Central Perk

marți, 6 august 2013

Home means a lot

Hey all --

Owning a home is at the very heart of middle-class security. It means a lifetime of memories -- of family dinners, basketball in the driveway, cookouts in the backyard, and watching your children grow up.

Your home is also a tangible connection to your community -- a critical part of the American identity. That's why having a home you can call your own is a cornerstone of what it means to have a middle-class life.

Today, President Obama will return to Phoenix to talk about the progress we need to build on in the housing market -- higher home values and helping millions refinance -- and the opportunities still before us.

President Obama has a plan to build a more secure foundation for responsible homeownership. Check it out and forward it on so that others can get the facts, too.

It's time to help hard-working folks fulfill their dream of buying their first home. We can help responsible homeowners refinance their mortgage, and make sure middle-class families and all of those working to get into the middle class are never again on the hook to bailout certain mortgage lenders for irresponsibility and bad loans.

And that's just what President Obama outlined in Phoenix: commonsense steps that will help protect the middle class and everyone working to join it. So even as Washington gets bogged down by endless distractions and political game-playing, the President is focusing on what really matters.

But in the weeks and months ahead, we'll need your help getting the message out.

We put together a graphic that helps explain the President's plan for a more secure foundation for middle-class homeownership.

Click here to check it out -- and then share it with your friends and family.

Thanks!

David

David Simas
Deputy Senior Advisor
The White House
@Simas44

P.S. -- If you've got questions about President Obama's plan, you can ask him yourself.

He'll be answering questions about his plan tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET, so ask your question and be part of the conversation.

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5 Ways to Prove to the Client that the Traffic Will Come

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 02:23 PM PDT

Posted by james.harrison

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

This post is dedicated to those hard-working white-hat SEOs helping websites obtain top search engine rankings the right way. Sometimes we have to remind the client that slow and steady wins the race. However, the majority of the time the client doesn't want to hear that, especially if they are paying for SEO services month after month.

Yes, SEO is an investment; however, showing them that they are investing in your services and skills requires a little more than just performing SEO services. Due to the search share click distribution, the client canâ€™t really expect major increases in traffic until they reach the first page of the SERPs. Sometimes they can see instant increases in traffic via long-tailed terms after completion of thorough on-page optimization. But, for the most part we have to educate them so that they will be patient. Remember, they hired you because they are not experts in SEO, itâ€™s important to teach them the benefits as well as the slow process of organic SEO.

Below are five things you can do to help your client rest assured that you are doing an effective job, and with time, traffic will come.

#1 â€" Rankings reports and keyword improvements

This is kind of a given, because traditionally all we could do is show the client that we helped them go from the 100th position to 50th position. That almost never reflects more traffic, but it does show improvement. It also shows effort, and if you get two consistent upward movements, you can show that thereâ€™s a trend in their favor.

Another keyword improvement you can show them is total keywords bringing traffic to their website in Google Analytics. If you go to Sources > Search > Organic, then scroll down to bottom right, you can see how many total keywords have brought traffic to their site in the current date range. If you change the date range to a range pre-SEO work and that number is smaller than the most recent, you can say that you are increasing their overall visibility. So, if you can show improvement in rankings and that they are getting more organic traffic via more keywords on the SERPs; you are showing them that they are making progress. For most clients, this is enough.

#2 â€" Working logs

Every once in a while, a client may want some updates on how the SEO is going because they aren't seeing an increase in traffic or conversions. In other words, they want to know what you have been doing.

I recommend recording all work you've done for the client regardless of the complexity and time it took. Create events in Google Analytics or your SEO tool software. These are easy ways to document your work while showing correlations with traffic. Another way I've satisfied my clients is having something like BaseCamp or a time tracker that they can sign in to and see what has been accomplished.

Behind the scenes, we know things are going good and we know that we are doing work to get those rankings up, however the client doesn't. Anything you can do to allow the client to check on what you've done for them, whenever they want, can sometimes prevent emails or phones calls questioning your efforts.

#3 â€" Summary reports and updates

Sometimes, emailing the client or getting on the phone with them weekly or bimonthly is all they need. When you reach out to the client before they reach out to you, you are squashing embers before the fire starts. It shows them that you are proactive and more importantly that you havenâ€™t forgot about them. Emailing or calling them just to let them know that you've accomplished something or that you were thinking about them while working on their account can go a long way.

