I am going to be re-orienting this blog and my posts to focus on Local SEO, and specifically on the city of Diamond Bar, CA. Why? Because I want to put my thoughts about “local SEO” into action, and I live in Diamond Bar. If you’re a Diamond Bar business, I can also provide you with consulting services to help you have a bigger impact. Thanks and stay tuned, I’m excited about future posts and hope you will enjoy the change up!

A personal blog is, to me, a misnomer. Other than being in the drivers seat as to its contents, what’s so personal about it? Isn’t the point to reach other readers?  Because honestly if I just wanted a personal diary, I’d still keep it between my mattress and box springs.  And I’m not gonna lie… even at my age, it would have unicorns or ponies on the cover and a cute little plastic padlock that couldn’t keep a two-year old out.  Whether it’s posting personal photos, articles I find interesting, music recommendations or random ramblings, my primary audience is friends and family.

But let’s face it. Branching out from that and reaching strangers who want to read what you have to say has its appeal.  And with user friendly operating systems and the plethora of blogging sites out there to get you started, it’s so easy for almost anyone to get into blogging.

If you’re like most people, you want to make your blog special. You want yours to stand out. Or at the very least, as in my case, I want to enjoy looking at it. Because if I enjoy it, then the friends, family and occasional stranger who stumbles across it just might enjoy looking at it as well.

The basic templates available to users are fine for getting started. But who wants a blog that looks like (potentially) thousands of others?  So you have to get creative.  In the interest of full disclosure, I did cheat a bit.  Being barely conversational in html, I usually turn to my lovely sister-in-law for assistance. She’s responsible for my newest blog layout and can read code like she’s reading an elementary schoolbook.  But what to do when she’s not available? (The Holy See of search engines, Google, doesn’t even need to be pushed here, right?) So aside from bumbling around with trial and error,  has some great advice and straight-forward instruction for html, graphics, and coding of all sorts. I’m even tempted to delve into their Java tutorials next.

Another site I found helpful when first starting out was (http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2009/02/04/starting-a-blog-12-ideas-for-blog-posts/) I find #12 especially amusing given my present task, but I vehemently disagree with #6.  That just seems like dirty pool to me.

So go forth and blog. It’s simple enough to do, and hey, it’s the interwebz.  That means someone, somewhere, will probably want to read what you have to say.  And if you feel so inclined, stop by, say “hi,” and listen to the birds.

So follow their Twitter and Facebook for clues.

RavenHunt is an online scavenger hunt where you’ll have to solve a series of puzzles in order to win elite Raven Tools swag and prizes. RavenHunt works in correlation with top industry blogs to provide you with hints to find the next clue. Each game spans one workweek and the first 10 players to catch the Raven win!

If you find the final clue on Friday you’ll be taken to a form where you can insert the unscrambled word you’ve collected each day this week

Good luck on your hunt!

Why Did You Hire An Expert You Ignore?

This is the first thought that immediately comes to mind, for me is, “If you believed so solidly in your own website marketing/design prowess then why did you reach out and HIRE someone to make these changes?”  Seriously. I know what I’m doing and have justifiable reasons for implementing changes, so why won’t you just let me do my job?

Understanding Your Clients

Now with each of these situations, it has been a sole proprietor/small business owner, and that gives us a clue to unravel the mystery. These are people who have made the bold decision to strike out on their own, and have obviously made a living at their profession and have a wealth of experience in their industry/niche. As a website marketer, we need to understand and harness that experience, and hopefully guide those decisions in the right direction.

Downsize The Ego And Listen

If there’s anything bigger than my Ego around here I want it trapped and shot. – Zaphod Beeblebrox -Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

So the first step is to take your EGO out of the equation, and simply ask them why they think that it’s a good idea to have a flash introduction to their website. Do they need a flash intro? No, but hear them out and understand where they got the motivation for their bad idea. HERE’S THE KEY: Let them continue explaining until they actually ask for your opinion. This will put you back into the position as the authority in the situation, if you are addressing them and trying to convince them that their idea is bad they may be simply defending their past actions and their ego. By allowing them the chance to (attempt to) explain, it moves the situation out of the personal realm and will give you the power to logically construct a valid reason to dissuade them… If you’re successful then you’ve assisted the client in not only avoiding a bad decision, but to truly understand your reasoning and logic that brought you to that conclusion.

Personal Opinion: Email = Destroyer Of Compromise

On a personal note here, I have worked in some form of web related customer service for the past 6 years. Out of all the hundreds of situations where there’s been a heated difference of opinion between me and a client, the majority of the time it’s resolved by actually talking, and not via email. This is mostly because you don’t have to actually read and understand an email…you and your client can just skim over the email and gloss over the arguments/facts/scenarios presented so that each of you can then hit them again with an opposing opinion. Aside from that, it’s much harder to be snarky and sarcastic over the phone than it is through digital communication, ask anyone who’s been flamed on a forum/twitter/blog. (This is my opinion only..any one out there actually have more success with email?)

What if they don’t change their mind?

So you listen to them explain and bring up the most elaborate and thorough treatise on the proper use of meta-tags that mankind has ever heard..and yet they still decide to restore that tag to it’s spammful position. Who knows they may have found some small reason for bad design/marketing choice, and are still be convinced by their own argument… At that point, it would seem wise to remember the saying:

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!

What Say You?

So, are there any SEO/Design Horror stories out there? How did you handle the situation… any you might do different now?

Bottled at the Source!

You’ve all done it…you stare at your Google or Raven seo analytics trying to figure out why your bounce rate is so high. You follow the click paths, create client funnels, follow referral sources, and pour over charts and graphs until your eyes bleed but you STILL can’t figure out why the client left the page. ..You’re missing the most obvious source of feedback! The purest source you can ask for is your client! They have a usually have a “pretty good grasp” on why they would want to visit your website, what they’d like to have as a feature, what web content they’d like to read and why they might not like your current site! So how do you tap this reservoir of recommendations??

All You Gotta Do Is Ask Her Nice

Here’s my recommended tactic that you can use to get feedback from your clients to discover problem areas, services you don’t offer and type of content people are looking for. A simple interview.  First, Jot down a set of questions like:

• What would you expect to see on a site for (insert industry here)
• Is there any services our business can do for you online that would make you more likely to be our client? Like Schedule appointments?
• Do you have any unique ideas that would be neat to see on our website?

Second, is to set the client at ease first after approaching them for the survey. Perhaps a cup of coffee or a soda or if you’re a restaurant treat them to a free meal (you’ll definately make a bigger return on the investment of a single meal).

Lastly, make them feel like they’re special, and that their feedback matters deeply(which it should!). The  benefit from this tactic is that beyond drawing out some possibly new ideas, or reinforcing your current methods,  it will make an impression on that person! That additional level of contact could lead to word of mouth advertising as they tell their freind about their experience. If  your lucky, and the person is web-savvy then you could even garner a Yelp review, a blog post, tweet, facebook post or myspace comment about it as well!

Have you used this method to get feedback? Do you have some tips to making it go smoothly? Please feel free to share!

BTW:

Find the best paid search engine marketingservices from an interactive agency.

“Hast du etwas Zeit Fur Mich Dann Singe Ich Ein Leide ur Dich. Vonn Neun und Neuzig Luft Ballon, Auf Eirem Weg Zum Horizont”

In high school, I was given a bobble head Alf for Christmas. He’s stuck around through the years, adorning the dash of my first car, second car, my 3rd car’s trunk, my closet, my shelf at home, then after a “suggestion” from my wife, my desk at work.  Last year, I got engaged in a contest, a rank race for Content Writing Advice and I decided that the person in the office leading the race would get to have Alf at their desk, as a physical reminder of the contest. He has now gone missing! At first I just believed he would be returned shortly… but then I received a cryptic (and encrypted) note…

The Victim

Have You Seen This Bobble Headed, Cat Eating Alien?

The (Presumably) Ransom Note

This is the cryptic note that appeared on my floor several days after he disappeared.

Please Help!

If you’re familiar with this particular font, can you let me know? If you’re good at cracking codes, give some tips or let me know what it says so I can save Alf!

My assumptions:

• It’s a type of font- but not web dings, or wing dings(at least not ones that were loaded in my MS word
• I don’t even know if I’m looking at the note upside down…
• Most likely the word ALF was used in the note
• The note is most likely in english, transposed into those characters…

UPDATE

I spent my lunch pouring over the note, and used Alf as a clue, and was able to crack the code….Others in my office are now pointing out that it was Kryptonian used for an english translation.

I have ALf if you want him back send email to alftheft gmail

I immediately grabbed the email and sent a message: I beleive it was an auto responder but it says:

I almost sold Alf on Ebay yesterday; he ate my cat and I thought you
were probably glad to be rid of him.

Your next assignment:

http://www.picvalley.net/v.php?p=u/2735/768608741844430896.JPG

Which is another clue in another translated language

Now this one I recognized right away as Klingon!

Off to find a translator!

Update (1:50 Pm March 17): Looks like I’m getting some Twitter help from a twittering Klingon named Qurgh!

So with those clues I think it should read

About time I was thinking you did not want alf back respond with pizza

Aight, so emailing “pizza” back to alftheft… Lets see what’s next!

Ransom Update:

Well done!

I guess Alf on Ebay got you nervous?

This one will reveal the approximate location of Alf; after that you are on your own.

Oh geez…  This one looks a bit more complicated- Post up if you have tips or suggestions, looks like I might get Alf back soon!

Update: Victory is Mine!

I got this message below shortly after Corey in my office sent me a tip that it was the Futurama Alien Language, then about 5 mintures later @shirleytipsy got finished before me and asked if it was under my desk… I looked..but it wasn’t under my desk– but the message read really strange due to being part left, part right, part upside down!

I know the third encryption is harder. It is meant to be. Are the words going up and down? Left to right? All of the above? Do words really merge like that of a crossword puzzle? That is for you to find out and for me to know; truth is, even I have a hard time reading it after I carefully crafted it.

Because this has been an absolute thriller experience for me; whoever cracks this puzzle and e-mails me what it reads, I’ll treat them out to lunch next week. Of course they have to be working at the same company or be willing to come out to Anahiem Hills during my lunch hour to cash in on the prize.

Oh and of course, this only applies if you this entire e-mail message on your blog.

I have figured out the message to be something close to

“I’m impressed with your skills.
Can Find Alf Under desk in Box.”

I did just a little hunting in our office and found my Alf stashed under the spare desk in the office, stored in a box full of random computer parts. Hooray!

Whodunnit!?

I got an email from the Alf Napper, giving me a clue to their identity! This one’s tough though, it looks like it’s in all three of the alphabets that the previous clues were using! Help me solve this one too!

From “Today’s Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen”, displayed with special permission. For many more cartoons, please visit Randy’s site @ www.glasbergen.com

I got a ping back for my recent Storm Trooper Disco blog post, and looking into it I saw that the link went to a junk wordpress blog that had scraped part of my post. At the bottom it had 4 links to different sites as “site design” credits. Obviously, they are attempting to get link juice/value from comment spam, then pass it on to their sites/clients sites. Looking at these sites receiving links from this spammy blog, it looked like they are real, valid businesses. Perhaps, I thought, their webmaster/SEO is using underhanded tactics and not telling the actual owners of the company… that would mean that possibly these legitmate business owners are inadvertently funding comment spam, so I decided to contact them and make them aware of the spamtastic web tactics that were being used to “promote” their website. Naive? Maybe, but I felt I needed to take action! Here’s What I emailed and submitted via their contact form.

Fight the Source

“I don’t know if you are aware, but the person who is doing your internet marketing is using bad business practices.I received a spam comment that referenced a blog that had scraped some of the text on my site to make a small post, with a link pointing at my post, in order to get a “pingback” and hyperlink to the page. At the bottom of this spamtastic blog website, it says:Designer Webdesign Coded by MCSE, Noise Survey, Mock Theory TestMCSE and is hyperlinked to your website!
This tactic is obviously an underhanded trick to attempt to gain links and pass the value on to your website. I beleive that you should check your webmaster/SEO’s business model/practices immediately because these types of tactics could be at worst cause for a penalty and at best send little or no real long lasting value to your website. If you are paying a marketing service, then you are actually supporting a type of spam, much like those companies who pay for email spam to be mass blasted to email inboxes. Please, take the time to review this problem, I think you’ll see it’s the right thing to do!”

What About You?

We’ll see if they respond to my email and messages… What about you? Are you doing anything to fight blog comment spam? Have a better approach? I’d be really happy to hear anyone’s thoughts on other methods… or perhaps..it’s a lost cause.

And sometimes, a Storm Troopers just gotta Dance!