SODO DOJO / GREEN DESIGN

Alas, Earth Day is here. Hoorah! Have you seen our home page today?

We might also recommend our green Web services page if you’re considering any print or Web design…we be eco-friendly! So what do we all do now? (Are your thumbs twiddling? Are you twittering? We are!) For starters, you can check out sites to help you get involved…

Check out events in Seattle here or find an event in your own home town.

But beyond all the happy joy of Earth Day, I thought I’d point out something interesting…a turn of the tides, as it were. That is to say, I’ve got some dirt on Google! Yes, we love Google…but looking at the search results for “earth day” in both Live and Google, it’s quite apparent that Live is doing a much better job with this query. What’s up with that? You’ll see what I mean when you compare this to this. The first query is Google’s…why in the world does an entry for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” from Wikipedia come up as the 5th result for “Earth Day”? In the humble dialect of Yoda, “Sense, this does not make.”

Live’s results on the other hand are not all that bad. I get a pretty dense set of information all pertaining specifically to Earth Day. That’s Rock and Roll! What does this mean though?

Well, for as much as we can gather, it’s apparent that Live is placing some pretty heavy emphasis on <title> tags whereas Google is continuing to rely more (perhaps) on linking to define context and relevance. Either that or Live has done some amazing programmatic changes to surface these results today. We’ll be checking and comparing these same results the day after Earth Day to see what we get. Should be interesting! Anyway, we we wish you a fantastic Earth Day and hope you get all “earthified” from today forward…all the cool kids are doing it (like us)!

CNET covers it here. But in short, the algorithmic perfectionists at Google were so inclined to “tweak” how Google search results are rendered 450 times (at least) over the course of 2007. What does this mean? Well, essentially Google is trying to improve their product…by tweaking the results they are really trying to give you better information based on what you search for. The extended version is that this has an impact on site owners. Sites might disappear from that golden first page of search results temporarily…or for good based on these tweaks.

But what about the case for the searcher, where what you find today in Google may not be in the same place tomorrow? That’s a likely scenario and in fact will most definitely occur depending on what zip code you’re searching from and whether or not you’re signed in to a Google profile or not (Gmail users out there)…

This should come as no surprise for anyone keeping up on search news. Google search algorithm tweaks have been so big that they’ve had names. So what is an SEO to do?

The first step is not to totally freak out…we do this by listening to a little Sinatra and making a few martinis (shaken, not stirred). Add a couple of olives and then it’s over to the forums to read up on things and try to better understand what the impact is…or will be. As far as change management, the secret is that for the most part no emergency tweaks are needed. Most of these changes are so minuscule that they don’t necessarily impact the big impact ranking factors we at SODO Creative focus on. That said, the bottom line is that search rank shouldn’t be the focus of an SEO campaign. The ultimate goal is to drive more search referrals (and more conversions) through optimization.

Optimizing sites for search is our game. SODO Creative is our name. Get in touch with us today so we can bring your site into our DOJO. You’ll be kicking *!$ in no time.

The Seattle Green Festival pretty much ruled. I’ve been to lots of conferences and trade shows but I have to say that this was very well organized and the booths and people we spoke to were just…awesome. As we prepared to enter the exhibitor area, we were dominated by a giant cow:

That was pretty cool. When we got there, it was still relatively quiet…had a lot of space and fresh legs to walk and chat with everyone. We had a great time checking out all the different products and green companies out there. (Still need to chat more with the guys from Organic Fred!) After visiting somewhere around 30 booths, we spotted the organic beer samples and grabbed a few tokens:

We tried the Fish Tail and Wolaver’s…good stuff! Shortly after organic beer tasters, we checked out the food booths but we were unimpressed on the price of the food (says Jeff, “Eight dollars for a burrito? That’s not green!”) A good laugh was had at the expense of our stomachs. Lots of really great teas and food samples though. We had a good time and made some great contacts…definitely looking forward to the next Green Festival!

We’ve registered and will be heading over to the Green Festival right here in our hometown (Seattle, WA) to connect with like-minded folk on renewable, sustainable options for businesses. The conference starts at 10AM Saturday, April 10 and ends at 6PM Sunday, April 11.

A little about the festival from the greenfestivals.org Web site:

Take in more than 350 exhibits:

• Shop for everything from natural home and health products to solar panels and Fair Trade gifts and crafts.
• Explore developments in green education, social investing and independent media.
• Enjoy organic dining and sample local beers & wines.
• Learn about City resources for energy conservation, green power, climate action and more at the City of Seattle Pavilion.

Anyway, hope to see you there, and for those who don’t make it, expect us to report back with the cooler details (we’ll be provide special reporting on the latter two above).