On Guaranteed SEO Results: Have I got a deal for you

A search for "guaranteed SEO" on Google returns about 5,300,000 results. On the first page alone 6/10 results mention the word "Google". So this begs the question, is there such a thing as "guaranteed SEO"? Let's find out.

According to Matt Cutts Google ranks pages according to relevance and reputation. Why should you believe him? well because he is the head of the Google Webspam team. When it comes to search; Google Search, Matt Cutts is the man to listen to. So listen to him.

Reason 1: You can't become relevant over night

Being relevant is something you acquire over time. Measuring relevancy is something that gets tweaked over time. So by nature Google's ranking algorithms will and must change over time to maintain relevant rankings and improve their measure of relevancy. So how can you, you or you guarantee relevancy? I can promise you the sun will rise from the east tomorrow (if it didn't then SEO is the last thing on anybody's mind), but can anybody promise you a million dollars tomorrow? Sure someone can; somebody very generous and with a million dollars to give away. For SEO that generous billionaire would be Google, but then if they do, can they remain relevant? You get my point.

Reason 2: You can't become reputable the next day

Building any reputation takes time; even a bad reputation. Your website's reputation is critical for ranking on the SERPs. The more PageRank the higher you rank. You get more PageRank by getting inbound links from others with high PageRank. Quality over quantity. 1 million times zero is still zero.

Reason 3: Because Matt Cutts said so

According to him, the best SEO strategy is adaptive SEO. Just like any optimization algorithm, you make gradual improvements and take a measurement against the objective function. Rinse and repeat, but don't get overly obsessed with it; quit when you hit the point of diminishing returns, then try something else. 

This process obviously takes time and research. But thanks to Google they give you all the tools and information you need to rank high on the SERPs.

For my blog I follow three simple rules:

1. When I write about something, I put myself in the shoes of someone looking for the information I am about to write on. I make a list of these keywords and naturally include them in my post.
2. Every month I use Wordle.net to generate a tag cloud of my blog. This gives me a good idea about the keyword distribution and whether I have enough keywords on the topics I would like to rank high on.
3. I make sure each of my posts' URLs contain the main keywords. This step is crucial.

With these three steps, I rank pretty well on some topics:

"photoshop vector cartoons"

"liferay seo best practices"

"liferay virtual hosting"

Now, have I got a DEAL for you... : )

On the GM bankruptcy: Stay small, think big

Today GM files for bankruptcy protection in an effort to "create a leaner, quicker more customer and completely product-focused company, one that's more cost competitive and has a competitive balance sheet," according to CEO Fritz Henderson. What happened today is only a sequel to many previous episodes where big companies have failed big. Remember Enron? Air Canada? American Airlines? Circuit City? Lehman Brothers? Washington Mutual? WorldCom? Chrysler? Texaco?

Ironically the terms GM CEO Henderson described the future of GM as are "leaner", "quicker", "customer focused", "product focused", and "competitive" which are some of the terms that describe small companies today, in the present not in the future - and after filing for bankruptcy protection.

Too Big To Fail?

Although it is probably applicable for many industries, with regards to technology firms, is small the new big? Why do extra large IT firms lack the creativity and drive to implement the cool applications of today? Why are these cutting edge and innovative applications being created in basements and college dorms nearby by a handful of people? Think Google, Facebook and Twitter for example.

Before the Internet it paid to be big. Big sales team, big headquarters, big advertisements, big, big, big, big and big. Yes I'm talking about economies of scale. Today though, are economies of scale as important as they used to be? Probably not otherwise these big companies such as GM and Enron would not have failed big since they supposedly enjoyed big economies of scale. "Too big to fail" is now a myth of the past. You don't need an army of developers and IT professionals to build successful applications used by millions.

Hyperlocal News - Personalized News For You

With online services like Animotto, Flickr, Blogger and Twitter almost anybody can be a video producer, photographer, journalist or news reporter- no degrees or formal training required. With these new mediums the average person can create and distribute their content with virtually no barriers to entry. This major shift gave rise to terms like hyperlocal and citizen journalism. 

