The rumors that “SEO is Dead” prompted Jake Lowrey of OffSiteOptimization to interview SEO’s about life without search engines and the future of search marketing. The series starts off with answers to his questions from me, an SEO escape artist.

No Search Engines? Kim Krause Berg Says, ‘Go Local’ delves into my take on the topic.

Here’s a quick snippet from the article:

“Over the next year or two Kim would like to see the industry strive for more excellence and professionalism.

‘SEO/M is a vital part of the web design and marketing food chain,’ she said, adding that sometimes it appears as though that is not taken seriously.

‘The SEO industry is still viewed as a bunch of wild, free-spirited folks who like nothing better than competing and playing head games with data and rank,” she said. “What isn’t communicated well, yet, is how smart these people are and how valuable the experienced ones are to a company that wants to be found quickly in search engines.’”

Once again, I was spotted and nabbed for a quick video interview by Webpronews’s Mike McDonald. Mike says he doesn’t watch himself on film; sorta like how actors love to do the work but refuse to view the final product. I can so relate to this.

Ours was the first interview in the morning of the last day of Search Engine Strategies NYC held in April 2007.

I look tired and it may be time to re-tell my famous “breasts on the bathroom scale” story again. Or, just listen to the interview and feel inspired. You decide.

The theme is usability but it’s not heavy or long. As always, sneaking a bit of usability into a conference on search engine marketing is something I’m grateful for. He also asked me about my other home, Cre8asiteforums. My thanks to the folks at Webpronews for thinking of me.

View the interview with Kim Krause Berg here.

Meme’s that involve tagging remind me of gym class. If you weren’t picked early for a team, it was embarrassing. If you were one of the persons left still standing that nobody wanted, it feels awful. I was chosen by the awesome Dazzlin’ Donna and am proud to be on her team.

I throw like a girl, though. Sorry ’bout that.

Five Reasons Why I Blog

1. I started this blog in 2002, to cover SEO news. It’s evolved over time to whatever it is now. Other sites handle just news. I write for one of them.

2. My journalism professor once told me that I would never be a proper journalist because I was too “creative” and had trouble with just plain, disciplined news reporting. He said I would someday need to make a choice between journalism and creative writing.

3. I did.

4. He knew I would choose this way, because I wrote a well researched piece on the history of sex for the college newspaper that was hilarious and followed it up with an attack on laws against women’s birth control rights. My best writing came when I wrote about things I care about.

5. The sex part is still something I care about, but it never seemed to fit into a blog on SEO and Usability. I blog because it feels good to write. I’ve always written. It’s what I do.

Tagging:

Christine Churchill
Michael Motherwell
Peter DaVanzo
Diane Vigil
Lorelle VanFossen

I’m back! The surgery for a torn meniscus on my left knee on Monday went very well. I’m not in any pain (unless I do something dumb like make the knee do something it’s not ready for yet.) Recovery has been annoying only due to the side effects of medications, but on the other hand, my dreamstate has been awesome.

Once I dreamt I was running with a large wolf. Eric says that must have some symbolic meaning to it. I didn’t dream during surgery. The last thing I heard was “take deep breaths and let the medicine relax you” and the next second, “You’re in recovery. On a scale of 1-10, how do you rate your pain?”

It’s like walking into a shopping mall and you’re assualted with one of those consumer survey takers who want to interrupt your visit with a bunch of questions. You arrive, visualizing all the cool things you might buy and someone wants to know how you rate Tide and demands to know how many shampoo products are in your shower.

My pain never went past a 6 and that didn’t last long. Wheeled into my “room” after being stablized in recovery, my husband and son kept me company for the next hour or so, until I was steady enough to be in a car to go home.

The Web Is On TV

All during this week I was weak and fatigued, so the TV was all I could focus on for the first few days. This is when I noticed that commercials look like Web 2.0. That familiar blue and green color combination is all over the place. Here I am, thinking I can forget about web stuff for a week. No way. There’s two Dove commercials that flirt with me, and then say that if I want to see more, I have to visit their website. CNN refers to their website all the time, as did my local news stations, as did Oprah in nearly every show.

I couldn’t stand to watch “my soap”, because Alan Quartermaine has been “dying” for the past month and that’s just a pathetic way to treat a long-time actor. “GH” is disconnected from long-time viewers like me (I watched Luke and Laura get married, watched Stone die from Aids, and was a viewer when John Stamos played “Blackie” and Demi Moore blew everyone away with her voice and hair.)

The Web is in Print

When I got to the point where I could read without falling asleep, I noticed that magazine page layouts look like web pages. Words have hover colors or are highlighted in yellow, like what we see on the web. Every magazine I read has a section near the front that highlights their website with what readers like the most and what is featured. One web design magazine I subscribe to is sending the print version, but in the meantime, I can log in to the web version and start reading it now.

There is no need to be patient anymore. Will the next generation of humans ever know the thrill of running to the mailbox to get the “thing I’m waiting for”?

Everywhere I Go

I thought I’d do some browsing to sites I don’t normally go to, but that plan never worked out. I got sucked into my Bloglines feeds anyway and pretty much remained there.

I did some searching in Google on the type of knee surgery I had. Apparently I’m not alone. According to my MyBlogLog, someone searched on the term “torn meniscus humor” and found my blog. What in heaven’s name is so funny about knee surgery?

I’m sure those of you with MyBlogLog do the same thing. It’s hilarious to see what search terms bring back your web site pages. So many of them are off the wall. Along with the torn meniscus humor one is “porn production in Sydney”. Have I ever written on that topic? I don’t remember. But they found my blog searching for it.

Hope I was helpful.

There’s Always Something to Remind Me

It took a lot to make me laugh this week. To make matters worse, my daughter just got her drivers license and decided that on day two of my surgery recovery, she was going to take my car out alone for the first time. Actually, she was going with her best friend, Britney, but that only scared me more. Three and half hours later, I thought I would need an ambulance because I had stopped breathing. I was in SUCH a panic, it was getting dark, my cell phone was dead so I couldn’t call her every five minutes (so I kept making Eric call her. He deserves a medal when I get like this.)

So they get home and she and Britney come bouncing up the stairs to where I’m stuck in bed, giggling and carrying on as if they were drinking and I start to tell them to quit being so happy because I’m mad at them. Eric bounces into my sight first, all happy, and I’m thinking, what the heck? We’re supposed to be the unhappy parents here. Next up, is my son Stefan. I’m thinking he’s there to see his sister get yelled at. That’s always fun. The youngest, Andrew, is always jumping up and down anyway (I swear he thinks the earth is one big trampoline), so he’s trailing along for the show. (There’s always one in my house. Trust me.)

And then Arielle and Britney come clamoring into the room with a pile of balloons, cards, flowers…and of course, now I know why they took my car.

Another Place and Time

I expect to be back next week with something on topic sensible awe inspriring. Okay, industry related.

Inspiration

Melody A.M. by Royksopp - The song titled “Remind Me”, used in the Geico Caveman in Airport commercial.

This is my last post for an uncertain period of time. I wasn’t sure when to do it, but this week is just nuts so while I’m thinking of it, here’s what’s happening.

I’m going in for surgery on Monday, February 19, to repair a torn meniscus in my left knee. Over the past two years I learned I have arthritis in my lower back and knees, on top of Hashimoto’s auto immune disease. This just means my thyroid no longer functions without medicine and pain management is unusually difficult. From what I’ve been told, the Hashimoto’s may be the cause of the arthritis (they both appeared together).

I think my knee was torn during a baseball game the summer of 2005 and I didn’t know it. I just thought the pain was part of the arthritis. We only recently discovered the damage during an MRI.

This is routine surgery. I’ll be back as soon as I can.