Jun
10

How Frontier Airlines Charges You To Clean Up Their Own Mess

WGHubris on June 10th, 2013

A few years ago, Frontier Airlines jumped on the bandwagon with other major airlines to charge customers for checking bags. The justification was that all of those checked bags were making the planes heavier and costing the airline more money in fuel. It just wasn’t fair to lightweight traveling passengers to have free checked bags for flying customers.

More baggage fees for Frontier luggage.

It’s hard to know whether the people who run Frontier Airlines are truly clueless, or if it was all part of a multi-step plan from the beginning, but what happened next is obvious to anyone with more than three brain cells. Passengers, unwilling to pay more money just to take their luggage with them on a trip began to carry-on everything they used to check. Predictably, passengers try and cram too much luggage into bags that are too big and then spend too long trying to jam them into crowded overhead bins.

Instead of a checking a 40 lb. bag and leaving room for other travelers to carry-0n lighter bags, customers just carry on a 40 lb. bag. So, the airlines save no weight and no fuel, and don’t get the highly coveted extra fee. To top it off, frequent travelers often like to carry-on bags, but can’t because there isn’t enough space.

The whole policy is a bust.

Frontier Charges for Carry On Bags – More Fees

The solution, if you are not a price gouging company that, frankly, hates the cash pinatas customers you have to fly from place to place in order to actually make money, is fairly obvious. Change the baggage fees to something that both solves the weight problem, and prevents the delays and overcrowding of carry-on space. Ideally, the airline would charge a fee for heavier bags but allow normal checked bags for free. Then, you charge for carry-on bags instead. This both keeps the weight down, and it makes sure that only savvy, lightweight travelers (typically the highly coveted business travelers) are carrying on bags.

The result?

Lower weight, faster boarding, and uncrowded overhead space.

However, Frontier thinks it can gouge its customers for a little more money by charging them for carry-on bags as well. That way, if you take ANY luggage, you pay more. Ironically, by charging for BOTH carry-on and checked bags, the airline provides no incentive to do either, and considering no one travels with NO luggage, everyone pays the extra fees.

The result?

The same crowded overhead bins and the same weight problem persist.

How To Get Around Frontier Bag Fees

The smartest thing you can do to get around Frontier’s luggage fees is to be smart.

First, add the cost of your baggage charges to the price of your ticket. Frontier is counting on conversations like this one occurring all over the country.

“Hey Ma, Frontier tickets are $15 cheaper than this other airline. Let’s buy them.”

Later, at the ticket counter, “What do you mean I have to pay $20 to check or carry-on my bag?”

Don’t forget Southwest Airlines allows a free checked (and carry-on) bag.

You see, most people buy airline tickets based on price. Since all airlines give flyers the same tiny seats, the same lack of service, and no one offers food or drinks anymore, customers don’t see any reason to treat tickets as anything more than a commodity. By moving the amount paid by the customer to fees, the airline hopes people will be stupid enough to not include them in the price of the ticket. That way, it seems like a lower fare, even though it costs just as much or more than other options.

If Frontier’s double bag charge works, that is customers don’t book other airlines and complain loudly, other airlines will follow.

 

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May
10

No Keyword From Google Search Grows

WGHubris on May 10th, 2013

When I first started writing online for money, I was introduced to Google Analytics. While there is a great deal of information available within Analytics, the key for me, at the time, was the way search keywords were reported. By selecting an overview of the traffic coming to your website, you could see what keywords were driving people to your site, but no more.

Google Search Keywords

In the world of online marketing, a lot of focus happens on keyword research. There are a lot of ways to go about researching keywords. Some publishers like to find the keywords first, and then write articles about those keywords. This is the giving people what they are looking for method. Other publishers, already know what they want to write about, but they want to frame it in a way that allows the maximum number of people to find it. This method is more about properly cataloging your publications.

I fall into the latter camp.

One of my first clients mentioned to me that while they loved my writing, it always seemed to bring in less traffic than the writings of other users. It turns out that my catchy, creative headlines are loathed by Google’s search ranking algorithm which assumes that whatever is in your title is literally what your article is about. So, an article titled, How to Spiff Up Your Home Before Summer, will never, ever, rank highly for people who search for, “spring cleaning.” In fact, the duller, and more keyword filled your title, the better.

keyword not provided from search

Knowing where people land on your website is useful. People landing on that spring cleaning page from organic search results is useful information. It let’s me know that my readers are finding that page. But, without information about the keywords that sent them there, I’ll never know whether my readers are coming after searching for spring cleaning, or for shower cleaning tips.

