Online Marketing Blog

As part of the ongoing coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006 Online Marketing Blog is doing for the ad:tech blog, here is the first installment on the sessions about SEO that I was able to attend. Above is a photo of (L to R) Dana Todd, Bruce Clay and Fionn Downhill. Bruce is actually wearing a tie!
While there was no fireplace, there certainly was a good share of chatting in this session on organic search engine optimization. Introductions were handled by Fionn Downhill of Elixir Systems (I love her accent) to a room that was surprisingly 1/2 full. Perhaps search marketing is losing some of its luster with the ad:tech crowd? The need for SEO certainly hasn’t abated as Dana Todd of¬†SiteLab and Bruce Clay of BruceClay.com were able to attest in this mostly Q and A formatted session.

Technorati has turned three says Dave Sifry and has rolled out a major update. Below is a screenshot and here’s the rundown from Sifry’s Alerts blog.

Well, here’s the first big announcement during ad:tech Chicago, Drew Ianni was appointed Chair, Programming.

ad:tech Executive Chair Susan Bratton, who oversaw the production of ad:tech Chicago comments: “Drew and I have been friends and colleagues for years, and I‚Äôm proud to announce him as my successor,” said Susan Bratton, CEO of Cendara, Inc. and new ad:tech advisory board Chair Emeritus. “I am excited to see him continue to grow ad:tech as a premium brand.”.

Ianni has a pretty extensive backround reaching back to 1995 with CKS and most recently with Sheridan Square Partners.

I am sitting here in my hotel room in Chicago getting things lined up for the ad:tech conference which is to start tommorrow. As I walked through the lobby I waved hi to Bruce Clay who was chatting with Dana Todd, no doubt strategizing their session for tomorrow morning, “Organic SEO Fireside Chat with the Experts”. I am looking forward to the session and will be covering it for the ad:tech blog. Both Bruce and Dana know their stuff to say the least.

• Ask.com just gets cooler and cooler: RSS Smart Answers - Example: Online Marketing Blog
• Matt Cutts on Google “Invalid Clicks” aka Click Fraud case.
• SEOmoz offers a breakdown on pricing for SEO: Basic - $30k. Full meal deal: $120k
• Searcher Behavior Research via Information Research
• Nielsen/Netratings: Google Domination Continues: 49.4% of all searches in June 2006.

Seth Godin takes a pass at flavoring search engine optimization as: passive vs active SEO. There’s nothing horribly bad about what he describes, it’s just not entirely spot-on accurate. There’s nothing really passive about SEO. It’s pretty active and ongoing. He compares passive (aka on-page optimization) with active (aka link building) and does make a good point about not having the same person do both.

In our SEO practice, on-page search engine optimization typically starts with keyword research, web site and competitor analysis and a content creation and optimization strategy. Title tags, meta, page text, anchor text links and overall site link structure as well as technical/code optimization fall into the “on-page” category as well.

Barry has posted the quadruple coverage for SES San Jose with Barry, Ben, Chris and I covering quite a few sessions of the conference for those that cannot attend. It’s also a good read if you’ve been to the conference and want to compare notes.

The sessions I’m covering include: Branding & Search, Blog & Feed Search SEO, News Search SEO, Big Site/ Big Brand SEM, Usability & SEO: Two Wins For The Price Of One. You can find more information on all of the sessions at the SES San Jose 2006 page. There’s a thread on the conference at Search Engine Watch forums and of course, the party info.

Award winning SEO blogger Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable and RustyBrick has started a new blog called the “Cartoon Barry Blog“. What will you find there?

• Summarized daily recaps
• Interactive Cartoon Barry, provided by SitePal, will also give short recaps virtually, click the play button here to see an example.
• Personal life things
• Business related things from RustyBrick
• Rants on anything, even search
• And more!

Spotlight on Blog Marketing Interview with Phil Hollows of FeedBlitz

And now for something completely different. Since so much of what’s covered here on Online Marketing Blog deals with the marketing of blogs, I thought adding some interviews with people involved with blog marketing would be of interest to our fast growing audience of readers.

Next week is the next installment of the most popular event for interactive marketers, ad:tech. This year’s Chicago conference promises outstanding keynotes on multicultural marketing, creativity and new ways for marketers to reach customers. Sessions range from search marketing to word of mouth to the development of personas.

The event will be covered on the ad:tech blog by Steve Hall of Adrants, David Berkowitz of 360i, Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing (me) and Carly Lesser from CDG Solutions. The sessions I plan on blogging include:

• Organic SEO Fireside Chat with the Experts - Monday 10:30

The news is out on the Blogbeat.net site and the FeedBurner blog of the blogbeat acquisition by FeedBurner. On the blogbeat site a comic newspaper “They Daily Analytic” headline reads, “FeedBurner Invasion! Planet blogbeat acquired by FeedBurner Overlords”.

Blogbeat functionality will be incorporated into FeedBurner’s StandardStats service and integration will be complete during fourth quarter 2006. Current blogbeat customers will get a refund as the new service is free. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Todd Defren posts a nice rundown on using del.icio.us for an online PR initiative for bzzagent. Deli.cio.us is used to create content of value to journalists covering WOMM - the word of mouth marketing industry of which bzzagent is the focus.

What are we doing here? Providing any writer who is interested in WOMM with a customized research page containing the top news in the space, including first-hand reaction — on a daily basis — by a WOMM industry pioneer. For media types, et al., who subscribe to the RSS feed of that del.icio.us page, that’s a daily dose of Thought Leadership!