Knit Hat SEO Blog

Google Reader Unleashes A Gaggle Of Nice Social And Feed Management Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Google Reader Unleashes A Gaggle Of Nice Social And Feed Management Updates: "

A few days ago, I sent out a tweet wondering how long it would be until Google Reader added a tweet button to the bottom of each feed item. My guess was that it would be very soon. I was quite right. Today, the Google Reader team has unveiled a bunch of new updates to the product, including, yes, the ability to easily tweet any item.

But that’s hardly all this update contains. You can also now easily send feed items to a number of places including Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Blogger, and others. To enable any of these, simply go to the “Settings” area of Google Reader and enable the ones you want to use. If the services you want aren’t listed, you can even customize the “Send To” feature to enable sending items just about anywhere.

Another new feature allows you to easily subscribe to feeds owned by people you are contacts with. This is an obvious, but nice addition, as it makes it easier to locate feeds you may be interested in — assuming, of course, that you’re actually interested in the people you follow on Google Reader. This feature also includes Twitter updates, so you can easily import all of those and see that person’s tweets through Google Reader if you don’t feel like scanning Twitter all day.

But the best feature of the bunch may be the ability to have more control over the “Mark all as read” functionality. We all use the “Mark all as read” button when we’re too far behind on our feeds to possibly catch up. But now you can just mark items that older than a day, a week, or two weeks as read, saving the newest ones for you to still be able to read. That’s a great idea.

Google Reader still has some social issues, but it’s hard to argue with any of these features.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Social Network Fear Spending

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Ok. This really cheeses me off...

“But Peter Yared, CEO of marketing firm iWidgets, said he thinks some of that spending is going to shift to where the viewers, and the traffic, increasingly are. 'Soon the [search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization] spend will start to follow the eyeballs and transition from Google to social media,' he said.”
- http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135112

This all just smacks of the same sort of thing that got everyone into the financial crisis. (sorry. just watched jon stewart face off against jim cramer last night).

I can't say that my mind is boggled by the fact that the CEO of a marketing firm, specializing in Facebook widgets says that Facebook is becoming the center of the universe. A bunch of people who run companies specializing in Twitter and Facebook tell the masses that Facebook and Twitter are the most important things ever and your company will die if you don't start utilizing it? Meanwhile, no one knows what the heck to do with Facebook and Twitter. Know why? Because their companies don't FIT into that model.

"So what do brands need to know as they convert their Facebook pages to regular profiles in the next few days?"

What the? In the next few days? Don't assume we're going along with this because they say we just HAVE to. It smacks of fear-mongering. It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy designed to keep them in business. I could be wrong though. It's possible that I don't see the big picture and am just old-fashioned. (Quick question: How much activity does that MySpace page you just HAD to build get?)

Or...-maybe it's not best for YOU to go out and have a huge facebook and twitter presence (although some is probably worthwhile). Now, I suppose it's possible that people start these companies because there actually IS a market for this. It's possible that I'm totally wrong here and that Facebook will become the nexus for all internet traffic. But how does it turn into leads? Brand recognition? Ok, that I CAN see. For example, use your profile to start a Group that a lot of people can get behind. Creates brand affinity and awareness, and it's NOT advertising. There ARE ways to use Facebook. There Are!

"Soon the [search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization] spend will start to follow the eyeballs and transition from Google to social media."

The way I see it is like this. I don't care about the quantity of eyeballs. I care about the quality of eyeballs. If you take all the SEO and marketing people off of Twitter, you'd have like 53 people using it. 50,00,000 people looking for a drunk Brittany Spears on YouTube does not, in my mind make that the best place for me to place all of my marketing budget for selling cement mixers. Facebook has 175 million active users. All of whom CHOOSE who they talk to and listen to. Do they want to add someone to their friend-update-feed that's just selling them something? Highly doubt it. They get enough ads from everywhere else. This is where they go to talk to their "friends"... only. I could be wrong though.

Is a potential customer going to accept your site as a friend just to receive product offers from you? No. Maybe if you provide some genuinely useful content that someone everyday could use (because remember, these applications are getting checked EVERY DAY, every HOUR even). I just think that the only ones who are going to care, or "Friend" you, are marketing people, your employees and your competition.

UNLESS... you provide a supplementary offering so wonderful and out-of-the-box that ordinary people are compelled to want anything and everything to do with you.

