Wingnut SEO

Using the badassness that is the iPod Touch wi-fi abilities… can you make some program much like a buddy list, or chatroom like deal so I can see people who have an iPod Touch around me/in my area and what they are listening to?  Maybe even able to hear what they are listing to?  An added feature would be to IM other iPod Touchers in your area and say something like “Great song.”

It would be cool.

Any of you developers out there… come Feb I want to see this if Apple doesn’t do it first and charge for it.

Google BLAH BLAH BLAH bastards!!! BLAH BLAH BLAH Pagerank is BLAH BLAH ASSHATS!

Seriously blah blah blah! You shouldn’t worry about blah blah because of blah blah blah blah…. Love them or hate them blah blah blah they are blah blah when blah and blah.

And another thing blah blah blah who else you going to blah blah blah with?

Blah blah blah. I for one, don’t care and am not going to change a blah.

When I was a young SEOer, small-time, freelancing my way through life - charging a set fee for one or two sessions with the client to do what I could optimize their sites in as little as time possible - things were great. They were happy, I was happy - life was grand. They would come back to me a few months down the road and ask for more help… good times. Then things changed when I took on a full time job with an agency.

All our clients pay monthly for SEO X amount of hours per month with no real set end date - of course the process is set to continue forever - and this isn’t bad because link building never technically ends and you always have to make small changes to the site to optimize as time goes on - to keep up with trends and new algorithms etc.

What happens though, every client eventually thinks they don’t need the SEO or that they can’t rationalize paying monthly for it. They either cut hours back or decide to leave and do SEO in-house completely.

This is especially true because my company believes in educating the client so what we do becomes less magical as time goes on. This is fine.  Clients like us for it because we do good work and teach them how SEO works.

It just makes me sad every time… But I suppose it’s just the great circle of SEO life.

I have been stumbling a lot with “blog” in the search. I have done this because I am rather new to doing a personal/work blog (although I have been telling clients to do them for years) and so it is research into how to make mine better. The bothersome part comes when I stumble to a blog that is doing something so annoying that it makes me want to vomit on my keyboard. I don’t have a very large following so I don’t expect this to reach the people I am talking about but if I can influence even one new blogger - to not do one of the following - I will see this as a personal win. So here goes:

1. Resizing my browser window:
-Why do you do this? Is it because your site design can only be seen when it’s in full screen mode? Java is fun, but seriously. There is a reason I don’t have a full size browser window… it’s because I don’t like it. I have a small screen, I’m not ashamed of this (it’s not the size it’s how you use it… right? right.)

2. Pop-Ups/Grey Outs That force me to sign up/in:
- I have only seen this on a few blog sites but as soon as it happens I hit the thumbs down and leave. I don’t read the content, I just leave. It could be great content that I would have signed up for if you didn’t force me to. Now I’ll never know and you lost me for good.

3. Top 5 - 10 - 15 - etc Lists that are exactly the same as the 20 we saw yesterday:
- I know topX lists are all the rage and can get lots of people to come…. and this actually could be one of those, I admit it…. We saw that list last week/yesterday, even if it was amazing/infotastic/new/funny then… the one you just put up isn’t. I’ll only read the first bold headline, maybe scroll to the bottom then leave. If it isn’t something new or at the very least an amazing new thought about it… stop posting them.

4. Google Ads EVERYWHERE:
- Making your site pay for itself is a good thing, in fact it’s awesome. When you put a few tasteful google ads along the side or at the bottom it’s fine… When you put Google ads EVERYWHERE (and even some kind of add that floats in front of my mouse until I figure out how to close it) it sucks. It breaks up your content with huge boxes and slows my loading down. Plus the ads don’t look good and if I don’t like the feel of your site I’ll stop reading and go elsewhere. Making money with your blog is cool… just don’t be annoying about it.

/end rant.

So I think I like Gooruze… Just not that much. I can tell it has some serious potential (and to validate my blog feed Wingnut.gooruze.com ) They are new and will be interesting to see where they go but if they don’t change some stuff up soon - I’m done with it.

The site navigation needs work. It’s rather unintuitive and takes too long to get anywhere. Overall the design looks like someone took a basic Joomla template and then ate some yellow crayons and then pooped all over it. Then for good measure (and maybe laughs) they made the default link text bright yellow so you have to squint from the glare and the rest so small you have to press your nose against it to see what news articles there are and what other things are going on.

Then just to be greedy (and piss me off and make me not want to go there) they put Google ads right at the top without even trying to make it look like it goes with the site design or be non-annoying. It’s supposed to be a site for online marketers IE the WEB SAVVY who the hell is going to click on these ads anyway? I suppose you get something for views… but come on. If you’re going to have money links at least make them better than shit Google Ads. Sell books about online marketing or something else - that would at least be useful.

It seems to be growing really fast but thanks to some major design flaws and annoying bits I fear it will burn out pretty quickly. If they change some stuff around it could be great

It has the most complex social media navigation I have ever seen - and as of yet I haven’t looked at any of the news articles because it’s too hard to tell what news there is/if it’s good.

The navigation is so bad it actually makes me angry trying to use it. They need to take a look at Sphinn or you know… any good social media site where you can actually tell what content is there and what is hot/new etc…

I have found the Q&A a bit helpful and actually would go to the site just for this. Makes for a great forum.

I’m far too addicted to Social Media these days and this is just one more thing that I’m going to be checking a couple times a day. Provided they change up the design.

What do you all think?

Google is great for search… they own it, us.  But when they make it official that they punish people for something they do?

I have a problem with this.  Adwords is a cash cow for Google but when someone else tries to charge someone to place an ad on their site their page rank goes down or worse they get de-listed?

Their mantra is “Don’t be evil” but come on.  Sure - you can say “well, they arn’t forcing you to not sell links… they will just take you off their engine.”

With 65% of the search market and rising a no listing on Google can really take down a sites traffic.  Perhaps enough so that a paid ad isn’t worth putting on your page because you can’t charge more than 10 cents.

It just feels like a slap on the hand to punish us for our wrongdoings.  I’m all for better search but at what cost?  If we continue to let Google rule us what will happen next?  Your site will be de-listed if you don’t give Google your first child so they can feed it to their new algorithm that can only be powered by tender baby meat?

Come on Google, this just feels lazy. There has to be a better way to not pass on PR when someone buys a link other than punishing the seller…

I suppose if I were as powerful as Google, I’d just stop trying too.