SEO Chicago Animated Headline

Saturday, October 11, 2014

WHATS NEW CHICAGO? Oh ... yeah.... The Great Chicago Fire Festival

THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE FESTIVAL - 2014

As soon as I heard about this experience I was hooked on the idea. I found a picture on social media about a 1871 style Chicago wooden house set on afloating barge in the river with the sign, “Come Watch Me Burn” and I was intrigued with it. I made it a point to get over there to see what all the fuss was about. Now of course this type of thing was hyped up for months on the radio and social media and it got the locals all riled up. There was a reported $2 Million dollars roped into this deal and some of the residents didn’t like the idea of it getting thrown away on an arts festival.

The idea was to have this floating river festival with these burning houses. To me, that was all I really needed. I might grab some food down there and people watch – you know? No big deal. I disregarded all of the social media yammering from the local, “crabasses”, my new favorite word, (thanks Chicago) and went there for a good time. Lo and behold there was a reported 10,000 people at the river front and the crowds were building up by the minute. This was no small thing and there was a lot of media coverage overhead with helicopters and spotlights. It turns out the locals arrived in droves. Over the river I could see the patio for Dick’s Last Resort and it was jam packed with party goers. There were people celebrating this event on the big river cruise boats and to my right it looked like some people even rented out rooms in hotels and were throwing parties. There was lights, people, and car traffic backed up all around the Michigan avenue bridge and the State street bridge.

Now, you know how this story ends right? It’s all over the news as being one of the biggest busts in Chicago history. But before I get to that part I want to get into the drama of this thing. People were waiting for something to happen. The sky blue and magenta lights were focused on the floating house raft. No fire but we were hopeful. Apparently there was supposed to be some sort of pageantry from the Red Moon Theater people. I was like, “Okay, but hurry it up – we’ve been standing here for almost  an hour already…..”, (we got there early). First this boat comes out with the Chicago Children’s Choir on it singing about theloss of lives to the people who died in the fire. I’ll be honest with you I got a little emotional. I mean I was nice and I got a little weepy. But  damn, they didn’t stick around long they just sort of zipped right though and cleared out of the way fast.



Then we got these kayaks out there with these flaming cauldrons attached to the back ends of them. It was kind of confusing because they were slow. People started cheering and we thought they would light the houses on fire. Nope. They just kind of circled around them while people cheered. I didn’t have the printed program in front of me so I was unclear of the events. There was some guy on the loudspeaker who was narrating the thing but there was no clear objective to what we were supposed to be experiencing. Sometime either before or after the kayaks there was some guy on a boat banging on some kind of gong for whatever reason. I totally didn’t get the reason why or what he was even there for but I’m sure it was significant. I just missed the reference because I had no guide and was just kind of going with the flow but now by this time my foot was falling asleep. I wanted this thing to get on already. It was about 8:45 PM by this point and I couldn’t stick around much longer I had tickets to go see Agent Orange at the Double Door.

There was a weird steamship that came out too. It was zipping around the houses shooting fire out of its steam stack or something. It was odd looking and was definitely homemade for the festival. It has been referred to as the Steampunk ship but it looked out of place with the theme of the festival. Speaking of festival I didn’t see any food trucks or beer tents from where we were standing. I wished I had stood over by Dick’s Last Resort… I’mserious.

Sometime around this point the narrator comes back on and is talking about the actual fire. Back at the time of the Great Chicago Fire the whole city was made out of wooden buildings and wooden sidewalks. There was talk of a drought and how the whole city was a tinderbox. The lights on the houses were now orange and red to give off a firey glow. The music was cranked up and it was a Tim Burton-esque kind of sound on a loop. This horrific music permeated the air for about 2 minutes and I could see the crowd get agitated because by now we were all elbow to elbow and there was still more people coming down the stone staircases to join us by the river. That music continued to blare on and after about 10 minutes it felt like torture. I was worried that it was going to enter into my subconscious and stay there infinitely.

There was an announcement telling us about technical difficulties. There was moans in the audience. I assured the crowd, “Hey I can start a fire faster than these guys can…. Anybody want to see a fire?” the whole crowd cheered, “YEAH !!!”.   It turns out that some rain had damaged the ignition switches on these floating houses and this prevented a fire from happening.



A cow wiped out half of the city. That’s what we have all been told and I’m thinking we should’ve hired a cow to run this thing right. What a disaster. I couldn’t wait around any longer I had to get going so I could get to the show. I had four bands to review so I started to make my way back to the stairs. People were still waiting around for something to happen when I left. There was supposed to be fireworks too. I understand those did happen.

I was looking forward to seeing these houses burn on the river. To me that sounded like a pretty interesting time. But the pageantry or program as it were was a confusing fiasco to watch. The overall experience was that of frustration and confusion and turned into a test of endurance. We stood on a grassy river embankment at an angle so the calves on my legs were feeling great strain after almost two hours of nothing.


There is supposed to be a second annual next year to this thing. So I’ll tell you what. I will be there but will be watching it either from Dick’s Last Resort enjoying a nice drink and some appetizers. I won’t be standing on the riverside waiting for things to happen. I hope next year’s presentations is shaved down to about 30 minutes tops.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Power of Backlinking - The Missing Ingredient

"WHY IS THIS CALLED THE - SECRET SAUCE ?"
http://www.1seonewyorkcity.com/images/seo_search_engine_optimization_new_york_city_ted_cantu.jpg

There is an incredible way you can get to page one of Google. The power of this technique can build economic empires and reshape the way we do business. It is overlooked and this surprised me when I was doing a recent seminar in Metro Detroit, WCCC last month. It appeared that many people did not realize that you can structure an entire campaign around the popularity of other sites that have a high Google PR ranking. This is one element of online marketing that is seriously overlooked and really under appreciated.



