Online Marketing Blog

Google did it again last night with a cast of thousands partying their way from 7-11:30 pm at the Googleplex. The rock ‘n roll theme with tattoo inspired artwork set the stage for another festive post conference event. There was dancing and buffets both inside and out, chess, pool, karyoke, meet the engineers and many, many kegs of beer/bottles of wine. Nothing ran out this time except the very cool looking T-Shirts.

Always looking to shake things up, the TopRank blogging team convinced Google security to cough up a volleyball and promptly started a game in Google’s sandy volleyball court.

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Search engine optimization in English provides substantial challenges for most companies, but what about SEO in 20 different languages? When you drill down into it, there’s a lot “lost in translation” when most companies perform content optimization in different languages.

In this video interview from the Exhibit Hall at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, my long time friend Andy Atkins Kruger of UK-based WebCertain takes a few moments to answer questions about multilingual SEO as well as some of the common challenges that come about when optimizing content not only in other languages but also dealing with corporate speak in those languages.

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A common problem throughout time is the proclivity for the dregs of our society to capitalize on any new product or type of business in a dishonest, or flat out crooked, fashion.

Before attending “The SEO Reputation Problem” to cap off Day 3 at SES, I was blissfully unaware of the level of this problem in our industry.

The session, moderated by Exact Target’s VP of Agency & Search Marketing Jeffrey Rohrs included on its panel:

• Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO, Omni Marketing Interactive
• Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO, Pepperjam

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Are Paid Links Evil? Optimus Prime versus Megatron.

As I attended “Are Paid Links Evil?” as my last session of Day 2 at SES San Jose 2007, I was glad to see that everyone there was still in high spirits after the long day of learning, blogging, networking and preparing for the Google Dance. However, I didn’t expect to see a battle of the Autobots against the Decepticons.

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A trap I fell into early in my career as an SEM specialist was to ensure clients we would do our best to drive all the traffic we could to their site. Looking back, I’m glad I learned the obvious error of this statement before becoming involved in a client’s burgeoning PPC campaign.

The session “Creating Compelling Ads”, moderated by Allan Dick of Vintage Tub & Bath had at its core the powerfully obvious notion (in hindsight) that driving all traffic to your site is not only a fool’s mission, but in the realm of PPC, a costly mistake.

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Day two of SES San Jose found me fighting for an outlet as I prepared to impart details to you on the session “Putting Search Into the Marketing Mix”.

The session, moderated by Free Agent Consultant Sara Holoubek included on its panel:

• Misty Locke, President & co-Founder, Range Online Media
• Curtis Dueck, Senior Account Manager, Epiar Inc.
• Bill Mungovan, Director of Search, Carat Fusion
• Bill Hunt, CEO, Global Strategies International

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“Writing for Search Engines” is a long standing session by Heather Lloyd-Martin and Jill Whalen. It’s a great session covering the basics of SEO friendly copywriting and a good primer for those new to SEO.

Search Engines are constantly improving their ability to sniff out the spam and de-value irrelevant links such as those from link farms. They are making the same kinds of improvements to the indexing, categorization and sorting of web pages in the search results.
In order to make it easier for search engines to do their job, it’s important to incorporate the keywords for which you wish to be found in your site content, title tags and meta descriptions. Now when people search for those keywords, there’s a greater likelihood that search engines will rank the web site higher than a competitor site who doesn’t have relevant keywords in the content and links of their site.

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Analytics is a big part of a website’s success, However, even though analytics software is getting better and cheaper, website owners still don’t really know what to do with it.

Matt Bailey with Site Logic is an excellent speaker on this topic. He talks about how analytics is more than just hits, it’s about segmenting and tracking and learning how your visitors are using the site. Tracking things like page views, top 10 entry pages, keywords and hits are just scraping the surface. There is so much more that should be happening. What are the KPIs? Analytics numbers are just numbers with no action and figuring out what they mean is the key to success.

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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.

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If you see these smiling faces at SES, be sure to say hello!

Here is a summary of the coverage by the TopRank blogging team for day one of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose 2007:

• SES San Jose Day Minus One
• The Search Landscape
• SES Videos: Dan Perry Cars.com
• SES Videos: Conversation with Michael Gray and Bryan Eisenberg
• Universal & Blended Search
• Public Relations Train Wrecks in the Interactive Biz
• SES Video Tim Mayer of Yahoo Interview
• Ads in A Quality Score World
• Winning the Search Engine Lottery

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TopRank’s Melinda Cayetano and Dana Larson attended the Women in Search Luncheon with over 50 in attendance. TopRank is proud to have been a co-sponsor of the event along with Danny Sullivan. TopRank wanted to give recognition to Jill Whalen and Kim Krause Berg as being key influences for us from waaaay back when to get involved with the search marketing industry. Amanda Watlington and Heather Lloyd-Martin were also great motivators and facilitators for us as well.   I’d say it’s worked out pretty well so far.

Mike Grehan stopped by.

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The success of an entire Search Marketing Campaign is rooted in the selection of keyword phrases and contrary to popular belief; the selection of these phrases is not contingent upon popularity and competitiveness alone.

Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance led part of the discussion on search term targeting at this year’s SES.

Perhaps the most important message of this session, one often overlooked by clients and SEOs alike is the idea not to choose solely what you would like to be found for, but also to select phrase for which you are being found by your target audience.

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