sâmbătă, 24 noiembrie 2012

Seth's Blog : The decline of fascination and the rise in ennui

 

The decline of fascination and the rise in ennui

A generation ago, a clever idea could run and run. We talked about Space Food Sticks and Tang and Gilligan's Island and the Batmobile for years, even though there certainly wasn't a lot of depth. Hit movies and books stayed on the bestseller lists for months or even years (!)

Today, an internet video or an investment philosophy or a political moment might last for weeks or even a few days. It's not unusual for a movie or a book or even a TV series to come and go before most people notice it. Neophilia has fundamentally changed the culture.

The result is that there's an increasing desire, almost a panic, for something new. Yesterday was a million years ago, and tomorrow is already here. The rush for new continues to increase, and it is now surpassing our ability to satisfy it.

When that need can't be filled (which is not surprising, if you think about it) then we're inclined to declare that it's the end, the end of new ideas, the end of progress, the end of everything that's interesting. Spend a week or two watching TED videos and once you catch up, you might find yourself saying, "sure, but what's new now?"

If you're in the business of making a new thing, this churn may be an opportunity, because it's easier now than ever to send a hit up the pop charts, whatever sort of pop you make. But it comes at a price, which is that it won't last, and you'll quickly have to go back and make another one.

The real opportunity, I think, is in trying to build longer arcs. Now that the cycle of new is eating itself in a race to ever-faster, there's a bigger chance to make long term change by consistently focusing on what works (and what's important), not what's new and merely shiny.

What's important, what's always important, is useful change.



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vineri, 23 noiembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


"Honorable Returns" and "Social Requirements"; More on Gift Cards

Posted: 23 Nov 2012 06:26 PM PST

Earlier today I received a nice email from Mike "In Toyko" Rogers regarding my post Do Gift Cards Make Any Sense? Is it Time to Ban Christmas Presents Altogether?

Mike writes ...
Hi Mish,

In Japan, even though Christmas gift giving is not customary, we do have a custom called "O-Kaeshi" (Honorable Return).

What "O-Kaeshi" means is that when you receive a gift, then you are obligated to give one back. The Japanese take it to extremes as when a gift is given then another is returned and then another given back for the one that was given back and the cycle continues.

I have put my foot down and told my wife and our friends to "Stop!"

It's really absurd when a Japanese visits a foreign country and then feels obligated to buy some souvenir junk for the folks back at home (I mean, how many Hawaii refrigerator magnets - that are made in China - do we really need?)

When I tell the Japanese that we are to "stop it" (and I can because I have an executive position at work) they seem to always be relieved. Cultural and social pressures are not to be under-estimated.

Anyway thinking that you have to buy presents for the aunt you don't like or cologne for the uncle you don't even really know not only a waste of money, but philosophically inane.

It's Better to buy gold or silver for the immediate family for yourself.

Thanksgiving is a better holiday than Christmas away because, at least, there's no "socially required" gift giving.

Mike
More on Gift Cards

Reader "EM" writes ...
Hello Mish,

The one circumstance under which gift cards make sense for both buyer and seller is if the card is offered at a discount to face value.

For example, I have long been using my local coffee ship's gift card in lieu of cash there because I can buy a $100 card for $86. When it runs low, I just add another $100, again at a cost discount of 14%. The store owner gets more of my business than otherwise because I spend more when I feel I'm getting good value, and I enjoy the discount and the convenience of not having to worry about having cash in pocket.

Aside from this usage, though, gift cards are a complete racket.

Cheers,
EM
Mike and EM are both correct.

That said, I will point out there is nothing wrong with gift giving as long four conditions hold.

  1. Exchanging gifts is genuinely mutual as opposed to a social necessity or obligation
  2. The act of exchanging is not an emotional chore
  3. No one is financially burdened
  4. The gifts are appreciated and generally usable

I wonder what percentage one or more of the above is violated.  I also wonder when it will be commonplace to discount gift cards.

Although I seldom see gift card discounting now, I suspect it will not be long before the practice is rampant. Once one major store offers discounts, the others will all follow.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


Eurozone PMI In Steep Decline as Services Suffers Worst Month Since Mid-2009

Posted: 23 Nov 2012 09:12 AM PST

With the markets giddy over the "success" of people spending more money than they can afford on gifts that make little practical sense, other inquiring minds note the Markit Flash Eurozone PMI® shows Eurozone sees ongoing steep decline as services suffers worst month since mid-2009.
Key Points

Flash Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index at 45.8 (45.7 in October). Two-month high.
Flash Eurozone Services PMI Activity Index at 45.7 (46.0 in October). 40-month low.
Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 46.2 (45.4 in October). Eight-month high.
Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI Output Index at 45.9 (45.0 in October). Two-month high.

