SEO Weekend Update: Find Your Center

Hey, friends. We’ve got a busy week ahead here at Bruce Clay, so let’s just jump right into some of the big stories of the day. Grab a cookie or something and let’s go!

First, Some Housekeeping!

First things first, did you know that Bruce Clay, Inc. now has its very own Twitter feed where you can easily keep up with our daily blog postings? If not, now you do! If you prefer to get your blog updates via Twitter, start following BruceClayInc and hear all about what TheLisa says. ;) [Even when it’s not TheLisa posting, I notice. –Susan] Hey, it’s automated, give me a break.

Also, I’ll be heading up to eMetrics San Francisco next week for another around of “let’s see if we can make Lisa’s hands fall off!” as I attempt to liveblog three days of Web analytics sessions. Keep your eyes on the blog to see which sessions I’ll be covering. As a special treat, we’ll also be featuring interviews on the blog with some of eMetrics familiar faces, including Vanessa Fox, John Marshall and Matt Bailey, so keep an eye out for that!

And our last bit of housekeeping news: The SEO Newsletter will be hitting your inboxes Wednesday afternoon so make sure you’re subscribed. This month features dueling articles from Susan and myself as we debate why size matters in SEO conferences.

Yahoo To Help You Find Your “Center”

Danny Sullivan talks about a new Yahoo paper about finding the local “center” of search queries and how it may help the engines decide which pages are more relevant for local interests and which have more of a national audience. There are some interesting tidbits in both Danny’s coverage and the actual study itself. Danny lists off a number of ways he thinks mapping search results by their “center” could be useful, though I’m not entirely convinced. Let’s let users do the search and sites optimize for how they want to show up. I’m not sure I’m okay with the engines moving around my “center” and skewing results based upon it without my permission. I’m a control freak like that. Or maybe I just like authentic results.

I personally love how we need a study to tell us that it’s mostly people in New England searching for [Red Sox] every hour on the hour and how the line of searchers typing in [Hurricane Dean] into their search box matches the path of the actual hurricane. Um, thanks for that totally obvious information.

Protecting Your Job With Common Sense

Andy Beal comments on the Washington Post article about When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web. The Post basically asks if disciplinary action should be taken against teachers with racy MySpace and Facebook profiles. I’m sorry, and this may age me, but I have to go with a resounding “yes” here.

It’s not that I think people aren’t entitled to a private life; it’s that I think if you’re going to be working with school-age children and setting yourself up as a role model, I think you should have enough common sense to check the “set to private” on your MySpace profile settings and restrict who can view your Facebook profile.

As Andy points out in his post, the actions and behavior these teachers are being “outed” for is nothing new. People in their 20s, regardless of profession, have been going out to bars, doing stupid things, and then photographing the evidence for as long as the camera has been in existence. The only difference is now these young adults are publishing tracks for their debauchery on the Internetz. And when you’re supposed to be setting an example, it’s probably worth keeping that stuff behind a locked door. You don’t blow up your racy pictures and put them on billboards in front of your house, do you?

You’re an adult. Do you want to do, but be responsible about it.

Fun Finds

Four days ago Mack Collier wrote that when it comes to blogging, you can’t let the fear win. I’ve had the window with Mack’s post open for four days. It speaks to me.

Over at All Things Digital, Kara Swisher says no one but us tech nerds knows what Twitter is. Well, yes, Kara, but they will! Oh, will they. [And then we’ll all leave for the next big thing. –Susan]

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.