The setting - Fiesole, Italy

The characters - playing the fiery viking is LisaD and the swashbuckling hero Jon Myers

The action - a romantic dinner, a romantic setting, a romance made in SEO.

What could possibly come of something like this but LOOOOOOOOOVE!

That’s right folks - the question was popped and LISA SAID YES! Our favourite Viking is getting married and I’m sure everyone wishes her well - I know all the SEO Chicks do! We love our Lisa!

I’ll let her tell the whole story but I’m sure that London SMX just got extra special so make sure you’re in town for it!

Jon is a wonderful person and Lisa is a special woman and I just know everyone is going to wish her oodles and oodles of luck and love!

YAY LISA & JON!

Today and tomorrow in London at the Russell Square Hotel, the Marketing Optimization Summit is being held. In fact, tonight is a free drinks event called “Web Analytics Wednesdays” which ironically has not been on a Wednesday for a couple of meetings now. As anyone in digital knows, analytics are vital. Conferences about analytics are few and far between so it’s always good to get to the few there are.

SEO Chicks have written about analytics before and we seem to have attracted a readership from among those gathered here. This year, my second year covering this conference as a journalist, I noticed some subtle changes that show just how much of an impact SEO Chicks have had.

Page views and unique users are the traditional measurements of popularity and impact, still used almost to the exclusion of all others by publishers. This metric is very much on its way out and I’m pleased to say I haven’t heard any of the chicks talk about either of these metrics when referring to impact.

Incoming deep links is another measurable calculator of impact. How many people are reading and being so inspired by the content that they cite it and use it as a launching point. Easily accessible, link love is one of the favourite methods of ‘measurement of popularity’ by both SEOs and Google (and arguably by some SEOs because of Google).

Measuring impact beyond the site is often difficult to quantify and a challenge to measure. One measurement is buzz online and SEO Chicks have certainly achieved that, measurable through Google alerts Buzz has been increasing as readership has so when we bring new news online, it now spreads across the web quite quickly. The recent article about certain online marketing practices becoming illegal in the UK is one example.

Progressing beyond the immediately measurable, how do you know when you have had an impact? When a conference offers chocolate. Yes, that’s right, there is chocolate at this web metrics conference. OX2, obviously aware that I was attending and aware of how much buzz on SEO Chicks there is about chocolate, brought boxes of 4 Belgian chocolates for everyone and there will be more at the drinks event tonight. That’s impact!

I was also recognised by a couple of people who read SEO Chicks which was wild. There’s impact as well. People coming to the site, reading the blog posts and remembering what we look like. As a dyslexic, remembering faces, let alone names, is a challenge so I’m always impressed by those who are able to do so.

Why don’t you come down to Web Analytics Wednesday (grab free expo hall pass) tonight (Tuesday night ironically), have some chocolate, grab a drink and say hello. And if you don’t want the chocolate you’ve grabbed, you know you have a willing recipient!

Earlier this year I was shortlisted for the “Blackberry Woman in Technology Awards” in the category “Best Use of Technology by under 30 year old woman”.

Last night the award ceremony took place at the Mariott Hotel Grosenvor Square in London. Me and my junior SEO, Rebecca, got to the hotel early to get all dolled up like
cinderella! We then went downstairs to the prestigious award ceremony. A few glasses of champagne and cheeky cigarettes later (not so classy!) we sat down for a 3 course meal. We were sat with a group of people from Blackberry (RIM) and Vodafone, and they were the loveliest people! Especially Harry Clark (Relationship Director Vodafone/RIM), he listened to my nervous babble for hours during dinner and topped up my glass with wine……ehm Harry it’s your fault I’m soooo hungover today? Beverly Knight was doing the entertainment after the award as well, which was awesome..

The Blackberry Woman and Technology Awards launched three years ago and focuses on honouring the achievements of women both within and beyond the IT sector. And help inspiring women choosing a career within Technology.

The award ceremony was very well organised (well done Claire!) and was very classy, it was amazing to be in the room with so many high powered and inspirational women (I know it’s soppy but this is the kind of thing I have always dreamt of). I have always believed that woman are just as good at Technology as men, and I believe the reason there is still a male dominated sector is not because women don’t want to, it’s more likely to be because it IS a male dominated sector and insecurities are more likely to creep up. Woman are more humble and modest, we need to stand tall and be proud when we do something well. Speak UP! Don’t be afraid to brag, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

It’s so important not to get discouraged. Don’t be afraid of what people might think, or what you look like – believe in yourself and what you are saying! If you feel you are being judged, shake it off, keep going! Fuck em, people can judge you, but don’t let anyone define you, define yourself!

Now the power to the woman speech is over, sorry, had to be done though! I can finish off by saying:

I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The prize was: A designer glass bowl, a new Blackberry Smartphone and £2,500 worth of training (I’m going to use the money on programming courses!!)

I really want to thank ALL the SEO Chicks and Chicklets for all you have done on this blog and in the industry. You all inspire me to continue kicking ass!

Update: People have been asking me about photos, so here are a couple very fuzzy ones =)

Myself and Rebecca sipping champagne - oh ja!

And the Winner Is

Getting my Award - Totally stoked

My friend Gene just pointed me to a very amusing (perhaps unintentionally so) piece on the push to change the perspective of typical IT workers away from unsociable geeks to vibrant and hot women. OK the author didn’t really put it like that…but still, you get the idea. The IT industry is apparently suffering from nerdy and unsociable man overkill (so is the comic book shop across the street) and is doing its best to show the employable public that IT jobs can indeed be sexy.

So how can we band together and ensure that the SEO industry becomes as saturated with hot babes as the heavy metal industry is saturated with hairy, ugly men who need not wear leather chaps on stage? I have 5 ideas…

1. Don’t simply place your job opening in the standard professional areas; print out some hot pink flyers and tack them up in the girls’ loo at all the local “see and be seen” bars, especially ones that are famous for serving cute little fruit martinis. This is a good way to get some seriously hot chicks into your office, and even if the interview goes as poorly as you know it will, hey, at least there’s a babe giving you the time of day for once.

2. Instead of those bulky and unflattering conference tshirts (but not the BOTW ones! those rule) that some of us (Jay) are particularly fond of wearing, let’s give away makeup kits. I mean really, if you’re a hot woman and you have to sit through a lecture about how to get started on Facebook, at least make use of the time and keep the permagrin looking nice. You’ll need to look good afterwards, too, when all the dorks come up to you and start talking to you about meta tags and you can’t let them see you sweat simply because you have no idea what a meta tag is. Thongs with your company’s name emblazoned upon them are a good second choice. Hot women love this kind of shit.

3. Alter your benefits package. Don’t want to give a hot female employee more than 10 days off per year? Well who can blame you? Office morale would deteriorate. Instead, how about adding something like “the chance to star in SEO Girls Gone Wild videos” to the employee handbook? What hot chick will turn THAT down? If these videos sell well, you may even be able to cut out dental insurance (just don’t make the mistake of discontinuing coverage for breast augmentations and lip injections). Hot women age, you know, and they droop. Invest in their future.

4. Promote a universal loosening up of office dress codes. Sure, we have casual Fridays, but that simply isn’t enough these days. What about Mammary Gland Mondays, Tramp Stamp Tuesdays, Whale Tail Wednesdays, Thong Thursdays, and Freedom Fridays? Give a hot woman the chance to express herself through fashion, and you’ve earned her respect. Why should push up bras and tacky fuschia patent leather heels be confined to weekend wear?

5. Rebrand SEO as SEXO. This automatically titillates. I can barely type that without laughing. No one knows what the fuck SEO stands for anyway, so adding the X isn’t going to hurt a bit. Plus, it makes hot women seem hotter, because they’re being PAID to do something that conjures up something they can do even if they could honestly be outwitted by a bagged salad.

I’d love to be indignant about all of this, as it’s been awhile since I’ve actually truly been indignant about something other than the fennel stew I was reduced to eating in Durham because they couldn’t be arsed to save any damn carrots. However, I really can’t be, because the more women who take a job in IT because they think the field is sexy, the smarter I’m going to look. Pretty soon, if we’re overrun with women who are in the field because it gets them dates, I’ll be able to royally screw up and still look like a nuclear physicist. I’m all for it!

And here’s the fun disclaimer, since some people don’t really “get” irony: this isn’t a serious piece. Well, the part about the comic book store being overrun with nerdy men IS serious but most of the other stuff, not so much. So don’t send me any freaking hate mail, or tell me how hot women have brains too. Look who I’m freaking blogging with. I know hot women have brains, so save it.

Every so often I get irritated and start looking for a job.  It’s only usually when I’m irritated or it would occur to me to use my network and check with them for a job.  However, not everyone has a network – and not everyone knows where to look or what is reasonable.

I went looking recently and was surprised at the amount of variation in salaries offered.  Since I knew of a few SEOs looking for something new, I thought it would be a fun blog post.  There are lots of decent jobs out there but I’ve tried to select a good cross-section of mock-worthy and praise-worthy.  The commentary is my own and does not reflect the opinions or views of my employer or the SEO-Chicks.

Hopefully this will become a regular feature and please do let me know if anyone reading this gets a job as a result of seeing it here.  It would be good to know I helped.

I’d like to draw your attention to the salary survey put out by SEMPO. While it relates to in-house SEOs only, it does give a good indication of what someone with a certain number of years, handling a certain budget could expect to earn.  They are currently conducting an Agency Search Salary Survey

Also – women tend to fail to apply for a job unless they have at least 80% of what is being asked for whereas men will go when they have as little as 30%.  BE STRONG CHICKS and go for these jobs whether you think you have enough or not.  This industry needs more women willing to take a chance!

I did the following searches (links should give search results):

SEO Jobs London – mad.co.uk (aggregator)
SEO England London – SEOVacancies (main site link)
SEO SEM United Kingdom London – JobsInSearch (main site link)
SEO W1 10 miles – Totaljobs 

Search Engine Optimisation Assistant/SEO Assistant/Search Executive - £18-20K + benefits
This is the type of role you want to look at taking to get introduced to search optimising or marketing jobs.  It may not be the kind of impressive salary more senior SEOs get but we all have to start somewhere.  This is a great opportunity to start from nothing – GO FOR IT!

Junior SEO Consultant - to £27,000+benefits
This is a good opportunity to get a foot in the door and get a great salary to boot.  This job doesn’t require anything but a passion for SEO “You may be experienced with SEO or you could be a recent graduate who is passionate about SEO with desire to get into the industry”  WOW!  Jump on this all you budding SEOs in and around London.

SEO Executive - £28k
While these folks are asking for “proven experience” don’t be put off by those strong-sounding words.  All it means is that you’ve done something and can show your work for example changing title tags after keyword research or working on a PPC campaign and the steps you went through.  They will be looking for some hands-on something so even if you just helped with keyword research give it a shot!

SEO/Search Engine Optimisation Specialist - £30000 - £35000 per annum + healthcare, gym membership, bonus
OK… the perks are nice but really – if you have 3 years agency side and 2 years managing large accounts, you’re going to be looking for a head role – and more money with a manager role.  This is most certainly not a “top salary package” as they claim in the ad.  Look elsewhere!

SEO Specialist – Leading Online Fashion Brand - Up to £35k
I’m always wary about people who think they know what thy are doing – asking for a “white hat” to fix a site with “1,200 back links” and a “PR of 4/10” plus want someone “who has the skills and commercial experience to turn their vast links into profitable link juice”.  The pay is not fantastic but if you’re only caring for one site – fashion though it may be – how much work is there going to be after 6 months?

SEO Manager – £35 - 50,000 basic + bonus + excellent package
Oooohhhh… I’m liking the sound of this one – especially if you can negotiate up to the £50k salary.  The request for skills is reasonable, and really the requirements are realistic.  They aren’t asking for the moon and have a good idea of what they want.  I’m not an agency kinda gal and sales isn’t something that ever floats my boat but this looks like an excellent opportunity!

SEO Manager- Online Marketing Agency - 40-45k + Bonus
I’m always wary of jobs like this as it doesn’t really seem like they know what they want.  However, this is for a new team and so you’ll be coming in to an environment where you can mould and shape and grow the team.  This is the perfect kind of job for someone who wants to get in to it up to their elbows and really make a difference.

International Search Director - £40,000 to £50,000 per annum
I’m sorry… is this a joke?  Man management, Google qualified, experience… Ladies, go elsewhere.  What kind of a moron thinks this is enough to pay for someone with skills, qualifications, a degree and a European language?!?!  Seriously!  Don’t apply for this job – laugh at it!

Head of Search - £65 - 80k
This should actually be billed as head of PPC rather than head of search.  A throw-away statement at the end of the job advert makes this clear.  This looks to be a fun position with US and European travel and liaising with non-technical departments.  If you’re looking for that next move to head, I’d go for it.  In fact, I might go for it myself!

Hope you had fun and maybe applied for a few jobs.  The two with search results (madjobs.co.uk and Totaljobs) are a quick way to find what’s gone up recently.  The other two (JobsInSearch and SEOVacancies) you will need to put search parameters in yourself.

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that this post looks rather weird if you’re viewing it through a feedreader. So don’t. Click through, I tell you!

To start, I’d like a show of hands. Who uses Gmail? I hope everyone in the room has their hand up at the moment, because Gmail is one of my favourite things in all the world. It has its problems, it’s had is security flaws, but it has always treated me very well. Believe me: I’ve been around the block when it comes to email providers. I was a long-time user of Yahoo! and I was also one of Yahoo! Mail’s more loyal fans. Y! Mail just wouldn’t do all the things I wanted it to, and its constant badgering that I should “upgrade” to its newer version drove me nuts. The newer version also made me want to put a fork through my face. About two years ago, I beat out all the other Jane Coplands and snapped up a desirable Gmail address. It was heavenly.

However, there is always a little price to pay for lovely free things, and Adsense is that price when it comes to Gmail. Targeted Adsense is always a source of amusement, but it’s even more amusing when it thinks its targeting your personal emails.

I was going to just post screen shots of the ads that have made me laugh, but this would be far more interesting as an interactive game. There are no prizes for doing well… I’d promise to send you an SEO Chicks tee-shirt but I have no control over such things and I don’t want to get in to trouble with Lisa.

Honestly, I know you come here to learn. But you can learn all you like next week at SMX West, or by reading the recaps. Thus, I present to you, Jane’s Amusing Gmail Adsense Game.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Hi, CK! Just making sure you noticed.

Question 3:

Question 4:

There is no question associated with this advertisement. I believe it speaks for itself.

Question 5:

Question 6:

Question 7:

Question 8:

In all seriousness, you sometimes cringe when you think about the content with which your ads might be associated.

However, that was fun, wasn’t it? You have no idea how long it took me to make those polls not mess up the pictures’ alignment, so please look grateful. Have a nice Sunday and see some of you next week in Santa Clara!

I’m sitting in a cafe, its 4th of January 2008. Working from a cafe as the wireless connection in my office is not working. A little bit of a ironic start to the new year, an interactive department without internet access lol. But I’m not complaining as it gives me time to plan, ehm well when I say plan, I mean go out and spend money. I just spent £200 ($400) on a ASUS eee PC(bargain!). It’s tiny, and sooo cute. Like a hobbit PC, the only problem is that it has hobbit keyboard as well, which means that even my tiny thin fingers seems like giant hands and i keep on feckin typing the wrong thing in. But hey, I’m the Shires answer to Carry Bradshaw, sitting here in the cafe typing away looking out on the very busy shopping street of Kingston upon Shite, ehm I mean Kingston upon Thames.

Oh god I love gadgets =) The smaller the cuter, but before you ask, NO its not feckin Pink. I hate that, every flipping gadget targeted at women are pink. WTF? Pink is my cryptonite and I would be dead if you saw me wearing it. And imagine the pain I feel when going shopping for my 3 year old daughter, its all PIIIIIIIINK. Why oh why?