I just think there's something inherently wrong with the model of blatantly trying to sell people something by acting like just another one of their "friends" on a social network. It's never going to happen (famous last words). Ever see a company's Twitter Followers vs. Follows numbers? Most of the time there are like 2 followers (employees) but they are following like 5,000 people. Most of whom just block the company from their feeds. It's called spam. I get it all the time. "Get a free laptop!" No thanks. But, I'll take your addition to MY "followers" number because it makes ME look more important to everyone else. It's all BS, folks.

The bottom line is, just be careful when reading articles saying that you have to start migrating everything to Facebook and Twitter or else you'll miss out on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Look at who is being interviewed. Are they CEOs of companies who have something to gain by telling you that you NEED this or you have to do that? Just think about it and spend wisely.

YouTube as the #2 Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:55:00 +0000

There seems to be something in the water given to SES panelists that compels them to continue to stress the importance of YouTube being the #2 most popular search engine behind Google.

I just saw another article this morning on Aaron Wall's SEObook.com site.

Here's the quote from Jonathan Mendez, a speaker at SES New York:

"...This is clear as YouTube is now the #2 search engine, Facebook, eBay & Craigslist are in the top 10 search engines and Twitter is trying to position itself as a real-time search. Search is integral to the web experience."

While statistically true, is this really a relevant statistic? I think not.

Are you going to tell someone selling tractors or cement mix that they NEED to be on YouTube because that's where people are searching? Has anyone ever searched for a birthday present on YouTube? My guess is not a one.

Here's the bottom line. YouTube's #2 Search Engine status says nothing about the CONTENT of those searches. I asked a panelist about this at SES Chicago. Another panelist agreed with me and the other guy just got sore. Don't let the experts make you think you HAVE to have some kind of YouTube presence just because THEY say it's the #2 search engine. There are quite often other, more practical, efforts you can prioritize.

Skittles Sitelinks Update

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:22:00 +0000

Skittles has finally fixed their IE sitelinks problem.

Now their homepage is the Wikipedia page. Wins the award for most annoying navigation evar!

Makes Hulk want to smash rainbow!!!

Skittles Fails The Sitelink Rainbow

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:57:00 +0000

Do a search for "skittles" in Google using IE.

None of the sitelinks work. They all redirect in Firefox and Chrome.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: I did a little digging and it looks like their 404 page isn't firing in IE. I used Tamper Data in FF and right after you click on one of the sitelinks it successfully launches
Content-Location=http://www.skittles.com/404.htm?404;http://www.skittles.com:80/products/index.jsp.

Then it eventually makes it's way to
Content-Location=http://www.skittles.com/default.htm

Using HTTPWatch in IE, you never get to the 404 page.

+ 0.000 0.376 1066 503 GET 302 Redirect to http://www.skittles.com/fun/index.jsp http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.skittles.com/fun/index.jsp&ei=EXytSeqfI4yRngfFzeW_Bg&sa=X&oi=smap&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&usg=AFQjCNFBsnbVEMPDmMqs_1qjSwNl19tWSg

+ 0.377 0.017 0 0 GET (Cache) text/html http://www.skittles.com/fun/index.jsp

0.395 1066 503 2 requests

My question is why is it going to the 404 at all? Why not just have the pages work? Is it a function of using Facebook to run everything?

Search Engines Get Canonical

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Say goodbye to duplicate content, folks...

Basically, all the search engines will let you suggest the preferred URL you'd like them to focus all the SEO juice on:

To use Google's example, all you put in the head tag is something like this:

link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish"

That's all there is to it, folks.

Here are the links to the new canonical goodness!

Google Webmaster Blog posting

Search Engine Land posting

For once, the search engines unite to make and SEO's life a little easier.

WOO HOO!!!

Matt Cutts talks webspam

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:31:00 +0000

@onecaseman sent me this video of Google's Matt Cutts talkin' 'bout webspam.

Check it out!

Red Herrings in Google's Web Crawl Report

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Found this interesting today when going through a site's Web Crawl error report in Google Webmaster Tools. I was looking at the 404s (not found) report and found a number of what looked to be partial URLs pointing at the site from hundreds of affiliate pages.

Turns out that Google has tried to follow a URL it found in a JavaScript function. The problem is that this URL is only the beginning of an address that was to be constructed using other variables from the JavaScript function. Google obviously can't run the function and put the whole thing together. It just found an "http://www.blahblahblah.com/and-so-on" and tried to go there.

