Biznology Blog: May 2007
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May 31, 2007
Search Marketing Tips
Each month, I teach a class on search marketing at the Learning Annex—three hours of soup to nuts search for under $50. I've been teaching the class since November and am always gratified by the response of the students. Many of the attendees are small businesses who soak up the information and by the end of the class are ready for more. One of my students from last night was kind enough to summarize my Learning Annex class—if it seems interesting to you and you are in the New York area, you can sign up for the class on June 28, July 24, August 13, or September 10 by calling 212-371-0280.
Posted by mikemoran at 9:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 30, 2007
Marketers Struggling with Control
Message control. Marketers ask me about it every day. People keep telling me they are struggling to control the message. But they don't like what I say next: "Give up."
Marketers who want control need a new profession. I'm not sure that message control ever really existed to the extent we deluded itself that it did, but it sure ain't here anymore. People rate your products, they comment on your blogs, they write blogs of their own, and they create hate sites if you really aren't listening.
As The Cluetrain Manifesto
And no one controls a conversation. When marketers start looking for influence over what their customers think, decide, and do, rather than seeking control over the message, that's when they'll be successful. Customers don't want messages controlled, and they give no influence to those who try that. They ignore them.
Posted by mikemoran at 10:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 29, 2007
If you thought we were speaking Chinese...
...when Bill Hunt and I wrote Search Engine Marketing, Inc., well, we were really trying to make it easy to understand. But if you really do speak Chinese, then you'll be happy to know that our book has been translated into Chinese and is available now. Thanks to everyone who had something to do with that.
Posted by mikemoran at 3:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2007
Web Marketing for the Independent Professional
I really enjoyed meeting folks in the IEEE Consultants Network in Whippany, New Jersey last night. Independent consultants are experts at what they do, but they aren't experts at marketing themselves, so it was fun to be able to pass along tips and techniques for how to use the Web to attract clients without spending lots of hard-earned cash. For those of you unable to attend, you can at least check out my charts on Web Marketing for the Independent Professional.
Posted by mikemoran at 10:36 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 24, 2007
Social Media Marketing for IT Industry
We've all heard about YouTube, MySpace, Digg, and many other examples of social media sites. But how do marketers take advantage of it? Or cope with it? I was lucky enough today to speak at a BtoB Webinar for social media marketing for the IT industry, with Paul Gillin and Robert Scoble. If you missed the Webinar, you can at least check out my slides, Social Media Marketing 101.
Posted by mikemoran at 2:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 23, 2007
Social Media Marketing Webinar Tomorrow
I'm happy to be presenting at a BtoB Magazine Webinar on Social Media Marketing at 2 pm Eastern Time tomorrow. Beyond the Mainstream: Reaching IT Pros Through Social Media features blogging experts Paul Gillin and Robert Scoble—and me, even though my name is not on the registration form. If you're interested in how to use social media, even if you're not in the IT Industry, I'd urge you to make time for it.
Social media is a difficult concept to pin down, because it is the intersection of people, messages, and the Internet. Everything from YouTube to Blogger to MySpace to Digg to Second Life could be considered to be social media sites. If you're trying to make sense of it all, and especially if you're looking into the best ways to incorporate blogging into your marketing mix, sign up for this Webinar. I heartily recommend the books by both Robert Scoble
Posted by mikemoran at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2007
Why B2B Personalization Must Go Beyond Amazon
Amazon has the best (and best known) personalized Web experience, but B2B marketers face challenges that Amazon doesn't. After my post yesterday on the deepening of personalization across the Internet, I was asked to explain a bit more about what kinds of personalization techniques are in use at ibm.com. I've been away from ibm.com for several months now, but I am happy to talk about what IBM is doing to personalize their customers' experience. If you think that personalization techniques begin and ends with Amazon, read on.
IBM has focused in three major areas:
- Identity. Using Tivoli products, ibm.com allows customers to sign in and get access to material that requires authentication, such as extranet sites built expressly for their companies, or support information available to those with special service contracts.
- Recognition. Even without registering, IBM customers can be recognized based on their company's IP address. IBM can identify the company and personalize tasks and marketing messages based on the company itself, or its industry or other firmographic factors.
- Participation. For customers who frequent the site, IBM also allows individual customers to choose their favorite subjects to create a personalized experience. You can create a profile with your interests or tell IBM more about who you are, which is used to deliver information that is more relevant to you. IBM even places a button on pages that adds that interest to your profile while you are browsing.