Anyway, back to my BLACK Asus eee PC, I know you are jealous Andrew This gorgeous little PC only has 512 RAM and a 2GB hardrive, run on Linux. Ok I see you flinching, but hear me out. It has wireless, built in web cam, open office (documents, spreadsheets and presentations), LCD screen and not bad speakers for a little diddy thing. But it also have slot for a memory card, 3 USB ports, display monitor output AND you can install Windows XP on it. But maybe most exciting is that it has a solid state hard drive (SSD), no booting up just 10 seconds and you’re in. SWEET! You can also get this baby with a 4GB hard drive, and upgrade the RAM quite easily. My boyfriend (Steve, yeah he has a name, he’s real! I am Cyber Bridget no more lol) bought the 4GB one as he’s an ultra geek and want to pimp it up like an old escort

Ehm….slight edit, I just changed my 2GB for a 4GB one, turns out I want a pimped up Escort as well

This hobbit PC has received quite the cult following on the net and loads of eee forums have popped up for how to upgrade, hack and otherwise improve your gorgeous Asus eee.

And lastly how can you not love a PC with the cheesiest tagline EVER

Asus - Rock solid – heart touhing

You got to LOVE it =)

OK so we’re celebrating our first 6 months of blogging with a quite lengthy (but typically fascinating) glimpse into the minds of the SEO Chicks.

The photo is courtesy of my good friend Gene. He’s afraid the other girls will kill him so I am not linking to him here. It’s so hysterically bad that I had to put it up…it serves me right that I look the most idiotic, too. Anita, never again mention the Spice Girls!! Once I stop laughing I will continue being serious and professional, naturally.

OK then, I’m good now. It’s our 6 month anniversary and naturally we wanted to commemorate the occasion with a post about this. We’ve all been completely thrilled by the blog in general. We’ve gotten some really great feedback on posts we’ve written, and overall we have been just SO insanely pleased by the response to what we’re doing. Lest I ruin the moment, read on for our thoughts on what’s happened over the last half year…

1. Is the current blog what you envisioned when we first got started? If not, what’s different?

Anita: To be honest, when we first started, we didn’t have much of a vision for the blog itself - we just knew that we wanted SEO-Chicks to be the sounding ground for women in the search industry. So the current blog definitely outshines most of what I had in mind.

What is so incredible, but not without a cause (Lisa and Julie have worked relentlessly to spread the word), that we’ve become so well known in the industry in such a short time, and people speak of us with a lot of respect, which I find great. I think that we as women have a lot of support in our industry - it’s reflected in the fact that a lot of our readers are male. Now I am sure that there are still a few male skeptics out there, but it seems Lisa is doing a great job at weeding them out - LOL.

I’d say we’re becoming the Spice Girls of Search Marketing… (note from Julie: bad move Anita. We all now blame you for the photo.)

Judith: I think I was just glad something happened. I remember Lisa’s experience in the pub and I am so glad she is the woman she is and launched in to action. I’m a bit of a feminist and am often disappointed by the lack of women in SEO though there are many notable ones.

I guess as the statement was made that sometimes we’d blog about non-SEO (chocolate, handbags, shoes) stuff, I thought it’d have a much more personal life blog slant. I’m thrilled it’s come out as a professional SEO blog with a huge information slant.

Julie: It’s much better. I knew Anita quite well when we started, but I didn’t know Lisa very well at the time so I thought the blog would be great and I DID have high hopes for it, but I didn’t realize it would end up being as fun as it is. I thought it would seem more like work, to be honest.

Rebecca: I’m pretty proud of the current blog. I actually envisioned something less serious and more jokey. I’m not saying that the blog isn’t amusing or facetiously written–it’s just that SEO Chicks is also rife with great, practical, and useful posts that make the blog just as good as any other SEO blog out there.

Lisa: God yeah! I thought it would be good, but I must admit it has completely exceeded my expectations. I have about a million ideas a year, and most of them ends up being just that, ideas! But this time it was different, it was more like a cause. I was fed up with people telling me what I couldn’t do, and what I didn’t know, bla bla. If someone tells me I can’t do something I will sure as hell do anything in my power to prove them wrong, that drives me more than anything. Slightly childish maybe. I call it the Erin Brokowich syndrome =) So, when I met Anita at a LondonSEO party and we got talking, it kind of unfolded itself in this idea about a blog, and the ball started rolling. I got so excited about the prospect of kicking some ass in the blogosphere I bought the domain the day after.

God I’m ranting now, basically the biggest difference between what I thought it would be like and what it is now is how well we have been received. I’m usually quite an optimist but never envisioned people would welcome us like they have!

2. How has the blog affected you professionally or in the SEO world?

Anita: It’s definitely made my name a little more known (grin). It’s hard to determine the direct effect for me, as professionally I am more involved in the marketing side of things. I am a search professional though, and as a woman in the field I am genuinely proud to be a part of SEO-Chicks.

Judith: I think personally it’s gotten me back blogging which I had given up when I left the last industry I was previously in. With working in media, I find myself doing a lot of reputation management and above-the-line marketing in SEO which has been a great change and given me great stuff to write about. I’m keen to start doing some technology reviews too.

I don’t think it’s changed me in the SEO world yet though the distinctive tight green shirt will likely change that (though any tight shirt also may when combined with free chocolate). I think I got recognised by a couple of people but I think Lisa and Julie are the real stars of SEO Chicks.

Julie: I haven’t let fame go to my head. The tiara is just for show really…the blog has definitely affected me professionally. I’ve had some incredibly generous fellow SEOs giving me feedback that leads me to believe that I actually do know what I’m doing, and our name is definitely out there. I haven’t been to any conferences since the blog first started, so as far as being affected in terms of having crowds of SEOs screaming my name, I can’t really say yet. Usually it’s just one or two. OK it’s one usually. And I pay him.

Rebecca: It’s given me a nice sense of camaraderie and has strengthened my existing relationships with the chicks I knew before joining on as well as helped me form relationships with new chicks and with readers.

Lisa: Professionally it has done heaps for my career, I’m convinced the success of the SEO Chicks was one of the major factors of me winning “Newcomer of the Year” at the B2B Marketing Awards. It has also helped me reach goals within my company but convincing the people I work with that blogging can be a powerful tool, I am now finally getting a separate website for Base One Search and the department is growing at 100 mph ? It has been fantastic! Busy but exciting! The blog has also improved my knowledge both from other SEO Chicks bloggers and the SEO Chicks readers! And lastly but not least I’ve gained some cracking friends along the way, I don’t think a day goes by without me and Julie IM’ing each other. We all email each other on a regular basis talking SEO or just general crap =) I think of the chicks as some of my closest friends, they all rock! I’m going to cry now…ha! You think?? The hardcore Viking has a heart??

3. What was your favorite post that you wrote? Why was it your favorite?

Anita: Hahaha - well I haven’t written that many posts, although I love writing - we always get such great response from our readers. My favorite would have to be the one on the creative SP@M subject line, and that’s again because of the responses it received - especially that poem…

I must say that we’ve done a great job not to steer this blog into a ‘feminist rant state’, because that’s not what we want. We don’t want sympathy - we just want to be acknowledged as the great professionals that we are, and that’s hard to pull off. I feel we’ve managed to involve our readers on a professional level without gender barriers.

Judith: I think my favourite post was about being a woman in tech. It was my favourite because it spun off a great secondary post about the history of women in computing and how we wouldn’t have Google if not for a woman!

Julie: My favorite one to write was the Chimps post. Not only did I legitimately get to search for things like “chimps wearing khakis” and “mad chimp waving flow chart around”, I got to dive back into the whole primatology thing that was one of my first loves. Plus it made me laugh to write that one…I am a huge, HUGE fan of satire and writing something like that is so much fun. It WAS about SEO, but it was making fun of what we do in a non-threatening way.