I believe this is arguably the most important thing you can do to build long term relationships with your clients. It can be something as simple as "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that we wrote up some content, emailed a few webmasters and been working on your rankings. Just an FYI, give you more details in the monthly report." This communication can make a clientâ€™s day and maintain their trust for you and your services.

#4 â€" Other metrics to report

Assuming that you are doing your job, you can report other metrics to the client if rankings and traffic have not kicked in yet. Metrics such as total links contacted out of total link goals, total tweets, fans, +1s, shares, pages per site visited, site bounce rate, conversion rate, total live links, subscribers, etc. Anything that will show them that the website is doing better than when you started. However, in order to provide these types of stats, you have to create a benchmark to show how where they are now is better than where they started.

#5 â€" Resources vouching that SEO takes time

In the case that the client is still skeptical and the results are not yet able to prove your work, the best thing you can do is show them that even the authorities such as Search Engine Watch, Moz, Search Engine Journal, Google, etc., all confirmed that rankings don't happen overnight. Perhaps you can do a better job educating them about the fact that itâ€™s a campaign to catch up with the competition; that the competitors who are ranking high have performed a long list of tasks over years to get to where they are, and you are emulating them in the most efficient way possible.

So...

...there you have it, five ways to let the clients know that you are doing what needs to be done in order to obtain top rankings. Just donâ€™t forget that the client may still need to trust that the tasks you are accomplishing actually works. So you may have to prove to them that your strategies have helped other clients, or that you are doing what the algorithm, case studies and the competition proves needs to be done.

I hope this helps my fellow white-hat SEOs performing legit services keep good relationships with their clients.

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!

What Would You Ask President Obama?

Watch Live

President Obama will speak on helping responsible homeowners at 4:05 p.m. ET today. WATCH LIVE

Featured

What would you ask President Obama?

President Obama is in Phoenix, Arizona today where he'll lay out his plan to help responsible homeowners -- and those seeking to own their own home -- as part of his effort to secure a better bargain for the middle class.

And tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET, the President will answer your questions about housing and his plan with online real estate marketplace Zillow and Yahoo! -- make sure you tune in.

Click here to find out how you can ask President Obama a question.

Seth's Blog : The sophisticates

The sophisticates

Every profession creates them. Doctors and lawyers, sure, but also speakers and programmers and rodeo riders.

The sophisticate is on one side of the chasm, and the hack, the amateur, the self-defeating noob is on the other.

The sophisticate knows how to walk and talk and prepare, but mostly, to engage with us in a way that amplifies her professionalism. We spend months at business school or med school or at boot camp teaching people to be part of that tribe, to establish that they are, in fact, insiders.

The people at the fringe booths at a trade show, the ones who get rejected from every job they apply to without even being interviewed, the ones who don't earn our trust or our attention--this isn't necessarily because they aren't talented, it's merely because they haven't invested the time or found the guts to cross the chasm to the side of people who are the real deal.

It's fun to make a fish-out-of-water TV show about the outsider who's actually really good at his craft. But in real life, fish out of water don't do very well.

Yes, acting like you are a professional might be even more important than actually being good at what you do. When given the option, do both.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 5 august 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Message to 5.7 Million Truck Drivers "No Drivers Needed" Your Job is About to Vanish; Time Marches On, Fed Resistance is Futile
Job Growth Trends by Type of Job and Part-Time Status
Japan Near Stagnation Following 9 Months of Growth; Service Sector Prices Back in Deflation; Spotlight on Abenomics

Message to 5.7 Million Truck Drivers "No Drivers Needed" Your Job is About to Vanish; Time Marches On, Fed Resistance is Futile

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 09:42 PM PDT

Over the next two decades, machines will drive themselves and 5.7 million truck driving jobs will vanish.

Many pooh-pooh that idea for insurance reasons, but costs savings and improved technology suggest the trend is inevitable.

Please consider the Wall Street Journal report Daddy, What Was a Truck Driver?

Ubiquitous, autonomous trucks are "close to inevitable," says Ted Scott, director of engineering and safety policy for the American Trucking Associations. "We are going to have a driverless truck because there will be money in it," adds James Barrett, president of 105-rig Road Scholar Transport Inc. in Scranton, Pa.

Economic theory holds that such basic changes will, over time, improve standards of living by making us more productive and less wasteful. An idle truck with a sleeping driver is, after all, just a depreciating asset.

