ss_blog_claim=5f03e3e7fa6ca8c951b6fbd30fa71c10 2008 September | SEO ShootOut

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The power of no-one in particular

Great thoughts about SEO sites, practices, community, etc., and do please read the comments. Very good peek. The latest post however makes this pretty poignant. To this post let me just add that I too am no-one in particular, and that’s an important attribute.

Social Media and Web 2-3.0 being what they are, should I use my graphic design skills to make a “No-one In Particular” logo we can use on our sites to celebrate good practices and humility within the biz? If there are YES comments I’ll do it! With enthusiasm!

— Abigail

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Abigail Hamilton is a professional with over…

From Wasilla with…a lesson

The power of social media branding and marketing is expressed really well in this post at ClickZ:

Hours after Palin was named as [MCain's] running mate, James posted a photo of Wasilla City Hall on his Facebook profile page. The photo was originally posted by djcn0te on photo-sharing site Flickr.com in 2005. Since Palin ascended into national politics, so too has this photo. It’s now accompanied by wisecracks (or insightful observations, depending on your political persuasion). Wrote clockwerks: “so McCain’s VP pick was mayor of a laundromat?” And this from emasscouple: “She really is for reducing the size of government, eh?”

One blogger asked…

Increase the Effectiveness of Press Releases with SEO and Social Media

Traditional PR has involved a public relations firm dropping your press release on the wire and hoping somebody picks it up. Sure, they may have conversations with analysts prior to the drop, but in this Web 2.0 era even you can make a huge splash on a ‘Net, grab the attention of thousands, and, perhaps, even get some conversions or sales out of it, all for no added cost to you. All it requires is a little elbow grease and the right kind of thinking.

Ensure that your title, header, and first paragraph include your targeted keywords.

The title of your press…

Brazen, Boisterous, Breathtaking

See? I got your attention with some words which a search engine wouldn’t know where to start with. Whether it’s on the light side (i.e., digestible by non-professional marketers/SEOs) at How Design, or more intense at Sphinn, I’m seeing a lot of good discussion out there about the importance of writing for people rather than [just] search engines. There are a million angles on why/how/when/where to make your writing work best, but the underlying point is tremendously important: people need to read — and be moved by — what you write for it to matter at all. So, brief and compelling.

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• “Hey, 2.0”: It’s STILL about reaching, connecting with and persuading people.

My musical tastes flash across the spectrum from heart-rendingly beautiful symphonic movie soundtracks to some of the most deliciously vicious hard rock ever recorded, but somewhere in the median is a sultry, radio-friendly-yet-cult-favorite tune by Steely Dan entitled Hey Nineteen. And that’s as good a starting point as any from which today’s ravings about some of the madness inside the “2.0″ methodology may flow.

It’s an honor to be invited to be a blogger here on SEO Shootout. I know when you express that level of candor and humility these days it may seem like a creaky old covered wagon coming…

Future of Search

Over at the Google blog, Marissa Mayer ponders what the future may hold for search. In fact, she provides several areas of improvement and innovation that she sees search taking in the next 10 years or so.

She highlights a few categories that figure to be the agents of change:

  • Modes
  • Media
  • Personalization
  • Location
  • Social
  • Language

Some ideas are very reasonable and realistic:

First, why couldn’t I do these searches right then, when I needed to? Because search still isn’t accessible enough or easy enough. Search needs to be more mobile – it should be available and easy to use in cell phones and in cars and on…

Search Videos on Your Phone with Truveo

Ever wonder what to do if you’re bored and stuck somewhere with Wi-FI? (Ok, that probably doesn’t happen too often) Well now you can search for those crazy internet videos people like so much with AOL’s Truveo mobile video search.  You can now easily search videos from across 300 sites that has mobile-browser optimized videos. Pretty neat! Just type in http://wap.aol.com/truveo into your mobile-browser and there you go. Have fun!

Thanks to Search Engine Land for the info.

When it comes to customer dialogue, add, don’t subtract

It’s pretty sad watching SEOs battle the pros (Search Engine Journal) and cons (Learning SEO Basics) of using SEO to combat complaint sites that can rank highly and spread negative information/experiences about a product, company, or brand.

Why is it sad? Because it’s so much more effective to add well written, well-thought out responses to complaints and offer solutions and follow up THAT YOU ACTUALLY DO PERFORM AND DOCUMENT.

Dell had that nightmare trying to bully people into removing pictures of flaming laptops…other companies’ fun and contrite response letters have gone viral and done wonders to repair damage to the brand. Your choice in 2008?…

Conception and misconception

My work life straddles design and marketing, and corporate vs. small-business approaches to each. And I’m seeing a lot of variation in how people understand and advocate for SEO strategies.

I see larger businesses with a team of marketing specialists are leaning past plain-old keyword optimization. I personally suspect that they were led in this direction by their lust for Flash and dynamic page technologies that cloak content and disorient spiders. And now that bots can better read Flash, along comes Silverlight; the jury is out on the future of rich-media page readability.

So, to compensate for having hard-to-search pages, and relying…