Warmest Greetings,
Do SEO's Need to Be Organized and Represented?
:: Friday, July 30, 2004 ::
Yes, there are good and bad practitioners in every field. There are people in authority who aren't what they appear to be, and are instead cheating their employees or clients. I'm thinking of Enron here, and Martha Stewart. There is little room for error when you are in a role of leadership and ownership.
How worthy and honest is the organization that accepts anyone who can afford their membership fee and is therefore not representing a true snapshot of all potentially good business people?
My friend, Bill Slawski, one of the fairest men I've ever known, writes, in regards to serious flap and discontent over an organization determined to represent and work for people in the search engine optimization and marketing professions:
"As it is now, I'm happy to be here where I can participate in a forum to help business owners, and web designers, and people engaged in SEO, SEM, and Usability.
When I think of industry leaders, I think of people who make a difference day-in and day-out to others by providing them with forums where they can interact, support each other, and share information.
When I think of industry leaders, I think of efforts like searchenginewatch, searchengineguide, SERoundtable, and similar efforts that share news, and try to remain helpful and objective.
When I think of industry leaders, I don't think of SEMPO."
I'm not here to rub salt in any wounds. Frankly, this still-new organization, despite experiencing troubles, has an overriding majority of members and member-maybe's who want it to succeed, do better and accomplish what it set out to do. They're willing to question, even loudly, to get answers because in the end, they care.
Silence would be bring failure much faster. Silence doesn't force growth. Silence doesn't create the lessons from which better practices are born.
What prompted me to purge here today is what Bill is saying about leadership, and the qualities of a leader.
In a thread at Cre8asite Forums, a member inquired about the dedication of the Moderators, and assumed for all their time and devotion, they were getting paid. No, I posted back. No one is paid at Cre8. Sometimes people do things simply because of the passion for their field, or as Ammon Johns says,the deep desire and willingness to "give back".
I'm not saying all leaders must work for free. Certainly not! But whom do you look up to more? The person who gives with no thought of reward and teaches you something? Your mentor who tirelessly answers your questions? The consultant you hire who refuses to charge for all your follow up email questions after the job is done?
Is a leader someone who lets you see them build something, they share the boo boos and then let you in while they build it back up? Someone like this doesn't bring their ego to work with them. Someone like this asks for help.
Can any business person stand on the merit of their own business ethics and integrity without the need to join hands with others, who are not only competitors, but maybe don't do the same job as well?
I know what I like about leaders. They must have a vision and they must be able to motivate. They're excellent, compelling, effective communicators. They have learned the art of listening. They're honest, always. They understand the goals and expectations of the people they lead.
Do SEO/SEM's want leadership? Do they want to be recognized as a body of professionals performing needed services? Is there a need?
I like the approach by SEO Consultants. There's a peer review process. My correspondence with them is always fair, polite, friendly, professional and prompt.
Not everyone in SEO-land wanted or needed anything more than just a simple, inexpensive place to hang their hat.
For those who want a larger organization to represent them and provide support for their field, it sounds like there's plenty of time and room left for more of you to chip in and build what you want.
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 7/30/2004 02:14:24 PM
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The Usability of Text Links
:: Thursday, July 29, 2004 ::
For a minute or two, anchor text was all the rage, especially in SEO-Land. But, aside from keeping up with search engine algorithms, the usability of your text links is something that will rarely change. People will always need to be able to read and quickly understand your web pages.
Evolt features a good how-to article on link usability in Writing effective link text by Trenton Moss of WebCredible
Item #6, "Place important words at the front of link text" is something I already do in UsabilityEffect.com. An example is the left-side navigation, where I placed boldfaced "scan words" in front of the hyperlinked text. This has the advantage of helping my visitors, and search engines looking for keywords and pages to crawl.
Scan words, by the way, are the words people are often hunting for while searching and scanning pages they find. Those words include "free", "sale", "new", "discount", "Kim Krause" (just kidding)...
Google and Major Tom
How much you wanna bet Google wants in on this baby? NASA to build 10,000-processor Linux computer
I Was O-pin-in-a-ted
Still feeling my oaties after listening to Teresa Heinz Kerry speak at the Democratic National Convention (something which, by the way, none of the top USA TV Broadcasting companies like ABC, CBS and NBC felt was worthy enough to air), I wrote my blog post-rant about Google yesterday.
Brad loved it.
So did, apparently, Google, who plastered a huge image ad to the right of it.
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 7/29/2004 12:45:45 PM
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Search Engine Optimization Karma and Search Engine Worship
:: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 ::
The shit is hitting the fan in Search Engine Land.
I'm finding it impossible to get excited about Google. I don't care what their share price is. There are plenty of other investments that are affordable, easy to purchase, and come with a historical record. I'm not buying into Google hype, hope or hysteria.
