The Holidays are no further than one week away, and on the other side of everyone going bonkers is a new year. Chances are at this juncture new budgets will be set, taxes paid, and 2010 business goals established. If you're on the fence about SEO, or whether or not to build a new website here are objective methods packed into two PDF guides that can assist in the decision making process....
If you don't want to be a mom and pop operation, or you want to be more than the small business you are, then it's time to start thinking not like the small business you are but like the bigger business you want to be.
I'm often asked by small business owners (and folks in larger businesses, too) how they can keep up with all the new things going on in social media, search, and everything else on the Internet. It's hard for them to hear sometimes, but I keep trying to tell them that is the wrong question. What they need to do instead is to simply decide what to ignore....
Sometimes I can tell just by the way they sidle up to me at a conference. They look around to make sure no one is watching, and then they half-whisper to me out of the side of their mouths, "Just between you and me, what is the trick to search marketing?"...
Achieving internal buy-in, leveraging your existing assets, and understanding the unique challenges of outsourcing to a search engine optimization company....
So, You have a Company Blog, are your getting the results you expected? And, what about when your company blog is NOT about your core product. Perhaps a company blog that has nothing to do with your Core Product, but everything to do with your Core Community is the best choice....
Achieving internal buy-in, leveraging your existing assets, and understanding the unique challenges of outsourcing to a search engine optimization company....
We are happy to announce that Search Engine Guide is now offering search marketing certification courses in partnership with Market Motive....
Where to Next? A brief summary from SES, the panel topic was the future of search. Anne Kennedy from Beyond Ink moderated the session with a group of prognosticators on what they believe we will see on the horizon for search marketing....
Digg is rolling out a beta program of a new ad platform. The ads will appear along with submitted content, except they will clearly be marked as sponsored advertising. The more an ad is voted up, the lower cost-per-click (CPC) the ad will enjoy. The more the ad is buried, the higher CPC....
Although the budget you allocate for a search engine marketing company and its services may be fixed, it's likely that many of your competitors have lost their budgets, opening up the playing field and potentially allowing you to garner more of the business that's still out there....
You may not be concerned about your web hosting package today, but I guarantee you that you'll be thinking about it the minute your site goes down or you are unable to send or receive email.
Google has arguably been a big company for many years now, but it did better than most not to act like one. Big companies run by the whims of its shareholders and creditors, but Sergey and Larry have taken pains to run the company their way and have precious little debt. Big companies suffer from top-down planning, but Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time on personally-selected projects. Big companies begin hiring mediocre employees as they rapidly expand, but the founders have made a personal focus on high standards pay off. But I see a tell-tale sign of...
SearchEngineWatch.com reports on some comScore data that show the power of using search and display advertising together. Check out the video for some other interesting finds....
The era of "there's no such thing as a free ride" is coming to an end. So many things are free now days I often wonder how anybody makes money anymore, especially competitors trying to sell what someone else gives away. But free works. This has been true long before the web was invented.
As someone who has helped search marketers build up their in-house search resources for years, you might think that there are never any reasons that I'd recommend using an agency. But you'd be wrong. There are always situations that require a different approach, and in most cases the right answer is a hybrid approach to search. Read on for why you might not want to do everything in house....
The theme of this year's Search Engine Strategies New York I feel is: Transition....
A client asked me this very question recently and it got me to thinking about what's wrong with the way a lot of us think about search marketing. The major concept behind successful search marketing (and indeed all of Internet marketing) is direct marketing. And the more you know about direct marketing, the less this question makes sense....
Live blogging coverage of SES NY session: "Small Business Case Studies".
Live blogging coverage of the SES NY session: "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy".
Google upgraded its Mobile Maps application this week to enable location-awareness. Called Google Latitude, this upgrade is not ground breaking but it does signal a change for the mobile landscape now that Google has put another foot in that arena. So where could this technology lead with Google at the helm? I put a few ideas together that seem entirely plausible and totally within the realm of Google's current capabilities....
When the economy is recessed, it's easy to go into self-preservation mode (both personally and in our businesses). Thinking about others can easily get put on the back burner. However, when times are tough, it's more important than ever that we work together and help each other out. To borrow a concept from the Beatles, we all can get by with a little help from our friends. If we all do this, we can make it through tough times, together.
Google Street View, a Google Maps feature that lets users see images of streets and the surrounding areas, continues to generate controversy. Since its launch in May 2007, the feature has prompted questions about whether it constitutes an invasion of privacy, complaints about inappropriate images, and even a lawsuit.
