Google Caffeine will not replace Google or force the company to change its logo. This is simply and advancement on the back-end of the search engine. The speed and relevancy of the search results will change drastically. Google is moving towards more real time search and making tweaks to its search algorithm. This means your search results will rely more heavily on the keywords you use.  A greater index size will be another result of the changes Google is making. In Layman’s terms that means there will be more results for every search which will hopefully lead to more accurate and relevant search results. I also predict that Google’s Social Search will eventually be integrated into the Google Caffeine algorithm in attempt to give users as much power and control over their results as possible.

These changes will have a profound effect on how SEO professionals go about trying to optimize their clients websites. They will have to find new ways to exploit Google and its algorithm just like  they’ve had to do when MSN Live moved over to Bing. In the end, Google Caffeine will move closer to Google’s ultimate goal of providing the best search results possible for any and every user.

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NFL Referee Uniforms

I realize that we’re paying tribute to the old AFL Referees, but some things were better left in the past. As if the NFL Referees don’t have a hard enough time convincing coaches, players. and fans their credible. The new orange on white NFL Referee uniforms make me cringe every time I see them.

Enough with the bad. Lets take a look at some of the causes referees are supporting with their uniforms.

Pac-10 Referees Support Prostate Cancer Awareness

Yes that blue shooter sleeve that the Pac-10 Referees wore this weekend was to show their support for prostate cancer awareness. This was done exclusively by the Pac-10 this weekend and was worn by the crews on all five of the Pac-10 conference games this Saturday.

Women’s Basketball Referees Support Breast Cancer Awareness

Those pink whistles being worn by Women’s Basketball Referees is to show their support for breast cancer awareness.

MLB Umpires Support Breast Cancer Awareness Too

Just like the Women’s Basketball Referees wearing their pink whistles, MLB Umpires have worn the pink wristbands for breast cancer awareness and also for Mother’s Day.

MLB Umpires Support Fathers on Fathers Day

Initially I thought the blue wristbands were worn to show support for prostate cancer also, or maybe Viagra was a sponsor for a day. Instead the blue wristbands were worn by MLB Umpires in support of Father’s Day.

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As reported back in May, the 2009 Kentucky Derby utilized social media to bring exclusive coverage to the horse racing world. The Breeders’ Cup is no different featuring a Facebook Page, Twitter account, and YouTube channel. Of course there is a slew of bloggers on site to bring you the inside scoop including one of my favorites ESPN’s Randy Moss. Make sure you sign up for the Daily Racing Form’s free membership to get all the news and information you need to be in the winnings.

The fun starts at 1:30 PM ET on ABC before moving over for the big races on ESPN at 3:30 PM ET.  So get out your racing form and start making your picks. The 2009 Breeders’ Cup is sure to be another wild ride.

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That’s right, I’m old enough to say I remember Cookie Monster when he actually ate cookies. While I applaud PBS for taking a stand and attempting to sway the toddlers of America to be active, I can’t see the correlation between Cookie Monster eating cookies or sugar snap peas. Veggie monster should have to go hang out on Veggie Tales.  Then we’ll all see how cheery and happy that tomato and cucumber really are.  I’m just thankful that Google’s logo, displayed below, isn’t filled with carrot and celery sticks.

In the end, nothing can replace the original charm and magic Sesame Street has brought for generations. When Google spruces up their logo, you know it’s an event worth celebrating! So make up the letter and number of the day to count and rhyme your way back to yesterday.

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SEO is more than tags, keyword research, and link building. It’s a tactical entity that is improved through extensive training and experience. More than anything else, a significant amount of time and research is needed to reach the level of expertise needed to do your SEO internally. Lets examine some of the methods you could initially learn about SEO:

Search Engine Academy of Oregon – In Oregon we have an academy geared specifically towards teaching business professionals the tools they need to become a search engine marketer. They offer a 2-day essentials class, 3-day advanced workshop, or a 5-day comprehensive workshop. These cost  $895, $1,195, and $1,795 respectfully.

SEMPO Institute – The Search Engine Marketer’s Professional Organization offers six different classes ranging from $299 to $1,399 depending on the course material and if it’s an advanced level or not. They seek business professionals looking to learn about search engine marketing and provide for their company.

SEOmoz Pro – SEOmoz Pro offers tools, guides, and enables you to ask Rand Fiskin a set number of questions per month. Depending on the package you choose it could cost you $79, $129, or $229 per month. SEOmoz Pro is catered towards individuals who have some search engine marketing experience, but need additional tools to help them.

These are three extremely viable entities for learning the sheer basics. I’ve personally used SEOmoz Pro and can say from experience it is a great product. However, whether your taking a class or purchasing tools if you don’t have experience physically doing SEO you could find yourself in trouble. Through a class you’ll learn about the basics of SEO, that you could also learn from SEO for Dummies, but what you wont learn is how to compete against other businesses. You can do keyword research, set up your tags, submit a site map, and attempt to do link building, but all of your competitors are doing the same thing only they’re outsourcing the work.

