Conversions and Gurus Rant

Posted on April 5, 2013 by cre8pc

It’s time for me to back away from the Internet again.  The things that some SEO’s say and do are as obnoxious as the situation was during the birth of the public Internet.

Pic of man with head on desk

Give us a break!

Gurus
If you are to believe the claims, there are at least 2 billion SEO self-proclaimed “guru” SEO’s on the planet.  This means that 2 billion SEO’s know everything there is to know about search engine marketing, past – present – future.  They’ll make you rich, powerful, famous and do all that for cheap and by using every possible spam technique known to mankind.

SEO’s Have Keywords.  They Don’t NEED to Worry About Conversions
The way this line of thinking goes is like this.  ”Marketers are only responsible for getting web pages ranked high in search engines.”  This is all they’re required to do.  It’s a freaking easy job too!  All a company has to do is pay several thousands of currency each month to pay for rank via any number of ways that search engines and social sites permit, because of course, buying off rank passage on a big ship like Google is the key to riches, power and fame.  Building a web site that works for everybody is not, nor has ever been, and may never be, part of the plan.

The evidence is everywhere.  From SEO conferences that don’t educate the value of conversions from people of all types, to the SEO spam we get each day and comments I see  in search marketing sites.

Enjoy:

Need Help With Your Spam
Seo Hall Of Shame – Are You Kidding Me?
Blog Spam – This Guy Wins An Award
Does Buying Facebook Likes Really Work?
 

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Beat Your Competition – Ask for User Interface Conversions Testing

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Web Site Usability Rant

Posted on April 4, 2013 by cre8pc

Sooner or later the one last hope for a successful web site design is slashed by managers who, frankly, have no freaking idea what they’re doing.  People don’t use web sites. Bots do!

Knight in armourAnd with visions of search engine bots dancing in their heads, they ride into  budget meetings like Knights fighting for Camelot, swearing allegiance to shareholders and the mighty King CEO.  Because, you see, throwing money on PPC campaigns is sorta like sprinkling fairy dust across the land and expecting riches, the loyalty of the peasant  web site users and a brand with such achievements and glory it’s remembered for centuries to come.

And then there is you and me.  All we ever asked for is a web site we could use without pain and suffering, confusion and frustration, in sickness and in health, and all that.  We’re busy.  We’re human, and therefore we come to each web site in our underwear, on a train, hiding under the covers in bed, waiting for a plane, or making homemade soup from a recipe on the laptop monitor sitting by the cutting board.  We’re old, blind, deaf, sick, injured, and by golly, still here damn it.

In Terms Even The Big People Might Understand

Thinking that perhaps The Deciders are confused over complicated terms, I thought I might be able to help.

Usability means “making it usable”.

User experience means  the “experience” is honky dory and meets expectations.

IA means information architecture, which is a fancy term for navigation, which won’t work unless the IA is worked out perfectly.

Accessibility simply refers to “making it usable, meets expectations and is easy to navigate” by special needs users and those of us who need reading glasses to read your product descriptions.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Should User Generated Content Be Kind?

Posted on April 2, 2013 by cre8pc

For 17 years I’ve been active in online communities and tried my best to follow one basic rule – “Is it true, necessary and kind?” – with each comment.  It doesn’t always work.

When search engines began to listen to social signals coming from Facebook, Yelp, G+, Amazon and countless other web sites where the public can leave comments, the opportunities for learning the truth about products and services was easy to find. Generally customer feedback is helpful and polite.  Language and word choices digress, however, depending on the type of product.  Apparently sex toys turn some adults into 12 year olds and all manner of blubbering and crudeness follows in product reviews.

Reputation management came to the rescue in cases where brands experienced vicious public attacks.  And of course we all know someone, or perhaps you yourself, has been the target of trolls or someone’s agenda to discredit you.  The Web has no boundaries.  A conversation of any type doesn’t have to be necessary or true and certainly not kind.  That has been my own personal guideline.

I Think I’ve Broken My Own Rule

Some time ago I started a thread at Cre8asiteforums called Seo Hall Of Shame to draw attention to the unwelcome spam from so-called Search Engine Marketing companies.  Most of it is automated, which explains why they are so terribly off the mark where they land.

GRRR!When I first began the discussion I was polite and removed names and other identifying factors.  Now I don’t.  The reason is simple.  It looks like 1996 out there!

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I can no longer sit quietly and pretend to ignore the massive amounts of SEO fraud. The first articles I ever wrote in the mid-1990′s exposed these same practices and worse. I stopped protecting the offenders and began posting entire SEO spam emails in the Cre8asiteforums thread. I’m also not preventing members from exposing names, emails, phone numbers, etc.

So while we’re not cussing out these dimwits, we’re not being kind enough to hide who they are. It’s true that we get these offensive emails. It may be debatable that it is necessary that we expose them. But when it comes to being kind, I’ve wrestled with that one. Is there a kinder way to show the world what rip-off, cheating companies do?

Maybe. But I decided that helping to prevent the damage that these scam scum cause is worth breaking my own rule for.

Beat Your Competition – Ask for User Interface Conversions Testing

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