Kyle Mathews :: Dreams With In

A year ago in just my second blog post, I explained why I write a blog. My answer then (and now) is I keep a blog as an intellectual journal of sorts. Blogging is my way of pulling together into a coherent form all the stray thoughts rolling around in my mind. Writing helps me sift the good thoughts from all the bad and fit them all together in a logical pattern.

I've been reading "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin lately and am loving it. I read one of the case studies in the book today and found it quite funny in light of the 500,000 iPhones Apple sold last Friday.

He wrote:

Case Study: Motorola and Nokia

Guess what? Cell phones are now boring. Just about everyone who needs a phone now has one. Most people who want a phone have one, too. The companies that built that revolution now have a problem: What next?What do they have to put into a phone to get people to notice it? Is it possible to make a remarkable phone anymore?

It's obvious now that Apple has figured out how to make a remarkable phone with its iPhone, a purple cow worthy phone, while Nokia and Motorola have not.

Perhaps it's time for Seth to update his case study?

A website's goal is to convert as many visitors as possible

The number of conversions depend on two factors:

1. number of visitors
2. % of total visitors the website converts

SEO practitioners optimize web pages so the pages show up high in search engine rankings. This drives more traffic to the page which increases the number of conversions. How high a web page shows up in a search engine ranking page (SERP) is based on three factors:

1. Strength of the domain (measured by links, trust, age, and possibly some usage factors)
2. Internal and external links to the page
3. Keyword in the title tag

Other pages I found helpful to understand SEO:
If Your Page Ranks Well, You'd Better Be Messing With It
18 Questions Your CEO Forgot to Ask When Building Your Website
The Basics of Search Engine Optimization
How to Build a Keyword List
Google Ranking Factors - SEO Checklist
Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization
Lots of links to other SEO resources
Before You Launch that Local Small Business Website -- SEO basics for small companies