I’m excited about the Motorola Droid. I’m not the only one. The press has been buzzing about it for the last few days. It finally looks like Verizon will potentially have a high quality iPhone quality offering.

If you’re someone who is tied to Verizon for whatever reason, you finally have a decent mobile option.

Everything looks to be lining up for the Droid to be a great success. Great network, a high quality device with attention to detail, great software via Andriod 2.0, no carrier functionality crippled features. It’s what Verizon users have been begging for.

The devil is in the details. Verizon’s greed will torpedo the potential for great success.

Most users will opt for the $20 data plan for 75MB of data per month. If you want to love and use this device like iPhone users love and use their iPhone, don’t expect to do it for that price. I smell bait and switch…let me explain.

What’s 75MB? People know what 60 minutes of talk times means, but 75MB is a meaningless number for most people, even techies.

What does 75MB represent? The average size of a webpage is 312KB, or .312MB.

The “big” 75MB data plan will entitle them to view 8 pages per day as part of the plan. Only 8 pages!

That does not take into account things like streaming of anything, application downloads, email attachments, etc.

On the 75MB plan, overages are $0.30/MB. Lets round up to .33MB to make the math easy. On average, every page after 75MB will cost you about 10 cents on average.

28 webpages per day? $2 extra per day. [(20-8) * .1 = $2.] By the end of the month, you’re hitting an extra $60 on your bill. That’s a lot for many people’s budgets. But you know what? You’re locked into a 2 year contract!

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t totally understand what options verizon has to upgrade from there, but you’ll basically have two options.

1. Pay more than you planned on…for two year
2. Limit your off-wifi use of the internet

Verizon wants $20 for 75MB of bandwidth. It’s worth noting that for other devices, $30 for 5GB is an option…that plan is not offered for the Droid as best as I can tell.

Seems to me like Verizon is trying to bait customers with a $20 data plan which is easily surpassed in normal usage based on the functionality of the device, then force them into paying more. Not fair, not nice, not good customer service, and I suspect people will be very angry once they start getting these bills.

8 pages a day. That’s a joke. I suspect this will blow up in their face, makes sales drop like a rock after the first billing period, and generally restrict sales and use of the Droid.

We’ll see…

While searching for a specific video of Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, I stumbled upon this old recording of him from a public speaking class.

After you get past the look of the 1988 Eric Schmidt, starting around 3 minutes in he has some interesting things to say about leadership and management, and there are some interesting correlations to draw to where he is today.

I was specifically hit by talk about conflict, or management through disagreement, starting around 6 minutes in. He spoke about this very recently during an interview by McKinsley, which is actually the video I was seeking out when I found this blast from the past. His delivery has improved.

Recently there has been a very interesting “conversation” about the role of Google and the traditional news media. I have a slightly different take, and seemingly like everyone else, a suggested solution.

The AP has started this round by saying (and doing) some very stupid things, like sending a cease and desist order to an AP affiliate which embedded a YouTube video that the AP themselves posted on YouTube. [AP Seems Shocked to Discover Its Own YouTube Channel]

Crazy stuff.

Nick Carr posted Google in the Middle, a piece arguing that Google is a ever stronger middle man holding the traditional media hostage. A drastic reduction in supply is his proposed solution…intentional or not.

Mathew Ingram quickly shot back about Why Nick Carr is wrong on Google as a middleman for news. I’m not 100% clear on his point, but “add value” may be able to sum it up.

As far as I’m concerned, if your headline and lede paragraph are the sum total of the value you are providing for readers, then you deserve to lose your business to Google.

As Nick very nicely illustrates, Google news has a huge amount of potential news sources…using my own example:

Is publishing an article about the same story that literally 12,852 other media sources are writing about (ON THE SAME DAY!) a good business model?

I agree that over supply is the problem. But the problem is not too many news outlets, or too many journalists. The problem is too many people writing about the same crap at the same time. In this case, does the world really need 13 thousand articles on April 13th 2009 saying this ship captain is safe? We would do just fine with one thousand stories, with the other 12k news outlets LINKING to these thousand stories.

Google News is The Digital Equivilant of the Retail Newstand

In this case, Google is nothing more than a virtual newstand. The online version of traditional newstand retail distribution. Only difference is location no longer matters. Your “subscribers” come to you directly, and everyone else may give you a chance if on the virtual newstand, you catch their attention.

If on a physical newstand, you could see, side by side, 13k publications all pitching the same lead story, the industry problems would be obvious.

We need more journalists and news outlets focused on creating:

• Unique
• High Quality
• Link Worthy
• Content

We need more news outlets focused on building an audience in a world without regional distribution limits.

Add value. Create Unique content.

For this specific story about the ship captain, the New York Times got my attention. Why? They sent me an (opt-in) email when the story broke. An hour later, the story still was still not on top of Google News.

Create Unique Content

A couple weeks back, my local paper ran a story about the extra money going into people’s paychecks as the result of the Stimulus Bill. Boring story I would never have read.

The paper took a different, unique, high quality, link worth angle. They made a video of what sort of junk you could buy at the local flea market for the $7 the average person would see in their paycheck.

Funny piece, I watched the whole video, read the whole article, wrote a comment, and looked forward to the next similar piece.

They added value and created unique, high quality, link worth content. This may not draw many new visitors, but for the existing audience, it gives me a reason to keep coming back to them for news.

Content like this is what will save the members of the industry that “get it” before it’s too late.

The whole industry needs to take a step back and think about the content they produce. The participants that survive will provide uniqie, high quality, link worthy content. The rest will fall to those that do.

I am a big proponent of a method that is part SEO, part informationation architecture, called the SEO Silo.  At one point on WebMasterWorld, this method was described as a Theme Pyramid, but the SEO Silo seems to be the term that has stuck.

Basically, for a site that covers more than one topic niche, the idea is to break down the topics into their niches, and then only link within each niche.

By restricting links to be within a niche, it helps focus the relevance on that very specific niche.

Here are some videos from YouTube of Bruce Clay and and Ralph Wilson discussing the SEO Silo concept.

- Part 1 of 2 -

- Part 2 of 2 -

Every now and then an article comes along that you could have written yourself.  Align Your SEO Strategy With Site Structure summarizes my core SEO strategy quite well.  I can’t put into words how much value I know is hidden on the words of that page.

The article has one flaw.  It only looks at two aspects of a website, the site structure and SEO Strategy.  It misses the whole idea that those two elements are a subset of a number of things which all must be working together to have a site that not only not only ranks well in search engines, but actually deserves the ranking achieved.

The Whole Picture:

• Site objectives
• Content
• Site structure

All of those elements, together, must be aligned and tightly knit together for a strong website.  If either one of those four items is lacking, you’ll have a site worth less than the sum of the parts.

Are your site objectives not aligned with everything else? You could have first page rankings for high volume keywords, have excellent easy to find content that people love to read and even tell their friends about, but not accomplish what you set out to achieve.  It’s a failure.

Bad content? Traffic comes in like a tidal wave from terms perfectly on target with your site objectives.  One problem.  Lots of them to be exact.  One hit wonders.  People are not satisfied and hit the back button a few seconds in.

Bad site structure? You have it all.  Traffic by the freighter full, content that people love, and visitors who fit your target site objectives perfectly.  Each visitor lands on a page and instantly thinks “this is the best content I’ve ever seen!”  They read the page three times from top to bottom.  They are intensly interested in the content you have to offer.  Unfortunately, they don’t see that your site has more to offer.  The site navigation doesn’t match their needs.  They hit the back button;  you failed.

Bad SEO Strategy? Great site, no traffic.

The Ideal SEO Strategy?

Align site objectives, content, and site structure while applying solid SEO tactics to all three.

The most common reason to use a friendly URL for search engine optimization has to do with keywords the URL giving the page a boost for searches with those terms.  While that seems to be true,  there is an additional reason that I don’t see discussed often.  The Human Algorithm.

First, what’s a friendly URL?  Let’s look at an example:

http://www.bitworm.com/search/2008/long-tail-keywords/

vs.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050314-164653

If you search for something related to the “long tail”, saw those two in the search results, which would you click?  Why?  Your “human algorithm” probably decided the first one is more relevant than the second, even though both pages in reality have to do with the long tail of search.