In these ways, IBM is similar to many companies that want to provide a more personalized experience, but who have struggled to emulate Amazon's consumer-oriented experience. IBM and other B2B marketers deal with companies where several people make any purchase decision. And where half the visitors to its Web site are coming for support for existing products. And where purchases are far less frequent and contain fewer clues about what someone wants next. And where most of those purchases happen offline. B2B personalization is just plain tougher than what Amazon does, as wonderful as that Amazon experience is.
Amazon has done a great job at teaching the world how a terrific personalized experience can work, but the deepening of personalization that is occurring now depends on techniques that Amazon doesn't need. It's fun to watch B2B marketers try to deliver a great customer experience that breaks the consumer mold.
Posted by mikemoran at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2007
Personalization Deepens
Many of you know that I spent the last few years at ibm.com, focusing in large measure on personalization. Eight years ago, when we first started looking at personalization, Amazon was the only Web site doing it successfully, but times have really changed. I realized how much has changed last week while travelling in Canada.
I was sitting in the Trudeau airport in Montreal, watching as several flights home were cancelled due to bad weather. But I was connected wirelessly and trying to knock a few items off my to-do list while sitting around. My wife had installed a great backup solution from Argentum that she uses to back up our personal files from her computer and my kids' computers—I have had it in my list for a while that I should get it to back up my personal files, too, rather than using the cumbersome system I do now.
So, I visited the Argentum Web site to order the software. I was surprised to see the currency default to Canadian dollars. Even though I know all about geolocation, I was surprised to see it in use from a small company. I was able to quickly correct the order to US dollars and easily completed my purchase, but it left me realizing how many Web sites are using personalization techniques considered sophisticated just a few years ago.
Personalization is becoming more deeply entrenched in the Web. While Google makes headlines with personalized search, unknown companies are experimenting with personalization each day.
Posted by mikemoran at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2007
The New Google Analytics
I held off writing about the new version of Google Analytics because my Web site's statistics had not been converted to the new stuff yet. Now it has. My first take—this is a huge improvement.
Unless I am missing something (entirely possible), I think the numbers are mostly the same. What's changed is the design and the visualization of the user interface.
As someone who worked with some fantastic designers while at ibm.com, I have to say that Google has outdone itself. The look has just enough visualizations and has done a much better job with typography—the numbers are big and bold to really stand out.
My experience with user interface changes is that it is typical for them to be received skeptically or even negatively at first, even when they eventually prove to be well-founded. Many people just like what they are used to, rather than having to deal with a change that requires relearning tasks they already know.
But this change just seems too good. I was used to the old interface but this one immediately felt more comfortable, even though it is new. I'll leave it to Avinash Kaushik, Web metrics expert and now a consultant to Google, to lay out all the great new stuff in Google Analytics, but my first impression is overwhelmingly positive. If you thought that you couldn't afford easy-to-use analytics, check out the new Google Analytics.
Posted by mikemoran at 12:10 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 17, 2007
Search Marketing in Quebec
I had a great time yesterday speaking to a large group of IT marketers in beautiful Quebec. They, like folks in many industries, are struggling with the shift from direct sales force marketing to Web marketing. But this group seems genuinely motivated to make whatever changes are necessary. The slides for my talk, Search Marketing 101 (May 2007) at Le Big Bang Forum, are posted for anyone interested.
Posted by mikemoran at 12:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 16, 2007
Find What I Mean, Not What I Say
Yesterday, I had the great fortune to speak at the Enterprise Search Summit in New York for the third straight year. This year, I came as a software vendor instead of a search user for the first time, now that I am the Product Manager for IBM's OmniFind enterprise search software. I am used to speaking about enterprise search, but I always appreciate the intelligence of the Enterprise Search Summit audience.
I started by asking how many folks have been working in enterprise search for more than five years, and about thirty hands went up, out of about 100 people. This savvy crowd had heard the claims for semantic search in the past, but I hope that I was able to show them not only why it is important, but that IBM's OmniFind products start to make semantic search a reality. Thanks to all who attended—my full slide deck is posted for Find What I Mean, Not What I Say.
