There is a new face in the Austin Personal Training scene, and he happens to be my brother. Brian Morris just finished his certification from PFTA here in Austin. He will soon be starting as a personal trainer on some lucky gym’s staff, but is also looking for clients.

Most personal trainers are all about finding the young people looking to prepare for bikini season, but Brian is hoping to reach people of all levels of life and fitness. We come from a family with a history of obesity, so Brian and I both know adversity when it comes to weight loss. He is even working with our mom right now. She has gone through a gastric bypass and thyroid cancer, making for an interesting combination of fitness and nutritional needs. No situation is too difficult with someone this dedicated to a healthier life for everyone.

For example, he wants to reach the baby boomers that want a better quality of life, not a beach body. Keeping up with grandchildren and traveling the world (that hike up St. Paul’s Cathedral in London is 1000+ steps!) are their goals.

I am very excited about this new part of Brian’s life because I can not only aide in this new venture, but it’s awesome to see him this excited about his career. Brian really does love helping people with their fitness goals. He has been telling me every week for the past 9 weeks about what he is learning in class and helping me change my habits for the better. (yes Brian, intervals are what I need to do, I’m working on it)

So as promised, if you are in Austin, and always wanted to work with a personal trainer, let me know. I’ll get you the hook up. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

A New Austin Personal Trainer is a post from: Kate Morris

Running has become a love of mine, and once I found out that a 5k was part of the Livestrong Challenge, I was in. I set up my page … and kinda forgot. So a week out, I sent a Twitter update once a day, and an email to friends and family. The result was over $260 raised in a week! (I have three donations outstanding, so it could get bigger)

So I want to thank everyone that helped. The people that donated, retweeted, and supported me before and on race day. But most of all to the people that inspired me. Fighting cancer is one of the hardest things a person can go through. The people that have won, lost, and are still fighting this disease are what kept me running Saturday morning.

They inspired me so much that I broke my goal. Please note: I am not a fast runner. My goal was to run the 5k in 30 mins. I had been running about 32-35 minutes in training the week before. Well on race day I completed in 27 minutes. I not only broke my personal goal, I bested my time for the mile by a full minute.

Here are some pictures from the event and my shirt which I dedicated to those that have touched my life.

Thank you to all of you again.

Livestrong 5k Update is a post from: Kate Morris

There are sometimes that people/businesses follow me that I know and want to follow when I see their names. Just the other day, someone I thought I was following added me and I had no idea I wasn’t following them until I looked them up. Sorry again @WarrenWhitlock

But that’s not the point … the others I have been running across are restaurants. There have been a few in Austin that have added me and gotten some business as a result. One is @kahunastikibar. They added me and tweet discounts and specials that get my mouth watering. So when it’s time for lunch, I have inspiration on where to go. And that is what happened. That day, I visited them for their Monday 2 for 1 special.

So for the restaurants out there, get cracking. No, not eggs. Get on twitter. Find the influencers in your metro area and follow away. Twitter Grader from HubSpot is one of a number of places to get this info. You never know who might visit and start talking about you.

And points go to @SagraAustin for doing the same and inspiring this post.

Restaurant Discovery on Twitter is a post from: Kate Morris

I am a liberal for the most part. I vote fairly regularly. But I really don’t get into the depths of politics.

That is until it meets the SEO world. And today it did. I got a call from the Austin American Statesman wanting to know my opinion on a site supposedly put up by the Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson campaign called http://www.standbykay.com

My first reaction? No redirect from non-www to www (Kay, if you need any help with SEO let me know). Pretty site though.

Then I looked at what I was called about: the source code. The next words out of my mouth were “Woah. Oh my lord. Wow.” (Yes, that was the quote.)

What did I see, but a normal header, some javascript, and then a list of 2241 random keywords centered around Texas and politics. Just a huge list. Dumped in the top of the page. And hidden. The CSS is:

#Layer1 {
	position:absolute;
	left:0px;
	top:0px;
	width:100%;
	z-index:1;
	visibility: hidden;}

Then again on the line:

<div id="Layer1" style="display:none;">

Yeah. I say again. Wow.

I figured it was a) Spam Attack b) stupid SEO. When discussed with a friend (@whoisgregg), he noted it might be a demo site by the hosting company. But …

The campaign is now saying it’ll be removed. It is their site. Needless to say someone is getting fired. Not sure who did this, but really? How stupid can you be?

