Archive for June, 2006
http://gregorydowling.com/xl2023x.php Update: I wrote this post in 2006, but the advice is still relevant today.
Let’s talk about a simple concept that many webmasters and business owners can’t grasp: If your site isn’t showing up in Google it’s probably because it’s not useful.
Well ok it may be useful, but not in the way you want it to be. One of the hardest things to do in SEO is to look at your site from the perspective of a searcher. What’s useful to you may not be what’s useful to your visitors. That’s why it’s a great idea to hire a 3rd party company, they’re not attached to your site in any way; they have no feelings to hurt. Ecodelogic is a full service custom web development company that can help you create a robust website for your business.
Let’s use a fictional example:
John owns a chimney sweeping company, and he’s really frustrated that he can’t get on the front page of Google for “chimney sweeping”.
John’s done his SEO, he’s traded links, got listed in all the good directories, put out press releases, wrote articles, has a blog and a newsletter, updates his content frequently, has a good PageRank, and even an affiliate program, but he just can’t crack the top page of Google for his key term. (2011 Update: He’s doing fine in Google Local – but only for his city, and he still can’t get into the natural search results.)
Eventually John gives up and buys AdWords. He then swears it’s a Google conspiracy to force him into buying AdWords. He even makes a post on Matt Cutts blog accusing Google of unfairly not ranking his “useful” site. He claims Google is putting a good chimney sweep out of business.
The problem here is that while John’s site IS useful, it’s probably NOT useful to somebody searching for “chimney sweeping”.
Among the top results for “chimney sweeping” we [saw – in 2006]: National association of, how to guide, training school, job profile, and how to find a chimney sweep. (Fast forward to 2011 and we see national chimney sweep guild, wikipedia, chimney sweep institue, and “how to” sites. Pretty similar)
These are useful sites. Why? the term “chimney sweeping” implies that the searcher is looking for information about the topic, NOT a chimney sweeping company. If they wanted their chimney swept they’d have searched for “chimney sweep Boston” or “chimney sweeping company”. These are the terms John should focus on. He should worry more about what his customers are doing and less about ranking.
Since John never did his research and couldn’t look at his site from the perspective of a searcher, he wasted months optimizing for terms that he realistically couldn’t achieve top rankings for.
That’s what SEO is about. It’s not about tricking the search engines or writing code to make your site better than others. It’s about anticipating what somebody is searching for, and then building a site that is relevant to that search – from the searcher’s perspective.
June 9th, 2006
A while ago while shopping at Best Buy I couldn’t help but start people watching. One such couple, a mother and daughter, were buying CDs and DVDs in front of me. The mother was a pretty lady, probably in her mid 30’s, wearing a great dress like short black prom dresses online.
What I couldn’t help notice was that her shirt, who was probably aged 10-12, was wearing a glittery cut-off shirt. Immediately questions started racing through my mind: Did I just read that? What did you fake? A temper tantrum in front of the vending machine? Does the girl really know what the shirt means? Does the mother know what the shirt means? How come they make cheese-filled hot dogs but not chili filled ones?
Thinking about it for a while I realized that with a little bit of hard work and venture capital I could easily rule the stuffed hot dog market. Then the door alarm sounded, and as I watched the security guard demagnetize her new Britney Spears CD more questions started racing through my mind. How could she let her daughter wear such clothing? How could she let that CD anywhere near her stereo? Chances are good that the girl had to explain it to her mother, or that the mom thought it was cute and harmless.
It’s not just this family either, its happening all over America. Kids see sex symbols on TV and want to mimic what they see. After all, it looks good on Britney, it must look good on me too. It’s not just kids, fashion designers know this too. Somebody obviously made the shirt big enough for an 80lb girl to wear.
So the kids want to wear it, the fashion designers make it for them, who else can we blame? Somebody has to be at fault, and as tempting as it is to try and point a finger at MTV, Rockstar Videogames and those damn liberals, it’s obviously the parents who are culpable here.
People wonder why we have such high teenage pregnancy and STD rates, and immediately think stronger laws are needed. The answer is simple. Stop teaching our children that sex is funny or cute. Stop treating sex education as a forbidden subject. Everybody knows that the more you forbid something, the more a child is going to want to do it.
Parents raise a fuss when schools want to teach sex-ed, yet they turn around and allow their 10 yr old daughters to dress like hookers. If you want your kid to grow up right, stop telling her that this clothing is cute. It’s not cute at all, it’s sick.
Remember, parental responsibility is not a dirty word.
June 6th, 2006
Which of the following crimes do you consider the worst?
child pornography
repeat drunk driving
dealing drugs
stealing someone’s identity
playing poker online
Actually, it doesn’t matter. Starting tomorrow in the state of Washington, all of these are class C felonies. (ok, so all of them BUT playing poker WERE class C felonies)
That’s right.. playing poker online in washington now carries the same prison sentence as being caught in possession of child porn… up to 7 years.
Can’t wait till they actually try to enforce this… If you think jails are overcrowded now, just wait.
June 6th, 2006