"Holy s—," exclaims Kevin Mullen, the safety director at ADS Logistics Co., a 300-truck firm in Chesterton, Ind. "If I didn't have to deal with drivers, and I could just program a truck and send it?"

Roughly speaking, a full-time driver with benefits will cost $65,000 to $100,000 or more a year. Even if the costs of automating a truck were an additional $400,000, most owners would leap at the chance, they say.

"There would be no workers' compensation, no payroll tax, no health-care benefits. You keep going down the checklist and it becomes pretty cheap," adds Mr. Barrett of Scranton, who says he can't find enough drivers.

Safety is why so-called "closed-course" uses, which keep automated trucks away from the public, are happening first.

In an Australian mine, in a scorched, wretched area called The Pilbara, Caterpillar is today running six automated model 793f mining trucks. Stuffed with 2,650 horsepower and more than 25 million lines of software code, they haul away layers of rock and dirt, up and down steep grades. Traditionally, these trucks would require four drivers to operate 24 hours a day.

Today the trucks use guidance systems to run on their own, only monitored by "technical specialists" in a control room miles away. If an obstacle appears in its path, the trucks have enough onboard brain power to decide whether to drive over or around it.

In addition to safety risks, human drivers "will often make judgments, most good, but some bad, and those inconsistencies can lead to problems," says Ed McCord, the Caterpillar executive in charge of the program. Automated trucks never flinch, he says. "If it's supposed to be in fifth gear coming down a grade, it will be in fifth gear every time.

Eventually there will be 45 of these trucks on site, eliminating most of the need for 180 driving positions, according to Mr. McCord. The fewer remaining jobs, he said, pay better but be more technical — at their core, about software.

One day, your grandchildren will be wondering, as they do about the rotary phone and the VCR. "Truck driver! What was that?"

What will you tell them?

No Drivers Needed

The Trucker's Report had excerpts of the WSJ report in ATA: Self-Driving Trucks Are "Close To Inevitable"

A couple of paragraphs in the article stood out.

"People come up with these grandiose ideas," says Bob Esler, a commercial trucker for almost 50 years. "How are you going to get the truck into a dock or fuel it?"

And then there's loading and unloading. Pre-trip inspections. Signing for drop-offs and pickups. Making sure cargo is properly secured. Making sure the cargo that's being loaded actually gets loaded. The list just keeps going on and on.

Bury Your Head in the Sand Mentality

Comments to the article show that truck drivers refuse to accept reality.

James: Put truck drivers out of work, you're going to have an unemployment crisis on your hands that will make America's Great Depression look like a Wall Street blurp. Leave us alone, already? Please?

James: We're guys and gals just out here trying to do a job. And like it not, America needs us. Like, seriously, maybe try to figure out ways to support us, instead of trying to figure out new ways to regulate us, and now worse, trying to figure out ways to get rid of us. Address the real problems, and just please, leave us truckers alone.

Poli: C'mon guys even if they make it work, comes up some crazy guy with few thousand dollars buy one Russian 150 miles radius GPS/communication jammer and you'll see how many deaths in one minute!!

Hotrod: Are you kidding me? With all the glitches and failure of computers you would have more accidents than ever.

Andrew: And in the beginning, self piloted trucks will all slam into a low clearance bridge in Chicago because the programmers forgot to take into account truck routes in various cities.

Angelo: This is a fantasy and nothing more until we arrive at the "George Jetson" generation. The infrastructure doesn't exist as it took 200 years to build the existing model which is certainly not designed for it, nor can it be retrofitted for such an endeavor.

Kay: I doubt it will happen in our lifetime. There are too many critical components to driving a truck on the road. Decisions have to be made by humans, not machines. If they can ever create a robot with a mind as complex and brilliant as humans and with the dexterity of arms and legs then they might be able to have automated-driving trucks. We aren't there yet and we won't be for another 30-50 years, IMO .

Alchemist: Who will have money to buy the products these automated trucks are hauling? I'd like to know how they expect to sell anything to the vast nation of jobless, impoverished obsolete humans?

One person understands and offered this set of comments

Jon: Of course trucking companies are excited about this. So should everyone else. Passenger cars will get the same treatment, just a little slower. Yes us truck drivers will be out of a career. Welcome to the world of technological advancement. It happens to all professions eventually. Get used to the idea.

