blogging 102

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes I’m not the first one to chime in on this topic, mostly because I’ve gone both ways and I can make pretty valid arguments from either side. But I’ve finally settled it in my mind which is “best”. Full RSS feeds are better than summary feeds. Why? I can answer that only from the perspective of a skimmer and scanner. When I browse through my RSS feeds, I’m first looking for titles that draw my interest. If your title doesn’t make me want to read I scroll right past it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a bad title, not every title is going to make everybody want to read. There are just a lot of things that I don’t care about and many feeds I read don’t always have posts that strike my particular fancy. Once I see a title that makes me think I might want to read on, well, then I start skimming through the post. I might read a few of the first sentences and then start skipping down to link... 

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes Every now and then I see an article written about what people should look for when selecting an SEO provider to manage their web site’s online marketing campaign. Most of these articles written by SEOs, or those intimately familiar with the industry, provide valuable insights of (what the author believes are) some of the most important aspects of the selection process. A recent discussion on a popular forum got me thinking about the other side of the coin. Instead of creating another list telling the business owner what they should or should not be looking for in an SEO, I wanted to analyze what it is that the client actually looks for when they are narrowing down their choices between SEO providers. Here is a list of seven things the client considers: Price: Though many people would (or should) be willing to pay more for a better service, there does come a point where price for services is just too high for a company’s current budget. Regardless... 

Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes I admit it, our SEO services are pretty bad. Speaking of bad, the Beatles couldn’t sing a tune, John Grisham has never written a decent novel, Dell makes crappy computer’s, TiVo’s and iPods suck, the Lord of the Rings movies lacked imagination and video killed the radio star. (OK, that last one might actually be true!) Do you see where this is going? To somebody, one or more of the above statements are true. Not to the vast majority, but some people do feel that way. No matter what the product or service there will always be those that are dissatisfied. Have you ever heard of a company with a 100% customer satisfaction rate (outside of their own marketing gibberish)? I haven’t. There have been a number of blog and forum posts and articles recently about what to do if you’re with a bad SEO company. All good advice, but sometimes it’s not the SEO that’s bad, its the client. Yeah, that’s right, sometimes the... 

Reading time: 8 – 13 minutes We’ve all heard that familiar expression, “Good things come to those who wait”. Whether you’re waiting for your Heinz ketchup to pour out onto your burger (remember those commercials?), waiting for Christmas day to open your gifts, waiting for summer vacation to be let out of school, or waiting in line at the DMV… well, maybe not the DMV, good things will come if you simply allow them to come in their own time. Under normal circumstances that expression is simply not true. You’ll still get your ketchup if you shove the butter knife into the bottle, dragging it out onto your plate; open all your gifts on Christmas Eve; skip that last few pointless days of the school year; or get into the express line at the DMV. The real lesson behind the cliche’ is that patience is a virtue. One instance where it’s is true, that good things come to those that wait, is when you are performing search engine optimization.... 

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes A recent study showed that a majority of companies (64%) fail to implement some or all of their SEO company’s recommendations. According to the study the primary reasons company’s failed to implement the recommendations provided by their SEO were as follows: 33.6% – Lack of human resources to implement the change 16.8% – Lack of outsourced IT budget 15.4% – Timing/frequency of update issues 9.4% – Upper management decisions not to implement the recommendations 8.7% – Agency failed to prioritize specific recommendations 8.7% – Lack of agency implementation support 8.1% – Branding issues/restrictions 8.1% – Unpredictable ROI if changes were implemented 6.7% – Other reasons 6.0% – Predicted ROI did not justify such changes 3.4% – Agency failed to education company on the required resources to implement recommendations If you look closely at that list, most of the reasons cited...