Hyperlocal is relevant

Hyperlocal news is news relevant to small communities. Think a modern neighborhood flyer or newsprint where anybody can submit content such as videos, pictures, articles or even just their opinions and comments. In the 90s as the internet spread widely, forums and blogs started popping out all over the web to cater to different communities be it virtual or physical ones. 

The big news companies took notice of this shift and started providing their own mediums for hyperlocal. These include services like CNN's iReport or The Weather Channel's photo submission. What about the newspapers? how are they coping with these changes and in an uncertain economy?  

Once upon a time printed newspapers were extremely popular and they utilized techniques today's websites still use to promote themselves, increase traffic, and keep users on page longer. Sounds familiar? yes these are the same goals every person involved in SEO wants to achieve. Why else do you think that comic strip or crossword puzzle was printed in your favorite newspaper?

Hyperlocal feeds our thirst for news

Newspapers are dying, but people still want news. Our thirst for information has not decreased, if anything it increased beyond belief. The change is, people want to choose what news they want. I never read the stock pages and charts in a printed paper; I rarely read the finance paper and if I do its limited to the front page - so why should it be delivered to me? 

The case for hyperlocal news is just getting stronger so perhaps these major newspapers will break off into smaller hyperlocal news outlets. Maybe a visit to NYTimes.com will render a page like NYTimes.com/Jersey? This is if they wake up and stop being in denial. 

Hyperlocal is context aware, and of course location aware

Location is a key component for personalization and its possibly the easiest piece of information one can extract from their visitors and deliver personalized content. With hyperlocal news it makes complete sense to me to present it on a map instead of a traditional newspaper-ish view. And with the popularity of mobile devices this strengthens the reasons for a hyperlocal news map. Consider this, you are stuck on a highway and pick up your iPhone to turn on this hyperlocal news map. You get to see where you are right now and what stories are going on around you. The exit is coming up and you are considering escape, but your hyperlocal news map is reporting that a group of chimps have escaped the local zoo and are sitting on the highway barrier 'entertaining' the traffic which is causing all the delay. Now that is something that you don't see on a regular day on the highway, maybe you won't get off that exit after all?

Referential Integrity: honesty is the best SEO policy

What does it mean to provide something that is relevant, precise, and efficient? The common factor between these terms is the truth and nothing but the truth. Google defined the rules for this game; they want to help you rank higher, but you need to play by the rules. If you do so you get rewarded by PageRank i.e. your pages will rank higher on the search terms that you want. Try to cheat the system and you will get punished. Google does not assign these search terms for you, you pick them; its up to you to pick the right terms and follow the rules. One of my posts ranks #1 on Google for the search term "liferay seo best practices":

What does it mean for one to have 'integrity'?

According to Wikipedia 'integrity' has to do with perceived consistency in a holistic fashion. Integrity is also perceived as the quality of having a sense of honesty and truthfulness in one's actions. Integrity can be tested subjectively by one's individual methods or objectively by scientific methods. Take for example your purchasing process before paying for a product or service. Every wise purchase decision includes research. Normally you would research the products or services you are interested in and see for yourself what they say about themselves. The end product of this stage results in a list of potential products that you are considering for purchase. In this stage you are testing the product for relevance, precision and efficiency. Next comes your method to test the list of potential products for honesty. Usually one would do this by getting feedback from others who have made the 

purchase. The end product of this stage is another list of potential products - hopefully a smaller list than what you started with. You now rinse and repeat this cycle until you reach a small enough set to actually make your decision and do the purchase. 

What is 'referential integrity' ?

This term comes from relational databases. Basically it is consistency between coupled tables. The following diagram from Wikipedia shows what it means to have referential integrity and what it means to have broken referential integrity.

