I laughed, I cried, I had to explain it to my boss

The biggest challenges come when resources are lacking (current economic climate), resources such as training, communications and personnel.

None of these replace great attitude from employees that love what they do, but they go a long way to making the place where they work more conducive to an environment where people actually want to work.

Some people just don’t “get it,” (and never will!) For the rest of the workforce there’s hope, just needs management that cares and enough resources (or creative options) to let people do the best job they’re capable of.

Even still, I don’t think for many email is really a critical service, they might think it is – but many people just use downtime as an excuse to sit around doing nothing – personally I welcomed the productivity boost!

You know, I bank online with Wells Fargo and have noticed this extra step they take as well. It’s important that companies do think about the details, because people will notice.

I enjoyed this post a lot! I’m going to continue to read your stuff!

-Jamie

Love where you’re coming from on the importance of data, it’s too bad so many businesses neglect to hire a dedicated web analytics guru. It’s like they are shooting in the dark. Oh well.

Thanks for typo correction on my website, good lookin’ out!

I spoke to CPK head office. Very sympathetic, very apologetic.

They spoke to the manager. Told him (essentially) not to be a dick.

Sent me two free meal vouchers.

Not ideal, should never have happened in the first place, but okay outcome, enough for me to give them another chance.

Great post. Absolutely correct.

I 100% agree there’s no easy road to success. I also believe SEO isn’t brain surgery in both the figurative and literal sense.

That being said… SEO can work in most instances for most companies, not so much from a ‘trick the search engines’ standpoint, rather from a ‘best practices’ standpoint to ensure your site ranks as high as it can for keywords that drive quality (defined by having the propensity to do what you want them to do when they get there) traffic to your site.

Good SEO *strategy*, along with folks that know what they’re doing to implement SEO best practices *specifically* related to your business goals is where I separate the bullshit from “the shit” – the good kind

To address your point about ‘same is good’ on content, I disagree.

When one takes a page as a whole, analyze and compare against higher-ranking competition, one can arrive at a ‘best practice’ for the particular keyword based on frequency, anchor text, ratios, linking, semantics, formatting etc. However “on page” content is only one part of the equation. Being interesting and unique, potentially drives eyeballs = links = authority in the eyes of the search engines.

Search engines are dumb, but they put great weight to what people are talking about.

Being unique gets people talking. You guys have a pretty unique voice, culture and product roadmap.

Your current voice says: “We’re better because we’re less.” – Not bad, but could it be more specific or interesting to attract search engines and links?

Your SEO voice might say the same, only more, and more “interesting”: “Screw Quickbooks, we’re everything you need to manage the finances of your small business without the bloat, expense or pain.”

As one part of an SEO strategy, your unique SEO voice will create interest because it uses competition, passion, problem and what you do; succinctly and in a way that promotes conversation = potential for links / authority.

Although I completely agree with your premise that search engines are dumb, that is exactly what makes me have to disagree with your point. For SEO you should write dumb content.

We had an SEO working for us for sometime and one of the big lessons we learned is that search engines like it when you sound just like everyone else. Why? because that’s how they are programmed. If you want people who are searching for unique keywords or phrases then yes, by all means, be unique, but if you are looking for ubiquitous results, then you probably need to be ubiquitous. We call it dull, boring writing and we hate it.

This is the biggest reason we think SEO is bullshit and no longer pander. It seems to be working for our business but our approach might not be best for everyone.

I’m sorry to say there is no easy road to success.