Online Marketing Blog

Today’s Orion panel at SES NY really took a different spin on the topic of universal search. I went in expecting to hear the same info  about what it is, how info is gathered and how to optimize for universal search. Which, if you are interested, can be read about in a previous SES Chicago post regarding universal search.

This session was moderated by Kevin Ryan and Mike Grehan. The session was lively and engaging. Panelists included:
John Battelle from Federated Media, James Lamberti from comScore, Lyndsay Menzies from Big Mouth Media and Jack Menzel from Google.

Google hosted a party last night at SMX West, entitled Google Groove. And groovy, it was.

Andy Beal and other SMXers enjoying the party

Main bar, all in Google Colors

SMXers playing Rockband

SMXers enjoying drinks, notice the colorful Google cups, which people went crazy over

Blinky Google spheres, also very popular

Check out all of the photos at TopRank’s SMX West Flickr set.

The Expo Hall at SMX West opened today. Take a peak.

Strolling the floor

Folks chatting with Google

Folks chatting with Live

More SMXers

Check out all of the photos at TopRank’s SMX West Flickr set.

On day one of SES London I was able to catch up with Google Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik to do a short (10 min) video on several topics important to web masters looking for better results on Google. Adam starts with a descrption of his responsibilities at Google and then answers questions about Google compliant Flash and JavaScript, duplicate content - especially with press releases and suggested uses of internal site nofollow other than for “PageRank sculpting”.

Google Analytics is a great program that can do a lot more than most people realize. Here are a few features that you may not know about:

• Capture internal search stats. This is a newer feature of Google Analytics and a very nice one. Not only can you see what a visitor put into your internal search box, but what page they were on when they made the search and what page they chose in the search results. Any internal search will work as long as it passes the search variable through the URL. Here’s a short video interview with Google’s Brett Crosby on some of those features.

At the SIS conference last week there were a number of DoubleClick employees in attendance. In fact, I sat next to Cam Blazer during dinner one night and any speculation or questions about Google and the acquisition approval from the FTC had to be answered with a “We’ll have to see” sort of answer.

Well, now the Google DoubleClick deal is official and the news is lighting up the web.

I for one, would love to get a few questions answered, like “How does it work for a search engine to own an agency that provides PPC and SEO services like DoubleClick Performics?”

While walking the WebmasterWorld Pubcon exhibit hall floor I ran into Brett Crosby from Google. We talked about some of the new enhancements that have been added to Google Analytics. The addition of site search tracking in Google Analytics was of particular interest to me and I thought I would share here.

Be sure to check out the TopRank channel on YouTube for more SEO interviews.

Whether you’re part of the search industry or just affected by it, you’ve probably not only grown used to change but are excited by it.

Attending a session this morning about personalized and universal search, we had a panel full of excited folks and audience members all bursting at the seams to discuss what these two types of search bring.

Panelists included:

Moderator:
Greg Jarboe, President and Co-Founder, SEO-PR

Speakers:
Dave Davies, CEO, Beanstalk
Jonathan Mendez, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, OTTO Digital
Richard Zwicky, Founder and CEO, Enquisite
Aaron D’Souza, Software Engineer, Google
Bill Barnes, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President, Enquiro Search Solutions Inc.
James Colborn, Director, US Trade Marketing, Microsoft Corporation

I recently discovered a test AdWords account setup by an ex-staffer and while there was never any activity, it didn’t make sense to keep the AdWords or User account live since it would never be used. A cancel request was sent to Google and this was the response:

“Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear that you want to cancel your AdWords account. After reviewing your account, I see that you have not submitted your billing information, so your account was never activated. Therefore, you are not getting the option to cancel your account.”

The hot potato in social media this week is the OpenSocial web standards initiative (see screenshots here) promoted by Google involving numerous social applications, platforms and partners including: Ning, LinkedIn, Friendster, Oracle, Plaxo, Orkut, Salesforce, iLike, and Slide. Reported first on TechCrunch, “OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks”. That information includes: profiles, friends and activities.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource for any site owner. It’s designed to inform webmasters about how Google bot is interacting with their website. It gives detailed information on broken links, popular keywords and how often Google is stopping by. It’s Googles way of giving site owners the information that they need to be successful.

The Setup

Getting started with Google Webmaster Tools is not to difficult. The first thing you’ll need is a Google account. Since all Google services use the same login, you may already be setup. If you have Gmail, Adwords, Analytics, iGoogle or one of the many other services, then you are ready to go. If not, sign up for a free Google Account.

The buzz in the search marketing media and increasingly, the business press, on the importance of unified or universal search is gaining momentum and is unavoidable. Small and medium sized business web site owners and webmasters are now presented with the challenge of making sense out of the recent rash of search engine interface and functional improvements and how to adjust their online marketing efforts accordingly. Many are not sure what to do. Hopefully this short guide will shed light on the fundamentals and give some basic direction on next steps.