Jon: [In response to Kay and others] Kay, that just shows you lack vision and imagination. It will be here in a decade. I assure you. The roads will be safer. Fueling? Self-driving trucks will go to full service truck stops. You'll have some guy pumping gas making minimum wage. How's that for a blast from the past? Dexterity of arms and legs? The truck drives itself, you can even sit in the drivers seat while it does it. You can't just say "gee that sounds bad, therefore it won't happen".

Time Marches On, Fed Resistance is Futile

The natural state of affairs is deflation, not inflation because of productivity improvements.

Farming is a good example. Because of productivity improvements in farm equipment, and of genetic improvements such as drought resistance, it takes far fewer people to grow corn wheat, and other agricultural products as it did even 15 years ago. Compared to 50 years ago or 100 years ago the difference is massive.

And so it goes. Planes will be pilotless and trucks driverless. The result will be fewer skilled jobs but cheaper prices.

Bernanke's 2% Inflation Goal

Achieving 2% annual inflation creates numerous problems as noted in Bernanke Wants 2% Inflation in a Deflationary World; Who Pays the Price?

The Fed wants home prices up to help out the banks, but what about the new household formation? And what about student loans and the ability to pay those loans back?

And think about how cheap money allows corporations to borrow money for next to nothing to buy technology to replace humans with hardware and software robots.

Trends noted by PEW and predicted in this corner at least six years ago are structural long-lasting trends.

Those expecting a huge pickup in inflation, a spike in US GDP, or a big boom in housing based on misguided perceptions of "pent-up housing demand", fail to understand how Fed boom-bust and bank-bailout policies preclude such outcomes.

Disastrous Fed Policies

Deflation is a good thing. Who doesn't want cheaper prices? Deflation only seems bad because of the enormous amount of debt that cannot possibly be paid back.

Young adults cannot afford to get married, and they certainly cannot afford a house. Household formation is on the decline because of student debt and declining real wages.

And the Fed is directly responsible for declining real wages. Fed policies also fuel the income inequalities of the 1% vs. the 99%.

Who Benefits From Inflation?

The Fed is fighting the deflationary trends of technology, battles it cannot win. Real wages have not and will not keep up as asset bubbles in stocks and equities get bigger and bigger.

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

Job Growth Trends by Type of Job and Part-Time Status

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 10:37 AM PDT

Here is an interesting chart by reader Tim Wallace that shows growth on jobs in five distinct job categories: Construction, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Retail, and Government.

click on chart for sharper image

Wallace Comments

On Government Jobs: "Remember, this is only direct government payrolls, local, county, state and federal, and does not include the millions of contracted positions from privatization. I am still trying to find a reputable way to extract those numbers. Note the steady, steep growth in government jobs over the years, only dipping and then going flat in 2009. The growth in working age population since 1939 is about 150%, the growth in government jobs about 440%. This is more than a little skewed.

On Construction Jobs: Construction staffing levels go back to May of 1997. Since then the working age population is up by 43 million, a 21% population increase, with no increase in construction jobs.

On Manufacturing Jobs: Manufacturing jobs are now back to the levels of February 1946. Since then, working age population has increased by 144 million. Manufacturing jobs peaked around June of 1979 at 19.6 million and was about 17.3 million in early 2000. Manufacturing jobs now total approximately 12 million.

Additional Charts From St. Louis Fed

click on any chart for sharper image

Total Nonfarm Employees

Leisure and Hospitality: Total

Leisure and Hospitality: Food Service and Drinking Establishments

Of the total increase in L&H jobs, most were Food Service and Drinking Establishments jobs. These are typically low paying, part-time jobs.

Education and Health Services

Education and healthcare was a big winner in the recovery and even before. Some of these are well paying jobs such as nurses and some teaching positions. Other jobs in this sector are very low paying.

Retail Trade

These jobs tend to be low paying part-time jobs as well.

Part Time Job Growth

Finally, here is a chart from Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives on Part-Time employment.

Click on the preceding link for additional charts and analysis.

Doug comments and I concur "It is certainly possible that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is playing a role in employer decisions about full-time versus part-time employment. The $2,000 per employee penalty for employers who do not comply with regulations has influenced some employers to begin shifting their employment policies. Last month the government pushed the start of the penalty from January 2014 to January 2015. But the anticipation of the penalty, even though delayed a year, will probably continue to influence the interim decisions of private employers."