What I find most interesting about this are the ramifications. Can you exploit this as an inbound link to another page? Does this pass page rank goodness? Would Google try to follow a URL in a JavaScript comment?

Interesting indeed.

In-Depth PageRank Article

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:54:00 +0000

A co-worker just sent me this link. I read through the article and it's pretty interesting if you place a lot of value on Page Rank.

"The Google PageRank Algorithm"

It pretty interesting since he also includes a PageRank Calculator.

Check it out folks!

What page does Google find most important?

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Maybe you all have an opinion on this. (unfortunately I won't be providing actual URLs here)

I've been optimizing a couple of pages for specific keywords. When I do "keyword phrase site:www.siteName.com" the page I've been optimizing comes up first. This leads me to believe that THIS is the page that Google deems to be most important for that search phrase.

However, when I do the same search out in the wild, a completely different page appears. I've tried this same search from different browsers and logged-in/not logged-in to my Google account. This unwanted page always seems to appear.

Do I chalk this up to some kind of personalization? Any thoughts? Once again, I apologize for not having specific URLs here.

New Year, New Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:09:00 +0000

I've got some exciting new projects lined up for 2009 that I'm really excited about. I'm looking forward to showing the full SEO process I'm using for each project. I'm equally interested in hearing your thoughts.

I've been driving around out east with my girlfriend and her dogs (see photo), but I'm back now.

Here's to everyone have a great 2009 and not getting fired or blacklisted.

Happy Holidays!!

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:49:00 +0000

It's holiday time again. Just wanted to thank everyone who's been reading (even Grehan) and who's been following on Twitter. I also wanted to say how glad I am if any of my posts have helped in any way.

I look forward to a fantastico 2009!

- knit hat

Backlinks.com Client Info Leaked

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:51:00 +0000

Thanks to habitaquo.net for tweeting this story.

Backlinks.com, as site that lets you buy and sell links (I'm sure Google loves these guys) let their security policies ride the fail boat and leaked a truckload of customer data to Google (ironically).

Check out this link: http://www.google.es/search?hl=es&q=site%3Abacklinks.com%2Fadmin

While you can't click on the links, you can view the cached versions of the pages. Usernames and passwords for everyone! Thanks Backlinks.com!

once again...thanks habitaquo.net for the scoop!

Google SERP Personalization in Full Effect!

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:58:00 +0000

So I was doing a search for a response I posted on this blog to a Search Engine Watch article.

When I was logged in to my Google account in Chrome, my article was #1. When I was not logged in and using Firefox, I was #8.

Just another example of how using SERP ranking as a success metric is becoming more and more wishy-washy.

Quick Page SERP Booster

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:55:00 +0000

I forgot about this but the guys over at seorainmaker.com reminded me in a little report they published called "SEO & Conversion Tactics for Tough Times" recently. Thought I'd share the good info...

Basically, you can use your internal pages to boost the rankings of another page. Here's how:

1) Look up which pages Google thinks are your most important ones for a particular keyword/phrase. You do this by typing "site:domainName.com keywordPhrase" into Google. It will return what it thinks are your most important pages, in order of importance.

2) Link to the page you want boosted within the content of these top pages.

BAM! That's it. You should see your target page's SERP rank jump a bit.

Enjoy (thanks seorainmaker!)

YouTube Keyword Search

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Here's a little tip that can help you search YouTube for keyword ideas. I found this URL on reelseo.com and thought it was worth sharing:

As we all know, YouTube has the YouTube "Suggest" option in their search bar. When you start typing, it makes suggestions. This works just like Google. In fact, they are using the same tool.

If you want to output those results instead of going to Google and typing stuff, use this URL:

http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?%20hl=en&ds=yt&json=t&jsonp=callbackfunction&q=[insertkeyordshere]

Just removed the bracket in the last parameter so that it reads"q=" and then your phrase. Try it! It's pretty cool!

Repost: 75 Top Link Building Techniques

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:53:00 +0000

Not sure when this was posted over at searchenginepeople.com (recently, i believe) but it looks pretty comprehensive:

The Definitive List (75+) of Link Building Techniques in 2008

Enjoy!

Dynamic Description Tags for Google Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Seeing as how the responses were, let's say, "light" to the original post. I'll tell you what I ended up doing. (link to original article)

Basically, I'm going to try taking the Description Meta Tag out entirely and let Google come up with its own snippet.

