Blogs and Feeds

Ravelry -- A Community Site That Gets It Right

Ravelry, a community site for knitters, really gets it right. Being part of a community takes work and time. The user must constantly recheck the site, engage with other members, add to the community. All of this takes time, one of the most precious commodities any of us have. Ravelry has over 267,000 members, all knitters or crocheters, individuals who are eager to spend their spare time knitting or crocheting.

Confession time -- I am an avid knitter. I knit at home, while watching television, while riding in the car. I even knit in public, on planes, as part of knitting groups. I seldom don't have a knitting project with me. Like most avid knitters, I have a complex lace sweater at home that I must pay close attention to lest I get it really wrong. I have a very portable pair of socks on the needles, a large all knit sweater that I work on in low light locations. As one project finishes, there are several others all ready and waiting to go. This is typical behaviors for knitters.

Why my statement that Ravelry gets it right. The site fulfills a number of knitterly needs. It offers a place to share pictures of finished and partially finished projects with an audience, lots of community connectivity, information on yarns and much, much more. It is not just the activities that can be done on the site that makes it so compelling, but it is the organization.

The site was developed and designed by and for knitters. An avid knitter is always pondering what pattern to use or how would a chosen pattern work in a different yarn that the one shown on the pattern picture. A quick trip to Ravelry -- they are seldom quick -- can provide endless inspiration. Since community members share their experiences, it becomes an important part of the knitting process to check and see how a pattern works or what has been another knitter's experience in working with a specific yarn. It becomes part of the process to check these experience. If other knitters have found that the pattern knits up large, it is nice to know before putting hours of good time and lovely yarn into a project -- I, for example,  just made a hat that is very ample, a size smaller would have worked. I should have paid closer attention to the notes written by others who noted that it made up large. This is sharing of information and experiences is just what being part of a community is all about.

As more members come online in the community, and the database grows with evermore  finished objects, yarns and pattern links both free and for purchase, I expect this site to continue growing and engaging its audience. An audience very busy knitting. The time spendt on the site must be fulfilling since it is time away from knitting -- time over 260,000 knitters have chosen to give. Now, that is a community site that gets it right. 

SES Chicago Promises a Big Finish to the 2008 Conference Schedule

SES Chicagowill conclude the 2008 conference season with a big finish.  So why is SES Chicago a big finish? By December I’m well into plans for the following year with clients. I’m usually rapidly moving through planning new strategies to how will I put them into action. I use the insights gained from this conference to help me true my thinking on the direction we have chosen. SES speakers always present not only lots of top flight strategic advice, but it usually includes many tactical insights that will make the next year easier.

I am personally going to be speaking on Wednesday, December 12, at 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. on Podcast & Audio Search Optimization, a topic that I find particularly interesting since the challenges are technical and search combined. On Friday, December 14 ,after the conference itself concludes, there are in-depth training sessions presented on a selected topics. I will be teaching one of these sessions on Optimizing for Universal Search with Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR. We have taught this session before. Each time that we teach the session, we continue to tune and hone the material just as the engine continue to tweak their universal or blended search offering. If you have not caught this session yet, I would urge you to give it a try.  

I’ve always found that each of the SES Expos has its own special character. SES New York is infused with the crowds and energy of its proximity to Madison Avenue advertising. SES San Jose is always for me the show to meet the search engines and view them up close in their own habitat. SES London and SES Toronto have a special international flair. The flavor of SES Chicago is really on how to make this thing called search marketing work. It is roll up your sleeves and make it happen. With the economy forcing us all to work not only harder, but smarter, this is a good chance to get a jump start.

Also, with this conference you get to combine a lot of learning with Xmas in the city. Each year I look forward to having a chance to see Chicago decked in its Xmas finery. The Hilton Hotel, the venue for SES Chicago is always beautifully decorated and sports an enormous gingerbread house. Yes! I’ve heard folks mention the legendary Chicago winter weather, but as I learned when I lived in MI, the real winter doesn’t usually descend on the region until after Xmas. Will I see you in Chicago? I sure hope so. Let me know. I love talking to other search marketers.

See You at SES Search Marketing Training in Seattle?

Long ago and far away, I used to live in the Seattle area. To be specific in Bellevue, right near the bridge and very close to what was then a fledgling MicroSoft. It was in the early 80's just before MicroSoft went public. Those were the days, my friend. I've been back since to visit, but next week will be special.