Keywords in Analytics

For a while now, I’ve just gotten over the annoying metric at the top of every website’s traffic report. The majority of traffic has listed, “Not Provided,” as the keyword used in search for some time now. Fortunately, the remaining information was vaguely accurate if not statistically complete. For example, if a website showed 30% not provided, then one could reasonably assume that the next dozen keywords were the ones providing the majority of the website’s traffic. Unfortunately, those days are ending.

As the number of keywords that are not provided climbs, the remaining keywords are no longer sorted in any meaningful way in many cases. Sure, if a website has something like this:

  • 65% Not Provided
  • 18% Weasel Combing
  • 8% Monkey Wigs
  • 5% Payday Loans to Buy Viagra

Then, you know where your traffic is coming from, and what your important keywords are. But, if your website is big, and not focused on a single keyword, then the traffic reports start to look more like this:

With results like this, one can make educated guesses as to what keyword searches drive someone to their website, but it gets increasingly difficult to see which ones are more used than others. Even when there is a difference, does the variance between 2 percent and 1 percent really represent an accurate picture of traffic, or just how the terms were aggregated for the report?

When it comes to search, it’s Google’s world and we just live in it. Still it’s decisions can make our jobs harder or easier. As a professional writer that makes a living online without spending every waking moment plumbing the mass of SEO tools and keyword research subscriptions out there, this change has tilted the balance of power away from the writers who care about content, and toward the search engine gamers who manufacture the minimum possible value for rankings. Over time, this will actually make Google’s searches less relevant.

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Feb
14

Quitting Valentines Day

WGHubris on February 14th, 2013

There are a lot of people out there who hate Valentine’s Day. Most of them hate it, not because they actually hate V-Day, but rather because they hate how it reminds them that they don’t have someone special in their life to share it with. Other people hate Valentines Day because it’s too commercial, or because it’s a Hallmark holiday. What they mean, of course, is that they resent having to spend the money to buy something, or don’t like having to come up with something to do for Valentine Day.

valentines day quit graphicFor my wife and I, these are not the reasons we quit Valentine’s Day. We’ve been together now for longer than we were single. My wife has never been the type to sit back and wait for me to come up with something amazing to impress her. She likes to plan, and pitch in and come up with what we are doing. Then, she likes to savor knowing what we are going to be doing in a few days, weeks or months.

We also love holidays. A wise friend once told us, “Never pass up a reason to celebrate.” I think that’s good advice. I’m a 40-year old who seeks out multiple fireworks shows on the 4th of July, insists on a full turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, even if it’s just us, dresses up in green for St. Patrick’s Day even though I’m not the least bit Irish, and I put out a flag for Flag Day. Heck, I even have my own holidays:

  • The CU v CSU football game on Labor Day weekend
  • SuperBowl Sunday
  • The Oscars Night
  • First Day of School
  • and several others.

The Straw That Broke Valentine’s Day Back

For the first decade of our relationship, we went along with Valentine’s Day. There were changes and agreements. She knows about money, and even cares about using it wisely more than I do. After a few years of fifty, sixty, or even seventy dollar bouquets of flowers, we put a stop to that. A smaller grocery store bouquet was allowed, but nothing bigger. After that, we would do special things, dinner, movies, hot air balloons, whatever, and then we’d exchange Valentine’s Day cards.

But, one year, something happened that changed it forever. For years, we had noticed the rampant price gouging that goes along with Valentines Day. Some of it is supply and demand, but much of it is not. Watch the price of a dozen roses at FTD during January, compared with the week before Valentine’s Day to see what I mean. It’s not just florists. Valentines Day cards seem to cost much more than regular cards. We avoided most of that, but it was still there in the back of our minds.

Then, on Valentine’s Day, we made a reservation at one of our favorite restaurants. When we showed up, they told us it was an hour wait. “But, we have a reservation,” we said. It didn’t matter. So did everyone else, or at least we assumed so. We realized that we were trapped. Anywhere else would have as long of wait or longer since we didn’t have a reservation there. We made the best of it and enjoyed each other’s company.