Although the second record of the album's table claims the album 'Eat the rich' belongs to artist #4 the actual artist's table does not confirm this claim since there is no artist #4. Hence referential integrity is broken in this case. 

How can enforcing your "website's referential integrity" reward you with more traffic?

It all starts with honesty. Do not try to write content for search engines, it does not work because it is not relevant, not precise and not efficient. Hence it is not truthful. Write content that people will find useful. There are things that you can do that are under your control; for example building references between your websites pages. There is no reason why one would not be able to do this properly. You need to be objective with these links as well; "Home" is not an objective link yet it is very common to have on a website. "Products" is not an objective link yet it is also very common to have on a website. The page title is not the only important factor, the name of the page or URL is also important; "home.html" or "products.html" is not an objective name. It is very important to have objective page names and titles - for example "What is Referential Integrity? and how can it increase your PageRank" is an objective title. "/referential-integrity-increase-pagerank.html" is an objective page name. By being careful with picking page titles and names you are already well underway in improving your ranking on search engine result pages.

A database designer knows what database normalization is. The concept behind database normalization is also applicable in writing great website copy. Basically database normalization is the process of organizing your data in an efficient way. The two main objectives are eliminating redundant data and eliminating the storage of the same data in multiple locations. With regards to website copy, it is important to aim to write copy for each page to allow that page to rank high on specific search terms without cannibalizing your other pages' rankings. This is easier said than done, especially if you are writing a blog since usually you have a certain number of topics that you write about. Eventually you will get multiple pages ranking for the same search terms as the image of my blog's ranking for "liferay seo best practices". 

The second component of an SEO strategy is to proof of your integrity. At this point you have written honest and complete copy for your pages. This stage is something out of your control, but this does not mean you cannot do anything to help you in this stage. By writing honest copy you increase the chances of others finding your information complete and truthful hence increase the chances they would link to you from their websites and blogs. Social networks are extremely helpful in this stage and as I have described in an earlier post "SEO without social; Cereal without Milk". You can publicize your content on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as I am doing right now. This helps you broadcast your content to a much larger audience, increase your traffic and eventually generate some inbound links. 

How does Google prevent SEO abuse?

The main line of defense Google has against this is their PageRank algorithm. This algorithm rewards for being truthful as well as punish you for cheating. For example if one were to create 100 fake websites to link to their company website. The PageRank algorithm shares a page's credibility with every other page that it links to. So in a case of 100 fake websites, odds are they all have a very low PageRank if not zero. This also strengthens the argument on promoting your website on social networks because of most them have a high PageRank (8 or 9) which is comparable to high profile sites such as the New York Times. Obviously it is easier to get a link on Twitter than it is to get on the New York Times and the fact that a good share will by the nature of social networks get re-shared or re-tweeted you will get far more links and faster than you can get one link up on the New York Times.

Again honesty is always the best policy - even for SEO. Understand how referential integrity works and play by Google's rules and you will be rewarded.

On the current state of online ads: Ads 3.0 - Social Aware. Context Aware. Personalized.

Mozilla Labs launched a new experiment in how one may enhance their Firefox experience using Jetpack modules. Firefox plugins have been one of the most popular features of Firefox that allows the user to personalize and customize their Firefox web experience to their needs. Jetpack may be "how Firefox might be extending web functionality in years to come" according to a TechCrunch article. This article is not about Mozilla, Firefox, plugins or even Jetpack - in fact it is just about one Jetpack example called "unAd".

The mere presence of add ons that strip out advertisements from website - which is what the Jetpack add on "unAd" does - tells a lot about the state of current online advertisement campaigns. These advertisements are basically more annoying than they are successful - otherwise people wouldn't be looking for ways to strip them out of their web experience.

In my opinion traditional marketers turned online marketers have been attempting to shoehorn their traditional marketing methods into today's online model of commerce and advertisements - this is mainly why I believe these methods are failing today. What worked in 1990 does not have to work in 2010; times change and it is about time for marketing to change.