Sound good? I'm open to any other ideas if anyone has any.

Response to "Will Social Networks Become the New Inbox"

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Original Article: http://searchenginewatch.com/3632099

Erik Qualman of SearchEngineWatch.com asks the questions "Will Social Networks Become the New Inbox" in his latest article. I'm gonna say "hopefully not". Check out this quote of a quote:

"'I have a 16-year cousin and she listed off her favorite Web sites and applications and failed to mention e-mail so I asked her about it,' said Mike Peters, 37, of Detroit, Michigan. 'I was shocked by the incredulous look on her face and even more shocked at her response that she didn't use e-mail that much since it was too formal, she would rather use instant messenger on her phone or post comments based on people's activities in social networks.' It turns out that Generation Z finds e-mail antiquated and passé, so they simply ignore it."

Ok. Who is Mike Peters? Besides that. Guess what? At first, I didn't use e-mail either just because it was available to me. It didn't really matter to me. Know why? Because I didn't HAVE to. I wasn't surrounded by it everyday. Once this dude's 16-year-old cousin gets a job, I can guarantee she'll be up to her ass in e-mail...and she'll be glad for it. Here's why.

Social networks are, in their purest form, sanctuaries for people to be...well, social. As soon as you start cramming in your marketing messages or trying to sneak links to check out your lastest ear cleaner, you're destroying this sanctuary. Once this ad-free Eden is corrupted, the users will run from it like the plague and find the next thing. Sure there's some paid advertising out there on apps like Twitteriffic and Facebook but they are clearly defined and can easily be ignored. And here's where e-mail comes in.

E-mail is a great way to prioritize. It's a level of protection for your sanctuary. It's like owning a landline just to give businesses a phone number so they don't call your cell phone. Users would never want ads or people promoting stuff to come AT you via Twitter. You'd start to lose track of the messages that matter and go find another network that hadn't "sold out" or was overrun by spammers. Plus, it's so easy to "avoid" unsolicited message-senders that it'd be tough to be an effective traditional marketing tool. I firmly believe that these social networks are a by-product of the need for speedy communication as well as the need to get away from the spam-laden email system. There has to be a saturation or tipping point when a medium is over-mined by marketers and the users just move on.

Social networks are becoming more of an ongoing conversation between lots of losely connected people. Email provides a place for things that would normally interrupt that conversation. Like the atmosphere burning up spam and marketing meteors before reaching us. Plus, with notifications of Facebook and Twitter updates being sent to our email, we're all still going there to check mail anyways.

Erik writes "...executives are still holding hard and fast to the concept of the traditional inbox. ...Often, communication with fans and consumers will be on someone else's database (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.). Yet many companies fail to recognize this and still try and cram e-mails into their database when these users want to be communicated through different ways. "

Do they? Not communicated to by you, they don't. If they even begin to suspect that you're not genuine, not providing any real value, and are taking advantage of the trust given to you by them (allowing you to "follow" them or adding you as a "friend"), they'll ban you.

I think this is where we see what's lacking in this article. What kinds of communication do we mean here? Are we talking about the sort of communication where you send out announcements about your latest whatever? I certainly don't want that crap in my Facebook inbox. Do you? That's what email is for!

Now, if by "communication" you mean, scouting Twitter to see if someone is complaining about your product and needs help... then replying to that, then I think that's a winning interaction. Someone is, in a sense, asking for help by complaining about your product. Who better to answer that call? Then, once you've answered it, leave them alone! That's it. You just socially interracted with someone in a respectful way. That person will remember that, and positive interatctions can be the best form of marketing of all.

I'm still on the fence about whether or not social networking as a heavy-duty marketing tool is a fad (anyone remember when everyone just HAD to have a podcast?) but for now, it's a decent way to get some one-to-one interaction with people who are talking about you. It's a decent way to get in on the conversation and possibly find a new network of people who are all talking about you and your market. But send me an ad... and down comes the banhammer!

Google Blogger Meta Tags

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Ok folks, I'm throwing this challenge out there to you.

We all know that we can updated the title tags and make those semi-dynamic. What about the keywords and the description tags?

I'm still looking around the intertubes to see if someone's got a fix here. I'd really like to grab the first 60, or so, characters from the post for the description tag and I'd like to grab the post labels as the keywords. Makes sense, right?