The Markit Eurozone PMI® Composite Output Index was little-changed in November according the flash estimate, up fractionally from 45.7 in October to 45.8. October's reading had been the lowest since June 2009 and, for the fourth quarter of 2012 so far, PMI data suggest the strongest contraction of output since the second quarter of
2009.

PMI vs. GDP



Summary

Activity has now fallen in 14 of the last 15 months, with the exception being a marginal increase seen in January. Output fell sharply in both the manufacturing and service sectors and, while the former saw the rate of contraction ease slightly, the latter saw business activity fall at a rate not seen since July 2009.

The ongoing drop in output reflected a further steep deterioration in new business, which fell at one of the fastest rates seen since mid-2009. A sharper
rate of decline in the services sector was partly offset by manufacturers reporting that their rate of loss of new orders had eased slightly to the weakest for eight months.

The plight of the service sector was also highlighted by companies' expectations for activity in the year ahead dropping to the lowest since March 2009. Sentiment dropped especially sharply in Germany, but improved slightly in France.

Forward-looking indicators in the manufacturing sector also pointed to ongoing weakness in the coming months. The amount of goods purchased for use in production fell steeply, causing stocks of purchases to contract at the same pace as the
near-three year record seen in October.
Service Activity Plunges in Germany

The Markit Flash Germany PMI® shows Sharpest fall in services activity for almost three-and-a-half years, but manufacturing downturn eases in November.
Key Points

Flash Germany Composite Output Index(1) at 47.9 (47.7 in October), 2-month high.
Flash Germany Services Activity Index(2) at 48.0 (48.4 in October), 41-month low.
Flash Germany Manufacturing PMI(3) at 46.8 (46.0 in October), 2-month high.
Flash Germany Manufacturing Output Index(4) at 47.7 (46.3 in October), 2-month high.

Summary

November data indicated that the combined output of the German private sector dropped at a broadly similar pace to that seen in the previous month. However, this masked divergent trends in the performance of the manufacturing and service sectors, with the former posting a slower drop in output compared with October while the latter registered its fastest contraction since June 2009.

Another overall reduction in German private sector output reflected an ongoing contraction in new business volumes. Lower levels of new work have now been recorded in 15 of the past 16 months. Manufacturers and service providers indicated broadly similar rates of decline but, as with output, there was a divergence in momentum compared with that seen in October. Service providers posted the steepest decline in new business for three months, while the drop at manufacturers was the slowest since March. The latest drop in new export orders received by manufacturers was the least marked for six months, which some firms linked to support from stronger demand in China.

Shrinking new business volumes in the service sector contributed to a steep drop in expectations for activity over the next 12 months. The index measuring service providers' business expectations was the lowest since March 2009.

German private sector employment dropped at the sharpest pace since January 2010. A softer fall in manufacturing staffing levels was offset by the most marked decrease in services jobs for three-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, backlogs of work in the German private sector dipped for the seventeenth successive month in November, suggesting an ongoing lack of pressure on operating capacity.

Comment

Commenting on the Markit Flash Germany PMI® survey data, Tim Moore, Senior Economist at Markit said:

"The picture emerging from November's survey is that the Germany economy will end the year with a whimper rather than a bang, as troubles in the eurozone continue to weigh on domestic business and consumer confidence. ... November's survey suggests that the near-term outlook remains bleak for both manufacturers and service providers. Stocks of purchases across the manufacturing sector, which can be a useful barometer of confidence in the demand outlook, dropped at the steepest pace for three years – despite a slower fall in new work. Meanwhile, in the service economy, the year-ahead outlook was reported as the weakest since March 2009. The survey panel noted widespread worries that client budgets will be cut in 2013, alongside expectations that the euro area crisis will further undermine the German recovery."
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


The Truth About Bullying [Infographic]

Posted: 23 Nov 2012 01:55 PM PST

School bullying is a constant issue that never seems to go away. The best preventative measures require constant attention from school administrators, faculty and parents. Hence the need to highlight the issue once again to avoid complacency for bullying can pointlessly blight the lives of those affected for years to come. Stomp it out now!

Click on Image to Enlarge. The Truth About Bullying
Via: romanticfrugalmom


Why You Might Want to Do SEO on Someone Else's Site - Whiteboard Friday

Why You Might Want to Do SEO on Someone Else's Site - Whiteboard Friday


Why You Might Want to Do SEO on Someone Else's Site - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:51 PM PST

Posted by randfish

OK, we know what you're all saying. You're saying, "But…why would I want to help someone else rank for my brand?" Stick with us, though. You can leverage the strength and authority of other sites to help increase the authority of your own site.

