Online Marketing Blog

In our continuing coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, we’re shooting periodic video interviews both in the speaker ready room and a few on the exhibit floor.

In this interview Steven Marder of Eurekster talks about how their Swicki product works both for online publishers to attract and monetize traffic as well as serve as a useful web site marketing tool for SEO efforts.

Search engine optimization in English provides substantial challenges for most companies, but what about SEO in 20 different languages? When you drill down into it, there’s a lot “lost in translation” when most companies perform content optimization in different languages.

In this video interview from the Exhibit Hall at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, my long time friend Andy Atkins Kruger of UK-based WebCertain takes a few moments to answer questions about multilingual SEO as well as some of the common challenges that come about when optimizing content not only in other languages but also dealing with corporate speak in those languages.

Our plan is to bring multiple TopRank team members to SES San Jose next month and each will be blogging different sessions. This will free me up significantly to do video interviews, take photos and other more creative conference coverage. Everything will be posted here at Online Marketing Blog so be sure to tune in August 20-23rd if you’re unable to attend SES San Jose.

So, my question to you dear Online Marketing Blog readers, is what search marketers would you like to see text and/or video interviews with? What are the top 2-3 questions you’d like asked?

I went the lazy but entertaining route and took some video of the “Search Insiders Tell All” session yesterday afternoon that included David Berkowitz, Aaron Goldman, Bob Heyman and Gord Hotchkiss.

Here the “Search Insiders” about personalization, brand stewardship, Google DoubleClick and the disparity in standards applied to search marketing that are not applied to TV or direct response marketing.

Here is a discussion of video search, advertising and marketing.

We are all about the social media on this blog and our coverage of conferences with interviews, photos and below a few videos.

Here is the programming chair of the conference, David Berkowitz talking about how this is the biggest Search Insider Summit yet as well as the kinds of topics that drove the programming ranging from innovative search technology to click fraud to mobile marketing.

I also caught up with Cam Balzer of GoogleClick Performics oops, I mean DoubleClick Performics. As tempting as it was to ask Cam about Google’s acquisition of a company that provides natural and paid search marketing services, I kept it PC.

The first of the breakout sessions was a choice between click fraud and this session on video search optimization. This was an easy choice since video optimization is an important component of social media campaigns and we like the social media here at Online Marketing Blog.

The session was moderated by Matt Spiegel of Resolution Media and speakers included: Chase Norlin from Pixsy, Scott Rhodes of VeoTag, Christy Tanner of TV Guide and Dan Perry from Cars.com.

Matt Spiegel: Is online video search for entertainment or other purposes?

The day started with a sponsored breakfast by Compete.com with a presentation by Jeremy Crane on Compete functionality. I came a bit late so I did not catch the entire presentation, but one interesting tidbit that I caught concerned the reporting of an Attention metric. What percent of users are visiting a particular site compared to others over time. This is particularly interesting considering sites that are engaged in significant PR and buzz generation.

Compete is also offering search marketing related competitive intelligence reporting similar to Keyword Discovery CI and basic levels of Hitwise. Compete is looking for beta testers also.

I was able to do just two video interviews before my camera got dropped in a glass of water. I’ll have to explain that in another post.

Here’s Michael Gray, aka graywolf, just before our session with Todd Mailicoat and Neil Patel on “Social Bookmark Strategies” where he talks about tips for conference goers. Coverage of that session can be found at The Lisa, Search Engine Roundtable, Small Business SEM and CenterNetworks.

I also caught up with Mona Elesseily from Page Zero where she talks about Yahoo Panama pros and cons. Also two new Panama enhancements: Quality based bidding and being able to opt out of Yahoo’s content network.

Unfortunately I missed Day 1 of the SES conference but day two did provide a few opportunities for me to do a few short video interviews. Below you can get a glimpse from Bryan Eisenberg, Loren Baker and Dana Todd.

Bryan Eisenberg from Future Now and a two time best selling author, talks about all the resources his company has put together for Google Optimizer. His company has recently become an authorized consultant for Google Optimizer.

Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal steps up and talks about his thoughts on Search Engine Strategies as well as a tip on marketing with social media.

The WebProNews video blog posted an interview Mike McDonald did with myself and Stephan Spencer during the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference where we talk about marketing and public relations issues with blogs and social media.

Congrats to Mike, Chris and Richard on a great job with these videos!

Stacy Williams is a long time search marketer in Atlanta and I’ve known her and partner/husband Matt for about 3 years. Stacy is a long time Search Engine Strategies speaker and is equally adept in the SEO and SEM fields. At Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Stacy had a few very interesting things to say about search engines making modifications to campaign creative, match type and ad status without notifying the advertiser.

In this video interview, I asked Stacy to elaborate and she provided three specific examples. I hope someone from the search engines reads this and offers insight into why these things happen.

I’ve casually known Laura Thieme of BizResearch for about 2 years but for some reason our paths crossed repeatedly at the recent Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference. First it was the in the speaker ready room, then the most excellent Vintage Tub and Bath SES Dinner (yeah Allan!) where I sat across the table from her team members Traci and Jessica, then again during the conference, then the ClickTracks party and finally on the last day of the conference when I asked her to do a short interview.