WebConnoisseur

Don’t worrry, I’m not quoting John Wayne. I’m simply stating that one of the search marketing blogs I read is Marketing Pilgrim. Andy is having a little “readership survey” that pays survey takers with a free link, plus a free entry to win $500 cash (hopefully USD). I figure I have a 1 in 50 chance in winning. It also means Andy is paying about $10 per survey taker.

The reason I use MarketingPilgrim.com is because they tend to cover stories quickly and deviate just the right amount from your standard search marketing publication. If I look at my feeds related to search, I have about 5 that are what I’d call news filters and Marketing Pilgrim is one of them. I love these news filters because it saves me a lot of time (much better than reading through hundreds of blogs and pubications).

You can now add a photo to your LinkedIn profile. I suggest you use a professional looking headshot. Unlike other social networks, racy or promotional photos won’t be well-received and could result in a loss in present or future connections. Adding a photo is very simple: just go to your profile page, click add photo where the empty box is displayed, then browse the file, upload and make sure the cropping works, then save. Shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds and shows that your connections are a plugged-in early adopter.

I love seeing people using the Internet to change entire industries. Radiohead is geared up to do so by releasing their latest album, In Rainbow, as a download for as little or as much as the fan wants to pay. They are taking a gamble that people won’t download it for free, or they figure those people will find a way to get it for free anyway.

I love the idea and hope the best for Radiohead as this will make a big impact in the music industry, but was a little disappointed after I visited the site. From a search engine and usability standpoint, Radiohead made some major mistakes that might come back to haunt them. Let me list out some of the mistakes and explain the possible implications.

Radiohead In Rainbow Site mistakes:

• 302 redirected their existing site homepage (radiohead.com) to new site: www.inrainbows.com, but…
• www.inrainbows.com 302 redirects to www.inrainbows.com/Store/Quickindex.html
• The more logical site domain, inrainbow.com (no “s”, which matches the album title) wasn’t registered, purchased or used. Instead a domain parker will receive lots of traffic.
• Title tag for In Rainbow site mainpage is “Radiohead”
• Site mainpage only has images with no search engine readable text
• 2nd page only has images no search engine readable text and same title tag
• 3rd page only has images no search engine readable text and same title tag
• Home links go to the 3rd page
• Shopping cart very awkward & buggy (keeps losing track of my order)
• Grammar mistakes confusing
• Amounts only shown in British Pounds
• Question mark help icon doesn’t provide any help or explanation
• There is actually a 1 GBP minimum, that’s $2.04 more than free
• There is actually a 99 GBP limit. Want to be an extreme fan and buy it for $1,000? Too bad.

Radiohead In Rainbow Site Mistake Implications:

• With the 302 mistakes, not only are they begging for a search spammer to hijack their site traffic, but they are linking to a page that they will probably change URLs over time.
• With all the search engine & readability mistakes, they will essentially allow standard retailers and online stores to steal away their direct payment opportunities by allowing them to rank higher for their own album and even site.
• The usability issues will also turn people back to iTunes or other dealers.
• Their main site may suffer rank decreases and traffic losses for a long time.
• The download for free concept won’t be given an honest shot, which may deter other artists like Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, REM, Metallica and other likely candidates from trying a similar experiment.

Regardless of the mistakes I list, this will be an effort worth watching for those in the music industry, movie industry or any other industry where self-distribution online could be a big opportunity.

As more and more people start using Macs, I forsee an increasing # of people accidentally typing in things incorrectly due to the keyboard differences. To track this, I’m going to use Facebppl as a source of data on commonly misstyped terms. Facebppl is the keyboard shifted over one letter for the right hand equivelant of Facebook. I noticed the .com domain is already registered which is a sign that this may be a somewhat common mistake.

Besides facebppl, a couple other common, but strange ones might be: g,ao; or gpp;e or fppf;w or even uajpp.

I appreciate your patience in reading this weird post. I’ll report back on the stats later.

I’ve been impressed with the marketing tactics The Simpsons movie has employed. Back in July, by word of mouth I heard about the Simpsons 7-11 promo where select 7-11s were transformed into Kwik-E-marts including one in my hometown, Seattle (shame on the 7-eleven site for removing the page from their site) where you could buy pink donuts, buzz cola, krusty-os, etc. (I still think they should have made Duff beer).

