Facebook is for Friends!

An open letter to some of my dearest Facebook friends–

I’m talking about you, organizer of Jewish/Israeli educational seminars; you, SEO extraordinaire; my dear women’s causes activist friend; me amigo, the graphic artist; the interior designer, the photographer; all of you out there who’ve ever built their own website; and many many more:

Please, don’t confuse our friendship with a free-for-all license to advertise your talents, services and products on my Facebook page. Not cool!

While it’s okay to once-in-a-while invite me to a special event (once in a while!), I’m begging you: pleeeease, separate between your personal life (and our friendship) and your job/cause/business. Create a dedicated page for those, and I’ll be happy to consider joining.

Otherwise, I’ll have to hide you from my news stream.

Whooh, I feel much better now!

 

The SEO Imperative

Does the White House website need SEO?

Let’s rephrase that: should special content be created for the sole purpose of SEO?

I can think of a possible reason–mainly, because we equate the site’s performance with the number of visitors it attracts, and by proxy we’ll evaluate the site builder using the same yardstick.

I’m not saying that search engine performance shouldn’t be a consideration when a website is built. But beyond creating relevant content and following the basics of styling the different elements, is there a point in pouring tons of money into a site that is a singular brand?

So let’s try another example. Does BMW need to invest in SEO?

If you’re in the market for a luxury car, you know about and considered a BMW. No one in their right mind will search for “luxury car” and stumble upon the BMW website. Even if the site is optimized to pop up when you type ‘Lexus’, that won’t do any good.

My company faced the same dilemma, being a well known player in a relatively small field. If you’re in the market for the type of software we sell, you already know about us.

When we built my company’s previous website, about three years ago, we made sure to optimize it to a long list of general industry related terms–the equivalent of the keyword “luxury car” in our industry–and by and large, our efforts were very successful.

However, no one used those search terms in order to access our website. Almost all of the search terms used were specific to the company, its products and features. Whenever we created a page with with good content, it fared well.

SEO is extremely important for most companies, but not all. I built a website for a chiropractor in Lower Manhattan a few years ago. Almost all of my work went on optimizing the site for the search terms “Chiropractor 10003″, “Chiropractor Lower Manhattan” and such. We didn’t even try aiming at “Chiropractor NYC” because it was too broad a term. Some businesses compete locally, some globally, and there’s no point in optimizing a site for terms that will never be used, or to attract uninterested visitors.

What’s the downside of investing in SEO? The cost. Take the thousands of dollars you’ll spend on unnecessary optimization and invest in better and compelling content (or even put the money to work elsewhere in the organization.) You’ll get fewer visitors, true, but also a higher conversion rate.

What do you think?

Look, I’m #1 in Google! Uh, no, I’m not.

In recent weeks, people all around the world have been seeing their websites rank higher than ever in Google searches.

I’ve been receiving phone calls from customers I’ve built sites for over the years, telling me how finally my SEO has paid off, and that they’re popping up on the first page in Google. It’s then my job to inform them that uh, no, you’re getting your site on the first page because you’re a relentless self-Googler.

What happened? Well, without much (or enough) fanfare, Google rolled out its Personalized Search Results initiative. Now the search results you get are personalized for you based on your browsing and searching history.

Personalized Search is great for everyone. Except if you’re me, because as a part-time website builder, it denies me of one of the most important measures of success—the site’s ranking in Google. You could say it’s the end of SEO as we know it.

To test the new Google search, I Googled the term “bass”. Since I’m a bass player and an Israeli, the top results I got were: the Wikipedia entries for the instrument, the fish and the vocal range; YouTube clips for bass guitar music; the homepage for Avishai Cohen, world-class Israeli bass player; and at #6, Bass shoes and clothing (I’m on their mailing list)

You can disable Personalized Search by deleting your search history if you’re signed in, deleting the G-cookie if you’re not, or using the incognito (porn) mode.

Once disabled, the top results were: Bass Pro Shops (fishing and hunting); Bass shoes and clothing; Bass Fishing Membership and Tournament News; The Wikipedia entry for Bass guitar; Van Heusen – Bass clothing and footwear; and finally Fender bass guitars. Clearly fishier and more focused on the clothing brand, and much less relevant to me. So Kudos to Google!

So is this really the end of SEO? Bottom line is that SEO is important as ever and that Personalized Search doesn’t change the outcome of SEO, just how we measure it. We optimize sites not for the people who know us and search for us, but for those who don’t. I don’t need Google to direct me to Guitar Center for bass strings. But the next time I need bait for bass fishing, my search results page, virginal, unbiased and uneducated in the ways of all thing aquatic, will show me the results the as intended by the gods of the Internet.

Let the games continue!

Riding through Central Park at 180 m.p.h.

If you’re one of many, many loyal readers of my blog, you know that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a good story.

This time I put my life on the line and took a wild bike ride through New York City’s Central Park at 180 m.p.h. (288 km/h). That’s right, the entire 6 miles (9.6 km) in under two minutes.

Here’s the result – please click ‘Like’ and share the video if you liked it!

How a web design goes straight to hell

This one needs no introduction, just a big sympathy hug to the guys at TheOatmeal.com. I’ve been there.

The never-ending IM farewell

Back to the subject of digital communication as a proxy for real-world interactions – this time, the never-ending farewells when you IM.

If you’re like me, your IMs end this way:

- well, I’m kinda late for the opera. Gotta go.
- ok, cu tmw!
- Sure. Looking forward.
- bye
- ciao
- ttyl
- later!
- xoxo
- xoxoxoxo
- bye

At this point you stare at the IM window, wondering if it’s rude to close the window, and whether we’re done saying our goodbyes. There’s no sense of closure, just a feeling that the chat session ended abruptly, even though you’ve spent the last two minutes of it trying to end it.

In real life we have clear cues for when a conversation is over. It’s usually when you turn your back and/or walk away from the other person. Try saying goodbye to a person without moving away – it’s awkward, like there’s something still to be said. It’s like the awkwardness saying goodbye while exiting a restaurant, only to discover that the other person is walking to the same subway station as you are.

On the phone, we have the hang up. There’s a whole protocol for ending a phone call: summarizing what has been said, reiterating future programs, obligatory niceties, and finally the ‘bye’. It’s feels awkward to me to end a phone call without exchanging goodbyes. I know that some people do it – just watch any episode of ‘Entourage’ – but that’s Hollywood talk. I need my goodbye. I need closure.

SO HERE is what I propose – a universal symbol that is the equivalent of the walking away and the hangup. A digital gesture that means “this is the end of this communication. There will be no more conversing after this”.

My proposed symbol is (drumroll):

//

With //, the above exchange would now be:

- well, I’m kinda late for the opera. Gotta go.
- ok, cu tmw!
- Sure. Looking forward.
- bye! //

That’s a 60% saving! Just imagine the ramifications on the world’s economy if this sign is universally adopted.

I’ve been testing this symbol lately in my IMs, and lo and behold, it works. Not one IMee ever continued blabbering after //. There’s something about it that is intuitively legible.

So spread the word, and save us from never-ending IMs!

//

personal branding, i.e. your name

I came across this great tool for finding out the popularity of your name (or for making sure your kid won’t be among six other same-namers in kindergarten.)

In 1995, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner dedicated an entire chapter in “Freakonomics” to the correlation behind socioeconomic status and baby names, and how names ‘trickle down’ from highly-educated to less-educated parents in just a few years. Levitt and Dubner even went as far as projecting the most popular names in 2015, and what do you know, some of the upcoming names they predicted (especially for girls) started appearing in the top ten as early as 2009.

There are those names, of course, that always populate the top 20 or 30. Most are biblical male names, like Joshua, Michael, Matthew and David (Sarah and Rachel are the only resilient female names.) These mainstay boys’ names are crossover-proof (unlike Tyler, Alex or Billie) but are still subject to ebbs and flows – Jacob is the most popular male name all through the 2000s, but was ranked 20th in 1990, and was not even in the top 20 in 1980. Go figure.

An extreme case of falling from grace is Mary – from #1 in 1960 to #102 in 2009.

Here’s another big surprise: “Eyal” is not even among the top 1000 in the U.S., and never was!

I admit that there are some advantages in having an exotic name as mine, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. Nobody with a strange-sounding name ever made it big. Just ask Barack Obama.

Another one for the photoshopping hall of fame

A few weeks ago I posted about how BP doctored a 3-year old photo of one of their control centers to show that they’re on top of the efforts to fix the gushing oil leak in the gulf.

This one is a knight move towards both stupidity and amateurism: A Photoshopped image of University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban with Dorothy Davidson, mayoral candidate in Bessemer, AL.

Problem is that the two never took a picture together–Mrs. Davidson’s picture was superimposed on a photo showing coach Saban and his wife.

I really don’t care about the political ramifications. An electorate that bases its vote on a football coach’s endorsement (with all due respect) may well deserve a candidate like Davidson.

What bugs me is the doctoring job. How hard is it to find a decent photo editor? You be the judge:

Our beloved loophole

I’m going to temporarily divert from my usual theme and talk about the 401k loophole.

I get annoyed every time I hear someone bitch and moan about how her 401k lost half of its value, as if were a safe haven for money.

The ability to defer taxation is very appealing to employees, of course, and it gives employers a lower-cost means of employee compensation. Win-win, right?

Well, apparently not.

401k funds are meant to be retirement or rainy day funds, not a pool of money for investing. But they have become this behemoth bundle of money, that needs to be invested somewhere. And unregulated, in the hands of greedy fund managers, they become a one of the driving forces that led to the crash of 2009.

But nothing has been proposed to regulate 401k fund management.

What if 401k money not invested in fixed interest, no-risk instruments wouldn’t be exempt of taxation, i.e. you couldn’t play the market with your 401k money?

A huge chunk of the market would disappear, that’s for sure. But remember, the stock market is, for the most part, a zero-sum game. For every dollar gained, there’s someone who didn’t gain it, and every tax dollar not paid has to be offset somehow.

Remember when Bush proposed allowing people investing their Social Security fund? How is this so different?

Moving my blog

I know it’s too much to ask for, but why isn’t there a streamlined way to transfer a blog between services (in my case from Blogger to WordPress?). If you know of a way to do it, I’d really appreciate your help.