I am writing this blog post looking out onto the Googleplex courtyard where webmasters are dancing and talking. We just finished the “Meet the Engineers” Q&A. Lots of people came inside building 43 to ask about crawling, duplicate content, and more. I wish I could easily summarize it, but it was just straight questions for two hours.
I think I’ll go down to dance and talk myself. If you’re at the conference, you’ve still got a couple days to catch me and chat more.
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“Video is a compelling SEO channel,” said Sherwood Stranieri of Catalyst Online, “and social marketing and viral marketing are the driving forces behind video optimization.” We’re witnessing, with Google Universal, how digital assets are changing the landscape of search. Video, like audio files can drive unprecedented traffic as well result in a surge of inbound links. This is great- if you have entertaining video content, right? Wrong!
It may seem at first glance, that video optimization makes sense for very particular industries and not others, but this is not the case. Although video optimization is an almost ideal search marketing tactic for individuals belonging to generation “Y”, it is not limited to this demographic. Human beings are interactive and become more engaged when stimulated. Video content plays to our visual and audio senses.
Stranieri, like the other presenters on this panel, tells us that video can add dimension to any product or […]
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Local NBC affiliate NBC11 covering Silicon Valley stopped by the Search Engine Strategies conference yesterday. I happened to be at the right place at the right time and news reporter Scott Budman asked if I would do a quick interview.
My pal Loren Baker from Search Engine Journal was nearby during the interview so I gave him my camera and he took a few shots:
It went pretty quickly and I didn’t think a lot of it afterwards until several people mentioned to me that they say me on TV during the evening news. I haven’t found an online version of the clip, but did get one forwarded to me that I could download but not share.
Sponsored By: TopRank SEO Consulting
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A trap I fell into early in my career as an SEM specialist was to ensure clients we would do our best to drive all the traffic we could to their site. Looking back, I’m glad I learned the obvious error of this statement before becoming involved in a client’s burgeoning PPC campaign.
The session “Creating Compelling Ads”, moderated by Allan Dick of Vintage Tub & Bath had at its core the powerfully obvious notion (in hindsight) that driving all traffic to your site is not only a fool’s mission, but in the realm of PPC, a costly mistake.
Generating qualified traffic for a campaign shaped the presentations provided by the esteemed panel of:
Mona Elesseily from Page Zero Media
Brad Geddes of LocalLaunch.com
Vic Drabicky of Range Online Media
So how do drive qualified traffic?
First, we wrap our minds around the notion that a high volume of clicks through to an ad is not […]
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Day two of SES San Jose found me fighting for an outlet as I prepared to impart details to you on the session “Putting Search Into the Marketing Mix”.
The session, moderated by Free Agent Consultant Sara Holoubek included on its panel:
Misty Locke, President & co-Founder, Range Online Media
Curtis Dueck, Senior Account Manager, Epiar Inc.
Bill Mungovan, Director of Search, Carat Fusion
Bill Hunt, CEO, Global Strategies International
The session described how search marketing is absolutely vital to any marketing campaign, right from the outset. As part of my duties with TopRank’s sister firm Misukanis & Odden, I hone my focus on, as our tag suggests on Marketing For Results. One of the surest way to help guarantee results, right from the offset, is to clearly define your client’s objective.
In that vein, how do we help to shape our client’s determine objective? Do we simply ask them what their objective is, or […]
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“Writing for Search Engines” is a long standing session by Heather Lloyd-Martin and Jill Whalen. It’s a great session covering the basics of SEO friendly copywriting and a good primer for those new to SEO.
Search Engines are constantly improving their ability to sniff out the spam and de-value irrelevant links such as those from link farms. They are making the same kinds of improvements to the indexing, categorization and sorting of web pages in the search results.
In order to make it easier for search engines to do their job, it’s important to incorporate the keywords for which you wish to be found in your site content, title tags and meta descriptions. Now when people search for those keywords, there’s a greater likelihood that search engines will rank the web site higher than a competitor site who doesn’t have relevant keywords in the content and links of their site.
When adding keywords […]
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Analytics is a big part of a website’s success, However, even though analytics software is getting better and cheaper, website owners still don’t really know what to do with it.
Matt Bailey with Site Logic is an excellent speaker on this topic. He talks about how analytics is more than just hits, it’s about segmenting and tracking and learning how your visitors are using the site. Tracking things like page views, top 10 entry pages, keywords and hits are just scraping the surface. There is so much more that should be happening. What are the KPIs? Analytics numbers are just numbers with no action and figuring out what they mean is the key to success.
Matt states that when it comes to analytics it should always start with a question. Then segment by verticals and acquisition methods. Measure segments, compare and contrast results. […]
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Search engines love text and people love engaging content. This message was made clear during the SES session on Podcast & Audio Search Optimization where Daron Babin of Webmaster Radio, Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit and Rick Klau of Google presented on the opportunities of search marketing with audio.
Audio search has come a long way and still, we’ve barely tapped into the full potential for audio content.
But why should we podcast? Watlington tells us that the value of audio content lies in its ability to create and foster an emotional connection with the audience. It is yet another opportunity to engage users while adding a human context to the message.
The concerns broached by the audience included the question of whether or not podcast and audio optimization made sense those in B2B marketing.
The consensus of the panel was that Audio content does not necessarily have to be entertaining or be […]
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Tuesday’s SES’s keynote was with Jim Lanzone of Ask. He talked briefly about the past, present and future of Ask.com.
Jim stated that they’ve seen great growth since launching Ask 3D. They feel that they are the fastest growing in their category. Ask is not as concerned with beating the others at market share, they are more concerned with getting satisfying results back to the searchers. After launching ask 3D they are finding that about 50% of their users are not clicking on the web results but rather on of the other offerings on the page. Jim also pointed out that they are trying to get as much information above the fold as possible. To do this theyare putting content where other search sites are putting ads.
However, Ask 3D is just the beginning. Jim said that the items they have on the roadmap for […]
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Day Two coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose: The Popular Kids Have Good Content
Tuesday morning was the morning to learn about link building. As a linking specialist at TopRank, I knew I would learn a lot, and review what I already know, in this session by listening to Mike Grehan and Christine Churchill.
The topics we focused on this morning were ways to increase a website’s ranking, such as link requests, paid links and reputable links from authority sites.
However, the absolute basic thing you must remember before linking is that you need to have something to offer the readers. Mike Grehan asked us “Why should your site rank high?”
Is your site good? does it deserve to rank high on Google? if you have a non-user friendly site, but you deploy incredible link building tactics and SEO, your site will rank high. But you will annoy human visitors, […]
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