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Update: This article was written while I was employed at GTS.  Out of respect for their rules, I am linking direct to the magazine source, but not placing the content here.

You can find other articles by Scott Orth (and GTS) at USGlass Magazine

I’d like to start by stating that though I travel quite a bit, and the hospitality industry has set many expectations…I’m not very picky.  I simply expect the kind of accommodations and service associated with appropriate level of cost.  Put simply, if I’m paying $50/night, I expect very little.  If I’m paying $500/night, I would hope that the room, service, and overall experience would prove it is worth far more than the $50 establishment.

Last week, I stayed at the Wynn Las Vegas while at the PubCon Internet Marketing conference.  Since Wynn brags that they are the only 5-star and 5-diamond rated casino hotel in the world, I fully expected the service and accommodations to be second-to-none. 

At best, I would give the Wynn 3 stars, diamonds, rubies…or whatever shiny little symbol you want to associate with the establishment and their service.  Bottom line – NOT worth the money.  How much money you ask?  We had a special rate for some nights, but Friday night alone was $700.

So why my dismal view of the Wynn?  Let’s start with the room.  It was a beautiful, elegant room with plenty of space – and the coolest bathroom I’ve ever seen.  That said, the couch and ottoman looked like they were just found in a back alley and placed in the room last minute.  They were filthy, at least on the surface.  Who knows, maybe they were just stained over time, but for $700 a night I think they could spend $50 bucks to clean them.

There were a couple of other things associated with the room, like missing robes, even though they were listed as items that should be in every room.  And outdated menus – both for room service as well as the mini-bar.  I only figured this out when I realized I was getting charged $1-$2 more for everything I ordered.  When I called the desk to ask about it, they said the menus in the room must be old since they changed the prices months earlier…months?

Okay, lets move on to service.  First, I will state that the in-room dining people were exceptional.  They were courteous, friendly, and prompt in every way possible.  Other services, however, dropped the overall score significantly.

I had to ask 4 times over 4 consecutive days before my mini bar was finally refilled.  That seems odd to me.  Don’t they want to make money on their drastically overcharged mini bar items?

All I wanted was more Diet Coke in my mini bar, but it seemed like a major chore to get it done.  Now don’t get me wrong, in any other hotel I would simply go down to vending machine and buy a bottle of soda.  It would be cheaper anyway.  But at the Wynn, apparently vending machines would bring down the glow of the hotel, so they were nowhere on the premises.  The only way to satisfy my thirst was to put my clothes back on, head down 22 floors and find a 24 hour café to buy my Coke.  A 15 minute trip.  No big deal, except when its 3am and you just want a freakin’ Coke to cap your night.

While I’m on the subject of the mini bar, I should also mention the $8 luxury box of gourmet chocolates…or wait…are those bite size Twix and Snickers in there?  That’s right, listed as ‘Gourmet Snacks’ on the menu, packaged in a fancy Wynn snack box, and priced at a whopping $8… I laughed out loud when I poured, onto the table, a handful of mini Twix, Snickers, and Milky Way bars.  My wife just stared in disbelief chanting, “no way…no way!”  By the way, these weren’t even your Halloween sized snack candies.  They were the tiniest bite-size bars I’d ever seen. 

Did I forget to mention they were stale?  I don’t know how long a Twix bar has to sit around to become stale, but I’m pretty sure the shelf life on those things outlasts the life of a Vegas casino…Do the math.  How long must those have sat there before I became the sucker that bought them?

Okay, so a few more things about the service.  Night time turndown service was great, actual gourmet chocolates on the night stand, drapes drawn…all very wonderful.  But what’s with the dirty dishes and glasses left on the table?  Hey, if I were at home, I’d clean up after myself – but you’re supposed to leave that stuff there.  It’s not like there’s a kitchen sink to put them in.

Another odd thing…during the turn down service, they would fill our ice bucket.  Very thoughtful I felt…but they didn’t replace the used glasses next to the ice bucket.  Huh?  Am I on hidden camera?  Good intentions…no follow through.

