I’ve spent the past few years writing about usability to SEO’s and trying to not burn bridges while doing so. Each industry contains skills that benefit the other, and both benefit the client. It’s rare to find good dialog by user experience folks on SEO, however, so I found the following interesting - Seo and usability as discussed in IXDA’s forums. Obviously this remark caught my eye.

The tough part is that so much of common SEO is superstition.

The discussion is around an article from Search Engine Land called Are We In-House SEO Experts? Not Really… And Here’s Why. I side with the user experience folks on this one. While the two skill sets compliment one another, and even at a very basic level can be considered similar, anyone fully trained in both knows they’re very different.

I started out as an SEO and once leaving it for usability and software QA testing, I know I can never go back and call myself a fully qualified SEO. I even run a forums that covers SEO/M and search engines. This lets me stay current on a daily basis. And I would STILL not take on paying SEO work. I have other SEO’s do it.

Somewhere I read someone suggest that SEO’s must all be copywriters. This is not a requirement, but it is a plus. It helps for user experience design too.

Usability is a word applied to a gigantic field. It’s Human Factors and behavioral studies. It’s human computer interaction. It’s also applied to non-web devices. There’s branches of it, the same as there are branches of SEO.

In any case, I thought you might enjoy seeing another perspective and opinions on the SEO industry, as viewed from those outside of it or are distant cousins.

Shari Thurow wrote a two-part articles series called
What SEO/SEM Professionals Should Know About Website Usability. In part two, she devotes the entire piece to comments by myself and Jakob Nielsen.

Rather than give her own opinions and perspective on the merging together of search engine optimization and marketing techniques with user experience and usability design, of which she is a speaker, writer, business owner, book author and trained practitioner of both, she let’s others do the talking.

Nielsen is more technical. He commented that,

“Narrowly considered, SEO might be thought of as the goal to rank as highly in SERPs for important keywords,” Nielsen continued. “While important, these rankings are only half of the ‘V’ element of site success. Besides ranking high, you also need users to click the listing, so clickthrough provides the other half of ‘V.’ Clickthrough is determined by usability considerations; more specifically content usability, in form of the guidelines for writing for the Web.”

I was more free flowing in my feedback. My favorite quote from myself was,

“We don’t remember sites because search engines rank them well. We remember and return to websites that work for us and give us what we want, when we want it.”

I was thrilled at the honor to be invited by Shari to participate. I was also joined by Peter Morville and Dr. Susan Weinschenk.

Other Have-to-Reads I Recommend

My friend, Jimmy Atkinson, blew me away with his 100 Killer Web Accessibility Resources: Blogs, Forums and Tutorials. This resource jumped to number one of my favorite sources on Accessibility for fast guidance.

Capture their attention with a giggle - Layering the Customer Experience looks at studies on humor and the web user experience.

The experience ratings of participants booking travel on a non-humorous site depended more directly on the outcome of the interaction. If the site was usable and the outcome was good, participants were satisfied. If the site was usable and the outcome was disappointing, the participants were disappointed, overall.

When humor was present, it helped to mitigate disappointing outcomes. Booking on humorous, usable websites led to more positive ratings, even when the outcome was ultimately disappointing.

Joe Dolson spells it out in plain language, in Best Practices: Writing for Accessibility.

A sentence can be punctuated with perfect correctness but still lose clarity when spoken by a screen reader.

Ramble

I got a tasty hint in my mailbox today that tells me the next issue of Search Marketing Standard magazine is soon to arrive! In this issue’s Usability Column, I wrote about blog usability. I can’t wait to read what I said.

It’s getting down to the wire here at home and also a bit tense. Some strange health issues are popping up with my loved ones, causing a bit of anxiety. Plus, there’s my eldest graduating high school, her prom, senior week chaos and getting set for college. The middle son goes away to Penn State for football camp, while also playing on two baseball teams and ramping up for high school freshman football. For track last Friday he won first place in shot put with a 40.2 throw. He’s almost at the record for his school. The youngest child is likely going to be living on Mars or the Moon someday. He strikes me as the type who would help figure out how to do it.

I’m working on a web site for a brilliant local artist named Nathan DiStefano (Nathandistefanoart.com). It’s not finished yet. I have more to do and I have to re-do how the images were done and displayed. It’s a project I took over and am not charging for because I’ve known him for a long time and I’m hopelessly hooked on his paintings.

Please bear with me. The next two months will be crazy.

This morning I saw a female cardinal. It’s easy to spot the males because they’re a brilliant red but today, the lady bird sat watching the finches and me not far from my kitchen window. I decided her presence was a power sign. She stood out, even without her man in his beautiful coat nearby. She was doing perfectly fine on her own.

