Then, she started going onto the cookie crumbs, which lead back into her earl discussion. Finally, I knew a little bit about what she was saying! (Cookie crumbs or bread crumbs are the links at the top of a page “home - section 1 - section 4 - article you’re on” helpful for inter-linking).

After another few minutes of scratching my head, I figured out what she meant by earl, she was taking about URLs! *laughs* I kid you not, she was using a very unique insider jargon that I’d never heard of to describe what she wanted. Once I figured out what she was saying, I had an easy enough time giving her what she wanted for her SEO needs, but it took some work to decipher it.

This leads to one of the most important things that I think you can look for in an SEO agency — can they make things understandable? That is, do you know what they’re talking about?

Granted, you don’t need to understand the finer intricacies of how SEO works, but if you don’t understand a thing that your SEO professionals are saying, how are you going to know if you approve of something or not?

Google knows your role, Google knows your clique — so you had better believe they’ll enforce it.

At this point, you might be crying to the Gods, “What does it all mean?!?!”

Never fear my friends; I’ll clue you in to the big G’s devious machinations consider SEO.

The Google Machine, like all good yard aides in junior high, likes to know what to expect out of groups. Yard aides liked to know that the stoners would hang out by the kickball fence, the jocks would hang out by the gym, the nerds would be by the library and the ‘cool’ kids were by the cafeteria. This way, if ever there was any indiscretion, they would know exactly where to look depending on the problem.

Google is the same way, it wants to know where to look. This is why if you run a website talking about football, you should link to other football sites. Run a site that talks politics? Link to other politicos!

Many people are afraid of linking out from their site because they’ll give away their precious, precious link juice. Come on people! Didn’t you learn anything in kindergarten? Sharing is good.

Link out to your clique, make some friends and then the Google Machine will know where you put you in searches.

Back in third grade, my teacher was explaining that you could fold a square two different ways to make it match, top to bottom and left to right. At this point, my friend and I who were usually some of the nerdier kids in the class scratched our heads.

He raised his hand and said, “Can’t it be done four different ways? Top to bottom, left to right, upper left corner to bottom right corner and upper right corner to bottom left corner?” I, naturally, agreed with him, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure there are four ways to do this.”

Well, much to our dismay, she disagreed. Not only that, but being older than us (and our teacher) she expected us to relent our silly pursuit of the truth. We did no such thing.

We continued to pester her about how there really are more than two ways to do it (which, I’m sure at this point in my life she knew we were right, she just didn’t want to look bad in front of the other students), but she wouldn’t cave.

That’s when she made us change our colors! (For those of you who don’t know, it was her way of punishing us — we had to march in front of class and flip our color cards, letting everyone know we had been bad.)

This was the first, and only, time that I ever had to change my color in my entire scholastic career — and all because the older person thought she was right!

This relates to my current age conundrum. Here’s the deal: the algorithm for most all search engines (Microsoft just announced that Live will start doing this too) heavily weight the age of the domain when giving rankings. This implies that because a domain is older that it naturally has better information and is a better resource for people.

Let’s be serious though, this just isn’t true! I chalk this up to laziness on the programmers part on not knowing a better way to add credence to a domain. However, I’m sure that there is a better way. There are enough people working on the algorithms for the different companies that domain age shouldn’t be as important as it is.

Until this happens though, domain age is important for SEO. So, for those of you out there looking to start a site or a web business, check out what domains are currently parked (bought by someone else and waiting for an offer) before you make a decision on your name. The $1,000 or so you might spend upfront for an old domain that had no information on it before you got it will pay off in getting you out of the sandbox quicker.

As dumb as that seems.

However, while watching the polls last night and reading everything I could get my eyes on, it got me thinking about how the Pennsylvania primary relates to SEO.

When you’re optimizing your pages, you’re looking for the most exposure right? You’re looking to get your message out to as many people as possible — with a catch. These people need to be interested in what you have to say, which is exactly what good SEO delivers.

Both Obama and Clinton were doing this exact same thing! Their goal was simple: get the message out that each one is the best candidate for the job. If you were a non-voter or a republican, then if you heard what they had to say, fine, but they weren’t targeting you.

So, what optimization strategies did they use for their respective campaigns?

Each of them got solid grassroots help, they utilized their management structure and they kept their message clear and on point.

Or, in other words, they used solid content (grassroots), utilized good subheads (their management teams) and added clarity with good title tags (their message).

See? SEO is everywhere people! It’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

Notice anything? Anything catching your eye?

I honestly haven’t read a newspaper in…well, a few years, but I do look at them as I pass them on newsstands. Why? It’s for the exact same reason I told you to check one out: their eye-catching ability.

Newsies can teach people in SEO web design a thing or two — especially when it comes to designing above the fold.

Designing Above the Fold in Newspapers

There’s this concept that newsies have called, “above the fold.” This is all the news that you can see when the paper is still folded in half.

Why is this such a big deal? That’s their free advertising! As people walk by a newsstand, they’ll see everything above the fold — and if the people in the newsroom have designed the paper properly, it’ll pull the casual readers in and make them buy a paper.

They employ catchy headlines, great photography and witty openings on all of their work above the fold. You need to use many of the same techniques in your web design.