I’m getting near the end, but believe it or not, there’s more.  But before I go on, I will point out that I did in fact complain to the front desk.  I wasn’t an ass (maybe that was the problem), I just wanted to let them know what I was experiencing as a guest in their fine hotel.

Okay, back to the service.  I was starting to fear that my couple of calls to the front desk may spur some resentment on the part of the staff.  But, I thought, nah…cause I was tipping everyone way more than customary because they were truly good to us.

Then something changed.  You know those rinsing glasses they leave by the sinks in the bathroom?  My wife and I both used those every night.  Their use was evident by their rite-side-up placement on the counter every morning, and their proper upside down placement each evening.  Then, on the fourth night, after housekeeping came in, we found our rinse glasses right side up, filled with our electric toothbrushes and travel size tubes of toothpaste.

Now who in their right mind would put those dirty items inside a glass that you plan to rinse your mouth with?  Its then I said to my wife, “you don’t suppose?…I mean, we don’t tip housekeeping…”  She just stared, mouth agape.

Okay – ‘let it pass’, I thought.  Rinse direct from the faucet – you don’t use a glass at home anyway.  But we purposely stacked the glasses, now dirty with residue from items, in the middle of the counter to be replaced the next day.

The next evening, as I entered the bathroom to prepare for bed, I noticed the rinse glasses back in their normal upside down position.  ‘Good,’ I thought, we’ve moved on and can forget about the strange happenings of yesterday.  But oh no…that would be if I stayed at a Hilton.  But here at the Wynn, the saga continues…

I picked up my glass to use for rinsing and immediately noticed the familiar ring (inside the glass) that is caused by the bottom of my electric toothbrush. It’s the same ring I have to clean from my counter and charger at home every day – but this time it was in the bottom of my rinse glass.  Apparently the same glass that was left from the previous incident, taken from the dirty stack and simply turned back upside down and perched by the sink as if fresh for renewed use.

Then I noticed one more fun little trick.  My $100 electric toothbrush, which travels with me on every trip, was flashing a warning message.  The battery was about to die.  Odd, since it had over ¾ power the day before, and can be run for two weeks before displaying a battery warning.  So how was this possible?  Can anyone say toilet cleaning?

Now, I can’t say what happened, because I didn’t see it – and I didn’t think I needed to place a hidden camera in the bathroom.  But the only possibly way for that toothbrush to wear out that way, would be for it to have been run for a good 10 – 20 minutes beyond the use it had endured by me up to that point.  Needless to say, the toothbrush went back in my bag, and I proceeded to brush my teeth with some toothpaste on my finger tip – an odd site while standing in a luxury bathroom.

To wrap up this entire experience, I will say that by my last day, I did talk to the front desk on at least 6 different occasions.  Each time, I was given the standard apology and promised that service would improve immediately.  It didn’t, and each apology, along with each bogus star and diamond, was empty and stale.

Well, that concludes my never-to-repeat stay at the Wynn Las Vegas. With no consolation of any kind from the Wynn, and no apparent desire to make one couple’s experience a positive one, we will not return.  Please link to this as often as you see fit and share it with your friends and family before mistaking the Wynn for a great hotel.

In my opinion, your money would be better spent in a wish well than at the Wynn Las Vegas.  Stay at the Hilton, stay at the Motel 6…just don’t waste your money on Wynn.

1. Matt McGee’s SEM Celebrity Look-a-Like
2. Rebecca Kelly’s “Don’t Fire Me Rand” SES Wrap Up
3. Todd Malicoat’s “Why I Don’t Blog Sometimes”
4. Rand’s “The Value of Attending Conferences”
5. Rebecca’s “SES New York 2007: In Comic Form”
6. David Wallace’s “Weekly Wrap Up…”

That’ll have to do for now.  Lots of clients to attend to – which is a good thing, right?!

SES New York was fantastic – great attendee turn out, great sessions, and a memorable first trip to the Big Apple.  I already post way to infrequently, so I’ll try to add some of my favorites from SES NY 2007 next week! 