I came across Wendy Piersall’s, TLC Launches New TV Show :: The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom blog post today. She brought to my attention a new TLC (The Learning Channel) TV show about stay at home mom’s. Debuting March 3, the show is “a new reality series following stay-at-home moms who are given the chance to see what life would be like if their full-time career wasn’t motherhood”.

Each episode will conclude with the mom either deciding to “pursue her new dual life” or return to her family, secure in the fact that motherhood is the only occupation for her.

Where to begin with this? A career driven woman and mother is running for the position of the United States of America and yet somewhere else in America is a culture insisting that women must choose career OR motherhood?

I cringed when I read this from TLC’s new ‘The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom’ series to debut March 3:

“Almost every woman experiences the pull between becoming a full-time mom or juggling both family and work. This show will give us the chance to learn what sacrifices and rewards there are in making this challenging and unique decision,” said TLC programming executive Brant Pinvidic. “Each episode ends up being a remarkable voyage as we see them accomplish goals they never thought possible and then make the decision about which path they should pursue.”

Which path? They have to go behind their spouse’s back to experience some sort of self worth vision quest for themselves?

Then he says,

“This show is very inspirational and gives these women many who thought they’d never have return to their careers a chance to see what they are capable of.”

Capable of?? Since when did taking care of children turn women into blobs of nothing? When did staying home become the crime of the century?

The first story on the show highlights “Adrian” who gets a chance to spend a week experiencing her “dream job” that she left behind to raise her 3 children. At the end of the week, she must decide whether or not she wants to remain a full time mom.

I worked while single, while pregnant, after my first child was born and up to the birth of my second child. Then, I stopped because the cost of daycare stripped my salary. I was essentially working for free, so I stayed home and my husband worked 3 jobs to keep us going. I grew as much of our food as possible and breastfed the babies, the second one past his 2 year birthday. I continued to volunteer and be involved with the schools and community as much as my time allowed.

The kids and I rarely saw their Dad. He and I drifted apart. We split up. I refused his support money. We shared joint custody. I went back to work by teaching myself a new career, working all day and doing freelance work at night. I felt terribly alone and unsupported by my friends. On the days the kids were with their Dad, I worked even longer hours. I didn’t date. For four years. I started a business. Founded a few web sites. Paid for daycare. Saved up money to buy my own house. Remarried. I work at home because it’s easier to raise the kids and be there for them when I’m here. I’m saving for their college, paying for their cell phones, car insurance, sports equipment and shampoo. I take them to the doctor. Attend every football, baseball, wrestling and track event and the Jazz band concerts. I run a global forums. I make dinner. I’m the maid, nurse, taxi, project manager, and gardener. Off the top of my head.

Did I mention I’m a stay at home mom, who works full time? Which part of me looks like a soccer ball? God forbid someone should have said, “Kim. You have to pick one thing to do because you’re a woman.”

Shattering Soccer Mom Myths

The producers of this new TV show might like to read the new book by Holly Buchanan and Michelle Miller, called The Soccer Mom Myth. One of the first points the book notes is that in the writer’s “Marketing to Women” seminars, over 60% of attendees are women. When Holly asks the audience how many are mom’s, she may get one or two responses. They write that of the “millions upon millions of Soccer Mom’s out there“, in their seminars, they found “only about seven.”

So, who is this TV show being marketed to?

80% of all purchasing decisions are made by women. This TV show is going to want commercials to sponsor their show. How they can target women when only a handful fall into the category of “Soccer Mom”?

Women are individuals. They want to be treated with respect and some acknowledgment that they have much to contribute. They aren’t cloned copies of each other. If one wants to work and never have children, bravo. She’s still a vital woman. If another one isn’t career oriented, fine. With any luck, she’ll be able to support herself and should be encouraged to do so without depending on someone else for her survival. If another woman who wants a family stays home to be with the kids, they need support, not attitude. Not a “What if I could do that thing I dreamed of doing” carrot dangled in their faces.

They ARE doing something. Being a parent is the most rewarding “work” I’ve ever done. However, I was quite capable of doing more.

The TV show’s tagline is “Do they have what it takes to have it ALL?”

I don’t understand this statement. Someone can be hiking in the mountains picking wild flowers on a damp, springtime morning and feel they “have it all” because they’re alive. They’re in a lovely place. They feel the rising sun warming their cheeks. Contentment comes from so many places, including inside ourselves.

The TV show glorifies women who look outside themselves for validation and worthiness. They take a week off away from their family to experience “having it all”.

They return with their discovery and then asked to make a choice. Career or child raising?

I’ll take the mountain.

This year hasn’t been one of my favorites. It’s been “The Year of Pondering My Navel”. Or, perhaps, the “Year of Unraveling”. If you earn your living connected to the Internet, this year went by in 1.3 minutes flat.

I’m finding that what worked before may be losing out to the current fad. One area of constant change is how we interact with the Internet and each other. A few months back I had asked if traditional online forums were going to fade away due to the popularity of social network sites and nearly everyone felt forums would remain.

I don’t think this is true. I think it’s wishful thinking. I can say this because I own a forums and have been watching things. People want to vote on other people. This is how they communicate their opinion without actually stating it with words. Chances are good you have several homes on the Internet that permit you to “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” thread comments. Whether or not you do, the option is there because this is a known favored user interaction device.

Since a forums such as Cre8asiteforums doesn’t incorporate a voting system, I’m now seeing other web sites link to forum threads and in THEIR sites, they can discuss the forum thread and members can vote.

It’s a sign.

SEO and Usability Games

I’ve been watching this too. Call me crazy, but I feel the two practices can share the same house. I think it’s unnaturally limiting to peg one before the other or one without the other.

Search engine optimization is more than about the act of searching, in my opinion. It’s about finding all the ways the Internet enables people to connect so they’ll produce and create something they want or need in a new way.

The way to discover what people want to create is to get far, far beyond how they were taught to search or interact with web pages. Search itself is one small part of an even greater act that we’re all participating in, if we’re invited or enabled to do so.

I haven’t been content to accept the way things were taught because everyone hasn’t had the opportunity to ride the horse. Accessibility and designing for seniors and “baby boomers” remaining an afterthought are just two quick examples.

Can You Understand What You Don’t Know?

Sometimes we build a web site for who we know best. That would be ourselves. We’re not so good at building for invisible people, which essentially, most everyone is. Sure, we have user studies, click tracks, database criteria to play with. But we base design guidelines, business requirements and site enhancements on the words that someone might type back to us or lines in graphs. Data gleaned from video taping users in a lab is another. When was the last time you sat in a lab answering questions or having your mouse movements recorded?

When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a line going up and down. I’m made up of a trillion billion tiny details that no web site designer or search engine marketer could ever know.

Are We Designing For The Human Experience? is a discussion I started in Cre8asiteforums a few days ago, inspired by DUX 2007: A great conference, but fundamentally off the mark.

I wrote:

My own observations and personal feelings are that sooner or later end users will stop basing their experiences on the short-lived thrill of the next roll-out of the “something new”. There’s a movement towards substance and the “integrity of being” as I call it. The impact of the “green” movement tells me that people are ready for experiences that place a strong value and emphasis on their participation and programs that include and welcome them, rather than being a “cog in the wheel”.

Designing for participation can be seen in social media, but despite all these new sites designed to bring us together, I still feel disconnected. The experience of social networking is only going to be based on how much we’re willing to share. Rather than the whole human, we’re more likely to get bits and pieces and believe we’re getting a human experience online. We’re not. (Emphasis mine.)

Consider that playing out right now is the fight over what comes “first” - SEO or usability. The whole argument leaps right over the idea of creating something meaningful.

I’m not alone in my thoughts, as a visit to the discussion will show.

I think some people wanted the chance to look at this too.

I should have seen it coming. I hadn’t planned on going to Search Engine Strategies, San Jose. There was no logical reason for a forums owner, usability consultant, ex-SEO to fly across the country to report on sessions.

Stranded overnight on the way there and on the way home, I decided there was no use in getting upset. Although my first reaction was to go back home last Sunday after the missed connection and no more flights to San Jose; since they canceled my flight home I figured there was far more to this adventure. I needed to stop trying to control anything. Obviously I was intended to be the student.

All my shyness, lack of confidence and fears of the unknown had to shut up. Once I was finally on a plane to San Jose, I leaned against the window, exhausted and slipped into sleep. Some time into the flight, I was to meet Nate Eslinger, Senior Marketing Manager from NetShops.com, who was sitting next to me. We finally introduced ourselves after I woke up because they were offering food and drinks. I couldn’t eat or drink. But the kind man sitting to my right was also going to SES and he had heard of me. We continued talking until we touched down several hours later.

It could’ve ended there. However, the SEO industry has a reputation for taking care of their own. When one is down, there will be search marketers from the industry who will sweep in, take care of what needs to be done and protect you if necessary. Since my luggage was already in San Jose in the United Baggage Claim office, Nate waited while I retrieved it. Since I was scheduled to be at the SEO Women’s Luncheon, which had already started, he offered to drive me to the Fairmont where I was staying and where the lunch was also held, in his rental car.

In return for his generosity, I offered to introduce him to people. All he had to do was call my cell phone. He did. Smart guy. In the days to come, he became known as my “savior”. My friends and husband were thrilled someone was looking out for me.

I arrived during the last 20 minutes of the lunch at about 1:40 Monday afternoon, wearing the same clothes I’d left home in at 4am Sunday morning. Too dazed to meet everyone, Liana Evans and Christine Churchill made sure I tried to eat something (I could stab at a salad). Thankfully I sat with Mike Grehan, who is a good friend and I needed that then. I was so tired Diane Aull guided me to the lobby to check in. I’d have never found it that day, I’m sure. I’d missed the sessions I wanted to get to, so the only thing left was to get my press pass so I’d be ready for the next day.

From that moment on, I didn’t stop moving. Sleep? Maybe 4 hours a day, on average.

Parties

I wasn’t invited to any but somehow I ended up at several anyway. Twice, I was walking on the sidewalk and was pulled into gatherings I didn’t know were going on. This is how I spent some time at the Ask.com party, where I made sure to add Nate to the SearchBash party on Wednesday night, co-hosted by Ask.

The other time was when I was heading somewhere and was diverted to the SearchEngineGuide gathering. Robert Clough, whom I finally got to meet in person, has published my writings for years, but I’m not a member of their blogging team, so it felt weird being in the official picture of their writers holding SearchEngineGuide laptop bags. I’m so grateful I was given one, however. It passed every test when I used it on the way home and was stranded in the O’Hare again.

By the Google Dance, Tuesday night, it was pretty clear Nate and I were inseparable. This, of course, made for some lively gossip. The only thing missing were the paparazzi and tabloids. For the record, there’s no story to tell. Sometimes two professional people get together and become fast friends. He, me and my other good friend, Bill Slawski, did a lot of things together, including a night time drive up to the Googleplex, “just because”.

Bill and I were interviewed together twice. Once by Joe Whyte for the Search Marketing Standard and the other by Mike McDonald for Webpronews.

(See video Bill and Kim on SES, Google, Cre8asiteforums and more)

The Google Dance was nothing like what I’d imagined. It was far better. We’d seen them setting up the night before when we drove up. I have some pictures of the crowds waiting to board busses to go there. I later learned that not only were thousands of search engine marketers and companies there, but Google strongly and repeatedly encouraged all their employees to attend. Every Google employee I met, from the famous to the unknown, was vibrant, warm and happy.

A row of us sat eating behind the volleyball players. It was a stupid place to sit, but getting hit by a Google volleyball was an easy way to start conversations. Later that evening I finally got to meet Matt Cutts, which was hilarious. I didn’t think he knew who I was. Boy, was I wrong! I also got to spend more time with Brett Tabke of Webmasterworld. I don’t think we had a photo together but he was quite gracious with helping Bill and I celebrate our 5th birthday at Cre8asiteforums. I met Adam Lasnik too. What a hoot! He’s a lot of fun. I also had the honor of meeting Gillian from SEOMoz. She’s everything I imagined the boss woman at SEOMoz to be. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time together, despite our efforts.

The WebmasterRadio SearchBash party on Wednesday was another memorable experience. Bill and I were given V.I.P. status. There was some talk of our getting up on stage and dancing with the pole dancers, in honor of Cre8asite’s birthday. There was a big announcement about Cre8asiteforums’ birthday and we felt so honored by that. Nate’s choice of drink made me and Lisa Barone feel great. ‘Nuff said there.

Thursday night was party-less but no less fun. I went to JapanTown for dinner with a group of people that seemed to grow as the night went on. It was the first time I was able to spend time with Amanda Watlingtonand Chris Sherman. That dinner was the last time I ate until Saturday evening Eastern Standard time because of the travel nonsense.

Connecting the Dots Between Usability and SEO

For all the discussions over the past few years about SEO and Usability and whether or not the two should get married or just live together, I can attest to the fact that when speaking with experienced search marketers, they not only “get it”, they want more attention put on the user experience.

There was nothing user friendly about my trip to cover it for Search EngineRoundtable until I got to the part where I met a friendly person willing to help me navigate the rest of the way. He cared about my experience once I got there.

That’s a sign of a really damn good search marketer.

Self shot of me in Fairmont, Thursday night.

Photos:
Mine
Christine Churchill
Li Evans
Matt McGee
Tamar Weinberg
Lee Odden
Simon Heseltine