Online Marketing Blog

On a sunny, warm day in Minneapolis, marketers gathered near one of the city’s best attractions – LakeCalhoun – to learn about “Search and the Connected Consumer”, a view of how people retrieve information online and what that means for the future online and search engine marketing.

Hosted by MIMA, the event featured Mike Grehan, Global VP Content, Search Engine Watch, ClickZ & Search Engine Strategies.

Mike started by educating the audience on the history of the World Wide Web and the Internet (note: they are not one in the same).

If you’ve exhibited, presented or moderated a Search Engine Strategies conference, it’s more than likely that you’ve had the opportunity to meet Stewart Quealy, VP, Content Development at Incisive Media, parent company to Search Engine Strategies, Search Engine Watch and ClickZ. Stewart (L), along with Mike Grehan (R) were recently named co-chairs of the SES Advisory Board, which is charged with shaping the future direction and ongoing growth of the SES conference.

The SEM legend, Mike Grehan, is global KDM officer with New York based Acronym Media. He’s been involved with online marketing since 1995 and is recognized in the industry as an expert in the search marketing field. He’s programmed many SES London events and has written multiple books and white papers on search marketing.

Sometimes a Monday blog post deserves a good collection of links:

• The Fox on viral link building and listening to your audience
• Smackdown on Matt Cutts re: spanking SEO blogs
• Jeff Jarvis @TheGuardian and the social whirl driving the development of search
• eMarketer says B2B’s are buzzing over Marketing 2.0
• Vox on Video: Measuring engagement of user generated video
• SEO Lowdown on the LED: “You’re doing the SEM industry a dis-service by characterizing the level or complexity of SEO work according to the size of a company.”
• Grehan Clickz’s the SEO and Public Relations connection. Mike, what took you so long?
• Speaking of PR and Search, be sure to check out Himler, Bradfield, Miele and Odden @PRSA Webinar on PR and Social Media Feb 26

Day Two coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose:  The Popular Kids Have Good Content 

Tuesday morning was the morning to learn about link building. As a linking specialist at TopRank, I knew I would learn a lot, and review what I already know, in this session by listening to Mike Grehan and Christine Churchill.

The topics we focused on this morning were ways to increase a website’s ranking, such as link requests, paid links and reputable links from authority sites.

However, the absolute basic thing you must remember before linking is that you need to have something to offer the readers. Mike Grehan asked us “Why should your site rank high?”

Spotlight on Search: Interview with Mike Grehan

Photo credit: webmoxy

One of the most popular categories of content we publish at Online Marketing Blog is the interviews. Recently, we ran a poll asking OMB readers for suggestions on people we should interview in anticipation of SES San Jose. There were some great suggestions and I’ve just started contacting a few folks as well as their mega company PR depts for pre-approval.

A book author, popular columnist at ClickZ, sought after public speaker and man about town, Mike recently joined the Bruce Clay organization as VP International Business Development and even more recently, was named the chairperson for the 2008 Search Engine Strategies conference in London.

According to the Bruce Clay blog, Mike Grehan has joined Bruce Clay as VP of International Business Development. Congrats to both Bruce Clay and Mike as BC gets a very high profile SEO rockstar and Mike gets to continue flying around the world doing that SEO thing.

You may also recall that last week Bill Slawski joined Commerce 360. If you’d asked Bill what he’d be doing now a year ago, working for another company probably wouldn’t be it. However, Bill’s a very smart fellow and Li along with the Commerce 360 team are very fortunate to have him.

Google has released Google Gears, which is intended to provide developers a way to create offline versions of online applications. Google Gears already works with Google Reader and Barry has a nice post illustrating that. Some speculate that this is another effort by Google to compete with Microsoft. More at SEW and the official Google Gears blog.

So I check my email today and what do I see?

An email from Andy Beal looking at me.

I open the email and read what’s inside.

Andy Beal is changing his tide! (buzz off, it rhymes)

Where will he go, what will he say, in his Texas-drawl mixed with a lingering British accent, sort of way?

The answer young pilgrim fan, will be found in San Jose.

We wish him good luck and more fortune than he’s had. (sorry FI, no link for you!)

Starting a SEO company can’t always be bad.

Perhaps Andy and a different Mike will join forces, a good match don’t you think?

Wherever they go, let’s wish them something that rhymes with think.

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Actually, some of these were from yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to post about them.

Aaron Wall interviews Seth Godin

Mike Grehan interviews Matt Cutts – Podcast Part 1, Podcast Part 2

Danny Sullivan chats up Matt Cutts on SEO Rockstars – via TW. Show was live last night, and should be available in the archive in a few days.

Google indexing timeline – Matt Cutts