As my esteemed Onion colleague Jim Anchower might start out, “Hola, amigos.  I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya.”  Things have been extra busy around here in wrapping up the year and setting out plans for our clients for 2009.

Consider this your early holiday smorgasbord because it’s not like you’re not already stuffing your face with goodies, saying “Oh it’s just the holidays; it doesn’t count.”  Wait – you’re not saying that?  It’s just me?  Oh. Onward…

Note #1 – We’re having flex office days this week, meaning our employees all get Christmas (middle of the country) / December 25th (coasts) off.  They also get their choice of either the 24th or 26th off plus New Year’s Day off for all.  That means we’ll be open regular hours and working on your accounts every day but Christmas day and New Year’s Day.

Note #2 - This is a nice offer from ProspectMX, an internet marketing firm in Eastern PA that employs a certain funny and SEO-capable WVU grad.  They’re giving away $10,000 worth of internet marketing services for one worthy non-profit.  Runner up prizes, too.  If you’re a non-profit organization trying to do the world some good on a shoestring budget, check it out.

Note #3 – Related to the above, we were offering some gratis advice to a nonprofit over the weekend and there’s one thing I see routinely neglected there’s no need for: sign up for Google Analytics.  It’s free and will allow you to track detailed information about your visitors.   Even if you’re not in a position to do much about these findings now, it will allow you to start tracking a baseline.  Should you ever get a grant where you can make more out of your Web site and online marketing efforts, that information will be very valuable to the people helping you.

Note #4 - This has been a banner year for us.  Even though we’re overworked at the moment, we are still taking on new clients.  Except for our custom 1/2- or 1-day blogging, seo, or paid search training sessions and for those organizations with whom we have an outstanding proposal, though, Q2 may be the earliest we can launch a new campaign.

With that, please allow me to wish you a very Happy Holidays (that includes Merry Christmas – I don’t want to start any South Park-style fights – Happy Hannukah, and all the rest) for you and your family.  We appreciate all your support in 2008 and look forward to even better things together in 2009.  Have a great time and please be safe.

a

Bob Coffield wrote a great post on his health care law blog today honoring his family that served in the military and all our veterans.  I was so moved I wanted to share my appreciation here and allow this to serve as an open thread for anyone else that wants to share their thanks or memories of their loved ones. I apologize for being off topic.

I’d like to give a special thanks to my great uncle Allen Sanders who passed away this year after leading a very full life in service to his family, community, and country.  He proudly served in World War II in the Navy.  Uncle Allen was very kind and only once talked sternly to me.  I slammed a golf club during a round together when I was a young teenager; finally recognizing my buffoonery that was the final time I ever slammed a club.  We were very fortunate for both of our young children to meet Uncle Allen and Aunt Maple (a fine woman in her own right!) shortly before he passed away.

I’d also like to honor my grandfathers, Jim Henry and Bud Seibert, and another great uncle, Earl Henry, all of whom served in World War II.  Earl gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country (and the rest of the world) only a very short period before the war ended.

Finally, I’d like to thank two living veterans from my family: my uncle Carlyle Farnsworth and father-in-law Jim Nixon.  As soon as I finish this post I intend to call them with my thanks.  It’s easy to forget about their sacrifices since they never want to talk about their service, but that would be disgraceful on my part.  You might consider doing the same and calling to thank the veterans in your lives today.

Thank you to all of you who have served and continue to serve in defense of our country.  We owe all of the immense freedoms we enjoy to you.

a

Enter Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO).  Or more accurately, enter me talking about HARO.

A couple weeks ago I joined a tight-knit community of a billion or so people and found out about HARO.  Simple yet kind of revolutionary* concept, which I’ll attempt to explain without reading more through Peter’s Web site or attempting to do any kind of interview questions.  My external excuse is that Peter’s probably at the Search Engine Strategies conference.  Internally I’ll admit that I’m just lazy.

* An exaggeration, I guess.  It’s not like a bunch of new media folks got together and dumped a lot of press releases and fax machines into the Boston Harbor…yet.  You just wait!

