Alan Gutierrez

What is the issue with Google Ads really. When I look at what John T. Unger is doing for Six Apart with this TypePad Hacks blog, when I think of how he’s helping a community of users, why should he not be compensated for his time?

AdSense is a way to pay his wage, that’s all.

Drucker gave us Knowledge Workers, I give you Google Workers.

In this economy, we need to simply pull up a blog, put out our banners and skyscrapers, and get to work, conversing, facilitating, making the connections, making the world a better place.

The notion that advertising makes the speech commercial to the point of untrustworthy is for those who are comfortably attached to some corporate or government teat. They don’t have to shill, what with the division of labor and all.

The rest of us are out here in the wilderness, getting smacked around by that invisible hand.

The Web Enabled Business Card

I’m talking to folks in New Orleans about blogging. I’d like to make a business of helping business reach new customers through blogging.

I have to start from a strange position, however. People are talking to be because they want a web site, not a blog.

When folks around here think web site, they think business card. To them, a web site is a business card, but on the web. They want a web site so they have a web address to put on their business card.

I’ve noted before that New Orleans has little use for social networking software, since they have so much social networking hardware, the cafes, bars, restauraunts, churches, corkboards, etc.

People here don’t use the web much. They tend to expect a brochure, or if they’ve been sold flashy gew-gaws in the past, splash screens and animations.

Before I can help them with creating a content based web site that will help their business, I have a lot of explaining to do.

A Special Kind of Web Site

You’ve got to start with Google. Blogs are because of Google. Google begat blogging.

I ask a fellow New Orleanian, “what search engine do you use to find something on the web?”

They will say “Google.”

I’ll reply, “So, you don’t type http://plinkityplinkityplonkplinketyplonkplonk.com/ do you? You go straight to Google and type in the first words that come to your head, right? That’s what most people do these days.”

Then we look at were they sit in the Google rankings. Given the web sites most folks have around here, it is usually quite low.

The genernal explaination of the value of blogging is as follows.

Once your web site is attracting Google, it’s going to attract people who might never visit New Orleans, who might never visit your shop, or meet you personally. Google searches information you see, so it needs to search text not pictures and flashy gew-gaws. You need to place more and ever changing text on your web site and you’ll attract new customers, and keep in touch with visitors to New Orleans.

I’ll explain that a blog is a special kind of web site that lets you attract Google. It’s not a diary, although they look like a diary. It’s a format that is easy to update for the author. You choose a subject and write an open letter. It’s an open letter to the people that may stumble across your web site. It’s an open letter to Google.

Over time, if you keep writing these open letters, you’ve got a lot of information out there. People will keep finding that information though Google. With comments in place, they can respond to your open letter.

Then it’s a quick run down of the basics of what Google likes and why.

1. Ever changing text means something going on here.
2. What the links say about you is more important than what you say about yourself.

Google Juice is another word for links, of course.

Here are points that I make in the course of the explaination.

• If Google can’t read you, then Google can’t find you.
• If Google can’t find you, no one can find you.
• Google can’t watch a flashy gew-gaw and say, oh that’s a cartoon hammer, this must be a web site about roofing.
• Google likes what people like, information.

A blog is a special kind of web site. One that is easy to update frequently. One that attracts customers and retains the interest of existing customers.

Life Outside The Conferences

You all know this isn’t shinola. It’s all old hat to you, the blogosphere.

Tell me California, how do you preach when there is no choir?

Speaking in Tongues

Last night at the French Quarter Town Hall, after the meeting, during the mingling, I was speaking with people in the crowd about Think New Orleans.

At some point, a woman made a statement about search engine optimization, and I found myself in another world, this world, the blogosphere.

Who is the woman and why is she speaking of SEO?

I said something skeptical about search engine optimization. She said that it must be important since someone had convinced her to spend money on it.

Why is it necessary, I wonder?

I asked her her name. It happens to be F Brinley Bruton, a peculiar name. I asked if she held the URL for her name. She said yes.

Then there’s nothing to it. All you need is for someone to link to you, you’ll be at the top of Google in a couple days. In fact, I’ll write a blog entry and link to you.

She seemed dismissive of my dismissiveness, but said she’d buy me a drink if I linked to her. Thus, this is my first paid endorsement, or rather, link, since it’s not really an endorsement. Ugh. Okay. I’ll read an article. Yup. Endorsement. Maybe it’s two drinks now? But, her coverage of women in Afghanistan is compelling.

F Brinley Bruton

Let me introduce you to the web site (not blog) of F Brinley Bruton. She is a London based freelance journalist with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Make sure you add the www before her domain, because without it, you get a placeholder site.

