luni, 18 noiembrie 2013

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


2013 Miss Universe Contestants Wearing Their National Costumes

Posted: 18 Nov 2013 05:54 PM PST
























UFC 167 Weigh-In: Did Will Campuzano have a Boner?

Posted: 18 Nov 2013 05:21 PM PST

Does Will Campuzano have a boner in this UFC 167 weigh-in?
























Sex Symbols of the 80s Then and Now

Posted: 18 Nov 2013 08:24 AM PST

Kathleen Turner



Kim Basinger



Johnny Depp



Richard Grieco



Sharon Stone



Michael Douglas



Heather Locklear



Lorenzo Lamas



Kevin Bacon



Tom Selleck



Catherine Bach



Richard Gere



Madonna

"We Will Stand By Your Side"

Here's What's Happening Here at the White House
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Featured

"We Will Stand By Your Side"

Last week, the First and Second Families honored Veterans Day, the President traveled to New Orleans and to Cleveland to speak on the importance of infrastructure to job creation, signed the EpiPen Law, discussed immigration reform with Faith Leaders and attended the 5th Annual Tribal Nations Conference.

Did you miss West Wing Week last week? Check it out here.

West Wing Week: 11/15/13 or "We Will Stand By Your Side"

 

 

  Top Stories

Vice President Biden Celebrates Citizenship at King Center Naturalization Ceremony

On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a naturalization ceremony at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He welcomed 104 newly naturalized citizens, representing 50 countries. This ceremony is one of 120 naturalization ceremonies held throughout the nation and overseas in the last two weeks to welcome approximately 8,000 new U.S. citizens.

READ MORE

Taking Control of America’s Energy Future

In his weekly address, President Obama discusses progress in American energy and highlights that we are now producing more oil at home than we buy from other countries for the first time in nearly two decades. We reached this milestone in part not only because we’re producing more energy, but because we’re wasting less energy, and as a result, we are also reducing our carbon emissions while growing the economy.

READ MORE

Community College to Career Tour on the Road Again

Today, Dr. Jill Biden and Labor Secretary Tom Perez made a visit to Cleveland Community College in North Carolina and Broward College in Florida as part of their “Community College to Career” tour designed to highlight innovative workforce training partnerships.

READ MORE

 

 
 
  Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Time (ET)

10:15 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

11:00 AM: The President meets with senior advisors

1:30 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 

1:30 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks discussing the importance of investing in infrastructure to improve America's competitiveness, strengthen the middle class, and grow our economy

3:30 PM: The President meets with Secretary of the Treasury Lew

7:30 PM: The Vice President arrives in Panama City

 

Did Someone Forward This to You? Sign Up for Email Updates

This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com

Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111


Stop Thinking Keywords, Think Topics

Stop Thinking Keywords, Think Topics


Stop Thinking Keywords, Think Topics

Posted: 17 Nov 2013 03:16 PM PST

Posted by katemorris

We have hired a few new people at Distilledâ€"we're always growingâ€"but as I was explaining the Keyword Planner to our new hires I realized that we are all thinking the wrong way for the future of online marketing.

One of my colleagues, Tom Anthony, has a very scientific way of explaining it: The new query according to Google. He comes to the same conclusion I did: "We need to stop looking at keywords and starting looking at queries." In short, we need to be focusing on what the user is looking for rather than specifically all of the ways they can phrase it.

I am not going to try to convince you of this. We are here. This is the world we live in, so rather than adapting the old way of thinking to the new search order (NSO?), it's time to change our thinking.

What does this really mean to us as practitioners on a day-to-day basis?

We have to stop using the term "keyword" as much as we can. It will never go away, don't get me wrong, but our focus has to change. This means speaking differently, reporting differently, and changing the conversation with our clients about their goals.

You are going to get asked for a keyword research report or a keyword ranking report soon. We as search professionals have provided them in the past, so it's normal for your boss or clients to expect a certain type of data or report. However, with the changes over the last few years, it's time to modify what we report to align better with the data we can get and the data that is best for our goals.

Start by defining your goals

We've said this time and time again: You have to define what you want as a business before you can really get to doing your job in the best way. Your company goals could be:

  • to be a thought leader in your space
  • to grow the business
  • to launch a new product
  • to increase your company's share of voice in the market

These goals should be set by the company collectively, not just you. Your goals are based off of this. Your goals should be something measurable and impact the company's goals. Let's say that the company wants to grow their business's revenue by 50% next year, website performance can help that with conversions, new visitors, and overall more traffic. Therefore your goals might look like:

  • Increase overall website traffic by 25%
  • Increase new visitor percentage from 25% to 40%
  • Increase conversion rate from the website from 45% to 70%

Notice that keyword ranking and traffic based on keywords are not in here. It's doubtful they ever have been part of your defined goals, but knowing your goals and the company's goals helps change the conversation.

Now, what do you want to accomplish?