HARO in Plain English*

Reporters write articles for publications.  Often these reporters need quotes from experts to back up what they write and make their articles more interesting.  Finding experts can be a very time consuming process and particularly difficult for obscure subjects.

* Total title rip-off of my favorite Web series, RSS in Plain English.  Also worth checking out: Zombies in Plain English.

Peter Shankman  saw the problem here and came up with a fix.  He sends out a list 3 times a day with expert requests from reporters.  Much like a regular, run-of-the-mill Zombie, I was infected by his list.  I then turned and infected other pr professional friends, who will probably infect their own circles.  Tomorrow morning, we’re going to wake up and realize this HARO Zombie catastrophe was just a dream, only to see Peter Shankman’s helicopter touch down on the news.

* Full circle.

Surely Peter is getting paid back tenfold for putting in this effort, but it still deserves being trumpeted.  Go check it out now and find interesting things for your friends and clients to speak about to get some press:

Help A Reporter Out Web Site

Peter Shankman’s Web site

a

Sorry – nothing of marketing value in this post. I just thought this was funny. Bonus points to any of our readers that tie this into online marketing.

a

If you receive an email from Google that says “Account Reactivation” or “Update Your Billing Information” or anything along those lines, DO NOT CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS. It is a scam.

If you hover over the links, you will see that it doesn’t actually go to Google AdWords, but rather a page on the site djieh3.cn (no links – burn in hell jerks). They want you to enter in your information to presumably (I didn’t actually go to this site) try to get your financial and personal information. It’s also possible they have set up a trojan horse or other malware that can infect your computer or add a keylogger (that monitors information you type) just by clicking on the link.

If you want to check it out just to be sure – and this is good advice for emails you receive from your bank, eBay, or anywhere else – open up a new Web browser and log in to the appropriate site directly. Never, never, never click on those links from emails. Otherwise you’re writing a blank check to some entrepreneurial youths in Nigeria.

Quick story – I was talking with a woman from Washington County, PA about a year ago who runs a small windows shop. She had problems running a credit card and called the person to verify the address. When she asked for the city and state, he said, “Columbus O-H” (as opposed to “Columbus, Ohio”). Very funny (okay, maybe not laugh-aloud-funny, but kind-of interesting-funny. No?) , although it wouldn’t have been if she would’ve gotten scammed.

Read emails and process credit cards safely, friends.

a

You are my quarry – hear me roar.

I was always primed and on the prowl. Every Sunday round at my Grandma’s as a nipper I’d latch on to some kind of retail campaign. All day I’d bang on about some toy or other I wanted until I fell asleep mid-pitch. I’d spend hours opening catalogs and presenting my case to anybody who’d listen as to why I had to have [insert name of toy] immediately.

Whilst I was a pain, I wasn’t a brat about it. There was no stamping of feet or pouting, just an incessant amount of attempted persuasion. If I had been a form of torture I’d have been of the Chinese dripping variety as opposed straight-up water boarding.

The thing is, by Monday, all was forgotten and I didn’t want anything. It was strictly a Sunday thing. Although I do remember at the age of 5, 6 or 7 being convinced that the Addams Family were living through the fireplace and I needed to buy a drill so I could visit them. I spent all afternoon pestering my Dad then my Mum then my Grandma to get permission to start the drilling. I’m still amazed to this day that they put up with me as long as they did that afternoon. Still, how can you have sympathy for a group of elders who constantly fobbed their child off with pleas to go and ask the other parent for permission.

It wasn’t until I took the initiative and found a lump hammer in the pantry and came back into the front room with the intention of smashing the fireplace to bits that they collectively took me seriously. I knew the Addams Family were through the fireplace and I was desperate to go visit them. If they weren’t going to provide me with the necessary tools then I could only improvise.

I only required a stern talking to and I was fine. Half an hour later it was all forgotten and I was wrestling a five-foot stuffed bear in my underpants.

I’m still the same today (especially the stuffed bear wrestling).

The only thing that’s maybe slightly different is that I anally research everything to its constituent parts. The Internet is a great tool for the OCD shopper in anyone.

