There has been quite a bit written and talked about lately about an “SEO Bubble” and how long that search engine optimization will remain viable. One of the best posts that I’ve read recently is on a blog called Conversation Marketing.
The issues that seem to be of the most concern is that SEO is pretty simple and that site owners will be doing it themselves, much more than will it go away. I don’t believe that SEO will go away, because if it’s done well it is one the best and most economical ways to bring customers to your site. Even with all of the phoney, fly by night “SEO Experts” out there, most people will learn the difference between good work and bad.
The main concern that has really benn there for quite a while now is that it will move “in house” and individual shops will not have any customers. My feeling here is that while SEO is simple, if done well it’s also quite a bit of hard work. Even is all of the site owners out there know everything about it (still a huge IF) there will be plenty that just would rather pay someone else to do the work well.
When I first read about the users complaining about the new fee structure on Ebay back in February I thought that this could be something to watch.Most of the complaints seemed to be about the new fee structure which seemed to favor the big volume sellers over the smaller ones. Of course it’s their decision on how to run their business and it’s also their responsibility to maximize their profits for the shareholders. It seems to me that when you turn your back on the users who built your business in the first place you might just do more harm than good.
It seemed to quite down a bit and Ebay’s profits also seem to still be OK, but I’m hearing more and more about users abandoning them. I read something today about it in the Wall Street Journal and you know when the mainstream media starts to talk about it just about everyone knows. This kind of thing can also turn into a feeding frenzy and encourage more people to leave by pointing out the other options of smaller alternative sites. The more people who move to these sites the more they will sell and the more will move
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
At fd’s Flickr Toys you can do fun stuff with your digital photos. Create motivational posters, movie posters, magazine covers, badges, mosaics, collages, calendars, frames, and a lot more. Very Cool!
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Bored.com has many really great time wasters on their site and one of the pages I like best is Falling Sand.
It’s kind of a create your own science experiment/hypnotize yourself/just have some fun kind of thing. You can build walls to catch the sand and then watch them fill up and overflow. Then, you can napalm the whole thing when you are done. Plus I’m going to the beach soon and this game really appeals to me on that level.
I’m a T-Mobile customer and have been for quite a while now. When I was shopping for a new smartphone I went to quite a few stores and spoke to many salespeople. When I finally found Ian Hoover at the Mall at Robinson store (lower level) I knew that I had the right guy.
Ian answered all of my questions right away and corrected the misconceptions that I got from some of the other people. He convinced me right away that he knew what he was talking about and he was more interested in helping me get what I needed than what he wanted to sell me. He also didn’t pressure me when I told him it would be at least a week before I was ready to buy.
Being a good salesperson Ian also let me know about some of the things that T-Mobile would be introducing in the future that I might want to check out. One of them was called T-Mobile HopSpot @Home.
It seems very cool. You get a router/modem and they port your current phone number to it. Then you get unlimited VOIP Internet US calling for $10 a month. All I do is to keep my DSL which I would do anyway. I think it’s a great idea since I plan to keep my home phone and I will probably try it, but I’m not ordering on the Internet. I’m going back to visit Ian.
I know that I could write better titles for these posts. When I scan through my past postings I know it right away.
What I usually do when I write my posts is to write the title first and then start on the post. Sometimes I change the title later, but not very often. Then once I’m done writing my post I read it over and make any changes to the wording spelling, etc., but I rarely go back and change the title.
Search engines consider titles very important when deciding where and how high to rank your page for any particular keyword search so it also is important for your titles to really say something about what your article or post is about.
Recently I found this post on Wordpreneur called “Is Your Title Compelling?” I’m going to try out some of these suggestions and you can decide for yourself if it helps or not. I invite you to let me know what you think and to visit Wordpreneur and
Read Is Your Title Compelling?
I recently bought a Blackberry Curve smart phone and so far I really like it. It allows me to have up to ten email accounts which is probably the most important thing for me in a phone, but I love that it has so many built in features and many more that I can download. The WiFi can be very useful as well.
One of the things that it didn’t have was some kind of GPS to use it for directions when I’m on the road. Now I have discovered another great free tool called Google Maps For Mobile. This downloadable application puts local information, directions and maps right in your phone.
You can download Google Maps to your own phone and it’s much more than maps.
- Where’s the nearest (anything you want)
- Is there traffic up ahead?
- How do I get there from where I am?
- How do I get there using public transportation?
I’m just getting started with this so I’m sure that there’s much more and even more coming. If you have a smart phone I encourage you to
I always like to get unusual and cool business cards. There is a school of thought that if you make your cards look too different than your competitors they will make you seem out of touch with your market. I disagree, I think that standing out is good. Anything that differentiates you from “them” will help keep you in the front of your customers minds.
Here’s a great list of some very cool business cards that I found on the [Re]Encoded dot Com site. There are some wonderful ideas here and I would appreciate getting any one of these. I know that I would save them and isn’t that the whole idea?
I have always been a believer that especially on the web the best way to grow your site is to give something away for free. I first noticed this very early on when many of the webs first sites gave away many different things to grow. The most successful ones gave away information. There were also sites trying to sell information, but these did not grow fast and seemed to fade away quickly.
Information can be the perfect product on the web. Once you create it or buy it you can sell it or give it away and then do it again and again. Storage (warehousing) is practically free and delivery costs are very low and getting lower all the time. I have kept this in mind when deciding how I was going to run my business. in fact, one of my most popular articles is called “Is It Worth It To Give Away Information?” and I have written several posts about this before. Here and here are just a couple.
What brings this back into my mind is a nice post on searchviews.com that I recommend
It’s is not my usual kind of post, but this drove me nuts all weekend.
I bought a new GE Adora washing machine for Christmas. I even bragged about how well this washing machine worked for me. I know, a guy and his washing machine, you probably hear it all the time.
This weekend the machine wouldn’t work correctly. The drain ran slowly and it kept shutting down because it was full of water. I tried and tried to figure out what was wrong, read the manual from cover to cover and even glanced at the other languages, but to no avail.
I am still under warranty, but you probably know the drill, call and make an appointment then sit at home and wait all day for the repair person to show up. Even if you are not paying for the call or missing work it’s still a huge hassle.
I don’t know why I didn’t Google the problem any sooner, but I finally did late Sunday night. The second result told me that the lint filter was clogged. It was a simple five minute job to remove the cover unscrew the filter, empty it out, and put everything back. I didn’t find any folding cash like some of the others that they helped (I found 6ยข), but I am overjoyed to have my machine working again.
How can a company like GE have a filter like this that will probably need cleaned once or twice a year and not tell you about it? They have to know it’s going to need it. Are they looking to sell service? It sure seems like bad publicity to me and I might not tell another person how much I like their machine.
I’ll also visit and recommend the Instructables website again and again. Thank you so much for your help. This is a great site with lots of free help for many things.
The moral of this tale for me is, which side of this story would you like your company to be on?
I know where I want my company to be.
