Online Marketing Blog

Yesterday, Junta 42 announced their latest list of top content marketing focused blogs (Online Marketing Blog came in at #2 in between Copyblogger and PR 2.0) and it reminded me yet again of how important content is for SEO. It used to be when discussing search engine optimization services 5-6 years ago, we’d focus on keyword optimization of content and getting links as independent tactics. Today, it’s a different story.

Of course many of the basics of SEO still apply, such as keyword research, on-page optimization of existing content and solving crawling issues. But attracting links and creating new content are no longer separate tasks. They’re interdependent.

It’s a near nightmare situation really. A client sends an email on Friday saying, “We’re launching a new web site on Monday, can you take a look at it to make sure our site optimization is ok?”.

The Account Manager asks for a URL and upon receiving, clicks to find a “pretty” home page with 90% images and/or Flash, “cool web 2.0″ navigation using Ajax and as a result of a new content management system, a URL syntax that is completely different than before. Oh, and all title/meta descriptions are now hard coded and there are 50% less pages because the VP of Marketing heard at an executive marketing seminar that “less is more”.

The buzz about SEO in the public relations industry has grown tremendously over the past 2-3 years. Press releases in particular, have been the easy target for promotion as candidates for optimization. With the growing use of Google and Yahoo News, optimizing press releases have been an easy way to gain prominent visibility in the short term and in some cases, long term visibility in standard search engines.

Good things come to those who wait and dammit, we’ve been waiting a good long time for some new search marketing blogs worthy of addition to the BIGLIST. You can still get updates by following the BIGLIST Twitter account as well. Enjoy!

• WebmasterRadio.FM - Our friends from WebmasterRadio.FM have joined the cool kids and started a blog. Jody from WMR posts that you can now watch the live video stream, chat with all the other WebmasterRadio.FM listeners, listen to the live audio, and interact with your favorite shows - all on the blog.

After 10 plus years in the SEM business, it’s a bit of an understatement to say that the nature of SEO is constantly changing. Those changes involve both the search engines refining the way they sort and display search results as well as consumer search behaviors. A simple example would be a year ago, searching Google would return mostly web pages in the search results. That same search today might include videos, news items, images or blog posts - now commonly known as Universal search.

It’s pretty common in the interactive, advertising and PR agency world to outsource components of an engagement where the lead agency does not have specific domain expertise. Those scenarios are often structured by the client who is already working with other vendors or the lead agency bringing in outside expertise.  For the most part, it’s pretty transparent what is outsourced and what is not.

Is this the same in the search marketing and especially, the SEO industry?  The variety of creative, technical and social expertise required to excel and succeed with today’s online marketing programs makes it a formidable challenge for any search marketing agency to staff accordingly. The “cowboy” mentality prevalent in the SEO world makes employing some of the best at their craft unlikely.

After gathering around the caffeine this morning for Day 3 of SES New York, attendees gathered to listen to a keynote from Gordon McLeod, President, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Gordon led the audience through the evolution of SEO within the Wall Street Journal organization, noting that they didn’t necessarily do things right the first or second time.

Since 1996, The Wall Street Journal has grown to incorporate SEO as a strategic business decision, not a grouping of tactics.

Here are some of the lessons they learned along the way:

While sitting in sessions at any Search Marketing Conference, you will hear agency-side search marketers asking the panel for advice on how to keep clients from standing in their own way.

Questions like:

What if my client ignores our optimization recommendations?

What if a client doesn’t see any value in social media?

Some search marketers might think working with clients who won’t implement recommendations is a waste of time. I think it’s well worth a little extra work needed to understand why they are not following recommendations and finding a work around. In fact, if you’re working for an enterprise SEO client, the ability to find work arounds is a bare minimum requirement.

Organic Listings Forum with Mike Grehan moderating and Jill Whalen, Dave Naylor and Greg Boser on the panel. Here we have an all star SEO cast available to answer questions about organic SEO.

Mike starts out with a nod to St Patrick’s day. During introductions Greg says he’s a reformed black hat spammer.

Audience: To what extent does Google use user data and behavior and how relevant is PageRank?

Greg: PageRank is irrelevant. It’s not important the way it used to be. It’s important to get crawled and how often you get crawled. It’s “link juice”. Use no follow to sculpt your PageRank.

This week we did a bit of house cleaning and removed 37 blogs from the BIGLIST of SEO blogs - some of them from well known SEOs. One of the quality measures we use for inclusion on the BIGLIST is frequency of posting. If a blog gets stale, we say bye bye for now. Get your BIGLIST updates via Twitter.

This week’s update includes several SEO blogs new to our list and a few re-inclusions. Enjoy!

• John W. Ellis SEM Blog - John writes mostly about PPC, analytics, SEO and social media marketing with a bit of sports, travel and Nashville sneaking in from time to time.

Many companies narrowly define PR activities online solely as blogger relations when in reality, online public relations is so much more. To me, internet based public and media relations encompasses gaining editorial exposure on the web with sites like blogs of course, but it also leverages web based technologies, networks and platforms for developing and maintaining more efficient communication with the media. And by “media” I mean traditional media with an online presence as well as other influencers - be they bloggers, power social news users or social networkers.

Just as with Leverage Your Brand Lovers, the “Branding and Search” session gave the SMX West audience much to think about.

Bob Tripathi, Search Marketing Specialist at Discover Financial, reinforced the need to understand your brand as it relates to SEO/SEM.

Brand Recognition: Do searchers recognize your brand?
–ex. McDonalds’ arches are recognized worldwide

Brand Perception: Do searchers know what you do?
–ex. Discover Financial doesn’t just offer credit cards, but they offer a slew of other financial services

Brand Loyalty: Are searchers loyal to your brand?
–ex. Google and its VERY loyal followers