I walked away from Dan Shawbel's Personal Branding Summit in Boston thinking "I'm going to give this a try." Now I haven't bought Dan's Me 2.0 book yet but I've been reading his blog and trying to incorporate some of his personal branding ideas.
So I began by searching for my name in Google. Dan Ouellette, first page...nothing. Second page...nothing, and finally third page...nothing. Well, not 100% true, their were plenty of Dan Ouellette's, just not me. So, I started by mirroring some of the techniques someone in a similar professional space as I am in used. I started with what I felt were "trusted" sites in Google's eyes - Linkedin, Foliomag, FastCompany, etc... I then became active in each of these sites, writing blog posts, adding feeds, becoming part of groups of similar minded people. After about 2 months guess what.
It worked.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I do this for a living but it is nice to see my name on page 1 of Google among a pretty competitive set of other Dan's.
I guess it's time to try for a top 3 position. I guess I'm "almost famous" ;-)
I was exposed to a bout of close mindedness this past week. No, not me...a colleague of mine. As search professionals we are sometimes tasked with coming up with ideas for campaigns that will help the client reach their goals online.
During our brainstorming session it was evident that the ideas I was suggesting was just plain silly to my colleague. Unfortunately, I was the only contributor so the brainstorming session was a big one-sided. We broke and my colleague went on her way. Now let me say that I've been in many brainstorming sessions and all usually went very well for one main reason; all ideas were invited no matter how silly, outrageous, implausible, or whatever. Of course most of these ideas were thrown out the window but some lead to real strategies or solutions to problems that may not have come to realization had it not been for those "crazy" ideas.
In my defense, my idea was legit. I'd use the same tactic in the past with success. It just so happened that my colleague had not heard of it and immediately dismissed it then went on to tell another colleague who then jumped on the bandwagon.
Brainstorming sessions need to be a free flow of ideas that lead to real solutions or strategies. Don't be too quick to dismiss ideas or you might just find yourself on the other end one day.
I went to one of my friend's birthday party the other day. Actually, it was for her one year old. As I went around meeting and greeting, watching other toddlers crawl about, eyeing the parents and their stress levels, I realized that this party for this one year was organized chaos. Screaming kids, screaming parents, food everywhere, and it's at that point that I realized that my life was also an organizational disaster.
I promptly left and went back home and proceeded to organize myself. I bring this up because it after I began to put some things together I realized that I work with clients whose organic search campaign appear to be in some sort of disarray. Asking the same questions from week to week, following up on tasks that should have been completed weeks ago, waiting on responses from developers that ignore recommendations, it really sucks sometimes.
I suggest everyone take an afternoon to at least partially organize some of their more important items in life and at work. I already feel a calmness around me.
If that doesn't work then have some birthday cake.
So I've been watching more TV recently and I've noticed that we're becoming a nation of makeovers - personal makeovers, fashion makeovers, home makeovers, garden makeovers - the list of shows is pretty long. Now I can probably use 1/2 of these makeovers myself however it did get me thinking about my website. So, I am creating my own makeover...The Search Marketing Makeover.
As a Search professional I regularly recommend to clients to revisit the Organic Search campaign for content expansion opportunities and keyword strategy expansion. But as I think of it a bit more I realize I could recommend a full Search Marketing Makeover starting from client goals and objectives to linking strategies. It will force any Search professional to examine and revise strategies and tactics to maximize success. Let's include one more makeover America!
In the meantime I'll just wait by the phone and see if Hollywood calls.
I was in the supermarket the other day and decided that I'd like to buy a magazine. As I was browsing I picked up a Men's Health magazine and it looked familiar. It looked famillar because the cover teasers were similar to the ones I saw the month before. In fact they were similar to the one's I saw 6, 8, even 12 months ago. That's because Men's Health, like many other magazines, reuse their teasers like "lose your gut" most likely because, well, they help to sell magazines.
As you can imagine when those terms come up in the search engines they are usually associated with the Men's Health website. And rightly so as they are scattered throughout the site as well as on the cover.
I was so tempted with getting "six pack abs" and finding out what the "red hot sex secrets" were that I decided to buy the magazine.
You'll have to excuse me as I need to go do some crunches.
