Fionn Downhill – Digital Shenanigans

The SEO world is a buzz with talk about Google Caffeine, Google’s new version of its search engine and the biggest change since Google was first launched is coming soon.  In fact if rumor is correct some of Google’s data centers are already switched over.  Since it is organic SEO they (Google) don’t tell us much so we will have to keep spreading rumors and speculation until caffeine is live and we can really audit the results and go from there.
From what I can see so far large authority sites will do very well.    Caffeine results will be much more relevant and if you have been doing SEO correctly you have nothing to worry about.  The long tail provides a much more relevant set of  results therefore it stands to reason the long tail SEO strategy will do better in caffeine.  We have been telling our clients for a long time to focus on long tail for more relevant traffic.  Many businesses still hold onto the old ideal that the trophy terms are the best.   Everybody is going for the trophy terms and the swift rank therefore,  it stands to reason that widening the net to the more relvant searches makes sense.   Going after trophy words has not been the best approach for relevant traffic for a long time.  One of our clients in a very competitive space and an industry riddled with spam has done very well on relevant traffic and leads  with the long tail approach.  The site owners who have stopped chasing the trophy terms and focused on content for the long tail should do much better in caffeine.  You can read more about Google caffeine here or play around in their test sandbox to see what your results might look like post rollout.

So what can you do to prepare for Caffeine. Go to Google’s webmaster guidelines and if you are not following them start now.  Start writing great content and make sure your site is the best that it can be in your space and the rest will come.  Well its not quite that simple but its a good start.

With Google’s branding affinity and caffeine the small guy is going to have to be much more creative in organic SEO to get relevant traffic.

Today we released the Beta version of our SEO Reporting, monitoring and SEO management tool SyCara.  SyCara is the public version of the in house SEO tool we have used first as Elixir Systems and now as Elixir Interactive for the past 6 years.  The tool was developed more out of frustration with the multiple tools we had to use to do our work.  No tool available was ever quite what we needed so we built our own.   Much of the tedious work of SEO has to be automated and  SyCara is the result of our efforts to ensure we created efficiencies which we could pass onto our clients.  We have been able to offer first class Search Engine Optimization Services at an affordable price for many years now and SyCara has been a huge part of our ability to do that.  There will never be a tool that replaces tenure and expertise in the sometimes volatile world of SEO.  SyCara can however reduce the number of staff with tenure and expertise needed especially if you are a large Agency offering multiple services with SEO being just one of those.  The SEO industry has never kept up with the growing need for trained staff and automation has become a natural next step to fill the gaps.  SyCara’s unique feature is that it was developed and coded by our own search strategist who has 25 years of programming experience and 13 years of experience in organic SEO.  

We are excited to offer this product to a much wider audience and some of our patent pending features are unique in the space.  Contact me if you require further information.

So what about the name you may ask?.  The answer is random but not totally Cara is gaelic for friend and Sy is the accepted abbreviation for security.  So if I had to pretend there was major logic to the name I would say that it represents a secure friend for your SEO efforts but that sounds really corny so we will go with completely random.

I just returned from a business  trip to the UK.  It was interesting to see how the recession has affected the UK and certainly my impression from everybody I talked to particularly home owners is that they have not been as adversely affected as the US well certainly not Arizona in any case.  My home is now worth 2 and sixpence not quite what I expected after 10 years in the same place. 

Anyways on to the good stuff.  The trip started very well with a great trip in Business class out of Phoenix to Heathrow.  Terminal 5 is a tranquil place and not yet suffering from the mayhem I was used to in the other terminals.   I had a wonderful time in London and completely lucked out with the Indian summer.  Seven full days in the UK  and not a drop of rain.  Visited some great restaurants and of course Harrods food Hall which is still one of the best in the world.  I travelled to Berwick on business which is a few minutes from the Scottish border.  I had the privilege of staying in this beautiful Berwick Holiday home.  This is a fully restored and modernized country home and I was fortunate enough to stay as the guest of our friends at swiftrank.  We travelled across the border to Scotland a full 10 minute journey to have dinner one evening and ate at a simple Scottish pub called the Cross Inn a perfect example of how good home cooked food can still be the very best option.  When they first told me the salmon was farmed I looked concerned and almost did not have it thinking of the farmed salmon in the US full of red dye and waiting to poison you on every bite.  I relented and they are definitely kinder to the salmon on the farms in Scotland as it was delicious added to the homemade soup and desert it was a truly great meal.  If you are ever in Berwick I strongly recommend this great pub and restaurant.  You can see more details here on Berwick Restaurants.co.uk.

I was truly shocked at how expensive British Rail was 262 pounds round trip to the North of England for a three hour journey.  How can they justify that?.  The trains did arrive on time though and I was very pleasantly surprised to get on a train with free wi-fi and electric power so no running out of battery. Not the British Rail I remember from my old days as a British rail commuter in the UK but I digress.  I have posted a picture of me with two of my beloved nieces outside a phone box in London.  I thought these phone boxes were now part of history but was pleasantly surprised to find this one in full working order in the City of London.

