Online Marketing Blog

In a recent conversation with a big brand company conducting their search marketing vendor selection process, I was asked what “our angle” was. What makes TopRank different from other SEO firms?

The question was followed up with the observations that other SEO vendors this company had talked to all seemed to distinguish themselves by focusing on certain aspects of search engine optimization. Some focused on content, some relied on links and others focused on code and the technical side of SEO.

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When you size up the search marketing industry, you really have to marvel at all the different information sources, many of them conflicting, and how search marketers are able to stay on top of what’s current and relevant compared to noise and malarkey.

In the course of talking to prospective clients, prospective business partners, attending conferences and events, reading blogs, books, discussion threads, forums, newsletters and industry publications, you can get exposure to an amazing variety of observations about SEO. Many of them are spot-on. Some of them are tales of a mythical nature. A few are just plain bunk.

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A group blog I write for on occassion is hosting a carnival of customer service and invited the group to contribute. This is a business blog directed towards small and medium sized businesses on issues ranging from legal considerations to SEO. The invite made me think about how SEO can affect a customer’s experience with a site and it’s brand.

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Today I’ll be doing a presentation called, “The Truth About Search Engine Optimization” as part of the Visi Data Center 2.0 event.

Basically, the presentation will cover:

• The current search engine landscape
• 5 Myths about SEO
• 5 SEO Tactics To Use Now

I believe there are 400-600 people registered, so it should be a great event. I suspect there may be a few competing (or coopetive) local firms and SEO consultants there, which is good for them because I’m giving out a lot of information in my 30 minutes. However, the presentation is meant for business owners that want to learn more reliable information about what SEO is and what it is not.

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One of the interesting and sometimes challenging things about working in the search marketing business is dealing with the amount of mis-information and lack of understanding about SEO and marketing in general.

When you have an abundance of new business inquires and don’t need to do much outreach through inside or outside sales, it’s a very different situation than a newer company trying to get into the SEO market and build up a base of clients.

With more established companies that have a good reputation in the marketplace and an established client base, less time is spent evangelizing the notion of marketing via search than helping prospective clients understand how their unique online marketing problems can be solved.

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WebmasterWorld has an interesting thread pointing out a seminar to be held Sept 18th at Catholic University called, “Optimizing Your Websites for Google Search”. What’s interesting about it is that the seminar is being taught by Adam Lasnik from Google for a measly $30. Here’s the description:

“If you build it, they will come.”

What do you do when you aren’t getting the traffic from search engines that you expected? We’ll cover the basics of how search engines work and how you can successfully adjust your site to be both human and search-engine-friendly. From live site dissections (no holds barred!) to jargon-busting (what’s a 301 redirect and why should you care?) to lots of Q&A, this session will be absolutely interactive and packed full with actionable information.

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Aaron wall opened today with a great post, “The Myth of a Perfectly Optimized Page” where he talks about temporary nature of most optimization and that long term, it is the creation of useful content that matters most.

My favorite quote from Aaron: “…the web is such a social medium that it requires understanding people far more than algorithms.” Bingo.

I’m banking on the notion that the future of successful optimization is focused on the creative, not the technical aspects search marketing. SEO in the early days had more to do with code manipulation than content. Today we have offline to online integration, social search, viral search marketing (link baiting), tagging, new media public relations and so forth.

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I see Matt has added 3 more videos including:

Session 4: Dynamic URLs, Sitemaps and Geotargeting
Session 5: (Adds background) 301 Redirects, Content Themes, Dynamic to Static URLs and Split A/B Testing
Session 6: Supplemental Results
I think there is a lot more to learn from this than just the content of Matt’s videos. It’s also an exellent example of creating excellent content which can produce an abundance of links and traffic.

Maybe “RocketGoogle” isn’t such a great name. Since these are really the opinions of Matt Cutts and not Google per se, then maybe RocketMatt? Or MattBoom?¬† Oh, and be sure to note the disclaimer.

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Matt Cutts of Google has posted some videos of himself answering reader mail on different topics related to SEO:

• Session 1: Including qualities of a good site.
• Session 2: Including some SEO Myths.
• Session 3: Should you Optimize for Search Engines or for Users?

Seeing someone explain a thing is a much different experience than reading about it, especially for people just learning about search engine optimization.

A little over a week ago, Matt made a post about what direction to take his blog. There were a huge number of responses and I tossed one in:

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As part of the ongoing coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006 Online Marketing Blog is doing for the ad:tech blog, here is the first installment on the sessions about SEO that I was able to attend. Above is a photo of (L to R) Dana Todd, Bruce Clay and Fionn Downhill. Bruce is actually wearing a tie!
While there was no fireplace, there certainly was a good share of chatting in this session on organic search engine optimization. Introductions were handled by Fionn Downhill of Elixir Systems (I love her accent) to a room that was surprisingly 1/2 full. Perhaps search marketing is losing some of its luster with the ad:tech crowd? The need for SEO certainly hasn’t abated as Dana Todd of¬†SiteLab and Bruce Clay of BruceClay.com were able to attest in this mostly Q and A formatted session.

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Spotlight on Search Interview with Laura Lippay, SEO Program Manager for Yahoo

We’ve been on a bit of a “Spotlight on Search Interview” hiatus the past few weeks, but I can assure you this one is worth the wait. Today we have a very nice interview with Laura Lippay, SEO Program Manager for Yahoo Media Group. I first became aware of Laura’s SEO wisdom via her animated stick figure avatar in Jill Whalen’s High Rankings SEO forum. Dispensing excellent advice to newbies and old timers alike, Laura has gone from circus performer extraordinaire to Flash-superstar-wannabe to a dream gig as an in-house SEO for Yahoo. I want to say thank you to the exceptionally thorough legal and marketing folks at Yahoo for letting Laura do this interview. Now on to the good stuff.

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I get to talk to a wide variety of prospective clients about search engine optimization and internet marketing in general. The amount of information about what search engine optimization is, is as varied as the motivations of the companies that employ it. To help companies understand the various aspects of SEO, I often make comparisons to things just about everyone can relate to. So here are a few reasons why effective SEO is like successful weight loss.

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