When I wrote the title: How The Web Has Changed Your World, I knew that was too big of a topic for one article. But today I invite you to play along and participate.
This is a thinking game. Take some time and jot down your answers to the question, How Has The Web Changed My World? And I’ll share with you my answers.
I’m 55. Access to the internet began about 20 years ago, with Windows 95 as an operating system.
I met my wife, Kathy 15 years ago via an online dating site which was somewhat new back then.
I’ve gone from a desktop computer in our living room to multiple laptops and a smartphone that has more power than that original desktop.
The only reason I need to go to my radio station is for a meeting or two each week and to print stuff that I don’t want to print at home.
I no longer need to fill out any paper work for my job. I mean real paper, made from trees. Everything I do I can do online and access everything via the web. My files are stored in the cloud with backups. However I still use paper for presentations and to get signatures on agreements. But those signed papers are then scanned and stored digitally and the original paper… gone.
Shopping. My adult kids who live out of town are good at using Amazon Gift Lists which is helpful. Just this week, I ordered something for my son who lives in South Carolina for his birthday this month. (My wife ordered coffee last month online but still does most of her shopping and sending of gifts the old fashioned way.)
Need a phone number? Google it. Need to check a movie time? Google again. I even bought movie tickets the last time with my laptop. Want to find an article on my own website that I wrote? The answer again is Google, because that search function located at the top of the page is powered by Google too.
Instead of paying bills by hand, I do it online.
The landline phone has been gone for years, replaced by computers we carry in our pockets. I can take a picture with it and it will be saved in one of my Google accounts automatically.
I can communicate with others via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, text, email and of course with a phone call. I did a Google Hangout Video Chat last month with my daughter and family in Colorado.
Okay, enough about me. It’s your turn. If you are 30 or older, the web has changed your world. Think about how and share.
Search Engine Optimization. It’s been a “thing” since 1997 according to Wikipedia.
Here’s the basic premise. The Internet has close to 1,000,000,000 websites right now. How in this World Wide Web is anyone going to find yours?
Directories were created and that was okay for awhile then this company called Google came along and developed an easy to use simple way to find stuff online. The modern Search Engine was born and by the end of 1998, techies were praising Google.com:
“PC Magazine” reports that Google “has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results” and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.
Jump ahead 10 years to 2008 and I’m telling some of my radio clients that they need to blog regularly. At least once a month, but once a week is better. At this time, I’ve plunged myself into the blog world with over 3,000 articles I published on my own blogs that year alone, on a part-time basis.
The blog articles I was writing and sharing were being picked up by Google. Let me explain. If someone was to do a Google search for something I wrote about, I occasionally would appear on the first or second page of Google. Now Google is much more sophisticated these days and there are companies that specialize in optimizing websites for Google which still has over 65% of the search engine use market worldwide. Bing is #2 with around 20% of the market.
When I launched this website four years ago this month, I worked for Cirrus ABS, a website development firm in Fort Wayne and learned a lot of stuff I could be doing S.E.O.-wise for this site, but I didn’t. I was too busy working at my paid job and writing articles on the side to take the time to add those extras to my articles.
Time Travel with me to December 2013, about 23 months ago. That’s when I returned to radio to work at WOWO. I was given permission from management to write about WOWO and radio and advertising and marketing and just about anything I wanted because they trusted me.
As I went about my work at WOWO as an advertising sales person who prefers to offer advertising and marketing consulting 1st before the selling part of my job, I started writing about my experiences with WOWO radio and recently I noticed a trend.
People were paying attention. Mary, whom I’ve known for a few years was recommending articles I wrote to her clients. But this month in particular, I was getting phone calls, text messages and emails to my ScLoHo email account from strangers wanting my help with advertising, marketing and some were specifically wanting to advertise on WOWO. It was time to do some research.
I cleared my cookies and browser history and did a search for WOWO Advertise and was pleasantly surprised.
7 of the Top 10 Google Listings pointed to ScottHoward.me
The first three listings linked to our company website at WOWO.com But the rest all went directly to articles that I wrote over the past 22 months.
I sent a note and screenshot to my friend Kevin Mullett at Cirrus ABS who decided to investigate further wrote back, Maybe even more impressive. “radio advertising fort wayne” “fort wayne radio advertising” “fort wayne radio” incognito. Depends on how people are searching.
This is what I call the power of Accidental SEO. I almost called it lazy SEO but that’s not really what happened because I haven’t been lazy. I write and publish 5 articles each and every week on this website/blog. Many of them, but not all mention WOWO. That’s not being lazy, that’s being diligent.
The reason I called it Accidental SEO is because I didn’t add all the extra tags and metadata that would help Google find me and boost my results. I just wrote a blog and didn’t stop.
