Online Marketing Blog

Day two at SES Chicago opened with a keynote speech from Seth Godin talking about Meatball Sundaes.
So what’s this Meatball Sundae all about?

Let’s break it down first: The meatballs are the core of the organization whether it’s products, services or traditional marketing.

The sundae, the whipped topping, nuts, sprinkles and cherry is what new marketing provides including channels like social media.

I’m sure we can all agree that a meatball sundae does not sound appetizing, but they’re being created across organizations with marketers trying to force traditional messages into new online channels.

So many blogs and so little time! This week’s BIGLIST update brings you a mix of blogs covering analytics, social media, entrepreneurship, emerging media and a nice SEO aggregator.

• Leveraging Ideas - Sam Huleatt, a Brooklyn-based Internet entrepreneur & strategy guru writes about the social media space, strategies and entreprenuership.
• Analytics Talk - Justin Cutroni of EpikOne writes about the array of Google products, including analytics, he works with.
• Original Signal Transmitting SEO - Aggregation of the 15 most popular SEO blogs and web sites ranging from Search Engine Watch to Search Engine Land and TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.

I’ve had the idea in my head for a few weeks now to do some querying of people in the search, PR and social media marketing industries to get an idea what sorts of charities and non-profit causes they’re spending time, resources and money with. In the past, a lot of this kind of activity seems to get the most attention when it’s a response to a terrible event as opposed to a persistent effort. I’m an optimist on this in thinking that a large number of SEM related agencies are actively involved in a variety of such activities.

Editor’s Note: I am excited to introduce the next in our series of guest articles from IBM Distinguished Engineer Mike Moran.

The credentials list on Mike is a mile long including 20+ years experience in search technology, co-author of the best selling book “Search Engine Marketing Inc” as well as his recent book, “Do It Wrong Quickly“, 4 patents on search and retrieval technology, a sought after speaker at SES, DMA and AMA events and a great blogger with Biznology. Even though he’s one of the busiest people I’ve ever known, Mike stole some free time on a plane to write this post on the difficulties of search marketing for readers of Online Marketing Blog.

Editor’s note: Social search isn’t the new kid on the block anymore but it still has it’s mystery as far as search marketing implications. The next in our series of guest posts comes from a very well respected guy who I’ve long appreciated as having more than an advanced understanding of where the search marketing industry is going. Ron Belanger is Vice President, Agency Development at Yahoo! and has been a strong voice on topics ranging from search as a powerful branding tool to social search and the future of the search engine industry.

Photo credit Mike Grehan

With so much uncertainty due to inflated promises, bad press and a fast changing industry, what “signals” of credibility do companies look for in trusted internet marketing partners and resources? Our gift to you today is an annotated list of 25. In one way or another, TopRank is involved with all of the following marketing and PR tactics either for ourselves or for our marketing and public relations clients.

But I’m also curious what Online Marketing Blog Readers have to say on this topic. Let’s have a little vote shall we? After the list there is a poll so you can vote for your favorite.

Experienced client side and agency search marketers know that today’s SMB and enterprise SEO projects involve much more than single event “SEO triage” and link building. A quick look at the topics on the top search marketing forums, newsletters, conferences, blogs and even print magazines shows an increasing variety of strategies ranging from marketing with social media to SEO and usability to leveraging user generated content.

As companies look for the right online marketing resources to help navigate the ever changing and increasingly complex world of search marketing, what variables, channels and outcomes should be considered?

I think it’s safe to say the idea of optimizing web sites for better rankings, traffic and sales is an idea that that has become pretty standard for most web site owners. Ranking well on search engines can provide an incredible amount of “free” traffic to a web site. Many companies base their entire business model on traffic from natural search results generating millions in revenue.

Due to the lure of the so called “free” traffic and monetary goals, many site owners, webmasters and web marketers succumb to short term strategies and find themselves chasing after the latest “trick” or tactic. Because search engines and traffic opportunities change often, web marketers can find themselves in a never ending loop.

A great thing about this business is that it’s pretty difficult to get boring. The industry is in a state of constant change and the roles of marketers and what they need to do to serve clients also changes. There’s a lot to think about so Online Marketing Blog is curious, what’s on your mind:

This week was my first MediaPost Search Insider Summit event and I was glad to have been able to participate. I’ve been a reader of MediaPost publications on and offline for several years and have been a big fan of the Search Insider, which is pretty much the only email format search marketing content that I’ll actually read outside of my ClickZ subscriptions.

Day two of the Search Insider Summit was full of great presentations and commentary, so be sure to read the frequently updated MediaPost Raw blog.

Since many of the attendees of the Summit are the kinds of companies, marketers and agencies that employ various types of marketing channels, both on and offline, the opportunity to present examples and case studies of integration with search was ideal.

Some of the high level takeaways from this session include the importance for company marketers to set expectations when enegaging in an integrated campaign as well as the importance of coordination. Larger agencies that are capable of managing multi channel programs including search may have an easier time than a situation where a company uses multiple agencies to manage their various marketing programs.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a Reader Poll Roundup, so today I’m listing a summary first and then the day’s poll in a separate post. With the polls we’ve been running just about every Wednesday on Online Marketing Blog, the voting turnouts and selections have been interesting but the commentary has been even better.

Whether it’s deciding what the best sources of information on search marketing are to the most important skills for practicing search engine optimization, these polls offer a glimpse of what’s on the minds of our appreciated readers and possibly the search marketing industry at large.