Yes, I’ve been radically behind on posts here at the wonderful world of wordpress.com, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy…

I’ve only posted a few times so far, but I guess I’m ready for visitors over at my new Search Engine Marketing Blog.

So please, friends – stop in and let me know you still care.

No worries though, if you’ve bookmarked any of this immensely valuable information. I’m leaving all the existing content here.

See ya on the flip side, yo.

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Been super duper busy (nothing seems to change), but I feel I just have to throw something out – if no other reason than to get myself back on track here. By the way, I’m in the final stages of preparing my self hosted blog, more on that soon. Enough blabber, let’s get on with it.

We Work Hard.

While I certainly don’t speak for everyone, I’d like to think that most of us in this industry work pretty darn hard for our clients – often times going above and beyond scope to make sure our client’s campaigns are as successful as possible. I know for myself, a 50-60+ hour work week is the norm, and my wife has to tell me to stop working more than she should. Even still, I love what I do so much that I find myself researching blogs, reading marketing, copywriting or programming books and running experiments even during my free time. It’s hard to imagine a more exciting, or rewarding career.

Enter: The Jerk.

These people live to ruin your day. They show up around every corner – and their words or actions can cut deeper than any knife. One of the most telling examples of the power that ‘the jerk’ has was described by Muzz Skillings from the band Living Color. After being asked what it felt like to perform in front of 60,000+ screaming concertgoers as the opening act for the Rolling Stones, Muzz said (paraphrased):

All I remember was running across the stage from side to side, taking it all in while we played our songs – it was the greatest feeling in the world – until my eyes landed on someone 10-15 rows out on the stadium floor. He stood there unmoving, his hand raised, with his middle finger pointing straight up at me. Out of all those screaming fans, that’s what’s stuck in my head…

I’m wagering that you’ve been there before, also. Maybe you created a design that you were really proud of, only to have someone tell you it’s crap. Perhaps, despite your best efforts and hard work,  you failed – and then you were told how worthless you are. (geesh, that WOULD suck…I’m getting depressed here.) What I’m trying to say is this: negative comments can consume you and prevent you from trying to be great – if you let them.

What if…

But what if someone you respected came up to you today and told you how much you were appreciated – that they really like what you do, and said keep it up – how would that make you feel? The point is, even though most of us know that we can’t win every battle or please every person, we still WANT to know that someone appreciates us. I don’t care who you are, or what you do – everyone likes to hear some encouraging words. If you’ve ever had someone come along and say just the right thing at exactly the right time, you know exactly what I mean.

So here’s the skinny:

Today, this week, heck – even this month – try and encourage someone. If it’s a design you like, email the designer personally and let them know how great you think it is – if it’s a blogger you read a lot, or maybe just found – let them know something they said helped you, or that you think they’re really great and you just thought you’d tell them.  Even if don’t agree with what they say, instead of putting them down – provide some positive feedback and maybe direct them to some additional resources if their information is wrong. (note: stalking someone and showing up at their home to give them a hug may be going a bit too far, so try and use your best judgement.)

I’ll leave this post with a rather excellent quote from Jesse Jackson – “Never look down on somebody unless you’re helping them up.”

Now go do something wonderful today – I know you’ve got it in you.

I noticed something a little alarming this morning when checking my client’s website stats in Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Ok, so I’ve got some links that don’t resolve on my site…big deal.

Not so fast! THESE links are outbound links, which I’m tracking using Google’s handy pageTracker._trackPageview script for their Analytics program. They’re not SUPPOSED to be crawling the custom made up name I’ve assigned the links…or so I thought.

Of course it’s possible something got modified, so I immediately check the source code of the site to make sure everything is still golden -

btw, the end quote ARE there, you just can't see them because of the way it's highlighted.

Yep, everything looks right – so what’s going on? Is Google crawling these custom page names? Is this just a weird glitch? According to google, the implementation seems correct.

I should note that these errors just started appearing in November – google analytics is still showing the data, so the code’s not broken. Even still, I’d rather avoid the 404 errors.

The mystery deepens.

I did some quick searches to see if I’m the only one experiencing this issue, and it doesn’t look like it. I’d love to know if anyone else is experiencing this happening, and how you’ve resolved it – if you have. Let me know! Thanks!