It was the professional looking logo that got you, huh?

• Accept Ghosty in to Your Life!
• automaticable to become AutomatiCable!

Originally Scott explained that he came up with the name automaticable by randomly pulling words from Google and putting them together. Obviously that wasn’t the case – we’ve had the business AutomatiCable (and, actually, AutoMatI-cable) in mind since the beginning. Since then we’ve sat down with them on a regular basis to talk business, and finally we’ve come to a deal. While we can’t go into anything specific, know that your patronage has netted us a number that includes a lot of zeros which we can’t thank you for enough. Without your help we would not have the traffic to justify such an amazing purchase price.

The transition will come over the next few weeks, which at that point you can expect www.AutomatiCable.com to be your #1 place for all-in-one cables!

• Happy 1 Month Anniversary!
• Stash away, that cash, away. Stash away all!

This is more of a way to force myself to put a post up of the new house with awesome before and after photos. If I say I’m going to do it publicly there is no backing down, right? Well here it is:

Sometime next week anyone and everyone (and I KNOW there is a huge automaticable following that has been waiting patiently for months for a new blog post) who wants to see the massive upgrades to the new house will get a blog post of just that. THERE I promised. There is no backing down.

• A Slow Week on Automaticable – Sorry!
• Happy 1 Month Anniversary!

This screen shot walkthrough will look at the unedited, uncustomized Ubuntu install on my Dell Mini 9. I’m sure I will do plenty of customization down the road, but for now you get the virgin version.

The Standard Desktop

The desktop is very clean and appealing to start off with. There are no folders or icons on the desktop itself, which will be quite a surprise for anyone coming from a Windows environment. The large bar across the top is called the Launcher and presents most of the essential programs in a graphical interface. Below are shots of each tab individually.

The Entertainment Tab

While this menu has the typical Music Player (Rhythmbox) & photo manager (F-spot), this is the first time we really see the net-focus on the netbook. Having a specific icon for LastFM shows the imporantance of working in the cloud…which is essential since the Dell Mini 9 comes with only 4GB of memory standard.

Also, notice how I had to specify that the music player and photo manager have actual names. Dell has completely debranded most default programs, which we will see more examples of soon.

The Games Tab

The games tab has many of the typical Ubuntu games so there isn’t a whole lot to discuss here, however there are a few things to note. First, and most disappointing, is that Wormux, my favorite of the Ubuntu standard games, is not included in this install. I’m not sure why they would do that while adding Potato Guy instead! Let me tell you, potato guy is one of the most annoying and pointless “games” I’ve ever run across. Stay away!

The Learn Tab

I don’t know who came up with the Learn tab, but I don’t think I’ll ever seriously use it. I guess the Japanese Study Tool and Stellarium might be good for a handful of people, but these do not seem like programs that were worth including in a default install. Actually, more interesting than that is the fact that all of these programs have Kubuntu-style names in the normal programs menu. What this means I’m not sure.

The Productivity Tab

The productivity tab includes all the default OpenOffice.org programs, plus a handy folder called “Dell Contract.” Of all things I want in a quickstart menu like the launcher, I DEFINITELY want fast access to my Dell Contract at all times. Thanks Dell!

The Web Tab

The web tab is probably the most interesting of all, which is to be expected from a netbook. Can you tell who Dell partnered with to bring netbook services to the Mini 9? Let me spell it out for you…Yahoooooooooo! Not only do they have an entire quicklaunch section dedicated almost entirely to Yahoo pages, but the “Web Browser,” or Firefox, defaults to Yahoo.com for the home page, has the Yahoo Toolbar installed, and defaults to Yahoo search from the quick search bar. While I have no problem with companies partnering with each other to do promotions, Mozilla is largely funded by Google search which is shown by defaulting the Firefox home page & quick search bars to Google. Without this funding, development for Firefox in general would be at risk. But this is an issue for a separate post.

The Keyboard

While the entire set of hardware behind the Dell Mini 9 Netbook is interesting and generally super high quality, what is worth sharing the most is the keyboard.

This keyboard is super tiny, but also extremely functional. My one problem, which I have yet to get over, is the positioning of the apostrophe/quotes key. Dell moved it from its normal position next to the colon key to the bottom row next to the left arrow. See it? Yeah, that will take some getting used to.

That’s it for now. I’ll update if I find anything else that stands out from typical Ubuntu installs. Until then, let me know if you have any questions in the comments and I’ll get back to all of them asap.

• Organize Your ToDo List in Ubuntu with Remember The Milk and Tasque
• Synfig – The Linux replacement for Flash

It has been a while since I’ve posted on automaticable, so let me catch the world up on a few things.

First, I’m still doing SEO at BKV in Atlanta. And by that, I mean it is taking over my life. Because of the life-takeover problem BKV graciously hired me an assistant, Tom. He is brand new to the SEO world (just as I was) but will become an expert shortly since I’m kind of throwing him in the deep end. Sink or swim, baby.

Not only am I (and Tom) working on SEO, but we’re also in charge of everything social media at BKV. That means we get to spend most of our day on Twitter, Facebook, and every other site most companies ban access to. Sweet deal. If you have Twitter and want to follow me, you can find me at twitter.com/kwegner. Make sure to @me so I know you are automaticable fan.

I don’t usually like to pump work stuff on personal posts, however we are doing social media work for a non-profit right now that is totally awesome. We are working on promoting an event for the March of Dimes called “March for Babies.” It is an event to help raise money to support research into premature birth & other birth problems. If you want to help out the cause, check out www.marchforbabies.org or follow March for Babies on Twitter at twitter.com/marchforbabies.

That is it on the update. Expect more posts from me in the near future, as I’ve recently been reinvigorated by the fact that automaticable just suprassed 100,000 total views.

• Twitter Revisited – Takeaways
• Do You Twitter?

Level One: Internet Marketing

I generally respond to questions about my job with something along the lines of “I’m in internet marketing and advertising,” and see what happens from there. Often people will already have a glazed look over their eyes, not knowing what internet marketing and advertising even means. If they are familiar with the subject though, often the next question will be “Oh so you do banner ads and popups?” Ughhhh, no I am not that annoying guy that creates banners that let you know that YOU ARE VISITOR NUMBER 1,000,000 CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!

Level Two: Search Engine Marketing

If internet marketing brought on the glazed eyes, moving on to the next level, search engine marketing (or SEM), makes most people look like a deer in the headlights. To most people, search engines are neutral territory. They think there are nothing but natural, worthy results in Google. So when I bring up that my job lies mostly in marketing to search engines people wonder what I could possibly do all day. At this point I explain to them that (gasp!) a number of search results on Google are actually paid advertisements, but my work is to take the unpaid search results and make them even better.

Level Three: Search Engine Optimization

If I get here it is usually a miracle, but I love explaining my job in detail to people. This will be the first time I use the term “Search Engine Optimization” or my real title, Organic Search Specialist. I try to explain in as few words as possible how my job is to make sure the websites for our clients are ranking in the search engines for everything related to their businesses. I go on to talk about how my job is a mixture of art and science. It is an art because the search engines never reveal what they actually look for on web pages, so we never really know what is going to help. The science is in making sure the websites are technically sound, follow web best practices, and adhere to the SEO basics. Generally if someone gets this far they have proven that they are seriously interested in my job, so I talk about my day to day tasks and overarching principles for as long as they will let me. Sometimes I go on for a little too long, but I don’t see that as a flaw.

