Mark Wright’s Blog

When concentrating on a search engine optimization campaign, there are multiple factors to consider.  Without a doubt, you want to make sure that you are achieving high rankings on Google.  Google is the most used search engine.  It is estimated that 65 to 70 percent of all search engine traffic is performed on Google. 

However, it is important to not forget about the other 30 to 35 percent of potential searches.  You still want to make sure that you are considering Yahoo, MSN and even some of the other search engines such as Cuil. 

Right now, Yahoo is the engine used for about 20 percent of keyword searches.  MSN gets about 8 percent of the traffic.  Other search engines comprise the last three to five percent. 

When performing a search engine optimization campaign, it is important to use every resource at your disposal.  Without a doubt, you want to concentrate a significant amount of effort on Google.  Google is the king of the search engines right now.  Despite all of the money other search engines have invested to improve their technology, they still have not been able to put a dent in Google’s market share.  However, this is an industry that changes quickly.  It is always important to keep up on the latest trends of where the industry is heading.

That being said, there is still a large amount of leads that can be generated through the other search engines.  Concentrate on Google, but don’t forget about Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines.

In the past, I have ripped on video games.  I don’t get them and probably never will.  However, I do have to give big ups to a particular game, Guitar Hero.  I am not giving Guitar Hero props because I think it is a great game.  I actually think it is pretty stupid.  However, what I do like about it is that it is turning young kids on to some really good music. 

I was at my sister’s house a while back and both of my nephews were playing the game.  I watched them for a little while and they were actually pretty good at it.  They asked me if I wanted them to play and I politely declined.  An uncle has to maintain a certain mystique of invincibility so I didn’t want them to see that I would be horrible at it and didn’t have the 500 hours to invest in it.  The problem is that I have a job which unfortunately cuts into my Guitar Hero practice time. 

Now wait where was I?  Oh yeah, the part about Guitar Hero that I liked.  I was listening to my nephews give a post Guitar Hero breakdown of their session and I heard a wonderful thing.  They were talking about bands like Kansas, Heart, Black Sabbath and The Who.  These kids are 10 and 14.  Guitar Hero is actually turning kids on to some really good bands.  Kids will now know that they Rolling Stones are a really good band and not just a bunch of old guys in clothing that is way too tight.  It will show kids that Kid Rock is not the foundation of Rock and Roll, merely just another brick. 

I am not one of those people that believe that for music to be good, it can’t be made later than 1978.  There are a lot of current bands that I like and listen to.  There will always be good and bad music.  I am just glad that kids are getting turned on to some of the older stuff.  If they raid their parent’s LP collection, they probably couldn’t play it because nobody owns an actual record player.  While it is all out on CD, the epitome of cool is not raiding your mom and dad’s music collection.  I’ll be the first to admit that listening to my parents big band LPs as a child was not my idea of fun.  Now when I found their Red Foxx comedy albums, that was a different story.  Anyhow, I have to give mad love to GH for exposing the younger generation to music they should know about.   

I am a website design and search engine optimization guy.  I usually don’t claim to be a relationship expert but there are some cases that I will make an exception.  As I was working last night, I decided to take a break and see what was going on in the world.  I came across an article talking about former Genesis front man Phil Collins having to shell out a whopping $46.68 million dollars for his latest marriage fiasco. 

I’m going to repeat this, $46.68 million dollars.  That is even more money than Paul McCartney had to pony up from his divorce.  Somehow that doesn’t seem right.  Shouldn’t McCartney have had to pay more based on his rock star status.  While Collins is truly a star, he is not a Beatle.  Somehow it doesn’t seem fair although I’m sure McCartney is probably glad it wasn’t him this time.

But wait, it gets even better.  This is not the first time Collins had to open the checkbook.  A previous marriage resulted in a payout of approximately $34 million clams.  Sorry for the pause.  When numbers get that big I have to go to the calculator.  That is a total of $80.68 million for two divorces, an average of $40.34 million. 

