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flyingrose
Good advice and I'll add something else. Never spend money online without checking with the peers you respect who have probably already tried what you're considering and can offer some great experience. Why pay for mistakes when you can learn from someone else? You'll also get a lot more out of whatever you do decide to spend money on.
It isn't just your parents who could use this! It is How to explain delicious to EVERYONE including me. Definitely a must-read if you don't already know what it is good for or why you want to use it. Many thanks to both the creators and the Sphinner on this one. I stumbled it too. I hope it is on youtube and if it isn't I'd definitely submit it there too.
Story: The Squidoo effect on SEO
Way back when I suggested on StumbleUpon that new bloggers could get started with one or more Squidoo blogs (they call them a Lens) and use those to drive traffic to WordPress blogs on their own domains.
It isn't really an oversight if you're both submitting something at the same time. This could make an interesting case study to see if who Sphinns something and what the title is makes a difference to how many votes it gets.
See how important good manners are? Not only did this post go hot twice, it is number one and number two on the Hot Topics page right now.
Anyone who is using analytics, AdWords, and conversion tracking needs to clearly understand what is and is not being tracked. Anyone who is deleting keywords based on this data for any smaller advertiser can seriously damage sales and revenue.
I'm not surprised this went hot. I hope everyone who read it actually went out and added their sites to Technorati. When Bill H. speaks, many of us are wise enough to listen! He is simply one of the most brilliant marketers I have ever come across. He would make anyone's short list.
Reverse psychology works because people intuitively rebel at being controlled.
As you both pointed out, whether to use the physical yellow pages or not depends on the demographics you're trying to reach. There are still many people who only shop locally and live totally locally. Others have a lifestyle that covers many cities, states, or countries.
Printed yellow pages are far more useful to someone who would only need one.
Let him know so he can add them. I hope everyone that visits my blog will drop links to related articles and then I move them up to an Additional Resources section after the blog post and above the comments to make them easier to find.
You guys crack me up. As I just mentioned in another comment, we are not all clones of each other. What is lame to you may be brilliant to someone else. There is a reason why geniuses are often not recognized in their own lifetimes. When what they share goes against the current paradigm most of their ideas get instantly dismissed.
Has anyone else noticed that when someone new becomes active here, others seem compelled to take potshots at them? Why? Are you that afraid of them? Why? What does their sharing their truth have to do with you? Your insecurity is showing.
@Rose (the other Rose) - anyone who speaks their truth must get used to dodging arrows. Those who are silent or who "preach to the choir" by agreeing with the majority are fairly safe from complaints.
Look, for every single thought you voice or thing you do, there will be some who applaud and others who boo. That is just how it is. Since it is clearly IMPOSSIBLE to make everyone happy, you may as well please yourself. (That is in the lyrics of some '70s song too.)
Thanks g1smd for the cross-links.
Every conflict is the result of judging others, personal insecurities, and lack of tolerance. When someone feels personally attacked they often respond emotionally. Although it is our personal responsibility to find enough self-esteem to stop reacting, that can be a long process. Few are already at the point where they have no buttons and there is not shortage of people who love to push other people's buttons.
People do not HEAR precisely what you meant; they HEAR what comes through their filters and what they THINK you were saying. Many times it is totally different than what you meant. Sometimes YOU don't realize what you meant and the other person knows you really DO consider them a ____________ {dumbass, idiot, etc.)
Behind all humor is some truth. Behind every conflict there is a breakdown in communication. When someone does something "wrong" instead of attacking them why not consider gently helping them understand?
The SEM group here doesn't realize how difficult it is for those outside your circle to feel heard. Instead of running them off, how about welcoming them and educating them on what you know?
No one here (or anywhere else) is perfect. No one here knows everything and no two people have the same knowledge and skills. Everyone else is a reflection of you. What you truly dislike about someone else is what you most deny about yourself. If you're criticizing someone else you're criticizing yourself.
@qwerty: I absolutely agree with you. Intention is everything. When our intention is to help others it shows in our actions. When it is purely for marketing that, too, becomes obvious.
JimBeetle said "If something makes the front page chances are good most of us have already read it."
Most of those of you already connected in the SEM world will have seen what goes hot here somewhere else; however, you are a tiny minority of those interested in the topics discussed here.
There are many other "worlds" who will greatly benefit from Sphinn: Newbies in any online marketing field, CEOs, entrepreneurs, online business owners of every size and those who support them to name a few.
They don't have your backgrounds, your knowledge, your connections. They don't know what you've already seen - I don't know what you've already seen and if there is anyone who spends more hours on the Internet than I do I want to hear from them.
Comments both here and at StumbleUpon complaining that things are "old news" crack me up. Old news to you is new to most of the rest of the human population. You think that everyone has esp and knows exactly what you want to see and what you don't? Wanna buy a bridge?
@Feydakin - if you spend your time in what you called upcoming (What's New) and Sphinn and comment on those things that makes you a CONTRIBUTOR. It is the people who only look at the Hot Topics page who are only users.
@MiriamEllis - There is a concept called "pay it forward" that applies here. When those who have the connections, wisdom, knowledge, and experience contribute, those who are new can be users first and contributors later.
Each of us is a user of some resources and a contributor to others. The new world I see will allow us to contribute generously regardless of someone's ability to pay, knowing that your efforts are always rewarded. The mistake we make is in expecting the person we assisted to be the one who rewards us.
I have always found it interesting to note that most people think that whatever they do is what everyone else does and whatever they know is what everyone else knows. Others think they are just different than anyone else. They are all incorrect.
People who look at What's Hot and Sphinn are just automatically contributing. By Sphinning you're helping others know where the substance is so if they have limited time or knowledge they know what to read.
The comments help them know if the author is shooting straight and what the consensus of thought on that subject is. I can immediately tell by reading what you write what your view of the world is so I can quickly determine who I want to tune into when I'm too busy to check out everything.
I do read all points of view. The fastest way to grow is to listen to everyone and keep what you find most valuable. As Marcus Aurelius is quoted to have said, "The Wise Man Learns More From The Fool than the Fool Learns From the Wise Man."
P.S. @Rose (the other Rose) - you have many fans including me. Just as businesses take time to grow, peer networks, audiences, friendships - all start from a seed planted and only bloom when the time is right. Those who just keep planting and never concern themselves with whether what they planted is growing will later find a bumper crop. Keep up the great work and your reward is inevitable.
Story: 404 Error Pages: Reloaded
Want a laugh? The home page of Embarq.com had a huge 404 Page Not Found banner on it for a good part of a full day on Sep 12, 2007. I blogged the same day about that and the horrendous usability issues their site has as an example for others on what NOT to do.
When every company in a niche has a horrendous Web site and exasperating customer service they can get away with it but it still has an ENORMOUS cost. That is why I titled that post Why are Corporations Leaving Billions on the Table? Intentional or Invisible?
What does where someone is located or what nationality they are have to do with the quality of any individual person or company's products or services?
If you already wonder if Google is a little too tight with the government this should help you sleep better at night.
Excellent point. Learning how to do something without knowing what else that something affects can be detrimental rather than helpful. Black and white thinking (which usually occurs when applying something you just learned) can lead to assumptions based on flawed logic.
I have come to the conclusion that what some may perceive as intentional evil is actually just shortsightedness. Google's goal (and the goal of almost all publicly traded companies) is maximum profits in the short term. In the business world, that means giving the largest advertisers what they want. Nothing more; nothing less.
What they cannot see that some "Google bashers" are screaming about is that Google's focus is strangling the Golden Goose. Their use of neural nets based on flawed logic is undermining their proclamations and overriding advertisers' intentions.
I suspect that Google believes that what is good for the largest advertisers is good for everyone and THAT is a huge error. Most market research is done on Fortune 500 companies and all their research will reflect that bias.
Unless you're a huge company that is a household name, be sure you know what game you're playing before you hit the field, and be aware that the rules and what works constantly changes.
After testing it myself and discussing it with the most brilliant PPC people I know, I now recommend mass deleting all broad match keywords in every AdWords account. Any one you leave will continue to zap your results.
If we could just get everyone to focus on the summit and not on the ditches the world would be a far better place and everyone would be vastly happier. Check out Kevin Kelly's many sites including http://www.longnow.org/ to learn more.
I hope everyone is grabbing the links from other related posts and incorporating them into the content of their own blogs. Better yet, when you do something you learned elsewhere, blog about what you learned, how it worked for you, etc. and link back to where you first read about it. Then add links to all the other references to that subject at the bottom the way Marty does at http://aimclearblog.com in many of his posts.
Focus on quality content and forget about giving away page rank. Whatever you do that benefits others will benefit you vastly more than any particular SEO strategy. Intention shows and people act on it - even when they aren't consciously aware of why.
Whatever ever SEO advantage you lose in doing this will be made up many times over with the link love traffic it will bring you.
A community reflects the members. Digg is probably more similar to the general population than other places - StumbleUpon, for example, or Sphinn. The make-up of any community changes as it becomes more popular.
The solution to all issues is to educate the users and the providers of the systems.
Story: 4 Blogging Laws I DoFollow