*Warning: Spoiler Alert!

For those of you that are Office-aholics like myself, you noticed that Ryan (formerly “The Temp”) got carted away by the po-po for fraud in the season finale last night. He wanted to show the value of the Dunder Mifflin Infinity website (his pet project), so he had salesmen log their sales on the website as well as on paper, so they were being counted twice.

If Ryan had been smart, he would have hired an internet marketing company (yes, yes, a shameless plug) to boost Dunder Mifflin’s website in the organic rankings, which in turn would have increased their sales. I think they, as a paper company, would have also benefited from a great optimized pay-per-click campaign.

At any rate, now Ryan is going to be in need of some great reputation management to clean up his image, now that he’s probably going to be going away for a long time.

I can’t wait for the new season to start in the fall - fingers crossed for no more writer’s strikes!

I put off writing this post in the hopes of getting some pictures from the show up, however, I haven’t managed to get them from my camera to my computer, and at this rate, it will take me forever. (Not because I don’t know how to do it…just tracking down my camera and laptop at the same time seems an impossible task for me right now!)

Anyway, the show was fabulous. We were given center orchestra tickets and had the chance to meet the cast after the show. Well, take pictures with the cast - they were still very much in character, and were very silent (and expressionless). The seats were great, and we really had a great view. The “Blue Men” were highly entertaining, with outlandish antics like throwing marshmallows and catching them in their mouths to playing with paint and drums at the same time.

The band was entertaining as well. They had costumes that glowed and really added to the atmosphere. The music was really fun to listen to - it was loud and well played.

Blue Man Group is a performance that is hard to describe…unique and original are two words that come to mind, but again, they aren’t very descriptive. Just imagine the Three Stooges meet Charlie Chaplin (they don’t say a word) meet…a big vat of blue paint. All set in modern/futuristic times.

I had a chance to see the Blue Man Group in Chicago a couple of years ago, and while the shows were similar, the one in Vegas seemed to be a bit more entertaining. I don’t know why…maybe it was just the excitement of being there.

I really enjoyed the show, thanks to PubCon. I would recommend it to anyone - it’s good family fun. (Probably not the younger kids - they might be intimidated by how loud the show is.) I look forward to catching another show in Las Vegas next time I go - maybe if I end up going to CES again this year. We’ll see!

Like I have mentioned before, my meager SEO knowledge and abilities are expanding; and by expanding I mean slowly evolving one step at a time. The status of reciprocal links is something I learned while doing some (very) simple link building.

As a way to expedite the growth of a backlink profile and increase page rank, websites will often exchange links (commonly known as reciprocal links). This form of link building is not such a hot idea because not only are they easy to recognize by the search engines, but reciprocal links appear to be a barter or swap rather than authentic endorsements. Thus, they can carry little, if any, value with the search engines.

Doing triangular links is a much more viable option – linking to one site that links to another site which links back to you. So site A links to site B, site B links to site C, and site C links back to site A. Grasp that? Triangular links appear much more legitimate and valid than reciprocal ones. And although theoretically Google and other search engines could pick this up, they are much harder to detect.

The best and most effective method perhaps is simply getting relevant sites (the higher the page rank, the better) to link to you without having to link back. Much easier said than done, I know. But getting a back link like that is pure SEO gold.

I have to say that I am very fortunate that my fellow co-workers here at our awesome (yet always humble) Utah SEO firm have granted me access to post on SEO gurl.  I have a rather limited knowledge of SEO compared to our resident link ninja and internet gurus, but I am certainly learning more and more everyday.

However, as the best copywriter this side of the Rockies, there is one thing I have learned for certain: the  importance of having original copy on a website.  As SEO gurl pointed out in a previous post, original copy is imperative primarily because the search engines (namely Google) will award higher rankings in organic searches to sites with original content than those with duplicate. 

 Still, it never ceases to amaze me how much people constantly underestimate the importance of original copy.  And not just original but good, quality copy as well.  So now potential clients and customers have found you, but no one will give your company (or any for that matter) a second thought if the website looks like it was written by a 7^th grader.  If you are trying to market a product or service or even just get your name branded, you need to have copy that is quality and professional or people will not want to do business with you.   Original copy will enable potential clients to find you, while quality copy can help you retain them.

I googled “Utah SEO” the other day to see how my company is ranking in the organic results, and I noticed in the sponsored results, right next to my company’s link, one that said “Forget Utah SEO Firms”. The ad was for text-link-ads, a company my company has done business with.

Needless to say, I was dismayed to see this. I emailed the president of the company, Patrick Gavin, asking why this was there, and saying we can’t do business with a company that is trying to drive clients away from us.

I received an email within the next couple of hours from him stating that it was an affiliate company doing this, and he would have them remove it immediately. He also apologized for not catching it before we did.

I have to say, I’m really impressed with Mr. Gavin’s response. I checked today to see if it had been taken care of, and sure enough, that sponsored result was gone.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is to give companies a chance to make things right before writing them off. It wasn’t even his company that was causing the problem - it was an affiliate. I appreciate the quick response and resolution to the problem. Great job, Text Link Ads!