Archives for February 2007

Reader Poll: Best SEO SEM Conferences

reader poll

The winds of change are blowing in the search marketing conference scene this year with more offerings than ever. The big conferences persist, while new challengers as well as smaller and more practical seminars emerging.

SEO and Paid Search education is not limited to conferences with the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification and the SEMPO Institute launching recently. However, conferences and seminars offer the added benefit of networking, prospecting and the kind of after hours education on topics that simply are not publicly available.

Which leads me to this week’s Reader Poll on conferences or seminars that offer search engine optimization and/or paid search marketing content.

What conference has been the best for gaining "how to" SEO/SEM knowledge?

  • Search Engine Strategies (49%, 44 Votes)

Reader Poll: Best SEO SEM Conferences

5 Tips for Content Distribution Networks

network.gif

In the past I’ve written about the content versus links debate where SEOs seem to fall on one side or the other when assigning the majority of importance for search engine rankings. What’s missing from that conversation is the need for a distribution network.

There are many that believe the key to a successful link building campaign is to create content worth linking to. However, if you create great content and no one knows about it to send a link, then there’s a lot lost on the effort. “Build it and they will come” is not the reality with search marketing despite the hype from SEO nay-sayers.


5 Tips for Content Distribution Networks

Watch TV And Make Your Blog A Superstar

It’s no secret, those with the scoop have a tendency to get all the traffic. If a newspaper gets an inside story, they sell more copies. If a news channel has that one special interview, then they get the viewers. With blogging it’s no different.

Case in point, on one of my other blogs, I sometimes blog about American Idol. When a contestant made a sneaky remark about Simon Cowel and Telletubbies, I found it interesting and so I posted about it. Threw in some research I did on the truth behind the comment and made sure to tag the post as well with the relevant keywords. Posted it, pinged it, then I went to bed.

Big Stats JumpThe next day I checked out the stats and site visitors were up by about 1500%. It seems that my little post, was on fire.


Watch TV And Make Your Blog A Superstar

New SEMPO Board Named

SEMPO sent out an announcement email this morning announcing the new board of directors for 2007. There were 37 nominees on the ballot and this year there was a 100% increase in the number of voters.  Congrats to all!

Chris Boggs – Search Strategist, Avenue A/Razorfish
Massimo Burgio – Global Search Expert, Global Search Interactive
Fionn Downhill – President/CEO, Elixir Systems
Dave Fall – VP Product Management – Search Technology, DoubleClick, Inc.
Duane Forrester – Manger – Search Marketing, Sports Direct
Sara Holoubek – Free Agent
Gord Hotchkiss – CEO/President, Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc.
Bill Hunt – CEO, Global Strategies International
Kevin Lee – Executive Chairman/Co-Founder, Did-it.com, LLC
Jeffrey Pruitt – President of Search Operations, iCrossing
Tanya Rietze – Global SEO Program Manager, Hewlett Packard
Dana Todd – Co-Founder/Principal, SiteLab
Dave Williams – Chief Strategist/Co-Founder, 360i, LLC


New SEMPO Board Named

Search Marketing Blogs Update 022307

I assure you it’s worth the wait for this week’s list of blogs added to the big list of search engine marketing blogs. Here is the updated OPML file and the text file for you CSE junkies out here.

The overall list is now around 380 blogs, but we’ll be trimming that down in the next week or two as we audit the list for those that are not posting regularly.

  • Market Position – A group blog about search marketing from WebTrends, owners of Web Position Gold.
  • The PPC Book – Jeff Hudson, who works as a client side search marketer, blogs about Pay Per Click marketing.
  • Widget Logic – Jason Duke has revived this previously dormant blog about search engines and marketing online.

Search Marketing Blogs Update 022307

Most Popular Blog Posts vs RSS

Since we have about 30% more site visitors and RSS subscribers over the past 2 months (post digg malarkey too) I thought I’d update the list of most popular blog posts for Online Marketing Blog. Such a roundup can be a great way to reveal interesting content to readers that are new or who haven’t been long time readers of a blog.

Most popular web page posts according to web stats – past 12 months excluding home page:


Most Popular Blog Posts vs RSS

Reader Poll: Social Media Usage

reader poll

Over the past 6 months we’ve been doing a bit of resource aggregation regarding social media both as a practical application for marketing client content online as well as reviewing research conducted on social media usage. There’s not a lot of research out there but here are a few interesting reports:

I am curious what kinds of social media that search marketers and readers of Online Marketing Blog use the most often, so here’s a poll for you.

What kind of social media do you personally use most often?


Reader Poll: Social Media Usage

My Pros and Cons of WordPress 2.1

Wordpress Thumbs Up - Thumbs DownAfter installing WordPress 2.1 my experiences have been both good and bad. There are a few things I LOVE about the updated blogging software, but there are also a few things that bug me.

Stuff That Bugs Me

  1. No ‘Previwe Post’ link when writing a post. This really gets me as I preview my post quite often. Granted the functionality is still there, you just have to scroll down to see it.
  2. No Firefox spell check. Seeing as my spelling isn’t the best, I rely on Firefox’s spell check quite often. However, the new WYSIWYG editor doesn’t work with Firefox’s spell check and no red-underlined words makes me think I spelt everything correctly. Now I have to make a point to hitting the spell check button.

My Pros and Cons of WordPress 2.1

SEO Training: Small is the New Big

Have you noticed the number of regionalized or small scale search marketing conferences that are popping up?Jill Whalen has been running her High Rankings Search Engine Marketing seminar for a few years now (disclosure: I am a speaker for the Mpls event and my PR agency works with Jill) that is very hands on focused. The speakers all share a very similar philosophy about search marketing so there are not the mixed messages you get at larger events.

Danny Sullivan has started his SMX event (is that name a subliminal play on Search Marketing Sex?) starting in Seattle this summer as well.

There’s also Elite Retreat with a $5,000 price tag that includes: Guy Kawasaki, Aaron Wall, Lee Dodd, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Shoemaker, Kris Jones and Neil Patel. The marketing is getting slick on this one along with the all-star speaker lineup.


SEO Training: Small is the New Big

Blogging Tips from Britney Spears

One of the things any good blogger knows is that titles are an important part of your blog post. When I saw “6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging” I couldn’t help but click through to read it. Not only is it a great title, it’s a good post too.

My favorite is “If you hang around with trash, you may be considered to be trash as well.“


Blogging Tips from Britney Spears

Sourcing Content for Business Blogs

magnifying-glass2.jpg
Blogs are useful for many marketing and communication purposes. They’re also useful simply as software that manages content. Businesses can use blogs to communicate a corporate vision, to build thought leadership corporate-wide or for subject matter experts. Blogs can be very useful in support of public and media relations efforts and they are certainly excellent tools for making a site more search friendly with fresh content that attracts incoming links.

One of the best resources for blog content comes out of interactions with prospects and customers. If an organization can tap into the flow of dialog that happens between front line employees such as sales people and customer support there is an abundance of valuable content available. If customers and potential customers have questions about certain topics, then it’s pretty likely that many others will too.


Sourcing Content for Business Blogs

Social Media Mashup Tools

A few interesting tools I’ve been made aware of recently that online marketers could use for making their social media more interesting or different include the following tools to add text to images or video:

bubbleply.jpg
BubblePLY – Enables you to add narrative bubbles to video. From a practical standpoint, this is helpful for offering translated versions of a video.

comeeko.jpg
Comeeko – Create comic strips from your photos.

I’m sure there are a host of other tools for mashing up and modifying original media. Feel free to suggest your favorites in the comments.


Social Media Mashup Tools