Entries Tagged as “Opinions & Rants”
Are acronyms hurting your SEO rank?
Anyone that knows me, understands that I am not a big fan of acronyms. I think they breakdown the lines of communication, and confuse people quickly. Earlier this week I attended a marketing luncheon with a topic on SEO, where I became acutely aware of this issue and wanted to write about it. I don't claim to know much about SEO, so you experts out there can set me straight if I am missing the point.
Basically the presentation sounded like this: "keywords in your name, keywords in your url, keywords in your username, keywords in categories, keywords in your tweets, keywords, keywords, keywords." Sounds reasonable right? Well it does until I started noticing all these acronyms appearing in the presentation materials, in the conversation, on the web, etc.
All this got me to thinking. Why spend all this time creating a keyword rich business name, username, url, etc., if your going to refer to them with acronyms? The same is true for valuable keywords or trigger words within the content of your site as well. Using acronyms seem like missed opportunities to add valuable keyword content to your website.
A perfect example of this would be the title of my blog post. "Are acronyms hurting your SEO rank?" If I was an SEO expert, I just missed an excellent opportunity to gain "search engine optimization" as three additional keywords. The problem with using acronyms are that people looking for your content may not be familiar with your specific acronyms and therefore search for the longer more verbose phrase or only part of the phrase.
Acronyms are a big part of our language—for better to for worse—we are stuck with them. We should think carefully about the usage of acronyms within our page content. Properly defining an acronym the first time it's used on the page with the <acronym> tag is the first thing I would recommend.
However I would be remiss if I didn't caution against the overuse of the <acronym> tag. I still believe that once a term has been defined on the page it does not need to be defined again. Optimizing for a search engine is one thing, but user experience should be your top priority. Unless of course your customers are search engines and not people.
→ Respond NowTags: Opinions & Rants · SEO
Is The Phrase "Apple Killer" the new "Heavy Duty"
In the last few years it seems that every new gadget that is announced gets dubbed an "Apple Killer" of some sort. The Apple Killer rhetoric lasts up until the point when the actual product is released to the public. Then what? Nothing, you never hear about these alleged Apple killers again. Why is this?
I think the answer is simple. They are all trying to be like Apple in some way by coping their formula for success, instead of innovating like Apple. They spend all their resources just trying to catch up, and make a product that can maybe compete on some level. All the products I have seen to date all end up falling short, and not delivering on the promise of great user experience.
In the end, what elevates Apple products to the top of the food chain is great user experience. It's not a laundry list of features, and tech specs. If these other companies are going to create a true "Apple Killer" product, they are going to have to set aside the idea that the only thing people want are more features and better specs, and actually make an innovative product.
Once upon a time, the phrases "Heavy Duty" or "High Quality" meant something. At least it did to me back then. Over time the two phrases have been so badly abused my marketing companies and manufactures, just seeing the words make me instantly think of cheep offshore junk.
Seeing the phrase "Apple Killer" in news headlines today, has the same negative effect. I no longer think, could this be a real threat to Apple? My thoughts are now replaced with, poor guys, just how badly is this product going to fail?
What about you? How do you feel about the phrase "Apple Killer"? does it still mean something to you? Or are you like me in thinking that the phrase is the new "Heavy Duty"
Past Apple Killers. Where Are They Now?
Does anyone remember these past products all touted as being "Apple Killers"? Sure people bought them, and I am sure some of them are actually happy with their purchase. Most of them were only talked about by the buzz engine created by marketing companies, but most of them have already been forgotten or barely considered a reasonable alternative.
iPhone Killers
Palm Pre
T-Mobile G1
BlackBerry 9000
BlackBerry Bold
Garmin Nuvifone
HTC Touch Pro
LG Dare
Samsung Instinct
Samsung Omnia i900
Nokia N96
Apple TV Killers
Archos TV+
Netflix‚ set-top box
Blockbuster‚ set-top box
Asus O!Play
URC PSX-2
Netgear iTV
iPod Killers
Sony Network Walkman
Microsoft Zune
Cowon iAudio
Archos Gmini
PSPgo
Samsung P3
→ Respond NowTags: Opinions & Rants · General
What A Bad User Experience
I spend better than 60 percent of my day online. I shop, I do research, I work, and I play. Bad user experiences are not all that uncommon for users. We encounter them almost daily with the various websites we use. But this one site has really pissed me off today. So bad that I could not let it slide off my back like the others. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood, but really, I think it was just a bad experience that left a significant impression on me.
CAUTION: RANT AHEAD!
→ Respond NowTags: Opinions & Rants · General