What are the basics of marketing any marketing student learns about in Marketing 101?

Now you might think what does a software engineer know about marketing, but I did take marketing and business management as part of my Software Engineering and Management degree so at least to some extent I do know what I am talking about.

• Grab the potential customer's attention i.e. wow them
• Motivate them to buy i.e. click through
• Get them to buy i.e. click through
• Get them to buy again i.e. click through again

So basically in today's online marketing any advertisement must motivate you to click through and actually get you to do so. How is today's online ads fairing in doing this? When was the last time you actually clicked an advertisement?

Apple revealed a new web advertisement that definitely "wowed me". I first heard about it from a friend who saw it on the New York Times website a few days ago. Although it is still basically the same advertising model that has dominated the web i.e. non personalized online advertisement yet it did in a different way that captures our attention. 

This advertisement just brought the page to life, it's not personalized but its definitely new and very creative and it would have definitely grabbed my attention instantly. Frankly if an advertisement cannot distract you for 30 seconds while it delivers its message, the advertisement has failed. 

Coming from traditional mediums of advertisement (print, TV, and radio) is probably not the best background to a successful online marketer. Sure some techniques are still applicable but a lot has changed. Compare online ads with traditional TV ads. Unless you get off the couch and start surfing your channels during an ad you are forced to see the advertisements until your favorite show is back on. Note that people have been trying hard not to see advertisements; how many times have you said: "Hang on, I'll call you back during the commercial break" ?

Unfortunately for marketers, advertisements - as it stands - is a negative experience, whether it is on TV, radio, print or even the web. That is why marketers have retreated to using humor and creativity to "wow" the audience.

The next "wow" factor has got to be personalized advertisements. We have pushed the envelope on the current model to its limits; what else is there to do within the boundaries of the current model? Why isn't it time to look outside of these boundaries and think outside the box?

Today's market is no longer bounded by geography and websites have been delivering targeted advertisements for sometime now thanks to big players like Google's AdSense. For example, next time you log in to GMail, notice how the advertisements around you change based on the content of your emails. If you happen to be looking for jobs and e-mailing resumes you will get ads on resume writing, jobs, interview skills, etc. On the other hand if you are looking to buy a car, then you will get advertisements on that. Keyword advertisement is getting old though, it is still considered spam and it is not personal.

Online advertising can be made personal via all the available social networks today. Facebook has currently 200 million users; if it were a country it would be the fourth biggest country after China, India, and the USA. There is a wealth of information available on these networks. One is able to answer all these questions via the social networks: Who are you? What are you interested in? and What have you been up to? The answers to all these questions are important to be able to successfully personalized advertisements and even personalize recommendation engines on e-commerce sites. We are definitely on the path towards this age of personalized content via knowledge mined from these social networks but the question is: how long before Amazon can finally recommend a book to me next time I log in based on a conversation I have had publicly on Twitter or Facebook?

Navegg for behavior web analytics beyond Google Analytics

Navegg is a web based add-on just like Google Analytics but aims to report on visitor demographics and behaviors - which you cannot achieve with Google Analytics.

This information is extremely important for marketers, but it is also important if you aim to personalize your content for different users. The uses are not just limited to marke

ting as the data it gathers can and should influence your design and feature decisions as well.

I signed up for this account a few days ago and now I get access to very little demographics that I will share with you. What is confusing is that Google Analytics reports 20 unique visitors yesterday and 24 the day before yet I only see 3 on Navegg. I will probably have to revisit this in a few weeks when it has gathered more information for me.

The neat thing is that both Google Analytics and Navegg have public APIs and both so far are free services. One could potentially build their own analytics engine that combines data from both in the segments each excels at. For example I really like the Goal Funnel Visualization feature on Google Analytics, it can be made even more useful if I can see demographics on it; ex. how many single females between 22 and 28 dropped out of the sales funnel? 

