Online Marketing Blog

This is a bit of a late post but I want to get it out there before it gets swallowed up by all the other half-finished posts in my WordPress control panel.

I am happy to say that the session on social media optimization with Neil Patel, Andy Hagans, Rand Fishkin, Todd Malicoat and I during SES Chicago last week went pretty well. Todd and I did not do PowerPoint presentations but we did get a few minutes to introduce ourselves and talk a little bit about SMO.

Neil started things off with a very unique and humorous explanation of Wikipedia. Basically, “Don’t spam Wikipedia.”

Rand followed up with an excellent review of the various social media sites ranging from digg to StumbleUpon to reddit. He made excellent points on how these communities are sensitive to promotion and provided general guidelines for interacting with them.

(I’m crazy for hatbait)
On the tails of the Drink Bait promotion during WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, Li from Search Marketing Gurus ran a very interesting “Hat Bait” promo during the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference. I believe she has the largest single collection of labeled SEO photos anywhere!

Everyone from Danny Sullivan to MC Detlev posed with one of Li’s funky hats. Now’s your chance to vote (via comments) on which photo of a search marketer wearing a silly hat is your favorite.

I think some other creative variations for “bait” that include some social media could be:

Song Bait – Video SEOs singing a particular song. Everyone sings the same song and views vote on their favorite.
Smile Bait – Vote for best smile.
Joke Bait – Video SEOs telling their best jokes.

Last week’s Search Engine Strategies conference was jam packed with information, networking, some fun and a little business too. What I like about conferences in Chicago is that it’s only an hour flight from Minneapolis, so I can leave on the last day of the conference and get home at a decent time. These days with a growing family and the biz, I need all the productive time I can get.

For anyone that reads this blog, you know we try to do our part and walk the talk on the social media front by offering photos on Flickr, videos, tags and bookmarks – and the SES Chicago conference was no different. We blogged 14 sessions, did 7 video interviews and posted 61 photos (so far). Our SEO Designer and go-to guy for anything related to blogs, Thomas McMahon joined me on this trip and earned his keep by doing a great job blogging most of the sessions covered here.

One cannot go an evening at a Search Engine Strategies conference without some type of revelry and Wednesday night was no exception. Clicktracks delivered an encore of sorts by having a party at B.L.U.E.S. which is where TrueLocal had a party two days prior.

Guests were treated to drinks, food and the musical stylings of Chico Banks and the Candy Lickers – yep, that’s right. There was an additional singer to rev things up (didn’t catch his name though) added after a few songs.

As you can see John and Laura Thieme got up and put it down on the dance floor along with other SES party goers.

Thank you to Dan and John of ClickTracks for a great party!

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Stacy Williams is a long time search marketer in Atlanta and I’ve known her and partner/husband Matt for about 3 years. Stacy is a long time Search Engine Strategies speaker and is equally adept in the SEO and SEM fields. At Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Stacy had a few very interesting things to say about search engines making modifications to campaign creative, match type and ad status without notifying the advertiser.

In this video interview, I asked Stacy to elaborate and she provided three specific examples. I hope someone from the search engines reads this and offers insight into why these things happen.

I would like to link to Stacy’s blog but, sigh, she doesn’t have one.

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I’ve casually known Laura Thieme of BizResearch for about 2 years but for some reason our paths crossed repeatedly at the recent Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference. First it was the in the speaker ready room, then the most excellent Vintage Tub and Bath SES Dinner (yeah Allan!) where I sat across the table from her team members Traci and Jessica, then again during the conference, then the ClickTracks party and finally on the last day of the conference when I asked her to do a short interview.

Laura has been a speaker at SES for many years and will be teaching a college level course at a University Business School in Ohio next year. In this short video interview, I asked Laura about the need for consistent information and education on search marketing as well as her thoughts on gender distribution in the industry.

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I’ve had a standing request for an interview with Bruce Clay for about a year now and we finally decided to just do a short one on video, which works for me and I think it will work for you as well.

Bruce Clay is one of the best known brands in the world of search marketing and if you attend Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld Pubcon or ad:tech conferences, you’re sure to see him and his team on the exhibit hall and/or presenting to attendees. Thousands of people have used his SEO tools and participated in his company’s SEO training programs.

As a final session, this basically re-assured attendees what they should be doing and what they shouldn’t. Things like target the long tail keywords, not the popular terms to get conversions not just visitors. Leverage vertical communities, speciality communities and directories. Focus on titles and meta information if you don’t have a lot of time to work on optimizing your site. Use synonyms when creating newer content as you never know if someone is searching for used cars or used autos. Be original, don’t duplicate content. Link to authoritative sites. Be aware of your internal linking structure and how other browsers and users see your site. It was a good wrap-up session and great for those that are newer to the industry.

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This was an open discussion session where users submitted their sites to get the Google ad copy critiqued and the landing page looked over for quality and usability. Tips included:

• Keep important information towards the top of the landing page.
• Be detailed and don’t just assume your visitors know your services.
• Simpler the better.
• Put simple URLs in ads.
• Try sentence caps vs small caps.
• Image quality on landing page matters. Make it look good.
• Whitespace is good.
• Bullet points give a great way for users to scan information. Long blocks are bad.
• Should be easy and quick to digest the copy.
• Always be sure you know, and your visitors now, the target of the ad. What’s the call to action?

This session covered things from what a small business owner should be paying attention to, what you shouldn’t, and gave ideas, tips an information for the small business owner. All great tips to consider when trying to compete with the larger companies.

• Stop algorithm chasing and forget about magic formulas like % of keywords on the page.
• Link age is becoming more and more important.
• Click backs becoming more important. Example: If someone clicks on your listing in Google, then returns seconds later to the Google results, it tells the engine that that ranking wasn’t a good match for that person.
• Latent Semantic indexing is becoming more important.
• Speak the customers language and don’t just optimize for search engines.

Next up in our series of SEO videos from Search Engine Strategies here in windy and cold Chicago is Joshua Stylman and Peter Hershberg from Reprise Media. In this short interview they talk about the multiple sessions each of them are presenting as well as commentary on the search marketing industry.

Reprise Media also publishes a well-written blog called Search Views.

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Checking out the expo hall, there are always a few great deals and lots of free iPods to sign up for. I skipped most of the iPods this year as I was a afraid of all the follow-up emails and/or sales calls.

However, here is some good swag that I did pick up.

Click the image for layover descriptions.

• Google color changing orb.
• Unica Keychane game.
• Lycos fish stress ball & document clip.
• Netconcepts climbing hook and compass.
• Yellowpages highlighter with built in Post-It flags
• Network Solutions multi-color lightup pen.
• Ask pen that writes very nice and has a nice design.
• Bruce Clay Tangle toy.
• WebTrends magnets.
• Yahoo magnetic toy in tin.
• Truelocal rocket toy.
• DoubleClick electronic die.