aimClear

Andrew Goodman: a Search Intellectual’s PathSES Toronto is right around the corner and as such, we wanted an inside look as to what we can expect from this annual mainstay Canadian search marketing conference. (photo courtesy of RustyBrick) Conference chair Andrew Goodman was kind enough to answer a few questions about the upcoming SearchEngineStrategies event, as well as share regarding his [...]
» 28 May 2009, 11:08 am

SEO Site Audit, a Guerrilla Webmaster’s GuideIf your site is under performing in the organic (free) search engine results pages, you probably already know it. Traffic, sales and engagement have dropped giving way to rising concern. What’s wrong? The site used to work just fine! Sadly, now searches (with personalized search disabled) reveal keyword rankings on Google’s “average front [...]
» 18 May 2009, 11:24 am

Rebroadcast Is the New Blackphoto credit: EraPhernalia Vintage Rebroadcast is the new black. Retweets and Facebook-shares are the ultimate friend-sends, essential like her black pumps, Coach clutch, velvet gloves and grandmother’s vintage pearls…same as it ever was. The future of the filter is insight by crowdsourcing conversations, literally anywhere humans congregate and chatter. Plug into new the new demographic [...]
» 16 May 2009, 7:41 am

Chris Sherman on Algorithms, Humans & SMXSearch Engine Land Executive Editor Chris Sherman (on right) has been active professionally in educating us since the industry was nascent. A generation of serious social media practitioners and demographic research artists cut teeth, tweak skills and stay current by attending Chris Sherman-designed conference sessions. Count on tracks he sequences to be measured,  informed by bleeding [...]
» 15 May 2009, 2:31 pm

Tara Hunt Interview: True Community MarketingSES Toronto Keynote speaker Tara Hunt is a lovely enigma–part rock star, part trailblazing thought leader and one hell of a Twitter addict (@missrogue). No matter what characteristics you ascribe to Tara, one thing is certain; she’s  been hailed as one of the most respected & savvy customer centric online community marketers this side of North [...]
» 11 May 2009, 10:15 am

Twitter is to Testing Social, What PPC is to SEOThe social Internet is about conversations that propagate virulently and index at various speeds.  Twitter, the fastest feed community of all,  can be easily leveraged to “proof” marketing concepts for slower social channels the same way SEOs use PPC (pay per click) to prove organic landing pages. Read on for a tactical starting point to use [...]
» 6 May 2009, 5:03 am

5 Questions For Danny Sullivan, Foundational Search Marketing JournalistFor search marketing industry veterans, SearchEngineLand Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan needs no introduction. If you’re among the veritable legions of marketing professionals joining our ranks from traditional advertising trades, soon enough you’ll know his impeccable journalism and commitment to community. Considered a founding “search engine guru,” Danny has been demystifying search engines for [...]
» 29 Apr 2009, 8:24 pm

Jeff Quipp Interview: SEO, Canada & Killer CoffeeJeff Quipp is the quintessential multifaceted search marketing agency owner. Located in Ajax Ontario, his company SearchEnginePeople is known for staffing true next-gen Internet marketing thought-leaders. Jeff is well regarded internationally as a conference speaker and sought after consultant for paid, natural search and social channels.  I had an opportunity to Interview him regarding his upcoming [...]
» 27 Apr 2009, 2:04 pm

35 Totally Free Google Analytics API ResourcesAll over the world, SEM industry bellwether Twitter’s rocking with chatter surrounding the long awaited public beta release of the Google Analytics API. That’s not surprising given implications for the search industry. Classically associated with paid search (PPC) applications and keyword research, get ready for more mainstream search marketing API tools to impact methodology and applications [...]
» 23 Apr 2009, 6:47 pm

Hotel Hijacking Map Spam or Does Google Suck?Go ahead, ignore case studies regarding various Google map spam vectors. I can tell you it’s devastating to see a friend’s GoogleMaps listing wrong. If the map has not been hijacked, then Google sucks. In searching for Duluth hotels, in preparation for next week’s business visitors, I noticed that our good friends indexed prominently in [...]
» 21 Apr 2009, 7:45 am

Ask the SEO Guru

The Single Best Kept Secret to Success With SEO – Have Something Worth Selling> Guruisms for the week of 15-03-09 I don’t mind telling you where I think the gold is but you gotta do your own digging! G We’ve all heard that when there is a gold rush on the real money is in selling shovels. I bet the guys selling maps didn’t do too bad either. G 'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. Attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. My Grandma Why Would I Stop Buying From Who I Used to Buy From and Start Buying From You? The single biggest thing about my lack of a life as an SEO that has always amazed me is when I ask a prospective client to tell me why I would want to
» 16 Mar 2009, 1:29 am

H.E. Mr. Kenneth Thompson, Irish Ambassador to IndiaWhat a St. Patty's day party this year turned out to be. I was lucky enough to get invited to a party at the Trident hotel in Mumbai hosted by the Irish embassy in India by my good friend David Lawrence. The ambassador was gracious enough to grant me one of the most memorable photo opps of my life. Thank you Mr. Thompson!! http://www.irelandinindia.com/home/index.aspx?id=52432 Looks like he's really happy to meet the ole guru huh? Getting my picture taken with a foreign dignitary AND free liquor. What a country! Peach Y'all G Techndu free web hosting. It doesn't get better than free.
» 16 Mar 2009, 1:02 am

Why Am I Not Converting or Why We All Think a 2% Conversion Rate is Pretty GoodGuruisms for the week of 02-03-09 > The extrovert in me loves online marketing because there are as many things to sell and ways to sell them as there are the sum total of human experience. The introvert part of me loves online marketing because there is no failure. There is only missing projections and not hitting your numbers. The only way to fail is to quit and that is not failing, that is quitting. G                                                                                Why Am I Not Converting? Well, the short answer is --- you are thinking about you and not about them. Or even worse, you’re not thinking at all. Do
» 4 Mar 2009, 4:03 am

How to Beat the 3 Second Back Button Boogie> Guruisms for the week of 23-02-09 Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. Aldous Huxley  07/26/1894 - 11/22/1963 English critic & novelist.  Author of Brave New World, one of my favorites. Sometimes we get so enthralled with the hype and hope of technology, we forget the present reality that technology has no value if it does not serve mankind for the better. It’s all about the sale and NOT the software.. Search Engines don’t buy shit!  But humans do.    Sex Sells --- to people looking to buy sex. The same principle applies to refrigerators. The Anti-seo SEO Guru  cynic and  unemployed politician    The True Cost of SEO While th
» 25 Feb 2009, 3:15 am

Search Engines Don’t Take People Where the Search Engine Wants Them To Go  We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. Vince Lombardi      I was more impressed with the technology of search back in 1996 than I am today. When I first started playing around with Infoseek, Excite, Alta Vista, Hot Bot, Webcrawler,(well, Ok. Webcrawler and Open Text --- not so much), and the other now rotting carcasses of failed search based ad delivery systems, I was blown away. Millions of pieces of data organized in a somewhat logical framework. Pages were often indexed within minutes. Scalability seemed endless as each day they all grew by hundreds of thousands of documents. You could cross reference. You could research. You could locate data that could fill the
» 15 Feb 2009, 11:19 pm

Behavioral Metrics Analysis For the Worried SEOThis may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back. John Ilhan       No wonder so many who call themselves SEO’s are worried about their future what with all the talk this past few months of personalized results, bounce rates and changing search parameters. There is no question the organic search results landscape is changing and behavioral metrics analysis is playing some part in that change. But, as online marketers, what does that really mean and what can we do about it? Understanding a concept such as behavioral metrics analysis isn’t too tough. Tracking and analyzing which people do what, when and how often to try
» 2 Feb 2009, 7:57 pm

The Good That Bad Customers Do> A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so. Mahatma Gandhi   I don’t believe the customer is always right. I believe as humans, we are all capable of being wrong at any time about anything. In an environment as ambiguous as the misnomer many refer to as SEO, the potential for mistakes is virtually boundless. BUT, I do believe you can win the battle and lose the war. You can convince a customer that you are right and he is wrong but
» 31 Jan 2009, 9:55 pm

How Small a Part SEO Plays In Getting a New Site to Dominate SERPs> I’d say one of the biggest problems SEOs struggle with is that it is all about rankings and traffic, rather than conversions. It’s easy to keep focusing on trying to work the extremes to bring in more visitors when the time might be better spent on ensuring you’re doing better to convert your existing visitors. Danny Sullivan  Internet Consulting firm Calafia An excerpt from http://sharkseo.com/whitehat/whats-the-biggest-seo-myth/   I can understand the world paying little attention  to my soapbox preaching about the need for conversions as the ONLY metric of value, BUT when someone in the search marketing industry of Danny Sullivan’s caliber says it, maybe it’s time the world realized the winds of change are blow
» 21 Jan 2009, 3:51 am

Even Internet Marketers Can Understand Latent Semantic Indexing>                                                                      If you think Education is expensive – you should try ignorance   As I promised a couple of weeks ago, I’m going to attempt pull back the shroud of mystery that is so often associated with highly complex mathematical concepts to a point that even marketers and Canadians can understand them. I learned long ago that sometimes simple concepts the human mind can conceive, turn into a VERY complicated programs when turning that concept into an actual working algorithm. If you are not a scientist involved with Information Retrieval, (IR), then reading the patents and white papers can leave you f
» 17 Jan 2009, 10:42 pm

The Anti-SEO SEO Guru Asks -- Can You Define SEO?                                                        Find the courage to embrace change and fear mediocrity Definitions of misnomer on the Web: an incorrect or unsuitable name wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derived their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject—becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer A use of a term asserted to be misleading; A term asserted to be widely used incorrectly; A term whose sense in common usage conflicts with a
» 7 Jan 2009, 1:19 am

Ask the Anti-SEO SEO Guru> Guru  -- India A teacher or a wise man. www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/g.htm A guru is a person who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a given area, and uses it to guide others. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru   As the term “Guru” relates to teaching, in that context then I must be a guru. I have certainly done my share of teaching,(training is probably a more accurate term), over my last 12 years in the online promotion business. As it relates to wisdom ----- ahhhh, not so much.   My New Year’s Resolution for ‘09 To stop arguing over the use of SEO, the world’s most egregious misnomer, but to try even harder to de-mystify the process the term universally applies to for the peo
» 2 Jan 2009, 5:04 am

Bruce Clay

Friday Recap - The Gloves Come Off EditionPhoto by SMN via Creative Commons Even after this abbreviated week, Friday couldn't have come too soon. I mean, is it just me or are the search engines are getting ruthless, pulling out all the stops to get to the top? Cutthroat innovation and increasingly frequent rebranding efforts signaled Yahoo...
» 29 May 2009, 5:41 pm

SEMJ.org Promotes Semantic Search EducationAs a full-time media junkie, I like to keep up with the news in the search industry. One resource I rely on is the Search Engine Marketing Journal. SEMJ.org is a quarterly academic journal with papers on just about every aspect of doing business online. Topics like conversion and landing...
» 28 May 2009, 3:54 pm

Link Development Tips and Tricks - SEM Synergy ExtrasTodd Malicoat from Stuntdubl.com was today's guest. On today's episode of SEM Synergy -- the can't-miss WebmasterRadio show featuring Bruce Clay, Susan Esparza and a new expert guest each week -- we devoted the program to link development. Link development specialist Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl.com was our guest, sharing juicy...
» 27 May 2009, 5:37 pm

Online Business Evolution: An IM Spring Break PresentationTony Adam, Pamela Lund & Christopher Hartat IM Spring Break During IM Spring Break last April, Christopher Hart spoke during the Internet Marketing Business session with Pamela Lund and Tony Adam. Pam talked about managing client expectations. Tony focused in on SEO evangelism. And Chris framed the conversation of online...
» 26 May 2009, 5:42 pm

Friday Recap - We've Got Talent EditionPhew! What a week of cut throat competition. Life in the song and dance world can get heated! American Idol and Dancing with the Stars fans fell prey to some shocking upsets as underdog Kris Allen was crowned idol and Shawn Johnson took the mirror ball trophy home to meet...
» 22 May 2009, 6:06 pm

Concrete Images, Convincing Messages & BaconHas a word ever stopped you in your tracks? What about a picture? It happens to me all the time. This morning I read a tweet from Ann Smarty and immediately decided what I'd have for lunch. One lunch-sized pizza later, I'm here contemplating the power of Web content to...
» 21 May 2009, 5:27 pm

Niche Search, New Search Features and Who Out There Cares - SEM Synergy ExtrasPhoto by Paolo Camera via Creative Commons On SEM Synergy this afternoon, our WebmasterRadio podcast on all things search, we dedicated some time to Wolfram Alpha and the crop of search solutions that constantly challenge Google's market share dominance. Barbara Baker of Kolbe Market Consultants took some time to talk...
» 20 May 2009, 5:06 pm

Online Video Ad-VenturesWilliam Shatner is used to exploring new, uncharted territories. Now, the veteran film and television star has boldly gone into the online video space. Last week we got our first peak at The Gavones, a YouTube cartoon series directed and partly voiced by Shatner. The first episode of The Gavones,...
» 19 May 2009, 4:44 pm

Adding User Behavior to SEO ConsiderationsPhoto by ella novak via Creative Commons Web site usability professional and search marketer Shari Thurow has amended her long-standing SEO building blocks. Instead of recommending three major components to pay attention to when optimizing a site, she has added a fourth important factor to the mix: user behavior and...
» 18 May 2009, 5:13 pm

Friday Recap - A Buggy EditionFriday's made its way back around and not a day too soon! After a big search week, everyone deserves a break -- in the form of a refreshing Friday Recap. Let's do it. Grasshopper buzz was in full force as people across the country received the chocolate-covered buggers as part...
» 15 May 2009, 4:38 pm

Jumping into the Real Estate Fray, Part 2It's day three of real estate week here on the Bruce Clay blog. We don't typically focus on a single industry in our coverage of all-things-SEO, but the current controversy over whether Google should be allowed to "scrape" listing information from IDX Web pages is a golden opportunity. It's timely,...
» 14 May 2009, 3:15 pm

Dave Naylor

Buying a Timeshare in SpainI was always very sceptical about Spanish timeshares, but I can say that if you are currently thinking about buying a timeshare then I would recommend it as long as you deal with a good company. We bought our timeshare in Marbella 4 years ago, and the best thing about it is the fact that it [...]
» 21 May 2009, 2:30 pm

