Online Marketing Blog

As part of our media sponsorship of the SMX series of conferences, I’ve been picked as the TopRank blogger to visit the Bay Area next month for SMX West - Feb 26-28, 2008 in Santa Clara, CA.

Looking at the agenda for the 3 day conference, one can tell that there are big shifts taking place in the search industry, specifically the transition from ‘old SEO’ (i.e. the optimize and wait approach) to ‘new SEO’ (i.e. optimize, then promote promote promote approach). Validating this transition, many session titles include topics such as ‘Search 3.0′, ‘Search 4.0′ and the ‘Blended Search Revolution’.

Not too long ago I queried a number of online marketing and public relations peers ranging from Aaron Wall, Matt McGee and Neil Patel to Todd Defren, Triss Hussey and Peter Himler about sharing a few of their social media marketing tips. Out of that informal survey in combination with community specific solicitations came posts about marketing with MyBlogLog and Twitter.

However, there are many more social media communities and channels besides MBL and Twitter that I received tips on and from very reputable sources which you’ll find below. Enjoy!

[Note from Lee: We tend to get a bit heavy on the industry observations and strategy, so a nice tactics/tools post is in order. ]

There are many different tools out there for SEO’s to use on a website. Each one has different features and benefits depending on how you use them. That’s why TopRank provides SEO Tool Reviews from time to time. We showcase different tools that you may or may not know about. Some free, some paid, all good.

Late in 2007 the SEMPO Institute released several search marketing-focused online training courses. The first course, Fundamentals of Search Marketing, offers 14 different lessons encompassing the basics of SEM and SEO. To get a sense of what was offered, our CEO Lee Odden asked my coworker Jeff Nolan and I to take the Fundamentals course and write up a blog post.

The SEMPO Institute Fundamentals SEM course is designed for people who are new to the search industry and those who have been in traditional marketing and are now opening up to search marketing as a new career.

Sometimes a Monday blog post deserves a good collection of links:

• The Fox on viral link building and listening to your audience
• Smackdown on Matt Cutts re: spanking SEO blogs
• Jeff Jarvis @TheGuardian and the social whirl driving the development of search
• eMarketer says B2B’s are buzzing over Marketing 2.0
• Vox on Video: Measuring engagement of user generated video
• SEO Lowdown on the LED: “You’re doing the SEM industry a dis-service by characterizing the level or complexity of SEO work according to the size of a company.”

Keeping up with the BIGLIST while traveling is usually not an issue. When the hotel I’m in offers nothing better than voodoo psycho internet Miami-style, that’s another matter. But, better late than never. Starting with 15 blogs in this week’s queue, only the 5 below made the cut.

The original blog post that announced the BIGLIST has been nominated for the “SEMMYS“.  Judges have now made that post a finalist in the “Blogs” category. Please be sure to vote for “Must Read Search Marketing Blogs” by Jan 30th.

[Note from Lee: While Susan, Jolina and I are in Miami at a private client conference for one of the largest companies in the world, it seemed particularly relevant for Jolina to write a quick post about enterprise SEO. Jolina's presentation today to roughly 30 different business units as well as corporate communications, PR and IT simply kicked ass.]

While the vast majority of search engine optimization projects performed by search marketing agencies are for small and medium sized businesses, SEO for large and complex organizations takes a unique combination of finesse and consideration.

One of the (if not THE) fastest growing conferences over the past year has been Search Marketing Expo. A real world compliment to the successful Search Engine Land blog, the Sphinn community and Search Marketing Now webinars, the SMX shows have brought both a familiar (Danny and crew) and unique flavor to the search marketing conference circuit.

SMX West is coming up fast on February 26-28, 2008 in Santa Clara, CA and offers:

• 50 different sessions
• 13 different tracks
• 3 different ways to attend (All Access, Networking or Exhibits-Only)

[SEO and social media marketing TopRank team member Jeff Nolan has stepped up to the plate, or in this case, onto the green and submitted the following post about marketing within social media communities using golf as a metaphor. Enjoy!]

Many regular readers of Online Marketing Blog are well aware of our location amidst the cold and frozen land of Minnesota. This gets me thinking about many hobbies this time of year, most notably how I wish there were boats on the lake across from the office rather than ice houses, and that instead of building links daily, I was hitting the links daily.

A recent report from Hitwise cited Facebook as having grown by 51% yet MySpace is still King of the online social networking world with 76% of US social network traffic. According to Nielsen Online, MySpace attracted 60.1 million visitors in December 2007 compared to 22.6 million visitors for Facebook.

While that growth news is all fine a good, from a personal observation standpoint, I’ve noticed I’m not logging into Facebook much anymore. Many of the updates I get are irrelevant to my interests as more and more people try to boost their friend counts and I mistakenly (in hindsight) accept those requests.

Another freezing week here in Minnesota means less time outside and more time checking out new search marketing blogs. I present to you dear readers, this week’s additions to the BIGLIST of SEO and Search Marketing Blogs.

• B(abble)log - A.C. (Anne Charlotte) Riley is a tenured online marketer and copywriter that blogs about all manner of marketing topics.

• Inside Facebook - Justin Smith, Jonathan Lipps and Collin Smillie blog about Facebook inside and out.

• NowSourcing - With Brian Wallace social media is the name of the game.

In this month’s Target Marketing Magazine, a TopRank authored article on how small businesses can gain a competitive marketing advantage by leveraging content promotion, blogs, social media and universal search was featured. Recently there has been some dialog and commentary on certain SEM channels about upcoming harder economic times calling for SEO to be taken back to the basics: “Textbook SEO” as Mike Grehan would put it. I disagree with the premise that companies should stop experimenting with new tactics and stick with the fundamentals. Effective SEO in any economic environment means getting more creative, not mundane.