Angelina’s Leg and User Friendly Web Design
In case you missed it, Angelina Jolie made quite the impression at the recent Oscars by showing off her right leg. One small act was a marketing sensation. Would it not be truly incredible if web designers were able to find and flaunt their web site’s sweet spot, I wondered? (Because of course, I see a woman’s leg and immediately think of usability, right?) I mean, come on. Another winner from a different category, a man, after seeing Angelina strike her pose on stage,...
Read MoreCapitol One Owns CNN
Banner blindness? How about the practice of owning a web site’s real estate and holding it hostage in the name of marketing? CNN.com does this often and each time I wonder at the logic of placing 3, 4, 5 or more ads from the same company on a homepage. Click images for a better view. Isn’t this a bit...
Read MoreTreat Yourself to the Affordable Online Media Boot Camp
Nothing beats affordable training with reputable teachers and that’s just what’s coming up on November 3, 2011 at the Online Media Boot Camp. Held in the historical Valley Forge area outside Philadelphia, in King of Prussia, PA, you’ll be treated to a day of sessions offered by three lively ladies who love to teach. Liana Evans, Kim Krause Berg and Sarah Doheny are ready to help you learn new skills or update your present knowledge on: Search engine...
Read MoreInternet Marketing Awards and Contests Do Not Cover Entire Industry
Being recognized by one’s peers can be a happy moment. It’s far better than being ignored. But what happens when your name appears on a winner’s list and you don’t know why it got there? What about awards lists that name people you know don’t deserve to be there or there are exceptional people who were left off the list? I wrote about a contest in December that didn’t make sense to me. With today’s winners announcement for that contest came a...
Read MoreContest Illustrates Disconnect Between Marketing and User Experience
This is the time of year for annual polls and content. They make for great link bait. If you make such a list, this may be proof your work was noticed by your peers. Perhaps you are overlooked. One recent example is Vote for the top 100 online marketers of 2009, in which they ask you to ” pick the top 100 most influential online marketers, leaders, and thinkers”. Where were the marketing user experience people? Where was search usability? One name jumped out as a person...
Read MoreLet’s Talk About [Insert Your Brand Here]
In this week’s Search Engine Land “Just Behave” column, you’ll find an article I wrote called Of Conversations And Conversions. Using real life examples, I hope to illustrate the power of conversation as it relates to conversions. Funnily enough, at least several times a week, someone will ask me to “prove” usability counts. They only want to pay for search engine marketing and put up Facebook. They don’t want to hear about ease of use,...
Read MoreI Am Not A Search Engine Marketer
I’m sometimes referred to as being a “marketer”. When this happens, I immediately know the person hasn’t done their homework on my work. For sure, they’ve never met me. Because if they had, they’d know I have no sales gene in my DNA whatsoever. What I was, in the years 1996 – 2002, was an SEO and User Interface Engineer. This unique combination of skills and work experience enabled me to understand how to make web pages indexed by invisible...
Read MoreWho Wants to Hire Top Twitter Users?
Yesterday, during a live WebmasterRadioFM show where I was chatting with host, Jim Hedger, the topic of fame and personal safety came up. He asked if I’d ever feared for my life or safety due to my long-time presence on the Web. I said “yes”. Jim noted that people sometimes suddenly “turn on you”. We discussed how easy it is to be a “Troll” and drop vicious, ill-tempered comments throughout social networking sites and blogs. Having been online and...
Read MoreUnconditional Marketing and The Social Media Experiment
When Google introduced page rank scores, the days of promoting anything because you simply liked it officially ended. Overnight, marketing became a case of "You rub my back and I'll rub yours." Is this working? I don't believe it is and I've never supported it because it immediately sets up conditions. Conditions segregate people. Conditions cause misunderstandings. Conditions may come with a price and then it becomes competitive, which may raise the price. By that time, marketing isn't about what is worth promoting and talking about. It's about who has the most money to spend on promotion. Every year, without fail, newcomers to search engine marketing believe they need a heavy arsenal of tools to do their job. They buy into every myth about PR scores and search engine algorithms they come across. This is followed up with endless questions about what works "best" for ranking, be it owning a blog, submitting to directories or writing articles. Rather than implementing any of these ideas for pleasure or to provide authenticity and proof of expertise in your field, the point seems to be to get in front of as many eyes as possible in the hope the Google Gods will find your site and send rains for the next year's harvest. The other day I saw someone ask for just links in a certain niche to reciprocate with. While there is credibility to this request and people do this all the time, those links you get were solicited. They didn't come by naturally. Search engines have no way of knowing if a link was bartered for or offered because a site believes the site they chose to link out to is any good. When I put a site into my blog roll, this means I made that choice from my heart. Which brings me to other gripe, which is blog rolls? If I linked to everyone I know and like, I'd have pages of links. For me, the value I can offer is to interview someone, or highlight a post or article they've written and link to it, refer work to them, and offer other various ways of support. The emphasis on "friends" and "followers", for me, is a sign of terrible self esteem. I could care less how many friends and followers I have. I do my work because it makes me happy and I like what I do. That's it. Social networking has brought out the worst in people and did it quickly. There is nothing social about competing for friends, being angry at not being in certain classes, and destroying friendships because someone didn't want to be a friend with someone they don't know. Everyone has their own personal set of standards for what friendship is, or for whom they want to support or join forces with. The moment social networking became competitive and removed choice; it became just another experiment in human behavior. The Next Big Thrill Advertising agencies look for clever ways to promote products. They're paid to this with skill and expertise, and follow a flimsy set of ethics and moral codes that shift as time goes by. It's easier to create a campaign for TV and radio and buy up commercial time than it is to come up with some link bait type of story that has to be submitted to Digg, for example. Only a certain demographic of people use Digg or any other social media outlet. I've noticed that some people who claim to dislike marketing do exactly what they claim to hate the most about marketers. It always comes down who can cause the most commotion because the ruckus brings traffic and the traffic may bring links and those links may bring fame and that fame strokes the ego. It bothers me that an entire industry, called Reputation Management, was formed to deal with the slush left over by poor Internet Marketing tactics. In the early days of SEO, the fun and challenge was getting sites and pages indexed and ranked. Competition for rank spawned "blackhat" techniques, necessary in some industries and understandable, but still, when it comes down to it, rank is no longer of value. It's an extra hole in your ear or new piece of "bling" to show off. The head rush lasts a few minutes and then it's time to dream up another quick thrill. Sadly, that next big thrill sometimes comes at a price; when the entire point of performing any search marketing tactic, from blogging to linking, to video presentations and article writing , to submitting to social media sites, is to ruin reputations or to publicly humiliate companies and people. I don't consider that behavior to be marketing and I don't give any weight to persons who thrive on this practice. Challenge for 2009 For me, as a web site usability consultant to the search engine marketing industry, I'm finding less and less to feel good about with the SEO/M industry. For my peers who have been around since the mid 1990's, most of them are so busy they have little time for Facebook and Twitter. Their company reputations were built before social media became the Fad of the Moment. For those entering the field, it must be terribly confusing to know what's right and how best to do your job. So let's start with some simple things. 1. Don't place conditions on anyone. Link to pages and sites you truly value, not because you have any beef to settle, condition to meet, or arrangement that feels uncomfortable (and you'll feel this and know when it does.) 2. Promote positive. Avoid marketing and promoting with the intent of causing pain, suffering, humiliation, or to purposely destroy businesses. This makes you appear to be vindictive and you'll attract what you deserve. 3. Don't put a price on your good will. When you believe in someone's work, talk about them freely and without any desire for reward. Unconditional marketing is powerful and memorable. It stands the test of time. Someday, maybe even search engines will figure this out. But it has to start with good pe
Read MoreThe Shots Heard Around the Search Marketing Industry Will Bang Better with Usability
If you’re checking the pulse of the search engine marketing industry, you may notice a changing heartbeat. For starters, SEO is not that “mysterious little thing that person does for us” anymore. In that honorary chair now sits The Usability Consultant. As pointed out in a new Cre8asiteforums discussion called Bang, Bang – The shots heard around the search industry, several SEO companies offer more than a web site for services. They also offer a blog, forums, ebook or...
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