Archive for the Category ◊ Geek Stuff ◊

Not long ago I provided some advice about how to hire an SEO.  Today, I had to fire one of my customers for not following that advice.  I can’t entirely blame them though.  Well, I could – but that would be rude.

You see, as an SEO consultant I had made a very bad mistake.  I assumed the customer would want to help me, that they would want to take an active role in optimizing their site and improving it’s search rankings.  This is the story of how it happened.  The names have been removed and the keywords have been changed to protect the stupid. more…

Are you geek enough to wear this?

A few months ago while looking through one of my favorite Web sites, thinkgeek.com, I stumbled upon this pretty cool shirt. I thought it would get some laughs at an upcoming conference. I placed my order, and even paid extra for 3-day shipping to make sure I had it in time. Here’s where the trouble starts – I neglected to read the fine print. As it turns out, the 3-days starts from when THEY ship it, not from when I order it. And, it only counts weekdays, not weekends.  So, my shirt was waiting for me when I returned from the conference.  I could have returned it.  I actually meant to return it.  Each night before bed I would see the box sitting on the floor next to my dresser and think to myself “Dang! Gotta get that RMA number before my 30 days passes!”.  As you might have guessed by now, I never got the RMA number.  I could still wear it, but while I may be geek enough to wear it in a room full of geeks, I am no where near geek enough to wear it any other time. more…

Link Building

Getting other site owners to link to your Web site is one of the best ways to improve your search rankings.  Researching the best places to get links, and convincing the site owners to add them can be a time-intensive task.  While I don’t suggest you take link building to the extreme, I cannot stress strongly enough its importance.   For your time and efforts to be properly rewarded, you need for the links to be created in the most beneficial way possible. more…

I’ve had my iPhone for about six months, and I’m always amazed by the wide range of apps available for it.  From the flat-out silly, like “fart machine” to those much more useful like Tweetie and Fandango.  It seems that no matter what your interest is, there’s an app for that.

I spent some time recently scouring the app store looking for tools that might be useful for those who want their sites to rank better on the search engines, for people interested in buying domain names, reviewing web statistics or monitoring the health of their web servers. more…

You need professional help

Selecting professional help of any type for your business can be a complicated and often difficult task.  But when you add back-biting and in-fighting among the possible candidates the task becomes nearly impossible.

Some disagreement about the best way any job should be done can always be expected within any professional community, but lately the members of the SEO community seem determined to undermine and discredit one another.  Some even going so far as to say the entire industry is a boondoggle, except of course for what they say is the right way to do it (of course). more…