My current anal retail campaign is the search for a new computer. Saturday saw me and Steph head off to Pittsburgh to check out that retail park where Ikea is – or at least to start off there. I’ve been doing her little pretty head in with computer talk for a couple of weeks and she finally succumbed to my computer Chinese water torture and had no other option than to take me.

Me being a native of these parts boldly stated that I knew exactly where we were going and to put the Garmin back in her bag. An hour and a half later we were stuck behind a load of student plastic paddies in some downtown Pittsburgh St. Patrick’s parade. We’d overshot somewhat. Out came the Garmin and I set it to find Ikea. And what a merry little dance that was. Not for the first time has my gps been moderately useless in Pittsburgh.

Is it some satellite dead zone? Or is the excess of bridges, underpasses, flyovers and on ramps blocking signals or just too befuddling to map?

Spaghetti Junction

I finally got to Bestbuy to do the usual Bestbuy thing of making sure they were selling older spec puters at $100 more than the most current version of the same thing. I simply couldn’t hack it for too long and set off again to find some supposed Apple store. And by jove, if we didn’t find it without too much hassle.

I’ve only dabbled with Macs that friends owned and never once set foot in an Apple store. I’ve never really fancied the idea of tangling with in-store ‘creatives’ as they like to call themselves. But, they aren’t that bad. They leave you well alone and are obviously hired because they love their Macs or at least have one. It was like a funny little workshop with everybody at their own station and the ‘creatives’ just showing people how things work if they needed any help. Lovely.

And then it happened. It wasn’t so much an eyes meeting across a crowded room type thing, but more of a something to pick up as Steph was messing with something next to me. I started playing with an iPod Touch along with an iPhone. I swear I felt my heart melt after about 20 seconds of finger twiddling on its touch screen. This thing was beyond saccharine.

All the love signs were there: heart palpitations; sweaty palms; giddiness – we’ll, it was either that or early onset food poisoning. I wasn’t quite getting the same love bug from the iMac, though, and that is what I’d gone to take a look at. Seriously, that funny little plastic keyboard had me thinking of the first computer I ever bought at age 13 – an Oric:

Oh the delight that is the rubber molded keypad.

Neither of us shut up about it. Not on the way home, not during dinner, not while watching the tv and not all day Sunday. Enough was enough. By Sunday night, it was just too much to bear. I concocted some odd story about SDKs, Skype and jailbreaking, and that we could get one at Walmart if we hurried up. (Not that they were running out or anything, just that it was Sunday evening.) I like Walmart for the fact that they allow you full refunds if you take things back – there be a method in my madness!

After slapping down $425 for the 16gb version whilst Steph wasn’t looking having promised her that I’d buy the 8gb version for $100 less, we were off back home.

Opening the thing was a delight. I can’t remember the last box I had that glided open under the weight of its contained product. Everything was just so right. Oh, and that touch screen. Everybody goes on about how much smarter Apple users are, but they aren’t. If the iPod Touch is anything to go by then it’s designed for even the most bumbling idiotic technophobe. It’s the sort of gadget you could take home to your mother – even your grandmother. There may be no point teaching her how to suck eggs, but you won’t even have to show her how to use one of these.

From a search marketing perspective (blimey, did you ever think I was gonna get there?), the iPhone and the iPod Touch with their fully functioning browsers offer an opportunity for business as usual with regards to searching on a mobile device. Rather than the Windows Mobile experience of a mobile version of your site that requires browsing via mobile search and a barebones page, you can just have your normal site viewed in miniature.

Just a pinch and a squeeze with the occasional finger flick is enough to resize and move the pages around. It doesn’t require anything different from a Web development point of view.

I seriously recommend you have a play with one when you get the chance just so you can see where the future of the mobile device is heading. After all, it’s the most ubiquitous of personal devices that people are using more and more to browse the Web with.