SEO Web Design Above the Fold

You can apply this same concept to SEO web design. When people stop by your site, they’re going to spend a few second there, no more — unless you can entice them.

Look at your site when you first land there. What do you see without scrolling down?

If there isn’t something compelling on your homepage, starting from the very top, then you’re in trouble. Everything above the fold (in this case, it’s everything that shows up without having to scroll), should serve a purpose.

Designing Your Website with SEO in Mind

Say it with me, “Everything should do something.”

Do you have navigation above the fold? Do you have something to let people interact with you? Is there compelling text? Is it colorful? Is it eye-catching?

You only get one shot at impressing most people, don’t squander your opportunities. Just like how newspapers are drawing people in simply by the headlines, pictures and designs above the fold, your site should be too.

Wow.

That’s really all I should have to say about that. “Top 10 rankings guaranteed in 5 weeks or your money returned.” “We’ll get you to the first page in Google in a month, without question.” “You’ll rank so high the Almighty will want to read you from Google.”

Sweet Methuselah’s beard, promises like these are signs of a company that you should avoid at all costs. Honestly, anyone who is promising you a top 10 ranking in any sort of timeframe, or even at all, is a shady character.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a 1,342 times, SEO is about techniques and best practices, but there are no guarantees. Come on crappy companies, stop making ridiculous promises like this!

They’re doing this under the guise of helpfulness to small and medium sized businesses, but I promise this will be less helpful and more hurtful. No disgrace to AT&T, I like their products, have an AT&T mobile phone and think they do good work; however, building and improving websites isn’t their specialty.

These are going to be more off-the-shelf crap generic products. If you’ve seen one FrontPage site, you’ve seen them all, which is exactly how I imagine the AT&T developed ones will be.

Their design experts will work with business owners on, “issues such as copywriting, blog and forum integration, database development, search engine optimization and electronic shopping cart capabilities.”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when was the last time you met a designer you’d trust with your SEO efforts? Seriously, SEO is rooted in good content strategies. How many designers do you know who would love to write and give you tips on your writing?

I promise you this: There will be some messes to clean up after this. Web hosting companies should stick to what they do well: web hosting. If we all just do what we’re good at, the world will be a happier place.

That’s what makes digital destinations so ephemeral, you know when you’re on one, but you’re not exactly sure what makes them so memorable.

A Brief History of  Interactivity

With a digital destination, there is interaction. Websites are not traditional documents. This is the culmination of mass communication and documentation.

Take it way back and there were cave drawings, which served their purpose — though there was a slight issue with portability.

Fast forward, you have handwritten scrolls. These were definitely more portable, but there was now an ever so small issue with reproduction.

Fast forward, you have the printing press. Now there are documents for the masses, but they are in bound books, not really interactive. Not only that, but these books weren’t cheap, so people didn’t want to ruin them.

Fast forward, you now have affordable printing. People can now slightly interact with their documents — at least to the extent that they can draw on them.

Fast forward, you now have the Internet. Finally, we’re at the stage where people can interact with documents, can influence their design and can truly experience the content. That’s just it, for people to learn, they don’t need to just sit there and quietly absorb it — they need to experience it!

This level of interaction sets the basis for a digital destination — more on what exactly that means later.

Right about now I figure you’re probably asking yourself, “And this has what exactly do to with SEO?” Well, as Yoda said in Star Wars, “everything.”

Alright, well, I’m not exactly sure if Yoda said that, but as far as I can remember he did — so just go with me here.

Do you like your site? Are you proud of it? Do you want to tell everyone you know about it? If you’ve answered all of these a resounding yes, then you’re well on your way to a good SEO campaign. Seriously, that’s exactly what SEO is: it’s telling everyone about what you do.

When someone heads to your site and is impressed with what you have on there, do you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to tell other people about it and recommend them to visit your site.

You’ll then have more visitors, who then tell more people…oh yes, the numbers will multiply.

Do you know what The Google Machine will then do? It’ll take notice and start ranking you higher. This will happen because it sees lots of people visiting your site, and if lots of people are visiting, then sure enough other would want to as well.

Oh yes, it all comes down to passion. So if you’re not passionate about your current work, maybe it’s time for a little evaluation. You see, online, you can be whatever you want to be.

Regardless of if we want standards, “need” standards (as prescribed by some outside entity) or care one way or the other about them, they’ll never be enforceable.

Seriously, who or what could police the Internet? The most sophisticated Net users are typically those who break the rules, the hackers. It’s not that I don’t think a hacker wouldn’t get a kick out of policing SEO practices, it’s just that I think they have better things to do.

Not only that, but let’s, for argument’s sake, say that we were to attempt to develop a set of SEO standards. Who, pray tell, would come up with these? A government entity? A conglomeration of SEO professionals?

Come on now, have any of you been watching the John Adams mini-series? Notice how well the delegates to the Continental Congress worked together? Yeah, they didn’t — and that was kinda a life and death situation, this isn’t.

I imagine the squabbling that would go on between SEOs would look something like the amazing politicking that happened between the pirate leaders in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Lots of shouting, little of anything getting accomplished, but certainly a fun time.

Moral of the story: if we ever attempt to do anything as silly as get some “official” SEO standards, sign me up for the conference, because I’m sure it’ll be a wild and crazy, but ultimately unproductive (as far as the standards go) time!