SEO Jobs - Come and work with Dave NaylorIt’s turning into a very busy year at Bronco and I have already taken on a couple of new staff in the last few months to cope. Due to increased business and new contracts coming on, I’m looking to recruit more in house SEO’s from June 1st. I’m not just looking for the best in the [...]
» 16 May 2009, 7:36 am

SMX London 18th - 19th May 2009Next week I’ll be at SMX London. I’m only going to be there on the second day, Tuesday 19th, as I’ve been out of the office quite a bit this month already. I’ll be speaking on the Give it Up session at 4.30pm and the panel will no doubt be discussing the latest techniques [...]
» 16 May 2009, 7:34 am

Big Mouth Media Penalty?There seems to be a little chatter in the community about what Bigmouthmedia have done to incur the wrath of the Mighty Google as searching for their domain in Google isn’t returning their homepage. This could be anything thing from a simple technical issue or a full blown homepage ban in Google. Either way it isn’t [...]
» 13 May 2009, 7:17 am

Hotels in Ripon Google Local MixupSo I was just looking to see how my The Old Deanery was doing for hotels in ripon, I asked Dave why it wasn’t ranking as well as the others - he rightly pointed out that it was obviously my title tags (I’m still learning). But then he noticed something really strange: So if you [...]
» 8 May 2009, 1:12 am

How to use bots on twitter for something other than Spam My siteOverview This is no “12 ways to use twitter or you’re a moron” post, neither is it a post on “how to get a crapload of followers by making a bot”. Here I want to show you how it is possible to provide a useful service on twitter with a bot and use it for [...]
» 6 May 2009, 1:29 am

John Battelle - Searchblog

At the CM SummitI'm in the air on the way to the CM Summit, which FM hosts in New York Monday and Tuesday. The conference is sold out, but you can follow it via the #cmsummit search on Twitter. From my opening notes: - Extraordinary content. Five conversations: A leader thinker in the...
» 31 May 2009, 1:21 pm

Twitter SearchRead this: Twitter = YouTube. Then read this: Visits to Twitter Search Soar. Discuss....
» 28 May 2009, 10:28 am

Liveblogging the Microsoft Search NewsWhile the company still is mum on what it's announcing today at the D Conference (update it's now official....), everyone at the event presumes Steve Ballmer will be debuting Microsoft's new take on search, widely rumored to be called Bing. I am not certain there will be wifi coverage in...
» 28 May 2009, 8:29 am

BingOn my way to the D conference today, one of the main events is alleged to be the launch of "Bing," Microsoft's new search engine. I've been playing with it a bit, more on that later. Meanwhile, Microsoft plans a big marketing push, here's the news in Ad Age: People...
» 26 May 2009, 8:50 am

Twitter's Continued Inflection: Time For Facebook ConnectTC notes the extraordinary growth Twitter has seen since its initial inflection. This is a growth pattern I have never seen in terms of speed - not in the nearly 25 years I've been watching this industry. I think this is both Twitter's most important and dangerous phase of its...
» 21 May 2009, 9:11 am

Real Time Search and Google: An AdmissionRecall my piece on "from static to real time search," and read this coverage of Eric and Larry's take on Twitter: Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, separately admitted Google needs to learn from Twitter and make its search engine operate at real-time speed. Speaking at the Zeitgeist event during in a...
» 20 May 2009, 9:58 am

Wolfram Launches......and I have still not grokked the service. However, many have. Seems the reviews are mixed so far......
» 19 May 2009, 10:03 am

As We Head Toward A More Conversational Interface, Can AdWords Keep Up?Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chair of Comscore, has an interesting analysis of what's happening in paid search lately. It's germane to my earlier posts about paid search share sliding and Google's decision to allow trademark ad bidding. In his post, Gian notes that overall search queries are up dramatically (68% over...
» 15 May 2009, 2:31 pm

Google Makes Changes to Trademark Policy, Revenues Will Be Up......and so will legal challenges, many of which are already underway. Google's blog post is here. Details: Google will now allow advertisers to bid on trademark terms, even if they don't own the trademark, so, for example, a local hardware store can bid on "Buy Makita Saws here" or Best...
» 15 May 2009, 2:10 pm

The Paid Search Share SlideAccording to HitWise, all is not well in the land of paid search: Hitwise data indicate that the share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic. In the four weeks to May 9, 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to All Categories...
» 14 May 2009, 8:16 am

Google's Real Time, Squared ResponseThe Google Twitter Facebook goat rodeo is getting more interesting. At its Searchology event this week, (TC/Post coverage), Google unveiled a suite of new offerings that feel reactive to various competitors, including "Google Squared," a Google Labs response to Wolframs' new Alpha (more on that soon). Reuters bills it this...
» 13 May 2009, 2:16 pm

Joost de Valk - SEO Blog

StudioPress and Yoast kick it off togetherThis is quite big news for me, and for OrangeValley Projects, the development side of OrangeValley that we've been starting up over the last few months. In short: Brian Gardner, of StudioPress and Revolution fame, and myself, have decided to partner up, to provide better SEO'd themes to StudioPress customers. Brian is the one who kickstarted This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! StudioPress and Yoast kick it off together
» 28 May 2009, 6:38 am

WordPress MU development, I love it!At OrangeValley, we're currently working on migrating a large Dutch blog network over from it's own proprietary system to a WordPress Multi User install, one of our more serious WordPress MU development projects. There's quite a few things about WordPress MU that I like, but what I like most is, well, that's it's WordPress :) For This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! WordPress MU development, I love it!
» 27 May 2009, 8:00 am

Design for ConversionIn these times where everybody is low on cash, it's very important to make those new visitors convert. Conversion rate optimization is thus one of those markets that grow very rapidly, and it happens to be the market we're in the center of with OrangeValley here in Holland. But you can learn a lot This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! Design for Conversion
» 25 May 2009, 1:08 pm

40 WordPress Optimisation tipsI presented on A4UExpo Europe yesterday on WordPress Optimisation, doing 40 tips in 40 minutes. Here are the slides: WordPress Optimisation - A4UExpo View more presentations from Joost De valk. This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! 40 WordPress Optimisation tips
» 29 Apr 2009, 3:45 am

On WPWeekly Episode 48!I was a guest on WPWeekly Episode 48 last saturday, where we discussed a lot of things WordPress, WordPress SEO, etc. It was fun being on with Jeff Chandler and David Peralty, and I think you'll enjoy the interview, so go listen to it, like, now! This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! On WPWeekly Episode 48!
» 31 Mar 2009, 7:51 am

Optimizing WordPress database performanceI've been working with a plugin that was mentioned on the wp-hackers list last week, called debug queries, to optimize the performance on some of my sites, including this one. The plugin was pretty easy to use, and I've improved a bit on it. I've sent the patch to Frank, who authored the original plugin, This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! Optimizing WordPress database performance
» 30 Mar 2009, 12:26 pm

SEOBook SEO ToolbarA while ago Aaron released his SEO Toolbar for Firefox, and while I've been using it I've never actually shown it here on my blog, even though it's become one of my default SEO tools. As this toolbar comes with a slew of features that are probably best described by just showing them, I've made This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! SEOBook SEO Toolbar
» 26 Mar 2009, 1:19 pm

Postbox, an interview with Sherman DickmanA short while ago I moved over to a new email program called Postbox, and I've been absolutely loving it for it's labelling, archive and search functions. One of the people involved with Postbox is Sherman Dickman, whom I knew from when he was still the Product Manager at Mozilla, so I decided to interview This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! Postbox, an interview with Sherman Dickman
» 26 Mar 2009, 2:01 am

An interview with Matthew Wood of A4UExpoNext month Amsterdam will see the first A4UExpo Europe, the European counterpart of the highly succesfull A4UExpo conference series in London. I though it would be interesting for all of you to do an interview with Matthew Wood, the genius behind all of this. Hey Matthew, could you quickly introduce yourself and a4uexpo? Sure, I’ve been involved This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! An interview with Matthew Wood of A4UExpo
» 24 Mar 2009, 1:33 am

Guide to Magento SEOI've been working with Joachim Houtman on creating a guide to Magento SEO, much like my definitive guide to WordPress SEO. In the process we've created two modules for Magento, and an optimized blank theme! Expect more from us on the Magento SEO front, as we develop more experience in the area together! For now: enjoy our This is a post from Joost de Valk's Yoast - Tweaking Websites. Want to make sure you're trying just as hard or harder as your competitors to rank in the search engines? Use SEO SpyGlass to determine their linking strategies! Guide to Magento SEO
» 18 Mar 2009, 6:54 am

Marketing Pilgrim

99% of 18-24 Year Olds On Social Media, But Only 22% Use TwitterThese two charts say it all really: Of the 22% that do use Twitter: 85 percent follow friends 54 percent follow celebrities 29 percent follow family 29 percent follow companies Not much for brands to cheer about, but keep your chin-up, you have the same attention as Gen Y’s parents. What do you think? I would have thought that more [...]
» 31 May 2009, 6:00 pm

Welcome to Google-ington, DC?The New York Times is reporting that Google’s head of global public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, is headed to Washington, DC to join the Obama administration. Considering CEO Eric Schmidt’s position on PCAST (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) some are wondering if there isn’t a tether attached to the Google Mothership in Mountain [...]
» 29 May 2009, 3:21 pm

Some Thoughts from the Inbound Marketing Summit - DallasHaving spent the last few days in Dallas I am ready to go home. Don’t get me wrong. Dallas is a nice town. The Inbound Marketing Summit put on by New Marketing Labs’ Chris Brogan was great. Here’s why I need to get out, though. You see, I am a New York Giants fan. Although [...]
» 29 May 2009, 2:03 pm

Google Android To Release 18 Phones by Year EndGoogle claims we can expect to see at least 18 phones with the Android operating system by year’s end, possibly 20. Which phone carriers they will be on has yet to be determined, according to the New York Times. Currently T-Mobile’s G1 and a phone available in Europe called “Magic” by HTC are the only [...]
» 29 May 2009, 9:34 am

Time Warner Approves AOL Spin OffNot so much a revelation, but more of tying-up a loose end. As expected, Time Warner’s board of directors have approved the spin-off of AOL–sans the dial-up division. Time Warner hopes to conclude the spinoff, which requires an SEC review, by the end of the year. The company also expects to buy back Google’s 5 percent [...]
» 29 May 2009, 7:09 am

Facebook’s New Incubator fbFund REV Announces WinnersYou have to give Facebook credit. They get in the news more a lot. Maybe it’s investment. Maybe it’s a look at their numbers. Maybe it’s someone on the executive team has a hang nail. You name it they are there. That’s why this news seemed more interesting than just the usual talk. TechCrunch reports that [...]
» 28 May 2009, 8:03 pm

Facebook Can’t Drive 55Question for you rock and roll historians: Do you remember Sammy Hagar (The Red Rocker prior to his days as the front man for Van Hagar Halen)? Do you remember the song that made him just famous enough to replace David Lee Roth? It was “I Can’t Drive 55”. So what the heck does this have [...]
» 28 May 2009, 5:20 pm

Google Wave of the Future Revolutionizing the WebYou know, just the other day I was using my email and I found myself scoffing with disgust. “This is so last century!” Okay, not really. But apparently down at Google Australia, that’s exactly what they’ve been thinking lately—and Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon came up with a way to revolutionize email and instant [...]
» 28 May 2009, 10:40 am

Bing.com; Is it Worth Switching from Google?Whether it ends up being akin to Custer’s last stand or not, Microsoft has just announced Bing, as it desperately tries to find a way to take market share away from Google. Whether you love the new name or not–personally, I think it’s a huge improvement on Windows Live Search–you owe it to yourself to go [...]
» 28 May 2009, 8:30 am

Yahoo CEO Wants “Boatloads of Money” from Microsoft, but Has that Ship Sailed?How would you define "boatloads?" One dictionary suggests "an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude." Well, thanks to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, we now have another definition of "boatloads"–its the precise amount of money it would take for her to sell Yahoo to Microsoft. Not a penny more, not a penny less! Speaking [...]
» 28 May 2009, 5:58 am

Research Firm Predicts 2000% Growth for In-Game Ads; Fantasy?Market forecasts are to be taken with a pinch of salt, but when a new report suggests in-game advertising is going to see a 2000%+ increase over 5 years, you may as well grab a handful of the stuff. ClickZ shares a new report by analyst firm Screen Digest and media firm GroupM that predicts the [...]
» 28 May 2009, 5:30 am

Matt Cutts

Straight from Google: What You Need to KnowI just gave a talk at WordCamp San Francisco 2009. Thanks to Matt Mullenweg and the Automattic folks for a great time! I think there will be a video up soon, but if you want to browse the slides in the mean time, here they are: You can also download the talk in PowerPoint format.
» 30 May 2009, 11:38 am

I’m back!I should be back over at mattcutts.com. I’m sure some bits have sloshed around in the transition from dullest.com to mattcutts.com--let me know if you see anything truly weird. I plan to talk sometime soon about what I learned in the process of moving to a completely different domain for a month.
» 24 May 2009, 11:14 pm

Use a Wii Balance Board with LinuxIn this post you’ll learn how to make a working Bluetooth weight sensor + fast real-time graphical display with about 200 lines of Python code. You can code any Nintendo Wii-like video game for Ubuntu/Linux and the Nintendo Balance Board very easily. Here’s a video demonstration: This post assumes that you can already communicate with a [...]
» 22 May 2009, 11:22 am

What you should do next weekNext week is going to be a humdinger. If you’re in the Bay Area, here’s what I think you should do: - Attend Google I/O. If you’re a developer, trust me, I think you’ll get something out of the conference. Just check out the list of sessions, for one thing. The price is $400, but if [...]
» 21 May 2009, 7:50 pm

Letter to a young journalistDon’t conclude from my previous post that I dislike journalism. All through middle and high school I woke up early to read the local newspaper each morning. I was the editor of our newspaper in high school. My mother wanted me to be a journalist. I’ve been thinking of the issues confronting journalism for a [...]
» 20 May 2009, 9:30 am

Recent piece by Sanford and Brown(I work for Google, but this is my personal opinion.) Last week I was on vacation down in Florida and I had a chance to tour Thomas Edison’s winter vacation home. The tour guide told us that Edison wired his house and switched on electrical lighting in 1887. Then the tour guide leaned in and quietly [...]
» 19 May 2009, 8:55 am

What was new at Searchology?Google launched 3-4 new features at Searchology today. You can read about Search Options, Google Squared, Rich Snippets, or Sky Map in my previous post. But I also pay attention to the small things that Google said. I noticed several tidbits that I don’t think we’ve said in public before. - Pat Riley mentioned a couple [...]
» 12 May 2009, 8:35 pm