For anyone launching a site … never make it live until it’s passed through the company(or organization) and your friendly neighborhood SEO. Sorry, I love web design companies, hosting companies, they all make the interwebz a prettier place. But trust SEO to the professionals. Especially when you are deal with something as hot as politics, you have to be clean.

Update

From the article:

Sadosky and other campaign aides said this afternoon that only the two phrases using “rick perry gay” will be removed because they won’t play into the campaign’s future messages.Broadly, the campaign said a vendor sold them on a tool that generates the phrases hourly or less in an attempt to divine the most frequent Web searches made by individuals who search online using one or all of the terms “Rick Perry,” “Kay Bailey Hutchison” and “Texas.”

Punch line: The generated phrases aren’t intended to drive up traffic to the standbykay site; they are intended to help Hutchison’s campaign decide most efficiently where to purchase banner ads or other Web-related advertisign that would drive people to the site, where visitors can volunteer, chase information or make donations.

My response to the Statesman (and hopefully the campaign reads it):

There is no reason for them to hide keywords such as “name xls” and “debachary definition,” much less any other keyword in that site. The company that is recommending hidden text to determine “efficiently where to purchase banner ads or other Web-related advertisign that would drive people to the site, where visitors can volunteer, chase information or make donations” is one that does not understand websites or how the search engines work.

A reputable company would have recommended a paid campaign to test keywords or content around the keywords to test it’s relevancy. Hidden text holds no value to their campaign or website and can potentially hurt the site in the future.

Senator Hutchinson’s Site Keyword Dump is a post from: Kate Morris

If you have specific questions, comment and I’ll answer!! If I need to I’ll add it to the post.

Needed at PubCon South

• Business Cards (a must, kinda late to order, but you can always do one day turnaround and expedited shipping)
• Healthy Liver (6th street, need I say more? Okay, later)
• Thirst for Knowledge
• Passion for Music
• Love of Great Food (TEX-MEX!!!)
• Great attitude
• Flip Flops (it’s an Austin requirement)

Updated Weather: Average 72 for mid March. We are sitting in the 80s currently. Needless to say it’ll be warm most likely, but do please check the weather before you get here. We have a rule: If you don’t like Texas weather, wait. It’ll change in 20 mins. It can downpour at any moment and freeze the next. You think I’m kidding …

Update: Yeah, 60% chance of rain during PubCon South. Please pack an umbrella!

Clothing: Comfy. You want to look professional for the conference, but a suit is just going to make you look like a lawyer here. Not that this isn’t the norm in Web Marketing anyway.

Experiences

Restaurants – I’ll focus up North, there are tons more though if you are willing to travel a bit.

• Z Tejas – Right near the Renaissance, this is classic Austin Tex-Mex. Sit on the patio if you can.
• Manuel’s – Same as above, great Mexican, not as close, but still RIGHT THERE.
• Amy’s Ice Cream – It’s in the shopping area. Best ice cream in Austin.
• Texadelphia – Cheap. Greasy. Delicious. Texas Philly Cheesesteaks
• North by Northwest – Wonderful brewry with some of the best food I’ve had. Great sit down dinner, especially with clients, hint hint.
• Baby Acapulco – The best margaritas up that way. You are limited to 2 purple ones. Yes, that good.
• Iron Cactus – More Tex-Mex, right by NXNW, Austin staple. Another good sit down place.
• Kenobi – Great Sushi right by the hotel.
• Trudy’s – A little further away, but one of the best restaurants in Austin
• Eddie V’s – Never been here because I dislike seafood, but I hear it’s fantastic. Right by Z Tejas.
• Opal Divines

Bars – Sorry, most of the great ones are downtown – cab ride!