Rebecca: Haha, I’ve only written two posts because I’m a slacker, but I definitely want to contribute more. I’d say that I liked my “Get Anal Retentive About Your Anal-ytics” because I’m a fan of bad puns.

Lisa: Ehm, well I’m quite modest, ha! Am I bullocks. I really enjoyed writing the latest blogpost on The Algorithms and mixing it with some Matrix action, I’m a total movie freak so writing about SEO and mixing it in with movie analogies got to be the best thing right? Although saying that, I do LOVE Julie’s posts, all of them! I don’t think I’ve read a single post that Julie wrote and not laughed out loud, she is a comedy genius. I loved the post Julie wrote titled “Feckin’ Women’s knickers! Girls! and SEO!”

That’s got to be the best blogpost title ever, and if you don’t get it you need to watch this Father Ted Clip Absolutely feckin hilarious!

4. What are the reasons you joined the Chicks?

Anita: Well, a few reasons really… First and foremost was the belief that we deserved a voice in the industry. The other side of that is because I had received so much good support from the males in my search crowd that I felt we owed to give the right message through our blog, without slanting the good vibe that already exists.

But a large part was played by Lisa’s action driven persona ;o) She is only the second person (after Julie), that has chased me up for results - and that commands respect. So on the morning after we’d decided to start SEO-Chicks, she emailed to say she’d registered the domain and we were comitted - awesome - so all of a sudden this had become a reality and now we just had to keep going. I really loved the fact that I can work with a really driven and savvy woman :o). So here I am…

Judith: I’m passionate about women involved in tech and SEO and I love writing plus Lisa is a FANTASTIC person. How could I not blog here - I love this place!!

Julie: I was scared of Lisa and didn’t want to say no to her. If she’d asked me to parachute into Algeria to retrieve a first edition of a Camus novel that was in the hands of an anti-Camus book club, I’d have done it. Actually I really just wanted to write something and have it matter. I’d also been wanting to work with Anita again and this was the perfect chance.

Rebecca: I love Lisa Ditlefsen, and she asked if I would join. She’s bad at creating logical meetup landmarks at tube stations, but she’s a damn smart woman and quite business savvy.

Lisa: Ehm well again, it was kind of a: “we are going to show them Woman can be good SEOs, and shock horror we can be funny too!! “ Although I’m not as big of a feminist like Judith I still like seeing woman kick butt.

5. Where do you see the SEO Chicks blog in 6 more months, on our 1 year anniversary?

Anita: Hmm - this is always a hard statement to make. But I’ll be brave and work on what the historical data shows… I can see us becoming the central blog where women can be themselves and talk about SEO the way they want to. We will continue to respect/appreciate the support from our male readers too of course.

I hope we will start a series of meetings for Chicks in the SEO community - where we can meet up and network in person. I also hope that we will be given a voice in the major search events where we can bring support for newcomer females in the industry.

I’ll never forget my first search conference in New Orleans in 2005 - there were a total of 3 females in the opening reception. It makes me very happy to see that now the split is almost half - half. So I can see that SEO-Chicks has a big future…

Judith: I think we’ll take on board stuff we learned from the tagged “meme” about more guest bloggers, more tech toy reviews (I have a 1GB Samsung music player right here to do in fact), and possibly gain a logo.

It is also my hope we will also all be sent many gifts of good quality chocolate and new techie toys but somehow I don’t really think that’ll happen *grins*

Julie: I hope that we’ll really establish our blog as a great place for newcomers as well as advanced SEOs. I love it when we’ve gotten comments about how nice it is that we don’t talk down to anyone, but we don’t try and overuse technical language just to prove something. I think we’ll continue to have insanely silly posts mixed in with professional ones, which gives everyone a break from boredom.

Rebecca: I’d love to see regular segments and even more recognition within our industry. And I want an SEO Chicks hoodie.

