IIMA - International Internet Marketing Association » SEO

F5 Expo: Search Marketing in 2010

Serena Hillman — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:33:03 +0000

Search Marketing in 2010 Panel

The Search Marketing in 2010 session included the following panelists (left to right):

Martin Stoddart, Senior Product Manager at Bing
Vanessa Wynn-Williams, Associate Marketing Manager at Yahoo! Canada
Ryan Kelly, Founder and CEO at Pear Analytics

The first question posed by the moderator, Rajan Sodhi, VP Marketing at Peer 1: “What is happening with Bing and Yahoo?”

Martin, from Bing, told us CPC results will be provided by Bing, but as implementation is just being started not much has happended yet. He also suggests we go to SearchAlliance.com to get the most up-to-date information.

Rajan moves on to the second question: What’s with all the acronyms? SEM, SEO, PPC?

Ryan ran down the list:

SEM: Search Engine Marketing (Paid + Organic)
SEO: Search Engine Optimization (Organic)
PPC: Pay Per Click (Paying a certain amount to a publisher based on per click)
SMO: Social Media Optimization (Social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors)

Vanessa told us Canadians search a total of five times per day on average.
Ryan then told us 80% of all purchases start from an online search.
Finally Martin added, 60% of people say they are using search to make bigger decisions in their life.

Third Question: Why is banner advertising going down in adaption and search is going up?

Vanessa responds that the nature of search is direct response, although she believes some banners can provide this as well.

Fourth Question: Where should SEO Start?

Ryan tells us to start by looking at if from a technical standpoint, to simply not hinder the bots. Then after that he suggests content development and suggests the Wordpress theme Thesis for $100 because it has such great tools already implemented.

Fifth Question: Do major search engines crawl differently?

Vanessa tells us all search engines have their own “secret sauce” but generally speaking they are all looking for the same thing–the most relevant information. She tells us if you do SEO right it should help you with all engines.

Sixth Question: How does SMO effect SEO?

Ryan tells us that by signing up for accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. they will make sure someone who steals your name doesn’t show up before you in Search Engines. As these sites rank very high with your branded name, you can rank high for your branded name.

Martin tells us that web of objects all become relevant in delivering results and that is why the results page for Bing is evolving. More visual content, social media content and this evolution will continue to happen. He tells us that though the algorithem is important it is just one part.

Seventh Question: PPC first or SEO?

Vanessa says, SEO will be hard but it is good for the long term, while PPC is more of an add-on. She tells us a user is 24% more likely to click on your site if they see your listing on both the paid and organic results because it increases brand trust. She also tells us that while PPC does not increase your SEO the gained traffic from your PPC will.

Then they define other areas such as Black Hat, long tail keywords… blah blah blah nothing new.

Final Question: What is the future of search?

Martin tells us there will be a bluring of lines between banner and text in search results. Vanessa tells us Dynamic keyword insertion for very relevant PPC, but mostly find your key audience and talk to them.

All-in-all it was a good session; the moderator should have known his stuff a bit more, and Vanessa brought interesting stats to the conversation, and thus lead the topic with her excellent understanding.

On a side note, I have been to a number of search conferences and it seems the majority of the time Yahoo!’s representatives are female. Is this intentional, perhaps a way to deferentiate themselves from the boys over at Microsoft and Google? I donno, but I like it!

*Serena has been involved within the web industry since 2003 and specializes in Organic Search. She is currently employed as the Director of Marketing and Web Development for ShowTimeTickets.com. Prior to Serena’s career she earned her Bachelors and Masters Degree in Interactive Communications from Quinnipiac University.

Advanced SEO Round Table

Serena Hillman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:13:04 +0000

SES San Jose 2009 Review:
Advanced SEO Round Table
DrinkTheCoolaid.com

By: Serena Hillman

Search heavy weights gathered for the advanced SEO round table session.
The panel consisted of:
Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc
Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair
Todd Friesen, VP Search, Position Technologies
Todd Malicoat, Independent Search Engine Marketing Consultant, stuntdubl

One of the very first questions was about the never ending sega of Paid Links in competitive verticals. They answered simply by stating: “if you are going to do it, do it smart” and “you can’t bring a sword to a gun fight.”