I don't care if Google was down. It's not the only search engine on the Internet. To take up every newsfeed, for several days in a row, with headlines about MyDoom and Google's bad hair day, is to be obsessed and cornered between an office wall and computer monitor. My local town newspaper covered the news about Google, taking up an entire page. CNN showed screen shots of a faltering Google. The only thing that had more press this year was Janet Jackson's breast.
Show me a big ass corporation who cares about the little people who helped make it what it is.
My PC's, both the earlier ones that ended up in some computer recycling pile somewhere, and my present day ones that are in most of the rooms of my house, are all Win-doze boxes.
And yet Microsoft refuses to support any older Windows or IE browsers people may still have. Instead, you must keep shelling out money to upgrade. This is a pathetic business, and sadly, it'll keep working for them until enough people and companies finally migrate to Linux, MAC, Opera, Firefox, etc.
I once made a living as an SEO promoting web pages to Google and making sure my clients' web sites got into that engine. I founded a forum that has a Google topic for Google submission, rank and SEO support.
Google doesn't want me to buy shares. For starters, I don't make the kind of money needed to buy them. The hippie, "we're cool and democratic" attitude coming out of that corporation isn't flying with this working mom. When the competition comes, and it will, I have no loyalties to Google. Make your shares affordable and the process user friendly, please. In the meantime, I have work to do.
Other various karmic backlash is interfering with my sweetgrass and sage smoke, such as:
Optimizing Search Engine Optimization by Anil Dash of "Nigritude Ultramarine" fame.
"There's nothing the blogosphere loves more than angry mob justice, and I probably benefitted from tapping into a bit of angry mob antipathy towards the SEO industry. Though many, perhaps even most, people in the SEO industry behave ethically, the reality is that much of the SEO industry has treated the weblog medium with an attitude ranging from crass opportunism or exploitation to downright abuse, in the form of comment spam, referral spam, and fake, content-free blogs.
So, as with all things in the blog world, we confuse an angry link with actual Fight The Power action, and this is one of the few cases where that link actually had some effect."
Mike Grehan pulled away the curtin and exposed SEMPO's Oz in Who Needs SEMPO
"I was invited by Barbara Coll to speak at the SEMPO meeting at SES London and it seemed essential to her that I should, in fact, be a member of the organisation first.
So, a few months ago, I succumbed and joined at the lowest level for $299.
After parting with my cash I waited patiently for my welcome pack and my newsletter and frequent pinging about events and happening stuff and... Not a sausage."
Which got the widely recognized conversation at Cre8asiteForums called So What Does SEMPO Mean To You? re-charged again.
"Maybe as someone who conducts web promotion in house, I would join an industry group that focuses upon SEO or SEM. But it would depend on a lot of factors. That group would need to show me a few things.
I would want to see a clear statement of whom the members of the organization should be.
I would want to know what benefits there might be for me in membership.
It would discourage me to see different prices for different levels of membership, with a "golden circle" that got preferential placement on the organization's web site.
I would want to see clear lines of communication developed, with people knowing the aims of the organization, and their efforts.
I would want to know what the methods for choosing leadership were, and would probably want those methods to be democratic, based upon some type of voting. Maybe an election of directors who would appoint executive officers.
I would want to be able to see bylaws for the organization, and I would want to see them online, available to the public to view.
I would want the organization to come up with some guidelines of ethical conduct and practice, developed with the efforts of disinterested third parties from academia and the business world (professors and professionals).
I understand that Nonprofit doesn't mean that people work for free, and I would want fair compensation to be paid to the people working for the organization, and the measure of fair would probably be related to the amount of pay that people performing similar functions in other nonprofits are getting paid."
"Maybe they need to hire someone with real experience in running a non-profit organization like AMA."
The Search Engine LowDown has more in Scandal Rocks SEMPO, Expert Suggests Board Members Should Resign
This Week, Elsewhere and Just as Important
"My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called "opinionated"...
is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish.
And my only hope is that one day soon, My only hope is that, one day soon, women, who have all earned their right to their opinions...
instead of being labeled opinionated will be called smart and well informed, just like men."
--- Teresa Heinz Kerry, in her speech at the Democratic National Convention, USA
"For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are all connected as one people."
--- Barack Obama>, in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, USA
I See Into the Future of SEO, and Win an MP3 Player
New change in SEO world
Thanks Andy Beal and the gang at Search Engine Lowdown!
I told my daughter I entered a contest, hoping to win an MP3 player for her. Upon being informed that I won it, she cleaned her room!
Quick Note
Goodbye Lycos. Another search engine property rides off into the sunset.
:: posted by Kimberly Krause on 7/28/2004 10:26:24 AM
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