I <3 Mom
By David Brown | May 11, 2008
Well I’ve never done one of these before! But with the world turning social and all web2.0ish I figured what better way this year to say Happy Mothers Day to one very special Mom! MY MOM
So what to say about Mom on this hyped up over marketed holiday? (just kidding) Well first let me introduce you to her - Mom is really Joan Lanning (used to be Joan Brown for 25 yrs… but that’s a whole different story) As a professional Esthetician Joan is one of the leading eyebrow / lips / & eye women in the Northern hemisphere! She has owned and operated Advanced Electrolysis & Aesthetics in Spokane for 10+ years now. While I know she has famous clients (some super famous and some have actually become my clients down the road) ***Thanks Ma! She unfortunately can’t brag about them and I’ve been sworn to secrecy!
Or should I say threatened? I believe it was referred to as a 96th trimester abortion! Did I mention that my Mom is who I get my warped sense of humor from? That’s what I love most about my Mom she can always put a smile on my face… So quick story I suppose -
One night when Mom knew that Russ and I were sneaking in drunk, way past curfew… she waited in the shadow’s for us to fall asleep. (We had a big Volleyball tournament the next morning, but as reigning state champs we usually won these tourney’s no problem!) so Mom sneaking in while we’re asleep pulls off our socks and paints not only MY toes bright PINK… but also Russ’ toes! So the next morning, as we’re trying to drag ass out of bed… a trip to the bathroom to relieve much of what our kidney’s and Liver was able to process in our sleep 
I noticed Bright Pink toes staring back up at me! The first thought was ‘what the hell did I do last night’ then…. Russ that lil shit is messing with me! So I figured I’d go back to Mom & Dad’s bathroom to grab some fingernail polish remover and remedy this situation quickly… only to find a note on an empty bottle of polish remover from Mom that read something like this:
Topics: Personal | No Comments »
Brand v. SEO
By David Brown | May 8, 2008
Checking my Twitter feed this morning I clicked a link from Andy Beal Titled Is SEO a dying industry? Which of course grabbed my attention…
Greg starts off by saying:
According to Shoemoney, SEO has no future. I do not always agree with him, but in this case, he is dead right. Let me pull on my flame retardant suit before I explain why.
Although the flame retardant suit isn’t needed in this case, I couldn’t help but think that I was about to read another “SEO isn’t Rocket Science” article… But reading on I have to say I completely agree w/ both Shoe and Greg on this point. While I don’t believe that SEO as a trade / industry is dying I do see how old tricks are no longer useful.
Here is why SEO as we know it is going to continue its death spiral. Search engines are too smart and they have a different agenda. They do not want to reward crummy companies that play SEO games–they want to give the top listings to the best companies. And they are quickly gaining access to the information they need to do exactly that. They will use traffic and buying stats to figure out who the top companies are.
Now I’m sure some blackhats are going to disagree with that statement… I’m sure someone will still find a flaw in the algo’s and exploit it, I mean come on, this is the Internet after all! The more important point that Greg touches on here is the fact that SE’s are looking for Quality… The IBL score (In-Bound Link) may just fade away like the meta tags of yesteryear…
This is fine by me. We have always advised our clients to become proactive, involved, & authoritative when it comes to their web presence. Which means that while your SEO company is working on getting comments on worthless scraper blogs (that do NOTHING for you) We’re over here building something that can & will be used as a resource. This not only builds your brand… but will help your proverbial cream rise to the top of the SE’s.
Topics: Branding, SEO, SEO Consultants, Twitter | No Comments »
Twitter is Social!
By David Brown | April 29, 2008
Over the past few days I’ve heard more and more about Twitter. What is it? What does it do? Why do I need an account? How’s this going to help my business? (I’m paraphrasing from emails) Brian, Carolyn and I have even talked about doing a ‘Twittersode’ on SEO 101! **BTW @doshdosh - we’d love to have you on that episode!
So first off what is Twitter?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Twitter is great in the way that Disneyland is great… meaning, everyone has their own experience’s in their own way. To me… Twitter is a way to keep up with my friends and colleague’s. At the same time I get the freshest content on the web in ‘real time’. I started a thread over at WebTalkForums titled aptly enough “MySpace Isn’t Social…Twitter is” And… well here’s a reply from the thread:
Heck there are people on twitter who do nothing but update their petty lives every minute!