Maybe what I have done isn’t duplicate-able by you. Maybe it is. You’ll never know until you start and don’t stop.
If you want to be found online in a more purposeful way, I can help you with that with the services of the Federated Digital Solutions division of company. Contact me and we will see what is the best path for you.
In the marketing worlds I work in there are times when something is just not good.
The two areas I work in these days are radio broadcasting and digital marketing with WOWO Radio and Federated Digital Solutions. This isn’t a new field for me, I’ve worked in radio for decades and the digital world for 10+ years.
Click on this picture to read the sad story about this “ugly baby”
The past couple of years, I have had to tactfully tell business owners that their baby is ugly.
It’s hard. Recently I had a former advertiser show me his new website and while it was an improvement on his previous site, it was still lacking many of the elements needed to bring it up to todays standards.
And I’m not just talking about my standards, I’m talking about industry standards.
I’m going to give you a couple of websites that you can use to see if your website measures up or if it needs an overhaul. Be prepared to learn a few things.
First off, there is the mobile-friendly test. Google will now punish your website search ranking if your site is not mobile friendly. Click here and find out if your site passes. Oh, Yahoo and Bing are also penalizing you too.
Another place to check is Hubspot’s Marketing Grader. You’ll get a report with a score and suggestions on what to do.
This is a good starting place but instead of simply relying on these automated tools, you really need a professional evaluation done by a human being (ME) that can sort through these reports, do a few other checks and evaluations and tell you if you have an ugly baby or just need to give her a good cleaning.
We can also talk about the purpose of your website to determine if you need to hire a professional team and create a custom site, hire a smaller developer, or perhaps do it yourself.
Are you prepared to see if you have an ugly baby of a website? Click on those links and then let’s talk.
There are a couple of online giants that are taking over more and more of your online world. Facebook and Google have become more and more powerful and I wonder how healthy it is to us personally and also business wise.
Last month it was announced that Facebook wants major news content providers to publish on Facebook instead of their own online entities. Currently when the New York Times or Washington Post shares an article online, that story is posted and hosted on the newspapers own websites and then they share a link on Facebook and other social media channels.
Now Facebook wants the story to be posted and hosted on Facebook, not just linked to from Facebook.
Facebook has grown from a way for Mark Zuckerberg to meet girls in 2004 to one of the worlds most powerful data machines. Facebook knows more about you and me than the NSA. It serves ads to each of us based on who we are and what they know about us. Facebook is offering sweet deals to news content providers to entice them to become part of the Facebook family but several folks are concerned that Facebook is becoming too powerful.
Facebook likes to changes the rules for what it allows and how it distributes content. A couple years ago when I was working fulltime in social media, I saw how one of those changes adversely affected our businesses ability to communicate with our customers.
We had to pay to be seen. Facebook was flexing their marketing muscle and businesses needed to cough up the cash to stay in the game. This practice continues and they will continue to make it more expensive for businesses to use Facebook as a marketing platform.
It was also pointed out to me awhile ago that Facebook seems to be emulating the old AOL business model. That was one where you don’t need the whole internet, you just need to go to AOL and AOL will tell/show/feed you what they think is important. Except Facebook is making money and AOL is best remembered for the discs they used to send us so we could connect with a dial up connection.
Now Google, that’s a harmless little company that you can trust too right? Remember their mantra, Do No Evil or something like that?
Google began as a search engine, added an email service and then started buying up all the other internet start ups. They can reach your email, ready the content on the web pages you visit, maybe even read your thoughts?! They supposedly know every search you have conducted and clearing your history or cookies or anything else won’t stop them.
Sounds scary, but we continue to use them. Like Facebook, they know more about us than anyone, even our parents.
But there is an upside to this. Imagine having a customized web experience. The 5% of the time we are online and searching for something, or the other 95% when we are reading stuff, all of that is tailored to you and me. Not as a group, but individuals. The search engine results, the banner ads, the content itself is more often than not being delivered to each of us based on, well, each of us.
This is heaven for a business that takes advantage of this technology. I offer these digital solutions, contact me at Scott@WOWO.com . And it actually offers a richer web experience for us as consumers too.
April 1st is the traditional day to prank someone. April Fools day is also a day that the folks at Google like to test to see if you realize what day it is.
As I was writing this a few days ago, I don’t know what their 2015 Google prank is for today, but there are a few “easter eggs” that live on and on and on.
For example,
Google “Google in 1998” and watch what happens.
Google “do a barrel roll”
Google “tilt”
Go to You Tube (owned by Google and enter “Beam Me Up Scotty” in the search bar
And then the Google Hoaxes, click on the links below:
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
TuneIn
Deezer
CastBox