What I Lack: An Elevator Pitch

I know there are plenty of obscure jobs out there, but I’m not sure many of them need to vet people who ask about their jobs for their aptitude in the field before answering. I’m also pretty sure that there is an easier way to explain exactly what I do in less than 60 seconds, IE and elevator pitch. So, fellow SEOs, what is your elevator pitch? Can you use it on anyone and reasonably expect them to understand what you do for a living, or does this still lead to blank stares and/or playing a game of 20 questions? Leave your suggestions in the comments, as I would love to learn how other folks in the field explain their job to people who simply want to know “What do you do?”

• When SEO Isn’t About Rankings
• Learning SEO: From the Beginning

Since my upgrade to lead Organic Search Specialist at BKV I’ve been involved in a number of new business pitches. The most recent I’m a part of is for a new client who has partnered with one of our existing paid search clients.  They are going through a site overhaul and need some heavy duty SEO work. I’m talking a serious overhaul too; the client has over 400 individual domains. While they are working off a newly created template, it is still a beast to manage.

Because the client was a partner of one of our existing paid search clients, our strategy was to project our traffic and sales growth numbers off of our current client. What we quickly found out, however, was that this was not going to be possible.

After working out the numbers–direct traffic, search traffic, sales, leads, conversions, etc.–the figures we were coming out with were not making any sense. Somehow we had projected that with a decrease in traffic we could almost double their sales leads. Obviously something was wrong.

When the conversion rate matters

When we went back to the raw data, comparing our existing client to their partner they referred our SEO services to, we saw what the real problem was. Our prospective client was driving plenty of traffic, both through paid search and SEO. What they weren’t doing, however, was converting. Their conversion rate was nearly 1/4th that of what we were benchmarking from.

Finding this out early gave us a huge advantage, as now we can plan and project off 2 separate strategies, regular SEO and increasing website conversions. Justifying our costs is going to be even easier than we expected.

How to increase organic conversions

Increasing organic conversions is different than improving paid search conversion rates. Instead of calling out deals, adding starbursts, or using any other regular direct response techniques, converting organic traffic takes finesse. Instead of blasting potential customers with advertising techniques, the conversions need to come naturally. This can mean a number of things, but sometimes it’s the simplest techniques that make the biggest difference.

Keep it above the fold

Whatever your conversion method may be, you need to have access to it above the fold. This means the first section a user sees when they load a page needs to include your phone number, address, email signup, web form, or any combination of the above. The client we are pitching had their phone number above the fold, but it was tiny, gray on black text that screamed “IGNORE ME!”  Also, their main conversion metric, web leads through a contact form, wasn’t even available on the home page. After clicking through 2 whole layers the user would find the form…below the fold!

Lesson learned

Increasing the conversion rate for a client like this is going to be a no-brainer. With a few simple techniques, their sales leads should increase 2-3 times what they expected. But what have I learned from this? Most importantly, I’ve learned that SEO is about much more than title tags, descriptions and alt tags. At the end of the day the job of an SEO is to make your client richer through organic traffic. Whether that means #1 rankings, leveraging social media, or increasing conversion rates, the client will be happy if there is more money in their pocket.

• Defining SEO For the Uninitiated
• Essential WordPress Plugins

Adding to the first annaul Mountain Man Competition, Brian suggested we have a whittling competition. He actually suggested we whittle with butter knives just to make things difficult, but I think that would just be frustrating and tedious…we will handle those details later. Anyway, over the course of our week in the woods we will use whatever tools we can find to whittle the most impressive pieces of wood you have ever seen. We’ll post pictures when we get back and have a poll for whose carving is the best. Like this idea? Have your own?

Help us come up with more ideas!

How do you want to see the Wegner brothers compete over a week in the mountains? Leave your ideas in the comments. We only have a few days left, but any great ideas will have their own post created (which includes a link to your site, if you have one) and the competition photo-documented if possible.

This is open to everyone: automaticable readers, vacation attendees, random extended family members…anyone really. There is only 1 rule: no running competitions! (grrr…)

• Mountain Man Competition #1: Grow a Beard
• Infinity and Beyond!