Time to start the hard conversations. You should be reporting on your goals from above and what actions you are taking to affect those numbers. At some point your boss or client will ask for a keyword or ranking report. When they do, ask what they want to accomplish with that information. It'll give you more insight into what they are looking for and how best to report that to them.

Most likely it's so they know what your efforts are focused on, and that's understandable.

  1. Start by explaining your goals and how they impact the bigger company goals.

  2. Then, explain the changes to the information that is sent to analytics, and that reporting on the keyword level is next to impossible.

  3. Finally, talk about how you want to stay dedicated to things that can be measured, and provide results to the company's bottom line.

But... we have to RANK!

If they then say that the keyword is the most important thing for you to report on, ask why again. The answer is usually because that's how you tell if your site is ranking for a term, or if your "SEO is working."

Rankings happen for many reasons; the keyword or query is just the initiator of the process. You optimize a page to be the strongest it can be after you've made it the best page for a specific need or topic. There are multiple variations of keywords for any one topic, and therefore your focus should be on the page and the topic, not just one or two of potentially hundreds of keywords.

The two major factors in ranking that you can have an effect on are related to the target page. Having relevant content and strengthening the page are what you should be focused on as a search marketer. Look at the highest correlated factors to ranking from the 2013 Ranking Factors Survey. All of the top factors are page-related.

Your next question should be: If I stop thinking about keywords, how do I know what content to develop to rank?

That depends on the user. We as a profession have really lost sight of talking to the users of our websites. Think about any number of keyword research presentations in the past few years (I've done and seen a number of them) and you'll see that many of them spoke to the Google Keyword Tool's numbers being wrong and getting inspiration in other places, mainly where your target market hangs out.

If you want to know what content to write to "rank" for terms, ask the people who are searching for that topic what they are looking for and write that. This changes how we do research but I think for the better.

Changing reporting

I am going to leave you with how I have started reporting on page level changes and how "SEO is doing." You should again be reporting on the metrics you defined in your goals, but you'll need to replace keyword-specific reports. I'm referring to reports like the number of keywords sending traffic (RIP; that was a favorite of mine), branded vs. non-branded keyword traffic, and ranking reports.

Step 1: Define all search landing pages

This should be all pages on your site technically except those noindexed, but we almost all have an idea of what pages get traffic from search engines. If you are a larger e-commerce site with thousands or millions of pages, you can group these into categories or by page type. Whatever works for you.

Step 2: Prioritize the top landing pages

Remember the terms you always had to report ranking on? What were the pages that needed to rank? Identify those and make a prioritized list just like you would have with keywords.

Step 3: Pull monthly traffic over the last year for those pages

You can automate this of course, but if you have a small number of pages it can be done by hand as well. Traffic is what you want to know about, and you want it to be going up. If traffic goes down to that page, that is your sign that something changed, either the SERPs or demand for that content. Just like if rankings went down, you'd investigate why after seeing that drop.

Step 4: Pull related data per page based on your goals

For the goals we defined above, I'd also report on the percentage of new visitors and conversions. You could report on bounce rate or time on page as well. Below is something that I recently sent to a client (modified to be able to share with a wider audience, of course).

I then investigated the pages that lost traffic and they are on my list to watch next month. This is just how I decided to do it for this client and I am interested to hear how you are having to change your reporting to deal with the changes in our world.

Please share your thoughts below, and have a great week!


Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Seth's Blog : Extinguishing the tantrum cycle

 

Extinguishing the tantrum cycle

Tantrums are frightening. Whether it's an employee, a customer or a dog out of control, tantrum behavior is so visceral, self-defeating and unpredictable, rational participants want nothing more than to make it go away.

And so the customer service rep or boss works to placate the tantrum thrower, which does nothing but reinforce the behavior, setting the stage for ever more tantrums.

Consider three ideas:

  • Listen to the person, not the tantrum
  • Tantrums want to deal with tantrums
  • Create systems to avoid it in the first place

When an employee calls you up, furious, in mid-tantrum, it's tempting to placate or to argue back. That's the tantrum pressing your buttons. Instead, ask him to write down every thing that's bothering him, along with what he hopes you'll do, and then call you back. Or even better, meet with you tomorrow.

Email tantrums are similar. If someone sends you an email tantrum, don't respond, point by point, proving that you are correct. Instead, consider ways to de-escalate, not by giving in to the argument, but by refusing to have the argument.

Engaging in the middle of a tantrum does two things: it rewards the tantrum by giving it your attention, and it makes it likely that you'll get caught up, and say or do something that, in the mind of the tantrum-thrower, justifies the tantrum. That's the fuel the tantrum is looking for--we throw tantrums, hoping people will throw them back.

When you have valuable employees or customers (or kids) who throw tantrums, that might be a sign that there's something wrong with your systems. The most basic way to decrease tantrums is to find the trigger moments and catch the tantrum before it starts. By creating a way for people to raise their hand, send a note, light a signal flare or otherwise highlight the problem (internal or external) before it leads to a tantrum, you can shortcircuit the meltdown without rewarding it.

