Over the past few months, my personal time has been absorbed by a grass roots movement in which I have become deeply involved here in California. The importance of the issue has impelled me to use every skill I possess as a writer, an artist, a graphic designer, an SEO, a marketer. I think the experience I am having in this pursuit is worth sharing.

I remember first learning about the importance of link acquisition as a brand new SEO. I had a vague idea that I would be writing to related businesses and asking them nicely to link to whatever website I was working on. The trouble was, the first projects I was asked to do this on were not being run by businesses who had invested the time to create content worth linking to. Can you imagine a scenario more doomed to fail than giving a new SEO the task of getting links to a website that features nothing but sales pages of 300 pond filters?

Dear So-and-So,
We just love the koi fish you sell and wanted to let you know that we sell pond filters. We’ve linked to your website from ours and would be so pleased if you would consider….

Heaven help us!

About the time that top SEOs started proclaiming that Content is King, I started to understand that what was getting in the way of acquiring valuable links was the artifice of the situations I found myself commonly in - begging for links to unworthy pages from businesses with something better to do with their time. Over the past couple of years, all good SEOs have experienced the difference great content makes, but in my current involvement with my socio-political project, I am seeing something beyond this.

I am seeing what a difference personal involvement makes. When an issue - be it negative like climate change, the housing crisis, honeybee colony collapse, childhood disease, or positive like organic farming, sustainability, literacy education, greening the home, elder advocacy - is deeply affecting people’s lives, the energy, generosity and spirit of sharing that evolves is unlike anything else I’ve encountered as an SEO. Far from being a case of pleading for links, the connections made in these on-line interactions have real-world impacts that forge bonds, build communication and advance whatever cause is at hand.

I have been authoring the most active blog on the web on my particular subject for the past 2 months - just 2 months. In a couple of weeks’ time, the materials I’ve created have been discovered and used in the following ways:

On community pamphlets and fliers
In scientific reports and research documents
On blogs
On websites
In a series of e-cards
In newspapers
On film

I have been incredibly honored to make personal connections with:

Scientists
Doctors
Journalists
Bloggers
Editors
Major Media
Politicians
Community

I’ve been able to act as both an information resource as well as a liaison between interested parties, facilitating new important relationships between people who can help one another. A secondary good is the fact that my blog has now been linked to, unasked, by every major entity involved in this project as well as by multiple media sources. Why is it secondary? Because the actual work being done is certainly more important than the prestige of the Google rankings that come from such excellent links. Still, the links are something to be very thankful for as their influence is making it ever easier for my materials to be found by people who need them.

It is amazing to me that a single blog is capable of accomplishing this much in a couple of months’ time. And, I feel it’s worth sharing this summary because it demonstrates how much you can accomplish when your subject is strong enough that all concern for the wheedling of links for rankings and traffic goes by the wayside. Because of my profession, I can’t help approaching any web endeavor like an SEO, but here, my passion and purpose are so personal that I have simply worked like crazy and felt grateful for the response my blog is receiving.

Working for non-profit or special interest groups is a field of its own. I am convinced that the web is providing an incredible place for caring and dedicated people to make a powerhouse difference in the world. The steps between bright idea and viral domino effect require only concerted effort.

The web can lead to artificial situations on so many levels as we struggle with the proposition that there are real people on the other side of the screen. Now, I have begun to see that the more the web, and the job of the SEO, is viewed as real life, the more naturally really good work will take place, the more powerful and effective our efforts can be, the more impact those efforts can have on our lives outside the web.

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Last week, Mike Blumenthal blogged about hurdles being put in his way by a hotel asking for customer reviews. I’m finding myself in a similar situation with a popular moving/storage company called PODS and I think the issues I’m facing with them are worth noting.

I heard about PODS from my sister (good old word of mouth marketing). They offer an interesting service. They deliver a storage container to your house, you fill it up, and they come take it away and drive it to your new home or a storage unit when you’re ready. I decided I wanted to learn more about how this worked and I had some specific questions I wanted answers to.

Clearly, care has gone into the Pods site. They’ve got videos, testimonials and all those kinds of confidence-building elements I like to see.