How do we do it?

Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:02:00 +0000

Just thought I'd add this. You can follow me on Twitter at @negligent.

Word.

SES Chicago Blog Wrap Up

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Well, it's all over. I apologize that I sort of abandoned the liveblog at the end there. I'm sure you'll live.

So how was it? Pretty much like last year.

Opening with an irrelevant speech? Check.
Bourne Ultimatum and Heat Map Chart slides from Mike Grehan? Check.
Ass-numbingly cold weather for at least one day? Check.

The overall theme of event seemed to be link-building. Both for the SEO benefits and the social, traffic-driving benefits. I'm down with that.

It'd be too easy to game the system with a bunch of crappy keywords and tags. You can't fake people taking interest in what you do and linking back to you (unless you buy them).

Hope you enjoyed the liveblog as much as I enjoyed writing it.

SES Chicago Day 4 Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:39:00 +0000

8:35 I've waited until the last day to touch on this...coat check. It ain't cheap to come here but for some reason they still charge 2 bucks to check your coat. Fail.

So, it's the last day. Half day. No free lunch and the only session I wanna see is the last one.

I'm sitting in the lobby by the bar listening to The Real Roxanne by UTFO. Check back for more updates.

9:00 at Search Engines on Auditing. I can count the number of people here on both hands.

Compete.com's November data is up. Got that info blasted to all my accounts this morning. Thanks.

9:11 Google is the only engine that showed for this.

9:13 The description of this session online was completely vague. I was hoping this was gonna be about how Google audits your site. This, so far, is about click fraud on paid campaigns.

9:25 guy from Enquisite is done talking about fraud. Google's Shuman ghosemajumder is up next. PLEASE don't be about click fraud.

9:27 Click fraud. I probably should have gone to "How To Speak Geek".

9:33 Gotta hand it to the Google people. They always send knowledeable people who give well-delivered presentations.

9:55 here's another observation that has nothng to do with this session... The animated screens that run during the Q&A sessions or distracting. Or, I have the attention span of a raccoon.

10:07 Mike Grehan just walked on tapping his shoehorn. Good lord.

10:10 Waiting to go into "Using Video".

10:14 Yesterday there was a woman who kept asking questions about live video. I finally had to tell her to give it up during a session. She just walked info this one. At least this won't be boring.

10:17 I think she's taking to the guy who keeps asking about tools for small businesses. To Which the answer is always "Google Analytics is free". They are forming some kind of unholy alliance.

10:27 The guy from PixelFish is talking about what's the most effective content to include in a video...not from a search perspective, of course. The video example doesn't load.

10:37 PixelFish's presentation had decent advice if your just getting started with video. Technical problems are delaying the next presenter.

10:43 Guy from TurnHere keeps mentioning that YouTube is the second most popular search engine. I think this is misleading. 16 billion people looking for Britney Spears drunk inflates the numbers but doesn't account for many quality searches.

10:53 Espinoza is taking about optimization. Finally! Good stuff about adding link support to all the outlets you're using. Checking the YouTube links to see which ones are nofollow.

11:05 I'm now sitting thru an ad for Adfare. Lame.

11:26 Last session. White Hat/Black Hat Secrets of Search. Really looking forward to this.

11:29 Crap. Totally Q&A.

11:38 this has been all about buying links so far. Does anyone NOT know that the rules are dumb.

11:55 panelist says Page Rank is going away. Also says that quality content can be just as effective as inbound links. Services that put links in old blogs are bad.

SES Chicago Day 3 Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:38:00 +0000

8:30 I'm here a little early today for some reason. Let's see what's on tap...

First up is the keynote about something called "anticipointment" (great...another buzzword).

Next is SEO Through Blogs and Feeds. Then Design Constraints and SEO. Finally, it's a toss up between Online Video or Tactical Success Measurement.

Check back in all day for updates...as per usual. The X-mas music in the lobby sounds like it was performed by Gary Hoey or Evanescence. I can't decide. Either way I win.

9:13 Was talking to a coworker and got here late. The prez of Omniture is telling us how wonderful they are. I can almost smell the case studies coming.

9:30 Case studies are in full effect. Apparently we can all increase revenue by understanding our data, optimizing our landing pages and providing a better experience. Obvious but true.

I'm thinking of new ways to make it easier for returning visitors to see information based on what they've searched for previously. Could be interesting.