Google Searchology 2009: Search Options, Google Squared, Rich SnippetsGoogle just finished its Searchology 2009 event. In previous years, Google has used Searchology to introduce Universal Search and Personalized Search. So what was new this year? Several things: Google Search Options. Marissa Mayer referred to this as a handy “toolbelt” that lets you slice and dice your search results. You can do a search such [...]
» 12 May 2009, 1:30 pm

On vacation for a week or soJust to let you know, I’m on vacation for a week or so. If you send me email or tweet in my direction, don’t expect a reply for a while.
» 7 May 2009, 10:57 pm

5 things you (probably) don’t know about me(I was rooting around and found this leftover post from 2006 and figured I’d throw it out here.) It looks like blog tag has come to the search bloggers. I’ve been tagged by so many people that I yield and surrender obscure facts about me. When I was growing up in Eastern Kentucky, there wasn’t always a [...]
» 3 May 2009, 11:27 am

Natural SEO Blog

Power Searching With Google’s New Search Options FeatureGoogle introduced the all new Search Options at its Searchology 2009 event. This is a useful feature that lets users slice and dice search results in various ways. Here’s an example: Clicking on “Show options” (just below the Google logo) displays a box to the left of the results: Clicking on “Show options” (just below the Google logo) [...]
» 27 May 2009, 8:29 am

Google Supports Microformats, Rolls Out Rich SnippetsThe annual Google Searchology conference held recently revealed some interesting offerings in the search marketing field. Google had introduced personalised search and universal search through the same event in previous years. Google has stated its support for rich microformats. Yahoo’s Search Monkey has already implemented them. But is still not clear if the search engines read [...]
» 27 May 2009, 7:41 am

Microformats Hit Mainstream!Over on SEMClubhouse I’ve written up a post on “Why Use Microformats?” which is a mild criticism of Michael Gray’s recent post on “HCards, Microformats and Address Data does it Matter for SEO“. Essentially, Michael suggests people should prioritize implementation of hCard into local info webpages as a lower-priority, back-burner project. I not only believe [...]
» 20 May 2009, 9:13 am

Key to Relevance: Title TagsI recently penned an article at Search Engine Land on Leveraging Reverse Search For Local SEO. In it, I describe how in certain exception cases, one may benefit from adding the street address into a business site’s TITLE tag. It’s not the first time that I have mentioned how TITLE tags are key to relevance [...]
» 10 Apr 2009, 3:05 pm

Town Changes Name For Better Google RankingsThis is just too cool to pass up mentioning in local search news: a town in Europe has decided to change it’s name in order to get better rankings in Google! The town of “Eu” in France has been edged out of search rankings for the term, since other pages about the European Union are ranking [...]
» 26 Feb 2009, 4:38 pm

Vint Cerf & The Architect in The MatrixWhile attending and speaking at the recent SMX West conference in Santa Clara, I had the opportunity to photograph Vinton (”Vint”) Cerf, Google’s VP and Chief Internet Evangelist during his keynote interview conducted by Chris Sherman. After returning, one of my friends saw my pics and remarked that Vint Cerf resembled the Architect character in the [...]
» 20 Feb 2009, 9:34 am

AT&T Acquires YP.com for $3.85 MillionAT&T has acquired YP.com for $3.85 Million. I distinctly recall back when AT&T previously bought YellowPages.com in for $100 million in 2004. Does this make sense?!? Back in 2004, I laughed and laughed and laughed, and I told coworkers that it was a huge waste of money, because, I said, “they won’t be able to buy [...]
» 14 Jan 2009, 12:41 pm

Flickr *IS* Good for Search Marketing - Despite Naysayers!I’ve seen a recent article or two claiming that Flickr can no longer be leveraged for SEO purposes. As frequent readers here know, I’ve long been a proponent of using Flickr, both for its great Web 2.0 features, but also for its marketing/promotional value. I’m sure I’m one of the people that article writer was [...]
» 14 Jan 2009, 9:59 am

Brief Posting HiatusAs some of you likely noticed, I took a brief hiatus from posting here on Natural Search Blog. We had some technical difficulties here, and I changed jobs in the last few months. However, the generous folx at Netconcepts have encouraged me to continue as one of the group blog writers herein, so you can continue [...]
» 14 Jan 2009, 7:51 am

Cleaning Up the Retail Site Navigating MessIn recent years, many retailers have implemented powerful attribute-based navigation systems that make it easier for customers to filter, sort, navigate, and buy from a retailer’s inventory. Most of our clientele who have implemented these technologies report good results, increased conversion and sales. From the natural search perspective, many such marketers are pleasantly surprised to [...]
» 4 Dec 2008, 6:44 am

Online Marketing Blog

Green Online Marketing: 5 Ways to Repurpose ContentWith the importance of content in online marketing, many businesses are hard pressed to come up with original articles, blog posts, videos, images, presentations, etc on a regular basis.  There’s a myth that once you publish something, that all who matter will see it. That’s simply not true. Does less than 100% or even 50% market [...]
» 1 Jun 2009, 4:10 am

SEO Tool Review: BuzzStream for Link BuildingAs I work with our clients on their link building projects, I am often testing out new tools to make the process more efficient. After meeting with Lee at PubCon South in March, Jeremy Bencken - one of the founders of BuzzStream -  followed up with Lee for the opportunity to demo and test out [...]
» 28 May 2009, 6:32 am

What Snapshot of SEO Drives Your Web Business?Search Engine Optimization is a changing field. At any given moment in time, companies that rely on the web for new business or customer communications will consume information about SEO and then rely on that snapshot for months or even years. In the marketing mix, SEO is only one slice and company marketers are tasked with [...]
» 27 May 2009, 10:02 am

Learn SEO, Social Media, Digital PR from TopRankOver the next 2 weeks several staff from TopRank be hitting the road for multiple SEO/Social Media/PR speaking and training events. We invite you to attend and would love to meet up with readers of Online Marketing Blog.   Topics during these events will emphasize the practice areas of our agency: Search Marketing, Online Public Relations [...]
» 18 May 2009, 9:52 am

Measuring the Value of Search Optimized PRMeasuring the effect of online marketing and PR efforts is essential for both understanding the return on investment but also for feedback that will improve subsequent efforts.   Measuring the effect of SEO for Public Relations benefits should start with well defined outcomes. To get a good handle on SEO effectiveness, it’s important to match the [...]
» 13 May 2009, 4:17 am

Making News Content Search & Social Media FriendlyChanges in consumer preferences towards news consumption and sharing habits via the social web present both challenges and opportunities for PR agencies.  Searchers increasingly expect to interact with what they find via search.  The opportunity for Public Relations is to understand that leveraging social media as a distribution channel to attract buzz and earn links is [...]
» 12 May 2009, 5:31 am

Link Building Tips for News SEOFor those readers just joining us, this is post #8 in a series of 10 on the intersection of search engine optimization and public relations, “Top Ten SEO Tips for PR Professionals“. Besides content optimization and making sure a site’s news pages and digital assets can be found and indexed, attracting relevant inbound links is the [...]
» 11 May 2009, 4:31 am

Pull PR and Newsroom Optimization Tactics Most web sites with active media relations programs host an online newsroom. Analysts, journalists and even some bloggers find newsrooms a useful resource for finding past media coverage, press releases, image assets, executive bios, company history, webinars, white papers, case studies and other information helpful for researching stories. Any content that is published to the web [...]
» 8 May 2009, 4:45 am

Essential Press Release Optimization TipsOne of the most popular keyword optimization content types for SEOs and Public Relations professionals alike are press releases. As a news communication tool, the value of press releases has undergone changes.  However, press releases provide a substantial amount of content to news search engines and can rank well in standard search engines like Google [...]
» 7 May 2009, 10:33 am

3 Ways Companies Sabotage Their SEO InvestmentCompanies invest thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per month into improving their natural search engine visibility. At times, certain influences or perspectives occasionally evolve to work directly against the efforts of the professional SEO consultant.  Here I’ll describe three scenarios and hopefully help companies avoid the unfortunate expense of sabotaging their [...]
» 6 May 2009, 4:16 pm

Do’s and Don’ts of On-Page SEO for Public RelationsThis is post #5 in a series of 10 on the intersection of PR and SEO.  We’ll discuss a few best practices content SEO tactics as well as a few things to avoid. While there is much to understand about successfully implementing and maintaining search engine optimization efforts, there are a few  fundamental concepts worth starting [...]
» 6 May 2009, 4:09 am

Past High Rankings

Video Elevator Speeches for WebsitesDo you think a positioning video has value on a website, or does it interfere with the structure and architecture of the website?
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Twitter QuestionsI have a few Twitter questions in terms of right or wrong ways to tweet, if there even is such a thing.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Blog Post MetadataAre the Title, Description and Keywords (the metadata) always the same for each blog post?
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Calendar for Long-tail SEOWe want to put a calendar of events on our website. Google Calendar appears to be a great product but since it is not hosted on our website the long-tail SEO value (which is one of the main reasons we want to do the calendar) is lost.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Redirecting Website to a New DomainWe have a website of which the home page has 5 PageRank. This website has 5,000 pages that are indexed in Google.com and many of the pages have good PageRank.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Multiple Keyword-rich DomainsI have a series (15) of keyword domains (3 to 5 years old) that are related to my site. Currently most of them are mirrors with just a slight content differential.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

85 Reasons Why Developers/Designers Keep SEOs in Business - Stuff You Might LikeA few months ago, I was quoted by Google's Matt Cutts as saying that 'website developers keep SEOs in business.' I honestly do believe that and have for a long time. While I don't mean to say that ALL website designers and developers believe or do all of these things, you'll likely encounter many who have done or believe in some of these.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Page Title Question - Advanced Forum Thread of the WeekForum member 'vanzist' asks what the best Title tag for a page would be. While my first response was the usual 'it depends,' additional comments make for a very interesting forum thread.
» 27 May 2009, 8:58 am

HRA Wrap-up 257: All Hail the Hail!We finally got some nice weather this past holiday weekend, which was a welcome change. I spent most of it outside and away from the keyboard. One interesting weather glitch was the brief hailstorm we encountered on Sunday when we were about to head out for dinner.
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Setting Up an SEO Shop Overnight!A couple of weeks ago, I received the following request from an email address in India: 'sir/madam.i want to start SEO(search engine optimization)business.but before that i want to know about SEO.how to intitate this?can u please help me?'
» 13 May 2009, 8:27 am

Performancing

Yahoo! 360 Closing Shop. How Confident Are You With Your Blogging Service Provider?Yahoo! has announced that its 360! service will be shutting down by July 12, 2009. Though 360 gained a strong core of loyal users (you) who enjoyed the service, Yahoo! has been reprioritizing some products to help us deliver the best possible experiences to consumers. The decision to close Yahoo! 360 and transition users to profiles is part of this larger strategy, but we had been waiting until we had an alternative solution that we could offer to our community of Yahoo! 360 users until we officially shut down 360. This might not exactly be big news to most of the world, but for regions where 360 is the preferred blogging and social networking application of choice, like in Vietnam, this could be cause for concern and headache. Yahoo! will
» 31 May 2009, 6:11 pm

Domain names and self-hosted content still important in a Web 2.0 worldIs the old mantra of having a dot com domain name for your business becoming less important as social media takes hold, or is it still a vital and centralised piece of branding that must simply evolve to keep pace with the changing nature of the Web? Mashable published an interesting article this week titled Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant? in which it suggests the merits of directing people to a social networking URL instead of a corporate web site. I can understand the lure of promoting more "sticky" sites, such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, over a staid corporate web site, particularly if the company has managed to create something viral or otherwise of enduring interest to users. However, my general take on the iss
» 28 May 2009, 4:01 am

What do you do with valid comments that have commercial links?You probably get these a lot of times. Some posts a valid comment, with well-thought out and substantial paragraphs. But when you check the author name and link, it's a link to a commercial site, using keywords meant for search optimization. Some of these get caught by the spam filter, but some are approved. You tell yourself there's no worry, because you use rel=nofollow anyway. But if your comment policy (if you have one) prohibits outright advertisements, your readers might start to wonder. You probably get two to three paragraphs with good arguments, but signed as "buy used cars" or "bank loans" or whatnot. With a blog as big as Performancing, this can become a big headache. What do you do with valid comments that have commercial links?
» 27 May 2009, 7:43 pm

4 Guidelines to Building Social Media AppsTruth is, there are no rules set in stone to building applications revolving around social media. What is true is that there are a lot of them sprouting from the hedges these days. Some of them are built as a content platform, while others are built to supplement existing platforms. 1. It should have the function of an aggregator. Blogs have RSS feeds. You can grab these feeds and have them displayed in an easy to use home page tool like Pageflakes. With the rise of social media, your blog's home page no longer is the main landing page. With the advent of FriendFeed, Twitter hashtags and yes even something as simple as cross posting your latest post to other blogs and social networks you own, your content becomes ubiquitous over the Interne
» 24 May 2009, 3:32 am

What is your Twitter network profile?In any social network setup, an individual's contacts would most likely fall under these categories: An existing (real-world) friend or business contact A new friend or business contact found through the social network A celebrity Granted, that with #3, a lot of celebrities on Twitter get their millions of followers not just because of the interactivity, but mostly because a lot of us starstruck fans are just so interested in what goes on with the lives of the A-listers. And so this brings me to ask. What's the proportion of these people on your followed list? Starting out, you most probably follow only people you know. Someone from class, work, or a friend might have invited you through email to join and to add his profile. And so it beg
» 21 May 2009, 12:00 pm

Can Twitter be a good data mining tool?Twitter has evolved much from its humble beginnings as what was simply a microblogging service. As people's needs grow, we often also find innovative applications for existing tools and services, and Twitter is no exception. For instance, when I saw my Twitter friends exchanging messages as if they were on a public chatroom, I was at first taken aback. But now it's the norm. And the system even supports exchanges of messages outright, whether private or for public consumption. There are still a lot of potentially big uses of Twitter. For instance, people have been attributing the trending topics (which are popular mentions of keywords and #hashtags) to discussions that are currently popular. And now there's the proposal to use a different s
» 20 May 2009, 12:25 pm

Scheduling Your Writing Time Based on Your EnergyRecently, I posted about the ebbs and flow of energy during your day to day life (Blogging and Working: Productive Times, Days and Locations), and I wanted to highlight some more on that point by telling you to focus your writing efforts on your peak energy times. Things like feed reading, e-mail, topic research, and other activities should be relegated to times when you aren't at your peak, so that when it is time for you to write, you have the creative energy required. Far too many bloggers stick to posting in the evening, after supper, after playing with their kids, cleaning, and watching their favorite evening show. As we wind down to head to bed, it can be the worst time to try to put out thoughts together for a post that will push our
» 20 May 2009, 9:59 am