If you start getting spam comments with F Brinley Bruton in the body, it is because she’s unwittingly hired someone to rub us all the wrong way.

The same folks who have posted all of her example articles as image based PDFs, perhaps? In doing so, the’ve made sure that the search engines cannot read the articles, they cannot be indexed, and they cannot be searched. To Google, they do not exist.

Of course, no one has anything text based to which they can link. There is no reason to link to the site. Time for a link to the two immutable laws of blogging, which applies to all web content.

If the articles were available as HTML, I could link to them from this blog entry. A PDFs, I’m not so inclined, and the search engines have no idea what I’m linking to anyway. Not to mention that the articles are hard to read. Too hard for me to read. So I read her articles elsewhere.

If you do want to read Brinley’s work, try reading this article, The Women of Afghanistan Find a Leader.

Joya, a women’s literacy and health worker, says that soon after arriving she began to chafe at the “undemocratic attitude” of those running the meeting. She asked for permission to speak.

“I criticise my countrymen for allowing the legitimacy and legality of this Loya Jirga to be questioned by the presence of those criminals who brought our country to this state,” read the transcripts of what she said. “It is a mistake to test those who have already been tested. They should be taken to the world court.”

Uproar ensued and Joya’s microphone was turned off. Some participants leapt from their seats and the call of “Allahu akbar” resounded through the tent. Those in charge demanded that Joya be expelled and punished, or at least that she apologise. She remained, did not apologise, and was called an infidel, a rude little girl and a communist.

Westerners might find it hard to understand how courageous her speech was. Without mentioning names, Joya had taken aim at the most powerful class of Loya Jirga participants: mujahedin and “holy warriors” revered for fighting and expelling the Soviets.

SnakE Oil

Search engine optimization is to contemporary web development what paint sealant is to auto sales. How cheeky that someone should first sell her an almost text free web site and then go on to sell her search engine optimization.

If you Google her name with misspellings, Google corrects. Google knows that its Bruton, not Burton.

Google knows who she is, but just like me, Google knows that her site is not the best place to go if you want to read her work.

Update: My Work Here Is Done

When I wrote this article, F Brinley Bruton’s new web site did not appear in the Google search results for her name, F Brinley Bruton. Now she appears as the first result. What’s more, when you search for Brinley Bruton, you’ll find her site is first, and this blog entry about her site is second.

She was told she’d have to comission these results. I am hoping she’ll now run from the charlians. SEO is silly. It makes us all unhappy. Google puts it plainly in their message about SEO to webmasters.

One of the commentors, real name unknown, referenced his recent post on this matter, which I’ll quote as a supporting voice. billoday.net in A Message to Those Who Push SEOs

Here it is: Have interesting, unique, and applicable content that will make people return and link to you. That’s it. But, you have to understand that while Google is multilingual, its primary language is the link. The link determines how important you are. Not only that, but the level of importance the linker has determines how important you are.The way to win is to be the most popular kid in your field. Do that by spending time on your actual web content, not just improving your Google rank. It may start a little slower, but in the end the payoff will be even bigger. And everyone benefits from that.

To my mind, the most effective form of currency these days is not the link, it’s the quote. Not because search engines will follow the quote to the source, but people will. The pull quote is way to get a person reading. I do want you to read Brinley’s piece on Jaya in Afganistan. It’s fascinating. Thus, I quote it.

You need people to read you first. Meaningful links come come only after a real person invests the time to read you. It has to be worth their while.

Hugh MacLeod quoted me, what he felt was the crux, in Human Condition 101. Oddly, this quip that caught his fancy “…must be important…”, is the one gauled me into saying that she’d get more mileage out of a sincere link from a blogger. I went on to say that I would be that blogger.

Ultimately, however, it’s not one or another well placed link that determines authority. It will the merit of Brinley’s writing, and the depth of her experience. I do hope she makes more of her work more accessible.

Update: Blogging’s ROI

At long last I’ve gotten around to updating this post with photographs of the payout.

F Brinley Bruton was good to her word. A drink for a link. Langiappe, too.

Two Manhattans at Oswald’s. As a journalist, F Brinley Bruton has this annoying habit of disarming a person and then interviewing them. We talked about me, until I arrested myself. I’d ask her questions, but then we’d be talking about me again.

After listening to Harry Anderson’s latest take on the French Quarter, and watching a little bit of magic, we went to Coop’s for a burgers and Abitas.

I made a fortune off this blog entry. Thank you F Brinley Bruton.