It's that time of year again. Matt McGee and a team of volunteer judges have put together one of the most comprehensive lists of great online marketing articles around. Matt divided the articles up into topical categories earlier this month and the judges have just finished narrowing them down to the final contenders. Now it's up to the online community to cast their vote and determine who goes home with a 2009 SEMMY award.
Remember back in the day when graduation was all about sitting in a stuffy auditorium while some Ben Stein clone in a robe read off a list of a few hundred (or worse, a few thousand) names? Booooooooooooring. These days, Web 2.0 has kicked it up a bit and made things more interesting. At least that's what the team over at Market Motive is telling me in regards to the upcoming graduation ceremonies for their first class of Master Level Consultants.
Google got to where it is because it earned it. None of the other engines seem to be able to dent that and are losing market share to Google each month. However, I'd be surprised if anybody would notice if Google's results were swapped with MSN's for a week.
When we last left Yahoo!, Jerry Yang (CEO) and the rest of the board had just spurned Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid for the supposedly greener pastures of potential deals with AOL, News Corporation, and/or Google. The rejection of Microsoft's bid also put the current board on a collision course with Carl Icahn in what looked to be a battle for control of Yahoo!'s board of directors.
On a fairly regular basis, I get emails from readers asking me about SEO Training and SEO certification. While there's no shortage of options out there for in-person training, (including our own SBMU conferences) it can be difficult to get yourself or your team to the right place at the right time. Thankfully, quite a few options are springing up for people who are looking to expand their knowledge without leaving their office.
Failing to get the memo that it's 2008, Wal-Mart has decided to get even more aggressive in battling the 'pre-mature' leakage of their Black Friday circular ads. The Bentonville, AR retailer is not only going after the sites that post the circulars, but the search engines that link to and index the sites....
If you're looking for ways to increase the visibility of your small business and build links, submitting videos to your local government cable channel may be an option. Local cable as well as network television affiliates look for content filler at certain times. Here's a couple of ways you may be able to take advantage of those needs and expand the reach of your small business!...
Whether you are an in-house search marketing strategist or you work for an SEM agency, there is a common barrier that you will consistently come across: Establishing priority for search marketing in conjunction with getting buy-in from required stake holders. Below I have outlined 5 ways you can push search marketing strategies along more effectively...
Everyone learns in different ways. Some of us embrace articles, some adore podcasts. Some prefer to learn by doing and some prefer to learn by watching. It's this last group of people that's been targeted by a new site called IMBroadcast.com. Launched by Search & Social's Dave Snyder, Jordan Kasteler and Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker, the site aims to pool internet videos put together by online marketers into an easy to access social community.
Keeping the client's expectations is no longer the job of the salesman but instead becomes the job of the project manager and/or SEO. And it has to be done throughout the life of the optimization campaign. No matter how many times an SEO tries to keep the client's expectation in order there are always clients want and expect more than they are currently getting.
I ran into a couple of unique situations a few months that really challenged me. Both had to do with unsatisfied customers demanding that we give them money back. Each situation was different and therefore handled differently with a different result. In one case, money was returned, in another it wasn't.
Please bear with me as I go through a brief history of basic online advertising. The evolution of targeted online advertising is interesting, because I believe the perceived harmlessness of early advertising technology and targeting tactics lulled many people into a sense of complacency or perhaps even false security.
As a small business owner you may not always have the money to invest in the tools you really need. That's ok. You might actually be surprised to learn how just how many great low cost and even free tools there are to help you improve your online marketing. In this workshop, Matt McGee of Small Business Search Marketing walks attendees through a variety of tools that handle all sorts of marketing related tasks. He'll also provides some insight into which tools are worth paying for and how you can start cheap and work your way toward investing in higher...
Matt Bailey discusses the foundational elements of creating a user-friendly site that will encourage users to convert. If you weren't here you missed out! It was jam-packed with info on making an intelligent site that leads users down the right path.
Anita offers ten tips for small business success based on her own experiences. Learn realistic and practicals ideas on how to make the best use of your time, leverage partnerships and maintain the kind of focus that leads to business success....
The site design is essentially the first impression that someone gets when they land on your site. You may have all your usability and SEO elements in place, but if the design is lacking then your visitor's impression of you will be lacking as well. A visually appealing site can not only bolster trust and credibility, but it can make you stand out among other less-appealing sites in your industry.
