How long is it before I can buy my Google self-driving car with my Google Wallet and check my Gmail while the car drives me to work?  

Then how long before Google becomes the #1 car manufacturer, kinda like they did with phone operating systems?

5 years?  10 years?

It's only a matter of time because they're sure as hell not inventing a self driving car just for shits and giggles.  

Or maybe they'll just create a car OS so they can stay out of the unprofitable business of manufacturing hardware.

Either way … it's coming … sooner than you think.

Eventually they're going to step on the wrong toes.  They already got a $500,000,000 slap in the face for taking profits away from Big Pharma, and I'm sure Big Oil would have something to say if Google started pumping out electric cars en masse.

Will definitely be interesting to watch.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Dude was brilliant on so many levels.

I never thought I'd be really moved by the death of somebody I'd never met or had almost no connection to. 

But I'm pretty sad about this, and I'm really not sure why.  Can't put a finger on it.  

Either way, RIP Steve, I never knew you but I already miss you.

I very wise man once told me … 'Track everything that moves.  Trust your data.  Find trends.'

This works for everything.  That way you don't have to trust what 'analysts' say and can see for yourself what's working and what's not.  

Tracking rankings and links for SEO.   Use Mint.com to track finances, FitDay to track what you're putting into your body (I currently use a daily food log on a spreadsheet, but am considering FitDay).

That way when you gain 5 pounds in a week or are short/up a few hundred bucks you can see why.

Gives you much more knowledge and also forces you to hold yourself accountable.

I was watching 60 minutes yesterday and they had this story about a small community in Japan that was decimated by the Earthquake/Tsunami.

This dude lost his entire family and still seemed to be doing ok (granted what we saw in the 15 minute segment may not be how he really feels).  Found pleasure in the simple things.

Got me thinking … how do you think, for example, people that were clinically depressed living in that community feel now that it's all gone.  Are they happy to be alive?  Did this event make them focus more on what they have or didn't lose, or are they even more depressed because of the state of their city … or are they exactly the same as they were before?  I'm pretty curious about this.

I had an experience in which I was in a serious car accident and woke up in the hospital, and just being alive was enough to make me smile.  Still does make me smile.  And it made (and still makes) other stuff seem a lot less important.     

I wonder if there have been any studies on this.

Every day it becomes more apparent that things are never black or white.  There are only shades of gray.  

Think about it.  

To say something is definitely, always, certainly, right or wrong eliminates context, which is CRUCIAL.

I mean it's illegal to kill … but not if somebody is trying to kill you.

It's illegal to speed … but not if you're driving a pregnant woman to the hospital

It's illegal to steal … unless you're a banker.

It's illegal to … unless …. you see?

There's no such thing as absolutes, and people that think in them or guide their lives by them are missing a lot.

Those are the ones that are always quick to label … We're X so we do/don't believe in Y, and anybody who isn't X is a Z and Z's are WRONG!

Gimme a break.  

Labels are subjective, damaging, and cause infinitely more harm than benefit.  But from an etymological perspective I think they're kinda necessary (we gotta classify people some how), so not sure what to do about that.  Maybe it's the stigma attached to them that stinks.  Not sure ….

Not sure where I was going with this … I just remember that when I started to write I was thinking that nobody is really 100% anything, and no rule will be right 100% of the time.  

And labels suck.

Knowledge represents opportunity.

Literally.

Like the more stuff you know, the greater your options are.

For example, if you ONLY know how to bake bread, you can only do one thing.  

And that's be a baker.

But if you know how to bake bread and drive a car, you can be a baker OR a taxi driver.

If you know how to bake bread, drive a car, and fix windshields, you can be a baker OR a taxi driver OR a windshield repair guy.

And so on …..

These days the  jobs that require less knowledge are being outsourced to foreign countries.  Slowly the bar is being raised as to what you need to know … or at least what you need to know to be in demand by potential employers.  SEO (since I know it well) may cease to exist in 5-10 years … at least in the form it's known now.  In five years if I don't learn new skills and keep up with demand I'll be looking for work while everything I used to know is being done by a guy in a third world country for a fraction of what I was getting paid to do it previously.

Kinda scary if you stop and think about it.

Never stop learning.  Pick up new skills and evolve with the times.  Always push. Always grow.  Otherwise your days are numbered.

So you may (or may not) have noticed that the site is a bit different.  Gone is the blog format, and it's been replaced by three pages that are essentially offering services.  

I wanted to convert this from a traditional blog about SEO to a site that offers services with a blog bolted on.

In a lot of ways … this blog represents a lot of WORST practices when it comes to SEO, mainly cause there aren't too many internal links floating around as much anymore (I pretty much killed off all internal links on the home page and made it much more sale-sy). 

I'm also going to be using this as more of a testbed to see what works and doesn't work, so if you see some weird stuff going on, that's why.

Regarding the blog itself, I'm going to take it in a different direction.  I'm gonna make it a bit more personal.  So if you're just coming here to soak up some of my juicy SEO knowledge, then you might be pissed.  But sorry … you can go read one of the other 9.803,0984,0990923,32093930293320 SEO blogs out there.  Not to say that I won't have any more blog posts about SEO, just saying it won't be the focus.

Word.

Bing appears to have been piggybacking off Google’s results. Considering Bing historically sucked at serving long tail results, it’s no surprise to see them do whatever they can to return more relevant results. I can’t decide if this is simply a brilliant use of competitive intelligence or laziness, or both.

Other non-search perspectives from Nate Silver of the wonderful political blog 538 (notes how Bing’s “It’s one of 1,000+ signals  we use”, is bogus) and Barry Ritholtz from The Big Picture (says Microsoft has always stolen) are worth a read.

At least that’s what Google would have you think by only displaying four listings in the serp for ‘internet marketing services scottsdale’.  I was obviously part of some experiment because when I clicked over to page two it showed me ten listings, and then when I went back over to page 1 there were ten listings.  The same top four that appeared in my initial search result were also the top four that appeared when I went back to page one and had ten results.

If this was rolled out with any level of consistency it would make rank tracking pretty difficult.  I tend to agree with Patrick Altoft in that rankings as we know them are a thing of the past, and now it’s more about the range of rankings you’ll have for a keyword at any given time as pages are constantly being reranked by things such as localization and personalization.

It should take you no more than 90 seconds to read the last four paragraphs of this interview with Debra Mastaler from Alliance Link. If you want to learn how to build links read this, then read it again. (Copied below for your reading pleasure)

You have a new product and want to use it to build links. Before going public, you do a soft launch to your customers with an invitation to link and incentive (sales.) You then run a national contest (promotions) and announce it via press release (publicity). You also send a release announcing the winner.

While the first part s is going on, you instruct your copywriters to create a humorous piece of link bait which is launched on Digg and a handful of other social media sites (promotions). The linkbait has a tie-in to the contest. (promotions) A blogger outreach program begins and offers free samples of the new product and an invite to review or send rate cards with advertising opportunities (promotions). Once the reviews come in, bundle them, and send release showcasing the successful launch. (publicity).

Based on the success of the launch, have sales and copywriting staff write a case study/white paper referencing the process, reviews and customer feedback. Offer white paper to key journalists before going public, (publicity) and then add the paper to any content source that will take it (promotions).

And so on. By the time this link cycle is complete, you will have touched on almost every facet of marketing without having to purchase a single link or having any one of the tactics stand out. Balance is key.