I know, there is more to the search results than just the url.  The are:

1. The Title
2. The Description
3. The URL

The battle for search traffic is not about ranking well.  Really, it’s not!  It’s about ranking well AND getting people to click your listing.

Your best chance of getting a click, especially if you don’t rank #1 for a phrase, is to have all three items (title, description, url) targeted to trigger the human brain to see relevance to the search intent.

It’s the human algorithm.  

Just as a search engine makes split second judgements to decide which 10 pages out of a billion are most relevent to a query, the human algorithm takes those ten results and determines which page to click.  

For me, and I’m sure many other searchers as well, this process happens in a second or two.  In that short amount of time, I know I’m not reading every single word being returned, but my brain quickly scans for signals of relevance and quality to chooses a page to click.  Keywords in the URL is one of those signs of relevance.  

Your goal is to not only be at the top of the search engine algorithm, but the human algorithm as well.  Friendly URLs help with both.

I just read an interesting post over at SEO Bandy about valid code giving a significant boost in the search engine rankings.  In a way it makes perfect sense, and in a way it’s hard to believe.

What makes this more interesting is that there are roots in a Matt Cutts quote.  Matt is in an interesting position.  He knows a lot of ranking information he can’t directly talk about.  That’s why his words are examined by SEO’s is if this were Wall Street disecting the words of the Fed Chairman.  Could be nothing, or he could know a lot more than he’s letting on.

I’d agrue returning “valid” pages is in Google’s best interest in terms of generic page quality.  A web page that passes HTML validation should in theory render well in any web browser a searcher happens to be using.  If a page isn’t valid, it’s a gamble whether the page will render for the searcher, although in practice the vast majority will render well enough.

From that standpoint, I can see why Google may give a boost to valid pages.

On the flip side, experience tells me that the vast majority of pages on the Internet won’t pass a validation test.  Sure, most are very close to valid, but few actually pass.

I’ve thought for a long time that there is a certain quality bar that needs to be crossed.  For example, I wrote a crawler recently which collected some key stats for every page on a site.  I was suprised to find a handful of pages where the resulting info just didn’t make any sense.  On investigation, it seems extra body tags were the culprate.

My crawler established it’s own quality bar.  Each of those pages with extra body tags would have been improperly indexed by my crawler, and possibly Google’s as well.

So, is having code that passed validation really a factor?  Is this why I never run into “best view on Internet Explorer” pages any more?  I don’t think the experience of SEO Bandy is enough to base a decision and reaction on…but I smell a SEO test in my future.

Google’s chrome isn’t a direct attack on Microsoft, unlike what the general consensus of many news agencies and blogs seem to be reporting. 

At least, it isn’t any more of an attack than Ford’s Model T was an direct attack against buggy whip manufacturers.  Ford didn’t set out to hurt the buggy whip companies, but rather to make a car everyone could afford.

Might Microsoft be hurt?  Probably.  However, any pain would be collateral damage due to lack of their own proactive action.  Words mean things.  “Attack” is a word that implies intent.  I don’t think that’s present here, or at least not as a primary driving factor.

Let’s look at the current day reality of the browser market and Google apps.

Google makes advanced web applications that push the limits of the current browser technology, just like how Microsoft’s Windows OS pushed the limits of Intel’s hardware with each release.  Moore’s law is a great thing for Microsoft.  The hardware keeps get better by orders of magnitude.

Here’s the rub – Google has pushed the limits of the current generation of web browsers, while the browser technology has stood still.  Yes, FireFox 3 is an improvement, as is the IE8 beta, but they’re both merely a step in the right direction, not the leap that is needed…and Google’s apps still don’t have any head-room.

Google needs drastic improvements in certain features to push their overall apps and technologies forward.  They’ve been waiting a while, and the market hasn’t responded, so they’ve decided to take matters into their own hands. 

The browser being Open Source is evidence of this.  They don’t really want to “own” this thing, but they know they need it badly enough to make it themselves.

To Microsoft, this may look like an attack.  From my view of the current browser market, it’s a company that is reliant on a commodity product deciding the commodity quality is not acceptable, and taking action in the most direct way possible.

