Online Marketing Blog

(CC) Randy Stewart, blog.stewtopia.com

Vanessa Fox works as Entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners but is especially well known in the Search Marketing world because of her past work as Google’s search engine strategy spokesperson and creator of Google Webmaster Central. I’ve interviewed Vanessa several times on video in the past here, here, here and podcast here but nothing as substantial as what you’re about to read.

Vanessa has a new book coming out called “Marketing in the Age of Google“, which I’ve had the opportunity to preview and it reminds me of how important it is to draw attention to her exceptional insight. My kudos for the book:

The second workshop of the day at Web 2.o Expo, “Startup Metrics 101: Product & Marketing Workshop” provided attendees a glimpse into the vast depth of knowledge from Dave McClure of 500 Hats who offered some pirate speak, “AARRR” to help delegates remember his model for building web businesses.

Hiten Shah of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics provided practical examples and Vanessa Fox of Ignition Partners and Nine By Blue offered a combination of SEO centric tips, analytics and examples.

First up was the Web 2.0 Pirate, Dave McClure with his “AARRR” model:

• Acquisition – Where users come to your site from the web
• Activation – First positive experience
• Retention – Keep them coming back
• Referral – Refer others to the site

Sometimes a Monday blog post deserves a good collection of links:

• The Fox on viral link building and listening to your audience
• Smackdown on Matt Cutts re: spanking SEO blogs
• Jeff Jarvis @TheGuardian and the social whirl driving the development of search
• eMarketer says B2B’s are buzzing over Marketing 2.0
• Vox on Video: Measuring engagement of user generated video
• SEO Lowdown on the LED: “You’re doing the SEM industry a dis-service by characterizing the level or complexity of SEO work according to the size of a company.”
• Grehan Clickz’s the SEO and Public Relations connection. Mike, what took you so long?
• Speaking of PR and Search, be sure to check out Himler, Bradfield, Miele and Odden @PRSA Webinar on PR and Social Media Feb 26

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At SES San Jose I was able to sit down with Vanessa Fox to talk briefly about some of the basic features of the Google Webmaster Central service and posted that interview but was also able to do a second video about her new role at Zillow.

We talked about what she’s doing with Zillow and their advertising platform for marketers that want to reach local audiences as well as what the future may hold in terms of social networking /community building features and laying search over user generated content.

In addition to her work at Zillow, Vanessa writes her own blog at Vanessa Fox Nude (sorry guys, only the cats are nude), contributes to the Zillow blog as well as a “People Search” column at Search Engine Land.

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Even though she’s moved on from Google to Zillow, Vanessa Fox still carries quite a bit of passion for her creation, Google Webmaster Tools which was renamed from Google sitemaps about a year ago. She was even spotted at the Google Dance giving advice to SES attendees at the Google Webmaster Tools product demo table.

Many webmasters and beginning search marketers could benefit a great deal from the features offered by Google Webmaster Tools so I asked Vanessa if she’d do a short video with me to provide a few tips.

For more info on Google Webmaster Central visit the blog.

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Some of our favorite Google people were in the media recently:

The Chicago Tribune did a huge piece on Google overall (hattip threadwatch) with a sidebar article “Meet Google’s Credibility Cop” on Matt Cutts.

I remember reading or hearing somewhere that Matt had worked for the NSA and this article mentions only that he interned with the Defense Department doing some programming.

The article opens up with language like, “hucksters, spammers and other charlatans” when making reference to manipulations to rank better on Google. Search marketing folks will know that means tactics that are to the extreme and not legit SEO, but I am not so sure everyday business Joe and Jane will see it that way. Actually, the article doesn’t mention search engine optimization at all.