Talking SEO to business

Talking SEO in SEO terms to business is a no-go.
Business usually is neither interested - nor understands - terminology such as SERPs, positioning, keywords, etc.
I learned this the hard way, but Laura at HighRankings puts it succintly:

How to talk SEO to a CEO
Talk numbers, money, traffic. Show pretty graphs. Steer clear of tech […]

When distribution can kill

Threadwatch covered a story, where a manufacturer of healthcare products expressly forbid it’s distributors from selling the products online.
The initial response is one of disbelief.
After all, the internet is the world’s largest marketplace. How could it possibly make business sense to disallow such a powerful distribution channel?
And there lies the rub - powerful […]

IPTV will revolutionise the internet

I’ve written up a major article on the main site, outlining my vision of how IPTV will revolutionise the internet: The New Digital Revolution.
I don’t make that statement lightly - I’ve been telling media student friends for the past year about how IPTV will create a major distribution channel for independent media production.
To summarise:

[IPTV] will […]

Taking webmaster skills for granted

It’s been emphasised to me recently how easy it is to take webmaster skills for granted.
I asked an IT guy - good with building PCs and networks, but relatively new to the internet - to set up a Wordpress install. After 6 days, he’s still struggling.
Yesterday I recommended a client - who is bringing significant […]

Backup tips

Tips:

Before upgrading a database-driven application, save the database first
Don’t do major software upgrades to a database-driven application while tired

This is after this tired numbnut tried to upgrade vbulletin - accidentally into the root folder, overwriting the Wordpress files that power this site. :)
I also accidently upgraded the forum database twice to the original version. […]

Observational research on shopping behaviour

“Why We Buy: The science of shopping” by Paco Underhill, runs through some of his 20+ years of observational research into how shoppers behave in different shopping environments.
Here’s a couple of points he raised that I found interesting:

The faster people walk, the narrower their field of vision becomes
Reflective surfaces cause shoppers to slow down; blank […]

Rand exposes link network

It’s interesting to see the sort of networks people set up for SEO.
I blogged before about an interesting media network, but now Rand Fishkin at SEO Moz exposes a spam link network.
You can see the link results on Yahoo!, and they are illuminating.
Of particular interest is the number of Yahoo! directory listings for sites no […]

China - closed for business?

If you don’t know Shak, a brief introduction - he’s one of the ecommerce pioneers of the internet with a killer reputation for making killings online.
He’s currently in China, investigating business opportunities - and unless he’s playing bluff, has declared that the internet is closed for business in China.
Of course, he’s dealing with generalisations for […]

Word of Mouth marketing

Geoff Ramsey grabs hold of New Marketing principles while addressing Word of Mouth marketing.
While there’s nothing revelatory in his comments, it’s a repeat underlining of marketing basics in the new internet economy:

Consumers care more about what other consumers think that they do about advertising.
Consumers have a high distust level for advertising
Factor in the influence of […]

Kawasaki on panels

Guy Kawasaki makes a few interesting points about getting the most from speaking on a panel:

Know the subject.
Control your introduction.
Speak up.
Entertain, don’t just inform.
Tell the truth, especially when the truth is obvious.
Answer the question that’s posed, but never limit yourself to the question that’s posed.
Be plain, simple, and short.
Never look […]

Google and Privacy

The issue of privacy online is becoming an acute issue - not least because major ISPs such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, are able to collect such a wealth of personal data about users of their services - name, gender, location, likes, dislikes, when you look for things, what you look for, what services you […]

v7ndotcom elursrebmem directory

So I realised that John Scott wasn’t simply running a SEO contest - he’d unleashed a viral marketing campaign. That creates new respect.
As a matter of fun, I’m now trying to catalogue a lot of the sites involved - both the contestants, and coverage, in the v7ndotcom elursrebmem directory.
If you have a site entering the […]

v7n SEO contest

John Scott has launched the v7n SEO contest…
Amazingly, there’s quite a clamour to win the first prize of $4,000.
Kudos top John Scott - he created the competition to increase the profile and traffic of v7n - and the controversy at the beginning has certainly helped that.
But let’s get something straight - any SEO contest is […]

A Day in the Life of a SEO

It periodically comes up in forums where someone asks what the daily life of a SEO is like.
As the director of a small limited liability company in the UK, I thought I’d record my own day today, simply out of interest:
08:30

Wake up - damn, slept in. Didn’t get to bed until 01:30, and then a […]

Google Big Daddy loses 6 months of Platinax

I ran a search on Google for one of the more popular threads on the Platinax forums.
Was surpised to find that Google no longer has a recent copy - in fact, the cache is dated July 25th 2005.
Ran a site: check for the main keyword, and Google shows about 30 supplemental results based on similarly […]

Halifax phishing spam

I’m getting a lot of phishing spam, claiming to be from the Halifax bank (I don’t even have an account with them).
Seems the moron trying to do the phishing (the link IP is 81.215.230.160) thinks that if he sends me two dozen phishing e-mails, I’ll eventually get around to actually opening an account with the […]

Google are Vorlons

Google are like the Vorlons in Babylon 5.
I realised it this week, after having to take a lot of time off work to look after my girlfriend and kids (she did her neck in this week, being too tense in her driving lessons I bought for her birthday - the kids are going through various […]

Blurring the lines between spam and niche targeting

So I’m looking to generate content sites with custom-written news in key verticals. I’m looking at “businessdaily.com” as a potential domain name for the general business vertical.
The domain is registered, so I visit it to see if it’s for sale - and stumble into the biggest niche targeted networks I’ve ever seen.
Run by World News […]

Google’s dialogue predicament

There have long been complaints that Google doesn’t dialogue enough with SEO’s.
But then when Matt Cutts, a Google engineer and Public Relations figure, opens up his blog for feedback, SEO’s worry that it’s a trap - or complain there’s not enough attention given to feedback.
Pretty sad, really.
While people may be suspicious of testing client […]

Google Sandbox in action?

Sometimes it’s hard to use a good example of the Google Sandbox in action, without the danger of exposing clients to unnecessary publicity.
This looks like it could be a good example, though: link condom
After the introduction of nofollow, the humour site www.linkcondom.com was set up to parody the concept of nofollow.
However, if you search for […]