Performing SEO for an already live site is much different from integrating SEO during a ground up site build.

Analogies are a simple tool that we can use to explain technical SEO concepts to our clients.  Here are a few that I’ve found myself using recently with a baseball analogy that have been well received and gotten the point across.

1. You may strike out…and that’s OK

Generally speaking, professional baseball players strike out two out of every three times they step up to the plate.  On average, if this was the only indicator of success, they are failures.

Despite striking out two out of every three times, runs are still scored and the game always ends with at least one team with one or more runs.  Each team gets a minimum of 27 times at bat.  Some strike outs are OK, and long as there are some hits in the mix.

Not every site tweak or change will get you ahead.  Due to the massive complexities and mystery surrounding the algorithms and data, some changes may even set you back.  You should never hinge an SEO project on a single change.  A multifaceted approach is key.  On the whole, you will still end up ahead.

2. Don’t always swing for the fences

Not every hit is a home run.  If fact, most hits only get you to first base.  It is entirely possible to win a baseball game one base hits alone.

In SEO, not all site changes will equate to homerun traffic increases.  Many small traffic improvements can add up.  In fact, I’ve more than tripled traffic for an established site without achieving a single high volume keyword ranking.

If you try for a base hit each time up at bat, you are more likely to succeed than if your strategy is to swing for a homerun every time.

If you target popular high volume keywords phrases to the exclusion of everything else, you may bite off more than you can chew and, in the end, have no traffic increase at all!

3. Base hits are investments in future potential runs

Runs are all that count in the game of baseball.  Nobody ever wins for getting players on base.

Search optimization is about getting runners on base and waiting for them to come home.  This is not a game of short feedback loops.  Although the timing of things is getting shorter, you may not see the results of specific optimization changes for days, weeks, or even months after a specific change is made.  If you sit around on your keister waiting for results before you make the next change, you’ll only ever take baby steps.

You must continue making changes based on the belief (based on experience) that the optimizations you are performing will pay traffic dividends down the road.  If you perform a single optimization then wait to see results before doing more, you will lose the game.  The feedback loop takes too long.

Web Analytics tools are nice to show you how many people are visiting your site, but their value can go well beyond that. Here is one simple way you can use your web analytics package to gain information you can immediately use to improve your site and generate more traffic.

There are two reports in most analytics packages that show how people found a specific page on search engines.

Keyword Phrase Report - This report show the entire phrases that searchers typed into the search box to find your site. “Blue Widgets”, “Red Widgets” would be an example.

Keywords Report - This report list the individual words searchers used to find your page. “Widgets”, “Blue”, “Red” would be an example.

I will explain on way to get information you can immediately act upon out of your Keywords Report.

On the surface, especially at the site level, this report may not tell you anything you don’t already know. If your site is about widgets, “Widgets” will of course be at the top of the list day after day, likely followed by the other primary keywords your site generally targets.

Filter the Keywords Report down to the single page level.

Pick a specific content page to target and improve, and filter the Keywords Report to only show keywords for that one page. Ideally, pick a page that gets decent long-tail traffic. If you can, open up the report in a window right beside the webpage itself so you can easily compare the two side by side.

Look at the words people are using the find the page. You will probably see a long tail trail off of a handful or two of words a lot of people use, trickling down to lots of words only a few people use.

Start by focusing on your top 5 words. Look at how you use them on the page. Check the title tag, headings, and links. Usually this won’t be too surprising. The top 5 words are likely prominent in these places.

Keep going down the list until you start seeing keywords that you don’t prominently use. What are they, and how do they relate to the page? This is where the opportunity is hiding.

Are groups of people finding the page using a word you didn’t expect or target?

Take Action!

1. Re-write your title, headings, links, and content to include some of these newly found keywords. However, don’t remove or de-emphasize the other more important words. If that doesn’t make sense for this page and these words, then:
2. Consider creating new pages to target these specific keywords.

Not every page will have these opportunities staring you in the face. Pick 10 pages to go through, and a bet you’ll find a couple good opportinities for improvement.

Don’t force these changes into any page where they don’t make sense. In my experience, the best page modifications not only include these keywords for search engine sake, but also make the page better for human visitors as well, after all, you’re now speaking their language.