My master website marketing checklist covering over 400 specific items through 23 topics. These topics include things such as website development, SEO, usability, accessibility, etc. This list doesn't cover any "how tos," which are an essential ingredient to successful online marketing, but sometimes you need to first know what to do so you can then discover how to do it.
Last week I was fortunate to enjoy the tutelage and company of some talented web marketers at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. After attending the informative session "Ads in a Quality Score World" I decided to compile the 10 top tips I noted from the presenters on improving and managing quality score....
Blogging for business is huge these days. When done well, it's a great tactic for engaging your visitors, facilitating conversation with your audience, attracting links, and getting more pages to rank in the search engines for relevant terms. But there are some key functionality areas you need to address when incorporating a blog with your main website....
My list of reasons why I won't be bringing home any schwag from Search Engine Strategies.
It seems to me that if the search engines are confident that they are providing strong, relevant results to a query, that they would want to provide more results than just 10 to each searcher.
What do Google, SERPs and Cartier all have in common? They are all "In the News" this week. Sage encourages us to check out Google's new tool Google Insights as well as Cartier's My Space page. Google Insights allows you to search for what people are well, searching for and then see both a geographic breakdown and time line of of popularity by percentage. Cartier's appearance on My Space adds credibility to an online community that was previously viewed as the "slums." Sage also highlights several SERP-related studies and articles, discussing the importance of being in the top ten while...
Do you do any link building planning? Planning as in mapping out locations you want to get links from and developing strategies around upcoming events? If you're not, you may want to take a look at what one company has done to capitalize on anticipation. The goodwill, media attention and inbound links they generated from one small commercial is priceless and worth it's weight in gold....
Stoney deGeyter is in the hot seat this week with his article "An End To Ranking Reports Is An End To Analysis." Stoney discusses the pros and cons of Google's ban on Web Position Gold's SERP reports....
One of the great benefits of search engine marketing is that it's more measurable than most other forms of advertising and marketing. But are we missing half the picture by focusing on conversions? Just because we can easily measure conversions, does that cause us to focus solely on this single metric and ignore other, harder-to-track benefits of search engine marketing?
Today we're taking a look at a stock photography website selling the rights to gorgeous photos in a niche topic. The website has a great product to sell, and a decent process for doing it. However, the site design and usability could use a little work prior to taking the next step in online marketing. When you are offering a niche product in a common area, IE stock photography, it's helpful to take some cues from other successful industry websites....
I'll be willing to bet that when you hear internet marketing related terms like SEO, SEM, PPC, etc, you don't think of conversion optimization. And vice versa, when you hear talk of e-commerce conversion improvements, you may not think of internet marketing. If you do, then bravo!...you're ahead of the pack. If not, that's ok, but you may want to read on for some reasons why you should be integrating them.
Want a sure-fire way to get terrible advice? Ask the right question... to the wrong person....
Several people wrote to me asking me to review Cuil, the hot new search engine that everyone is talking about. Except me. I've explained in the past that I am not expecting any new search engine to come along to dethrone Google. But people persisted, "This one is really different!" So I looked and I listened and I read, and I'm sorry folks, but I don't know what all the fuss is about....
It's easy to get so wrapped up in our websites that we don't always realize how they are perceived by our visitors. We know them so intimately that the gap between whether or not our sites live up to visitor expectations isn't obvious at all. That's where fresh eyes can come in really handy. This is certainly the case with this week's site clinic subject Tony Winyard, a disc jockey in London, and his website Streetlife....
Frank Reed had an interesting post on his Frank Thinking blog, lamenting how small businesses seem to avoid search marketing. They spend their money on Yellow Pages ads and other older forms of marketing that might not bring the best return on their investment. So, with the U.S. economy focusing every small business on making more from less, why is it that Internet marketing, and search marketing in particular is so scary? What can we do to help small businesses take advantage of the Internet?...
I met Adam at Pubcon 2007 when I randomly sat at the same lunch table as him. I had absolutely no idea who he was but his nametag said he was from Bend, Oregon (I'm from Beaverton) and he seemed like a nice guy, so we exchanged cards. Adam absolutely qualifies as an SEO thought-leader and is absolutely one of the nicest people in this industry.
We all want to be in control, but search marketing is a roller coaster ride, where you really need to let go for it to be a worthwhile experience. If you've always had trouble letting go of control, perhaps that's what preventing you from really succeeding at search marketing....
