Online Marketing Blog

If you’ve been in the search marketing industry for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a wide variety of conflicting or outdated advice. Since “how to” information in so many other industries is often presented as an absolute, many people look for the same kinds of static and perpetual rules with search engine optimization. The problem comes from not discerning SEO myth and speculation from fact which can be a very costly mistake.

Moderated by Matt Van Wagner, this session (SEO Don’ts, Myths and Scams) included some of the most experienced SEO practitioners in the business with Jill Whalen of High Rankings, Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit and Lyndsay Walker from WestJet.

Search engines love text and people love engaging content. This message was made clear during the SES session on Podcast & Audio Search Optimization where Daron Babin of Webmaster Radio, Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit and Rick Klau of Google presented on the opportunities of search marketing with audio.

Audio search has come a long way and still, we’ve barely tapped into the full potential for audio content.
But why should we podcast? Watlington tells us that the value of audio content lies in its ability to create and foster an emotional connection with the audience. It is yet another opportunity to engage users while adding a human context to the message.

Spotlight on Search - Interview with Amanda G. Watlington, Ph.D., APR of Searching for Profit

Photo by Jeremy Zawodny

I first bumped into Amanda Watlington via AIM, (Association for Interactive Marketing) and then in person at a WebmasterWorld Pubcon conference several years ago. Further collaboration occurred through involvement with the next iteration of AIM, the Direct Marketing Association’s Search Engine Marketing Council, of which Amanda was a past chair.

Amanda is famous for her in-depth knowledge of blogs, RSS and podcasting and she has one of the first popular books on the subject. However, this long time marketer’s roots are in public relations and she also has an extensive background with search marketing.

The podcast and audio search session was very good. It started with Amanda Watlington giving an overview of of podcasting. Other speakers included Darion Babin of Webmaster Radio and Rick Klau of Feedburner. They all made excellent points on podcasting. Takeaway points included:

• Bandwidth can be costly, but it’s worth it.
• Don’t just get into iTunes, submit podcasts everywhere.
• Make it as easy as possible for users to subscribe.
• Quality does matter so get good software, a good microphone and a pop screen.
• Prepare for growth.
• Always transcribe your shows and make that accessible to search engines.

The one session that I was able to blog at the ACCM show this week in Chicago was, “Top Three Search Marketing Opportunities for Merchants” which combined blogs and social media with paid inclusion and shopping search engines.

The session was moderated by Heather Lloyd-Martin, who opened up with: “There’s no secret sauce in search. But there are things that catalog marketers might no know about. There are things they can leverage.”

Heather asked the audience, “How many of you have B2B catalogs?” About a third of the audience raised their hands.

First up was Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit.

eComXpo is coming up next week April 4-6 and offers a great lineup of online marketing presentations with keynotes by Bryan Eisenberg, Author of “Call to Action”, Anne Holland Founder of MarketingSherpa and Geoff Ramsey CEO of eMarketer .

I am participating on a panel called the Big Blog 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM on Wednesday April 5th. The session is moderated by Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit and includes co-panelists: Constantin Basturea of Converseon and Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR.com.