Posted by mikemoran at 1:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 15, 2007
Google's Power Debated
In my May Biznology newsletter, I took issue with those who believe Google is too powerful. I don't think Google controls as much as what Microsoft does and nowhere near what IBM did back in the 1970s. Marshall Sponder disagrees.
Marshall believes that Google might be even more powerful than Microsoft and IBM were because "most of the world is involved now." If I understand his argument, he's saying that because technology is more pervasive than ever, the leading technology company is more powerful than ever.
It sounds sensible (and Marshall is nothing if not sensible), but I still don't agree (curmudgeon that I am). To me, the more players involved in technology, the less power they each have. IBM invented new industries, such as software. Microsoft controlled the operating system and extended that power into Office applications, with 90% share in each. Google has, by even the most charitable estimate, 65% of search. While search is an important technical area, it hardly seems as important as all of software, or even operating systems and office applications.
I read Marshall's blog each day—you should, too—but I still think that Google's power pales in comparison with the first two all-powerful technical companies. Google is a very important company, but it controls less than what Microsoft and IBM did in their hey-days.
Posted by mikemoran at 6:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 14, 2007
Do You Have Award-Winning Copy?
Those of you who have followed this blog for any length of time know that I care a lot about copywriting. Good copy is crucial for getting your site found and for getting customers to buy. But most of us, in private moments, might admit that we don't spend as much time crafting our copy as we should. Are you ready to put yours to the test?
For those of you that are unenthusiastic about tweaking your copy, let's review why it is so important:
- It gets your site found. Using the right words gets your site ranked for your preferred keywords in organic search marketing. But writing the right stories also gets subscribers to your blog and gets links to your Web pages. The right story with the right words gets you found—that is all about your copy.
- It gets your products bought. Any direct marketer knows that the right copy makes the sale. If your offer is right, and the words are right, then customers will buy. That is what direct mail and catalogs have depended on for years—the Web works the same way. Often, your copy makes all the difference.
OK, so now that you might be more interested, are you ready to see how your copy stacks up? If so, check out this copywriting contest. Submit your best copy efforts and get a chance to win. If nothing else, the mere effort of entering a contest will get you to focus on your copy more than usual—maybe that will take your offers to the next level. Good luck.
Hat tip to Seth Godin
Posted by mikemoran at 3:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2007
What if No One Came to Your Web Site?
Web feeds, such as RSS (and e-mail before that), are part of a new wave of information integration—content that is part of your customer’s daily experience. Just as marketers have always depended on television and radio to slip their messages into a customer’s day, now Web feeds can do the same. More than ever, interactive content will come to your customer just as offline messages do today—you no longer have to wait for customers to come to your Web site.
But just as customers can choose your content, they can also cancel their subscription.
Because the customer can immediately cancel if unhappy, your marketing message must be far more subdued—the softest of soft sells. To reach busy, hard-to-reach people, you must make it easy for them to consume the content they want, when and where they want it. Sun’s Vice President of .Web Properties Curt Sasaki notes, “We may have zero people coming to sun.com [someday] because they subscribe. We want to make sure all of our content is subscribable.”
Because those customers use feed readers to closely control both what they see and when they see it, it’s challenging to know exactly which content they actually looked at. Depending on how technology advances, it might become harder yet. You might have heard of the concept called the Semantic Web, in which software can understand the meaning of content. Such software would allow customers to take in thousands of feeds and have the most relevant information extracted for viewing. It’s possible that you might not know whether your message was seen. You might even have to pay customers to read them.
Semantic software might put pressure on marketers in other ways. If your customers prefer messages that are “real”—rather than bombastic—a semantic filter might serve as a “hype meter,” eliminating anything a bit too “sales-y.” Google’s Eric Schmidt has spoken about developing a “truth detector” that discerns the honesty of politicians, so marketers might not be far behind.
So the short of it is that subscriptions mean that customers don't have to visit your site to get your message—you can reach them just as you do with other media—but they have control at every moment. The marketers who provide messages that customers consider valuable will be given continuing permission to send those messages,
Posted by mikemoran at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2007
Personality Marketing
Chad White has a great blog today on Email Insider called "Personality Goes a Long Way." Lots of people have written about this before, but Chad has great examples all taken from e-mail marketing, which has always seemed to have less personality than blogs, for example.
Here are Chad's three big ideas, which I heartily endorse:
But who knew from e-mail (as we say in New Jersey)?
