Online Marketing Blog

One of the resources we often use when promoting blogs and RSS feeds is directory submissions. There are many kinds of directories to submit blogs to. There are blog-specific directories like Technorati and Best of the Web blog directory. There are also RSS specific directories and search engines like Feedster. Google blog search is a RSS search engine, but you cannot submit the blog directly. You can however, ping Google blog search, but pinging is only relevant for RSS feeds.

Besides blog and RSS specific search engines and directories can also submit blogs to regular directories that have categories for blogs, such as Yahoo.

Diligent as we are, here is another weekly update of the big list of search engine marketing blogs.

• Earner’s Blog - Stuart McKeown, a SEO from Melbourne, blogs about everything from AdSense to affiliate marketing.
• Search Marketing Blog - SEM in a box provider Adapt technologies blogs on PPC.
• 10,000 Marshmallows - Newer blog from ViaMetric about a wide range of marketing topics from corporate blogging to search marketing.
• Search Engine Marketing Musings of an Old School SEO - Anthony ?, a self proclaimed old school SEO blogs about, you guessed it, SEO!
• Kelsey Group Blogs - Group blog from Kelsey group about local media and yellow page online marketing.
• Internet Marketing Guide - SEOBuzzBox Aaron Pratt’s new SEO experiment.

There you have it!

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I haven’t participated in a blog meme for a while so Andy Beal who was tagged by Nathan who was tagged by Randy went and tagged me, so here goes:

1. Like Andy, I started blogging (Dec 2003) as a way to save information, comment on it and share with coworkers.
2. Blogging is a fantastic marketing tool. Our biggest clients ($30bn to $80bn) had read our blog for several months and then called to do business. What’s not to like about that sales cycle?
3. Blogging is a great connector for both online and offline social networking. People read our blog, say hi at conferences and many of those turn into friendships or business relationships. I also always mention our blog when I meet people offline or in interviews which often turns them into RSS subscribers.

Due to the Australia distraction we skipped last week’s update of the search marketing blogs list. We’re still holding a few blogs in queue to accumulate more content for those that might be wondering. Thanks to Amie Krone for helping out this week!

• SLI Systems - Dr. Shaun Ryan comments on the search industry from a site search vendor’s perspective.

• Michael Visser - The Australian blogger.

• Metaverse Business Blog - A blog about Second Life marketing.

• Web Analytic Matt - Simple solutions for a complex world from Matt Hopkins.

• The Online Marketing Guy - In-house SEM advice from a co-chair at SEMPO.

• FishSEO - Scott Fish keeps you up-to-date on the latest SEO news and techniques.

• Search Marketing Sage - Janet Driscoll Miller offers advice on SEO and PPC.

When reviewing search marketing blogs each week for inclusion in our big list, one of the most consistent problems we see is that blog owners don’t make it easy to subscribe. Either there is no icon for the RSS feed or it’s hidden way below the fold.

Something as easy as adding a prominient RSS button near the top of the blog template with the word “Subscribe” near it can increase the number of return visitors substantially. We’ve done this ourselves and we’re now just under 6,000 subscribers.

A study by Yahoo and Ipsos Insight supports the need to display RSS subscription options as blog readers were found to be far more likely to subscribe to a blog if they say a familiar graphic for their favorite RSS reader, whether it was Bloglines, MyYahoo or Google Reader. One solution is to use our free RSS button tool which has been used by over 50,000 blogs so far.

Yesterday I received an email from our new blog host. It reads:

This message is in regards to your (hosting company name) account “toprank”, which
resides on the server xxxx.hostingcompany.com.

Due to problems it was causing on the server, we were forced to disable the
following script located in your account:

/usr/www/users/toprank/tools/rss-buttons

For future reference, please take a look at our script usage policies:URL 1
URL 2

Please write to urgent@hostingcompany.com for information about having the script
reenabled.

If you have any questions about this script, please contact our friendly
support specialists at support@hostingcompany.com or xxx-xxx-xxxx (option 2).

Sincerely,
The Hosting Company Support Team

Spam is one of those features that comes with a blog and stopping it isn’t quite as easy as it should be. Here are a few ideas to help you out.

1. Install Akismet - This has to be one of the best plugins. The downside is they’d like you pay if you get a ton of spam. After all, it is the nice thing to do. For the average user though, it’s free.
2. Install Spam Karma - Excellent plugin that can stop a flood of spam comments. It works great and it’s completely free.
3. Install a captcha. It can be as easy as 2+2=? or it could be one of those letter puzzles. Personally I prefer the math ones as long as it’s not something like “What’s 28×5″. Keep it simple as I think 2+8 works just as good.

Search Engine Room here in Sydney has officially wrapped up and it’s back to business for us. Well, sort of. The time difference between Australia and back home makes things a little tricky but thanks to Email and a great team, the show goes on. We’ll have 4 days to check out Sydney, which is both awesome and a crime since we’ve come so far and there’s so much to see. Maybe next time it can be a longer stay.

Photo Courtesy Michael Visser

On day two I presented on a panel called, “Blog Marketing and Optimisation” with Andrew Pascoe (second from right below) who writes the Under The Rotunda blog and gave a great introduction to blogging as well as methods of deriving traffic via search and aggregation sites like Techmeme and Digg.

Susan and I made it to Sydney, Australia early this morning and go to watch the sun rise over Eastern Australia during the descent. After a few hours getting through customs, then getting our bags x-rayed on the way out and then getting checked again to get into a line to get to the exit of the airport, we made it outside for the line to the taxis. It might have been a lot of hurry up and wait, but we were just thankful to be outside in the fresh air.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a presentation on SEO and Public Relations. The buzz about SEO and PR has been strong the past few years, especially with Greg Jarboe, Jamie O’Donnel, Sally Falkow, Amanda Watlington and many others including TopRank making significant headway into developing new strategies and tactics for clients.

After getting into the Chicago Hilton, a familar place from SES conferences, I walked the 3-4 blogs to the Columbia University campus where Bulldog Reporter was holding the Advanced PR Technology event. Greg Jarboe and I switched the time of our session with Katie Paine so she could make a plane to Dubai.

Regrettably I did not join the event in the am when it started and missed a number of fantastic speakers including Debbie Weil, but I did get to meet her for the first time. We are fellow bloggers over at Business Blog Consulting. Shel Israel blogged about Phil Gomes presentation here.

Not many additions this week although we have quite a few in the queue. Most of them are very new blogs and need to get some more content before we can add them. Here’s the updated search marketing blogs list, the OPML file and the text list.

• V7N Search Marketing News - Peter Da Vanzo blogs on search marketing industry news and recently some great how to’s.
• RedFly Search Engine Marketing Blog - Dave Davis offers some great insight as a “solo seo” from Ireland.
• ContextWeb Internet Advertising Blog - John Ebbert writes about online and contextual advertising with info for publishers and advertisers.

Blogging Guidelines:

• Add value - this is a given, but you’d be surprised. Write original content or truly insightful commentary on industry news.

I nearly missed mentioning this. Daniel over at Daily Blog Tips does an interesting form of interview where he asks two people the same questions and posts their replies as a sort of “face off”.

In the past he’s done this with Darren Rowse and Jeremy Shoemaker as well as John Chow and Matt Coddington. This week he did such an interview with Rand Fishkin and myself, which might have been better if it were with Rand and Danny or Rand and Matt Cutts, but hey I’m not complaining.
It’s not much of a faceoff since SEOmoz gets 10 times the traffic Online Marketing Blog does. Despite that, many of our answers are quite similar with the exception of the questions about reading just one blog and a one word description that describes the reason for blog success. Thank you Daniel for the exposure!

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