SEO Werkt!

For many years, I’ve been on panels where I comment on PPC landing pages volunteered by the audience. Given the wild popularity of these sessions, it’s safe to say that marketers are still way behind in their landing page improvement efforts. Often, they just need a push to get started down the…



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Noise does not (necessarily) indicate influence.

Popularity does not (necessarily) indicate influence.

Numbers do not (necessarily) indicate influence.

Here’s how influence is earned:

- Do a great job.

- Grow in both knowledge and wisdom.

- Care about people.

- Aspire to something big and worthwhile, and inspire others toward it.

Social media changes nothing except to give one more false measure of influence. There is no shortcut. The squash grows (and fades) quickly. The oak is in it for the long haul.

___________

Hire Steve Woodruff for Clarity Therapy

Recent posts on Connection Agent:

>> Clarity, part 1: Your Distinguishing Offering

>> Clarity, part 2: Your Go-To Market Message (in 10 words or less)

>> Clarity, part 3: People Buy Your Story

If you caught yourself groaning when you saw this was yet another Pinterest post, I don’t blame you. The Web’s latest social media darling has taken both the Internet and the industry blogosphere by storm, and the network’s popularity shows no sign of slowing: the site is now the third most popular…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

URL shorteners have been around forever, but they became considerably more popular as Twitter’s popularity grew and users wanted to squeeze as many characters into tweets as possible. You may not have realized, but Twitter now shortens every URL to 19 characters, whether the posted link is greater or less than that number. More »

If you were to only read about the actions of the European Commission (that are driven by the likes of FairSearch.org) or that of the latest headline hungry DC politico regarding what Google represents, you would most certainly think that Google is truly trying to do evil.

Well, let’s take a look at the people that actually use technology to help them live their lives rather than as a political wedge for personal gain. Guess what a recent study by the Washington Post and ABC News found. People, that’s right, actual people and not politicians or slimy business opportunists, find Google to be almost beyond reproach. I’m not saying that is good but it sure is contrary to how politicians position the company. Here’s the results

It’s interesting to see one of the most vilified companies in the world (by the tech press and the insiders’ club) basically crush Facebook and Twitter with regard to the consumers’ level of popularity which is just another word for trust.

Have you noticed that all we see from the “insiders” of the tech world are the claims of deviant and evil behavior where Google plays fast and loose with users’ privacy and does whatever it can to make it impossible for fair competition to take place. Well, this kind of result coming from end users shows that either the people aren’t paying attention (very probable), don’t care (even more probable) or don’t see Google as trouble for them but rather as help for them (most probable).

Combine this general feeling of Google being a good thing with the Google Haters Fan Club seeing the only way to compete is through the legal and political systems (albeit incredibly ineffectively) and you have quite a dichotomy regarding Google. Funny thing is that in this case the only one that should matter is the consumer because they trust Google even though they have plenty of options to get information elsewhere.

So how do you see this kind of data? Which side of the fence are you on? Do you think that Google is, in fact, doing evil or are they simply giving people what they want?

A couple of website owners recently got a warning from Google with regards to artificial or unnatural links. Also referred to as deliberately misleading links, artificial links are made for the sole purpose of increasing a website’s popularity. It’s considered unnatural if it’s coming from a popular but irrelevant content. Thus, search engine bots do [...]

Yesterday I jumped into #InfluenceChat on Twitter for a bit.  The topic was criticism that the Kony 2012 video is receiving.  If you are like me and have not seen the video yet, it’s apparently the most viral video of all time.

That’s meant a lot of sudden exposure to the organization behind the video, Invisible Children, and a lot of criticism.  Critics have said the video oversimplifies the current state of affairs in Uganda, and there’s also been questions about how the organization/charity spends its money.  And there have even been rumors that the video’s creator, Jason Russell, has suffered a mental breakdown due to the criticism the film has received.

“Because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal and Jason took them very hard,” Jason’s wife Danica explained in a statement.

To be fair, Kony 2012 is an extreme example.  No one, not even the video’s creators expected, or were prepared for it to receive 80+ million views.  But it did, and that’s the funny and amazing thing about creating digital content: You never really know when your message is going to strike a cord and spread like wildfire.

And when that happens, that means your message leaves the ‘safe’ bubble of your devoted friends/family/readers, and a completely new audience is exposed to your content for the first time.  And that means YOU are open to criticism as well.  When it comes, here’s how to deal with it:

1 – Remember that the criticism is NOT personal.  It can’t be personal if it’s coming from Joe Jones in Washington that had never heard of you before he read your post this morning.  Even if the criticism is harsh and attacking, it’s aimed at your ideas, not you.

2 – Remember that criticism means your idea is spreading.  Receiving criticism on your blog post or video or picture almost always means you’ve struck a cord with someone.  And when that happens, your content is more likely to be shared, and that means more people are exposed to it.

3 – Remember that criticism means more debate.  Nothing spikes a conversation more than someone jumping into the middle of a comment thread where everyone is agreeing, and saying ‘yeah I think everyone here is full of crap!’  Differing viewpoints breed more interaction and comments.  Which feeds back into the above point: It means your idea is spreading.

4 – Remember that how you HANDLE the criticism greatly determines if you will get more or less of it.  In the first point I mentioned that the criticism you’ll receive initially isn’t personal.  But if you attack your critics, then you open the door for far more criticism.  And you also pull the rug out from anyone that was defending you.  But if you keep your wits about you and keep the interaction focused on the ideas and not the people, then the chance of receiving further criticism falls dramatically.

5 – Remember that if everyone agrees with your idea, then it’s not reaching enough people.  Seriously, if every blog post you ever write is only viewed by your friends and family, you’ll likely never hear a bit of criticism, and you’ll be told every day that you’re the best blogger in the world.

When your idea leaves your safe little bubble, that’s when it begins to make an impact.  And I think that’s what most/all of us want.  We want to create content that others find value in.  We want others to interact with our content, and be moved to action.

We want to make an impact.  And making an impact means upsetting some people, and drawing criticism.  Accept this, and understand that criticism isn’t a bad thing, it usually means your idea is winning.

‘Drawsome intern’ is an initiative to recruit talented young creatives for an internship at Muse Amsterdam. Given the current popularity of the app it’s great to see it being used in such a creative way. It would be cool if they shared the winners drawings

Gmail has an automatic spam detection system that uses a combination of pattern analysis, user analytics, and virus/phishing detection to send suspicious messages directly to spam. Gmail’s spam detection and filtering, which is extremely accurate, is part of why the email service has reached its current popularity levels. Yesterday evening, Gmail announced a new feature [...]

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