Syzlak’s SEM

I was recently sent this article about “findability.” It’s a little cutesy for me, and all in all it riled me up a bit; however, I do think that some of the fundamental talking points were important, although misguided.

Captain Aaron Walter (I’m calling people Captain now, it’s new…don’t expect it to last) writes the melancholy tale of the woeful little boy, Findability. Apparently Findability is supposed to help people find websites, find content and be able to help people rediscover content they’d already found (no one told Findability that he was made obsolete by bookmarking). Findability would use the following techniques to help people achieve their goals: planning, writing, coding and analysis.

Well holy shit! So he used proper SEO tactics to setup a great site? Thank God! Wait there’s more…

Apparently, he worked at an agency and was therefore pushed around and not listened to. I can relate (although Findability seems to only work with males, which is a bit hard to believe). So what happened to poor Findability? Oh, apparently he was sent to “his sketchy uncle SEO, who tied him up and fed him keywords all day long. He spent so much time at uncle SEO’s that everyone started to think Findability was SEO, and subsequently became a little dubious of his importance.”

Flargh.

Captain Walter continues to libel SEO calling it “search engine duping.” Afterwards, he details a process that (aside from design) almost every good SEO does or should be doing for their sites.

So why the hatred for SEO? I would suspect that either Capt. Walter has had a bad experience with an SEO or SEO company, or he’s never looked into SEO. At the same time, his cutesy-assed story gave me pause. Should we look into re-branding SEO? Obviously, I’m being very extreme here, but it is true that SEO gets a lot of bad press and is greatly misunderstood because of some nefarious SEOers. However, if we were to sell people on being Findability Optimizers or FO (maybe Specialists in True Findability Usability ) would we be looked at with a greater level of respect and dignity?

I guess my point here is that I do all that little Findability does at my Agency, hell I do even more than he does! Most of the SEOers I know do too, yet if I’m to be perceived as being sketchy uncle SEO that just focuses on keywords and inappropriate touching…wouldn’t I rather be associated with the concept of Findability?

Tags: news, other people's work

Rushmore Drive
Is this really search
for the Black Community?
Or will it be for
dumb white kids

You rat bastard.

Steve, we had a deal. A) You’d leave Yahoo alone and 2) You wouldn’t be pushing adCenter propaganda down my throat. Today, I see that the terms of our deal have been breached. You done did both, you asshole. Only minutes ago I login to see your post “Come on…”

Who do you think you are? Me??!?! You can’t go around doing half assed posts with ellipses, that’s my fucking shtick! We talked about the Yahoo thing bro.

Then as I was about to leave today, I am assaulted with this:

What

The

Fuck?

You whoring (still odd looking) yourself out now? I thought you were my bitch, bitch. Here’s the bottom line Steve - buy a comb, stop stealing my shit and get back to work.

How’s SXSW going? We’ll have to get you that return ticket soon…

Come on….

I get pinged this morning by a former co-worker asking whether “[I'd] come across any blogs that say running homepage & branded terms in ppc is a good thing?”

It’s getting old people.

What’s getting old? Two things:

1) Asking around for answers instead of figuring it out for yourself (whether it be running tests or looking it up on some sort of universal encyclopedia…we need to get access to one of those)

2) Thinking that for any reason, bidding on brand name keywords would be a bad idea.

I know that I come at this industry from a different direction now that I work at an agency. The main focus of our agency has been building brands. So, whilst drinking the Kool-Aid (mmm, cyanide flavor!), I apply branding to everything I do online. Sure, some of our clients don’t have branded terms that generate much traffic, but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Building a presence in the SERPs is half the battle sometimes, especially for small clients.

That being said, did I learn this from running small accounts at the agency? No, I learned the value from running branded keywords and homepage ads on Best Buy - not really a small business.

So, in response to my friend, go run a test and figure it out for yourself. While I love how open this industry can be at times, and admit that I’ve learned a lot from some of the bloggers out there and the conferences, I hate how lazy it has made some of us. Shit, on average it takes 20 minutes and a week to find out how a new concept will work, and only 5 minutes to convince the boss man that it’s worth testing.

Hey there,

Syzlak here again, whoring my band out again to the Seattle folk.

… ahem

Was the last post not good enough??!?! Do I need to include links?

Here are the people I hope to see at the show via free linking:

• Rebecca, Jane, boyfriends, et. al. from SEOMOZ - you’re obviously awesome enough, and you don’t want to make SEOHack cry
• The Marchex office
• Elizabeth and John…fuck I don’t know a link for y’all
• M2
• Tommy..again no link, sorry…
• El Tigre Hilker and Streko…those were just free links
• Oilman, you’re new to Seattle…but you don’t know who I am
• Matt from SEOTunes - Is the UK really that far away?

I understand we’re all overworked, but it really would be a treat to see y’all at the show. No worries if ya can’t make it, I’ll see ya at SMX Advanced. Once again, we’re a fun rock-and-roll band. Come see us, it’s free!

Ok, this is the last band post I’ll make till our album comes out. Stay tuned for next week’s tribute to Google snippets.

Hey Reader! It’s time once again for me to be a whore and shill my wares…

Did you know that I’m in a regionally popular (Portland and Eugene (and only certain streets)) rock-and-roll band? No? Good heavens, you should! If you’re lucky and you live in the Seattle/King County/Metroland area you could be visited by my band, Donerail.

I’m heading up tomorrow, and we’re playing the Skylark Cafe in West Seattle on Saturday. Show starts at 9pm, hope to see you there!!

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