Chad lists several e-mail marketers that use content created by their customers. Check out Chad's post to inject personality into your e-mail marketing, but don't forget to do it with other marketing techniques, too. No one has a relationship with someone they don't know, so let your customers see your human side.
Posted by mikemoran at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 9, 2007
Misguided Professionalism
Most of us hold professionalism in high esteem. We consider ourselves professionals of one sort or another. We try to "act professional." But more and more, I am running into professionalism run amok. When professionalism starts to mean that you are the expert and you don't make any mistakes, I think it's misguided.
If it's considered unprofessional to admit mistakes, then you're endangering your relationships on the cross of professionalism. Instead, your relationship with your customers are enhanced by admitting your mistakes, apologizing for them, and understanding how to do better in the future.
Unfortunately, I often see professionalism distorted to mean that "we don't admit mistakes."
When a customer calls to complain about mistreatment and the customer service person explains their policy, without trying to heal the wound, that may be professional but it's not relational. It's not real.
When a teacher or a doctor makes a mistake, if they equate professionalism with defensiveness, they are showing more concern about being sued than being human. My opinion is that people are more likely to sue those they are angry with and have no relationship with. Granted, your child's education or health is an emotional issue and none of us wants any mistakes made. But when they inevitably are made, what is the appropriate response? If it were your child, what would you want to hear?
Marketing is not as serious, so it should be even easier for marketers to admit mistakes. But do we?
Today, in your job, try to develop a thicker skin. Try to listen—really listen—it's the only way to improve. The old ways were to make decisions and try to convince everyone that they were right. The new way is to listen and adapt based on what your customers think. That's what "do it wrong quickly" is all about—you need to listen to know how wrong you are. And your professionalism should give you the self-confidence to experiment rather than the self-righteousness of defensiveness.
Posted by mikemoran at 3:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2007
Why Small is So Hard When You're Big
I've written before about the search marketing difficulties of large sites, but today I want to make a bigger point. Doing anything small is hard for many large companies. If you work at a small company, this might mystify you—after all, big companies have the talent and resources to do big things that your company would never attempt, so why can't they do small stuff?
Call it corporate myopia.
They can see clearly the things right in front of them, the things that they habitually do. But they can't see that far into the future. For some reason, big companies don't believe that oaks from little acorns grow. They just complain about how small those acorns are.
Small companies are happy to watch acorns take root and begin to grow. Small companies can work small and succeed small. The very best small companies eventually live to see that tall oak grow and they become large companies.
But big companies often cross off anything small from the agenda. They need a business case that shows $100 million in revenue in three years or else they aren't interested. And it's because that $20 million business looks like such a puny business compared to their existing oaks. It always seems to make sense to invest in growing those oaks even higher, rather than risking money on a speculative acorn that might never turn out to grow into anything.
So people working at large companies learn not to propose any $20 million businesses. If they think that their company should get into a $20 million business, they have to inflate it to $100 million to get any attention. And then they have to ask for far more money to run that business than makes sense, because they think that if they ask for $10 million to try the business instead of the one million they really need, then they can get to $100 million faster.
Except they don't.
There are some businesses that really can grow faster if you invest more money in them, but most businesses are not like that. Most new businesses grow at the rate of the market not the rate of the investment. Investing more brings you a product faster, but it doesn't necessarily grow your business faster. And, inevitably, when that speculative business is discovered to be an over-investment, the big company just shutters the whole thing instead of trying to see how it should go back to the beginning and do things in a small way. Big companies don't believe that they are doing things the wrong way, they just think they bet on the wrong acorn.
I would argue, in fact, that the more you invest up front in a speculative business, the more likely that you'll fail. Because you must justify a big investment toward a big return, that causes you to take the big strategy approach, where everyone convinces themselves they have the right idea, instead of the Do It Wrong Quickly approach.
If you are willing to do small things in small ways at first, you can experiment. You can admit that you don't necessarily know what you are doing. You can try things to see if they work, rather than having to persuade everyone that you are right. When you have persuaded executives to make a huge investment, you almost can't get the feedback to see if it worked—that's too dangerous to your career. If, however, you accept up front that what you are trying is probably wrong, then you can really listen to your customers to see how far off you are and see how you can adjust.