Then, when we were FINALLY seated, we got another rude shock. The menu, that we knew and loved, had been chopped down to just a couple of dishes, not including some of our favorites. Service was slow, the food was mediocre, and our night was far from magical.

Whether the restaurant was trying to make more money or just handle the volume, I don’t know. Either way, Valentine’s Day was not a great day, but rather the worst possible day to try and enjoy the company of your loved one anywhere other than at home. We realized the problem was that everyone was trying to have the same magical night in the same way. We don’t go camping on Memorial Day weekend for the same reason. When everyone is trying to make the same thing happen, no one gets it to happen. Some things are fun with crowds, having an intimate evening with your spouse is not one of them.

As we talked we realized that just going out to a nice restaurant on ANY OTHER DAY of our choosing would have been more fun. Flowers and cards would have been more meaningful on a day when not everyone else gets them. In other words, Valentine’s Day was less fun, more crowded and more expensive, and so we quit.

Every year, we hear people complain about V-Day, both those people who have someone, and those who don’t. We nod sympathetically, and if they ask (and ONLY if they ask) tell them about our arrangement. The ironic thing is that most people, both women and men agree with us, but for some reason they just can’t do what we do. Either they worry the other person won’t understand, or won’t stick to the no pact, or they just can’t stand to not be the only ones without something going on.

So, we quit Valentine’s Day. We’ve been happier on February 14th ever since.

But, tomorrow on the 15th, I’ll wander into the grocery store. I’ll grab a rose or some other small token. I’ll find my wife’s car wherever it is parked downtown, and I’ll leave it along with a little note on the driver’s seat. And, it will mean more than all the high-priced bouquets and limited dinners in crowded restaurants that everyone had the night before.

 

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Feb
12

Why Everyone Got LinkedIn Top 5 Percent Email

WGHubris on February 12th, 2013

There is a bit of cloud brewing on Twitter and elsewhere over an email sent by LinkedIn. In the email, the company congratulates the user for having one of the “top 5% most viewed profiles.” The catch is that it is starting to seem like “everyone” got one of these emails.

LinkedIn Top 5 Percent Email Scam

top-five-percent-linkedin-graphicA number of users on Twitter have begun to question whether the top five percent email is a scam. The idea circulating is that by sending out an email about being one of the top profiles on LinkedIn will encourage users to engage with the site more actively, and promote their profiles. In short, the top 5% of all profiles email is just a cynical attempt to gain momentum by providing “everyone” a chance to brag about being a big shot on LinkedIn.

But, is this all a LinkedIn email promotional scam, or is there another explanation?

How Everybody Is in LinkedIn Top 5%

The top viewed profile isn’t so much a marketing trick by LinkedIn as much as ignoring the math. The quick thought that jumps to someone’s brain when they see top five percent is that it is a small, elite club. After all, that means that 95 percent of users did not make the cut. All of that is true, but when you look at the raw numbers, and take a second to think about what other services or websites a top user of LinkedIn might use, and it becomes obvious why so many people seemed to make it into this rarefied club.

In January, LinkedIn announced that it had 200 million users. How, exactly, the company counts those users is not relevant  assuming that it is counting users the same way for its infamous top five percent emails. In that case, five percent of 200 million is 10 million users. That’s right, in order to qualify as a top five percenter on LinkedIn, you need only be in the top 10 million.

In one way, this still seems like an elite club. After all, 190 million users do not qualify. However, there are very big variations in how each LinkedIn user takes part in the network. There are millions of users who setup a profile and then never came back. There are millions of others who haven’t even uploaded a picture. There are millions more still who created a profile, but never promoted it and don’t bother telling anyone about it.

There are two ways one could be one of the top five percent of viewed profiles on LinkedIn. First, is the group of people who are “real-world famous.” In other words, people who have real, live connections and those who are interested in them based upon who they are in the offline-world. Keep in mind that only those with a LinkedIn profile count, however. So, while there are a lot of famous movie stars and politicians out there, many of them don’t have a LinkedIn profile, certainly not enough of them to suck up the 5 million available slots.

