Organic Response

A Meatball Sundae, coined by Seth Godin, is “the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas.”  Meatballs and Sundae are delicious by themselves, but the combination is simply repulsive.  For describing the opposite, the fortune result of mixing two good ideas, it would be easy enough to use an analogy like “bread and butter” or “spaghetti and meatball”, but in an attempt to stick with the entre / dessert combo, I think Sweet Potato Pie is perfect.  I digress….

The point is, a corporate blog, by definition, is a Meatball Sundae.  If a corporation decides to add a blog to their website, and everything about the blog remains “corporate” (aka: stiff, commercial, hierarchical, one sided, careful) the outcome will most definitely be unfortunate.  On the other hand, if they decide to embrace the blogging culture of creativity, spontaneity, truthfulness and two-way communication, than a Sweet Potato Pie will result.

My recommendation to any corporation creating a blog on their website: Use the WordPress platform (WordPress.org). By using WordPress instead of simply making your blog an extension of your current site you will be off to a great start in regards to embracing the look and feel of what a blog should be.  There is also tons of great search engine and social media optimization benefits of using the WordPress software.  Whether you cook up a Meatball Sundae or Sweet Potato Pie from there is up to you…

I finally found an EASY way to add the social bookmarking buttons to my blog posts.  Of course I am weary of overdoing it, but I’ve been trying to find an easy way to “socialize” my blog for some time, so I’m doing it!  Your on your way to Social Media Optimization bliss in just 5 steps:

1. Download Sociable 2.0 here: http://push.cx/sociable
2. Unzip the files to your computer
3. Using FileZilla (or another FTP server) upload the social folder (not just files in it) to the wp-content/plugins folder of your blog
4. Go to your WordPress Admin and activate the plugin on the Plugins page
5. Go to Options and choose which social buttons you want and how you want them presented

 You get to choose from the following 61 sites (but be tactful!):

blinkbits, BlinkList, BlogMemes, blogmarks, co.mments, connotea, del.icio.us, De.lirio.us, digg, DZone, Fark, feedmelinks, Furl, Fleck, Gwar, Hemidemi, IndiaGram, IndianPad, kick.ie, LinkaGoGo, Linkter, Ma.gnolia, MisterWong, MyShare, My-Tuts, NewsVine, Netscape, Netvouz, PopCurrent, ppnow, RawSugar, Rec6, Reddit, scuttle, Shadows, Simpy, Slashdot, Smarking, Spurl, SphereIt, StumbleUpon, Taggly, Technorati, TailRank, Webride, Wists, Wykop, and YahooMyWeb.

My favorite 7 are in bold.  Which one’s do you like?

I just successfully survived my first WordPress upgrade, but not without more than a few skipped heart beats. After deleting the appropriate files, and uloading the 2.3.2 using the FTP Client FileZilla, I proceed to the wp-content/upgrade.php page, and I get….”FATAL ERROR…”. Thanks to an esteemed colleague, and WordPress support, I got back up in running.

Not being especially confident messing around behind the scenes and this being my first “down time” experience, I must say this was quite a scare. Were months of original, heart-felt content down the drain? I am of course being a tad mellow dramatic because I backed up all my files, but being able to go to my blog to see those soothing blue skies whenever I want, and all of the sudden having that ripped out from under my noise, was, let’s say….not cool.

Anyways, if its your first time going for the upgrade definitely proceed with caution. It was after all a great learning experience, and an important advancement for the future of Organic Response. See ya soon…

Tomorrow is my first day as Ogilvy PR Worldwide’s newest Online Marketing Manager.  I will be working on their 360 Degree Digital Influence team under such social media industry experts as John Bell and Rohit Bhargava.  I think my SEO background as an Organic Search Specialist at Bennett Kuhn Varner will serve me well in my role, however I expect I am about to learn an absurd amount, as I launch my career to the forefront of the Word of Mouth Marketing space.  SEO is my first passion in the interactive world, and I will therefore continue to report on areas of search engine interest, as well as experiences at work that deal with organic search; however my realm of marketing knowledge (aka blog post material) is poised to expand tremendously.  Stay tuned…  

“Our entire site is flash…How do we SEO our site?” This is a common inquiry of many clients.  Walking the fine line between cloaking by providing a mirror description of the flash in html has always been the response. 

Google has begun to use the Macromedia Adobe Search Engine SDK tool to extract textual content from Flash files. In  Stephan Spencer’s recent interview with Matt Cutts, Google engineer and director of their webspam team, Cutts said the following:

It used to be the case that we had our own, home-brew code to pull the text out of Flash, but I think that we have moved to the search engine SDK tool that Adobe/Macromedia offers. So, my hunch is that most of the search engines will standardize on using that search engine SDK tool to pull out the text.

Cutts goes on to encourage Flash users to use the Adobe SDK tool to determine if your Flash is readable.  So, it sounds like they aren’t quite there in regards to being able to read Flash content as easily as HTML, but they are heading in the right direction.  Read some more of Spencer’s articles to get a better understanding of the topic: Flash alternatives blessed by Google, Progressive Enhancement is Good for SEO.

The information provided by Google Webmaster Tools once you verify ownership of your website (or client’s website) is extremely valuable.  Any self-respecting SEO should know the ins and outs of what Google Webmaster Tools have to offer.  Here is an abbreviated breakdown of the information provided, and what you can do with it to improve your search engine rankings:

• Web Crawl Erros – Make sure your internal linking is being optimized via PageRank scultping
  • HTTP errors
  • 404 Not found
  • URLs not followed
  • URLs restricted by robots.txt
  • URLs timed out
  • Unreachable URLs
• Content Analysis
  • Title tag issues – Google webmaster tools reports your pages that are missing title tags.  This can be extremely useful when conducting site audits for clients that frequently drop tags.
  • Meta description issues
    •  Duplicate meta descriptions
    • Long meta descriptions
    • Short meta descriptions
• Links
  • Pages with external links
  • Pages with internal links – find out which of your pages have a lot of links pointing to them, and which have few links pointing to them.  Then, in a way that makes sense to the user, anchor text link relevant keywords from high linked pages to low linked pages in order to steer your PageRank in the right directions.
• Tools
  • Analyze robots.txt
  • Set geographic targeting
  • Enable enhanced image search
  • Set crawl rate
  • Set preferred domain
  • Remove URLs

Once you have launched a new website your very first SEO related tasks should be to upload the Google Webmaster tag, verify that you own the site. Then create an XML sitemap to sit on your site like so, yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.  You will then submit this URL to Google Webmaster Tools in order for Google to crawl your entire site faster than it normally would without the submission. Happy SEOing!

If it hasn’t already started it will in the very near future.  That is, college kids asking their career centers, “How Do I Get into SEO?”  Search has become such an integral part of our everyday life, that the profession of search engine optimization is becoming far more visible to the average Internet user trying to discover their career path.  Due to the ever increasing role of computers in the lives of kids these days, college graduates now have the tools to become an SEO even if they don’t know it.  I myself went from a liberal arts degree (major in psychology), fairly typical frat guy, to Organic Search Specialist in just a year and a half out of college.  I am highly considering compiling a How To Become an SEO Out of College, providing my story in detail, but I would like to first gauge public interest in such a story.  Please reply to this post if interested in how I got into search engine optimization.  Thanks!

Its pretty much an accepted fact among SEOs and SEO minded web designers that the search engines, especially Google, have a soft spot for the WordPress blogging platform.  We all know that the easily updated nature of blogs keep the search engine spiders frequently coming back for fresh content, but what exactly is better about WordPress compared to Blogger or Typepad, or any other blogging software.  Something to do with the ease in which pages can be tagged with appropriate keyword labels…right?

Does anyone have a more precise explanation for this?  I was recently asked by a web designer colleague if I new of any studies or proof of WordPress being fundamentally ideal for optimization.  He is in the process of perfecting a comprehensive web site analysis package that takes into account everything from user experience, to SEO, to conversion optimization.  The company that effectively incorporates the principles of WordPress into their web design efforts will present a very marketable product…. Any thoughts?

Google has announced the very early stages of an online platform for the contribution of knowledge, similar to Seth Godin’s, Squidoo, launched back in 2005. Google’s new tool is called Knol, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Its goal is to allow authors to write articles on any topic in hopes that the article will become an authoritative resource of information. Each article will contain images, references, reviews, questions, and additional content.

While Knol’s model is extremely similar to Squidoo’s, it appears that Google is taking more a scholarly approach to the dissemination of information. Squidoo encourages any and all to create “lenses” about their passion, while it appears that Google is hoping that already established doctors, scientists, and authors will put their name on the line to give the “knol” authority from the start.

Godin appears to welcome the Big Gun into the space, stating in his blog “The nature of the Web, though, seems to be that because of the very openness of the system, imitation is the highest form of endorsement.”

Although, in response to Udi Manber’s posting about why Google is launching Knol ( “We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that.”), Godin did turn the sample knol into a Squidoo lense, stating “It didn’t take very long.”

Its hard to blame the guy for being a little perturbed. After all, Google will make sure that Knols more than sprinkles the search engine results, which will eventually cut into the growth of Squidoo. With that said, Godin is one of the smartest marketers/2.0 thinkers I have come across, and there is not doubt in my mind that he will give Google a run for their money.

Thoughts, comments, disagreements are all welcome…

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