Misleading Headlines: Do they work or do they hurt?As I was flicking through my RSS feeds yesterday, I came across the following headline: "Steve Jobs Leaves Apple" Huh? Wow... well I know I haven't read that anywhere else, but could this be a scoop? Naively, I clicked on the link to be greeted with this opening paragraph: "Steve Jobs is leaving Apple -- eventually. Whether because of health, age, or any other reason, key employees leave companies. It happens everyday. What distinguishes a great company from a just a good company is how they plan for this eventuality." Well, duh! Unsurprisingly, I wasn't impressed, particularly as for some reason the web site in question had decided not to publish an excerpt — let alone a full feed — for the article. I can cope with less-than-scintillat
» 20 May 2009, 7:12 am

Tips for creating timely yet comprehensive blog postsHow can you break news in your niche and also ensure that your posts are comprehensive and of maximum benefit to your readers? Blogging style certainly seems to have evolved over the past few years. When I started blogging, there was a strong emphasis on writing blog posts and then not changing them afterwards. In fact, it was almost a cardinal sin to change anything — even a typo — after the author had published the post. Perhaps that worked well for personal experience/diary blogs, but tended not to be as effective for niche subject blogs. It's quite common to see blog posts, both new and old, updated with new information over time, and I think that's generally a good thing. It's this that can form the basis of writing articles that a
» 19 May 2009, 7:11 am

Will Google's search engine enhancements benefit bloggers?Last week Google added some new tools to its search engine, including the ability to more easily filter results based on their type (or at least what Google thinks their type is) and date, as well as some visual tools including the time line and the subtly-named "Wonder Wheel". I wrote a general tutorial on Google Search over at Tech Digest, but while I was doing that it set me thinking whether Google's new tools will benefit bloggers at all. Some of these search honing options aren't new — it's been possible to search by date for ages, though I'm guessing not so many people have learned the syntax or used the "Advanced Search" form — while others are, though they could have been achieved by judicious use of search terms (reviews, for e
» 18 May 2009, 7:39 am

Scatterings

A Conference for Self-Made Internet MillionairesMy insane speaking schedule has made it difficult for me to keep this blog up-to-date, so apologies for that. This year I've spoken at Internet Retailer Web Design, SMX West, Elite Retreat, AMA SEO Training Series, Web 2.0 Expo, Shop.org Marketing Workshop, Catalogue Exchange, eMetrics Summit, and now, in a few days, SMX Advanced. However, I am going to get back up to a normal posting frequency here quite soon -- especially now that my co-authors and I have finished the draft of The Art of SEO which is coming out later this year (publisher is O'Reilly). One conference in particular I want to call out as being truly remarkable -- the Elite Retreat, put on by the self-made Internet multimillionaire Jeremy Schoemaker (aka "Shoemoney"). It w
» 30 May 2009, 1:39 pm

The New Age of Computational EnginesI have to say, I am impressed with Wolfram Alpha. I think it's a game changer. It provides a powerful new way of interacting with the large repositories of data available on the Web. For instance, instead of googling for "number of google employees" (incidentally, it isn't until the 4th result down that you get the answer), then googling for "number of yahoo employees", then doing the math to compute the ratio, you would simply input into Wolfram Alpha "google/yahoo employees". (The answer is 1.487:1, if you're curious.) Welcome to the brave new world of computational engines. What's a computational engine, you ask? The best definition I can think of is: an online data mining and analysis tool. What can a computational engine do? A lot.
» 23 May 2009, 9:03 pm

Talking Like a Google InsiderUsing Google engineers' terminology will help you look like a search industry insider. For example, talk about "signals" rather than SEO "factors". Describe weak, undifferentiated content as "thin" (as in a "thin affiliate"). Work "canonicalization" into a sentence at least once every 5 minutes. Share your enthusiasm for "shingles" (yeah, NOT the disease). Speak in TLAs (three letter acronyms) like QDD (query deserves diversity) and QDF (query deserves freshness). And so on. At Google's Searchology conference this month, some new buzzwords were bandied about. Here are a few pulled from this post and this post by Matt Cutts: Chameleon = internal Google codename for the algo that does mid-page suggestions (like search for "labor" and get in
» 21 May 2009, 12:44 am

Canonical Tag Not Yet ReliableI'm a big fan of the new canonical tag (er, element, to be more technically correct). It's a powerful tool for dealing with duplicate content. But it's not exactly reliable yet. Google wants us use it as if it were. Unquestionably, it's a signal. But it can be ignored, even when it should clearly by obeyed. Case in point: Northernsafety.com. Many thousands of non-canonical URLs are indexed. For example click on some of the listings on this SERP and compare the URLs you were led to by Google to what's listed as the canonical URL in the HTML source of these pages. You'll see that the parameters OPC and PFM are present in the URLs in the search listings but are not present in the canonical link element. Hmmm. I know Google uses the element
» 19 May 2009, 9:49 pm

Arrrgh... Google Still Isn't Recognizing Underscores as Word Separators in URLsAlthough it isn't a primary "signal" like the title tag or anchor text, keywords in your URLs can help with your Google rankings. But ONLY if Google can see the actual words in the URL. Turns out that separating the words in a URL with hyphens allowed Google to see the individual words, but using underscores did not. And this, unfortunately, continues to be the case today. Not quite two years ago at WordCamp, Matt Cutts made the following statement that Google was imminently going to be treating underscores as word separators: The interesting thing is we used to treat underscores as if they were like word A underscore word B, we would glom that together and we would index that as A underscore B, so if you just searched for the word A, we
» 19 Apr 2009, 10:09 am

"Thin Slicing", a Powerful SEO TacticIn my Search Engine Land column last week, I describe a powerful SEO tactic that we at Netconcepts call "thin slicing". The term originally comes from Malcolm Gladwell (as used in his best seller Blink) and has no origins in the online world. Gladwell uses the term in the context of "rapid cognition"; where one makes snap judgments in their field of expertise. Surprisingly, those snap judgments are often times more accurate than considered opinion, i.e. assessments that have been labored over. The important caveat: it only holds true for experts, not for amateurs. We've co-opted the term and applied it to SEO. In that context, thin slicing is a tactic referring to mass optimization across a large number of pages, done quickly, and confin
» 30 Jan 2009, 3:50 pm

Ferrit, RIPNew Zealand comparison shopping engine Ferrit is no more. They blew through an incredible amount of money, had their day in the sun, and now they are gone. I'm sad about that. Not because they were a past client of Netconcepts (back when they had money). But because they were a comparison shopping engine that had a shot at making it - of successfully crossing over into the mainstream. Indeed, much of New Zealand knew of Ferrit, due in large part to the series of funny TV commercials they became known for. Here's one of my favorites, below. "A book on India"! Haha, umm, not exactly! Oh, and the donkey came from a "completely different website". Classic! Brand recognition of Ferrit was high among consumers. But yet they weren't moving
» 30 Jan 2009, 2:46 pm

Roomba RiderEnding the week with such a deadly serious post (after all I was talking about your mortality), I thought I'd better lighten the mood a bit. Enjoy... Roomba robot vacuum? Check. Cat? Check. Roomba-riding cat? Doh! I want one of them! (watch the vid) Maybe I can teach Hazel to ride my Roomba. I'll have to get a new battery for it first. In fact, I'd probably need a pile of replacement batteries. Roomba would go through batteries pretty quick with Hazel atop it!
» 24 Jan 2009, 6:07 pm

Search Engine Guide

Targeting one keyword per page--controversial?by Mike Moran Image by horizontal.integration via Flickr Last week in this space, I urged organic search marketers to focus on optimizing for one keyword per page, rather than taking a scatter shot approach where they are trying to shoehorn many keywords into the same landing page. I knew that it wasn't the normal advice that people hear, but I wasn't prepared for how many comments and questions I got, so I thought it was worth revisiting the topic this week. If you're still unpersuaded about the approach of targeting one keyword per page, I want to take another shot at it. I got lots of questions about this stark advice, most along the lines of, "Yeah, but can't I target several keywords effectively with the same page?" The short an
» 28 May 2009, 8:05 am

Interview: Mitch Joel, President - Twist Imageby Manoj Jasra Search Engine Strategies is set to take the stage next month in Toronto (June 8-9). Mobile Apps, as usual, will be one of the hottest topics at this year's conference. Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image will be moderating the panel: "Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps" so I thought I'd get some of his insight on the topic of mobile. Check out our chat below: [Manoj]: Do you feel that 2009 is the year that mobile truly takes off (in regards to a viable marketing strategy)?[Mitch Joel, Twist Image]: We have been saying that almost every year for the past decade. At this point, I think it's just going to happen at some point and five years later we'll look back and go, "wow, 20XX really WAS the year of mobile... and w
» 23 May 2009, 1:15 am

Two Bits Of Local Search Newsby Miriam Ellis This week in Local Search, Google has made a small change to the pin number process in the Local Business Center which will slightly alter the way SEOs need to manage assisting clients with the all-important verification process. And, just today, Google has added a new favoriting feature to Maps. The Pin Number Is Out Of Your Hands Now Like most of the Local SEOs I know, I handle the key practice of Local Business Center profile verification by creating my client's listing for him, getting his pin number at the end of that process and then phoning him with the pin so that he can verify his listing when Google calls. Google is now simply providing the pin number within the phone call. So, it's out of your hands and up t
» 22 May 2009, 5:05 pm

Search Plus Display Is One Hot Comboby Sage Lewis SearchEngineWatch.com reports on some comScore data that show the power of using search and display advertising together. Check out the video for some other interesting finds. Check out our small business news site.
» 22 May 2009, 11:50 am

Internal Social Media Policies of The Wall Street Journalby Sage Lewis The Marketing Pilgrim gives us some inside information on the internal social media policies of The Wall Street Journal. This is an incredibly important part of having a business in this day and age. Everyone should develop an internal social media policy. Check out our small business news site.
» 22 May 2009, 10:42 am

Google Updates U.S. Ad Text Trademark Policyby Sage Lewis Starting June 15 we are all probably going to see a lot more Google Ads containing trademarks. Watch this video to learn how these changes will effect you. Check out our small business news site.
» 21 May 2009, 8:29 pm

Thank You Search Engine Guideby Sage Lewis Thanks to Search Engine Guide and Robert Clough I've been able to get some new sweet upgrades to my video system. Check out what I got. Check out our small business news site.
» 21 May 2009, 12:41 pm

How many search keywords can I target per page?by Mike Moran I'm sometimes asked this question, usually by someone savvy in search marketing. After all, it's expensive to create and optimize pages for search, so you'd want to amortize that investment over as many keywords as possible right? Actually, no. The number of organic search keywords I recommend you target per page is one. Surprised? A lot of people are, and I admit to perhaps being more extreme than some on this issue. Still, I will stick to this advice because I think it's the right way to approach the problem, even if you end up compromising later. Image by horizontal.integration via Flickr Now, understand, it's not possible for you to optimize for one keyword without having other words on the page. I'm not advocating
» 20 May 2009, 11:09 pm

Chimney Sweep - Crossing The Lineby David Carberry Wow - I am completely shocked how businesses in today's "quick to the web world" can still cross the line. Don't they understand that everyone they do work for has the power to say the good, the bad and the ugly. This is what I would consider an ugly situation.The other night I went to a friend's house and there was a chimney sweep that had just pulled off. My friend is selling her house so the inspection showed that she needed a little work done on her chimney. The Real Estate Agent Recommended A Chimney Sweep in Baltimore.First off my friend was having a personal conversation regarding a family matter and the Chimney guy - said that he could give her relationship advice if she needed it (as if he were a friend). The
» 20 May 2009, 9:39 am

Top 500 Search Engine Keywords Of The Week - May 20, 2009by Robert Clough Despite our best efforts adult material might occasionally appear. Due to the nature of the internet it is simply a fact that about 20 - 25 % of search engine queries are of this nature. Should you see any below, then we apologize in advance. 1. Headers defined Nos. : Position according to popularity Count : Number of sightings of keyword in database. Keyword : The keyword itself 2. The top 300 surge report These are the top 300 queries from the last 48 hours, which represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc..) for the last 48 hours. Nos. Count Keyword =========================================== 1 3319
» 20 May 2009, 9:08 am

Go Link Yourself!by Diane Aull My friends, I'm here today to speak on behalf of that often sadly-neglected frontier in link-building: internal links. That's right, friends, your site's own navigation. You know, the links on your pages that help people move around through your website?You're Making Yourself Crazy, You Know Webmasters will drive themselves absolutely bonkers trying to convince other webmasters to "deep link" to their interior pages with appropriate link anchor text to reinforce the target search terms of that page -- a difficult and thankless task if there ever was one. They post pleas for ideas and help on SEO forums and in the comment fields on link-building blogs, and they try all sorts of labor-intensive, wacky and sometimes outright
» 18 May 2009, 12:37 pm

Search Engine Land

Plan For The Long Run With Data-Driven SEONow that the tide has turned, economically speaking, and with SEM budgets focused more on profitability than volume, it's time to take another long look at SEO and how to use it to your company's advantage. ....
» 1 Jun 2009, 4:00 am

Has Google Maps Switched From PageRank to “BizRank”?For those of us who work in local search optimization, it's clear that Google PageRank is less and less important as a factor in result rankings. It's not difficult to find instances where businesses with lower PageRank are listed higher than competitors in the local 10-pack, and some like Matt McGee point out cases where companies with no website at all are ranking well. These cases show that in Google's local searches, PageRank has been pushed aside in favor of a ranking process that's often... ....
» 1 Jun 2009, 3:00 am

Microsoft’s New Bing Search Engine Now Live In “Preview”Tired of just hearing about Microsoft’s new Bing search engine? Now you can use it yourself. Spotted via Techmeme, Bing is live as a “preview” service. What’s the “preview” mean? That anyone can use it while Live Search, the service that Bing is to replace, continues on as the “main” Microsoft search engine. Then sometime [...] ....
» 31 May 2009, 10:47 pm

Another Googler Joins The Obama AdministrationThe New York Times reports that Google is losing Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, to the Obama administration. He’ll be the administration’s deputy chief technology officer, serving below the recently appointed CTO, Aneesh Chopra. McLaughlin has been with Google since January 2004. His earlier work included time as VP and Chief Policy [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 11:22 pm

Finally, Yahoo 360 To Be Shuttered In JulyMore than 18 months after first saying that Yahoo 360 would close, the company has finally announced a date: July 13, 2009. Why the delay? Yahoo’s announcement says they’ve been looking for a way to preserve its users’ content: “Before we could retire 360, we had to find a sustainable and adequate solution for your personal information. [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 11:52 am

Open Letter To Google & The AP: Reveal The Licensing TermsDiscussions between Google and the Associated Press about renewing their content licensing deal continue, I assume, but all’s quiet recently on the negotiation front. I want to disrupt that. It would be wrong in this particular case for both parties to reach a deal where “terms are not disclosed.” The future of [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 11:42 am

Google I/O: New Advances In The Searchability of JavaScript and Flash, But Is It Enough?This week at Google I/O, Google talked a lot about the evolution of the technological capabilities of the web. HTML 5 is ushering in new era of browser-based development and applications. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, kicked things off with, “My message to you is that this is the beginning of the real win of cloud [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 11:11 am

Keyword Research: Listen To Your Customers!While SEO is a part of our daily lives, the process of digging into keyword research hasn’t gotten any easier. Yet, as we know, keyword research is critical to any SEO effort. While you may find the process of uncovering and selecting the most appropriate keywords for optimizing your site to be fairly painstaking, it [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 9:51 am

How To: Excel at Excel for SEM Applications, Part 1Ever since Microsoft Excel beat Lotus 1-2-3’s butt to become the world’s preferred spreadsheet solution, it has never looked back. It’s hard for any search marketer to think of a world without Excel. I tell rookies new to the industry to move themselves a tiny bed into cell A1 because they’re going to [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 9:39 am

Search In Pictures: Google Street Trikes, Yahoo iPhone Orchestra & Hacky SacksIn this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Google Street View Trike: An iPhone Orchestra at Yahoo: A Cute Google Girl (Not my Girl): Cinco de Mayo at [...] ....
» 29 May 2009, 9:00 am

Search Engine Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 29, 2009Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....
» 29 May 2009, 2:00 pm

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 29, 2009In this week's video, which I created on Thursday, but published on Friday, we discussed several SEM topics. First, there was a Google Toolbar PageRank update. Google is testing new click tracking. Can Google rank pages higher on certain days?...
» 29 May 2009, 9:00 am

Google Ad Manager Implementation Locks Your AdSense ChannelsI am a huge fan of Google Ad Manager, the hosted ad serving solution from Google. The only issue is that those who heavily use AdSense run into issues when they wanted to test out using Ad Manager with AdSense....
» 29 May 2009, 5:47 am

80% Of SEOs Said They Can Beat Wikipedia In GoogleWe asked our readers a few weeks ago if they can beat Wikipedia in the Google results? The answer is yes, most SEOs believe they can beat Wikipedia's listings in the Google results. 81% of SEOs feel they can beat...
» 29 May 2009, 5:22 am

76% of SEMs Don't Fully Trust Google's Keyword ToolThe other day, we polled our readers asking if you trust Google's keyword suggestion tool. We received a lot of responses, well over 200 and I wanted to share them with you. The majority, 76% said they do not fully...
» 29 May 2009, 5:20 am

How Google Can Keep AdSense "Great"A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around what it will take for Google AdSense to "remain great." Clearly, you must first agree that AdSense is "great," and if you do, then we need to agree on what must be done for...
» 29 May 2009, 5:10 am

Googler Complaining About SpammersYou rarely ever see a Googler complaining about spammers in public. That is why I found this Google Maps Help thread funny. A Googler, Joel, went off on a small rant, asking: Question: Why do spammers post on the Help...
» 29 May 2009, 5:04 am

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 28, 2009Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....
» 28 May 2009, 2:00 pm

Most SEMs Prefer Google's New U.S. AdWords Trademark PolicyAbout a week ago, we asked our readers if they like or dislike the new AdWords trademark policy. The new policy gives some advertisers the ability to use trademarked terms in the ad copy. We asked our readers if they...
» 28 May 2009, 6:12 am

Google Adds Impression Share Columns to AdWords APIGoogle has quietly announced in a Google Groups thread that they have finally added the impression share columns to the AdWords API. The new columns, currently visible in the API documents are: exactMatchImpShare which is the Exact Match IS (measure)impShare...
» 28 May 2009, 6:02 am

Should You Fear Changing Your Best SEO Performing Web Page?A Cre8asite Forum thread has discussion around the topic of updating a web page that does really well in the search engines. The member asked, would you dare change your best producing web page? The reason the SEO wants to...
» 28 May 2009, 5:55 am

Search Engine World

Google Reports Spam Levels Rose 25 Percent In 2008Google has reported a 156 percent increase in the amount of unwanted e-mail spam targeting users of its Postini enterprise system between November 2008 and data from earlier this month, a rapid increase from the 25 percent annual 2008 rise the Internet giant announced Monday.
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Yahoo Earnings Report Reveals $303 Million Loss And Weak OutlookAt the close of the market Tuesday Yahoo released its first quarterly earnings results under recently hired chief executive Carol Bartz, with fourth quarter results showing revenues down 1 percent to $1.80 billion from the same quarter one year earlier.
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Google Launches Measurement Lab Internet Traffic Analysis EffortGoogle has launched an effort called Measurement Lab that is aimed at making it easier to measure how ISPs manipulate subscriber Internet connections, Google chief evangelist Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol that underlies the Internet, announced Wednesday.
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AOL Laying Off 700 Employees Citing Weak Online Advertising MarketTime Warner Inc. will cut 10 percent of its workforce, or as many as 700 jobs, from its Internet services group AOL, in order to help curtail losses brought about by a weakened online advertising market, AOL chief executive Randy Falco wrote in an internal memo Wednesday.
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Microsoft Woos Users Of Rival Browser Firefox With Live Search Plug-inMicrosoft, the maker of the popular Web browser Internet Explorer, has released a free tool for users of Mozilla Corp.'s open source rival browser Firefox that provides search engine suggestions for Live Search, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker's search service.
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Google Reveals Ocean Imaging In Vast Google Earth 5.0 UpgradeGoogle has updated its virtual world mapping software, Google Earth, to include vast amounts of new imagery of the earth's underwater regions along with new features to observe changes in satellite imagery over time and additional images of the planet Mars, the Internet giant announced Monday.
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Fewer Ask.com Searches Drive IAC Interactive To Fall Short Of Earnings ForecastsInternet media firm IAC/InteractiveCorp. released fourth quarter earnings Tuesday that showed a profit slightly short of forecasts and cited a drop in the number of Web searches at its Ask.com and other online properties as a factor in revenue that fell by 19 percent during the quarter.
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Google Seeks An Escape From Its Investment In AOLGoogle has asked Time Warner Inc. to either buy back the 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL that Google bought for $1 billion in 2006, or to spin off the ailing property and take it public, Time Warner executives said Wednesday.
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Russia's Search Leader Yandex Revenue Rose More Than 80 Percent During 2008Russia's leading Internet search engine company Yandex experienced a revenue increase of more than $300 million during 2008, a rise topping 80 percent over 2007 year end figures, the company announced Thursday.
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Google Sync Service Automates Smartphone Calendar And Contact UpdatesGoogle has launched a free service to synchronize calendar and e-mail contact information between its popular online applications and Apple iPhone and Microsoft Windows Mobile-equipped smartphones automatically by using cellphone signals, with the Monday announcement of its new Google Sync offering.
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Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone Sees Business Account Fees AheadSan Francisco-based Twitter Inc. envisions a future day when its popular free micro-blogging service will begin imposing usage fees for commercial businesses, according to company co-founder Biz Stone.
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Search Insider

What's New In Search?There is so much going on recently in the search space, I cannot even decide where to begin. Wolfram|Alpha, Kumo...I mean Bing ,and possibly something else before I complete this column. I am going to focus on these two today.
» 29 May 2009, 8:30 am

Conversations From Northwest Flight 033"So, what is it you do?" Oh, no! I froze. Since I got into search, I've hated that question, mainly because I don't know how to answer it. I've tried several times, and it's never been a terribly satisfying experience....
» 28 May 2009, 8:30 am

Optimizing For Natural And Paid Search, After The ClickAt the Search Insider Summit in Captiva, Fla., Gord Hotchkiss hosted a panel and clinic on eye-tracking analysis of Web sites suggested by attendees, specifically addressing the topic of post-click optimization. This session preceded several related breakout discussions, including the "Branding and Post-Click Strategies" roundtable session that I moderated. Overall, this is a critical topic at a time where more and more marketers are looking for ways to show a higher return on investment for spending in SEO, PPC and other online channels. So in this column I'll cover some of the highlights in the breakout session.
» 27 May 2009, 12:30 pm

The Four Immutable Principles Of SearchWe are awash in a sea of practically infinite data, co-created through our news pages and our blogs and our Web sites and our Flickr accounts, and the infinitude of this data forces us to rely on every tool in our arsenal to get the good stuff to reveal itself. And, like cream rising to the top, a small fraction of the global information set makes its way into our consciousness. We expect that Google and Yahoo and Kumo will do their job and find that cream for us. Those engines have ridiculously complicated and absolutely necessary algorithms to determine relevance. When it comes down to it, though, search is a function of four immutable principles....
» 26 May 2009, 10:15 am

How to Solve Local Search, Once And For AllI'm in need of a good plumber and electrician. Though they must exist, I know implicitly that there is no way to find a good plumber or electrician in New York City. This is where I thought I would start writing about Facebook, and the opportunity Facebook has to corner the local search and services market. No one out there is doing this well -- not the major engines, not the IYPs, not even the new(er) social search and recommendation engines like Yelp -- but no, I'm wrong about that last part....
» 22 May 2009, 8:46 am

A Tale Of Two HousesI have a difference of opinion with Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore. Actually, it's not so much a difference as a question of context. He believes there's room for more visual branding on the search results page. I believe this is a potentially dangerous area that has to be handled very carefully on the part of the engines.
» 21 May 2009, 9:30 am

Is Twitter To Facebook As Google Is To Yahoo?This analogy came to me at the recent Search Insider Summit during the Day 2 keynote conversation moderated by Gord Hotchkiss with Gian Fulgoni and Jordan Rohan. As always, these SIS-staples delivered many provocative thought-starters -- but I perked up when they started discussing the opportunity for richer brand experiences on the search engines.
» 20 May 2009, 9:32 am

Turing 2.0: I Am Not A RobotLast week, Saya the robot made her teaching debut in Tokyo. She is "multilingual, can organise set tasks for pupils, call the roll and get angry when the kids misbehave." I'm sure Saya would fail it, but it seems pretty clear that the Turing test is either obsolete or near enough to it not to matter. These days, nobody cares whether a machine can pass for a human. Instead, Turing's been superseded by the far more pressing Turing 2.0: can a human pass for a human?
» 19 May 2009, 8:47 am

Are You An SEM David or Goliath?Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote an article for The New Yorker entitled "How David Beats Goliath. " Gladwell's prime example of his thesis -- that raw effort is often a better weapon than innate ability or excellence -- is the "full court press," in which a basketball team contests the entire field of the court against its opponent through a game's entire period of play. The remarkable thing about this effective strategy, he argues, is that it is so infrequently used by coaches who prefer to play "according to Goliath's rules." Gladwell's idea has direct applicability to the current state of search marketing, which, like basketball, is a game of simultaneous offense and defense.
» 18 May 2009, 11:45 am

What's A Wonder Wheel?Google's Searchology event was held May 12; as usual, the company rolled out a few interesting new features that you may or may not use and that may or may not impact how you tailor your Web site and content for Google.
» 15 May 2009, 8:15 am

Search Marketing Standard Magazine

9 Tips for Organizing Your PPC CampaignsAlthough often presented as a clear and straightforward marketing environment, pay-per-click advertising is still a complex process. One of the more obvious difficulties one is faced with when managing a large PPC campaign is the need for clear organizational structure. Poorly organized accounts will almost certainly waste money while generating subpar-quality traffic to your website. This [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard 9 Tips for Organizing Your PPC Campaigns Related posts:Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume Target Pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing campaigns are arguably the most straightforward,...Money Saving Pay-Per-Click Tips This month I’ve been thinking more and more about saving...Keeping Up
» 27 May 2009, 9:00 am

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Search Engine MarketingOnline marketing campaigns offer unmatched opportunities for tracking, measurement, and nearly instantaneous tweaking. However, in order to take full advantage of these powerful features, you need to understand what to measure and to track. To put it in marketing jargon, you need to know your key performance indicators, or KPIs. This white paper from Coremetrics will [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Search Engine Marketing Related posts:Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Search Engine Marketing Online marketing campaigns offer unmatched opportunities for tracking, measurement, and...Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume Target Pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing camp
» 27 May 2009, 8:58 am

Unlocking the B2B Web Analytics “Black Box”The need to understand what triggers a particular sale is at the top of the list for any B2B company, large or small. Most web analytics solutions on the market today can only track the “last click,” meaning the last action that led to a sale. Very few smaller B2B companies track multiple points of [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Unlocking the B2B Web Analytics “Black Box” Related posts:Improving Lead Quality in B2B Search Marketing Long before the Internet, leads were a primary source of...Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Search Engine Marketing Online marketing campaigns offer unmatched opportunities for tracking, measurement, and...Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume Target Pay-per-click (
» 27 May 2009, 8:57 am

B2B Search Marketing Strategy Guide: Advice From the ProsSearch engine marketing has proven itself time and again as a reliable and profitable marketing channel. In terms of ROI and the control it offers to business of all sizes, search engine marketing stand in a category of its own. In this report, Business.com offers some of the battle-tested B2B search marketing strategies collected via a [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard B2B Search Marketing Strategy Guide: Advice From the Pros Related posts:The Advanced Guide to Improving Quality Score In the current paid search market, the price you end...Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume Target Pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing campaigns are arguably the most straightforward,...Improving Lead Quality in B2B Search Ma
» 27 May 2009, 8:56 am

Improving Lead Quality in B2B Search MarketingLong before the Internet, leads were a primary source of customers for business-to-business firms. The emergence of search engine marketing as a powerful marketing channel has brought new possibilities to the old lead generation game, but also new challenges. Online campaigns can quickly boost the value of leads, but they may also hurt their quality. This [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Improving Lead Quality in B2B Search Marketing Related posts:The Advanced Guide to Improving Quality Score In the current paid search market, the price you end...Unlocking the B2B Web Analytics “Black Box” The need to understand what triggers a particular sale is...B2B Search Marketing Strategy Guide: Advice From the Pros Search engine marke
» 27 May 2009, 8:55 am