Greg Jarboe and I will be bringing our SES training session on "Optimizing for Universal Search" to Seatttle as part of the SES training series. Greg and I usually have just a half-day to cram a lot of learning and information into. At this session we will have an entire day to focus on this important topic. I am really stoked and primed.

As a former college professor and an adult learning enthusiast, I really get a lot out of these training sessions. There is an old adage that when you teach you learn, and nothing can be truer. So I do hope that I will see you in Seattle.  

SES San Jose the Universal Gathering of Search Marketing Devotees

Can it already be after the 4th of July? The fireworks are over, and the beaches have their usual post 4th crowds. July always means that SES San Jose is right around the corner. I look forward to this show as the cherry on the top of the summer. This year it is scheduled for August 18-21. I will be speaking on one of my favorite topics -- blogging in a session entitled "SEO Through Blogs and Feeds". This is a topic that I spoken on a number of times. This time I look forward to taking yet another new slant.

Blogs have evolved and continue to be an excellent tool in the SEO arsenal, but . . . (I guess you'll have to attend the session to hear the rest.) I won't spill the beans here. The panel should be interesting. We all know each other and have for the most part spoken on panels together, so there should be lots of give and go in the session. 

Just in case you missed the imagery of the headline -- universal search -- and how to meet the SEO challenges and opportunities that it presents is a key theme for me. I will be addressing it in a half-day training session at SES on the Friday, August 22. Greg Jarboe and I taught this session "Optimizing for Universal Search" in Chicago, London and NYC, and I am looking forward to this training session. We really cover a lot of material and give lots of very useful optimization tips.

SES New York Video Interview with WebProNews on Universal Search

I love doing video interviews, even though for some reason I always seem to be replaced by some woman who has my voice that I barely recognize. Mike is always an enthusiastic interviewer and a pleasure to talk to.

SES New York 2008 -- Video Interview with Greg Jarboe

It is always nice to chat with Greg Jarboe. Here he catches me on video just after I completed doing a session on podcast search at SES New York 2008

Women in Search – Techie or Tacky?

At Chicago SES, I had the pleasure of attending the first women in search luncheon hosted by Ylayn Meredith Ousley, SEOFan Girl, at a beautiful white table cloth restaurant. It was far and away the most unique event that I attended – a celebration of women in search. It was a chance to enjoy the companionship of other successful women who share a passion for search.

At SES New York, Li Evans, who champions women in search and recently included me in her series on the Women of Internet Marketing took up the cause and arranged for another luncheon for women in search. Rebecca Leib wrote an insightful piece on the event that struck just the right notes. Rebecca opined that search is obviously no longer dominated by the classic stereotypical propeller-headed geeky guys, but now includes a generous measure of women. Danny Sullivan in a follow up post at his personal blog noted that there always has been a strong presence of women in search and at SES.

As a veteran in the industry, I would have to agree with both writers. The shift noted by Rebecca is real. Search is less geeky and more marketing than ever before. As search has moved to the C-level suite, it requires those who can speak to more than technical issues. C-level executives want marketing, many of the best and brightest in search are women marketers.

This being said I was quite taken aback by the comments to Danny’s post and a recent ClickZ column (read rant) by my long-time friend and colleague Shari Thurow; wherein, she inaccurately in my opinion noted:

“most of the women I shared lunch with were heavily involved in search engine advertising. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Search engine advertising is a rather challenging and detail-oriented niche. Kudos to my colleagues with the skills and patience to effectively compete in this arena.

Nevertheless, where were the women like me? Where were the techie women?”

Where were the techie women – the same place many men were – working for the women gathered at the luncheon? Those in attendance were not just “detail-oriented niche” players. They were agency heads, industry thought leaders, and search marketing pioneers. These are women who play large. Many have rich and varied experience bases and solid technical credentials.

Web marketing and in specific search marketing does require technical understanding. It is, as Shari contends, a left-brain/right-brain integrative discipline. Those of us who work in organic search must be able to understand and articulate the technical requirements of the discipline to be successful at what we do. I contend that we are architects of success, not just the carpenters.

I for one personally don’t ever intend to stand in front of the mirror and ask – “mirror, mirror on the wall, am I the geekiest women of them all?” I’ll leave that to others.

Search Blog Awards 2006 -- Congratulaltions

The Search Blog Awards have been published by Loren Baker. Readers were asked to nominate and rank their favorite search engine blogs in a number of categories. Congratulations to all of the individuals winning these awards. Maintaining a blog in the competitive search marketing arena requires real dedication, stamina and creativity.