This week, Rand discusses this theory and shares a few reasons why (along with examples of how) you should work SEO on someone else's page to help yourself.

Have you tried this tactic before? How did it work out? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.



Video Transcription

"Howdy SEOmoz fans. Welcome to this special Thanksgiving edition of Whiteboard Friday. As you can see, today I'm dressed in my fancy pants clothing. Today is actually the What the Fancy Wednesday at SEOmoz. It's the first time we're ever doing it. Joel, who's behind the camera, I know you can't see him, look really hard. If you turn around behind you, that's where he is. He's also wearing a tie. Lots of people at the Moz offices are dressed lovely. But it's eclectic lovely, which is why I'm wearing a green sport coat and a pink tie and all that kind of stuff. All right. And the beard is back, thank goodness. It was rough going without it for a couple weeks there. Whoo, that was hard times.

This week on Whiteboard Friday I wanted to talk a little bit about why you might want to do SEO on somebody else's site. This might seem a little bit strange, because in SEO we learn very early on that putting all of your content on one domain, putting all of your links to that domain, doing all of your SEO work on a single domain is much, much better than spreading out your efforts, not just from an effort and protocol perspective, but also from a rankings perspective, because of domain authority, because of how domains and an individual sub-domain inherits domain authority and link metrics and all these kinds of tings,

But weirdly enough there are some cases when it might make great sense to do SEO on somebody else's site. Now the classic example that you'll always hear is reputation management., meaning I want to control the search results for my brand name or my brand names because I don't want anybody else getting in there or saying something bad about me or having the ability to draw away my traffic.

But actually there are some other big ones. Let's start with number one. I like to say don't just reputation manage, meaning don't just control the fact that there's no bad stuff on there. If there are great things that are being written about you or your company or your brand or your product, make sure they rank well.

For example, imagine I have opened Rand's Fancy Pants Shop. It's quite possible. Who knows, maybe the career here at Moz won't work out. I've got Rand's Fancy Pants on Twitter, my Facebook page, and that kind of stuff. But what if The Seattle Weekly or the Stranger or The Seattle Times wrote an article calling Rand's Fancy Pants the best men's shop in the city? It might not rank very well normally, naturally because they probably aren't doing a great job at SEO. But me getting that independent press piece to rank highly for my brand name will probably actually improve my conversion rate and make more people want to come site and buy from me and come to my shop and all these kinds of things.

If you have positive press out there or if you're going to start generating some and get it to rank well for your brand name, that's even better than reputation management. That's reputation improvement.

Number two, you can leverage the domain authority of other websites. Now, I don't just mean this from the perspective to help put links back to you. I mean there might be search results where you say to yourself, "Boy, you know what? These keywords are just too darn competitive. I'm too early stage. My site doesn't have that much authority. It's going to be hard." A lot of times it's hard to get people to link to your site, but it can be much easier when you're independently requesting links or pointing links to a third party site that happens to have some interesting content that you might have controlled or uploaded or those kinds of things.

So there are great places to do this. If you're throwing an event and you happen to use good branding for the keywords you want to target for that event, places like Eventbrite can be amazing. For pages that you might want to control around specific campaigns or specific products, you could have a specific Twitter or Facebook page that you have that is earning all of those social signals as well as the rankings. Remember Twitter, in particular, Google just loves to rank Twitter pages for brand names.

SlideShare, putting content on SlideShare, you can control everything about that page, the text content that's on there, that's the content from the slide. The comments you get to control. You control the URL and the title. So you've got a lot of control on SlideShare, and if you can make that SlideShare do well, perform well, it will go to the front page of SlideShare, which means it gets a lot of links and attention and awareness from SlideShare internally that can help boost it up. I've seen SlideShare URLs ranking for all sorts of highly competitive phrases.

Google+, I've noticed that a lot of Google+ threads, individual threads that are public rank quite well and they're improving and improving as Google+ gets more and more domain authority of its own. What this means for you is use that title element on a Google+ thread. If you start some text and you surround it with the asterisk or star character, that will become bolded. That becomes kind of the title of the post. Then you can have URLs that you put in there. You can upload images there. You can put video and share video inside of Google+. All those opportunities.