One of the areas of confusion that many have regarding paid links is knowing when a paid link is really a paid link, and when is a paid link penalized. in their attempt to eliminate all forms of paid links from affecting their natural algorithmic search results Google has left one giant loophole in the paid link witch hunt: paid directory links.
With all the hot topics in SEO these days, it's easy for newcomers to miss out on the basics, or for those more experienced to forget about them. As long as there is a need for search engine optimization, the core elements will always be Relevance and Authority, and it's important for us to understand what these mean.
I'm old, so I have seen many different battlegrounds come and go in search marketing. Keywords, Links, Content. Multi-media is the one raging now. But which one is next? It could be personalization. It could be mobile. It could also be design....
More website architecture questions answered including questions on website submission, viral marketing, content and moving a website.
Let's get one thing straight: much as we like to play God, Internet marketers are not the omnipotent beings some people think we are. The Earthly truth is that we're just some really driven people with a lot of knowledge about working the web to your advantage. And most would agree that this knowledge, when put into action, is worth a few bucks. Of course, it's easier to continue believing in the omnipotent marketer. As in, if you pay someone enough money to market your business for you, then that person is accountable for your business' failure to turn a...
Last week I answered some questions related to my Website Architecture webinar that I'll be conducting today. More questions were submitted in the last week and I've provided my answers to a few here.
The word “recruiter” tends to polarize people in the search marketing industry. However, recruiters serve a necessary function in finding “hard to find” talent for companies and so long as there is a massive shortage of qualified SEM employees available for companies to hire, professional SEM recruiters will do an excellent business.
When it comes to issues of duplicate content, one of the most frequent offenders is the "printer friendly" page. Just about any kind of site can benefit from creating printer friendly versions of their pages, but improper implementation of these pages can wreak duplicate content havoc on your site.
This week we're looking at an e-commerce website for educational toys, Brainwaves Toys. The current Brainwaves site has done many things well, especially usability of the shopping cart and checkout process. However, it needs a little help with design and navigation to get visitors to that point....
There are parallels between traditional linking and social media promotion. While I agree the two entities are different animals and call for seperate strategies, the bottom line is the same for both... to increase traffic and inbound links. With some people holding SEO to the fire for exploiting social media, I thought it might be interesting to focus on those parallels and look for common ground....
There is no better way to create an infinite amount of duplicate content on your site than to force session IDs onto each visitor (and search engine). Typically, session IDs are used for tracking a single visitor's navigation path through the site, including the adding or removing products from the shopping cart. They are great for tracking purposes, but really, really bad for search engines and inbound linking.
Today we begin the first installment of a weekly site clinic column, where small businesses are invited to submit their websites for review. Can't beat a little free advice, right? I'll be looking at the design, copy, usability, SEO, marketing, and any technical issues that may prevent websites from drawing loyal, active visitors and meeting goals. Each week, I'll give the top five issues the website owner/manager can address to significantly improve performance. ...
Product categorization can play a significant role in how both search engines and users are able to access your products. There are two important things to consider when determining how to categorize your products. 1) Is each product assigned to the most appropriate category or categories? and 2) is multiple categorization creating duplicate content? The first issue frustrates your users and the second the search engines.
Have you tried to hire an SEO professional or a link builder and been turned down repeatedly? Is your site not performing to your expectations? Do you like the color beige? If you answered yes to any of these questions read on....
The first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference has come and gone and I've had a full week to unwind and decompress. When we first announced our conference last fall, I had more than one person drop me an email asking if I knew what I was getting us into. I didn't, but I'm glad. If I had, we never would have done it. For those who joined us in Houston, thank you! It was a true pleasure getting to know you last week. For those who didn't make it, read on for a recap of the show.
Last week at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, small business owners (and a handful of marketers) came from around the world (literally) to learn more about marketing themselves online. We decided to open the show with a tag-team panel approach aimed at helping attendees go into the show sessions with the right perspective. Search engine marketing, blogging and social media are wonderful; but if you're a small business doing it all yourself, you need to approach things from a unique angle.
There's just a handful of days left before the Search Engine Guide team takes to the stage in Houston, Texas for our first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference. Our staff and speakers have been busy finishing up last minute details, putting the finishing touches on presentations and getting ready to load tons of great worksheets and guides onto the flash drives we'll be sending attendees home with. If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late.