• West 6th
  • Union Park
  • J Blacks
  • Mother Egan’s
  • Little Woodrow’s
  • Molotov
  • Belmont
• Traditional 6th
  • Brown Bar
  • Dizzy Rooster
  • Gingerman
  • Pete’s Piano Bar
  • Whiskey Bar
  • Blind Pig
  • Maggie Mae’s
  • Logan’s
  • Barcelona
  • Spill
  • Shakespeare’s
• Warehouse District
  • Cedar Street
  • Fado’s
  • Speakeasy
  • Cuba Libre
  • Six
  • Saba
  • Malaga
  • Vicci

Tips

• Cab rides from up north to downtown can be pricey, so if you plan on seeing Austin, rent a car. But downtown parking is like any other city, sucks. Garage parking is average $7. But after 5:30pm meter parking is free if you can find one.
• For the tip above, you can just bribe SEOs who live in Austin to take you with them to cool places. Let’s see — myself and Taylor Pratt will be at PubCon. Other Austinite SEOs, who is going to have their car?
• The airport is no where near the city or the hotel. Sorry. We aren’t like other cities, but our airport does kick booty. If you missed awesome Austin restaurants like Salt Lick, they are in the airport and just as good.
• We double name our highways. Mopac = Loop 1 | Ben White = Hwy 290/71 | Research = Hwy 183 | Capital of Texas = Loop 360
• I’ll add more as I think of them.

PubCon South & Austin Insider Tips is a post from: Kate Morris

Follow that up with the big kicker: I sprained my left ankle about 2 miles from the finish. So that changed my goal. I finished. That became my goal. Below is part of my cheering team at the finish line. Thank you to everyone that supported me over the past few months as I trained and the day of. It meant more to me than I can ever express.

From Left: Katie, me, Aunt Marsha, Mom

The night before the race I asked my Twitter friends for tunes to run to. So here is my list of songs. You can tell a lot about me by this list I guess, so enjoy.

1. Let’s Go – Trick Daddy
2. Shut Up and Drive – Rihanna
3. Wild Ride – Kenny Chesney
4. Til the Dawn – Drew Sidora
5. Bite the Dust – The Pussycat Dolls
6. Stronger – Kanye West
7. Galmorous – Fergia
8. I Wanna Be Bad – Willa Ford
9. Milkshake – Kelis
10. Move Bitch – Ludacris
11. Never Again – Kelly Clarkson
12. Radar – Britney Spears
13. Pon de Replay – Rihanna
14. Bittersweet Symphony – The Verve
15. Shake Your Pom Pom – Missy Elliot
16. Don’t Stop the Music – Rihanna
17. Send Me an Angel – Real Life
18. If You’re Going Through Hell – Rodney Atkins
19. Extraordinary – Liz Phair
20. Tamborine Remix – Eve ft. Missy Elliot, Fabulous
21. Dirty Little Secret – Kelly Clarkson
22. London Bridge – Fergie
23. Get Back – Ludacris
24. Addictive -Rakim
25. Conga – Gloria Estefan
26. The Scratch – 7 Year Bitch
27. Stand Up – Ludacris
28. The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim
29. Single Ladies – Beyonce
30. New Agenda – Janet Jackson
31. Behind These Hazel Eyes – Kelly Clarkson
32. Beautiful Day – U2
33. Pump It – Black Eyed Peas
34. The Middle – Jimmy Eat World
35. Break Stuff – Limp Bizkit
36. We Run This – Missy Elliot
37. Let’s Get Loud – Jennifer Lopez
38. Buck in Here – Akon Ft. Diddy & Ludacris
39. Lace and Leather – Britney Spears
40. Just Dance – Lady GaGa
41. No Reins – Rascal Flatts
42. You Can Do It – Ice Cube
43. We Made It – Busta Rhymes

The Half Marathon – Final Story and Playlist is a post from: Kate Morris

Austin SEO Meetup PPC Slides

About My Client Center Accounts

Checking the Cost of a Keyword

Google AdWords Editor

Austin SEO Meetup Slides and Links is a post from: Kate Morris

You do have to be working in the industry though. We will soon start training for those that WANT to do it.

I’m excited to get our community together and hope the other SEMs in Austin agree.

AustinSEM Soft Launch is a post from: Kate Morris

I had one request to give a Top 10 SEO and SEM Myths list. I have seen tons, but that list changes depending on what you know. So I’ll work on one for beginners. Starting with there are NO tricks in SEO. What we do doesn’t change much, if you do it right the first time and build good content, you will have no issues ranking. Try to cut corners, you’ll have issues.

There were some good debates, lively characters, and great conversation. I can’t wait for the next one, though I think I’ll be in Seattle at SMX Advanced during the next one.

Just glad people are finally getting together.

Austin SEO Meetup is a post from: Kate Morris