Posted on: October 22, 2008 by Syzlak
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.
Posted on: September 10, 2008 by Syzlak
At the risk of sounding pithy, emotional and self-interested, (didn’t you want “Wonderful Tonight” to be playing when you read this?) I feel it’s about time to do a personal piece. I know no one really likes to read them, but we all accept them as forms of catharsis for the writer. While recently I have tended to do fewer and fewer SEM related posts, it’s not for lack of interest; but rather, a lack of new information. Sure, I could spout off what a dozen other writers are spouting off right now. I could tell you a bit of information that many writers have said months if not years before me. It’d be old news. Somebody might get something out of it; certainly SEOHack would give me praise…the rest of you would ignore it.
So why bother?
Why bother to write all this useless shit? I have a couple tips I’d like to share; but when I start thinking about posting them, I start dreading the act of posting. The hour or more to properly craft the piece. The 10 minutes to get a good pic. The endless waiting for a response from 1 of my readers – not for fame, but to make sure it made sense. The massive boost of 4 visitors to the site…
What’s the fucking point anymore?
If you don’t read this blog religiously (by the way, religiously for me is a perfect description of my interaction with this blog. I was raised Catholic and never made a habit of going to Church since I lived in Illinois. Once in awhile, as I believe is the case with a lot of Catholics who have strayed from the Church (which isn’t entirely accurate, but I digress) I will go to Mass. I don’t know why, I just do. So, it’s kind of like posting here – I do it when I feel guilty) then you might have landed here after hitting the Stumble button. If so, click an ad before you leave, I know you’re not paying attention to what’s being said anyway.
Do I sound defeated?
If so, it’s your own damn fault. Everyday hundreds of “SEO” bloggers post useless lists in order to have new content on their sites. They repeat what someone else took the time to write. Sometimes they disagree with something someone wrote, and they expect us all to care. It’s like the song by The Hold Steady “Most People are DJs.” Cloak and Dagger Media has a great quote from Craig Finn about his song
I think that DJing, like rock criticism, tends to be a way for people to participate in the “scene” without taking the risks to the ego that go along with producing music or any other art.
Sounds like blogging. “Hey everyone! Come read my list about stuff I didn’t think up!” Congrats. Awhile back, I’d read that the current crop of 15-25 year olds are being labeled the “Look at Me” Generation. That’s not entirely fair, as the age bracket should be bigger. Let’s say 10-40. While we’re out, let’s rename it. I think anyone that writes a popular blog should be known as a member of the “Look What I Found” Generation.
What’s my point?
Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. At the risk of depressing everyone Hack my reader, be prepared to read a lot of depressing posts over the next few days. I’ve lost the energy to care about this blog. Well, at least this incarnation of the blog. I’m tired of trying to find something to say about something I don’t care that much about.
In the end, maybe that’s a good thing.
Photo Credit to Stereogum
Posted on: June 26, 2008 by Syzlak
While I’ve talked about reputation management and the lack of comprehension within the industry, today I’ll talk about a different type of reputation management: relationship management. I know this strays a bit from the world of SEM, but once in awhile (or for the last 2 months) I’ll stray to tackle other topics that interest me. Often times they apply to SEM or life in general, and I believe this is one of those times.
The other day a friend of mine asked a simple question
How do you tell a coworker to STFU without sounding like an asshole?
This depends and in my younger days, I would have gone the blunt route. Nowadays, I tend to sigh or walk away – I’ve learned to cover my ass. We all have annoying people we know; whether they be co-workers, friends, family, sig. others or bartenders. Learning how to deal with them is clutch in learning how to succeed in life. In my friend’s situation the problem seems to be that a co-worker is loud, frequently off-task and fairly self-centered. Nothing is ever “their fault” thus they never apologize, nor own their own actions.
When I heard the full criticism of the co-worker, I came to a humbling realization
That’s kinda how my old job was
Yeah?
Although I don’t know which side of your situation I was on. I was a lot louder and more obnoxious back then and nothing ever was my fault (but then really…when is it?). There were a couple people who I know despised working with me; however, as someone once put it “you either love Syzlak or you absolutely hate him…no one is ever just ‘fine’ with Syzlak.” Today, I don’t think anyone here hates me…and there are even people who are “just fine” with me!
…and I achieved this goal through maturity.
It’s true. Although I’ve worked since I was 17, I’d never had a white-collar job until I was out of college. Then at the ripe old age of 23 (I failed 1st grade), I entered the Search Marketing world. For the first 6 weeks, I was a bit timid – although always a know-it-all. I felt that I always had to look like I understood, regardless of whether I really did. When I used to work retail, this wasn’t the case. I was willing to listen, to learn and then afterward I would start to let that side of my personality come out. This was the big leagues though, this was something that I might end up doing for a long time; and in my mind, I had to look smarter than everyone else.
