Online Marketing Blog

I’ve had a standing request for an interview with Bruce Clay for about a year now and we finally decided to just do a short one on video, which works for me and I think it will work for you as well.

Bruce Clay is one of the best known brands in the world of search marketing and if you attend Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld Pubcon or ad:tech conferences, you’re sure to see him and his team on the exhibit hall and/or presenting to attendees. Thousands of people have used his SEO tools and participated in his company’s SEO training programs.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, maybe that should be Neil and Cameron of Advantage Consulting Services, since they are not strangers to after conference festivities nor are they strangers to some of the most successful social media optimization campaigns being run in the SEO industry. Cameron covers the fun part and Neil talks about the SMO or social media optimization panel he spoke on regarding Wikipedia.

Cameron and Neil write an excellent blog at Pronet Advertising.

Next up in our series of SEO videos from Search Engine Strategies here in windy and cold Chicago is Joshua Stylman and Peter Hershberg from Reprise Media. In this short interview they talk about the multiple sessions each of them are presenting as well as commentary on the search marketing industry.

Reprise Media also publishes a well-written blog called Search Views.

Stephan Spencer from Netconcepts traveled to Chicago all the way from New Zealand and shares information about the blog SEO session here at Search Engine Strategies Chicago where he’s presenting on RSS feed optimization. He also talks about his daughter’s success with optimizing her Neopets blog and he offers tips for search engine conference attendees.

Stephan writes for several blogs, most notably, Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings.

In the tradition established this summer at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, there are more video interviews here in Chicago with interesting people that work in the search marketing industry. I’ve been shooting short videos with my trusty Sony Cybershot which you can see below.

First up is Gord Hotchkiss from Enquiro who discusses a few details of their most recent eyetracking report which compares Google, Yahoo and MSN search results. Online Marketing Blog did a short review of this report in November.

You can find out more about Enquiro here and Gord writes a handy blog over at Out of my Gord.

Lately I’ve noticed a few mainstream web publications making concerted efforts to solicit user generated content. Enabling consumers to submit news gives media access to millions of potential stories they might otherwise not know about, or not have a scoop on. I know our local (and likely national) public radio station has been soliciting user generated content and news stories for at least a year and so do some TV stations. Also, Topix.net allows users to interact with news stories on their forums which, according to Topix.net founder Rich Skrenta, has enabled a big boost in traffic.

One category of social media optimization that’s growing tremendously is online video sharing and social video search web sites.

This session on Video Search Optimization at the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference was moderated by Chris Sherman and included Eric Papczun from Performics, Jon Leicht from Intuit and Gregory Markel from Infuse Creative. There was just a hint of a competitive flavor in this early Monday morning session, which made it a little more interesting.

For the most part, the session focused on the fundamentals of SEO. The basic concepts that are appropriate for search engine optimization also apply for video search optimization with a focus on “textbook SEO” tactics.

I just noticed today that AllBusiness.com had posted the basic SEO videos from the shoot we did a month ago or so. Most of them are pretty short little snippets and turned out ok, but I think we’ll shoot some in our office so we can do multiple takes. I had very little sleep the night before and it appears my facial muscles have a mind of their own.

Earlier this month Brian Clark of Copyblogger launched a new service called tubetorial. The site offers video and screencast “how to’s” on several topics including:

• Web development and technology tips
• Internet marketing strategies and techniques
• Legal issues for Internet content producers and marketers

More than that, Brian offers some great insight into Internet business models and the selling of information. Tubetorial produces videos on their own and are also accepting viewer submitted videos. I really liked the idea and pinged Brian for more info on tubetorial. (links were added by me)

Here are a few more videos from Search Engine Strategies San Jose. Matt Bailey - SiteLogic, Andy Beal - Marketing Pilgrim and a short clip from Danny Sullivan’s talk with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. You can listen to the full discussion over at WebmasterRadio.FM.

Matt Bailey in between sessions talks about wookiepedia. I had no idea Matt was a Star Wars fan.

Andy Beal before the Ask.com blogger dinner talks about the “lunatic fringe” of search marketing.

And here’s a short clip of Danny Sullivan and Google CEO Eric Schmidt answering a question from the audience about whether Google will start allowing users to monetize the use of their own clickstream data.

After hearing at several sessions and in the media about the rise of online video, I decided to try something different here at SES San Jose. Armed with a slick Sony Cybershot camera that takes decent video, I’ve started to ask people what they think of this year’s SES San Jose conference. These are very short clips, 30 seconds to 1 min, but provide an interesting view of the people at the conference on what’s happening and what they think.

Here’s one with Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable in the conference Press Room: