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
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
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
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
Monday, August 24, 2009
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
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
Friday, August 14, 2009
OKAY, I THINK I'M READY TO START THIS FOR REAL
Learning the "ropes" of what this company does has been one daily discovery after another. After nearly 30 years in marketing and advertising, being a part of the marketing department for what was essentially a link-buying service exclusively was obviously going to take some time to get used to.
So for those of you who have no idea what a link-building service is, let me catch you up.
If you have a business, you probably have a website. You probably want people to find your website on line, and you probably want people to decide to use your products and services.
However, if you put up a shingle on the internet today, chances are your website will be competing with thousands of other businesses just like yours for page rank. Page rank is just what it sounds like; it's where you "rank" on the search engine lists.
For example, if you start a nude lawnmowing service in Minneapolis, you will have to compete with what I'm sure are thousdands of other nude lawnmowing services in Minneapolis and the surrounding area. If there are more than 10, your new business is not going to magically appear on the first page of Google. And most people don't go past page one or two on a Google search.
That's why you need link building. Basically, link building is coming up with creative ways to post links to your site from other pages. There are lots of ways to do that, and some are not very ethical. (We don't utilize those "black hat" techniques at this company, because Google is a smart robot and knows how to disqualify such things.)
Anyway, this company here is really good at link building. So good in fact, that customers started to ask whether the company did other things, like Landing Page Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, etc. Until March, that answer was "no, but we ought to."
Well, now this company has a marketing department to do all these things. There are four of us. Since this company had never had "real marketing types" in the office before, we had to get over the initial looks of suspicion and obvious glares from the sales department that said, "Why are THOSE people having so much fun back there in the corner?" But here we are.
------
Interesting article today on the effectiveness of various types of links.
To explain (this is the kind of stuff ol' ignorant me is learning every single day here): "Organic" links refer to the search results you get that are not paid for on Google. In other words, the big list down the left hand side (the ones you have to build links in order to improve your ranking). PPC links stands for Pay-Per-Click. These are paid ads that run across the top of the search and down the right column.
You may now read the article with no problem. I think.
More in a few days.
TT
So for those of you who have no idea what a link-building service is, let me catch you up.
If you have a business, you probably have a website. You probably want people to find your website on line, and you probably want people to decide to use your products and services.
However, if you put up a shingle on the internet today, chances are your website will be competing with thousands of other businesses just like yours for page rank. Page rank is just what it sounds like; it's where you "rank" on the search engine lists.
For example, if you start a nude lawnmowing service in Minneapolis, you will have to compete with what I'm sure are thousdands of other nude lawnmowing services in Minneapolis and the surrounding area. If there are more than 10, your new business is not going to magically appear on the first page of Google. And most people don't go past page one or two on a Google search.
That's why you need link building. Basically, link building is coming up with creative ways to post links to your site from other pages. There are lots of ways to do that, and some are not very ethical. (We don't utilize those "black hat" techniques at this company, because Google is a smart robot and knows how to disqualify such things.)
Anyway, this company here is really good at link building. So good in fact, that customers started to ask whether the company did other things, like Landing Page Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, etc. Until March, that answer was "no, but we ought to."
Well, now this company has a marketing department to do all these things. There are four of us. Since this company had never had "real marketing types" in the office before, we had to get over the initial looks of suspicion and obvious glares from the sales department that said, "Why are THOSE people having so much fun back there in the corner?" But here we are.
------
Interesting article today on the effectiveness of various types of links.
To explain (this is the kind of stuff ol' ignorant me is learning every single day here): "Organic" links refer to the search results you get that are not paid for on Google. In other words, the big list down the left hand side (the ones you have to build links in order to improve your ranking). PPC links stands for Pay-Per-Click. These are paid ads that run across the top of the search and down the right column.
You may now read the article with no problem. I think.
More in a few days.
TT
Monday, July 13, 2009
OPENING WORDS FROM AN OLD FART
Hello: My name is Tom and I am an adman.
I've spent the last 29 years in the advertising industry as a writer and producer in the Phoenix, Arizona market.
Last September, after nine years at a business-to-business advertising agency with worldwide clients, I was shown the utmost appreciation for my time and input by being shown the door.
This led to seven months of unemployment, which ultimately led to an interview for a job in a whole new world.
I was hired as the writer of a new marketing department in a company that up to now had no marketing department.
"We're looking for people who don't understand our business, but who can promote it for us. Because we haven't been able to market ourselves very well," the owner said.
Ostensibly, I was being hired to write landing pages, a new service that the company wanted to offer to its customers. It required a marketer's mind and considerable creativity. That's me, all right.
I got the job. A marketing department formed around me. We do a lot more than Landing Pages. Internal marketing is a big part of what we do.
I still don't completely understand SEO, link building, etc. But I'm getting there. This blog will document the stuff I learn, the stuff I hear about, the stuff I go through and the stuff that I think you'll find interesting and helpful.
Off to a meeting now.
I've spent the last 29 years in the advertising industry as a writer and producer in the Phoenix, Arizona market.
Last September, after nine years at a business-to-business advertising agency with worldwide clients, I was shown the utmost appreciation for my time and input by being shown the door.
This led to seven months of unemployment, which ultimately led to an interview for a job in a whole new world.
I was hired as the writer of a new marketing department in a company that up to now had no marketing department.
"We're looking for people who don't understand our business, but who can promote it for us. Because we haven't been able to market ourselves very well," the owner said.
Ostensibly, I was being hired to write landing pages, a new service that the company wanted to offer to its customers. It required a marketer's mind and considerable creativity. That's me, all right.
I got the job. A marketing department formed around me. We do a lot more than Landing Pages. Internal marketing is a big part of what we do.
I still don't completely understand SEO, link building, etc. But I'm getting there. This blog will document the stuff I learn, the stuff I hear about, the stuff I go through and the stuff that I think you'll find interesting and helpful.
Off to a meeting now.
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