aaron dalrymple
miscellaneous from minneapolis
Killing this blog, softly…
Since the only ones who read this blog seem to be comment spam bots, I’m officially killing it off. I enjoy my work, I enjoy SEO. I enjoy doing it though, not writing about it. I’ll leave the writing to the ones who really enjoy it.
I’m trying to get better at focusing my time and energy on my strengths and the things I really enjoy and am passionate about (my business, my hobbies, my relationships and my clients), and maintaining this blog just for the sake of having an SEO blog, needless to say, has not been one of them. I think I will continue to publish SEO articles from time to time — when I feel that I have something new to bring to the conversation — but I will do that over at my company website.
This site will be reborn, though. Oh yes indeed… as:
aarondalrymple.com v2.0
Stay tuned, comment spam bots…
Pros & Cons of Search Engine Ranking Reports
I’ve mentioned that, while I provide them, I am not a huge fan of ranking reports for SEO programs. Most Recently here: The Future of SEO Services. So, I decided to come up with a pro and con list.
Pros:
- Can chart progress of an SEO program over time.
- Illustrates value of SEO to clients/boss.
- Can track important keywords against competitors.
- Tracks ranking of your brand name and its variations.
- Can highlight site issues due to design changes, links, keyword changes, etc.
- Can help identify pages that are not ranking for targeted keywords.
- Can be a great addition to an overall report package – along with traffic and conversion data.
Cons:
- Easily manipulatable by which keywords you decide to “track”.
- Weighs each keyword equally – which can be deceiving to clients/boss.
- Can over value the importance of rankings to clients/boss.
- Rankings change daily. Getting bogged down in the details of why a single keyword changes by one or two positions is usually a waste of time.
- Different data centers can produce widely different results.
- Will increasingly become irrelevant with localization and personalization of search results.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few… Anything you can add? How do these pros and cons stack up against each other?
*For a great comparison of ranking report software, visit Matt Diehl’s post here: 3 Rank Reporting Softwares Reviewed.
Sex and the City! But, Sweety… I’m a MAN!
Just looking for a little help from my Internetz friends to solve a marital dispute. Please take a few seconds to give me some support:
The Future of SEO Services
I just read a great article by Mike Grehan about the future of Search Engine Optimization. The question, “what is the future of search” is getting asked a lot lately. It’s changed a whole lot since I first got involved just about 10 years ago.
One key element that Grehan points out is that SEO is a really a function of marketing, which I don’t think many people outside the industry (and some inside) really understand. He says,
…even though industry leaders acknowledge that SEO is much more of a marketing process than a technical effort, there’s still a lot of fixation on crawler activity and indexing.
Most new clients and even developers I work with tend to think that I can put up some meta tags and do some voodoo to their code and, POOF, their site will be “optimized.” A lot of people (and, again, developers) call me a week before a new site is set to go live and say, “can you make sure this is optimized?”
Another thing Grehan mentions that stands out to me is:
Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.
Thank god! I’ve already started to ween myself, and clients, off of ranking reports. And with the availability of good analytics programs (like Google Analytics), there is really no need to base success on a handful of keywords. Ranking reports are easy to manipulate, inaccurate, can provide a false sense of SEO success (or failure) and, today, really have very little value.
It HAS to be about conversions! 1000 #1 placements aren’t any good if users aren’t going to and taking action on your site. Unfortunately, the search industry is still pushing rankings (Guaranteed #1 in Google!) as the be-all and end-all of SEO success. Let me make this my new motto:
Rankings are not an End, But a Means to an End…
Another key here is that great rankings and great traffic still aren’t any good on a broken site. This is why I’ve started to include a site analysis incorporating usability best practices as part of my standard SEO offering. My job is not rankings, it’s to help my clients succeed.
Another thing to point out from Grehan’s piece is that SEO is really turning into Reputation Management:
Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.
It’s part of your overall marketing message. It’s about having a consistent marketing message acorss all channels and monitoring the voice of consumers. It’s social networks, it’s blogs, it’s public relations, it’s search results, and… just a little bit of voodoo. (-;
How to Market a Book in 2008…
My friend and neighbor, Dennis Cass, recently released the paperback version of his book, Head Case. In this video from his site he explores some of the ways to promote his book on the Internets:
What makes a great Third Place?
Third Places are those places where people meet, work, relax, study and socialize that are not home (First Places) and not work (Second Places). Think Starbucks, country clubs, some taverns and cafes, libraries, or even Barnes & Nobel. While Third Places used to be the norm in American life (Elk’s Clubs, VFWs, community centers), when suburban living became the context for the American Dream, Third Places started to disappear. With work, home and the commute in-between, there was less time, and maybe less desire, for these gathering areas.
However, now that people are starting to reappreciate urban living, and as more and more people telecommute, work as freelancers or are becoming professional nomads, Third Places are making a comeback.
As a professional who works from home, I (and many colleagues) have come to rely on Third Places. Not only to get work done on the road, but as a place to get out of the home office and out among other living beings. Most of the time I can get more work done in a noisy coffee shop than in a silent office in the corner of my house sitting in a comfortable chair.
I’ve come to rely on coffee shops, for the most part, for a break from my home office. While there are several that are either walking distance or a short drive from my house, only a few make my cut as a viable Third Place option for getting work done. So what makes a great Third Place? Here is my list:
- FREE internet access. This is where Starbucks has lost me. I will sit and drink overpriced coffee all day long, but I’m not diggin’ spending $6/hour for internet access. In my book you can’t be a true “Third Place” without free wireless access.
- Familiar Faces. I like it when employees recognize me and I like to see my neighbors and friends occasionally walk through the door. And if I’m someplace out of town, treat me like I’m a regular – I’ll make sure to come back the next time I’m passing through.
- Warm atmosphere. I like decoration that is warm and inviting. More cozy cafe, less diner. I also prefer some soft surfaces to soak in the sounds of a busy coffee shop.
- Comfortable Seating. This one, along with number three, are the reasons I don’t visit my local Dunn Bros anymore. The place is an echo chamber and the seating is mostly hard, wooden, upright benches. It’s impossible to sit in place for more than 10-15 minutes. This place is just screaming, “Please don’t hang out here too long!”
- Other People. One local coffee shop that I dig has almost all other elements except it’s usually dead in the middle of the work day. I don’t want a standing-room-only kind of place, but there has to be other people there in order to qualify as a Third Place… Otherwise it’s just an empty room.
- It should be Clean. Send someone around to clean the tables every once and a while. Enough said.
- Good Selection of Food and Beverage. I really haven’t said anything about the quality of the coffee, food, etc. This really is the least important in most cases. But, there should be ample selection. I’ve been known to show up at 9am for coffee, have a sandwich at noon, and grab a bottled water before I leave at 2pm. So having some options is a plus.
- And Finally, They Must Welcome People Who Sit for a Long Time without Spending a lot of Money. No one likes to feel unwelcome. If you want to have a kind of place where people gather and socialize, study, work, etc., then don’t make me feel rushed or give me nasty looks when you see that I’ve been nursing a small latte for two and a half hours.
What did I miss? What makes a great Third Place for others?
Typo in Mac Notification Box
Either this is a typo in iCal, or someone at Apple has decided to use King James English:
Quick Book Review: Winner Takes All
With football season long gone, television full of reruns and the lingering cold and snow, I’ve been on a reading tear the last couple of months.
Over the last 6-8 weeks I’ve read: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Power and influence by Robert Dislenschneider, Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (wanted to read it before the movie came out), and just finished up Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas by Christina Binkley.
Winner Takes All was spectacular! I definitely recommend it if you’re at all into hotel/resort development or investing, Las Vegas history, Steve Wynn, people with money, business profiles or all of the above.
I’ve always been fascinated by Steve Wynn. I remember the first time I visited The Mirage and heard his voice over the speakers while waiting to take the tram over to Treasure Island. At that time I didn’t know much about him but remember thinking about how his voice was so smooth and welcoming and really added a personal touch to this mega-resort. He collected art, brought his dogs to work and was keen on details. But Steve Wynn wasn’t just a hired gun running a corporation, this was his baby and we were there to enjoy the fruits of his labor… Actually, I was there to lose money at the craps tables…
I’ve stayed at the Bellagio (before the merger with MGM) too and, although it was wonderful, by that time I think Vegas had begun to lose some of its intimacy and “bigger is better” took over. The Bellagio is grandiose, but less cozy… Vegas became a little more like walking around the rim of the Grand Canyon instead of hiking its interior.
I think Wynn saw this too as his new Wynn Las Vegas is much more cozy feeling inside and less of a sidewalk spectacle on the outside.
Binkley’s book takes us through the large scale development and evolution on the Vegas strip over the last 20 years and it’s three biggest moguls. We get an inside look at Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian (of MGM Mirage) and, to a lessor degree, Gary Loveman of Harrah’s – as well as a number of other executives that came and went along the way.
From the mob to Howard Hughes to Steve Wynn, Vegas has had its share of characters who live large and dream big. This is a great story of three modern day moguls and how they made it happen.
Search Engines Still Key to Hotel Bookings?
I’m not sure how earth shattering this is, but this post from HotelMarketing.com refers to a study showing that most people searching for a hotel are using a search engine to find hotels rather than going directly to a hotel’s corporate site. No big surprise that the internet is helping to commoditize hotel rooms just as it assisted in pushing airline tickets that same direction.
For most people, I believe, hotel rooms are booked primarily — in this order — for their location (city & state), price, proximity to desired landmarks, amenities, and then brand loyalty. No real scientific data there, just my gut instinct on how the average person goes about finding a hotel room for a family vacation, weekend getaway, business trip, etc.
I don’t doubt that brand does come into play if there are two hotels that match closely on the other factors. But average people don’t much care if it’s a Hilton or a Radisson in most cases. So, searching by destination, as this study suggests, seems perfectly matched to my theory. And, if you look at the search data you’ll find that a city name with a qualifier such as “discount” or “cheap” are the next most popular.
The danger for OTAs and Search Marketers or resellers depending on search marketing, though, is the risk of becoming nothing more than a price and amenities comparison engine that enable users to pick out a property, from a location search, and then go directly to the chain’s website to book the room. This study suggests that just that is happening:
“The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.”
If all you sell are hotel rooms, how do you differentiate from the rest of the pack? How do you use all of those great rankings to convert visitors to buyers?
Here may be a clue… The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey, published in December of last year, says that,
“When it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travelers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travelers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.”
Frankly, I’m surprised at the fact that hotels aren’t trying harder to compete head-on in search engine marketing. Aren’t they leaning on their brand a little too much? Or are we just doing the hard work for them?
