One is sometimes better than Two
April 22, 2008 on 11:16 am
Filed Under:SEO
Most folks cruising this blog for the first time may start to think that I’m a bit of a Mike Grehan fan because of the fact that I link to so many of his articles. I’m afraid it’s true.
I can’t help it though. Every single morning I read anywhere from 5-20 different newsletters and up to 30 blogs, ALL industry-centric, and the guy just writes stuff that so strongly resonates within me that I feel like I have to write about it.
Today is no different. His article, “Analyze This, That, and the Other” is yet another example of not just the point that I try to get across to my clients and peers, but to the entire Web Industry, that SEO and Web Analytics are too important separately to NOT be put together. They’re the core of my business and desperately need to be blended together into one, cohesively data-ed, easy-to-use tool that’s both good and good for you!
As I eluded to in my last post, I’m working on one and, while it’s still small I believe it’s important and if you’re an SEM/SEO I can think of no reason that you wouldn’t want to use it.
Web Analytics and Search Engine Optimisation have been too separate for too long. Two separate logins, URLs, software apps, sections, or tabs on something-or-other isn’t working for me any more. I’m putting it into ONE and it’s almost ready.
So, good on ya Mike, for yet another article that speaks to me.
Take it easy, and have a good website.
Something SEO this way comes…
April 21, 2008 on 12:15 pm
Filed Under:SEO
I’ve seen it happen all too often lately, where someone is hired simply for SEO and nothing more. The client is looking to sit better with the Search Engines and figures that there’s some sort of “trickery” to get this to happen. “If only we could hire someone to do something about it,” they think, “we could harness some of their witchcraft for our own purposes.” Fiendish cackling aside, this is not terribly far off the mark as far as what goes down in the clients’ noggins.
So they hire someone to do some SEO, figuring that something magical may happen. Sometimes it does, usually it doesn’t, and they go away wondering just that much more about whatever it is that happens when someone “performs” SEO. Search Engine Optimisation isn’t a magic trick or waving a wand. Anyone with 15 minutes to spare can Google the term and figure that much out. Hopefully, information on the basics of it will spread thoroughly enough throughout the web such that the majority of people seeking the service will start to understand that.
Part of educating others is blogs like this one, where we debunk a few myths and basically use a very no-nonsense approach to our language and industry references. I’m the same with my clients, in that I don’t sugar-coat a whole lot, instead shooting straight from the hip in the hopes that no one will have to waste time or money.
Well, I’ve been busy lately (too busy to even blog, heh), and I’ve been working on something that is even bigger than just words in a blog or a voice on a phone. I’ve been building something. I don’t want to go into too much detail just yet, but it’s pretty cool, this thing I’m building. It literally “popped” my eyes open at about 4 AM a few weeks ago, and I haven’t stopped working on it since.
Here’s a basic rundown… I’d been thinking lately about all the SEO and Web Analytics tools out there, free and otherwise, that I use for my business and are pretty much integral to making me money. Most of them are great and I love them, but I still use them for my explicit purposes, and not necessarily as the creator had in mind. There are still other tools that only do a small fraction of what I really need, leaving me to do the rest manually.
Well, I started searching, really looking, for something that did what I, in particular, needed. And I couldn’t find anything that did it. Oh, some stuff came close, and I could pretty much do what I needed by combining data from about 5 different places, but who wants that? At the end of the day, I wanted one place, for me and my clients, to stop in and check out how certain things were going.
And that’s what we’ve got now. I’m just tweaking it and trying to make it a bit more usable. Thankfully, I’ve got clients (and Friends!) that are helping me with this. Soon, I’ll roll this sucker out to a few industry colleagues and have them see if it is indeed something that is both exciting and usable.
And, dear reader, once it’s ready, I’ll make it available to YOU. Trust me, it’s worth the wait, especially for you SEOs out there that are tired of trying to be Google Webmasters too.
Until next time, have a good site.
Social Networking.
April 4, 2008 on 12:35 pm
Filed Under:Web
I’ve got an e-buddy who came up with this beauty over Christmas, The Original Social Network. While born for hilarity, it is no less true, and got me thinking about the social aspects of our e-work and how important it is to get back to basics once in a while.
So, when someone on the local nerd forum here in Perth suggested that we have a meetup for coffee as opposed to the pub fun that we can never seem to make it to (because we, unlike some of the others, decided to procreate, the efforts of which keeping us quite busy), I was excited.
At first, I was excited just for the fact that I would finally get to meet some of these people in person. Then, I thought about the networking opportunities and got so excited that I forgot to bring more than 3 business cards. Even though I didn’t think a huge amount of folks would be there, I figured on more than 3. We did have more than I thought, and that was awesome. So many, in fact, that I didn’t get a chance to sit and talk to everybody before they had to dash out and please demanding clients.
For those that I did talk to though, were most impressive. In my brief tenure as a small business owner, I’ve spent substantial time networking online, I’m signed up for all the techie accounts, I post in several forums, I comment on just about every blog I can find… I’m networking all over the place.
And yet here, in what is sometimes very reminiscent of a small town of Perth, is where I’ve found my “network”. It’s no, Original Social Network, as it’s got its online component, but I’m meeting people. People that now know me, in person, and have just that little bit more idea of what I do and how I do it. That knowledge, combined with my winning smile (notice I don’t mention what it would win) is sure to get me some business through these folks.
And all I had to do was sit, have a coffee, and shoot the breeze with some pretty interesting folks. That’s what I call Social Networking.
Next is beer and barbecue, THEN we’ll start talking about “social”. I can’t wait.