Lisa: I think the blog will continue growing and hopefully our audience along with it. To be honest I really enjoy it just like it is, and don’t particularly want it to change at all=) Is that naïve? I hope well all stay as straight talking and chilled out as we are and not get caught up in the evils of monotising and money crap. I always wanted this to be a recourse for people to get-together talk SEO, and hopefully laugh, and I think it is, I don’t want it to change =)

Today seems like a good day for a bit of silliness with almost no link to SEO at all.  As with all things in my life, there is a link to SEO anyway, despite its tenuous nature.

Japanese animation, Pioneer and cabbits are inexorably linked for me.  While some may enjoy other anime (and I am a huge fan of “Bubblegum Crists”, “Ranma ½” and Lodoss Wars”), I love “Tenchi Muyo”.  In this series there is a character that is small, cute and furry called “Ryo-oh-ki” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryo-Ohki .  Now, Ryo-oh-ki’s name possibly translates as “something small that has the potential to be big” which is fitting since she can change from a small cabbit to a really big spaceship.

Now, in the anime (short for Japanese animation), Ryo-oh-ki does cute, if uncoordinated, things like walking in to glass doors, rolling down hills, just being cute, etc.  My husband, also a fan, decided that this character blended the correct amount of lack of coordination and cuteness to match me and my agility.  Apparently I rolled a 2 on a 3D6 for dexterity. (For non-gamers – 3D6 relates to rolling three dice having 6 sides each, numbered from one to six.)

How does this relate to SEO?  Searching for something is all about trying to find something and so I wanted to be found.  Now, being fond of my husband, I decided to use the cabbit term of affection online as a distinctive name.  I share the same name as a journalist, doctor and other persons of note so it seemed sensible.  The popularity of Tenchi Muyo meant it was not possible to easily carve out a distinctive identity.

In creating a distinctive identity I can do a vanity search on, I had to create a new name.  I noticed some names started with a lower case “de” which could mean “the” and so as I am ‘the cabbit’ I changed that to ‘deCabbit’.  Chick logic, apparently

These days, part of the process of naming a business, movie or other big budget enterprise, is the availability of the “.com” domain name.  Fail this initial test and the name is often scrapped.  In building a brand with a unique identity the “.com” is essential and failing to secure it before a cyber-squatter does could cost your business thousands in lost traffic and costs of buying the name.

So there you have it.  I am “deCabbit” because I wanted to be able to do a vanity search and find me.  I wanted friends to be able to find me and I wanted a unique, cute, catchy alt.name to be known by.  I wanted my own domain name I could post silly stuff to.  And like anyone, I was hoping for some (link) love…

Warning: if you’re a miserable misogynist, stop reading now, as this post contains information suggesting that women might not actually be as stupid as you seem to think we are.

Judith’s recent post about women in tech drew a comment about Grace Hopper, a woman who was involved in the development of COBOL (I can barely type “COBOL” without shuddering). This, in turn, led me to comment about Ada Lovelace, who is credited with being the first computer programmer. It all made me think about the role that women have played in the development of computing as we know it today. With that in mind, here are a few more notable women who’ve paved the way for all of us to enjoy technology.

The ENIAC Programmers
Their story is incredibly fascinating. Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum were chosen out of 80 programmers to physically program switches, digits, and cable trays in order to determine ballistics trajectories for the US Army in the 1940s. The ENIAC Computer soon became the world’s first stored program computer, giving these six women the distinction of being the only programmers to have ever programmed it on the machine level.

Alexandra Illmer Forsythe
Credited with writing the first computer science textbook in 1969, she was also a noted computer science instructor at several universities, including Stanford University.

Evelyn Boyd Granville
One of the first African-American women to earn a doctorate in mathematics in the US, Granville worked on the computing behind the first US manned missions into space and to the moon.

Erna Schneider Hoover
While working at Bell Laboratories, Hoover developed a computerized switching system for telephone traffic, replacing the hard-wired system. She was awarded one of the first software patents for this achievement, and became Bell Lab’s first female supervisor of a technical department.

So, you see, not all women are destined to make tea and just look pretty. I would like to say that Lisa HAS, in fact, made tea for me and it was lovely. I guess some of us can do it all.