The second group of people would be those who might be considered “internet-famous.” These people would tend to be those with popular websites, or web personalities. As a group, people in this group are not just active on LinkedIn. They tend to be active on other social networking sites as well such as Facebook, Google+ and, yes, even Twitter. In fact, one might could easily conclude that out of the 5 million people who qualify as top five percent, well over 4.5 million of them are also active on Twitter. Furthermore, those 4.5 million would be people with a lot of followers, and many of them would follow each other.

In other words, there are somewhere between 4.5 million and 5 million people on Twitter right now who got these emails saying that their profile was one of the top 5 percent of all profiles viewed on LinkedIn. While that might seem like “everyone” got one of these emails, the truth is that a small percentage really got them. For example, as someone who never really finished filling out his LinkedIn profile, I didn’t get the email, although many people in my Twitter timeline did.

It just so happens that the same small percentage that got LinkedIn’s email is the most vocal and followed on social media.

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Feb
3

Long Posts versus Short Posts

WGHubris on February 3rd, 2013

Once upon a time, the conventional wisdom was that Google wouldn’t index, and therefore rank, any thing shorter than 300 words. I wrote an article about how 300 words is basically nothing, noting that an introduction and conclusion could take up 100 of those words fairly easily, leaving just 200 words of content. Then, people started saying the minimum was 400 words.

long or short post graphicJust as well known, but perhaps less shared, was that there was a pseudo-maximum length for Google of about 1,000 words (though some said even less) because the search engine company wouldn’t index anything more than 1,000 words. There was a rather famous affiliate marketer who called B.S. on this, but I don’t remember who.

Either way, I’ve noticed two things about myself.

First, I type fast and I think fast. That means that I write fast. 300 words is nothing for me, because by the time my fingers have stopped and I take a sip of coffee, I’ve already dropped 150 words on a page. Second, this also means that I am likely to hit 750 to 1,000 words without even trying. Sometimes, I find myself up over 1,000 words, and then end up adding more as I proofread and clarify. For example, my post today at my freelance writing blog about coworking as a freelance writer versus using a home office. It was about 1,250 words when I reached the end, and it got longer as I expounded on the value of coffee at a coworking place.

In the past, I have split these longer posts up because, “Hey, two posts for one,” and because of the possible 1K barrier from Google. These days, however, I’m not so sure that is the right move. For starters, I hate having to click, Next Page, over and over again. Second, I think Google is indexing further and longer than it used to. As a result, a longer article might benefit from additional keyword matching, or more specifically from alternate keyword matching, while still holding the rank of the primary keyword.

There is a limit, of course. Scrolling down and down and down can be just as annoying as clicking, Next Page, all of the time. So, 10,000 words on a single post is not the way to go. However, I’m starting to think that anything short of 2,000 words probably can stay together, especially if there is not a nature place to break it up into smaller pieces.

If I get more data and flush this idea out a little more, I might go with a more formal piece on ArcticLlama, but for now, it’s just a thought in progress.

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Oct
4

Confirmation Bias in Politics

WGHubris on October 4th, 2012

Confirmation bias is when someone takes more notice of data or results that support their preconceived notions, and less notice of data or results that cut against what they want to believe. This is one of the big no-no’s of the hard sciences, and a great way to get your research results blown out of the water when your experiments are peer reviewed.

I bring it up today thanks to our dear friend politics.

Flawed election polls graphicLast night, in Denver, the first Presidential debate of the 2012 election was held. Most media outlets and political pundits are saying that Mitt Romney won the debate handily. Whether or not this actually helps his chances at being elected will be determined, in the short-term, by new polls of voters. Here is where confirmation bias almost turns into irony.

For weeks, now, Republicans and their followers have been complaining that the polls are not reliable. The truth is that statistics is a pretty tricky beast and that sampling can be wrong. Therefore, a valid claim can be made that polling, in and of itself, is not accurate enough in close situations such as this election. There are more spurious claims that there is somehow a bias or poor methodology causing the polls to be wrong. The fact is that math is math and that the methodology of various voter polls is disclosed and known, and no legitimate statistician finds the sampling and extraction to be incorrect.

However, since the polls have been showing Romney losing the election, Republicans have trotted out their confirmation bias to deny and ignore this data. But, assuming the pundits are correct, and furthermore assuming that the polls do move in Romney’s direction, you can expect an overwhelming outpouring of sentiment that these new polls show the race is getting closer.

The. Same. Polls. that were utterly unreliable when they were pointing in the other direction.

