Google’s control over the internet has been going on for some time.  They started off by providing us the best search engine.  They then moved on to providing a great medium for pay per click advertising.  To top it all off, they gave us quality analytic software.  Best of all they gave us these services for free (well the ad’s cost money but only if people interact).

With all this great “free” software it was only a matter of time before people started wondering “what is the catch?”.  Lets think about this, the same company you advertise with is the also the same company you store your websites data with.  It would be like if your work not only paid you but knew exactly how you spent your money, down to the penny.  Not something you’d be too keen on, now is it.  With these features Google is able to see how people get to our websites, how much it cost us to get them there and finaly what our user base does when they get there.  That is a lot of power from free tools.

Welcome Googles latest hot web product, from the Google labs.  Google Chrome is a fast and secure web browser designed to compete with the likes of, Internet Explorer and Firefox.  This would be like instead of your company paying you, and then watching how you spend your money.  They now have hired you a personal assitant, who goes with you every where you go.  Now they not only know how much you get paid, and how you spent it, but… what you do when your are not spending it.  And the worst part about it all is, they are nice about it.

After all Google chrome is fantastic, I’m typing this blog post using it.  It’s fast, it’s clean and well from what I can tell its secure.  So the question is do we just accept our fate and use Google’s products because they give us what we need or do we say this is a little to much…

 After all if microsoft offered the best search engine, the best online advertisement platform, the best browser and the best operating system, wouldn’t MAC users be staging bombings? Wouldn’t we all be saying this needs to stop?  But that is exactly it, Google isn’t Microsoft.  Google is cool, Google doesn’t do things that piss us off, even if it means making less revenue.  Its that layed back approach that makes it so easy to hand over every piece of information about your websites, about your ad’s and now your browsing habits.

Dan Rezmovits and Rodney Dangerfield

These two don’t only look a like but I’m pretty sure Dan is, mini Rodney.  If Dan came out of his hotel room in a robe and cigar, I would not even give a second look.

Chris Winfield and Michael Hutchence

Not bad being compared to a rock star who woman around the world were in love with.  Sure he killed him self by autoerotic asphyxiation but still…

Jon Heinl and Dj Qualls

I know Jon personally and I know for a fact people have approached him the street thinking he was DJ Qualls.

Sujan Patel and Bobby Hill

I don’t care what any one says, he looks like bobby hill.

Dave Naylor and Nick Frost

Sure they are both British and funny but if I didn’t know better some one could convince me they were brothers.

Joe Whyte and Kevin Federline

Todd Malicoat and Joel Moore

The question is can Todd play dodge ball?

Rand Fishkin and Edward Norton

Rand really only looks like Edward in the movie the Illusionist but still pretty damn creepy… almost like magic.

Jeremy Shoemaker and Michael Rosenbaum

It just dawned on me, Jeremy might be taking this super man thing too far.

Matt Cutts and Satan

OK, he’s not Satan.  But Matt that sign you have up isn’t “ROCK AND ROLL” it’s sign language for love.

If you have any more feel free to add them in comments.  Remember it’s all in good fun.

If you dont want to read all of this just click here

SES Day 1 Highlights

I’m counting Sunday the day before the conference as day one because thats when I had my first of many beers.  But clearly the highlight of the night was a comment I heard directed at Chris Winfield of 10e20.com. At the time I had never spoken with Chris but knew who he was because of a SEO contest Chris Hooley ran. So this is what I over heard:

Random guy: Hi, your Chris Winfield right…

Chris Winfield: Yea that’s me Nice to meet you…

(By the way Chris is a freaking nice guy and he will never forget your name after you tell him)

Random Guy:  yea I saw that you won that seo contest.

Chris stares blankly

Random guy:  Yea you won best hair in Chris Hooley’s contest… you beat out the girls

For the record I won “Best SEO you have never heard of”, I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

SES Day 2 Highlights

With the first night ending pretty early and Sujan Patel wasted after 3 virgin daiquiris, I woke up ready for day 2, at 11am.  Day two, or the first day of SES sessions or book sales pitches depending on which session you attended, was pretty uneventful until the internet marketers charity party.  First off this party was great, next to the google party easily one of the best.  They had the magic formula, make people happy about drinking and have an open bar.  This night had plenty of highlights but I’m going to stick with two…

Number1

Dan Rezmovits and myself got into a fun game of hitting the top of glass bottles so they would foam over.   Sounds frat boyish and stupid but after we sprayed any one in 20 feet radius of us, it got both annoying and hilarious.  Sorry to any one we got wet with beer.

Number 2

Neil Patel being the man that he is, won a set of Dewalt drill bits.  I walk up to Neil and ask him if he is exited about winning tools and Neil says:

I can’t fix shit what am I going to do with tools

Being the nice guy I am, I took them off his hands.

SES Day 3 Highlight

Day three can only have one highlight.  The Google “Glow in the dark party”.  I spent most of the night with Jon Heinl, Sujan Patel and the rest of the oversee.net guys.  This party was amazing, from free beer (always a plus) to huge dance floors. This entire party was to big and too off the wall to be explained. I dont want to end up telling you another “you had to been there” story… So instead look at this picture of Jon Heinl.

SES Day 4 Highlights

Day 4 contains the only session highlight I could think of and not because I learned anything but because Dave Naylor put the so called Seo Champion in his place.  The session was packed and with an all star panel and a title with the words ” black hat ” and ” white hat ” it is no surprise.