I was heartbroken to hear from British Airways that effective October they will no longer allow 2 bags per person just 1 at 23 kilos.  How on earth am I going to bring back 40 lbs of chocolate and 1000 tea bags now?

They still have some red phone boxes in London

People ask me all the time Fionn “what has changed in SEO”? and I answer with “not a lot”. The tactics for good SEO have not changed but what has changed are the assets you can SEO. You still have web pages and your still need a great website with good code, and on and off page optimization. However, now the top 10 is no longer about web pages and you see video, images, press releases and so on in the results. This is where SEO has changed you need to optimize all your digital assets to ensure you cover all the channels in Universal Search. I start all presentations on Universal Search covering the basics of SEO as you need to follow the same best practices to optimize all your assets and do the same research for your target audience.

This presentation covers the basics and gives good cost effective tips on how to create digital assets to ensure you get your piece of the action.

On Sunday my daughters and I were driving down Scottsdale Road when we noticed a store called Sprinkles Cupcakes.  My youngest daughter the ultimate princess decided we simply had to check it out.  I must admit I was fascinated too and intrigued that a store could just sell cupcakes.  We parked up and entered the store to find that indeed the store only sold cupcakes.  Needless to say to complete our research we decided we needed to try some.  We handled over our $7 for two of the delightful looking treats.  We rushed home to try these special cupcakes to find that well they tasted just like CUPCAKES!! Except a little on the sweet side.

I found it fascinating that the store was packed and the rest of Scottsdale Road deserted.  I find it hard to believe that a store could survive just selling cupcakes in any economy but in this economy mind boggling.  Apparently this is a Hollywood Phenomenon enough said!!

Our Company has been providing Online Reputation Management Services for a number of years.  It still never ceases to amaze me how little work is still done in this field by PR agencies and corporate communication departments.  The following is a video which describes Online Reputation Management and how we do it.  You can also see a presentation of a case study on my slideshare channel.

You can also download our whitepaper on Online Reputation Management here

The US open Tennis tournament kicks off tomorrow.   A highlight of the Tournament is Arthur Ashe Kids Day  which took place today the 29thof August with a star studded line up.  From Jordin Sparks to Andy Roddick  the event took place in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium full of families and children.

My money is on Federer again!..If you are watching it from home this year you could be there next year if you win the Tennis Channel’s sweepstakes to the US Open 2010.  You can enter here.

One of my favorite sessions at the C-level track in San Jose was “The view from the CMO’s office”.  This very lively panel (panels with Kevin Ryan are always lively) gave some great insights into why the CMO doesn’t get the SEO.  Liz Miller – Vice President of the CMO council was an excellent panelist.  She gave some really good down to earth advice and was very funny when she referred to us as the ‘nerd herd’The panel closed with all panelists giving sound advice  to the SEO’s on how to work better with the CMO.

1. Passion is good but save it until you know them better.  Do not over do it. Educate first before showing your passion.
2. Crazy is bad (although I do not know why Kevin would say that!!).
3. Do not get personal.  Its none of your business that they water ski that is their hobby.  Liz said it creeps her out when people get right into personal conversations.  Despite the wealth of information available out there about anybody on the web do not act like a stalker.
4. Always come prepared with a business case, do your research into the company and try to have a pre-presentation call to hear the pain points and address them in the presentation.
5. Ask yourself, “If I was presented with this proposal would I walk into the CFO’s office and ask for money” Remember that is often what the CMO has to do make sure they have a strong case.
6. Do not be generic be specific, More web traffic is good will not work, but more web traffic from these search terms will increase your traffic by X and based on  the current conversion rate the percentage conversion will result in X # of $’s will help.
7. Find the pain points ask and listen.
8. Customer references are critical.

A Great session and another great SES San Jose.  There is a rumor that it is moving to San Francisco next year now count me in…

On a recent trip to Oklahoma City I had the pleasure of meeting once again with my friend and colleague from PRSA Mary Myrick.  As President of Public Strategies, Inc Mary is a busy lady and a lot of fun to be around.  When I met with Mary at the PRSA Councillors Academy in Palm Springs she was on her way to L.A. to purchase a smart car.  With true Mary Myrick style Mary chose a bright green car needless to say I am impressed with her choice of color.  The lovely little car made its way back to Oklahoma City and I had the pleasure of seeing it when I visited.  You can see the now award winning green (very appropriate) vehicle on Mary’s blog.  The car is called Bev although Mary did not share with me how the name got chosen.

These very cute and very fuel efficient cars have been available in Europe for some time and my children were fascinated by them when we visited England.  despite being very environmentally conscious  I would not drive one in Phoenix.  The idea of going on the Freeway with the SUV’s in one of these cars is about as desirable to me as becoming the next governor of Alaska.

This video by Matt Cutts gives good advice on chosing an SEO. Now why cant Matt say “but Elixir are the best” I should never have called him Sinead O’Connor at SES. You can see my post realated to hiring a SEO consutant here