One of the categories that readers were asked to nominate their favorites was Web 2.0 oriented blogs. I was thrilled to see that my "blog son" Frank Gruber's blog Somewhat Frank was rated third in this category, not far behind TechCrunch and ReadWrite Web.

Frank started blogging after hearing a panel that I did with Jeremy Zawodny at PubCon in New Orleans. How nice to see where Frank has taken this spark of inspiration.

Five things you (probably) didn’t know about me, -- I’ve Been BlogTagged

David Temple tagged me in the Blog Tag game so here I am about spill the beans on five things most people probably don’t know about me:

1. My first job -- It was as a kitchen helper at an Episcopal retreat house, St Marguerite's Retreat House in Mendham, New Jersey. Every Friday afternoon after I finished my college classes, I would eat dinner at the convent across the driveway, then help serve dinner at the retreat house, run the dishwasher (oh the thrill and power of the commercial dishwasher), set up for breakfast and then return to my room in the convent, and listen to the murmur of the nuns as they chanted the Compline prayers. Then, it was off to bed for a very early start. The retreat house was silent area, where we were urged to keep conversation to the minimum, so by the end of my workday it was always a bit of a shock to return to the real world. 
2. On a noisier note -- Some people remark, even complain, that I have a loud, booming voice. It is no accident. Two of my aunts, my dad’s sisters Dusolina and Euphemia, were opera singers. Dusolina sang at the Met during the 1930s, and my aunt Euphemia taught voice at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for many years.  My grandfather was an operatic tenor whose voice was heard on some of the earliest recordings. Here he is singing Santa Lucia a tune covered by Elvis Presley some fifty years later. I marvel that I can hear the voice of my grandfather whom I never got to know. Who knew that today I would be into podcasting and digital audio and only sing in the shower?
3. On a literary note -- I’ve read the entirety of Plato’s Republic in Greek. I did this as part of my graduate studies. I’ve also read lots of other works in both Latin and Greek. I once thought that history after the Renaissance was too modern to interest me – there was so much neat stuff to know and learn about the so-called Dark Ages.
4. On a restless note -- I love to drive. One summer I actually drove by myself from Seattle to Northern California, then on to Michigan and then back via the Dakotas to Seattle. I had the company of ten show dogs in my pickup truck. We camped, went to dog shows, and in Michigan I spent a week in the main office of the company that I worked for. I’ve also driven from Michigan to Florida with my dogs, and of course I’ve driven all over the Midwest with the dogs. Note: I have no dogs now. Not all of my long lonely jaunts included dogs. I once drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan to San Antonio, TX in a van with a load of computer equipment that needed to go to a trade show. Even now I still have a fierce wanderlust, and it doesn’t take much to trigger it.
5. On a strange note -- I’ve been on national television on a leash. I got you going there – I was holding the leash while I showed Ziggy, one of my dogs in the Toy Group competition at Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show . The event is televised to dog lovers far and wide. Ziggy was an English Toy Spaniel, a Blenheim. She was one of many that I loved, played with, showed, cared for and mourned over a period of twenty active years in dogs. I closed my kennel ten years ago. This one is not mine, but a lovely similar dog. 

Bonus -- As if you have not read enough. I’m an avid fisherwoman. I love to fish (and play golf). I don’t care if it is with a spinning reel with bait or a fancy fly rod, catch and eat or catch and release - I’m game. Most of the year you will find tucked into the back of my car trunk a fishing pole, small tackle box, and a valid MA fishing license. My particular love is to fish in the cold waters off Maine.

Now here are some folks I’ve tagged that I want to know more about:

Lisa Williams

Jeff Molander 

Sam Harrelson   
Rick Klau

Sam Decker

SEO in 1995 - Who Knew?

Recently, when I was preparing to bid adieu to an old computer (checking to make sure that it did not have any files on it that I might regret deleting), I came across a folder of old invoices dating from 1995. I paused nostalgically to see just what kind of work I was billing for so long ago and (alas!) how little I was charging for it.

What was I billing for in 1995 -- search engine marketing? The invoice was for keyword selection, META tag development and submissions. Yipes!

Little did I know at the time that 11, almost 12 years later I would still be doing SEO. The tools, tactics and search engines have changed, but goal is the same -- making sites visible on search engines. Who knows what the next 10+ years will bring.