YouTube same thing. Quora same story. You can start conversation threads, questions. Individual responses to questions get their own URL. Forum threads at forums you might find and guest posts. I particularly wanted to call out guest posts because guest posts is a great opportunity where you see that there might be someone who's ranking particularly well in your niche, has a lot of domain authority, has a popular blog, and rather than trying to get a link, which is what a lot of guest posts expect, you can say, "I don't want a link. I just want to write a great post for you."

Your real goal is to have that post rank, to have that post rank well and be associated with your name and your brand name. You're not even going after a link. When you're not, you seem less selfish and sort of have much more opportunity to do these kinds of things. Obviously, you're going to have to write a great post if you want it to rank well.

Number three, this one is a little bit of a chain effect, and this is kind of an old school SEO tactic, but something that still works. It actually started out in the spam world, where essentially black hat spammers would have a legitimate page that was linking to them and they'd point a bunch of crappy, low quality links to the page linking to them, rather than to their own site, essentially bolstering up the strength of the page that was linking over so that if those links got banned or penalized, it wouldn't impact their site. It would only impact the site linking to them.

This is sort of keep things that might harm you one step away from yourself. But this actually works very well in the totally white hat SEO world as well. If you've got a great link from a source, and especially if Google's not crawling it or they haven't crawled it yet or that link doesn't appear to have had much impact, you might want to point some links at it to help that page gain some extra authority, particularly if it's on a powerful domain, but you're feeling like, man, it's just not getting the credit, what I would normally expect it to provide to me, you can pump that page up.

I've got an article that The New York Times wrote years ago literally about facial hair trimming styles or something, and I had done a blog post about this years ago. They link over to SEOmoz. But it wasn't particularly valuable. So over the years, every once in a while I'll throw out, "Oh yeah, I was mentioned in The New York Times once here. It was kind of a weird article." But that's actually improved the value of that link coming from the NYT coming back over to SEOmoz.

Then fourth and finally, you can control bigger portions of SERP real estate. If there's a ranking that you particularly say, "Man, I'm ranking number two, number three, or I'm ranking number one and I'm getting great traffic. This is highly converting traffic. People come back again and again. They subscribe. This is wonderful traffic. I wish I could get more people from this."

This leveraging some other domains, leveraging SEO on other people's sites that reference or point to you can be a great way to kind of own more of the search engine real estate that shows up, and this can be done not just with standard search results, but think about videos, think about articles that include rel=author, any type of rich results that they're mixing in there, not just rich snippets, but vertical types of results. So location style results or news style results, you can enhance the rankability of other pages on other people's sites that reference you in order to control more of the real estate for a key phrase or term.

All right everyone. This is going to be wonderful. You're all going to go out. I hope you had a great turkey day, by the way. I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving for our friends here in the States, and for those of you overseas, we love to give thanks around this holiday in the U.S. and hopefully you have a lot to be thankful for as well. Of course, now you can go and link build to lots of other people and optimize other people's websites, and they'll be very thankful for that of course too.

All right everyone. Take care. We will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday."

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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Time for the White House Christmas Tree

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Friday, November 23, 2012
 
Time for the White House Christmas Tree

Thanksgiving was only yesterday, but here at the White House we're starting to decorate for the next round of holidays. Today at 11 a.m. EST, watch on WhiteHouse.gov/Live as First Lady Michelle Obama is presented with the White House Christmas Tree. In case you miss it, you can watch the whole thing on WhiteHouse.gov later today.

Watch First Lady Michelle Obama receive the White House Christmas Tree.

Photo: President Obama Jokes with the Team

President Obama jokes with Oregon State University basketball team

President Barack Obama jokes with players from the Oregon State University basketball team in the Oval Office on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22, 2012. The team's head coach is Craig Robinson, brother of First Lady Michelle Obama.

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog

Weekly Address: Wishing the American People a Happy Thanksgiving
During this holiday season, President Obama gives thanks in his weekly address.

West Wing Week: 11/22/12 or "Hello Burma!"
This week, the President made a historic trip to Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia; attended the East Asia Summit; and pardoned the National Thanksgiving Turkey at the White House with the First Family.


Shop Small on Saturday, November 24th 2012
In between the Black Friday sales and the Cyber Monday deals is Small Business Saturday (tomorrow, November 24th) – a day set aside to support the small businesses that play a vital role in creating jobs and economic opportunities all across the country.

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Tips for SEOs on initial agency-client engagement

Tips for SEOs on initial agency-client engagement

Link to SEOptimise » blog

Tips for SEOs on initial agency-client engagement

Posted: 22 Nov 2012 04:44 AM PST

As this is my first post on the SEOptimise blog, I wanted to write on a subject that reflects a situation that I find myself in an awful lot. No doubt this is a situation that anyone reading this post will have found themselves in at one time or another.