In the meantime, check it out in the following video (you’ll need to get about half way for the Internet browsing stuff):

a

So whether you believe in Santa Claus, Hanukkah Harry (sorry we’re late – I know Hanukkah began the night of the 4th and ended 8 days later), Captain Festivus, or any other December religious figure, please accept our wishes for a safe and wonderful end of the year.

a

During my post, I made a side comment about a site that touched off a bit of a firestorm. Really more of a warmstorm or whatever is less than a firestorm, but more comments than we typically get on a post at least since we converted to Wordpress. This post is all about those comments, so to understand it, you should start by reading them first.

A few points in number format for no other reason than because I like outlines.

1. I would like to make a public apology to Geoff Young of KnuckleCurve. I accused him of employing some black hat – or unethical – search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. I saw something that looked spammy and jumped the gun. I should have looked at it a little more closely. All in all a fine site (the whole reason I linked in the first place was because I liked one of his articles) and you should check it out if you have a sickness like I do and really love baseball.

2. Paul and I typically write posts on this blog for the general business public – not online marketers, bloggers, and Web developers. So we try to use our posts to include a little more information about internet marketing in an effort to educate. I thought that I would introduce the term black hat seo when I saw something that I thought – again, incorrectly – looked spammy. I’ve updated the post accordingly. And just for the record, we are big fans of SEO; if we thought any kind of link building or copy writing for SEO purposes was bad, we’d have a lot of explaining to do to several clients paying us for those services.

3. The reason I originally thought that the post about some of Roger Clemens’ more enjoyable exploits wasn’t above board was that it contains 28 comments, all of which are the exact same line: “Five Unforgettable Roger Clemens Moments by Geoff Young.” These comments aren’t actually comments, but pingbacks. They’re not labeled as such (and they don’t need to be – there’s no standard formatting for these), but I could have found that out fairly quickly by just spending a couple minutes clicking on them.

Boiling it down very succinctly for discussion purposes, SEO basically boils down to two items:

A. Authority as judged by the content on sites that people can read, and
B. Credibility as judged by the sites that link to yours.

So, I thought the site was spamming its own comments by adding the same keyword phrase to its comments (showing up as “Authority”) over and over again. Having actually gone through and looked at the Top 5 Group Writing Contest, I now have a question about the overall contest (not the individual writers) from the “Credibility” or linking side. And that’s all it is: a question. Is the Top 5 Contest a brilliant link building idea, a modified version of paid linking that the search engines may not like today or in the future, or somewhere in between? Here are the contest rules. Let me know what you think.

Also, one commenter said he wasn’t receiving email notification of the posts; I think there was a bug that’s been fixed, but if you ever experience any problems with that, feel free to give us a call at 800.979.3177 or email us.

a

(GOOJFC)

And today I’m going to have to play a full house of them as I’m going to mention Michael Moore, socialized medicine and dubious sales and marketing. I might even mention Hillary Clinton, Fidel Castro and quote bits from The Communist Manifesto. ONLY JOKING. I don’t want anybody to literally be choking on their Cheerios just in case it’s not covered in your health care plan.

I’d hate to be responsible for hospitalizing/bankrupting anybody due to careless blogging. And I fully realize I’m living in the lawsuit state – West Virginia. Although, on a side note, I have been diagnosed with a blogging related medical condition before now (seriously, I have no dignity).

Last night I stayed up way past my bedtime so I could watch Michael Moore’s SiCKO – just so I could waffle inanely about it in a blog post. In some respects it’s a bit like preaching to the converted with me being from the UK (GOOJFC #1). Michael Moore does the same with this film as he does in all his others – make a very strong core argument but then spoil it with bits of propaganda that can be more easily shot to bits than a static clay pigeon from six inches. The current health care system in America with insurance firms in league with big pharmaceuticals lobbying government to further their spurious agenda is flawed at best and downright evil at worst. However, if you think you couldn’t make another SiCKO about the NHS in Britain (postcode lottery anyone), or ask exactly what went on during the heatwave of 2003 in France when nearly 15,000 elderly people died as most health practitioners had gone on their holidays during August, you’d be sadly mistaken.