9:40 Presentation is done. Q&A is up. Oh yeah the speaker's name is Josh James. landing page opinization and a/b testing are good, low cost ways to increase conversion/revenue when money is tight. Personalization is emphasized ad well.

10:40 I'm at the Social Media Optimization session. It's in the beginner track. Just looking for a refresher here.

10:52 Today's phrase that pays is "boil the ocean".

11:04 guy from Agency.com is up. Should be interesting.

11:14 here comes the "who did it good/bad" slides. MyCoke.com=bad. No SEO. Disney social network=bad.

11:21 blogsouthwest.com=good. Good forum interaction.

11:32 tubemogul is namehecked for uploading vids to upload to multiple sites but is the shot down by another panelist since some sites don't accept their uploads...but it's free.

12:24 Once again lunch is the junk buffet. Egg rolls were replaced with chicken wings. I feel like the mall food court just beat me about the face.

12:49 At Design concerns and SEO

1:01 so far it's a giant case study for FreshBooks. Still waiting for some meat.

1:06 People started taking notes when he asked if we ever heard of Twitter.

1:12 this guy's advice is to not worry about search engines and optimize for people. I've heard it before and I know there's a happy medium but no one says how. Plus some sites can't depend on an audience that does their audience searching thru Facebook and technorati.

1:19 Dude just gave it up and said his audience is social network savvy. Well no wonder it worked. (slapping my head)

1:44 to sum up: no advice for design and seo per se. Just make a good landing page and get people to talk about you on social networks. I'll get right on that pitch.

2:15 heading into Blogging For Business.

2:33 Internet access is wonky. Will post as soon as I can. Speaker is taking about communicating with outside bloggers. Find who is being followed in your market. When building a relationship with a blogger, use real language and respect their time. The pitching strategy sounds a lot like the one used when asking for links.

2:48 interweb is still down. So far this has been all about getting other bloggers to write about you. Not about setting up a successful blog. Blerg.

3:06 intertubes are go!

3:14 I've completely checked out of this session. It sounds like someone's using the loading dock outside. I think this gut is actually talking about something I could use but I can no longer fight the pizza, hot dogs and chicken wings that are ravaging my insides at sending me into a food coma.

3:20 It sounds like some is throwing a trash can down a flight of stairs outside. Good lord.

3:39 Last session coming up. Looks like it's The Next Wave for Online Video.

4:07 a non-powerpoint session. Nice. Although the non-structured format is just a bunch of dudes talking off the top of their heads.

4:30 I wonder what the weather is like. Oh there's a session going on. I was looking for something a little more tactical here.

4:48 Wow. This was a dud. I'm out. Recap later.

SES Chicago Day 2 cont.

noreply@blogger.com (Knit Hat) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:55:00 +0000

12:53 Lunch was an orgy of crappy pizza, hot dogs, and egg rolls. I feel like garbage.

The last panel was fairly pointless.

12:58 "We'll Go Walking" from the Silver Seas is always playing before the large panel sessions. Whatever that means.

1:07 Battle of the Browsers is up next. This could be interesting.

Mike Grehan is back. This is the guy who brought last year's deck to a session yesterday.

1:24 This is all about privacy. There's something I find ineffective about watching these 4 heads talk about their opinions. They come off sounding like Chicken Little. Mike is now promoting his in-progress book.

1:33 One of the panelists just said "shit". The hall is mostly empty so no one is here to be offended.

1:39 The guy across the aisle is sleeping. God I wish I could post photos.

1:51 Mike Grehan is the king of self-promotion.

2:45 At the Viral Link building session now.

3:08 Van der Graaf has got some good viral tips. For example, create a link and build up the link juice. Then 301 it to the main site to pass the juice.

3:25 this guy has offended almost every social group... Women, the Amish, the South...priceless.

3:38 This by far has been the best session I've been to. Great information and has given me a few ideas.

4:18 At Advanced Link Building session now.

4:22 Guy from Rosetta is talking about link remediation. Sounds like a boring project but reclaiming your links could really help get some of that juice back. Can you say "intern"?

4:31 Good reminder to use nofollow to stop PR bleed.

4:58 Next speaker is taking about keeping your blog safe from hackers...for some reason.

5;17 That's a wrap on Day 2. Ended up not so bad. Better than day 1. See ya tomorrow.