To a rather large degree we all paint reality with a thick coat of paint in an attempt to see what we want to see rather then what is really there. Constructing our own version of reality may be just what a business owner needs to to avoid pulling her hair out at the end of every business day.

Graphs and charts can be helpful in bringing small business owners out of their own self created view of reality, but it is important to remember that charts and graphs only tell us how others are perceiving the thick coat of paint they put on their daily view of reality.

Having just ranted about painting reality in our own image, below you will find the latest chart from MarketingSherpa. The chart shows how a group of business people view SEO when it comes to their business. The one thing I would have liked to see is, of those B2B respondents what percentage have at least a a small presence in building community around their products and services. In other words how would the B2B answers differ if the business owner is engaging the community say with a forum.

The Efficiency of SEO Objectives by Primary Market

I have been reading a book entitled On Writing from Sol Stein and have found it to be a wealth of fine information about writing both fiction and nonfiction. Reading yesterday I came across a little gem that gets to the heart of successful  SEO/ SEM. Commenting on a writers intention Stein says the following

To provide the reader with an experience
that is superior to experiences the reader
encounters in everyday life

This sentence provides small business hoping to get more traffic to their site a clear path and also points out something many people engaged in SEO/SEM may be missing. Search Engines Love Unique Content.

Really! I’m stating the obvious to make a point, crafting your website or blog around unique and superior content feeds both the reader and the search engines with the food they crave. Combining emotion with a well thought out keyword strategy will fit into your business strategy and deliver successful results.

If you look around for examples of this thirst I am talking about you can’t help but fall over a dozen without even trying. Readers are thirsty for information thirsty for compelling knowledge that is useful to their lives and to their questions. One very good example of this thirst can be found offline in the guise of news organizations, these business groups are consumed with a thirst for information the quality of the info is not all that important it’s the uniqueness of the info they want, this enables them to scoop their competitors.

Search engines are thirsty for unique superior content they can use to deliver the searcher the best experience possible. Remember “best experience possible” drives a reader back to the search engine over and over filling the engines pockets with shinny coins, these coins are the reason search engines will reward websites and blog that have unique compelling content with better listings and better listing drive more traffic.

Adobe announced yesterday that they are acquiring Omniture for 1.8 billion US. dollars. Their announcement “”Adobe customers are looking to us for solutions to deliver engaging experiences and more effectively monetize their content and applications online,” left me scratching my head and wondering where I could find more information. stifling

At first blush it would seem Adobe is going to integrate monetization into the creative, here is what they said “merge the “art” of developing and delivering content with the “science” of measuring the impact of that content.” Now we all know content is product consisting of pictures, video, websites, code and digital creations. If you merge analytic concideration into the creative process do you end up creating nothing more then “mass art?” I wonder.

Digging even deeper into what this could mean I see a row of employees sitting in cubicals plying their very expensive and formaly prized Masters in Fine Arts in the service of corporate oversite, everything they create for advertisers and media buyers, everything product designers and artists rangle from their creative interior is fed into a series of Analytic Funnels to make sure it is loved by the largest number of people, then and only then will it be seen by the public.

Could this mean all Creativity will be judged by public opinion before it sees the light of day? Will some little man walk between each cubical stopping just long enough to say yea or nay, basing his total decision on monetary value, shoving aside insight, vision and genus for a few extra shillings?

Is this the herald of the dark many artists have dreamed about in their lean moments? Maybe our only defense is tapping the creative spirit and just say no to Analytic Funnels. I can hear the cogs grinding in Corporate America right now…Can you?

Source:  http://bit.ly/1AEbHM

Search is a good snapshot of what people are doing and what questions they are thinking about at a given moment within their lives. As time goes on more and more data will be gathered and Search will become a more accurate portrait of who we are as people and community.

For some time I have been watching trends from different sources telling me about where people are aiming their thoughts when looking for information about daily activities and commerce. This morning I went over to Google Trends and took at snapshot of what has been happening in search since 2004 with these 4 info hubs Yellowpages.com – Yelp- Superpages- Yellow Book..

The graph below paints an interesting picture of what people are pointing to in Searches on Google. There are many ways to view this information, I’m presenting a snap shot in time and not a scientific analysis of what is going on. The main thing I see in this graph is that people are interested in fresh interactive info sites, static sites will continue to fade with each passing year.

What does this have to do with small business on the web? The answer is simple, engage your users and customers with a crisp user experience or someone else will.

I was reading posts over at Webmonkey when I came across 10 Reasons to Politely Decline a Web Design Gig. It made me laugh and cry at the same time. We have all run into situations like these no matter what set of services we offer. Here is number 10 through 7, read more of the post here

10. He can’t stop telling you about how horrid his last developer was.

9. He wants to make sure you can build his site so it will show up first on Google.

8. He’s already got a list together of 100 words for his meta tags.

7. There isn’t much money for this job but it could really lead to a lot more work down the road.

I was thinking about success this morning and all the effort and thought we put into achieving it when I came across a blog post at thenetsetter.com written by Collis Ta’eed. his post is titled “Putting the Odds in Your Favour”, in it he wonders about the relationship of luck and success and if luck may be just another name for hard word or sticking with it.

I have always believed in luck as I have always believed in perseverance and sweat, however I’m not sure they are the same thing. There are no guarantees that the ball will fall into the correct slot while you wait around nor if you work your whole life at one thing will you positively reach a successful plateau. No I think there is luck, however I can’t tell you how to find it or how to purchase a bag full of it. There are those who will tell you it’s a “Secret” and if you give them money they will tell it to you, or maybe give you a map so you can find your own “Secret.” I’m pretty sure what they are selling is a course in perseverance and not for a second would I discourage anyone from finding their own “Secret.”

There is a new search engine launching on August 3rd, about 31 days from now it will take flight in a very crowded field, huge competitors looking it squarely in the eye, daring it to move an inch forward. This search engine will explode upon the same field where hundreds of others have had epic crashes, becoming nothing more then a foot note in history, nothing more then crumbs on a table, merely shattered remnants of their former dreams.

This new search engine lets us know in its name that it knows what it is doing smart.apnoti.com, it tells us it will succeed with wonderful technology and one can make a reasonable assumption that it is well funded and every one of its founders and employees is fully vested in persevering. I suspect everyone at this new shinny search engine believes they have luck, even if they don’t talk about it. Surely the odds are stacked against them, surely perseverance will not get them to the finish line with such monumental obstacles (Google, Yahoo, Bing) standing ready to eat them.

Luck may be their new best friend once the glitter and media glare has faded and they must go about their day to day jobs, and persevere. Luck may just smile on them with a little success or maybe one tiny little thing will come into play and “BLAM” they’ll rocket into an orbit so high that the big 3 take serious notice of this new young player in their house. Who knows?

From the desks of Organic Hat SEO I extend all my best wishes to the new little search engine that promotes itself as the world’s first real-time search engine. I hope everyone will try it out and with a tap of a finger to my hat I wish it all the Luck in the world.

When we wake up in the west on election day, most of us take for granted that our vote will count. When we wake up in the west on election day, most of us know that no matter the outcome, our vote will not have to compete with wide spread voter fraud. When we wake up in the west on election day, most of us will go to sleep that day knowing the results and knowing those results are protected from the heavy hand of special interests. Today is a day for bloggers to unite in support of legal and fair election results in Iran and in every country. When the world wakes up, it will be a better day.

On monday June 29th, 2009 many people around the world will stand up and ask the leaders of Iran, Where is My Vote?   This day and the question are not about changing the gov’t but about asking that they listen to their own people.

Click on the banner picture banner for more information and follow the event by reading blogs that are writing about this event on Monday.