Whenever we receive an enquiry, whether it's a phone call or an enquiry form from our website, this person has taken the first steps in contacting us, meaning that they are interested in SEO services. Yes, I am a genius for figuring this part out! The people who enquire will tend to fit into one of two categories; people who know what they want and people who don't.

The people who know what they want are used to agency interaction and understand how a digital agency will operate. They will have their processes set around this knowledge. I refer to the Request for Information (RFI) > Request for Proposal (RFP) > Pitch > Contract Dance that we have all learned to enjoy. In my opinion, this category of people (though usually requiring much more work at the later stages of the process) are much easier to deal with.

The latter category can sometimes prove a bit more challenging and in this scenario, it is the agency's responsibility to educate the potential client and identify their needs. Whilst thinking about this category of people, I thought I would write something that agencies could use to help clients identify their own needs, but I also hope that this post will reach some clients before they pick up the phone and make that first enquiry.

Things that an SEO agency needs to know from the client:
An oldy but a goody, the campaign goals:

"…and what are you looking to achieve with an SEO campaign?" This is still without a doubt, the most important question of any engagement process. One campaign goal I hear quite frequently is, "I want to be on the front page of Google", which is fine, but not if your keyword list is 10,000 words strong and you're looking for a number one position for all of them in a 'three month trial'. For an agency to make a strong proposal, they will need to know what they're aiming towards. If a client is unsure, encourage them to think about what they want to achieve. The first part we need to understand is:

"What is the site there to achieve?" or "What is the main revenue stream?"

For example it could be advertising, so the client will probably need to focus on traffic numbers and should probably be targeting high volume search terms. The traffic will probably need to consist of a certain number of unique visitors.

Is the site media and information based? Do they need to attract subscribers? This example could be much more about brand building with the success measures based around building community. In this instance the metrics for the project could be about referring traffic.

It could be a retail site, in which case the site is there to make sales. This client should be looking at slightly different metrics such as converting traffic, good quality traffic, or an increase in conversion rate amongst others. This can be broken down even further, to the targeting of specific products. Maybe seasonality is a factor. Maybe products with the highest margins or highest revenue earners could also be a particular focus.

Really thinking about the business goals and revenue targets are important and will help the agency to make suggestions on the type of tactics it may employ in order to achieve the campaign objectives.
Our very own Matthew Taylor once said something that has stayed with me. "SEO is a marketing practice and it's there to make you money. It should pay for itself and then some."

An agency needs to understand how it can benefit a client before it is engaged. Once goals and targets are established it is much easier to look at potential campaign ROI. Creating projects which are focused on the client's return, means that when presenting its proposed campaign strategy, the agency can provide a good business case, but much more importantly, it provides real value to the client.

Internal team setup and processes:

SEO agencies work on websites. As such, the agency will need to know who, on the client's side of the operation, will also be working on the website. This means development teams, content teams, and PR teams to name a few. If an agency is to make a proposal, they need to know their place in a business' day-to-day working practices, and whether any changes or site additions will need to be signed-off by a particular team. It can be devastating to a campaign's progression if there are cross-overs in individual tasks. Let's get those communication channels open. Good points to establish at this point are:

  • Who is responsible for site changes, the agency or the client?
  • What is the sign-off process and timescale for any recommended changes?

These points have a great impact on how the project will be structured so are extremely important, especially when both parties need to know how much time will be allocated to the project. This inevitably affects the campaign budget.

To summarise these points (and at the risk of being accused of writing a blog post that should have only contained 14 words), the agency and client need to know two things:

  • What is the campaign there to achieve?
  • How are we going to work together?

These bullet-points can be opened out into a landslide of other questions, some of which have been covered above, but these two should hopefully open the doors to building a successful campaign.
When a project is ready to kick off, everything should have be done to make sure it is as well planned as possible, ready to meet its objectives, expectations have been set realistically, and both parties know their roles. This applies to both sides of the relationship! As more information is uncovered, a decent campaign will naturally change over the days, weeks, and months that follow, but if both parties have been as open and honest as they can be, without withholding crucial pieces of information, then your campaign should be up for awards in no time at all.

What are your experiences? Are you client side or agency side? I love to hear your comments!

Image credit: Highways Agency

© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Tips for SEOs on initial agency-client engagement

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  2. 3 Tips & Tools To Help You Become a Better SEO Project Manager
  3. The Challenge of Selling SEO & Forgetting the ‘Human Ranking Factor’