After I’d become more talented and given more responsibilities it just got worse. They’d fed my ego. I was going to be the most obnoxious person there, even though the entire time, I just thought they were all to uptight. It was like a Rodney Dangerfield movie for 8 hours a day. People would be working while I would be swearing and cracking one liners. When anyone would try to talk to me about it, I’d respond flippantly with the old “Hey, relax will ‘ya?”
To some extent, none of this has really changed though. I’m sure my direct boss has a hard time when I go off on my rants from time to time. I’m sure he’d rather I didn’t swear. I bet he’d like it if I didn’t snap at him so often. Hell, I’d like it too, but at the same time, that’s just me. Where I’m different from my friend’s co-worker is how, when and where I “act out.” I wouldn’t go off on a rant if I was in a big room with other people, that’s how it was when I was 23 and in my first job. Today, it’s confined to an office with my boss. He tends to be cool with it and accepts me, thus I know I can rant when I need to.
*****
By this point, you’re probably saying, “We get it, you’ve changed. Why, what or how did the change happen?”
For me, it was having a more consequence driven leadership team. When my company was bought out, my days of being a fuck-off had to come to an end. New management came in and they kept calling me on my shit. Sometimes I’d be perceived as being insensitive, rude, inconsiderate to co-workers. Once they even construed something to have been inappropriate with one of my clients. To be absolutely fair, although they weren’t always right and I still see it as a witch hunt (I had refused to relocate), it did make me think twice about how I carried myself throughout the workday.
In general, I think one of the big problems with any office is under-management, and that’s exactly how I was when I had my first team. In a lot of today’s businesses, youth are given roles well beyond their experience. Sometimes it’s due to strong performance, sometimes it’s a lack of personnel; either way, it often leads to either abuse of power or under management.
During my second year at my first job, I became a bit of an important person. I had people in Atlanta, Houston, the OC, Las Vegas, Seattle, Anaheim and Eugene that I either managed, trained, influenced or contacted. Some directly, some indirectly. 
To make matters worse, my local team were mostly made up of people that the company wouldn’t have hired for a proper job. I had the Leg-Up program from Cypress Creek Elementary and they were difficult at times to say the least. [Note: Josh, Marleena and Daniel, if you read this know that I wouldn't include y'all in this group - you guys were great...well, Daniel...you kinda let me down at the end, but hey we all got tired of that job]
In the end, the best lesson I ever learned was when I realized that it didn’t matter. There’s always going to be something screwing up your day or your life. So why end up making it worse by bitching and blaming. Recently, persistence has been the one thing keeping me going. For 2 years I’ve bothered my boss to expand our department’s client base by going outside of the Agency’s normal business model.
What does he say?
Well, now I’m writing the proposal. Sure, it’s 2 years later, but it took that long to get to the point where
- I could make a change
- I was respected to that level of trust/responsibility
- I’d convinced enough people that this would be a good idea
- I felt confident in the fact that either it would work or I’d be looking for a new job and either way I’d be comfortable
It probably helped that you started wearing pants to work
Yeah, thanks for explaining that boyshorts aren’t named after their audience
Posted on: April 16, 2008 by Syzlak
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?
Posted on: March 5, 2008 by Syzlak
Except for a few people from Ask, they aren’t working at all…
Lord, I’m busy. By the next time I post, I’ll have recorded the bulk of my band’s next album, gone to SearchFest ‘08 (tagline: Don’t Hesitate to be Great in 08!!) and worked like a dog in between.
So, shit, what’s been going on lately? Ask is dead? Again? That’s sad to me, I’ve always enjoyed the hope of competition in the search field, and I thought Ask was getting better. I think that it’s too hard today to battle the omnipresent Google. I mean Google is now a verb for fuck’s sake!!! How could Ask ever compete with that?
Other news… (yes, I’m doing a lame editorial recap of the last few weeks in order to make up for the fact that I didn’t do a like-like link post)
SMX West happened last week. Did you go? No? Neither did I. Do you remember how we were forced to hear about all the great parties, cool contacts and fantastic information that we were missing out on? Yeah, me too. It’s a great time to be alive. If you missed out on SMX West, check out this great piece by Streko, it more or less sums up the existence of those of us that have to stay behind in order to keep the company running.
Not at all search related, I’ve added one of my favorite sites to the blogroll, The Strategic Retreat. Good post on there today…
Ok…there’s a meeting happening in my office, so I’ve lost my train of thought. Anyway, if you’re going to be at SearchFest ‘08 come find me. I currently have a Yacht Rock-esque haircut, but I assure you I won’t be dressed the part. I’ll be running around and volunteering, whilst trying to update via Twitter and posting right here on SyzlakSEM. Sadly, I won’t be able to hang with the SEOHack 
as he’ll be at home, sulking, drunk and alone. That is, if you don’t count liquor and guns as friends.
All right, done rambling. See ya in a week or so!
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