I’m a huge Formula One guy and a big fan of most motorsports that don’t involve rednecks, a stadium, and turning left for four hours at a time. I was half asleep last night by the end of the F1 Bahrain race and wanted to remind myself of the results again when I was more coherent this moring. So I Googled [formula 1] to go to all the usual F1 news sites.
But I also got this at the top of the SERP:
Must be nice for Formula1.com to have the top 3 first page results. Also very cool that there is a reminder with the time for the next race.
As much as we all bang on Google as search practitioners or adversaries in information retrieval, as a consumer, we should give them a little credit when they do build things that make our lives easier or better.
As those of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen me Tweet about this a little while ago, many (if not most) of you will be able to get 1st page SERP real estate for your name by completing a Google Profile. It was basically a real time result for me to get this:
This should immediately be inserted into your processes for those of you managing Reputation Management clients. Especially if they have popular names (eg, “John Smith”). Or, apparently, if your name is Todd Malicoat!…
Now, as cool as that is, the more interesting opportunity for the savvier spammers among us is the last line of that Profiles insertion. Wanna guess how much traffic and user registrations that drives to Myspace, Facebook, Classmates, and LinkedIn?
As I look at my schedule next week and debate whether I’ll head to a couple PubCon dinners, I was reminded that I had this post sitting as a draft while I awaited the redesign of the blog. I guess you could say I pretty much hate Search Industry Conferences. That’s more of an indictment of the conferences, though. Most of the people are great. This is an industry in which each of us relies on some sort of information advantage, so it’s probably futile to expect much else other than Newb 101 stuff on the panels.
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First of all, if you get your pop culture on like Obama gets his fair taxation on, please see this video so you understand my post title:
Everything about this business is easier when you have more personal relationships with peers, competitors, connectors, and mavens. Conference sessions’ subject matter is, more often than not, absolutely terrible. In fact…and conservatively speaking…90% are probably detrimental to your business. If you sit through most of those sessions, my guess is that you’ll equally divide your time performing such timeless charades as “Guy Pulling Trigger In His Mouth“, “Guy Pulling Trigger At The Side Of His Head“, or maybe even “Guy Pulling Trigger At The Back Of The Head Of The Person In Front Of Him, Snuff-film Style“.
The other thing I don’t understand is the sub-class of Conference Lifers who attend conferences like they are hoping to hear when the Mother Ship will arrive. Don’t be that guy. That guy probably isn’t making much money. That guy just wants a hug and the feeling of belonging that only a badge around your neck can provide.
Lastly, if there are any other get togethers like ThinkTank in a warm climate with a nice hotel, a beach, and good food, feel free to let me know about those. Or if you have awesome speaker gifts. I can be bought.
I was participated in a discussion over at Inside CRM about shady SEO services. Some great quotes in there from around the industry. Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox chime in with some Google perspective, as well.
Seriously? You thought I’d actually write something like that? C’mon, now. (Although, I’ll bet you it makes it to Sphinn’s front page on the title alone.)
I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions (I did make an exception this year to throw the traditional Kazakh wedding sack on Natalie Gulbis in light of Jessica Alba cheating on me), but I do plan on continuing blogging in 2008. I wrestled with this a bit after getting trounced in my bet with Andy, but:
A) There is an audience to this thing.
B) There isn’t that much of a chasm between “$100/day newly minted affiliate marketer” and “9-figure budgeted virtual real estate developer”.
C) The Browns missed the playoffs and I passively-aggressively feel like losing that bet and having to buy Andy’s crew tickets to their season finale was worthwhile to illuminate Cleveland Fan losing at life.
Motivating more people to take the leap of faith and think bigger is really what this blog has always been about. As I can pass on salient advice or when we can all laugh at the mistakes I make along the way, that’s when I’ll blog.
Maybe it’s once a week. Maybe it’s once a month. Maybe it’s a quarterly recap. But I value my time and your time too much to follow the blogging herd and simply chase page views with crappy title-bait.
Seriously? You thought I’d actually write something like that? C’mon, now. (Although, I’ll bet you it makes it to 