But, try as I might, I could not find any reference to how large the containers are. Bigger than a bread box? As big as a moving van? Bigger? My apologies to PODS if this information is on there somewhere, but after a good 15 minutes on the site, I still couldn’t find it.

So, I decided I’d fill out their form to get a quick quote on how much it would cost to move house from Point A to Point B. I seldom fill out forms…I don’t like giving out my email address because of the risk of being put on mailing lists…but I did want to get a sense of costs, so I made the choice to enter my data this time around. I liked the fact that the form had a zipcode lookup in case I didn’t know what it would be for my hypothetical new address. Lots of people who are moving likely don’t know their future zipcode until they settle in. So, I liked that part of the process.

What I did not like was what happened when I’d filled in all the blanks and hit enter. I was taken to a screen informing me that I needed to call PODS to get the quote that the form had promised me.

A little red flag rose up in my mind at that moment. I felt as though I’d just given away my personal information for the good of someone’s database…not for my own benefit. This was a very poor trust signal. But, having made this much of a commitment to learn about PODS, I found their number and called them.

Unfortunately, there was no one there to answer my call. This was in the evening, to be sure, but my feelings of trust eroded away a degree more realizing they don’t have 24 hour phone service. I expect this from a national company that is dealing with something as important as customers’ personal belongings. Imagine your family sitting on the steps of your new home in Lincoln, Nebraska at midnight on moving day, waiting for your POD to arrive with all of your stuff in it and it never shows up. You try to phone PODS to find out where it is, but there is no one there to take you call. That’s not a situation I’d want to be in, but it was the one I imagined once I understood there was no phone service.

However, it was then that I noticed they offer a Live Chat function on their website.

“Okay,” I said.”Maybe the Live Chat operator won’t be able to give me a quote for my hypothetical move, but they should at least be able to tell me how big the containers are.”

No such luck, unfortunately. The Live Chat was also unavailable.

So, here I am left having filled out PODS’ form, made a call, tried to speak with a Live Chat tech, and I am none the wiser as to how much PODS costs and whether their containers will fit in my narrow, country driveway.

My interest in this was so keen, I tried calling a bit earlier in the evening the next day and tried accessing the Live Chat again. I got the same response - nobody at home.

I don’t conduct personal business during the day. That’s work time. Most people are in the same boat. If, for some reason, PODS can’t staff a 24 hour phone line or Live Chat, they should at least make their form return a quote instead of using it for some other, undisclosed purpose. As it is, the form fails to meet my expectations as a user. It lacks transparency and leads to disappointment. I bet I’m not the only customer that has been turned away by this usability/functional issue.

So, where does that leave me? I’m still interested in the PODS service. A look at the SERPs shows me that they have competitors. PODS ought to know that they are making potential customers look elsewhere in hopes of finding a quote and basic information about these mobile containers. A few changes to their system could work some serious wonders for their bottom line.

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We are thrilled that our friend Matt McGee has done an interview in his column over at Search Engine Land with our client, John W. Tuggle of Learning Guitar Now.

This interview shows some great insight into the potential a small business has to win success online. Using well-honed teaching methods that he has developed over years, John has combined his guitar lessons with the latest Web 2.0 technologies including Skype and YouTube in a creative way to create a truly dynamic and engaging web experience for his students all over the world. We are proud of John and thank Matt for doing such a fantastic interview with him. If you like the article, we’d love it if you’d sphinn it!

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Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!

Back in January, I was disgruntled to discover that Google Maps wasn’t allowing reviews of State Parks. My post led to speculation that perhaps this had something to do with the legality of reviewing governmental entities. Whatever the case may have been, I am thrilled to announce that Google is now letting users review the state parks they love.

I have such a special feeling for preserved wild lands. I have been busily reviewing my favorites since I discovered this change a couple of days ago. It will be so helpful to end users to find detailed reviews that explain what they can expect to find if they visit a park and I am really happy to be able to write about these precious places.

If you’ve noticed things have been quiet around the SEOigloo Blog for the past week or two, my husband and I went on a trip across the state, and as you might guess, visiting state parks formed a major part of our exploration. If you love our preserved wild lands, why not show your gratitude by reviewing your favorite state park today in Google Maps?

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Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!