Aside from the initial education of SEO tactics and techniques their is the continued education and trends you must know and understand. Most web design companies offer a SEO package that you can buy and bake into your site. This is always from a third party partner that is an expert and dedicated 100% to SEO. The techniques and tactics for SEO update too rapidly for a web design company to remain an expert on web design and the latest SEO tactics. Instead it’s easier for a web design company to partner with an SEO expert who can relay the latest techniques that should be incorporated into their design. Specialization allows for a better product than being versed in several different fields.

You can begin to see how much time would be needed for a marketing director or manager to become versed enough in SEO to prevent outsourcing.  Constant blog reading, the testing of different techniques, and researching new opportunities for enhanced SEO are all components of seasoned SEO professional.  The short influx of education a class will provide you is only the basics. Add in the time needed for the continued education and you’re talking about the need for a full-time internal team member just to ensure your website is properly optimized.

An entry level, maybe they just took a class or read SEO for dummies, search engine marketer would cost you $30-45K while a search engine marketer with three to five years of experience would cost you $50-75K annually. It makes more economic sense to find a freelancer or organization to do your SEO because you can get rates of $500 to several thousand a month depending on the contract scope and competition of your space. Most SEO campaigns take three months to show any results and SEO companies typically will ask for a six month or year long campaign contract. In the end, you’re saving yourself a substantial amount of money by outsourcing your SEO work.

Classes, tools, and substantial time are the components needed to train your marketing personnel to do your SEO internally. $30 – 75k annually is what it would cost to bring a full-time dedicated SEO member to your team. Save yourself the headaches and money and reap the benefits of outsourcing your SEO work. Your bottom line and website rankings will thank you later.

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Dan Patrick may refer to ESPN as ‘The Mothership’, but I’m here to tell you that if ESPN is catching on it’s becoming mainstream. ESPN recently released ESPN Local with local sites for Boston, Dallas, and Chicago so far. The fact of the matter is people want to know what’s going on locally and with newspapers dying each and everyday the Internet is the easiest way to find local information.

Other locally focused sites like PDX Pipeline provide information about music, art, events, and entertainment. It’s only a matter of time before consumers stop reaching for the yellow pages and reach for their keyboard if they’re not already. The great thing about the local space right now is its not saturated like the Organic Search rankings. It would be nearly impossible to rank inside the top 10 for the search query ‘Mens Clothing’ organically, but could be obtained with a little effort in the Local Search listings. That’s because the algorithm’s are completely different.

The goals of Local vs. Organic are very similar, but the tactics and strategies are completely different. Depending on the city you live in it’s possible you could become the top ranking result for your Local Search terms in a matter of hours vs. three months or longer for the Organic Search listings. To put it simply the Local Search sphere isn’t as saturated as the Organic Search sphere leading to quicker results.

A great example is a local Portland Music Academy that I work with called Cadenza Academy. We’re currently working on redesigning the website and implementing Organic Search tactics, but in the mean time we can reap the benefits of the Local Search algorithm. After claiming and optimizing Cadenza’s Google Local Business listing we were able to rank sixth for the Local Search term ‘Portland Music Lessons’. This change has produced a 20% increase in site traffic just from creating a local business listing!

The down economy has produced a surplus of small businesses hoping to catch the wave and reap the rewards before it becomes high tide. If you don’t feel like spending thousands on professional Search Engine Marketing you can take the same route Cadenza Academy did and just go local. They’ve already seen tremendous benefits and you can too while Local Search is still under the radar. Get in before it’s too late, the future is now and Local Search is the secret to your success.

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What about 8 years ago today on September 11th, 2001? I can’t recall a time in my life that our country was more united. If Tim Tebow is NOW going to work harder than anyone has ever seen before, why wasn’t he doing that before the Ole Miss game? If our country NOW pledges to be united and come together, why weren’t we doing this before 9/11? Why does it takes these types of events to produce the results we’ve witnessed? I don’t have an answer to that question, but I can answer questions about myself.

I personally believe that everyone regardless of age, race, gender, demographics, religion, occupation, or income should abide and follow the following four quotes:

Perception is Everything

Control the things that you can control

If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all

Treat other’s how you want to be treated

I can’t think of a moment or situation in my life that you wouldn’t use these quotes. Your own personal happiness and success can be directly attributed to how you use these quotes. Lets break each one down:

Perception is Everything

Your perception is everything because you are what you’re perceived to be. I’m perceived to be a smart, funny, athletic, hard working, stubborn, negative, complaining, unsatisfied, pain in the ass, who is a recent college grad that is immature, and doesn’t know a fucking thing about the business world. As painful as it is for me to write this, because this is others perception of me, I am all of those things. Ideally you would want to be perceived as a likable, hardworking, indispensable person, but not everyone can. If the perception of you is that you’re a bullshitter, then you are a bullshitter. If people perceive that you’re a kiss ass, then you are a kiss ass. If people perceive that you don’t do anything at work all day, then you probably aren’t doing anything at work.