This so called seo champion pretty much tried to call Dave Naylor and Greg Boser hacks and spammers.  Thats like walking up to the beatles and telling them their music is shit.  You just don’t do it.  But then again that is probably why this guy was handing out cards made of construction paper.  But the point is this guy was DESTROYED by Dave the second he stood up and said his name.  I have never seen so many people happy to see some one being put in their place.

Besides utter humiliation there were several other highlights for the 4th and final day of parties (at least for me).  The guys over at webmaster radio gave us a party to be remembered.  They had everything from go go dancers ( one girl was answering her cell phone while dancing) to trapeze artist.  Now that’s a pretty kick ass party. I can’t mention that party with out thanking Dave Rohrer and Chris Winfield for all those drinks, I think I’m still sweating Amstel light.

After the bar closed we took a 60 dollar cab ride to in and out burger, but more importantly we ended up at the best of the web party.  That was just a flat out good time.  Everybody was having a great time and plenty of interesting people from all over the world of search were there from Shoe Money to Frank Watson.  We didn’t end up leaving till around 4:30am and there was still plenty of people there.  I wonder if Patrick Sexton ever went on that road trip he was talking about.

SES BEST

1. Google glow in the dark party
2. Dave Naylor telling of SEO champion
3. The internet marketers charity event
4. Best of the web after hours party
5. Web master radio partry
6. Last but not least this video of Sujan Patel

COMING SOON….

I find that web marketers all make the same mistake, we make assumptions about our demographic based on our personal opinions. This means we assume our demographic is like us. A website shouldn’t be treated like a work of art, it should however be treated like a complex math equation. Where the answer to the equation is not the design you like but the one that produces the desired result.

With a room full of egos it can be hard to convince some people to take an analytical approach towards development. Tools like Google’s website optimizer are a great way of defusing any argument over design or functionality. By placing simple java script on your website, Google will shuffle between countless variations giving you numbers to back up the best design. There is no more need for arguement, try every ones ideas and see what does best. After all you wont know what does best until you’ve actually tried it.

I don’t think you should ignore gut feelings but you shouldn’t stick with them if the numbers say it’s the wrong decision. If a change makes your website less effective don’t do it. It’s that simple…

Just remember you are not the demographic, test what works best, don’t assume anything.

The group of SEO’s that showed up were all top notch. As much fun as this looked it was actually pretty insightful. Lots of great ideas were thrown around and friendships made. There isn’t a bad thing I can say about the “conference”.

Here are my highlights:

Jon Heinl of snoopbloggyblog.com and seosavvy.com jumping into the pool screaming SPRING BREAK!

Patrick Sexton of Seoish passing out in child’s play house. (I thought you were going to drink Chris Hooley under the table?)

Chris Hooley of Chris-Hooely.com having the first ever topless tie sun burn lines…

Sujan Patel with his shirt off, always nice.

David Wallace of Search Rank looking like the god father with what I can only assume were Cuban cigar.

Danny Dover of seomoz coming all the way from Seattle and knocking back more shots than all of us in 5 minutes. By the way in my opinion Danny beat Chris and Pat in drinking.

Joshua Strebel of Obuweb and Saint Rebel having a lower back tattoo. HAWT!

Jeff Dempsey of Iambetterthanu.com and Medialyx (that’s me) getting chocked out by Chris Hooley’s brother Mike Hooley. Its never a good idea to get drunk and try to wrestle a guy from Boston.

Thanks to any one that helped with one of the best times I’ve had in a long time. I hope we do this again next year. Sun City Seo Con Putting the Con in Conference

Let’s start off with a quick example:

You are starting a blog about exotic cars and car parts. You figure you could write about something you already love and sell some car parts while you are at it.

Get it right from the start

When starting any new website you must first decide what is the website suppose to do. This may seem obvious but it is often confused with the idea. The idea is what the website is about. The focus is what you want to do with that idea.

In this case your idea is to write about cars and car parts. Your focus can either be selling car parts or gathering a strong reader base. I personally would rather make money, so we will say the focus is selling automotive parts.

When you’re designing the blog you should be focused on selling car parts. Everything from your content to your design should have this is mind. This may seem limiting but in all actually this makes designing and writing much easier. There are a variety of ways to increase the effectiveness but the key here is to have the focus in mind.

Learn to say no

It is easy to make updates to your website and for this reason alone many websites lose their focus. Changes to the website that are not going to benefit the focus should be strongly discouraged.

In our example we are using a blog and blogs have thousands of free widgets and plug-ins to choose from. With all these fun options out there it’s hard to not to place them all over your site. But before placing that latest plug-ins on your blog ask your self, does this plug-ins help our focus or hinder it.  If it doesn’t help simply say NO.

Testing Testing Testing

Whenever you make a change to your website, even if the focus is your reason for doing it, you have to test.

If you add a new call to action on your auto parts website and you don’t test, you will have no way of knowing if it improved anything. The key when making any design or content change is to remember that you are not the demographic, to go with your gut feeling and not the numbers will lead to wasted time and possible loss in revenue.

Sum it up…

The key to a successful website is establishing a focus and avoiding complacency.  If the focus is always the number one priority in your design, development and marketing, your website will avoid unneeded changes and potential losses in revenue.  Never sacrafice your websites goal.

SEO Conference

I will be speaking this Saturday at the Sun City SEO Conference.  You can check the agenda for exact times but I should be going on around 2pm.  I will be focusing on landing page optimization.  Here is a quick outline:

• Improve your call to action
• Increase conversions
• Creating a slippery form

It should be a great opportunity to learn some new tricks and give away a few of my own.  If you live in the soutwest you have no excuse not to go.