Then, last week before I went to see the movie, I visited the official simpsons movie site which also had some great viral marketing elements built in. For example, you can create your very own Simpsons character. Here’s my Simpsonized family:

They made it really easy to create avatars, jpgs, video and other web elements that you could add to your blog or social networking profile. I love it when movies go beyond creating a site that only contains a movie trailer and a couple stills. Allowing your fans to promote their love for your movie is a smart marketing tactic. Massive marketing still works for Hollywood, but it seems like the movies that are most successful rely mostly on Word-of-Mouth. Why not use the web to promote word-of-mouth activity?

The movie was also enjoyable. As a filmmaker, I loved the beginning. Television actors & movies are often considered undesirable for feature films because the audience is used to seeing them for free. In true Simpson’s style, they actually poke fun at the audience for paying for the movie during the first 30 seconds of the film.

I just added my 200th LinkedIn connection and I must say it feels good. I’m proud of it because it is an indicator of my networking skills and general likeability, especially considering I’ve always worked for very small companies, have never hired a consultant, rarely consult others, and rarely get to go to conferences. 98% of my network consists of people I’ve had several in-person discussions with and the other 2% are people I share common interest or situations with (more on this topic below).

According to LinkedSEO, I’m the 2nd most well-connected SEO in the Greater Seattle area. I’m sure my buddy Rand will catch up to me soon, but for now Dana Melick is the only person listed above me and it appears that Dana Melick is more of a salesman of SEO services than an SEO practitioner.

LinkedIn is definitely hitting critical mass. In the past couple months, I’ve seen tons of people jumping on the service. Social networking for business seems to have caught on. LinkedIn is doing a great job of staying focused on launching features that compliment their core focus. LinkedIn Answers is working well, groups are cool, recommendations make complete sense and the ability to find unbiased references when hiring people is awesome.

My tips for anyone looking to grow their LinkedIn network:

• Connect with only people you know or trust. This isn’t like myspace where having tons of friends makes you look cool. People are weary of connecting with people with large networks and recommendations from a stranger are essentially worthless.
• If you have a good conversation with someone and get their business card, send a LinkedIn request within 3 days and remind them exactly who you are. Don’t wait to long because you may forget who they are and they may forget who you are, which greatly reduces the likelyhood of a connection.
• Use LinkedIn as your rolodex. It is where you keep all your important contacts.
• Don’t recommend people you don’t believe in. I haven’t done it, but I am confident it will come back to bite you.
• Avoid linking up with recruiters unless you want to scare your boss or co-workers.
• Don’t be afraid to connect with a competitor. Being connected to them allows you to see who they are working with based off their new connections. Besides, you never know when a competitor will become an ally when tackling an issue that affects you both.
• If you participate in Answers, know what you are talking about. Stupid answers (or even questions) can leave a scar on your entire career. No pressure .
• Help people out in your network.

And, of course, if you know me or think you should know me, definately check out my LinkedIn profile and send me a request. My email is my [first name]@[the website address you are visiting].com. Here’s a link to my profile:

It seems a bit premature to have tips for the Search Marketing Expo considering the first-ever SMX doesn’t take place until next week, but it is taking place in my hometown and I’ve been to enough search conferences to know how to make the most of them.

Below are my tips for those who are new to search conferences and those who aren’t new to search conferences but are new to SMX (should be the rest of us). If you are new to search, I think you are at the wrong conference (SMX Seattle is geared towards advanced search marketers).

New to Search Conferences:

• Some of the best search information is gained outside of the conference rooms – in hallways, at the parties and in the bars. Danny realizes this, and has set up three networking events. Attend them all.
• Many of the brightest minds in search will be at this conference (both search engine employees and those whose lifeblood is tied to search). Listen and remember, not all experts will have a microphone in front of them, some will be sitting right next to you.
• No matter how brilliant or “famous” the people at the conference may seem to you, don’t let that deter you from introducing yourself. I’ve found people in our industry to be incredibly welcoming. Remember, these people aren’t famous outside this industry and they are as much of a geek as you and I are.

New to SMX:

• After being beautiful and in the 80s all week, the weather is expected to flip completely to rain on Monday and Tuesday. It’s really a conspiracy. Seattle wants out-of-towners to tell everyone it rains here all the time. Regardless, we’ll probably be spending most of our time indoors anyways.
• The Bell Harbor conference center rocks. Great views and good location. Wifi is free, so bring a laptop so you can connect to the web during a conversation to show people what you are talking about.
• Andy Beal claims he’ll be videotaping everything. Jump on camera if you’ve got a spare moment, but shoo him away if the camera is taming down your corner conversation. Don’t forget about the WebProNews guys either.
• If you want to try a local favorite beer, ask for a Mac and Jacks (it’s only available on tap).