Less than a year ago, I co-founded SEMpdx with a couple of colleagues and began marketing to local SEO/M experts that we’d either worked with or heard great things about.  Within weeks we had a full board of very energetic and enthusiastic people – anxious to get SEMpdx on the map.

I remember in our initial conversations hearing someone say, “We could even put on a full-day conference series with speakers from the major engines and top SEM firms.”  Sure, I thought – sometime down the road that would be great. 

But alas, when you put that many energized people together at a table, it’s hard to hold back.  Thus SearchFest was born.

Conceived, planned, organized, marketed, and presented in a period of about 3-months, I must say I am exceedingly happy about the overwhelming response we had from folks near and far.  Sponsors came out of the woodworks, presenters were eager to take part, and tickets sold like wild-fire, actually putting us in danger of running out of space (and food).

With three tracks ranging from the basics to leading-edge advanced topics, the speakers were exceptional and continue to receive praise from attendees.  Speakers at this year’s SearchFest included Rand Fishkin and Rebecca Kelley of SEOmoz, Jeffrey Pruitt of SEMPO and iCrossing, Matt McGee of Marchex, Heather Lloyd-Martin of Success Works, and a host of others (see below):

Tom Bennett – The new Group 
Sean Campbell – Campbell Solutions
Leo Chung – Overland
Stanford Davis – Straight-On Internet Conslulting
Stoney deGeyter, PolePositionMarketing
Eric Facas – Google
Scott Fish – FishSEO
Steve Gehlen – Internet Strategy Forum
Dan Harbison – Portland Trailblazers
John Anthony Hartman – Feedia
Doug Hay – ExpansionPlus
Scott Hendison – SearchCommander
Brent Hieggelke – Touch Clarity
Hallie Janssen – Anvil Media Inc.
Janet Johnson – SnapNames
Steve Kemper – Ion Global
Naga Krothapalli – Microsoft
Kent Lewis – Anvil Media Inc.
Ben Lloyd – Amplify-Interactive
Todd Mintz – S.R. Clarke
Stacy Morgan – LookSmart
John Rodkin – WebTrends
David Roth – Yahoo!
Dan Sundgren – eFrontier
Scott Swigart – Swigart Consulting

I don’t have the final count yet, but I believe attendance was just under 300.  Not bad for a first-time event with an expected turnout of 150-170 attendees. 

The event was great, but I expect SearchFest 2008 will be even better.  Keep an eye out – SEMpdx is taking over the Northwest.  If you’d like to be part of this powerful movement in the Pacific Northwest Search Engine Marketing world, visit the SEMpdx site at www.sempdx.org and signup for the newsletter.  Better yet, become a member and start contributing to this fantastic organization! (yes, as a VP at SEMpdx I’m a little biased!)

For parents (and grandparents I imagine), the annual chaos often begins sometime in November as the kids start realizing that Christmas is near and begin the all-too-familiar “I want that..” chanting and pleading.

Thanks to the Internet, this year was wonderfully different.  But before I divulge my family’s 2006 successes, I’ll share with you our typical 7-step program that greets my home each Christmas season:

1. Long wish lists filled with odd spellings, strangely named toys, and dozens of scribbles and hash marks as your child attempts to write down the toy that they must have this year. 
2. Spending countless hours attempting to decipher the language apparently only known to avid Nickelodeon, Disney, and random video game fans.
3. Outsmarting your child by asking her to vocalize the list to make sure Santa knows what to get – then laughing out loud when her words match the writing precisely – impossible to understand.
4. Embarrassing yourself while trying to mimic the indecipherable words your child mumbled earlier to the young toy store clerk – and feeling some relief when the clerk thinks he understands what you need.
5. At least 2-dozen return trips to the toy store when faced with the real possibility that the clerk steered you in the wrong direction.    
6. Watching intently Christmas morning – praying you bought and wrapped the right item, chose the right color, and picked up the right type of batteries.
7. Either rejoicing that you made it through the pandemonium successfully or lecturing your child about how Santa can’t get everything right all the time.