Hilarious to read through (just finished flipping through a bunch of them) and see people post: Had coffee. Good coffee.
Or: Raining outside, not raining inside.
Or: Opened the window.I mean really?
Do I or you need to keep up with someone who posts “Opened the window”?
I guess the way you experience Twitter is different for everyone. I’ve added all of the bloggers that I normally read, friends I’ve met at SES conferences, Alumni friends, and other folks that genuinely interest me and Followed them. Following someone basically means that when they post something to Twitter you get up to 140 characters in text from them. It really is that simple… short, sweet, and to the point.
Topics: SEO, Social, Twitter | No Comments »
Geocaching & SEO?
By David Brown | April 22, 2008
Happy Earth Day all! Yeah so the site is going to become more interactive… for years I’ve blogged over at n7v.net - which was nice because I could cut loose a bit more than I could on a ‘business’ site. Well thanks to the rules of social and web 2.0 that’s no longer a concern and you’ll see many updates a week on the site! Not all will relate to SEO / SEM / SMO / DFO or the likes, but I will try and tie them together as best I can when relevant.
Geocaching & SEO - what could they possibly have in common? Other than the common thread of ‘Search’ both involve ‘Technology’ to some degree, it can also involve Google. And what brought me to my exciting adventure this weekend was actually SEO! John Chen (co-author of Outlook Express for Microsoft) started a very exciting Corporate Team Building company after leaving MSN. GeoTeaming is Team Building based on the game GeoCaching… So what is Geocaching, you ask? It’s a treasure hunt gone high tech! I know I’m coming to the party a bit late… but at least I made it 
The basic idea is that people all over the world hide ‘Cache’s’ and add the coordinates to geocaching.com Where you then log in and find cache’s you’d like to go and Hunt for!
So geocaching is using your internal Search Engine (ah… bet you didn’t think I’d pull out another parallel to SEO did ya?) Here’s what Team Brown did this weekend… we picked out 5 cache locations and loaded them into the Garmin eTrex H and set out on our treasure hunt! Our first stop was a cache called Stonehenge…
Topics: Geocaching, SEO | 4 Comments »
Top SEO Consultants
By David Brown | April 11, 2008
Welcome to the new Top SEO Consultants site! Based in Bellingham, Wa. Brian Mark, Carolyn Shelby, & David Brown take on the Search engines so you don’t have to! We have a broad range of services to serve your needs. Put the band of geeks from SEO 101 to work for your company today! Here’s some of our services, as always we love to hear from you, please feel free to call (360) 922-0581 for a free 30 minute consultation. We are taking on new clients every week… so give us a call and see if we would be a good fit for your organization !
On site & Off site optimization
- Keyword Research & Keyword Strategy
- Web Site Structure Optimization
- Rank Monitoring & Ranking Trends Analysis
- Link Popularity & Link Profile Analysis and Improvement
- Site Quality Assessment & Site Quality Management
- Web Analytics & Conversion Improvement
- Visitor Behavior Analysis
- PPC Campaign Management and ROI Improvement
- Google Base Feed Optimization
- Press Release Campaigns
- And as always Top SEO Consultation services
Our thoughts on Black Hat Techniques
Most often, SEO companies and “consultants” that use spam methods can be detected by their slogans: they “guarantee” you a top-10 or a top-5 placement, in many cases without even specifying that the rankings will be obtained for the keywords you target. It is well publicized by many untrustworthy SEO’s that rankings are cheap and easy to get. That false conviction and the expectation it generates forces some SEO consultants to offer a guarantee of top-5 rankings. This, in turn, puts pressure on all other SEO providers to speak about similar guarantees, in order to remain in competition.
Such guarantees are misleading in principle. Top rankings can’t be put on a schedule like an advertising buy. Search engine’s organic results are not for sale, and this is exactly what helps them continuously remain popular: that which cannot be bought is trustworthy.
Topics: SEO, SEO Consultants | No Comments »