So what have we learned from this?  First, Phil is not very good with the relationship thing.  In the divorce in which he lost the $34 million bones, he informed his soon to be ex of the ending of the nuptials by fax.  Classy.  This was a move that was later improved upon by Britney Spears when she informed K-Fed that she was divorcing him by text message, but I digress.  Second, Phil is once again on the market.  If financial trends continue, the next Mrs. Collins should be in line to pull down around $50 mil when it all comes crashing down. 

Now I am not one to make fun of divorce.  It is an all too occurring incident.  However, if you can’t work things out, I know some really good divorce attorneys.   

You are a parent.  You have three boys who are playing X-Box and not getting along.  You repeatedly warn them that if they don’t shape up, there will be repercussions.  The kids don’t listen.  What do you do?  Well recently a dad decided that he’d heard enough bickering and fighting from the boys.  So what did he do?  He nailed their X-Box to a tree in the backyard.

Needless to say, said X-Box no longer works.  There is a current forum running in which people have been commenting about this incident.  Postings range from the guy is a child abuser who has scarred his kids permanently to him being father of the year.  There are people who are posting that don’t have kids expressing their opinions and those with kids saying that the people without kids shouldn’t have opinions.  There are others that are just mad that he busted a $300 video game.

While I think that nailing the X-Box to a tree was a bit excessive, maybe it will teach these kids that there are consequences to actions.  Let me go ahead and get this disclaimer out of the way.  I am not a parent.  However I do possess a certain amount of common sense.  Just because you are a parent doesn’t mean you are a good one.  My measuring stick is from how I was raised.  My upbringing was in a home with a mother and father.  We were a family that did things together.  We went on trips and ate dinner together.  My father would go out in the back yard and play catch with me after a long day at work.  Very Leave it to Beaver.  However, when I screwed up (which was frequently) there were consequences.  I didn’t get time out.  I was only grounded once in my life and that was for a pretty big screw up which I will not go into at this point.  However, I did get spankings and was yelled at when I erred.  When my father was upset about something I did, he expressed his displeasure for long periods.  There were many times I wished he would just spank me or ground me and get it over with.  Yes folks, he did yell at me.  Guess what?  It didn’t damage my fragile psyche.   It helped me to develop thick skin, expect the best of people and ultimately manage people in my job better.   

If I was the father, I would have probably bundled that bad boy up and given it to someone who might have appreciated it more but I can say that in hindsight.  There are times when you can talk to your kids, have a rational conversation and get your point across.  Sometimes it might take nailing an X-Box to a tree to make a statement.   

This is my 100^th blog.  How Cow!  When I first took the position at Blue Sand, I was told that one of my job functions would be to blog.  While I knew what a blog was, I had never written one.  I asked the usual questions and was pretty happy to find out the criteria was pretty broad. 

The first few were pretty difficult.  It felt a bit forced and uncomfortable.  After a while, I got used to it and actually began to enjoy it.  Blogging has allowed me an outlet to vent about things that aggravate me, things that make me laugh and sometimes just collect my thoughts.

I have written about business related topics such as website design and search engine optimization as well as being able to write about Bigfoot, bad parenting, general idiocy and the occasional feel good blog.  I wish there were more opportunities to write about those but that will be a blog for a different day. 

I think the thing that I like most about it is that people actually read them.  I have received comments from people all over the country.  I have even had a few linked to other websites.  Some people enjoy them and some are offended.  I guess you can’t please everyone. 

I go back and periodically read them.  Some I am pretty proud of.  Some could be better and some are just plain weak.  I guess you can’t hit a home run every time.  In my previous life as a print journalist, I wrote every day.  I enjoyed it.  As I got more involved in business, I wrote less and less.  I have notebooks full of half written stories and book ideas.  Blogging has allowed me an outlet to write once again and I am grateful for that. 

So this is blog 100.  It is not very funny, probably not very insightful and not terribly informative.  However, it is an achievement to me.  I figured out that I have written close to 50,000 words.  That would be coming up on novel size. 

For those who have read them and posted comments, thank you.  Even if you thought they were “turrible” as Charles Barkley would say, thanks for reading anyway.