But, while many people will tell you there are a host of problems with the NHS, the problems stem from it being steered away from its founding principals. These same principals of health care being free for all underpin socialized medicine across the globe. Once you tie in either the ability to pay or funding allocations you’ve got a very different system. And once you’ve got a system that allocates as much, if not more, time working out and rewarding non-treatment, then you’ve got a grand scam.

I was first awoken to this particular scam when I decided to apply to train to be a health insurance salesman for American Life when I was too young to know much better (personal GOOJFC). I was initially drawn to the idea of a couple of weeks holed up in a hotel and being paid for the privilege. It didn’t take me too long to realize I’d joined a sales cult. Every morning you were expected to sing Zip Pe De Doo Dah as they claimed it was their company anthem or something. By the end of week two I was belting it out. It was all scripted sales techniques and games to sharpen up the old mind tank. Oh, and I think we learned one or two things about their respective policies. This was hardcore sales from the “selling coals to Newcastle” school of the utterly absurd in the context of selling health insurance in a country that had universal health care.

They obviously brainwashed me reasonably well as I’d overcome my initial skepticism and was raring to go and change the way Britain handled its health care. Three days of having my hand held by my immediate regional superior and watching a maestro cold call and up-sell and I was left to my own devices. My next couple of days I had the opportunity to collect premiums from existing punters, cold call and check up on others.

And then I went to see one particular guy who had bought every conceivable policy and add-on that American Life offered. I was ushered in and offered a seat as I cheerily asked him how things were. Before my backside hit the velour, I was fronted by a clearly broken man. He proceeded to explain to me how he had cancer and that American Life were refusing to pay out on any of his policies. He was a fairly wealthy local businessman and was perfectly confident that he was more than adequately covered. That is until he actually became ill.

I sat there for a good hour or so listening to a guy who’d been ceremoniously shafted. The amazing thing was that he wasn’t as angry or bitter as you might have expected. It was just that you could tell he wasn’t prepared to be ripped off on his deathbed. I’d long since forgotten about selling insurance and saw myself as a potential conduit to help sort out this guy’s policy. He shook my hand as I left appreciative that I’d listened to him as much as anything. I was fairly adamant that I was going to set some wheels in motion. I had no idea what to do other than to mention it to my immediate regional superior when I met him later that afternoon.

And when we did meet up he asked me about my day and I went straight into the cancer guy tale. He listened without really listening as he flicked through some papers and then cut me off once he’d heard enough. He fixed me with a gaze and insisted that it was just negative crap and that I’d be far better off clearing it from my mind. He proclaimed it had nothing to do with us and if I ever encountered anything along those lines again I should not waste my time and walk out.

Two days later I quit. I not only quit the job but I also quit on any notion of ever again using those types of sales tactics. Not only did I quit on those types of sales tactics, but I vowed never to work for a company that employed those types of tactics.

You see, I’ve never felt earning a dollar was worth the expense of upsetting anybody. No sales or marketing tactic is. In fact, I don’t really believe in sales and marketing ‘tactics’ period. That’s why I’m so comfortable with search engine marketing. It’s simply a case of you providing the information that somebody is looking for and making sure they find it.

A bit like universal health care, no?

a

No wonder I wet the bed.

It was a given that Russia and Eastern Europe were cold, gray lifeless societies with cold, gray lifeless communist automatons miserably wandering along streets overshadowed by identical monolithic concrete structures. In other words, it was a bit grim.

Then we had the free-thinking, democratic West as personified by America where the sun always shone and all you needed to do was have an idea and you’d be rich in no time if you just followed your dreams. In other words, it was the golden ticket.

It was only after visiting Eastern Europe and the USA and having my eyes opened to the thought of both America and Russia willing to duke it out nuclear fashion over Europe that all might not have been what it seemed. And who couldn’t resonate with Sting hoping that the Russians loved their children too?

The odd thing about the parts of Eastern Europe I saw and reports I’ve had on other parts of the communist bloc that friends had visited was that it was mostly very impressive – both scenically and architecturally. Yes, some buildings could do with a bit of a wash, but it was far from the dire dystopian visions that kept plastic sheets on my mattress as a child.

On the other hand, after visiting America, it didn’t take you long to realize how similar much of the place is. Everywhere you go the shops, their facades, and the plots built to contain them are identical. The only difference being that the concrete is uniformly sandy colored as opposed to gray. Diversity was conspicuous in its absence.

If Freud had spoken with Marx and they’d both smoked a bit of opium they might’ve trotted out some bizarre theory of national displacement – America was really what it was accusing Russia of being.

Russia was also always berated for its state monopolies and lack of freedom of choice for customers – such is life under communism. Only under capitalism offering competition and innovation through entrepreneurial endeavors could a society be truly democratic and freely thrive.

But America also managed to give us Comcast – a truly clueless corporate behemoth that probably wishes it could currently borrow from Stalin’s penchant for ‘airbrushing’ history.

I’m not fan of America’s #1 cable (non) provider on a personal level as they’ve managed to give me three different stories about their peculiar installation and aren’t exactly brilliant at ensuring service. At least once every two weeks the whole kaboodle will go seriously belly-up for around 18 hours. Other times it will flit in and out of service pretending it’s a pale imitation of a badly acted death scene.

But one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

Even I don’t particularly care for my own whining on the subject, but there are plenty of others whining about Comcast as well.

Comcast have managed to stir a bit of a hornet’s nest by meddling with its customers ability to download and share files using bittorrent and P2P networks. Somebody is even suing them over the practice. Now the question here isn’t the legality of torrents and file sharing, but the fact that Comcast is preventing people from doing it. If you regularly speed whilst driving you’d expect to be caught and punished by law enforcement as opposed to having your ability to speed capped by motor manufacturers or gas companies. You’d be a bit ticked off, would you not, if you bought a Ferrari that had been advertised as being able to do 180 mph and finding out when you opened it up on a quiet stretch of road that it would only go 65 mph. Especially if they’d marketed it with having that extra bit of zing.

Now as much as I hate this kind of corporate scamming, I love America for the fact that no matter how desperate things appear to be on the surface, there’s always a counter strike. While Comcast tries to shape the Internet in its own little way, a game of cat and mouse begins.

It didn’t take me long to find a blog entitled Comcast Must Die archiving the many sad and desperate customers suffering at their hands. Even USA Today has written a story about it. Yes, its title may be a little strong, but it serves the purpose of providing a strong, cogent customer voice that even Internet providers have little chance of keeping schtum.

This falls into line with what Justin was talking about the other day regarding people that he’s spoken to about blogging worrying about being bashed by competitors. The online space is a wonderfully democratic place that allows voices to be heard. Frankly, if you’ve been found wanting as a business then there’s a distinct chance you’re going to be called out on it. And if you’re being called out by your customers in a similar way that is happening with Comcast then you’d better be prepared to shape up or ship out. In this case, the Comcast Must Die blog is akin to taking the valve off a pressure cooker.

There are a couple of directions Comcast could go on this from an SEM perspective. They could send their PR department into overdrive and send out fluffy messages about how they value feedback and how they’re listening – y’know how it works, the papering over the cracks routine. Or, they could actually tackle the whole issue head on by diving into the lion’s den and using every avenue open to them including blogs, forums and anything else to garner feedback and allow the venting of their customers’ spleens – take the punches on the chin and reinvent themselves.

You see, I’m in the same boat of many other Comcast customers in that I can’t switch (well I don’t think I can) due to various circumstances – one of the main ones being that there isn’t any alternative. I find the lack of competition in certain areas truly astonishing for a country that prides itself as a beacon of capitalism. And whether there will ever be any true competition in certain places remains a matter for debate.

However, I will always trust America to have debate at its grassroots. Customers will always rise up and sound a clarion call to those suffering from similar corporate oppression/greed/unpleasantness. And they will always do the same politically. Yes, these various corporations that are trying to shape the way we consume our media and blatantly rip us off will be called to account by the very hand that feeds them. After all, they owe you $200 billion for all that fiber-optic cable they promised over ten years ago as part of the building of the world’s greatest broadband infrastructure.

And that is the new American dream – waking up to those who have made it something of a nightmare.

a