This year was entirely different thanks to a moderate amount of television advertising and my kids’ proclivity for the Internet (with a dad who works, eats, and sleeps Search marketing, and a mom who does SEM consulting and a WHOLE LOT of shopping online – our children are bound to pick some things up).

So as a father of four, I felt proud sitting back and watching my six and eight year old children excitedly enter the world of Internet marketing in order to produce our family’s new 2006 hi-tech, low-stress 7-step Christmas experience, as shown below: 

1. See a commercial on television for an item they want.
2. Google the item to find who makes it, where to get it, and the age appropriateness (mom’s instructions) of each item.  
3. Visit several targeted sites (mostly toysrus.com. Walmart.com, ebay.com) for prices and additional information, as well as locate similar items.
4. Compile a Christmas wish list, sorted by level of desire (#1 being the most wanted gift), and including item number, preferred color, and prices from various sites.  No changes allowed after December 8^th.  After all, Santa has to have some time to complete his planning.
5. Help younger siblings find their desired toys as well and compile their lists.
6. Print out all lists and help mom and dad create an envelope to mail to Santa (Yes, we know you can email Santa, but it’s just not the same).
7. Since the mayhem is a thing of the past, the kids can spend time tracking Santa through NORADsanta.org, while mom and dad track dozens of packages from various stores.  Oh yeah – and send a thank you note to the Google Shopping Cart guys for giving us $20 off of just about every purchase we made this season. 

Not to say Christmas is now void of busy days, headaches, and exhaustion – after all, we still have to prepare for multiple family gatherings over a 3-day span; but at least Christmas morning is more relaxing and enjoyable – knowing that the toy inside the wrapping is exactly what they asked for.

As for business, I couldn’t help but make this fun family topic work related  - but it made me realize that there is still much work to be done on the Internet, so after watching these events unfold this season, I built a small list of recommendations for clients – of which I’ll share some with you.

First let me say that many of these recommendations are valid for all sites – not just those that market to children.  Not even just to ecommerce.

But if kids are part of your market, you should realize that many of them are online, preparing parents for eventual purchases.  So talk to your kids, go visit your nieces and nephews, or see if your grandkids can come over for the day – then learn how they use the Internet (parental controls in place of course).  Your findings probably won’t surprise you, but it may at least make you look at your online marketing plan a bit differently.

My recommendations:

1. Think about your 5 – 10 year old online visitors when you build/redesign your site. 
   • It’s all about simplicity.  Watch how a young child reads a book or puts together a puzzle.  Think simple navigation, simple search tools, mixed text and imagery.
   • Your site doesn’t have to be a cartoon for kids to ‘get it’.  They just need to be able to easily find what they’re looking for.
2. Don’t forget those misspelled words.  Even adults have a hard time spelling – it’s usually more frequent for small children.  Don’t reserve this just for pay-per-click – you should also incorporate misspellings in you internal search tool.  If a child happens upon your site and misspells the toy – it behooves you to have the tool find the matched toy anyway.
3. Kids truly do not know the difference between paid ads and organic.  If you’re marketing to kids, PPC will likely be the most effective form of traffic generation as they will typically click on the first related ads they see.
4. Make product information easily accessible. Price, item number, color, and other product options.  Because the child won’t be purchasing the item, but rather handing the information off to a parent or guardian, it’s critical for this information to be readily available. 
5. Offer additional (similar) products on the product page – Kids will often look at one toy, see a similar one (or maybe another piece to a set) and expand their list accordingly.

If children aren’t part of your audience – I suggest you pay attention to the above recommendations anyway.  You might be surprised at how much help your average visitor needs to find what they’re looking for. 

As for my family, I’ll keep teaching the kids advanced search tactics and pointing them to the sites that make shopping easy and fun.  One day, maybe they’ll even make dad proud by becoming SEM experts and helping change the way we all look at marketing.