That's what small companies do. They invest small, they listen to customers, and then they adjust. Big companies, for the most part, don't operate this way. They could decide at any moment to spend only small amounts of money to incubate businesses, just as venture capitalists do, but they rarely take this approach. And they sit idly by while small companies grow acorns into new oaks. (Then they pay top dollar to buy those full-grown oaks.)
Every company has a vision, but most companies have blurred vision—big companies and small. The difference is that small companies take small steps so it doesn't hurt so much when they hit a wall. Big companies seem to want to go full-speed all the time, so when they fail to see what's in front of them, they hit that wall hard and they don't recover from it.
Some large companies are beginning to adopt a Do It Wrong Quickly culture. Some companies are figuring out how to think small. If more big companies don't learn to think small, they might wake up one day and find that they aren't so big anymore. When a company gets too big to do anything, economics have a wonderful way of making them smaller until they remember. Smarter big companies are learning to adapt without being forced. If you work at a small company, enjoy the ride—if you have a better idea, your ability to adapt might outflank your less-nimble, larger competitors.
Posted by mikemoran at 7:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 7, 2007
Search Marketing without a Web Site
Most of you know that I do a lot of speaking engagements, and many of them are for small business groups. Sometimes I fail to understand where small businesses are coming from. A question I was asked the other day really brought me up short, but before giving a knee-jerk response, I really thought about it and surprised myself with the answer.
A successful 60-something boutique owner showed up at a speaking engagement with her daughter in tow. Her boutique has a lease that ends in two years and her daughter is telling her that it would be smarter to move her business online than to a new location. She looked me in the eye (out of her daughter's earshot) and said, "I understand why we need to be found in Google." Then she furrowed her brow and asked me, "But do I really need to have a Web site?"
At first, I had to stifle that smug expert's laughter at the painfully naive question. Search marketing without a Web site! Ha!
But hold on a second. Why do you need a Web site to participate in search marketing? Oh, I know there needs to be a Web site somewhere, but that isn't what she was asking. Why can't she use a hosted store from Yahoo! or someone else to house her goods?
Why can't professionals use free blogging sites instead of creating their own Web site? I even wrote a newsletter about one professional using a Squidoo lens instead of a full-blown Web site. (I guess these other options are half-blown Web sites.)
I know that there's more that you can do if you control your own Web site, but for a lot of folks, it's just not worth the learning curve. So, I caught myself, and I told her, "No, you don't need to set up your own Web site, but you do need your products to be displayed on the Web somewhere. Let me explain what your options are."
I'm rooting for the day when running a Web business and doing search marketing won't require so much knowledge. I already think that search is less work than most other kinds of marketing, but I am looking forward to it getting even easier. I think we'll have a lot more good businesses out there.
Posted by mikemoran at 12:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 4, 2007
The World of Virtual World Marketing
I'm racing headlong to age fifty, but some days I feel older than others. Lately I have been feeling oh-so-twentieth-century whenever someone talks about marketing campaigns in virtual worlds, such as Second Life. I admit it. I just don't get it.
I'm not saying that virtual worlds aren't important. I'm not even saying that marketing in virtual worlds won't go on just as it does in the real world.
What I don't get is the kind of marketing that we're doing in virtual worlds.
When you've got all the power of an imaginary world to paint your picture and send your message, why are we futzing around with virtual branch offices or selling imaginary cars? I just don't get how real brands and real products seem exciting in a virtual world.
Now, understand, I'm not saying, "I don't get it" as a sly way of saying, "This is dumb." I am honestly, truly saying that I don't understand. I don't understand why this will work to get attention for a brand.
I'm not saying that nothing will work. Clearly, lots of interesting kinds of advertising work on the Internet. Paid search works. Product placement in video games works. Something will work in virtual worlds, too. I am just not sure that we've figured it out yet. What I've seen so far feels like tired old interruption marketing in a new venue that lets us all feel cool.
To the extent it works, it might just be novelty. Banner ads worked when they were first introduced, but they faded. I'd like to see more virtual events—sponsoring one of those makes sense to me. If we can find ways of providing value in virtual worlds, then people will notice and care about our brands. If we just plaster our logos all over virtual worlds, I think we're missing the boat. If i knew what to do, I'd suggest it. I just don't think we've figured it out yet.
Posted by mikemoran at 12:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 3, 2007
Why is Internet Marketing So Challenging?
