Ah, starting to make sense. I’d very much like to try this out. I no longer rely on email as my primary means of communicating online. Google Wave just might be The Thing.
Tag Archives: google
Google lets me target ads at myself
“Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you want to see. You can also opt out of the program completely.”– TechCrunch
It took me less than 3 minutes to update my interests for Google. And I’m sure I’ll go back from time to time to tweak them.
Google me business cards
Guess this doesn’t work if you’re Bill Smith or don’t show up at all in a Google search. But I like the idea. You will learn a great deal more about me from Google than I could ever cram on a business card. Sort of a moot point since I don’t hand out many cards these days. If there’s a point to be made here, perhaps it is be in control –to the extent you can– of your Google footprint.
PS: I see that –for the moment– smays.com tops the results for “steve mays” (minus quotes) and number two with quotes.
Google Juice: Example #32
I do these from time to time, in spite of how self-serving they seem. That’s never my intention, given the modest traffic through this little alley of the Internet. I’m talking about Google ranking and how well blogs do in this most important metric.
In July of 2006, I posted passage from John Burdett’s second novel, Bangkok Tattoo. The subject –and title of the post– was “Western Concept of Self.”
Today, I happened across the post and decided to Google “western concept of self” (minus the quotation marks). Those are pretty common terms and Goggle returned almost 13 million pages with one or more of them. My little post was number two on that list.
So when clients ask me, how can they get their website to show up on the first page of Google search results, I always tell them the same thing: Start by making your site a blog and update it every day.
“Isn’t there some meta-thingy you can hide on the page that will force my site to the top of the rankings?”
Yeah, maybe. But I’m not your guy for that. I love that Google almost always helps me find what I’m looking for and I’m not keen on helping someone game the system. Even for money. (God, I hope I don’t get hammered by all the SEO experts. Can I just stipulate that you guys are right and I’m wrong?)
One final point and it has to do with blogs vs. newsletters. I’ve posted on this in the past. It came up again recently. The “village elders” of a local organization were unhappy with the blog one of their members maintains for them. They didn’t like having frequent, short items and wanted to go back to their “newsletter” format. Save up any news and post it all, once a month, at the same time.
Nothing wrong with that approach if you’re only interested in reaching the people who are already in the organization and know to go check the website once a month. But if you’re trying to reach more and new people, you want that Google juice. Blogs deliver. Newsletters… not so much.
Jeff Jarvis: What Would Google Do
Jeff Jarvis’ new book, What Would Google Do looks like it might be a two highlighter read. I’ll be posting some of my favorite passages here but encourage you to buy and read the book.
“In retail, media, education, government, and health –everything– the link drives specialization, quality, and collaboration, and it changes old roles and creates new ones. The link changes the fundamental architecture of societies and industries the way steel girders and rails changed how cities and nations were built and how they operated. Google makes links work. Google is the U.S. Steel of our age.” – pg 27, What Would Google Do (Jeff Jarvis)