There is nothing to be done, no outrage to be had, just a chuckle that NOW the polls, which will be conducted and analyzed in the exact same manner as before, are an accurate measure of how the tide has turned to our guy.

The only thing left to see is if the polls move enough that the Democrats begin to claim that, you know those polls aren’t really very accurate after all.

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Sep
4

Social Search Fools Gold

WGHubris on September 4th, 2012

These days, it seems that technology pundits and enthusiasts can’t clamor loudly enough for social network signals to be included in search engine ranking results. It isn’t hard to see why. Your friends probably like a lot of the same things that you do. That is why they are your friends. Furthermore, the people you follow on social networks like Twitter or Tumblr likely have similar interests. That’s why follow them.

Social search fools goldSo, when it comes time for you to search for things like music, movies, fashion and art, adding input from your social friends can only make your search results more accurate.

In fact, my friends can provide invaluable insights into what exactly I’m searching for when I check Google for things like how to turn off the low tire pressure light in my Honda CRV, or how to insulate a garage, or find a hypoallergenic furnace filter, or what hotels and areas of Costa Rica offer the best rainforest hiking, or how to make pancakes that taste like the ones I get in restaurants.

Wait. What?

Actually, that isn’t true, at all.

In fact, none of my friends drive a CRV, most of them don’t know the first thing about furnaces, none of them have ever been to Costa Rica, and I don’t think any of them cares about pancakes as much as I do.

As it turns out, my friends and the people I follow on Twitter do have a lot of common interests, just not about the things I actually search for.

The Referral Mythology

When I was a financial planner, every sales meeting I was ever forced to attend, would speak to the power of referrals. It was true. When it comes to something like choosing someone to help with your personal finance decisions, referrals are one of the top ways people like to find someone to work with. It is also why I failed to develop a thriving financial planning practice. Even though I was good, there just were never enough people that knew about me for me to have enough clients.

It also exposes a critical weakness in the concept that friends are the best source of information about certain topics. Take my clients, for example. For a great majority of them, I was their first, and only financial planner. Many of them offered glowing referrals about me to their friends. However, what were they basing that on? I never stole their money, and I certainly did my best, but without a comparison, how would they know if I was “good” or not?

Likewise, if none of my friends have ever been to Costa Rica how would anything they say on Twitter or Facebook make my search results more relevant? In many cases, social signals for search will simply be blank. My friends without Hondas probably won’t tweet much about them. In the case of Cost Rica, however, those social signals will actually make my search results WORSE. Many of my friend are coffee drinkers, and many of them have, from time to time, mentioned Costa Rican blends of coffee. Some of them may have referenced a news item, or decided that they wanted to go to Machu Picchu some time based on some pictures they saw. Never mind that Machu Picchu is in Peru, not Cost Rica.

In other words, on how many topics would your social circle have better information than your average Wikipedia article? On how many topics would you rather have their insight than Google’s untainted opinion? Of the topics that your friend’s would be a good source of information, how many do youactually search for?

When you search for things like music, fashion and art, do social signals really help?

Does Google really need your friend Connie’s tweets to get you to the homepage when you search for How I Met Your Mother, or Beyonce, or even the website for that new nightclub? Aren’t these the things that Google is already good at?

The Common Interests Fallacy

Many people assume that because you follow certain people that your common interests mean that their tweets and Facebook posts, and the like could improve your search results. However, that all depends upon a fallacy about what people with common interests search for.

Consider an avid photographer. He likely follows several other photographers, both professionals and hobbyists on various social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Using their social signals can only make his search results better. However, would such a person really search in a way that it would matter?

An avid photographer already knows of dozens of photography websites that he trusts and uses regularly. Likewise, he probably already likes to buy camera equipment from Amazon, or B&H Photo, or Adorama, or maybe a great local camera shop. He probably subscribes to a handful of photography magazines, and has a shelf full of photography books.

Given all that, when would he actually perform the kind of search that social signals would improve?

He likely wouldn’t search for new camera reviews, he would just go to his usual sites. He wouldn’t search for tips from random Google suggested websites over checking in with trusted members of a photography forum.

Just like everyone else, this person is most likely to search precisely because he has no connections, no one to follow, no friends to trust.

If that’s the case, then why is everyone so hot about adding social signals to search results?

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