If people perceive you as an uplifting team player, then you are an uplifting team player. If people perceive you as an indispensable asset to your company, then you are an indispensable asset to your company. What can you do you enhance your perception? Lets take a look at quote number two for some added advice.

Control the things that you can control

You cannot control the fact that your coworker always complains about how busy they are, but they work eight to five, take a two hour lunch, and on average play five games of company foosball a day. You cannot control whether or not your coworkers complete their part of your project for you. You can’t control how people perceive you. What you can control is your attitude, your work ethic, your patience, and your overall quality of life. I can’t control how I’m perceived by others, but I can control what I say, my morale, my work ethic, and my education. What you can control correlates with the third quote.

If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all

This is something that I can personally control and can also affect my perception. I’ve said a lot of bad things about a lot of people. I’ve complained, groaned, bitched, and argued. Unfortunately, what I say can affect and influence people’s perception of me and others regardless of my intentions. I may be being sarcastic or trying to make a joke, but calling someone a fat, lazy, asshole doesn’t help anyone. While this makes me feel better about myself, it’s negatively affecting the perception of me and the morale of others. This leads us to the fourth and final quote.

Treat others how you want to be treated

Treating others how you want to be treated means only saying things that are positive or constructively positive, controlling what you can control, and by treating others how you want to be treated you’re affecting your perception positively. If you hate that your boss is lazy and always drops work on you because he simply doesn’t want to do it, don’t dump your work on someone else or return the favor when you are finally in a position of authority. Shit doesn’t have to roll down hill if you control what you can control. If you’re tired of people telling you that’s wrong with you, don’t talk about what’s wrong with everyone else. Finally, if you want others to perceive you as a likable, hardworking, indispensable person then control what you can control, only discuss things with a positive frame of mind, and treat others how you want to be treated.

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Should these short shorts be abolished from existence or are they ok on a runner like me?

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HTML

In the words of Dylan Boyd, “my two year old can write HTML.” Which means you should be able to also. Understanding and being able to write HTML isn’t geeky anymore. In fact, it’s imperative if you want to understand the basics of website construction, and HTML, to implement search engine optimization.

CSS

HTML and CSS go hand in hand. Without CSS your website will look like garbage. At the same time, CSS can be used to speed up the load time of your website, and create a professional and creative look without the use of flash. If you understand CSS you have the ability to replicate the look and feel of any website utilizing this language.

PHP

I had to really think of the usefulness a marketer would gain from understanding this language. Personally, I don’t know enough PHP to write an application, but I do know enough to read and understand what a simple script, or line of code is trying to accomplish. Learning php is not as easy or simplistic as HTML or CSS, but it allows you to troubleshoot the back end of websites. PHP is an actual programming language that has variables and arrays involved. My suggestion would be to analyze current scripts, functions, and programs to try and understand the language prior to diving head first.

Have any languages you think marketers should know? Add them to the list in a comment below.

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I was severely dehydrated and nauseous to the point I didn’t know if I was going to be able to complete the race. Last year at the Hood to Coast I gave my team a severe scare when nearly 5 hours after my leg I still had not recovered and actually started to get the chills. In the end, I sucked it up, ate some food, drank some water, and completed the event. I was extremely disappointed and frustrated with my performance at the Hood to Coast. I made a vow to myself that on January 1st of 2009 I’d start my training for the next Hood to Coast which will not take place until mid-August.

I’m currently in week 19 of 32 for my Hood to Coast training. My weekly mileage is 39 miles and my long run for the week is 12 miles. I started looking at my projected training log and saw that by August my weekly mileage would be 50 miles and my long run would be 17 miles. Listening to my body, I could also feel that my long runs, of late, were not difficult, and in fact, depending on the pace, were quite easy no matter the mileage.

This is when I started to think I could complete, my dream goal, of running the Portland Marathon. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anywhere to turn for advice or guidance on my decision. I went to the Portland Marathon website hoping they’d have a Facebook account or forum to listen to stories and ask questions for those thinking about doing their first marathon, but they had nothing.

I understand the Portland Marathon is in the business of promoting their event and training programs, but wouldn’t it cut down their costs if they knew everyone could complete the run? While I wasn’t 100% convinced I should enter the Portland Marathon, their promotions of an increase in price by May 15th was enough to motivate me towards entering the race.

By creating a forum or utilizing social media the Portland Marathon could actively communicate with potential entrants and assist them with their decision to run the race or not. More seasoned marathoners could communicate with each other, exchange training programs, and give inspiring stories to the newbies who hope to just get across the finish line. My lofty goal, besides completing the Portland Marathon, is to qualify for the Boston Marathon with a 3:10 or below marathon.

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