Recently I have been involved in creating a search marketing training program which some very clear objectives: help new search marketing strategists get up to speed quicker, allow them to work on billable client work sooner/more efficiently and get them prepared to participate in high-level brainstorming strategies. As much as I can teach the new strategists, I have learned it's as important to learn from them to continually tweak and improve the program. Below I have outlined 3 steps to creating a stronger search marketing training program....
Google News bloggers debunk myths about how to get your article submitted to Google News; myths include examples such as having a picture next to your piece increases your rankings. Blogging continues to gain popularity, but according to MediaPost.com, only 23% of people who read blogs are more likely to go out and buy those bloggers suggested products. Also, the debate is heated on the Search Engine Watch forums about whether or not SEO should be standardized....
How should a company handle its search marketing needs? Companies frequently make a choice based upon incomplete / incorrect information and end up with unsatisfactory results. Todd Mintz asks several members of SEMpdx about the factors they'd look at when deciding whether to take SEM on in-house or through a third party vendor.
If you have an offline store supporting an online presence or even if you exist only online, it makes sense to expose your URL's and special promotions at every opportunity. Doing so helps to build credibility and natural inbound links.
The main purpose of a competitive analysis should be to gain awareness of the competitive factors analyzed and to leverage the client's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) to their advantage. So what kind of factors should be included in an online competitive analysis...
While catching up on my RSS feeds today, I came across a post at Matt McGee's Small Business SEM that's a few days old, but well worth mentioning. The post dives into the issue of Alexa rankings and explains why they should not be used as a gauge of how successful a web site is.
No doubt some of you looked at your calendars last week and realized you'd missed the $850 early bird price for our upcoming Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Houston. Don't sweat it, we've got you covered. We've spent the last six months building the perfect conference for you. We know how busy you are. Do you think we'd let you miss out on this great show just because you forget to set an alert on your calendar?
A long time ago search marketing was mainly a vehicle for small businesses to compete with the big boys. For the many Fortune 500 companies that now outsource at least some sort of search marketing, presenting results whether it's through analytics, lead generation, or sales can be tricky yet still highly effective.
SEMPO, today released the results of its annual State of the Market Survey and the results indicate that the search marketing industry has exceeded the project spending allocations that were expected in 2007 and that the overall consensus from marketers it that the industry will continue to positive growth....
If the buzz is to be believed, Sam's Club is now a search engine optimization company that is targeting the local search market aggressively. The fact is, this isn't something new; it's just recently come to the forefront. Sam's Club has partnered with a company called Innuity to offer a program that is primarily targeted at small businesses looking to get noticed in the local search results....
This week's "In the News" brings disappointment to the SEO world as Flickr goes Nofollow with its links, preventing the use of Flickr for personal link gain. Ask.com uses Compete to add new pop up stats when you roll over the binoculars on their website, and now you can ward away boredom by watching other peoples' lives at Play.blogger.com....
Analytics are everywhere this week with the release of Google's Urchin 6.0 and the entry of analytics player Crazy Egg. Urchin 6.0 is expensive for the average user at $2,995 after beta and geared more towards large companies that are protective of their analytics data; Crazy Egg offers some standard features but is trying to capitalize on their "visualize your visitors" approach, in which their Heat Map allows you to see where people are clicking on your site. Last but definitely not least, are the SEMMY Awards, where Rand Fishkin walks away with the big win for his SEO article, "Search Engine Rankings Factors 2.0."
Sage details an article by David Wallace, "Why You Should Not Place All Your Eggs in One Basket," in which David uses IncrediMail as an example of why it is important for small businesses to invest in multiple forms of marketing. He lists six different opportunities to project your business, including paid search, blogging, social media, web forums, word of mouth referrals, and even traditional marketing.
IncrediMail, an Israeli based a company that develops software to customize e-mails, has provided business owners an incredible lesson as to why you should not place all your eggs in one basket. Last week, they discovered that their Google AdSense privileges had been banned. This resulted in their stock dropping over 45% to a new year low. While IncrediMail does claim to generate revenue by selling software products, offering subscriptions to their content database, and by selling paid advertising on their Web site and e-mail client, they did admit that search revenues powered by Google's AdSense program made a significant...
Every now and then you have to get back to the basics. You may be learning the ropes and turning in some pretty good results with your search engine marketing efforts. You might be seeing higher rankings, more traffic and tons of links. Of course you might not be seeing an increase in sales. If that's the case, there's a good chance you've made one of three common mistakes with your search marketing campaign.
Depending on the nature of your site, Help and FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) can span a few or many pages. Building up these sections of your site can greatly enhance your visitor's experience with your website. These pages are often sought out by shoppers who are looking for just a bit more information to help them feel confident about their purchase. Building comprehensive Help and FAQ pages gives your visitors confidence that you're there to provide them the information and help they need to be comfortable purchasing from you. Solidly built pages can often reduce visitor confusion, lessen support call frequency, and create higher conversion rates as more shoppers are satisfied and confident that you can meet their needs.
It's hard to believe it's been two years since Boris Mordkovich and his team launched the print Search Marketing Standard magazine to help educate folks about the search marketing industry. I remember back when I first posted about the magazine's launch. At the time, I was pretty skeptical. After all, the industry moves at a blogger's pace, not a publisher's pace. It just didn't seem like a print magazine had a chance. I'm happy to say I was wrong.
The announcement of the new Local PlusBox by Google Adwords which places geographical information in the top paid search location changes the PPC strategy for those using more local targeting. The new expandable feature allows advertisers to bid to the top spot in an effort to have the opportunity to display such valuable information as a map, address, driving instructions, and phone number, in addition to the location name that appears beneath the last line of ad.
According to a recent survey, people are planning to turn to the Internet for content as a way to keep themselves entertained during the writers strike. If there was ever a time to create a library of videos and publicize the heck out of them as a way to attract more inbound links, it's now!
Are you thinking about outsourcing your link building work or do you prefer to keep everything in-house? There's been a lot of discussion on this issue lately, let's take a look at the pro's and con's of each.
Over the last year I have really noticed a decrease in the time it takes Google to index pages, specifically articles and blog posts. Pages being indexed used to take days and then hours and now I am noticing minutes. This is without being logged into my Google Account....
If you are a small business owner, you may have spent a fair amount of time learning about the generally accepted ways to improve your search rankings. What you probably glossed over or skipped all together was reading about the tactics used to game or "cheat" your way up the search engines. You may be thinking "but I'm not planning to spam the search engines!" That's great, but are you absolutely positive the SEM firm you're thinking about hiring feels the same way? If you know nothing about those tactics, how can you be certain your company or your SEM firm aren't using them.
The year is coming to a close and it's time for "best of 2007" lists to start popping up in your feed reader. While there are some great ones out there, I wanted to make sure to draw your attention to Evan Carmichael's "Top 50 SEO Posts of the Year." Evan has put together one of the most comprehensive lists of great posts you'll see this year. In fact, he's done it without any writer overlap. That means he's offering up fifty articles from fifty different writers.
Craig Newmark was a keynote address at Pubcon on the first day of Pubcon. Learn where he came from and where Craig's List is going in the future.
What many people failed to realize was that when Google purchased DoubleClick, it now was also the owner of a very large search engine optimization company called Performics, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of DoubleClick. This fact is of course raising some eyebrows in the industry.
I'm guessing that most everyone reading this article has received SEO spam and regular readers of Search Engine Guide know enough about the SEO process not to be suckered into believing the sorts of claims made in SEO service spam emails. However, as a public service to all, I am going to deconstruct the latest example to arrive in my inbox.
Last week I attended and presented at SMX-London. It was a great chance to meet with British search Marketers that don't get to make it out to the US conferences, and to hear a different perspective on familiar topics from mostly British presenters. Friday saw the "Search Marketing for Retail" seminar, which was moderated by Rob Kerry of Ayima.com.
Last week I attended and presented at SMX-London. It was a great chance to meet with British search Marketers that don't get to make it out to the US conferences, and to hear a different perspective on familiar topics from mostly British presenters. Friday saw the "Search Marketing for Retail" seminar, which was moderated by Rob Kerry of Ayima.com.
I missed a great post last week by Matt McGee, so I'm blogging it now. Titled "Eight Things the Search Industry Can Teach Small Businesses," the post offers up several great examples of how to market yourself online from people in the industry who were simply going about their business. From networking to staying visible to finding your niche, it's a great little set of tips and examples worth reading through.
If you've been thinking about attending one of the major search marketing conferences, you might want to check out the newly posted agenda for SMX West. Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman will be offering up more than 50 sessions on February 26-28, 2008 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I won't be able to make it, as I'll be at another conference in London, but so far, it's shaping up to be a great looking show.
In the last five years, I've attended dozens of marketing conferences, events and seminars. During each of those shows, I've spent time talking to the small business owners who've come to try and learn a little more about how to market their business online. Time and time again, the message I hear is the same. "The information is incredible, but I have no idea where to start!" It was that line that caused Robert and I to sit down several months ago and brainstorm all the things we'd do if we were planning a marketing conference for small business owners. It was Stoney deGeyter who said "so why don't you do it?"
The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results - that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory.
While looking at every last minute detail of SEO is advantageous, it is effective only to a point. One can't get mired into trying to get every last little detail right all of the time. To do so often comes at the expense other important things. Instead of focusing on the big picture, you're mired in the little things that don't provide the return you may have imagined.
I had an alternate title for this post: "Ask not what Google can do for you, but what you can do for Google". We're moving into a new age where we have to pay closer attention what Google does -- despite what Google says.
If you've heard about Facebook and understand it can help grow your business but aren't sure how to get started, read on. This article is a step-by-step outline on how to market yourself on Facebook.
Something I hear now and then from small business owners and small business in-house marketers is that they aren't afraid of marketing. They're just afraid of internet marketing. After all, most people have a general understanding of how things like the yellow pages and newspaper spots work. Even if they don't run good campaigns, they probably can't end up doing a lot of damage. To them, the internet moves at lightening speed and a bad campaign can turn into a true disaster. While these are valid concerns, they shouldn't be enough to scare you off.
Using directories in your link building efforts is still a viable option from several standpoints. Here's my thoughts on the subject plus a roster of the directories we use and a list of discount promotion codes. Get some links, save some money. Cool.
These figures can't (or can, depending on how you look at it) be ignored.
Have you ever wondered what all those setting are in your Google AdWords campaign? Well, don't feel bad if you don't know. I've come across more than a few people who have campaigns up and running that haven't gone through and made sure they understood the nitty-gritty details of their paid search campaign. I can't think of a better way for small business marketers to throw away advertising dollars. Let's take a look at a few of those settings that play a large role in your campaigns success.
If you've been looking to attend an online marketing seminar and live within driving distance of Cleveland, Ohio, you might want to check out the 14 Days to a Better Website Seminar being put on by Site Logic Marketing's Matt Bailey next month. I'll be joining Matt for the seminar and we're looking forward to the chance to help some small businesses get their marketing plans off on the right foot.
Last week, as I recounted my story of a troubled client, I got to thinking about this question. In the world of SEO, where do the lines of responsibility fall? When is the SEO responsible for failure and when is it the client's fault? Or can lines be drawn between them so easily?...
It's true, you can learn a lot about web marketing and merchandising by looking at what the “big boys” do. But it might not be such a good idea to simply imitate everything they do......
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), www.sempo.org, today announced it is launching its first ever salary survey of in-house search engine marketing professionals. The survey is open to all in-house SEM professionals whether or not they are currently SEMPO members. Organic and/or paid-search, in-house professionals are all invited to take the survey....
I just survived another garage sale that my wife, Irma, has put on. That's three in the last six years. While I absolutely hate them, I do enjoy the end result which is some cash in her pocket (or purse) and a house that is less cluttered. During this one (which I hope is out last), I started to think how a successful garage sale is a lot like a successful search marketing effort. Likewise a garage sale that performs poorly can be compared to a search marketing effort that delivers a poor ROI....
Although researching keywords for SEO is similar to that for PPC there still are many core differences. In many cases using the generic targets with high searches can be very costly in the world of PPC. While they can offer a good return, often long tailed, very specific phrases can offer more qualified traffic at a lower price
I like to create systems for everything that I do and SEO is no exception. While not every aspect of search engine marketing can be programmed, categorized or easily referenced, (I have a mighty team to handle that stuff!) the bulk of the work can at least be outlined into a handy check list.
Whether you're talking about search marketing, blog marketing or any other form of online marketing, small businesses often find themselves competing as a little fish in a big pond. That can be frustrating when your time and your finances are limited. Sometimes those limitations mean you need to start looking for a pond that better fits the size of your marketing budget. I ran across a small business marketing column in the Roseville and Rocklin Today asking "How Big is Your Pond?"
MarketingSherpa today released the fourth annual edition of its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. The search marketing industry is still expanding rapidly - as much as 31% in the United States and 39% globally for 2007....
The Yahoo Search Marketing team has a post up this week reminding site owners that online holiday shopping increases pretty much every year. In fact, more than 80% of shoppers bought at least one thing online last holiday season. With the holiday sales cycle already gearing up, it's a good idea to start fine tuning your site and campaigns to drive more business. While most of the five tips Yahoo has to offer are a recap of the fundamentals of good online marketing, they're still worth reading and putting into action.
Earlier this week in my article about aiming for less competitive phrases in the early days of your SEO attempts, I mentioned the fact that most searchers conduct several queries and visit several sites before making a purchase. This action mimics offline sales patterns as well. Research has shown over and over again that it takes multiple exposures to a product before a consumer is ready to buy. Yesterday, Patrick Schaber over at The Lonely Marketer drew a simple, but pointed analogy on this concept.
I attended an interesting seminar at Search Engine Strategies San Jose that discussed how search can be used to aid in branding instead of just as a direct response sales vehicle. Each point, stat or anecdote is in itself intriguing but overall add up to a helpful overview of how to use search to brand.
Search marketing has become an expensive endeavor. This is especially true if you are in any kind of a competitive industry. Good search engine optimization can be pricey (we charge $200 an hour). As pay per click advertising continues to attract more and more advertisers, the cost of bidding on keywords will continue to rise as well. Most web directories and other web site listing services now charge for inclusion where it used to be free. The list goes on and on. So how does a company with practically no budget compete in an online world?
Does your business market offline as well as online? Do you take your offline marketing campaigns into account when deciding what terms to target for search engine optimization? If not, you might want to think again......
It's arguably the premise of local search, and a comScore study with Yahoo gives some interesting insight to the "search online, buy offline" behavior. They examined five major retailers, including JC Penney, national department and apparel stores, and a major office supplies outlet....
Miami was the place to be this past Monday and Tuesday (June 18th, 19th 2007) if you wanted to get the scoop on search marketing for the Latin American market. Nacho Hernandez, of iHispanic, headed up a great 2-day conference by Search Engine Strategies at the Inter-Continental Hotel. Conference goers from all over Latin America, the United States and Canada spent the time in sessions that covered the basics of keyword research and linking dealing with Spanish and Portuguese languages to broader site issues such as whether to create original content or just translate existing content....
Many site owners seem to focus on increasing traffic to their site as a goal. More traffic is generally a good thing, but it isn't a cure-all. Are you doing everything you can to make the most of the traffic you get now?...
Right now Google is the 900 pound basket delivering a sizeable chunk of traffic (eggs?) to businesses on the web. That's fine and all but what happens when you lose your Google rankings for a day, month, year?...
Have you tried to break into the SEO elite and found it somewhat cliquish? You're not the only one. Aaron Pratt talks about the circular linking patterns of the SEO elites....
It's common to look back upon the past year and reflect upon all that has changed through twelve short months. For an industry as dynamic as that of search engine marketing -- that's certainly true. While I'm a few weeks late on my own schedule, I still wanted to share what I saw as the five most influential changes of 2006 for those in the SEM game....
The ignorance of the Wikipedia community in regards to SEO is, well, interesting. There is an internal debate as to whether or not Matt Cutts is noteworthy for his own Wikipedia page. Huh? Really?...
When people hear about online marketing, they often think of two of the more popular methods that a company can use to enhance its visibility on the Web: organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. In an ideal world, you would use both strategically to maximize your site's profile. However, budgetary constraints often make this impossible, and trying to do both on a limited budget or with minimal resources can result in neither campaign producing ideal results....
The ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to put products or services in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible. Where the public leads, marketers, by necessity, must follow and if those eyeballs begin to congregate over there as well as over here, many marketers feel the need to move. Online marketers looking for another winning venue are therefore turning to social media spaces as social marketing tools....
Suffice it to say that spam is a major issue with the search engines in terms of time, resources, and ultimately money. New filters are added by the engines to combat spam, and the Web community finds new ways to cheat their way to the top....
As many companies are discovering, professional SEO is an incredibly powerful and cost-effective addition to the existing marketing mix....
There are times when a web site has indeed come under some kind of penalty or has been completely removed from a search index for one reason or another. Thankfully, there are ways to avoid such penalties as well as ways to redeem yourself if you have experienced this misfortune....
While these are still essentials of SEM, marketing one's site via the search engines is a much more involved process these days....
Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch provides some excellent commentary on SEMPO's activities for the past year....
As a company looking to hire a SEO firm to improve your web site visibility in the search engines, as well as increase traffic and conversions, what positives do you look for? What negatives do you need to watch out for? We will explore some of the major issues related to this question....
SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization will be celebrating its one year anniversary next week in San Jose, but some wonder what they'll have to show for a year of work....
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