Other people excited about the upcoming SMX Seattle Conference:
Google Webmaster Central
SEOMoz
Karl Ribas
Todd Mintz
Scott Clark
SEO Chicks
Adam Killam
Matt Cutts

SEOmoz released the results of the 2nd Annual Web 2.0 Awards yesterday. I’m happy to announce that I was one of the 25 judges. I’ve judged the Webby Awards for a number of years and even judged an online Miss World competition a few years ago, but I must admit that judging the Web 2.0 Awards was a refreshing change. It’s fun to see how people are changing the web in exciting ways.

I highly recommend you take a look at the 2007 Web 2.0 Award Winners, especially if you are still unsure what a “Web 2.0 site” is. I think every company with an online presence could benefit from paying attention to sites that are leading the movement towards Web 2.0 experiences.

Think about how you might be able to integrate elements of what these other sites are doing into your site, especially if it adds value to your existing user base.

The 11th annual Webby Award Winners have been announced. 69 sites and 11 videos have been blessed with the web equivalent of an Oscar. As a judge for the awards, I’ve flown to NY for the past two Webby Awards Galas and must say they are THE coolest web event to attend. Unfortunately, this year I’m not making the trip thanks to SMX Seattle being scheduled on the same two days.

Hitwise correctly predicted people’s voice winners for MiniClip Games, Manchester United, TripAdvisor, BBC News, Great Schools and Facebook. If you look at the list of nominees and winners, you may notice some that were notably missing (Zillow for the Real Estate category, for example) and I’d like to make it clear that the sites go through a pre-screening process and sometimes don’t make it to the list of sites for judges to choose from. The people’s voice also has a similar restriction: people can only choose from the 5 nominees.

In the future, I hope the Webbys will re-introduce write-in votes for the people’s voice awards and that Judges can review the voting eligible lists before the voting begins to nominate any noticeable gaps. While I’m giving feedback, I’d like to offer the following advice to judges and people’s voice voters to help eliminate bias:

Webby Judges: please place more weight on site usability and repeat visit likelyhood. Ask yourself, “is this a site that I would come back to?” As a judge, I find it tempting to let the first-visit “wow” factor play too big of a role, especially considering the number of sites we look at. For my vote, sites have to do more than just dazzle me with flash eye-candy.

People’s Voice Voters: please don’t vote just for the sites you are familiar with. Take the time to visit the other sites. Sometimes the best site for a given category isn’t one you are familiar with. Use the awards as a way to discover some great new sites.

Sometimes being so entrenched in the search industry, it is easy to forget how skewed people’s thoughts are regarding search engines. Even people who work for Web companies that rely on SEO & word-of-mouth for all their new traffic. Here’s a great example from my work the other day when discussing article titles:

“There is also a difference between writing for a search engine crawler and a real person. What is attractive to the search engine may not be the same thing as what is engaging to a person.”

I have a feeling she is not alone. Some people think of the search engine as literally an engine or a robot or an appliance. They have trouble understanding why we spend so much time worrying about it and probably hate this non-human thing that rules so many decisions.

Here’s what I told her:

• In my 10+ years of doing SEO, I’ve never written an article for a search crawler.
• Don’t think of a search engine as an appliance or device. Think of it as real people. For example, if you called me on the phone, I wouldn’t think of that conversation as a conversation with a telephone wire – it was a conversation with you!
• There’s no better indicator of what people want, then what they search for and the words they use.

It’s true that SEOs will format a page or architect a site a certain way to aid in search crawlability, but when writing an article, good SEO’s think more about the user, the ways users think about and search for the content (keywords), and then various factors that play into ranking algorithms (which includes engagement more and more each day).

People scan headlines or titles. Titles should include the keywords, concisely tell the user what they are about to read and be attractive enough to draw them in. You can sometimes get away with creative headlines (especially when teamed with images), but in order for an article to have legs (last beyond the one-time editorial push) they should be SEO-friendly and click-through friendly.

The title of this post is a bit silly. Search engines aren’t human. But they do represent humans. Hundreds of millions of them. There’s no better indicator of how humans think or what they are looking for then the searches executed on these “engines.”