Class reflections - Week #2

The first half our 9/15 session was about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For the second half, our guest speaker was Patrick Ambron from BrandYourself. My notes and thoughts on each session follow.

SEO

• The really really bad (but equally memorable, hence useful) joke that got repeated twice in a time window of two hours: "Where do you hide a dead body? Second page of Google search results!". I had no idea that more than 95% of Google search clicks happen on the first page. I don't think I will ever forget this statistic.
• I'm in the process of setting up my online venture. It is not a consumer- focused business, and type of goods we are dealing with is pretty niche. I spent two weeks researching companies that could potentially be our competitors, and I thought I had uncovered every single business under the sun. What amazes me is that I still come across a new website every other day. I was initially disheartened, but as I was sitting in class, I realized this is actually great news for me: unless these guys have adopted a laser-focus online marketing strategy that I have not been yet exposed to (despite spending a significant amount of my time on relevant websites), I can safely assume that they are 'dead bodies' for all practical purposes.
• I loved that Professor Kagan pointed out extremely practical and very effective ways to improve a website's SEO strategy, everything from formatting of simple text to selection of key words and links based on Google Trends. This blog is the perfect venue to experiment on some of these techniques. However, for reasons I'll be detailing in the second part of my post, I would actually prefer this blog to be read by as few people as possible. Therefore, I'll be limiting my experimentation to the single link I've added at the top of this post.

BrandYourself

• Patrick was a great guy with a great entrepreneurship story. He was also a very engaging speaker. However, I got the impression that he might be suffering from the positive bias most entrepreneurs seem to suffer from when it comes to their own business idea.
• The content he provided was very informative. However, I'm not sure if the advice he gave us was equally useful. For example, he suggested that all of us should have a personal website. I found it hard not to laugh. After class, I went around and asked a couple of friends what their reaction would be if they found out that a classmate from CBS had a personal website. Every single person I asked either laughed or had a sly smile on their face. Common answers, which I also agree with, were: "I would think they had too much time on their hands" and "Unless she is an artist, I would say she takes herself too seriously"
• Yet another advice Patrick gave was that our personal website should be frequently updated. In essence, I agree that if you are trying to hedge yourself by having your employer's review of you show up on the first page of Google results rather than your ex-girlfriend's. However, I would say that only a handful of CBS students have the experience necessary to produce superior content. I would personally have people know nothing about me than know that I'm ordinary.