Integrating Marketing and PR for SEO SuccessIt is unfortunate that so many businesses choose to keep their public relations and search engine marketing departments completely separate, especially since the growing influence and presence of search engines such as Google and Yahoo! translates into consumers turning to them for help locating information on the web. In addition, journalists increasingly rely on these [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Integrating Marketing and PR for SEO Success Related posts:Integrating Search and Social Media The rise of social media over the last couple of...Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Search Engine Marketing Online marketing campaigns offer unmatched opportunities for tracking, measurement, and...Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
» 27 May 2009, 8:52 am

Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume TargetPay-per-click (PPC) search marketing campaigns are arguably the most straightforward, at least when compared to search engine optimization or social media marketing. Nonetheless, there are still many intricacies and important details companies need to understand in order to run a well-optimized and successful PPC campaign. One significant issue marketers face is that paid search campaigns often [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Why Paid Search Campaigns Often Fall Short of their Volume Target Related posts:9 Tips for Organizing Your PPC Campaigns Although often presented as a clear and straightforward marketing environment,...B2B Search Marketing Strategy Guide: Advice From the Pros Search engine marketing has proven itself time
» 27 May 2009, 8:51 am

Integrating Search and Social MediaThe rise of social media over the last couple of years presents businesses with a new set of challenges online. This new landscape has its own rules regarding sales, branding, and reputation management, but businesses are often unsure what those rules are. Companies that begin to tackle the challenges of social media marketing often fail [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Integrating Search and Social Media Related posts:Integrating Marketing and PR for SEO Success It is unfortunate that so many businesses choose to keep...OMMA - Social “OMMA SOCIAL is designed to guide marketing and media professionals...OMMA Social Title: OMMA Social Location: New York City Visit Conference:... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Rel
» 27 May 2009, 8:49 am

The Advanced Guide to Improving Quality ScoreIn the current paid search market, the price you end up paying per click is no longer the same as your bid. With the introduction of Quality Score by Google (also adopted by Yahoo! and Microsoft), the waters have been muddied significantly, with additional factors now impacting the final cost per click. Thus, it is [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard The Advanced Guide to Improving Quality Score Related posts:Keeping Up With Changes to AdWords Quality Score Guidelines As is their want, Google have made significant changes to...Is Quality Score Recession-Proof? Back in 2006, when Google announced the “Quality Score” initiative,...Improving Lead Quality in B2B Search Marketing Long before the Internet, leads were a primary source
» 27 May 2009, 8:47 am

Search Engine Strategies (SES) ChicagoTitle: Search Engine Strategies (SES) Location: Chicago, IL Visit Conference: Click here Description: “Your customers are Online - can they find your Website? Midwestern and Chicago area marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters and search engine marketers (SEMs), including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, attend SES Chicago each year to network with their [...]Post from: Search Marketing Standard Search Engine Strategies (SES) Chicago Related posts:Search Engine Strategies (SES) - Chicago “Your customers are Online - can they find your Website?...Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto Title: Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto Location: Toronto, Canada...Search Engine Str
» 26 May 2009, 12:34 pm

Search Views

Social Media: Leverage Social Media In Your Job Search» 28 May 2009, 11:05 am

Paid Search: Are Search Refinement Tools Friend or Foe to PPC Advertisers?» 27 May 2009, 2:35 pm

RepriseMe: Number 24 - Winston Noel - Social Media Analyst» 22 May 2009, 12:52 pm

Search News: Yahoo’s WOO Much Ado about Nothing New» 21 May 2009, 2:11 pm

Search News: Spotted! New Google Navigational Search Ads» 20 May 2009, 2:21 pm

Search News: Untangling Google’s New Trademark Rules» 19 May 2009, 3:42 pm

Social Media: 5 Questions with Seraj Bharwani of Visible Measures» 18 May 2009, 2:35 pm

RepriseMe: Number 23 - Alexander Goodman - Associate Account Manager» 15 May 2009, 2:28 pm

Advertising in a Recession: Help, My Marketing Budget Was Cut!» 14 May 2009, 2:56 pm

Social Media: Do Search Engines Show Us How Social Media Will Prosper?» 13 May 2009, 9:06 am

SEO Blog - David Harry

Looking under the Hood; SEO Geeks Resource LibraryOver the last while I have been collecting a wide variety of search engine patents and information retrieval research papers. It's all part of the ongoing obsession... (http://www.huomah.com/dojo/seriously-obsessed-search-geek.html)Over the last few years more than a few times I hear from folks looking for search related research/patents; it's became time to start a reference library. Time permitting I am looking to add more and more resources for those looking for some 'SEO Higher Learning (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/SEO-Higher-learning.html)' - Why does it matter? It is an important part of being in the world of SEO - in truth, 2/3rds of the acronym. To me, there is an evolution to consider (http://www.huomah
» 26 May 2009, 2:45 am

3 free tools to make sure your site is in good company1, 2, 3 - find bad neighbour and flee! (The following is a guest post from Alex Chudnovsky from Majestic SEO (https://www.majesticseo.com/)) The issue of bad neighbourhoods has been a frequent topic of discussions among SEOs for a very long time. It is widely considered that it is one of the ranking factors that can have substantial negative effect on your site. Google itself talks about bad neighbourhoods (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769) suggesting to avoid linking to them. More recently David posted about host level spam detection (http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/Host-level-spam-detection.html) and how it can affect sites. The highest risk group is shared hosting that can h
» 11 May 2009, 11:07 pm

SEO Dojo Memberships AvailableCome join us in the SEO Dojo We're almost happy enough with the SEO Dojo to release it out into the wild - ALMOST - We're opening the gates once again and allowing new member registration for the next 24hrs or 50 new members (which ever comes first). --- UPDATE --- (Sorry... we're now closed again) What is the SEO Dojo? In case you didn't know, we started creating a private community and learning center for the seriously obsessed search geeks and those with an interest in search engine optimization. If you want you can learn more about the Dojo (http://www.huomah.com/dojo/about-hmd.html) and the Community (http://www.huomah.com/dojo/the-community.html) (from those links). Who is the SEO Dojo for?? Those looking increase their SEO kn
» 7 May 2009, 10:46 am

Link building and social mediaIt’s all about the secondary links silly Time and time again I see folks in the SEO world talking about getting links from social media websites. Many times this advice will include finding ‘followed’ links and even lists of ‘dofollow’ social media sites. This is quite strange and bewildering to me as the holy grail of link building in SM isn’t getting a link from the actual site…. but getting the secondary links that follow viral content. You see, one shouldn’t be using the state of the links on the site as the measure… and such approaches are often even frowned upon by many in the biz as noted in this recent Sphinn thread (http://sphinn.com/story/110323). Regardless of the emotional reaction, the whole concept is
» 29 Apr 2009, 2:10 am

We shall return to regular programming shortlyDear Bloggers - Don’t be a jackass You know…its funny, at least to me it is. I have often sat and wondered, “WTF am I going to write” – And over the last 3 years of this public venting, mauling and musing had no answer and thus wrote butkis. Many times one gets busy or the passions aren’t flaring – the reasons are endless. But one thing you should never do…. Start friggen rambling for the sake of yer own voice (for the record I have a lovely humming voice). I mean seriously… don’t turn into a self-righteous pontificating piece of…well… U get the idea… You see what can be even more fun, for me at least, is reading the search blogosphere, (give the writing a break). It is often educational, but far more often
» 20 Apr 2009, 2:26 pm

Host level spam detectionStay away from bad neighbourhoods! For starters, what is web spam and what’s its function? In the patents we’re looking at today, they describe spam as websites constructed with random or targeted content and links in order to, “to trick the analysis algorithms used by search engines” into ranking the pages higher than they should (bit of an oxy moron play there). The end game of course being to monetize said traffic with varying forms of advertising… yada yada… we know the deal - And the fly in the ointment? “However, achieving this is complicated because it can be difficult to identify spam hosts without manually reviewing the content of each host and classifying it as a spam or non-spam host.” So what’s a sear
» 8 Apr 2009, 12:24 am

the SEO Geeks Newsletter is RockingJust a quick note for a Tuesday to mention that the SEO Geeks Newsletter has been going great. While likely a humble number compared to many of the big dogs in the space, but we're up over 400 subscribers so far - Who knew that many peeps cared about the geekier side of search engine optimization? Sweeeet.... I've pretty juiced about some of the feedback so far and the kinds words recieved Thanks so much to those following along - I hope to keep improving it as we go! I'd also like to thank our early sponsors, IM Spring Break (http://events.imbroadcast.com/im-spring-break.htm -), Raven SEO Tools (http://raven-seo-tools.com/), Your Members (http://www.newmedias.co.uk/wordpress-membership/) (WP plugin from Tim Nash) and Rank Sense (http://ww
» 7 Apr 2009, 9:09 am

Search Geeks Guide to Ranking FactorsThe other day I was thinking about what signals we consider when trying to understand search engines and how they rank pages. There have been more than a few folks (http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors) that have taken a stab (http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml) at the elusive ‘over 200’ ranking factors (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors-simplified-quick-reference/4764/) the last few years (not to mention local (http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml) rankings (http://www.semportland.com/business/a-fresh-look-at-local-search-ranking-factors/)); why not give it a go? For me, it is likely a utopian fantasy, a journey into supposition, more than it is any r
» 5 Apr 2009, 4:11 pm

Whats wrong with this picture?(...don't mind me, it's been a strange week) I have generally stayed away from all the pretty hats that SEOs get to wear. While I do look smashing in them, it mucks up my hair, ya know? But lately, I am finding it harder. To me we’ve always been search manipulators to varying degrees. While we may truly encourage search engineers to have to dig deeper, or facilitate content ingestion, it cannot be doubted that SEOs are the thorn in the IR world’s side. Ok, that I can take. Why? Because SEO could as easily stand for ‘Search Engine Opportunist’ as anything else. That is until now… more and more I am seeing websites that are hacked for a variety of SEO purposes including link building and SERP destruction. It is one thing when
» 31 Mar 2009, 3:04 pm

Twitter Follow friday - mega list editionI have never done a 'Follow Friday' on Twitter as it seems that I could never mention all the peeps I enjoy and would ultimately leave some peeps of the list. I mean with a mere 140 char how can I pay my respects to all the peeps I enjoy Tweeting with? So here goes... my mega list for Follow Friday @mpilatow (twitter.com/mpilatow) @SexySEO (http://twitter.com/SexySEO) @vangogh (http://twitter.com/vangogh) @AndyBeard (http://twitter.com/AndyBeard) @brianchappell (http://twitter.com/brianchappell) @feydakin (http://twitter.com/feydakin) @TheNanny612 (http://twitter.com/TheNanny612) @BWelford (http://twitter.com/BWelford) @storyspinner (http://twitter.com/storyspinner) @fantomaster (http
» 27 Mar 2009, 1:25 am

SEO Book

The Search Taxonomy: Getting Inside the Mind of the SearcherBill from SEO By The Sea published a good article entitled "Writing Content for Small Businesses Online", in which he talks about search taxonomies. For those new to the topic, I thought I'd go over it, and show it applies to SEO strategy. I'm basing this article on the study "A Taxonomy Of Web Search"(PDF), by Andrei Broder. Andrei is VP of Search Advertising at Yahoo, although he wrote this report while he was with AltaVista. What Is A Search Taxonomy? In summary, a taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. In terms of search, we focus on classifying keywords into three distinct classes - navigational, informational and transactional. If you can determine user intent behind keyword queries, you can better target your keyw
» 26 May 2009, 10:03 pm

Social Cues & Increasing SalesHonesty Tax The anonymous nature of the web acts as a tax on anyone who is an honest merchant. Sales are driven by perceived value, and many marketers spend 90%+ of their time & effort on front end marketing and optimizing their sales channels, while providing little to no substance to anyone who buys from them. By the time those customers get to people like us, they are already more distrusting, cynical, and jaded due to having been scammed - in many cases multiple times. To someone new to a field, scams often look more legitimate than the real thing. Just ask anyone who has spent their share of the 100's of millions of dollars on acai diet reverse billing fraud promoted through fake blogs advertised on the Google content network. Quality
» 25 May 2009, 3:14 am

Google AdWords Advertiser Statistics, via SEM RushGoogle gained popularity with advertisers in part through the accessibility and affordability of their AdWords ad program, which made it possible for almost anyone to advertise online. When the ad platform was young and inefficient (due to limited competition) you did not need to be skilled to profit. You only needed a credit card and a decent website. But over the years Google has made their system much more complex, and increased competition + better competitive intelligence tools + all the layers of ignorance tax baked into AdWords (default match type as broad, expanded broad match, automatic matching, search syndication & content network on by default, tons of click fraud on the content network, etc.) have made profitably running an Ad
» 21 May 2009, 5:52 pm

Is Trust The New Competitive Advantage?There is an interview on Open Forum in which Seth Godin interviews Richard Branson. The question is: Why is small business is better than big business? Branson explains how he structures Virgin so that it is a series of small companies. People know each other by first name. People need to know each others strengths and weakness, and collaborate, and be responsible for the work they do. Branson believes this open small company results in a better service to clients. Check out this article on Harvard Business: In the worst economy we've seen in decades, Passlogix, a privately owned 100-person software development company, just received over a million dollars in prepaid commitments for the next three to five years of service....Now, how d
» 20 May 2009, 10:41 pm

The Next Big Shift In Web MarketingThere was an article on TechCrunch entitled "Jump Into The Stream" In short, the article is about how the internet appears to be going through its next big shift. It is moving towards becoming a stream of immediate information. The web is being organized by "nowness" This real-time stream has been building for a while. It began with RSS, but is now so much stronger and swifter, encompassing not just periodic news and musings but constant communication, status updates, instantly shared thoughts, photos, and videos. I thought the article gives us a compelling way to think about this shift: First and foremost what emerges out of this is a new metaphor — think streams vs. pages. In the initial design of the web reading and writing (editing)
» 20 May 2009, 5:26 am

Site Testing That Isn't TediousDo you know what attracts your readers? What headlines they respond to most? Do they respond to pictures? Do they know what your offer is? No doubt we all agree that testing is a good thing to do. We can see clearly if our ideas are working or not. But a lot of testing is, quite frankly, tedious. Measuring user behavior patterns and visitor paths is, in most cases, worthwhile, but there is always a trade-off in terms of the time it takes to setup and run such testing verses the reward for doing so. Here are a few cheap and cheerful testing ideas that don't take a lot of time, but can improve your site performance significantly. 1. Write Your Copy, Then Leave It Alone For A Day One of the best ways to test the effectiveness of your copy is
» 18 May 2009, 5:08 pm

Submit Your Blog to Amazon.com & Become a Kindle PublisherAmazon.com opened up their Kindle publishing program to all bloggers. If you prefer to read blogs on your Kindle you can subscribe to SEO Book for the Kindle at Amazon.com. Publishers get 60 cents per month per subscriber. It is unlikely that we will get enough Kindle subscribers to notice it as an income stream (as we would need about 50,000 Kindle subscribers for it to be a decent revenue stream), but as such distribution opportunities come about on authoritative domains like Amazon.com, they create a great opportunity for filling up branded organic search results with non-negative authoritative pages. And signing up takes less than 5 minutes. :)
» 17 May 2009, 1:56 am

Google AdWords, PPC Industry Becoming Far More Cut ThroatiProspect recently did a study which showed that the majority of people who respond to graphical ads do so via a latent action other than a click on the ad, like a search for the brand. Any such brand lift or indirect effect of advertising on content sites has generally been ignored by most advertisers because search driven ad networks want search to get credit for that conversion. As these ad networks & search companies become more ubiquitous (going so far as creating a web browser that replace the address bar with a search box) search will get credit for many conversions that were going to happen even if those search companies did not exist. As ignorant ad dollars have flowed online to this precision trackable environment, it is driving
» 15 May 2009, 4:48 pm

Google Webmaster Central GuideGoogle Webmaster Central have just updated their toolset, so now might be a good time to review it. For those new to Webmaster Central, Google offer a set of very useful tools that provide an insight into how Google handles your site. You can find out how your site is crawled, what keywords you rank for, and if there are any problems. You can sign up here. Lets step through the features, and share some ideas on how to best use the data Webmaster Central provides. For those already familiar with Webmaster Tools, it would be great if you could offer newer users some of your tricks and tips in the comments. Check Out Our New Look Once you've signed up, you'll be greeted with a dashboard screen. This is where you list all your sites. Not a m
» 15 May 2009, 12:17 pm

Get Rich Quick: What Can We Learn From The Hard Sell?Do aggressive marketing practices repel you? Or make you more likely to buy? Is it a cultural thing? For example, does hard sell work in some cultures, but not others? Dear Friend...... ;) Personally, when I experience the hard-sell, I immediately become suspicious that the product is worthless. After all, shouldn't the product or service, if useful, pretty much sell itself? Having said that, I have, on occasion, bought from people using the hard sell. Curiosity sometimes gets the better of us all :) The fact that aggressive sales strategies are used so often tends to indicate such approaches do work. Let's take a look at some of these tactics, and if you can think of more examples, please add them in the comments. Also, if you've had suc
» 11 May 2009, 8:49 pm

Introduction thread #3We have already closed out a couple welcome threads. If you are new to the site, please say hi and introduce yourself. :)
» 11 May 2009, 12:51 pm

SEO Fast Start

Redoing My Link Building Course - Need Your HelpWhen I offered my first online link building course in 2005, I was expecting it to be pretty popular, but it turns out that I *badly* underestimated the demand. In fact, it was a runaway success. (...)
» 8 May 2009, 2:59 pm

Speaking @ SMX Advanced on June 3It's been a while since I've spoken at a search marketing conference. Like, a couple years I think. (...)
» 28 Apr 2009, 10:58 am

Digg THIS, Digg.The DiggBar. Not much to say about this lame idea, that hasn't already been said, except this. If you don't like what Digg is doing: Stop Using Digg. I did. (...)
» 12 Apr 2009, 1:41 pm

How Much Is Newsmax Spending On PPC?With all the pundits talking about how much money Barack Obama has raised and spent during the general election campaign, all the hubbub about his decision to opt out of public financing, etc. (...)
» 30 Oct 2008, 7:03 am

Wordpress WYSIWYG Editor "Nofollow Links" Plug-InStompernet member Jim MacKay has come up with a neat little plug-in to allow nofollow on individual links in Wordpress posts. (...)
» 10 Oct 2008, 12:47 pm

Google Local Listings - How Could They Screw This Up?Podiatrist Todd Schafer reached out to me for help with a vexing problem today… although he has gone through all the steps, and jumped through all the hoops, to correct the physical address Google displays for his business, Google just can't seem to get it together. (...)
» 2 Oct 2008, 8:39 pm

My New SEO Video Course - available Thursday September 4Well, it's done. After six months of testing, editing, and just plain hard work, my new SEO course is done! (...)
» 29 Aug 2008, 3:52 pm

SEOFS Live Agenda Posted - Now $297/seatSEO Fast Start Live – Maximizing Search ROI June 25 & 26, 2008 – Crowne Plaza Galleria – Addison, TX Day 1 – Wednesday, June 25, 2008 – Strategies for Maximizing ROI 9-10am: Introduction & The “Fast Start” Planning Process Presenting a simple process for planning, measuring, & improving your ROI from search. (...)
» 2 Jun 2008, 4:01 pm

Dayparting Ain't So Tough - How To Start SimpleFirst, a definition, in the context of pay-per-click advertising: Dayparting is the practice of limiting or shutting down ad campaigns at certain times of the day, and/or increasing activity at other times, in an attempt to maximize the profitability of the campaign. (...)
» 27 May 2008, 10:44 am

Want To Work 1 on 1 With Me? Stompernet coaching opens today!Nobody Sphinn this, please… Hype in the marketplace… affiliates running wild… but what's it really about? (...)
» 22 May 2008, 8:28 am

SEO ROI

Meet Me At SMX AdvancedTo all my readers: If you’re going to SMX Advanced, I’d love to meet you. I’ll probably check comments on this post etc Monday n see what’s up, but the easiest way to meet is to: 1) Find me after my presentation on the Keyword Research Artistry panel, on the morning of day 1 (Tuesday, June [...]
» 30 May 2009, 7:43 pm

Playing SEO Defense; and Twitter Takes All Comers: Link Precap June 2009De-Fense! [Thump Thump] De-Fense! [Clap Clap]: Alex Chudnovsky killed it with this awesome guest-post at Huomah, featuring 3 tools to find bad SEO neighbours and protect your site. In the same frame of mind, Nick Wilsdon has 12 tips to protect your sites and income. Not far distant topically, we have Malcolm on Court Orders Restricting Publication… in [...]
» 29 May 2009, 5:02 am

Taking On 3 SEO Coaching Students. 150%-Money-Back Guarantee.Next Sunday I should hopefully be flying off to Seattle, where I’ll be a returning speaker at the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced show. In advance of that, I’d like to offer you, my loyal readers, the opportunity to be coached by yours truly. What This Coaching Consists Of: - Weekly phone, skype, or instant messenger calls - [...]
» 24 May 2009, 6:31 pm

Solid ReadingNick Carr: Google is getting a little carried away with self-importance, maybe? Chris Brogan: The ROI of Stories - A Case Study Internet Evolution: Police Lawsuit Over Online Disclosure Rings Alarm Bells 2303.fr (French): Sokoz - A New Model for Ecommerce? SEER Interactive show that Yahoo’s approach to revenue generation is to profit off advertiser ignorance. Yours truly for Mike [...]
» 21 May 2009, 10:15 am

Ruud Hein: “How I Stay Ahead of The SEO Pack”Ruud Hein and I conducted this interview by email, which is why some of the tantalizing bits he leaves off on don’t see a followup - it was a preset bunch of questions. In any case, the interview is about business, but gets personal too - all of which makes for a great read, imho. [...]
» 18 May 2009, 9:44 am

How I Cloaked My Way To LOWER RankingsActually, this post should be titled: “How did I cloak my way to lower rankings?!” Because the truth is that it was completely unintentional - as evidenced by it causing my traffic to drop like a rock. I had been working with the awesome folks at Slingshot SEO (kudos to SEO moz for the connection) on [...]
» 13 May 2009, 11:32 am

Usability Problems Affecting Sites For GroomsmenThis is a guest post from Ian Lurie, who runs a Seattle SEO shop, on behalf of Groomstand Groomsmen Gifts. They have such items as personalized pub signs and engraved cufflinks. A number of problems set back the usability of various sites in the wedding vertical, and particularly those catering to Groomsmen. Here are some case [...]
» 11 May 2009, 5:41 am

Friday Photos: Startup Camp MontrealBeen doing some local events lately. Last night I had the pleasure of meeting… Ying-Hua Sun, a recent graduate of the John Molson School of Business’ MBA program: Rebecca Xing, a Supply Chain Management and importing/exporting expert, also a graduate of John Molson. (Picture needs to be rotated and it’s not working; will post soon.) Martin and Tom [...]
» 8 May 2009, 5:00 pm

I Love To Read. Can You Tell?Some awesome reading on conversion and time management: http://www.ioninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog/2009/5/7/bad-landing-pages-and-badder-conversion-paths.html http://www.ioninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog/2007/10/24/which-type-of-landing-experience-is-right.html http://www.ioninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog/2009/5/4/a-modular-approach-to-marketing-automation-and-post-click-ma.html - Bit of a sales pitch, but informative nonetheless. http://www.grokdotcom.com/2009/05/06/you-can%E2%80%99t-edit-your-way-out-of-negative-reviews/ http://www.grokdotcom.com/2009/04/30/on-a-scale-from-1-to-5-surveys-stink-heres-why/ Note that this is about Likert-scale surveys, not all surveys. Indeed, the author’s main beef is th
» 7 May 2009, 11:19 am

Bruce Clay: “How I Built My SEO Business”Bruce, how did you make the transition from being an SEO consultant to an SEO agency? Photo credit: Jon Hochman of Hochman Internet Marketing Consultants I first got an education: Got a bachelor’s in science and math Next was an  MBA from Pepperdine Then, I was in the programming business for 20 years. That made me realize, when I was [...]
» 6 May 2009, 5:55 am

Guest Posts @ BlogStorm on Crediting Sales In Affiliate ManagementAffiliate-management-for-beginners-attributing-credit-for-the-sale/ Attributing-credit-when-email-and-affiliates-overlap Hope you enjoy!
» 5 May 2009, 10:20 am

SEO Speedwagon

Dafforn First to Discover Google Changes Profile Hop from 302 to 301Mark the time, SEO Friends; Google is listening to our Social World.
» 27 May 2009, 6:19 pm

Optimized Press Releases - The Engine that Can Drive Qualified Traffic to Your SiteOur new optimized press release plans provide companies with a cost-effective and powerful way to stay top of mind with their customers. Recently we syndicated a press release for a client that contained helpful tips on how to prevent and...
» 20 May 2009, 10:51 am

Google Profiles Now Above the Fold?As is normally the case with a non-temporary 302--THE problem with a non-temporary 302 you might conclude--I don't know whether to link to http://www.google.com/profiles/John.Lustina or http://www.google.com/profiles/116187582762783426547 when I am referring to it. Yet still it climbs.
» 18 May 2009, 8:07 pm

Google Vanity Profiles Buggy on the iPhoneGoogle profile results are broken when you see them on the iPhone's Safari browser.
» 6 May 2009, 6:39 am

Google Profiles Doing the 302 Hop?Why a 302 temporary redirect? Why not just keep Profile URLs numerical rather than vain if they are not going to implement a proper 301? Isn't that what they would have us counsel our clients in a similar scenario?
» 4 May 2009, 7:10 pm

Twitter Bookmarklets: Frame of Reference or Obloquy?In my recent search for the perfect Twitter bookmarklet, one that would let me post from page without leaving nasty tracks in my Tweets, I noted a trend that all but BigTweet seemed to sow, in one shade or another;...
» 2 May 2009, 12:12 pm

Bonfire of the Vanity Search RevisitedNot three days later, the Google Profile influence now has ordered the top six.
» 28 Apr 2009, 6:31 pm

Bonfire of the Vanity SearchAlthough unveiled in the innocuous position last--always, mind you--of the first page for your name, it seems more likely ever-prescient Google has a larger share in mind than the 10th result on a page.
» 25 Apr 2009, 8:23 am

Optimized Press Releases Keep Your Company's Name in Front of CustomersThere's plenty going on in Intrapromote's new Press Release Department. We've written and syndicated a new branding and site launch news story for one customer, produced an optimized press release announcing Tahiti honeymoon vacation bargains, and chronicled a customer's charitable...
» 20 Feb 2009, 11:46 am

Is Your Industry too Boring for Link Building?So often as I am discussing link building strategies or the concept of link bait, I am faced with the same question: "Aren't we too boring for all this? Who is going to want to link to us? All we...
» 11 Feb 2009, 4:07 am

Finally ... John Dvorak Exposes SEO IndustryJohn C. Dvorak proves conclusively that bad SEO is bad, and that he can still lure gullible people like me to showcase it.
» 10 Feb 2009, 4:58 am

SEOmoz

7 Reasons Why You Might Not Be Making Money As An SEOPosted by JoelJonathanThis post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony because I just don’t even know where to start with this one. Let’s just go for broke and see what happens: You Can’t Manage People – Even if you think you can “out-SEO” Rand, Aaron Wall, and Wikipedia to boot while riding a scooter down a hill with one brain tied behind your back as you make fun of Matt Cutts’ momma to his face, then guess what? You still need some skill managing people if you ever want to scale y
» 29 May 2009, 7:30 am

Whiteboard Friday - Path to ConversionPosted by great scott!Acquiring users and getting them to take an action on your site is the absolute core of web marketing. Whether that action is making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, registering for a demo...it doesn't matter, if you're doing business online, your job is to acquire users and get them to take an action. There are a million ways to go about this process, but it's crucial for yourself and your clients to understand the funnel (particularly in terms of search patterns) that takes a potential customer from a vague notion of a want/need to converting on your site. You're probably thinking that you already know your highest converting search terms, but you may be surprised. Watch this week's video to learn about some
» 28 May 2009, 2:34 pm

Rewriting the Beginner's Guide Part X: Measuring and Tracking SuccessPosted by randfishI'm currently working on re-authoring and re-building the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here. Where to Start with Web Analytics That which can be measured can be improved, and in search engine optimization, measurement is critical to success. Professional SEOs track data about rankings, referrals, links and more to help analyze their campaigns and create roadmaps for success. Recommended Metrics to Track Although every business is unique and every website has different metrics that matter, the following list is nearly universal in appeal. Note that we're only covering those metrics critical to SEO - optimizing for the search engines - and as such
» 26 May 2009, 3:07 pm

Internet Marketing in the Movies: Are People Starting to "Get" It?Posted by rebeccaSince I'm a movie buff and an Internet marketing nerd, I often notice Internet marketing and search mentions in various movies, and I always pay attention to the movie URL shown in trailers (my two recent favorites: the URL for Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Bruno film was www.meinspace.com/bruno, but it looks like now it's redirecting to MySpace.com, and the URL for I Love You, Beth Cooper is www.iloveyoubethcoopermovie.com, making me wonder why they had to append "movie" to such a specific URL). Recently I came across two examples where the movie industry referenced or directly utilized Internet marketing/social media marketing, and it got me wondering if Internet marketing is finally starting to become more mainstream (mea
» 26 May 2009, 7:00 am

If I Could Go Back In Time & Give Myself Some Advice, This Would Be ItPosted by randfishDear 2007 Rand Fishkin, Hi there - it's me - your 2009 self. I know it's highly unlikely you'll ever get this email, but who knows? The flow of time could chaotically spasm and somehow drop a printed copy of this on your lap - stranger things have happened. And, in that unlikely event, here's a few quick things you should know: Take the VC Money - it's going to make you a better entrepreneur, a more serious company and fund some very exciting technology. Don't Turn Down the Extra Funding - $1.1 million will get you through fine, but 2007 valuations were awesome, and that extra million they're offering will make great things happen even faster. Build Linkscape, But Make Usability, not Features & Data, the Foc
» 25 May 2009, 5:21 pm

Get More Visitors to Your Website Without Ranking HigherPosted by RobOusbeyAt this week's SMX, Rand made a comment about two big brands that ranked at #2 and #3 for their industry's generic keyword behind an exact match domain. Referring to SERPs Click-Through-Rate data, he suggested that you could calculate how much more traffic the larger brand could receive from the keyword by moving from position 2 to position 1. At the risk of getting a stern talking to, I'm going to have to ask: really? I'm confident that where you see a well-known brand's site next to an anonymous brand, the recognised name will get a disproportionate number of clicks. The location of each user's click can't be modeled by some exponential decay function; the titles, descriptions and URLs (including the goodwill associat
» 22 May 2009, 1:53 am

Whiteboard Friday - Embedded Content & LinkingPosted by great scott!This week's Whiteboard Friday comes to you courtesy of a few friends from the Twitterverse. We had Lindsay put out a call for WBF ideas via the @SEOmoz Twitter account and, among the suggestions, a few of our followers asked for tips on linking strategies and embedded content, so here we are, thanks to @mattlambert, @khughesrise and @seoaudiore (thanks, too, to everyone else who tweeted suggestions - we'll try to follow up on many of those in the weeks to come, too). Creating embeddable content like widgets, badges, or videos can be a fantastic link-building strategy for many reasons. In this video we'll cover some of the big benefits to embed-based linking, as well as some of the challenges you may face in trying t
» 21 May 2009, 3:03 pm

Lessons Learned from 3 Years of BloggingPosted by rebeccaThe beginning of this month (May 2nd, to be exact) marked my 3 year anniversary as a blogger. My first post on SEOmoz was a paragraph long and consisted of asking our readers if they know of any Spanish-language SEO blogs. It attracted 18 comments. Huzzah! Since then, I've published 241 more posts, with this one being #243. I thought I'd reflect back on my three years of blogging and share the good, the bad, the downright ugly, and the lessons I've learned along the way. Phase I: Asking Questions I wrote 4 posts in May of 2006, and each of them centered on a question posited to the community: "Know of any Spanish SEO blogs?" "Is there such a thing as too much website usability?" "What do you thin
» 21 May 2009, 7:41 am

Ten Resources That Changed How I View the InternetPosted by Danny DoverI can always pick out a fool when I hear someone claim they fully get the internet, whether it be a social media snake-oil salesman or a Twitter user with too many followers. The fact of the matter is that while it’s possible (and exciting) to understand one sub-sphere of the internet, there are simply too many spheres for one person to really understand all of them. I simply don’t think it is possible. By the same logic, my understanding of the internet is flawed as well. I have had many times when a light bulb goes off in my head and for a split second the universe suddenly makes sense. While these moments are awesome (in the truest sense of the word “awe some”), they are temporary. Nonetheless, they have hel
» 20 May 2009, 3:44 pm

Stuntdubl

Link Development Training: How Link Building for SEO is Like Picking Up a GirlLink development is tough. Not everyone can create amazing linkbait, as easy as the experts make it sound. It’s not an easy proposition to get people to link to your website if you’re a local realtor, mortgage broker, or holistic doctor for that matter. It is POSSIBLE though with the right approach to actually solicit [...]
» 13 May 2009, 4:19 am

San Francisco Search Marketing Happy HourBe sure to stop by if you’re in the Bay Area. Thursday, April 30th - 6pm Avalon Penthouse 255 King Street San Francisco, CA 94107 Details, Directions, and signup Related PostsUpcoming Speaking Engagements - SMX Advanced in Seattle & SES Toronto TrainingJust a quick note - if you'll be in Seattle, I'll be speaking on Buying Old Sites for SEO. [...]
» 29 Apr 2009, 3:31 pm

What’s Your SEO Code? - Musings on Outing other Websites for Fun and ProfitMost people are taught that the first rule of SEO club is that you don’t talk about SEO club (some learn this rule harder than others.) This is an important question as far as most people in the SEO community are concerned. Based on the system that information is knowledge, power, and ultimately money, you [...]
» 24 Apr 2009, 12:50 pm

Stunt Train Search and Social Marketing Manifesto 2.0I’ve been meaning to revise some old posts for quite some time, and am starting to finally get around to it. I’ll likely go down the list of some of my favorite posts, and do edits to what I feel has changed in the past 2 or 3 years with regards to search and social. [...]
» 6 Mar 2009, 1:03 am

Social Media Expert ConsultingOnce upon a time, I called myself an SEO consultant and became one. I really didn’t realize how many people had become active as social media folks until I saw how many services we’re being offered. It seems there’s plenty of new people calling themselves social media experts. I, for one, welcome [...]
» 5 Mar 2009, 2:39 pm

Google’s Big Brand Bump BailoutRecent logic suggests if banks aren’t good at managing money, but they’re big, we should give them more money. If a car company, doesn’t make very good cars (but they’re big), they should get more money. It looks like Google is following suit on the big brand bailout, by offering up better [...]
» 27 Feb 2009, 2:21 pm

IM Charity Party for SMX West Announced - Need Your Help!Hey Everyone - it’s that time again, where I beg for your help (why do you hate children?!?). We’re throwing a Charity Party for SMX West which will be hosted at Yahoo! Here’s what you can do to help (if you’re willing): Spread the word - Blogposts and banners would be AWESOME - twitters [...]
» 30 Jan 2009, 2:48 pm

Beware of Twitter Underscore Spammers Stealing Your BrandJust wanted to do a quick post on the proliferation of twitter spam. It seems there is a group of people that are spamming twitter using people with a decent amount of followers and adding underscores before and after their names. Watch out for people like _stuntdubl_ or _stuntdubl following you - this isn’t [...]
» 28 Jan 2009, 5:01 pm

Market Motive Make Master Certification Faculty Panel Live on January 27thMarket Motive has come a long way in a short time in my mind. In shortly over a year, I’ve seen the curriculum expand substantially to become an excellent archive for even a seasoned internet marketing professional to learn a ton. I am very proud to be a part of Market Motive, and [...]
» 15 Jan 2009, 5:32 pm

7 Reasons Your Social Media Marketing Failed (and how to fix it!)Don’t be a failure at your social media marketing. Your message and how you distribute it is very important to your brand and future success. You’ve got on the cluetrain, and decided it’s time to start embracing social media as an important part of your marketing mix. You’ve seen and heard the success stories, but you’ve [...]
» 12 Jan 2009, 2:42 pm

The Link Spiel

Link Spiel Has A New HomeAt long last the Link Spiel has a new home and new look:http://www.linkspiel.com/If you have this blog bookmarked or in your RSS, be sure to note the changes. :)Thanks!DebraVisit the new and improved Link Spiel at www.linkspiel.com
» 28 Apr 2009, 10:41 am

SEOAly Rhyme Time - IM Spring Break7 Reasons To Send SEOAly To IM Spring Breakby Debra MastalerSEOAly is a very nice galwith pretty blonde hair and lots of good palsShe's dying to meet in Tampa this Springto party and learn at this really great thingCalled IM Spring Break it's a conference you seeshe'll learn lots of stuff but the show isn't freeShe's part of a contest to help with her fareand hopes our community will help her get thereI would love to see SEOAly go to IM Spring Break'cuz I'm not sure how much more you can takeOf this terrible poem or the begging I'll doif this girl can't make Tampa to drink with the crewOur community is fine and takes care of it's ownSend Aly to Tampa so she's not alone.Thank you.Visit the new and improved Link Spiel at www.linkspiel.com
» 7 Feb 2009, 4:53 am

Jingle Links. Yeah Baby!It's time for our annual Jingle Links Sing-a-long! Dashing through the blogs, I came upon the posts, dishing about paid links that no one’s supposed to host.That Google it keeps saying, if you host these links, We’ll zap them all, give no love and watch your site sink - sink. Ohhhhhhh ....Jingle links, jingle links, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it used to be to buy paid links all day – hey!Jingle links, jingle links, jingle all the way....If Google could I know they would just wish us the hell away.From all of us at Alliance-Link and The Link Spiel - Happy Holidays!Visit the new and improved Link Spiel at www.linkspiel.com
» 17 Dec 2008, 11:24 am

Guilty (in a good way) By Link AssociationAn article in our local newspaper caught my eye today; it was a short piece on how the public relations folks in a neighboring County were going to offer a variety of new programming on their school and government cable channels. It also pointed out how the school system was using YouTube to host its video's and had plans to add more.My link spidey senses got all tingly as the ideas whirled in my head; I immediately started thinking about the opportunities I could take advantage of on local access cable. I headed over to the County site to see how and where to submit video content and found this on the Production Request page: All York County Government and York County School Division offices, departments, agencies, governing bodies, boards
» 17 Nov 2008, 12:30 am

Get In Touch With Your Inner Link SelfWe don't talk much about surveys when we discuss link building, probably because a lot of webmasters feel their keyword lists should suffice as research when they're trolling for links. But really - your keyword lists don't tell you about people's loyalties or personal preferences which is what you need to know before engaging in the more promotional link building.From my experience, people like to have packaged solutions, they want specific tactics and the sites to use them on. I think that's why directory submissions are so popular and the center of so many link discussions. People can wrap their heads around the whole process because it's a no-brainer.Find directory, qualify, pay for submission, submit. Bam, one-way link in place. Easy p
» 30 Oct 2008, 8:14 am

Friends And Photos From SMBUHere's a bunch of photos from the last Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Columbus Ohio. It was a great show and I enjoyed being part of it.This is Diane Aull (Torka) and I at the COSI charity dinner the night before the conference started.Rachel Phillips of Search Engine Guide and Diana Adams from Pole Position Marketing.Matt McGee and IChristine Churchill in one of her sessions talking about keywords.Rachel Phillips, Irma and David Wallace who all apparantely coordinated wardrobes. Robert Clough and Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide. Along with Rachel and Vickie Evans (Jen's mom) they did a great job putting this conference together :)Michael Stebbins and Matt McGee. Mouths open and in awe of something witty I said. (c
» 3 Oct 2008, 9:02 pm

Who Knew Martha Stewart Was A Link Building Role Model?If you’re planning to attend Search Marketing Expo East 2008 in New York October 6-8th, stop by one of the linking sessions and say hello.I'll be on three panels; Link Building Bootcamp, External Linking Tactics and Tools Glorious Tools where I'll be doing what else... link tools!If you still need to register I’d be more than happy to share my SMX Speakers’ discount which is $150 off the all-access pass. Whoo hoo!! Just holler!That's right, a clear no link required freebie. No request for a link, no requirement for anchor text. Just a promo code for $150 bucks. Unlike our friends at Martha Stewart.com, we're not asking for a thing in order to get the freebie.Isn't that great? Yeah we know the freebie isn't coming out of our pockets bu
» 2 Oct 2008, 5:29 pm

Cover Your Link Ass etThere's been a couple of articles written on what to look for when hiring a link builder, one was done by my good friend Justilien Gaspard and the other by Sugarrae. Both give excellent practical advice to follow if you're hiring someone/firm to do your link work....The rest of this article has been moved to the new link building blog the Link Spiel. It can be found here http://www.linkspiel.com/2008/09/cover-your-link-ass-et/Visit the new and improved Link Spiel at www.linkspiel.com
» 25 Sep 2008, 9:08 am

Sir, Would You Like Fries With Those Links?Recently in several SEO forums I noticed a number of threads discussing ways to find and build "economical" links. The forum participants wanted to know how they could initiate "safe" reciprocal linking as well as "fast" submissions to free article directories. They reasoned these tactics were worth doing because both linking methods were "economical" and "easy" to use.I understand some linking techniques can be expensive, tedious to implement and extremely time consuming, but tying your online business success to linking tactics deemed "easy", "fast" and "cheap" seems counter-productive. If you limit your linking to low-cost tactics or look at the practice as "link building" instead of "marketing for links" you're almost guaranteed to fail
» 28 Aug 2008, 8:30 am

Using Tip Jars For LinksI read a Sphinn today titled "Seth Godin Wants to Cheat Advertisers With Fake Clicks" and thought - yikes! Suggesting people click on adsense as a reward is stupid for lots of reasons but especially stupid on a link building level.Clicking adsense might get the blogger a little money (or no money if he gets banned) but he/she will never know it's coming from YOU. But hitting a tip jar ensures the blogger knows exactly who the donation is coming from. If you're interested in guest blogging or having the blogger review your products, donating to his/her tip jar is a great way to get attention to your cause. Forget clicking the adsense, drop a tip. It might get you a link.Visit the new and improved Link Spiel at www.linkspiel.com
» 25 Aug 2008, 11:35 am

I'll Take Links And 11 Gold Medals PleaseI read about Morgan Freeman being involved in an auto accident last week and his subsequent surgery so I was pretty surprised to hear him congratulate Michael Phelps on his record number of gold medals in the commercial below. Did the man do the voice over from his hospital bed? Highly unlikely which means VISA taped this spot when Mr. Freeman did his other commercials knowing there was a very good chance Michael Phelps was going to blow everyone out of the water and make Olympic Gold History.This VISA spot will forever be branded as the commercial vehicle associated with Michael Phelp's Olympic accomplishment, it launched the congratulations heard around the world! There's no price tag for that. Smart smart Visa, thinking ahead pays off.D
» 13 Aug 2008, 1:02 pm