New Search Marketing Magazine Launches

I had a press release pop into my mailbox last week from Boris Mordkovich, a sometimes guest writer for Search Engine Guide. Boris was writing to let me know that his company, MordComm, Inc. was going to begin publishing a new quarterly magazine this summer focused on search engine marketing.

The print publication, dubbed Search Marketing Standard will publish four times a year and will feature article and information about search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising, search related news and more. Expected to run its first issue this summer, Search Marketing Standard is offering a free one year subscription to anyone that registers before February 28th.

The question that has been on everyone's mind is "why print?" That's a good question. In an industry that moves as fast as search marketing, a print publication, especially one that only comes out every three months, is going to be hard pressed to print any "breaking" news. On the other hand, Search Marketing Standard's editor, Andrey Milyan says that they aren't aiming to be a breaking news publication. In comments on the Search Marketing Standard blog, Milyan lays the magazine out this way:

We will be targeting anyone who is advertising with search engines including webmasters, any business owners who advertise with search engines, marketing executives and SEM consultants. We realize it is pretty difficult to cater for all of these groups at the same time. We are planning to discuss fairly advanced topics (no articles like "what is SEO" or "why do you need to advertise") but we will try to keep it simple enough for someone like your clients to digest. We also plan to have at least one advanced article, touching upon something interesting even to an expert.

While I can't see a magazine like this one delivering any amazing discoveries to experienced search marketers, I can see it being a resource for traditional marketing departments that are just beginning to learn about and understand search marketing. How-to articles exploring the best ways to conduct keyword research or explaining the concept of link-bait are likely to stay relevant long enough to make their way to print.

Time will tell...