WTF is SEO?

Be a yardstick of quality.  Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

 ~Steve Jobs

A guest comment on my Linked In post, bluntly asked:  "WTF is SEO?" What a great question!  You see it everywhere on pretty much any social media site and fairly often as an attribute by a company or individual professing to be an expert.  "WTF" is right!  Although that is best avoided in polite language (most people can probably guess what it stands for) .... or it could possibly mean:  "W-ith T-rue F-ondness". 

FYI (For your information): SEO = Search Engine Optimization 

My apology for getting caught in my own trap by using the SEO acronym.  What it really means is persons or organizations who can bump up your results in search engine query results.  Often they are ones who specialize  in web analytic.  

According to Wikipedia:  Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

SEO is often linked with advertising, marketing, events, blogs, promotions, email campaigns, social media -- whatever it takes to drive traffic to an organizations website.  

The top in the craft of SEO is when there are key words commonly linked with that organization or web site, is set to attract the web crawlers or virtual robots who scroll through millions of content to determine who/what/where you appear in  ranking results.  i.e. Page 1 or page 10 (not including paid banner ads).  

  

Design is a funny word.  Some people think design means how it looks.  But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.

 ~Steve Jobs

  

 Most consumers today will not buy anything without first doing research:  reviews, media, etc.  How they do it, is typically by random searches by product, name or questions that lands them on a website to navigate around to find what they came looking for.  In fact, according to Hubspot:"55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website." 

Savvy web masters, have laid the trap to snag those searches on behalf of their organization or clients website.  This potentially leads to more inquiries, calls to actions, limited time deals, generated by the website.

There are other ways to get around the crowd and get in front -- quick fixes for those who don't have the time to wait for organic results.  Organic results, are from slow, steady, concentrated, consistent messaging out in the social media world.  Quick fixes, are paid banner ads through Google ad words or Facebook campaigns, keyword manipulations, buying followings, likes and the works.

Before you seriously consider hiring an SEO, marketing or content guru, ask yourself, what makes them so special?  I know I'm pretty darn tired of reading a bio or boast by someone wanting to take your money to "help you" increase your results, then go to Twitter and they only have a few hundred followers or even better, look them up on KRED or KLOUT to see how they rate among peers and it is dismal, not even noteworthy.

I would suggest you leave those "selling ice to eskimos" SEO, web analytical and Social Media self-proclaimed TOP of everything to their fooled customers who believe they are spending money to gain some hidden holy grail.   The truly gifted and ones you should be hiring are actively participating in it, not just talking and blowing steam at everyone.  They have results on KLOUT and KRED and have their own following.

Do your homework before you part with any money.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.  ~George S. Patton

Get cat in the act on Caturday

There are popular occasions, and then there are really popular occasions.  Cats are some of the most posted, shared, clicked, pinned, retweeted, tumbled, instagram'd ... so popular, in fact, that they have replaced Saturday with "Caturday".  From research I could come up with, it appears as though a discussion group called "4chan" populized the meme Caturday in 2005. 

Be there or be square on social media on  Caturdays in social media's nod to some of the most popular images, art, cartoons or photographic depictions of cats.  Try it out - post something with a visual of a cat, kitten and those with cats with the hashtag #Caturday and blend in with the in crowd.

 I have come up with some fun cats to share.  Sit back and scroll through on #Caturday ... or any other day .... just don't forget to comment, share, like or add your own caption to get cat in the act.:

Cat acts:

Celebrity cats: 

Cat expression:

Cat action:

Cool cats:

Cute kittens:

Cats gone wild:

Grumpy cats: 

Fat cats: 

Cat poses: 

Cat naps:

Cat wallpaper:

Cat art:

Cat love:

Famous cats:

Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield (named after the grandfather of Davis); his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Jon's dog, Odie. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.

According to Wikipedia:  "Grumpy Cat" was originally named Tardar Sauce by her owner Tabatha Bundesen when she was born April 4, 2012^[2]).  She is an Internet celebrity known for her grumpy facial expression.  Grumpy Cat's popularity originated from a picture posted to the social news website Reddit by Bundesen's brother Bryan on September 22, 2012.  It was made into an image macro with grumpy captions. "The Official Grumpy Cat" on Facebook has over 7 million likes.  Grumpy Cat was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on May 30, 2013 and on the cover of New York magazine on October 7, 2013.

The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularized by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While most often celebrated in "Alice"-related contexts, the Cheshire Cat has transcended the context of literature and become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television, as well as cross-disciplinary studies, from business to science. One of its distinguishing features is that from time to time its body disappears, the last thing visible being its iconic grin.

Hello Kitty (ハローキティ Harōkiti^?)^[3] (full name Kitty White (キティ・ホワイト Kiti howaito^?))^[2] is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, created byYuko Shimizu and currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi. 

The character's first appearance on an item, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974 and brought to the United States in 1976. By 2010, Sanrio had groomed Hello Kitty into a global marketing phenomenon worth $5 billion a year. By 2014, when Hello Kitty was 40 years old, she was worth about $7 billion a year, all without any advertising.

Theodor Seuss Geisel (ⁱ/ˈɡaɪzəl/; March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American writer and cartoonist. He was most widely known for his children's books, which he wrote and illustrated under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss (/suːs/).^[2] He had used the pen name Dr. Theophrastus Seuss in college and later used Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone.^[3]   Geisel published 46 children's books, often characterized by imaginative characters, rhyme, and frequent use of anapestic meter. His most-celebrated books include the bestselling The Cat in the Hat.  His works have spawned numerous adaptations, including 11 television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical and four television series.

CATS is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Cats is the third longest-running show in Broadway history.   It has been performed around the world and  translated into more than 20 languages. 

So there you have it!  Paws down, cats and their owners are a loyal bunch!  Regardless of whether you are a cat lover, or not, you have to respect the adoration, history, and influence they have.

CREDITS:

Images were compiled from Pinterest, curated by a broad spectrum of artists, illustrators, photographers, owners and enthusiasts.  You can check out my Castastic board if you haven't had enough and want to see some more cats.

Informational excerpts came from WIKIPEDIA.

CATTOONS: