Syzlak’s SEM

I Need a Little Escape

Posted on: October 24, 2008 by Syzlak Comments

Reader, I have a headache.

Thankfully, it’s a headache of pure bliss; created by my own unwillingness to turn down my headphones. Earlier this week my pal and WordPress wunderkind, Nate, turned me on to Fucked Up’s latest opus, The Chemistry of Common Life.

Why am I writing about an album on a SEM blog?

Reader, I am many things. A search engine marketer, a musician, a sports-enthusiast, a political scientist and a humorist. I tried having 6 blogs take care of all of my interests, but frankly, I have to consolidate. In my personal life, I work for 9 hrs/day at my SEM job, then 1-2 hrs on music, then 1-2 hrs are alotted to personal time. When the hell was I going to update 5 other blogs??? It’s kindof like when you’re cleaning your closet, and you find your pleather. Sure, it was a good idea at the time, but now it’s a week later and you’ve realized you’re never going to wear those pants again.

So, let’s let this post, and all subsequent I Need a Little Escape posts, be time to unwind from SEM.

Earlier this week I was putting together my Top list of albums released this year, and to the best of my knowledge my favorite had been Paul Westerberg’s 49:00. An epic sprawl of songs crafted by one of America’s finest songwriters finding his voice again and creating the best music since his youth (see: The Replacements). Also in a short list: Blitzen Trapper’s Furr, Destroyer’s Trouble in Dreams and The Hold Steady’s Stay Positive.

So what catapulted The Chemistry of Common Life to the top of that list? To be honest, I think it was something about the guitar brilliance on display, the attention to detail in song craft, the lyrics confronting life and religion, the depth of instrumentation…or it was the raw energy of hardcore.

To hearken back to Reagan – I didn’t leave the hardcore and punk music. The music left me.

Yes, when I was in my first years of college, I’d found the brilliance that is hardcore and punk. You know, the old stuff: Black Flag, Bad Brains, Operation Ivy and the like. Sadly, as quickly as I found it, it left me. Soon, bands like Blink 182 and Less Than Jake were on the national stage, and I wanted to vomit. 2 years later I’m listening to Uncle Tupelo, the Old 97s and thinking that Steve Earle is a genius (which he is).

So you can imagine my excitement, when after more than a decade (Lord…) I’m told that I “might” like this new album from a band called Fucked Up because it’s got “good guitars” on it.

Apprehension sets in.

The first sound I hear on this supposed hardcore album is a flute. Let me repeat that. The first sound on the fucking album is a flute. Not a flute sample or keyboard mimic, but a real fucking flute (yes I’m trying to beat Hack’s record for F-bombs (yes I realize I just wasted an opportunity there)). The textural surprises don’t end there. There are 2 gorgeous instrumentals that separate the three sections of the album perfectly. It’s refreshing to hear a hardcore band pay attention to not only instrumentation (a fucking flute!), but also to album sequencing and purpose.

Fucked Up has crafted a damn fine album here, but more importantly, it’s a smart album. It’s a running discussion about birth, death, life and religion. Maybe I’m just getting old, but these themes seem to be very pressing to me right now; and, it’s great to hear a band like this, present the topic in this manner. It makes me feel young again, while being more receptive to the inevitability of growing old.

Well, there it is – the typical Syzlak self-reflection part of the post. Like the music at the end of an episode of Dr. Katz, the Wonder Years like self-reflection often signifies the end of a post for me. I’d had more things to say, but really if you can handle some beautifully orchestrated hard rockin’ music with a rather gruff sounding frontman, you should really just check out the album.

Our time is up.

The Disconnect in Understanding PPC

Posted on: October 22, 2008 by Syzlak Comments

Yesterday, Rand posted a rather short-sighted view on the discrepencies in SEO and PPC budgets. While, I understand his fundamental argument for increased SEO budgets, the post drew ire from myself and fellow PPC advocates. Through quick smattering of evidence, Rand showed that PPC is on the decline, everyone looks at organic listings all the time, and no one clicks on ads (paraphrasing here folks). So, aside from a simple disagreement on the purpose of PPC and the effectiveness of SEO, what am I so mad about?

To some of you this may be familiar:

This eye research has been shown countless times to illustrate the Golden Triangle of search – the red area in the top left of a SERP where users are most active, violently clicking away to their hearts’ desire on the first thing they see. Since you’re probably familiar with this research, you probably know that I used it in a post from December of 2007 about Google’s encroachment on this Golden Triangle. Shit, I’m not even the first to use it! In fact, if anybody clicked through on the link Rand gave for the pic, you would see that Inspired Impressions used it back in April of 2006 (over 2 years ago). 2 years in “search time” is an eternity. For reference, if you were to have a kid in 2000 and he were to grow up in “search time,” he’d be Robin Williams from Jack.

Here’s how SERPs look more often than not today…well at least as of December 2007 (I’ll admit when I took the screenshot)

See how our buddies at Google are putting ads into that Golden Triangle? Do you suppose that users might be clicking on those a bit more often than they did 2+ years ago? More importantly, did you see what the top listing was in the pic that Rand gave us?

Look’s like that’s a Sponsored Link, and it’s getting quite a few clicks too…

Wouldn’t it be great if current data was used to make claims of suspect? While I think that some of what Rand is arguing is prudent (SEO could use a bit more money and focus for many companies), I do not agree with either his methods or his implied conclusion (we didn’t get a conclusion out of Rand, so I don’t want to put words in his mouth).

The fact of the matter is, PPC can drive instant gratification (traffic), qualified visitors (through ad copy and keyword targets), motivated visitors (drop ‘em on a landing page…they’ve seen everything – they’ve seen it all), and it can do all of this for as many or as few pages as desired on as much or as little a budget available.

Market size is also a determining factor of PPC/SEO budget. When I worked in local search for a few years when it was first blossoming, I would never have suggested to the 100 plumbers in Atlanta that they could spend their budget on trying to beat each other, as well as the national giants, on organic listings. For some industries, it’s pretty easy to compete in the less competitive field of PPC with focused keywords than to try to tackle 8,000 competitors in organic. So, why not allocate $100 towards a PPC budget that will pay off, and do so quickly, as opposed to spending thousands on SEO – especially when thousands aren’t available?

I hate to call out my pal David Mihm, but I also had a problem with his comment:

Well, honestly, it all stems from Kate’s comment, but I was more irked by this one. Not to be a downer, but sometimes in a “down economy” (I call it a depression, but ok ), some companies may have to go with the cheap & quick solution just to stay alive. A lot of times, that’s the small businesses. Small businesses need to be present, build their brands and get visitors “in the door” just to make it to the next step-especially in a “down economy.”

I know Mihm, I know his work, he’s damn good and any small business would be wise to pay for his SEO services. Hell, businesses of any size would be wise to spend money on SEO; but for a lot of them, it’s just not in the cards right now. Not everything comes down to SEO having a bad reputation, being misunderstood & misrepresented, complex or the rest of the excuses a lot of us use; sometimes, SEO is just not what a business needs when we’re trying to sell it.