SEO Headlines 03/25/2008

Matt McGee Offers Very Polite Smackdown

Matt McGee is one of my favorite people in the industry and today he reminds me why with this Google Wants Your Analytics Data Badly (An Open Letter) post. I mean, how many people do you know that can still come off as an adorable, huggable teddy bear when they’re dishing out the smackdown to Google? Not many. Matt McGee is the man!

Matt is calling out Google for being so obsessed with their new data sharing feature that they’ve sacrificed user privacy by making it opt-out instead of opt-in. Even worse, they’re essentially doing everything they can to get users not to even notice that they have a choice. For real. All they’re missing is the giant neon arrow pointing to the "ACCEPT"button. Google really needs to revaluate what they’re doing here. If they want to make this "feature" available for users, great. But make sure site owners know that they don’t have to opt in and that you’re not opting them in without their permission.

Because Matt’s a nice guy, he offers up some advice to Google on how they can stop their evil stripe from showing:

"Make the data sharing stuff a little bigger so I don’t almost miss it, and don’t opt me in by default! What’s up with that? You’re like those awful sites that force me to uncheck a box so I don’t agree to be spammed halfway to tomorrow. Thankfully, I noticed the little "Edit Settings" link and took care of this. (Matt McGee, FTW!)"

Sounds good to me. See, now isn’t Matt McGee your favorite person in search too? I know!

Which is Better: Search Engine Optimization or PPC?

I came across Dave Wallace’s cumbersomely named Search Engine Guide article Which is Better – PPC or SEO? How One Company Increased Traffic 60 % After Ditching PPC for SEO and was left somewhat scratching my head. The article makes the case that while PPC optimization may deliver fast track results, it’s your search engine optimization campaign that is going to offer up the long lasting, steady results you’re looking for.

Fine. I can’t argue that. I totally agree that search engine optimization provides a great long term benefit and in the end, it’s probably cheaper than PPC optimization, I’m just not sure why we have to pick one or the other. It’s not a matter of what comes first. There’s room for both in your Internet marketing campaign. In fact, I think your marketing campaign needs both.

As David is careful to mention in the post (probably because he knows I’d pounce if he didn’t ;)), PPC optimization allows a great opportunity to learn about new keyword opportunities, to set new campaign goals, to help you better understand your searchers, and leaves you with new data that will help you measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaign. It always makes me nervous to hear people pitching one Internet marketing strategy over another. There’s no reason to start throwing eggs out of your basket. It’s about balance and using data from all the available avenues.
Fun Finds

It must be March because the old "what do I do when my client won’t listen to me because I haven’t set proper expectations" thread has come back up. This time it’s called SEO Clients Not Being Responsive and Tamar is commenting over at Search Engine Roundtable. See, this is why we lock our clients in the storage closet. It makes them much more compliant. I’m kidding. The server room is way warmer. [For more on this topic, make sure you’re subscribed to the SEO Newsletter. –Susan] Yes, yes, a very timely article shall be arriving in your inboxes on Monday. So go subscribe!

Mike Blumenthal shows you how to get your video clips showing up in Google Maps by adding it to the Local Business Center.

Barry Schwartz posted How to Set Up Google Ad Manager On Your Site or Blog. It’s one of those posts you’re going to want to bookmark. And drink some coffee before you dive in.

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.