For the first aspect of the Mountain Man Competition, we are going to have a beard growing contest. I’m not sure what the state of all the participants’ facial hair is, but for everyone participating we will have a final clean shave Friday morning and document our spikey growth over the entire week. Expect a photo-blog of our facial evolution when we get back. The winner gets to bask in his (or her?) manly glory as the most masculine (and hairy) person of the bunch.

Help us come up with more ideas!

How do you want to see the Wegner brothers compete over a week in the mountains? Leave your ideas in the comments. We only have a few days left, but any great ideas will have their own post created (which includes a link to your site, if you have one) and the competition photo-documented if possible.

This is open to everyone: automaticable readers, vacation attendees, random extended family members…anyone really. There is only 1 rule: no running competitions! (grrr…)

• Mountain Man Competition #2: Whittling
• Peace Out, Illinois

Healthcare for the homeless

Probably one of the most positive aspects of having free, high quality shelter for the homeless are the health benefits of staying dry and warm.  Not only does staying well improve the standard of living for the homeless, but it also decreases a huge social and economic burden from cities who have to treat the uninsured homeless population.  With fewer uninsured people getting sick, this will not only decrease the cost of healthcare for those that can and do pay for it, but it will lighten the already overfilled load of patients that hospital emergency rooms have to take care of.  The healthcare aspect is a win-win for the homeless population and the surrounding society.

An increasing homeless population

This will be a hard point for many people to agree with, but as the lifestyle of the homeless becomes better, the homeless population will increase.  I am not saying more people will choose to be homeless.  Nobody really ever willingly makes that choice.  What will happen, though, as the standard of living increases, is that less people will make the choice to stop being homeless.  If the main motivation for people to look for work and get out of their rut is a terrible lifestyle, having comfortable, attractive, and portable shelter will not provide as much of this motivation. This is a hard concept to swallow, that certain homeless people will not move into a more productive lifestyle if they are given suitable shelter, but I believe it to be 100% true. My following points will rely on this fact, so if you cannot agree with this, then you probably will not agree with the rest of my post either.

An increase in the homeless population is an increase in crime

Because of the deprived lifestyle many homeless people lead, there is a natural increase in crime rates where there is high homeless population density.  This is not to say that all homeless people are criminals, just that there are enough that are desparate enough within the homeless communities to raise crime rates.  This increase in crime not only costs cities more for policing the crimes committed, but increased crime rates lower property values, decreases the social welfare of the surrounding population, and attracts additional negative externalities such as drugs and prostitution.

Unavoidable publicity

With an increase in the homeless population and larger, brighter portable shelters being used, the homeless will be impossible to ignore. This can have 2 different effects, and I haven’t yet decided whether this will have a net positive or negative. First the positive: the more the homeless population stands out, the more people will be aware of and want to fix the problem.  Philanthropy will increase out of pity, concern, and also out of selfishness.  The selfishness stems from the negativity surrounding the homeless population.  Nobody wants to see their streets filled with homeless people for many reasons, and this increased publicity from the homeless will make it that much worse.  With the homeless population standing out more, this could drive down housing prices and social welfare even further than the current homeless population does.

There are a number of other externalities that increase the social and economic costs associated with a well-kept homeless population, but I think these cover the main points I have been thinking about.  The positives related to improved portable shelters for the homeless are extremely positive: an increased standard of living, lower healthcare costs for society as a whole, and cleaner looking streets. At what cost do these come, though?  It is never easy to put a pricetag on happiness, but there will always be economic elements that are taken into consideration.  In the end, without hard numbers, it is a hard call to make. The well-being of the homeless increases substantially, but the economic costs of an increased homeless population are also significant.

What do you think? Does it matter that there will be more homeless if they are better taken care of? Will the benefits outweigh the costs? There is a lot to think about here, and I think we can have a good discussion about this in the comments.  I’m sure there is a ton I haven’t thought about, so leave your opinions below.

• Some quick thoughts…
• Twitter Revisited – Takeaways