARE LIKE THE MARX BROTHERS

If you have Turner Classic Movies on your cable package, you have probably seen at least one Marx Brothers movie in your life. I hope it’s more. But in their heyday, the Marxes -- Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo – were extremely popular vaudeville stars who made their way into movies – some great, some average and a stinker or two.

The other day, I was watching Duck Soup – one of their best –and it suddenly hit me how easily you can compare the Marx Brothers’ on-camera personalities to your link building strategy . Check it out:

Groucho links: If you know any Marx Brother at all, it’s Groucho – the wisecracking, loud, “look at me” type that everybody can’t get enough of. Groucho can be funny at your expense, and you’ll come back for more, because you can’t wait to see what he’s going to say next, and you can’t wait to tell everybody else about it. Clearly, Groucho is link bait. A little stunning, very off-the-wall, of-the-moment and not afraid to tick a few people off. And you’ll send the link to everybody you know, if they don’t link to it first.

Chico links: By default, Chico had the second largest amount of lines in the movies (because Harpo didn’t talk), and was frequently seen as a smooth talker – usually trying to get into somebody’s good graces by charming the heck out of them, or just budging in until he got what he wanted. Chico is the perfect example of how most people attract one-way links to their site – explain why you’re so special and keep at it until they bite .


Harpo links: Harpo, as I mentioned, never said anything on camera. (He could talk in real life.) His effectiveness relied upon physical comedy. As a result, his silence was an asset. His jokes and actions were perfect filler that linked dialogue and even scenes together. Since he didn’t speak, Harpo could pop up at any second as needed support. Which is exactly what links from directories and press releases provide for your link building strategy -- quiet, dependable link support to your site.

Zeppo links: The fourth Marx Brother, Zeppo, left the group after the first five films because, while he was apparently very funny in person, his older brothers were Groucho, Chico and Harpo.
However, as many a film critic has said, Zeppo in his plainness added a certain something to the party that was missing after he left. He was pure bottom support, which usually meant appearing as a lowly assistant to big brother Groucho. He wrote messages for him. He explained Groucho to others. He told everyone whatever he could about Groucho – here he comes, there he goes, etc. In link building terminologies, Zeppo was a silo. Silo Marx, spreading the word as widely and unassumingly as possible.

So which Marx Brothers dominate your link building strategy? Are you the link bait-spewing Groucho, the patient yet persistent Chico, the quiet yet dependable Harpo or the supportive, don’t-mind-me, just-doin’-my-job Zeppo? Hopefully you have a bit of all of them. (And if you can come up with an analogy for Gummo Marx, the brother who never made a movie, I’m all ears.)
And now, hello, I must be going.

"I QUIT. BUT NOT TOTALLY."

Best unintentionally funny article I've read in a while:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/189813/why_im_dropping_google.html

That's really good, guy. I'm swearing off drugs, except for the ones I HAVE to use because I can't quit drugs.

Nice.

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I'm making a determined attempt to start writing regularly here. Now that I know the business a bit better. Here's two times in one week! Wow!

TT

WHAT'S NEXT -- KNOWING WHAT YOU'RE WEARING?

Google's personalized search has a lot of people's panties in a ringer--now that the search giant has announced that they're customizing EVERYBODY's search experience with their Personalized Search.

Of course, you have a lot of paranoid paintball playing computer nerd types who think everything is a government conspiracy who exercised their option to turn personalized search off, amid the usual "nobody's gonna tell me" speeches and thinly veiled threats to shoot anyone who doesn't support the second amendment. (Trust me, it all goes together. Just go to a science fiction convention.)

Normal thinking people, however, have greeted the news of personalized search much as I suspected you (and I know I) did: Who gives a fuck? If I search for a pizza parlor, I WANT to see pizza parlors near me, and not some jackoff in Omaha who figured out how to buck the Google system.

The more I work in this business the more amazed I am at the geek-vs.-the-world gap. Whenever the SLIGHTEST move is made by Google, SEO companies all over the world shit a brick and start burning down the building to collect on their insurance. But what I'm finding is that SEO is a lot like politics: Extremists make all the noise, and nothing much happens one way or the other.

Personalized search isn't going to hurt SEO; it's just going to make the job more interesting, and as a result, BETTER. Isn't that what most SEO experts want?

TT

GOOGLE CONFIRMS IT: KEYWORDS ARE KAPUT

Well, once again Google has publicly announced something that most of the computer savvy world had figured out or suspected already: When the bots are trying to determine your search ranking, they're not looking at your Keyword Meta Tags. Haven't for awhile.

So all that time you spent intricately debating over keyword strings is for naught. For now.

This isn't surprising. It's like when you're a kid and your mother said "If you can't play nice, I'm taking your ball away." Except here, a bunch of keyword stuffers ruined the playing field for everybody. So Google took the relevance away.

Of course, when you dominate 90% of the playing field, you can make people follow your rules or go home.

TT

PRETTY SOON WE CAN ALL JUST STAY HOME

I am just as stoked about all the things computers can do as the next guy, but I came across this "PR Release" (read: New Article Thinly Hiding A Product Plug). It appears to be a piece of software that works with Google Analyitics and tells you, with the click of a button, what's wrong with your site.

If you want a second opinion, does it say, "Well, then you're ugly, too!"?

http://www.sbwire.com/news/view/31249

For an extra laugh, check out this company's homepage; what are you selling, people???

http://www.dizzyheights.com/

For more on the product, skip the homepage and go here.

http://www.analyticsseo.com

TT

THE LONGER I'M IN THIS BUSINESS...

Coming from a marketing and advertising background, there are obviously many similarities in what I do here in this creative marketing job. But there are a lot of differences, as well.

Perhaps the biggestt hing I had to get over was the idea that there is no difference creatively between marketing a company on line vs. in print or on TV.

Wrong.

On the internet, cleverness must always take a backseat to getting the message out instantly. Sometimes it gets pushed out of the car altogether. That's why I found this post from August 21 at http://www.seobook.com/blog so interesting. Copy, paste and read.

TT