No, probably not. SEO's (search engine optimizers) believe or not, enjoy sharing their tips and tricks with the world to become…well, gurus in their field. So I guess the secret would get out quickly. But, wouldn't it be interesting if there were some underground organization for us search engine geeks?
I just finished watching Angels and Demons and the idea of a secret society called the Illuminati intrigued me. I have to admit however that other secret societies such as the Skulls and Bones society does not so much as I understand our former president was a member, not so impressed.
We are however all too familiar with these secret societies…Skull and Bones, Freemasons, and The Illuminati but what makes them interesting isn't that they are "secret", it is that we want to be part of them, or at least I do. Belonging is something we humans desire even if what we belong to isn't necessarily known. So, I guess in a sense I'd love to be part of a secret SEO society. Something called the The Algorithmics - no, that sounds like an 80's band. How about The Visibilati. Yeah, I like it and we'll have a symbol, maybe a magnifying glass the crosses with a computer mouse and our constitution could be Google's PageRank algorithm.
I'm not sure how to get this off the ground so I guess I'll just send out my invite. Attention all SEO's: If you'd like to join me in starting a secret SEO society please let me know.
I admit it. I bought the Livestrong bracelets, gave some away, and wore some proudly. I also watched the Tour de France and laughed at some ot the things Bob Roll said along the way. I was addicted. For about 5 years or so. Then Lance "retired", he had won his seventh Tour de France and had achieved something no one did. He had a tremendous impact on the world of cycling particularly in the US.
As you may have heard Lance is back to competitive cycling and is racing in the 2009 Tour de France. Love him or hate him he is a superstar. Now I wonder does he still have the impact that he once had all those years ago?
The answer is a resounding yes. Search "Tour de France" or "US cycling" in Google Trends and you'll see a peak in 2005 when Lance last won the Tour de France only to see a decline every year only to rebound in 2009 when he returned to cycling. In fact, newsworthy items related to these search terms explode in 2008 when Lance announced his return to professional cycling.
Yes, Lance matters and I enjoy every minute of it.
I tried it. I did. It sort of works but...not what I want. I'm speaking of Bing, Microsoft's "new" search engine. Oh, it's pretty. In fact I love the homepage with a new image everyday highlighting information about the image. It's a fun landing piece. But they still don't get it.
Google dominates search engine marketshare. Last I read it was above 70% marketshare. 70%! They get it. Google knows why people use their search engine...R-E-L-E-V-A-N-C-E. Oh, come on you know that's why you use Google. It's not because there is an image on homepage or some fandangled tool somewhere on the site. It's because when you perform a search the results will more than likely be what you are looking for. Bing couldn't do that so they added these links to the left making more relevant for users to find what they are trying to find. And we've become a egocentric society obsessed with popularity online and off seeing what people are saying about us online and I'm not sure if we want to "Bing" ourselves to see that. I Googled that, yes. I Binged that...not so much.
Let me begin by stating that I've never watched a full episode of Oprah.
I think that's important because I guess I never realized how influencial one person could be. A few nights ago I came across a show called "The Oprah Effect" and watched Oprah Winfrey's incredible Midas touch effect on everything that she comes in contact with. On this show it was said that Oprah has this segment called "Oprah's Favorite Things" where once a year she shares products that she feels are noteworthy with her audience members . Now, I do this on a daily basis and I'm usually dismissed as a know-it-all however in Oprah's case she changes lives. Throughout the show they showed examples of small business owner's products being featured on "Oprah's Favorite Things" that literally increased sales for their products overnight. Servers crashed, phones rang incessantly, customers camped outside (ok, I made that up) and simply because Oprah mentioned their product in her segment. Talk about power trip.
So how does this affect me and the Search industry? Well, truth is, most times Search strategies are an aggregrate of small tactics designed to deliver incremental traffic. It is rare that I sit down and say "I think my organic strategy for this campaign will be to target the USA Today, the New York TImes, and maybe...some other highly visible website". The reason is because the chance of actually getting a chance to be included in these types of websites are pretty slim. However that doesn't stop Oprah followers from soliciting the talk show queen with their latest product and it shouldn't stop us from contacting that elusive highly visible website either.