Old-style marketing wasn't easy, but at least we knew how to do it. If we wanted to buy TV ads or print ads, we hired some creative people—or even a whole ad agency's worth. If we wanted to do publicity, we hired a PR person. Whatever kind of marketing you wanted to do, you could just hire an expert.
Times have changed.
One of the things that makes Internet marketing difficult is that you can't centralize it, but you must control it. You don't succeed at search marketing by outsourcing it, or by hiring one expert—you must get everyone working on your Web site and on your Internet marketing to learn their piece of the job. Likewise, you'll never have a blogging department—you need many employees writing their individual blogs to make a dent in your customers' perceptions.
So, if centralization is out, what's in? You control Internet marketing by establishing policies, providing training, and monitoring the results. Certainly you need to update your procedures so that employees know what's to be expected of them. And you need to teach them new skills and approaches. Of course you must pay attention to success metrics.
And that's the problem. It's so much easier to centralize or outsource or delegate something to an expert, and so much harder to change your organizational culture to succeed with these new marketing approaches. So if you've been struggling to adapt to the new world of marketing, give yourself a break. Accept that it's not the same as the old days. If you understand the kind of culture change you need, and how to bring it about, you'll be more accepting of the time it takes to really make it happen. It's OK to start slow and improve each day.
Posted by mikemoran at 9:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 2, 2007
What's the Easy Way To Attract Links?
Everyone knows that links are a critical part of any organic search marketing campaign. It's not possible for your pages to rank highly for competitive keywords without amassing many high-quality links. But it's so much work, isn't it? Are there any easy ways to build the links you need?
Well, let's look at some of the easy ways to get links.
Link swapping has been around for years. You link to my site and I will link to yours. It sounds like a great idea, and it does seem easy. The problem is that it doesn't work very well anymore—the search engines can tell when links are reciprocal, so they don't give them so much credit.
The newest easy way to success is paid links. Find the sites you want to link to you and offer up enough cash so they do so. Does it work? Sometimes. Undoubtedly the search engines can't detect every paid link, although they can catch some of them. When a number of high-quality links pop-up to a relatively unknown site, Google can connect those dots. But paid links can work to raise search rankings if they seem to be plausible.
But I am a big fan of doing it the hard way. Instead of trading links or paying for links, why not create compelling content—pages so good that other sites just have to link to them?
What are the advantages of doing things the hard way?
First, it's a lot cheaper. You can imagine that, for competitive queries, sites end up bidding against each other for those high-quality links that make a difference in search rankings. To really get the benefit, the linking sites can't have too many links (because the search engines devalue links that are one of dozens on a page). Having only a few sites with just a few links from each site make those links precious—and expensive.
Besides the cost, why else would you want to do the extra work of attracting links? Because links you get the old-fashioned way are permanent. Paid links disappear as soon as you stop paying.
So how hard is linkbaiting? For some people, it's not easy. Not everyone thinks of himself as a good writer. But maybe that's not the way to think about what you have to do. Instead of expecting yourself to be a great writer, just tell stories.
Every business has stories. The story about why your product works better than the rest. Or how it solved a particularly thorny problem once. Or why your best customer loves it so. The same way that you write stories using the right keyword so that search engines find your pages. If you do it right, the best search landing pages are also the bext link bait.
Instead of resorting to tricky content techniques and paid links, maybe it's actually easier in the long run to create the right stories with the right keywords that attract attention—and links. And, by the way, those stories are far more likely to convert your searchers to customers because they are designed to appeal to people first and search engines second.
Maybe building your content really is the easy way to attract links.
Posted by mikemoran at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 1, 2007
What's a Pioneer?
I bet most of you don't know who Keith Instone is. I had the privilege of working with Keith for several years at ibm.com, and I learned a good deal of what I know about information architecture from him. Keith's recent blog post talked about how he was struggling to accept the idea that he is a pioneer in information architecture. Keith runs through a whole list of things he believes he should have done to be worthy of that "pioneer" label. But I think Keith (for once) misses the point. Being a pioneer is not about accomplishments—it's about exploring, and Keith is most certainly an explorer at heart. I'm glad to see Keith get some of the recognition he deserves.
Posted by mikemoran at 2:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Is Google Too Powerful?
Google has the top market share in search. It just bought DoubleClick to take a leading position in banner ad networks. Each time it offers a new free service, it scares another set of companies. Is Google simply too powerful? Read this month's Biznology newsletter and see what you think.
Posted by mikemoran at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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