Flashes of Panic

I was talking to my parents last night. (I do this, now and then.) We were discussing the topic of the Family Business website, and how one would find it. We share a name with one of those impossible-to-spell Maine counties with a Native American name. When I search Google using the name of the county (ending in “c”) I can’t find the business (which ends with a “ck,” the “correct spelling.”) So I had to pitch two unfamiliar ideas to my parents: first, people don’t find you through links, particularly links from Chamber of Commerce websites. They find you by searching the web. Second, people can’t spell, so it’s worthwhile to include a number of common misspellings of your name at least in the <meta> tags on your site. (Or you can go the Google route and register misspelled domain names. Come to think of it, we should do that here at work.)

At some point, my father said something about how the chamber of commerce site was getting “45 hits a day.” That number is probably wrong (not to mention vague: who talks about “hits” nowadays?) and he admitted that, but in my disbelief I coughed up something like, “45? I get more than that on flashesofpanic.com!” (Because, you know, you’d think a minor city on the coast of Maine could pick up more traffic than me.) I knew this might be a tactical error when it was half out of my mouth, and sure enough, Dad followed up with, “Why would anyone go there?”

Anyway, Mom, Dad, nice to see you here.

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