If your dog is going crazy, straining at the leash and barking, it turns out that yelling, "sit," is going to do no good at all, no matter how loudly you yell. No, the secret is to not take your dog to this park, not at this time of day, at least not until you figure out how to create more positive cycles for him. Eliminate the trigger, you start to eliminate the tantrum.

Unfortunately, just about all big customer service organizations do this precisely backward. They don't escalate to a supervisor or roll out the kindness carpet until after someone has gone to Defcon 4. They decide that it's too expensive to be flexible, to listen or to treat people fairly, and they wait until the costs to both sides are really high, and then they give an empowered person a chance to solve the problem. There's huge waste here, as the problem costs more to solve at this point, and the unseen challenge is that they've established a cycle in which umbrage is the rewarded behavior.

And the last (but essential) thing to keep in mind is this: tantrums are really expensive, and if you can't extinguish the ongoing problem, fire it. Fire the customer, fire the employee. Establish a standard that says that people around here don't act like that. Expose the tantrum for what it is, and if necessary, do it in front of the tantrum-thrower's peers. It will free up your resources for those that are able to earn them.

When the cost of throwing a tantrum is high and when the systems are in place to eliminate the triggers, tantrum behavior goes down.

       

More Recent Articles

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.




Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498

 

duminică, 17 noiembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


France Tax Revenues €5.5 Billion Lower than Expected; Poll Shows 92% Do Not Believe Hollande's Tax Promises

Posted: 17 Nov 2013 03:07 PM PST

In spite of massive hikes in taxes on the wealthy and an increase in the VAT and other taxes revenue estimates missed their targets badly. Reader Lionel writes ...
Hi Mish,

As you were expecting, France did not manage to get as much tax revenue as expected by the government. Total revenues were €5.5 billion less than expected, split as follow:

€500 million less in income tax
€1 billion less in VAT
€4 billion less in business tax (tax on business profits).

Moreover, if you compare it to the initial forecast, it's €11 billion less than expected! And of course expenses have increased €3 billion.

It reminds me your past articles about Spain.

Lionel
Let's take a look at some of the links Lionel sent.

Budget Minister Admits Revenue Shortfall

Via translation, Budget Minister Admits Revenue Shortfall of €5.5 Billion
The Minister for the Budget Bernard Cazeneuve admitted Sunday that the revenue of the State in 2013 would be lower than expected, the order of € 5.5 billion, due to the poor economy, he said.

"According to our calculations, there is a shift to VAT of about one billion, and corporate tax of about four billion," said Cazeneuve.

The income tax shortfall was around 500 million euros.
Spending Up €3.3 Billion

Translation from Le Figaro shows 3 billion in additional spending for 2013.
In these times of fiscal discontent and protests by Brussels, the expected improvement of public accounts in France in 2014 and 2015, the government had to be reassuring about the traditional collective fiscal year-end synopsis presented on Wednesday.

Forecasts deemed "plausible" by the High Council of Public Finance, however warned of "a significant gap" between the structural deficit in 2013 (excluding cyclical effects) to 2.6% of GDP, higher than the 1.6% estimate anticipated at the end of 2012.

Overspending give rise to 3.2 billion in new funding, including $ 2.1 billion for the general budget and the balance for the EU budget.

Five days after the downgrade of France by Standard & Poor's, a ministerial meeting was called to control of public expenditure from 2015 to 2017. After an effort of 15 billion compared to the upward trend in spending in 2014, "the next year budget will extend this action," said Matignon. To target deficits of 3.6% of GDP in 2014 and 2.8% in 2015, without increasing the tax burden, government must cut expenses by 16 billion.
Brussels Does Not Believe Budget Promises

Unsurprisingly, Brussels does not believe the promises made by Hollande.
While Paris was planning to back below 3% in two years (2.9% to be exact), Brussels predicts it ... 3.7%! Only slightly less than the year before.

The European Commission reasoning "constant policy" (that is to say without further corrective action), so she informed the French government has no chance of meeting its target back below 3% in 2015 without implementing further structural reforms.
French Do Not Believe Spending Cut Promises, Tax Promises, Growth Promises

Brussels does not believe Hollande, and neither do French citizens. Via translation from Le Fiagra, please consider Budget 2014: the French do not believe.
SURVEY The survey Way Opinion for Le Figaro Magazine are clear: the French want to reduce public spending, but do not believe in the government's promises to do so.

In September, the economy minister, Pierre Moscovici , had referred to the "ras-le-bol tax" of French and Hollande himself had spoken of the need for a "tax break" in 2014. Wham, just two months later, came the environmental tax, taxes on saving products like ELP or PEA 15.5%, and a new tax on their gross operating profits of corporation.

These examples illustrate the discrepancy between government speech and deeds! So much so that today, the French do not trust their government. This is what emerges from the study conducted by Opinion for Le Figaro Magazine: 92% of French people do not trust the government to lower taxes, 82% do not believe government will lower spending and 80% do not believe growth targets!
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com