Jason+: A Blog about WordThink

We have a new dog in our house: Buddy.  Buddy is a 12-week-old black Labrador retriever.  Buddy is busy trying to teach us who is the "top dog" in our house, and we are busy trying to catch up to Buddy's intelligence level.  It's a bit of a struggle, and it's a lot of fun. I do SEO.  (You know that if you're reading this).  And I teach SEO. So I am always looking at life from the perspective of a teacher.  And there is nothing better than trying to train a puppy to teach you a lot about learning, and training, and understanding, and behavior. Your Website is Your Dog You are you. Your website is your dog. You might be unsatisfied with your website right now.  Perhaps it doesn't rank on the top of Google.  Perhaps it does, but it gets clicks but no conversions.   You need to "train" your website, and you need to "train" Google. They both have minds of their own. SQUIRREL.   And they're gone.  You have to "l...

You say TomAYto.  I say TomAAAHto.  Who cares?  Google cares. You put on your website: Testimonials about Our Company People search for Reviews About Your Company Who cares?  Google cares. Many, many, many, many more searches of  "reviews of" company so and so vs. "testimonials" about company so and so (See screenshot below) YET - most companies have a TESTIMONIAL page TITLED TESTIMONIALS when they should have a REVIEW page TITLED Reviews. You gotta speak / write / think like a customer.  Not like a marketer.

RANT about Facebook Organic Reach and Facebook Pages. (NOTE: I do not necessarily believe ALL of this... but I do believe some of it.  And clearly the disillusionment with Facebook by marketers is coming on strong). Facebook's Early Years Remember Facebook's early years? As a marketer, you would encourage your customers to "like" you on Facebook, so that you could "stay in contact" with them. You'd use Facebook to alert them to special offers, tips and tidbits, and they'd interact with your Facebook page - all for free. Sure, you'd throw in the occasional BUY MY STUFF post but 88% of it was just pure interesting, build a community. The Death of Organic Reach on Facebook Well, my friend: THOSE DAYS ARE GONE. FACEBOOK ORGANIC REACH IS NEARLY DEAD. Facebook is clearly out to make money - nothing wrong with that.  More and more, the ONLY posts that show in one's newsfeed are those from friends and family.  Plus some ads.  ...

On Google, you have "organic" reach via SEO and you have paid reach via "AdWords." While they don't always place nicey-nice with each other, you have to give Google some credit: there is such a thing as organic reach, as getting to the top of Google for free.  It takes work, yes, but it opens opportunities for small, hard-working companies with little or no budget. Not so with Facebook, or hardly so, or it used to be so.  Facebook is slowly but surely grinding away on the "pages" of corporations, clubs, and businesses.  Facebook is becoming a social media site in which "friends" and "family" can communicate with each other, for free... but "Brands" aka businesses can't. Bye Bye Facebook Organic Reach Is that fair? I can't really say.  But it is really more and more a reality.  Which means for many of us to abandon any hope of using Facebook for "organic" reach, and perhaps using it ONLY as an a...

Yesterday, I finished my two-day workshop at Stanford on "Personal Branding." Many of the participants came up, thanked me, and used the "fire hose" reference. I had given them a "fire hose" of information on SEO and SMM (Social Media Marketing). Yes, I had. There is soooooooo much to learn.  Soooooooo much to know. Some advice in terms of success in SEO and SMM Wanting. You gotta WANT to learn.  Attitude is everything, and certainly the first step towards success. Learning. You gotta realize SEO and SMM are GAMES. Games with rules, games with competitors, games with judges, and games with winners and losers.  You gotta learn the rules. Planning. Failing to plan is planning to fail. You gotta "make a plan" - step #1, step #2 and so on and so forth. Doing. You gotta DO it.  You can't just "think about it."  You gotta do it.  Know your keywords. Implement them on page. Build links. Get social mentions.  Tweet (if it...

Here's a feature on LinkedIn I didn't know about: reference search . Available only to premium (a.k.a. paying members), it allows them to find contacts who have worked at the same companies at you. So the scenario is - You are applying for a job at Company X. The recruiter at or for Company X is a LinkedIn premium subscriber; he can "research" who works or worked at your current company, Company Y. He can reach out to those people and ask about you, "as a reference," even without your knowledge. So these are references, but ones you do NOT select or put forward. Yikes! If Coworker A at Company Y does not like you, he can give you a bad "reference" and wreck your job prospects. Reference Search Exists Whether You Like It, Or Not Many people - myself included - didn't even know this feature existed. And now there's a lawsuit about it on privacy grounds. The thing about Internet privacy in general is that, pretty much, you should...

I majored in Russian Studies at Harvard, after originally wanting to be a Spanish Literature major. Numbers were not exactly, "in my blood," though I was good with math. Well, in the circuitous route that is life itself, here I am spending 99% of my time with SEO, AdWords, and Social Media. And increasingly on metrics . Marketing and Metrics Marketing and metrics, metrics and marketing. The old sage, "I know half of my advertising dollars are wasted... I just don't know which half" still haunts many of us. But we live in an age of metrics - clicks, impressions, click thru rates, placements, conversions, etc., etc. Metrics matter! I had the (mis)fortune of interacting with a San Francisco Ad Agency (that shall remain nameless), who attempted to feed one of our mutual clients a bunch of baloney. Branding and RTB (real time bidding and this hocus and that pocus). But... refusing to give any data - about placements, about impressions, about clicks. To be...