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

Japan Near Stagnation Following 9 Months of Growth; Service Sector Prices Back in Deflation; Spotlight on Abenomics

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 07:24 AM PDT

The pace of growth in Japan slowed to a crawl as new orders stagnate as noted by the Markit Japan Services PMI™ for July.

Key Points

Weakest rise in service sector activity in nine months

Services employment and new orders broadly stagnate

Ninth successive month of higher input prices in the service sector

Summary

The latest data for Japanese service providers indicated that the expansion evident in previous surveys continued in July, but the pace slowed. Business activity increased only marginally, whilst new business and employment stagnated, in each case ending eight-month sequences of growth.

The headline seasonally adjusted Business Activity Index fell in July to 50.6 from 52.1 in June. Whilst this was the weakest increase so far in the current period of expansion, July marked the continuation of a nine-month run of growth, the longest ever recorded in the series.

Employment

Service sector employment stabilised in July, following eight months of expansion. Anecdotal evidence indicated that increased production, and expansions in sales teams, had compensated for strategic reductions in payroll numbers. The Composite Employment Index fell marginally, to the lowest level recorded since October 2012, and signalled a marginal drop in staffing levels.

Inflation

Input prices for the service sector continued to exert inflationary pressure as they rose for the ninth successive month, though the pace of inflation eased somewhat.

Meanwhile, prices charged by Japanese service providers ended their short period of inflation, and fell marginally in July.

Abenomics and Inflation

I agree with the comments of Claudia Tillbrooke, Economist at Markit who said:

"The Japanese service sector continued its nine-month sequence of growth in July, but the rate of expansion weakened. This follows a period of particularly strong performance relative to the survey history. Whether the short period of recovery will continue remains to be seen; but with the latest data showing employment and new orders stagnating in July, the outlook is distinctly less positive than reported in previous surveys."

Note that input prices are still rising yet prices charged are back in deflation. There is simply no demand for services in Japan.

Recall that prime minister Shinzo Abe wants taxes to double the sales tax rate from 5% to 10% by 2015 which will further decrease demand.

Should additional revenue come in from the tax hike, it will serve (in isolation) to strengthen the Yen, something Abe does not want.

So Abenomics remains in the spotlight. What's he going to propose next if deflation in prices remains?

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

Damn Cool Pics

Faith in Humanity Restored

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 12:07 PM PDT

Great photos. Some are very sad but still great.

A father and his son throughout the years:

"Our first hello and our last goodbye."

Alex's last words:

Little girl's inspiration:

Arnulfo Castorena winning his first gold medal in swimming for Mexico in the Paralympics:

This person received a letter from a developmentally disabled man who visits their barn and found out their horse was hurt:

Kermit and his dad:

Capitán, the dog that sat by his owner's grave for over six years:

The terminally ill mother watched her daughter's wedding over Skype:

The parents made their son's wheelchair into the best Halloween costume ever:

A dog's purpose:

The German shepherd has become a seeing eye dog for a blind spaniel:

When Ellie, a blind spaniel, was adopted by shelter manager Jean Spencer, she never expected that her other dog, Leo, would choose to become her very own seeing-eye dog. "I take them for walks in the park and Leo guides Ellie around," says Spencer. "He is so protective and herds the more boisterous dogs away from her."

Toddlers connecting with complete strangers:

Death In Transit [Infographic]

Posted: 05 Aug 2013 09:06 AM PDT

The "unsinkable" Titanic was carrying more than 2,200 souls when she struck an iceberg in 1912, resulting in a loss of about 1,500 people. A hundred years later and transportation has grown so much that ships can carry 6,000 people, bullet trains carry thousands, and the world's biggest passenger plane can now accommodate more than 800. Add in the now massive venues for cultural events, and the tendency of large crowds of people sometimes stampeding and the potential for accidents is huge. From sinkings, to crashes, to derailments, to stampedes, the National Post has charted the last 100 years of major accidents and incidents (excluding wartime battles). In order to make the timeline, a minimum of 100 people had to die — therefore no automobile accidents.

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Via National Post.

marți, 6 august 2013

Home means a lot

5 Ways to Prove to the Client that the Traffic Will Come

5 Ways to Prove to the Client that the Traffic Will Come