Thanks to Jennifer Van Grove's post on Mashable about Navegg which got me to sign up and try it out - how else would I have known that I had 3 readers yesterday that are college graduates and males between 25 and 34 years old!

Lessons learned from Gordon Ramsay

Ever watched an episode of Kitchen Nightmares? I mainly got into it because of the similarities between running a kitchen  Gordon Ramsay style and how a lot of software processes could look at Gordon Ramsay for direction.

Ramsay's kitchens are agile kitchens and if his kitchens followed a waterfall model like many software teams do then you would end up getting your food at 2am after arriving for supper at 6pm. Anyway that is not the topic of this post, but you can read more on this at Clinton Begin's Blog.

Can you become successful by being average?

What makes a good dish a great one?

Every ingredient in a great dish is there for a very specific reason, there is not 1 unnecessary ingredient. Nothing is out of place and each element captures a component of the dish's essence.

Presentation, presentation, presentation. That is the second element of a great dish. A great dish is inviting, once you see it you already know how you are going to 'attack it' and you are not left confused where to start.

Why simple works better?

A good software engineer says "No" more than they say "Yes"

Cooking a great dish requires a lot of discipline; building great software also requires great discipline. It is very tempting to just add more ingredients or more features into a dish or software, but that temptation needs to be resisted; someone needs to act like a referee and reject anything that does not add value. Just because you can, does not mean you should. As a software consultant I always find myself facing customers that want everything under the sun in their application. They want everybody and I mean everybody to use it for everything. There are many problems with this philosophy, mainly you end up with a very cluttered software where it's main essence has been diluted. This is where I find myself asking over and over again What value does that feature add? Who does it benefit? How many will benefit from it? Keep in mind that 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your customers.

Gordon's cooking style is simple, and whenever he walks in to a failing kitchen he ends up simplifying and idiot proofing the menu more than anything else. A lot of restaurants fall into the trap of trying to satisfy all their customers even if doing so takes away from the restaurant's essence. This seems to be a common mistake amongst all restaurants shown on Kitchen Nightmares. Surprisingly lessons learned from these failing restaurants can be applied to failing software as well. One episode I remember is the case of an "authentic" Indian restaurant in Notting Hill that had french fries on their menu! Yes french fries in an "authentic" Indian restaurant. The owner's flawed reasoning is because some customer's wanted french fries. This is a simple example where discipline was required and if the customer wanted french fries they can go to the nearest McDonald's or KFC - not an "authentic" Indian restaurant. If it goes on the menu it will be ordered, but don't trick yourself into thinking just because it was ordered or used then there was demand for it.

I am a true believer that doing one thing great is better than doing a half assed job on 10 things. I hear the phrase "Jack of all trades" often in the software / consulting industry I don't particularly like it because it literally means you are not exceptionally good at anything, just average in many things i.e. "Jack of all trades; master of none". I don't see anything to boast about there. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with knowing a lot of trades, but everybody needs one or two trades where they are really good - and I mean really. So can you make a career for yourself out of being a "Jack of all trades" - I don't think so. 

In his book Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule where for one to call themselves an expert at anything they need to have done that for at least 10,000 hours. Consider one who works an average work week of 40 hours and no weekends, it would take you 5 years of doing nothing but that one thing to become an expert at it. If you are a "Jack of all trades" then it could take you 10 years, 20 years or maybe even a life time before you become an expert at any one of these trades. Point is, it is very easy to be a "Jack of all trades" but it is difficult to be a "master of one"; so focus on a few things or ingredients and become really good at delivering these ingredients together. Now you have a unique selling point. Next time remember this when you are just about to describe yourself as a "Jack of all trades".

Presentation is the second criterion for great dishes and excellent software. Making 12 features look awesome is always an easier and simpler task than making 120 look okay. Get the basics right first and then build from there. If you mess up on the basics, you really don't have a chance.

So how can you tell the difference between an excellent dish and an average one if all you have been tasting are average dishes?