This week in local, Mike Blumenthal turned over a rock and discovered what appeared to be a cluster of brash affiliate spammers creeping around Yahoo! Local. His Search Engine Land article included nice screenshots of the Marriott Hotel chain with very weird URLs in their local listings. It looked to most of us like someone had taken control of Marriott’s listings and inserted an affiliate redirect URL into them in order to profit from a piece of the action. Bad stuff.

Within a couple of days, however, Matt McGee published a terrific interview with Brian Gil of Yahoo! Local and asked him about the Marriott Hotel issue. Brian suggested that what appears to be grave affiliate spam may not be what we think it is. In other words, he is seeming to indicate that Marriott may know this is happening and is using those weird redirects in order to track stats of some kind. Brian didn’t say this is a fact, but he hinted at it, in my opinion. Frankly, I’m confused. The interview is well worth reading as it delves into both the the importance of the long tail for Local SEO as well as the dubious power of user reviews. It seems Yahoo! Local is giving less weight to reviews than I might have thought. Interesting.

And, on the subject of winning reviews from customers, Michael Jensen of Solo SEO launched LeaveFeedback.org. I got to preview this terrific new user review service, and got to know Michael a bit in the process - very nice! The ability this service provides to business owners to organize their efforts to win reviews is exceptional and Michael’s blog post will tell you all about Leave Feedback.

On a silly note, I discovered that Google has changed their previous policy of not counting their own reviews in Maps and is now counting them twice!

Things I’m Wondering About
I’d like to see the long tail optimization in Yahoo! Local that Brian Gil was talking about in action. Does anyone have an example of this being done for a business? Is it possible at the free business registration level? If anyone can show me an example, it will greatly help me to get a good handle on how this works.

I’m also really looking forward to hearing success stories about the use of LeaveFeedback.org. I want to start using it myself for a couple of clients but am not quite ready to introduce this service to them yet as I’m tied up in other tasks for them.

Lastly, I’m thinking about how cool it is that someone like Brian Gil made himself so available to Matt. I’m wondering if Google will ever give us a Matt Cutts-like rep for Google Maps. Yahoo Local continues to come across as the far more accessible entity of the two competitors. I applaud Yahoo! for that.

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Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!

Back in January, I blogged about the fact that Google was failing to count their own reviews in the A-J listings and the small popup in Maps. One had to click into the bigger popup to see Google reviews counted amongst the other reviews from outside sources. So, a site with 10 reviews from Yelp and 4 from Google would only show 10 reviews in the primary interfaces.

Well, I’m all excited to announce that, from what I see, Google is now counting all my reviews I’ve left. They are appearing in the A-J rank and in the little popup. I looked at my oldest and newest reviews and all are being counted.

YAY, YAY….but…uhm…something is still not right…

Check out my most recent review for Mike Blumenthal’s company. From the screenshot, you can see that both Will Scott and I have left reviews for Mike.

But when you click on the 2 reviews link, you’ll see this:

For some goofy reason, Google has decided to count our 2 reviews as 4 reviews!

I went and crosschecked this with other reviews I’ve left and sure enough, Google is counting each of its own reviews twice. It’s almost as if they are overcompensating for all those months when they weren’t counting their reviews at all. Now they’re counting them twice!

What’s Going On Here?
My guess is that it’s just a bug. It certainly seems like one.

In regards to why Google is now counting my reviews, I want to mention that I don’t think this is a sandbox-type filter on the age of the reviews. I’ve been checking periodically since December and it’s only today I saw the reviews being finally counted, the most recent of which is from the end of February. So, I don’t think the reviews had to age to be counted.

Could it be that I, as a reviewer, had to age to be counted? Since Google doesn’t show you when people join up to be reviewers, I researched this in the best way I could. I found a reviewer with only one review to their credit, left on March 5, 2008. My assumption is that their profile began the day they left their sole review just a couple of weeks ago. Not only is their review being counted, it’s being counted twice. So, I don’t think reviewers have to age before their reviews are numbered.

So, I think we’ve just witnessed a change in the review system which, while addressing the older bug of Google not counting its own reviews, is just being plain silly by counting them twice. Is everyone else seeing this, too? What do you think?

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