We covered this a little bit in this new ten part video series. There are some other insightful moments on the subject of social media. This is taking the country by storm. Twitter and Facebook are mere stepping stones to what is really possible.

You can read about seo and search engine marketing here.... We are taking these building blocks and creating substantial jumps... the record so far is 28,000,000 pages in just 7 days. If that is not exciting I don't know what is. Imagine now if you wrap up an entire campaign based on these strategies you could begin to build substantial wealth and and a long lasting brand.

More to come...

SEO, search engine marketing and web video news from Ted Cantu, (creator of 50+ markets online and abroad)

Monday, February 11, 2008

"The No Nonsense Online Article Base"

Now you can steal and grab content and throw it on your sites. The Google spiders love it so why not add more OOMPH to your web sites and blogs?

Here is what its all about.....

"So you wanna be an entrepreneur eh? Maybe you already have a company and your online rankings absolutely suck!

Either way you need a serious game plan.

These articles are designed to help you get your thinking straight when it comes to online marketing. You do not have to be a “Super Genius” in Search Engine Rankings and Google technology but you do have to get off your duff and take action.

As you can see we have taken companies from zero rankings
and positioned them for HIGH VISIBILITY. We are getting 5
out of the Google top 10 in just a short period of time. We are
also taking ecommerce sites and positioning them to make
real passive income online.

Just read a few of these mind bending search engine optimization and web marketing articles and keep an open mind. Feel free to print them out and even post them on your own sites and blogs. We ask that you include our footer just as a courtesy to us when you re-post them.

That being said…. ENJOY!"

Ted Cantu
i-Mobile Media
February 2008

Source: http://1seomichigan.com/articles.html

Posted on Feb. 11, 2008 at 8:20 AM by Ted Cantu

Saturday, February 2, 2008

The Seven Families of Search Engines, (For Smart SEO's)

When I first blurted out that I work on 7 to 9 different types of search engines a lot of professionals flipped out. I mentioned that only 10% of all searches are performed on traditional search engines. This caused for a lot of turmoil among my colleagues.

But there really is no cause for alarm. This opens up more opportunity for you as a web developer and a business owner....

Here is a sample of how you can use these new strateges....

Do you really want to start fresh from scratch week after week? Or would you rather build an infrastructure and have consumer penetration? This is the cheapest way to build up a brand. With web site hosting being as low as $10 bucks a month it would be wise to build multiple sites.

An example of these would include:

1. Video testimonial sites, (let others do the selling for you)
2. Article information sites
3. Lead generation sites, (lead capture sites)
4. Ebook giveaway site
5. Members only site
6. Audio testimonial site
7. Dot Info, (.info) sites, (they get indexed quicker than dot coms)

Get the entire article here....
http://www.1seomichigan.com/michigan_seo.html

Ted Cantu posted this on Feb. 2, 2008 at 11:47 PM EST and can be found at i-mobile media. Cantu writes for several different sites and creates large infrastructures for companies of all sizes. Currently he occupies 8 spots out of the top 10 for just about every category he submits to.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

SEO - Direct Marketing Podcast


Click here to get your own player.



Here are some great tips and software reviews for your online marketing efforts!
All new for October 2007 - Enjoy!

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 27, 2007

Friday, October 26, 2007

Forget Grey Hat SEO - What Ever Happend To Honesty?

Whenever I talk to other SEO's I am always asked what kind of hat do I wear? Obviously I do not participate in black hat SEO tactics. Mainly because the ones I know about are so dog gone hokey and ridiculous it would be a deliberate throwback to the year 1992 and who really wants to go there for anything?

White Hat SEO seems a little uppity for me personally. Grey Hat is just silly when you get down with it. There are tactics that you can employ on your sites today that are borderline. They may just get you banned in the near future. Yet people continue to use them until they get caught or are told to cool it. There are software programs too that in a few months I am sure will prove to be ineffective when it comes to honest Internet Marketing.

For me, I am into honesty. I play a straight game yet I utilize the tools that Google sets forth. The end result is that I get amazing results because I know how to talk to these different services. The best way to get along in this online world is to play fair and honestly. By actually living it you are creating great habits. It makes following the rules a heck of a lot easier in the future. I say that I participate in NO HAT SEO.

I set the pages up as to not cause embarrassment in the future. End of story.

Posted by Cantu on OCT. 26, 2007 at 11:02 PM

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Are Trained Monkeys Doing SEO?

I am wondering - quite seriously if trained monkeys are doing SEO in offshore companies. This has got me thinking after visiting some very simple looking directories. Most of them are just asking for basic things:

* Name of the site

* Description
* Meta information, (sometimes)
* Keywords

They are looking for you to plop them into a submission box and send it off. This is a very busy part of getting your pages indexed but it is not the only way to do it. Now instead of waiting for weeks, if not MONTHS to get attention you can do this in a few hours.

But still, I am wondering what these off shore SEO firms are really doing? Maybe now I am beginning to understand why this is so cheap.

THE DISADVANTAGE
The problem with hiring someone for four cents an hour is that they don't do a complete job. Just plunking pages into directories is only a small part of the equation. You have to do a lot more to get this whole thing to work right. In fact you have to do a heck of a lot to get your pages set up properly so they will get picked up in the first place.

Doing a half job will only result in confusion. You certainly won't nail 8 out of 10 top spots like the way we do it. But still a lot of companies are turning to these sweat shops to handle something as critical as online marketing.


Scary.

And its getting closer to Halloween. I guess that makes this article quite timely.

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 24, 2007 at 9:00 AM