B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

SEJ Visits Google Japan

Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal and John Scott of v7n recently took a tour of the Google offices in Japan. You can view photos here.

“Google Japan does have a similar feel to what Google offices are popular for : airy workspace, a pool table, well stocked snackroom, and those Google colored stabilizer balls you always see rolling around the Google offices.”

They were able to visit with Google reps and discuss everything from local search to censorship. A little on Matt Cutts too. Sounds like a great visit.

Loren will be covering the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference that is coming to Tokyo, Japan April 20-21.


SEJ Visits Google Japan

Kottke Quits

Let’s start the rant engine folks….

CNET reports that uber blogger, Jason Kottke has pulled the plug on blogging for a living. All I can wonder is, why it took this long? What kind of business model is micropayments? The guy needs to stop drinking his own Kool Aid and treat that blog like a business, not an experiment.

It’s a bit disheartening, really. So much potential and opportunity not realized.

Kottke.org is one of the most popular, most visited blogs on the planet – #23 on Technorati’s list of popular blogs. Throw some damn AdSense on there Jason!

There are over 13,000 pages on that domain and over 450,000 inbound links. I hear some SEOs out there salivating. What could you do with a site like that?


Kottke Quits

Google Builds Pages

Who hasn’t covered Google’s latest bid to take over the internet, Google Page Creator?

Lowdown: Easy to use, 100 mb of space, requires Google account, url is like: toprank.googlepages.com/home, differs from blogger in that this is for static pages and blogger is for journal entries. Seems like Geocities all over again.

Also, here’s some coverage of the coverage:

  • A thread at WebmasterWorld discusses the ease of use as well as accessibility issues similar to Gmail.
  • David Utter at WebProNews gets in on the action and points out how Google Page Creator takes the wind out of Microsoft Office Live Beta and the interesting message you get if you use another browser besides MSIE or Firefox.

Google Builds Pages

Introduction to Social Bookmarks

Social bookmarking is a way to archive what you find interesting on the web. The popularity of social bookmarks has waned with the growth of social networks but there are still several bookmarking tools in use.

Here’s a presentation that introduces the basics of social bookmarking and how marketers can take advantage of these tools.

Are you using social bookmarks to archive information on the web? Do you use social bookmarking as a marketing tactic?


Introduction to Social Bookmarks

Web Marketing Resources

In my constant search for good online marketing information, one resource continues to deliver the goods. Since 1995, and that’s a million years ago in internet time, Larry Chase has providede an excellent newsletter highlighting useful resources for online marketers world-wide.

The Web Digest for Marketers offers both an Internet Marketing Resource Directory and an email Newsletter which has over 125,000 subscribers. There’s also an interesting Resource Guide that you get for free when you subscribe to his newsletter.

I’ve met Larry a few times at Search Engine Strategies conferences and look forward to another at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, Feb 27-March 2nd where Danny Sullivan and crew will be putting on another fantastic conference. Barry Diller is doing the keynote, so it should be a great show.


Web Marketing Resources

Trackbacks and Press Releases

Today PRWeb officially announced the launch of their support of trackback functionality with press releases. While press releases have traditionally been used to announce news to the media, PRWeb has pioneered a direct to consumer model that allows companies to announce news to a broad audience using PRWeb’s distribution channels.

The addition of trackback functionality creates a link between bloggers and press releases in a way that is not found elsewhere. Now when a blog comments and cites a press release distributed via PRWeb, it can send a trackback to the release, which will in turn create a link back to the blog.


Trackbacks and Press Releases

Optimization for Google Dictionary

graywolf has made some good observations about definitions appearing above the organic search results in Google. For example, if I search Google for, “what is plantar fasciitis” it returns:

Where the first entry is a Google dictionary item. When you click on it, 5 links to different definitions are displayed. The link in the first position is what gets displayed on the main search results page.

One thing I noticed, and it could be a cooincidence, is that all the pages listed had “Glossary” in the title tag, high up on the page and in the url.

Barry follows up and shares some background along with his thoughts on how to optimize content for Google Dictionary.


Optimization for Google Dictionary

Web 2.0 Press Release Marketing

I just got off a conference call with David McInnis, founder of PRWeb, where he announced several recent and brand new services.

PRWeb has been diligent in creating the leading direct to consumer press release distribution model to-date. Currently, around 1000 press releases are sent out a day.

PRWeb has positioned themselves as the first Web 2.0 press release distribution platform and has hired a new Web 2.0 content manager.

New PRWeb Services:

301url.com launched Dec 2005. Different than other url shortening services because it permanently redirects. Helps to avoid breaking urls. Good for bookmarking by making easy to recall urls. Also, free.


Web 2.0 Press Release Marketing

Friday Roundup Links

John Scott Interview. Talks about V7N SEO contest, being in the Wall Street Journal and Fun Uses of Coco Nuts in Japan – Search Engine Journal

Matt Cutts at SES NYC – One of the sessions he’s participating on includes Robert Scoble and Jeremy Zawodny, “Pundits on Search”. I will be speaking at Pubcon in Boston with those two in a session about Blogging. Should be fun.

Todd Malicoat on WebmasterRadio.fm – Todd and Greg Niland talk links and more. Todd is a linkMASTER and an all around great guy. This is a must-listen podcast.

Finding outsourced SEO help – WebmasterWorld

MSN Search updates search home page and search results. And as much as I am not a fan of MSN Search and rarely ever use it, I LIKE the new new MSN Search. Incidentally, Jensense has the scoop on ContentAds, the name of MSN’s new contextual ad program.


Friday Roundup Links

Linking vs Traffic

Excellent post at WMW by user sugarrae on the what is old and what is new about link building. It’s all about marketing, not just getting links. Via TW

If you like that, then you’ll definitely like the interview of master traffic and link builder Eric Ward. While I’m at it, I would be remiss not to mention Brett Tabke’s seminal work, “26 steps to 15k” as well.

OK, one more link about links/traffic: Here’s an excellent interview with Patrick Gavin of Text Link Ads over at Search Engine Journal. TLA is fast becoming a top alternative to AdSense, YPN and other renenue generating programs for blogs and web site publishers. TLA is also offering a new service called Articlelinks. One question that comes to mind whenever I think about the notion of paying for links was answered:


Linking vs Traffic

Google techtalks

Lauren Weinstein posted a video of a presentation he made at Google a few weeks ago and I noticed he made reference to the search phrase “Google techtalks” on Google Video.

Some really interesting presentations can be found in those results ranging from Collecting Meteorites in Antarctica to Web Applications and the Ubiquitous Web. Of course, the John Battelle presentation is the one that interested me the most. Also, Battelle is hiring.

Pretty cool, Google bringing in speakers like that.


Google techtalks

Google Measures Up Your Blog Stats

Google has announced the acquisition of blog analytics provider, Measure Map. I signed up for a beta at Measure Map a while ago but nada. So instead, I hooked up with Blogbeat. Which is pretty flippin slick if you ask me. I’d love to review Measure Map and now that Google has acquired them, I’m sure Measure Map will be made freely available to the huge number of blogs out there.

Here’s an idea: Measure Map is Google’s way of relieving pressure off of Google Analytics. Imagine the massive server load from all those bloggers signing up for Google Analytics. It wasn’t too long and then GA shut down. Suprising when you think of the resources Google has.


Google Measures Up Your Blog Stats

Contact Us

10405 6th Ave N, Suite 250
Minneapolis, MN 55441

877-872-6628

Services


PRIVACY POLICY

Follow Us

Newsletter