When asked about Bing and Yahoo’s partnership the panel expressed genuine excitement about Bings ability to now acquire the historical data from Yahoo as well as an advanced algorithm they have developed over the years. The panel even compared Bings current algorithm to Google’s level in 1998.

Below are 3 video’s that I feel captured 3 other very important SEO topics. It should be noted that the panel was asked their thoughts on Caffeine and no one had an opinion as of yet.

Panel’s answer to using nofollow:

Panel’s answer to page sculpting:

Panel’s answer to the dreaded local search box:

Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic

Serena Hillman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:28:44 +0000

SES San Jose 2009 Review:
Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic

By: Serena Hillman

Greg Boser & Matt Cutts

While sitting in Mrs. Li’s keynote I did a quick Google News search on SES. What came back? A Vancouver local’s SEO website on Matt Cutts being added to the panel for the session Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic. Needless to say I suddenly changed my plans of attending SEO Through Blogs & Feeds and made a b-line to the session.

The Extreme Makeover event was quite informative with an obvious focus on specific examples and suggestions of attendee’s websites. As usual, WebGuerrilla’s president Greg Boser provided equally hilarious and informative dialogue with Matt.

Key Takeaways:

Boser:

Make sure contact information is in text-format, as Bing will list this in search results
Take the time to do unique meta descriptions and google will trust your site more
Each subdomain is a separate site so you have to verify them in Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics
301 and 302 are shenanigans
Return true 404 page so Google doesn’t cache multiple instances of this page
Host your own videos, Google is adding other people’s video’s to search results
It is all about profiles. When you have lots of domains it makes you look like a spammer
Wiki should die. We hate wiki.

Cutts:

When dealing with duplicate content try to eliminate through a clean site architecture, then 301, then canonical tags
When changing site architecture change one part first then see what happens, then change the rest
Use term “store locator”–as this is the most familiar for users searching for store locations
Have a search box, but also add a “browse” option within the text so directories can be crawled
Preference lies with subdirectories instead of subdomains, as it puts it into one group
Users don’t like deep subdirectories
Grab 5 random people–describe what you do–ask them what they would search for–optimize for it
Page sculpting: if people are using nofollow, and this hurts the crawl, change your policies to counter it
If you have a bunch of domains for branding purposes, 301 them to your main site

Audience:

Watch out for the all-in-one-SEO-plugin, because WordPress has duplicate content issues–the plugin will insert nofollow tags

SES San Jose Review: Overview of Day 3

Serena Hillman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:19:10 +0000

Google's Matt Cutts

Similar to Day 2 I have broken each session review into separate blog posts for better flow:

Session 1: Morning Keynote: How to Prepare for the Future of Search
Charlene Li, Co-Author Groundswell

Session 2: Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic
Elisabeth Osmeloski, Director of Online Media, Adventures in Search
Tiffany Lane, Search Quality Team, Google
Greg Boser, President, WebGuerrilla LLC
Vanessa Fox, Nine By Blue
Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team, Google

Session 3: Advanced SEO Round Table
Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc
Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair
Todd Friesen, VP Search, Position Technologies
Todd Malicoat, Independent Search Engine Marketing Consultant, stuntdubl

Session 4: In-House SEO: Structuring the Organization for Success (review coming)
Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
Melanie Mitchell, SVP, Search Strategy, Digitas
Jessica Bowman, SEO Strategist & In-House Expert, SEMinhouse.com
Laura Lippay, Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo!

SES San Jose Day 3 Highlights:

Matt Cutts’ surprise appearance!
SEO round table: chalk-full of great info
Getting my Groundswell book signed

SES San Jose Day 3 Letdowns:

Tiffany’s inability to understand my question on GEO IP redirects
Repeat of lunch (overcooked hot dogs)
The rush hour drive to the SFO airport

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Serena Hillman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:05:40 +0000

SES San Jose 2009 Review:
Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues Session

By: Serena Hillman

The Google Booth

After a good sleep at the Hilton San Jose, I wandered to the registration booth, got my Press Badge, and was on my way to the first session: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

This panel had representation from all three main search engines: Bing, Google and Yahoo. But surprisingly the best presentations were by the two non-search engine representatives: Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO director of Omni Marketing Interactive and Marty Weintraub, President of aimChair.

Shari covered a lot of ground and provided great information about why you want to get rid of duplicates and technically what qualifies as duplicate content. She mentioned some testing her company has been doing regarding navigational usability.

Sasi Parthasarathy from Bing

The results indicated that the optimal amount of links a page should have is 100. She reviewed how engines determine duplicate content with filters related to: Boiler Plates, linkage properties, server/hostname properties, shingles and last but not least–content. Overall Shari tried to stress the importance of not optimizing for search engines but “optimize for people who use search engines.” I can’t agree with her more, as obviously this is what search engines are and will be optimizing for in the future.

After Shari’s serious discussion Marty Weintraub graced us with an energetic presentation where he listed specific suggestions on how to fix duplicate content issues with examples he has provided to his clients in the past. Some included: removing secure and unsecure duplication, cleaning up urls and canonicalization.

The three search engine representatives echoed similar themes of the two previous speakers. Yahoo’s Ivan Davtchev informed the attendees that 1/3 of content online is duplication.

Other key take-aways include:

Use Google webmaster tool to identify duplicate titles and start from there
If 10 copies of your content are out-there search engines will just pick whichever the algorithm feels is most authoritative
We all love Site Explorer and hope Microsoft doesn’t kill it
Duplicate content is acceptable just don’t abuse it
Use robots tag or 301 redirects to hide the duplicate parts of your site
Lots of filters determine duplicate content not just shingles

SES San Jose Review: Overview of Day 2

Serena Hillman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:54:52 +0000

Let me start off by thanking the staff at SES San Jose 2009 for inviting me to cover the event. This was my second time I have attended the conference in San Jose and highly recommend it for anyone looking for an industry leading approach to learning or advancing their skills in internet marketing. For those of you not familiar with the 3 day conference here is some general info: http://www.searchenginestrategies.com

I have broken each session review into separate blog posts for better flow:

Session 1: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
Session 2: Facebook Ads – Reaching Prospects Early in the Decision Making Process
Session 3: Social Media – Managing Conversations & Reputations When the User is in Control
Session 4: The BuyerShere Project (review coming soon)

Day 2 Highlights:

Marty Weintraub’s energetic presentation
Domino Pizza’s website (when I ordered my dinner)
Zappos’ Brian Kalma’s specific examples of their Social Media Campaign

Day 2 Letdowns:

The overcapacity room for the session: Google Analytics & Website Optimizer: Secrets Revealed!
Lunch (overcooked hot dogs)
Paying for internet at the Hilton

Keynote: Nicholas Fox, Google

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009

Serena Hillman — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:19:43 +0000

By: Serena Hillman
DrinkTheCoolaid.com

I am about to board my flight to San Jose to attend SES’s San Jose Conference 2009. Check out my updates of the daily events at http://www.iimaonline.org/resources/blogs/.

Day 2 agenda:
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanjose/agenda-day2.php

Day 3 agenda:
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanjose/agenda-day3.php

Feel free to shoot me a quick email (serena_hillman[at]hotmail[dot]com) if you want me attend and report on any particular session and I will try the best I can!

The Complete Internet Marketing Glossary

Serena Hillman — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:49:47 +0000

By: Serena Hillman
DrinkTheCoolaid.com*

A quick reading recommendation for SEObook.com’s SEO Glossary:

The Glossary is a well-put together resource page, highly detailed and probably the most extensive list I have seen, totally worth the 30 minutes or so it takes to review.

The Glossary especially works wonders for aging-typewriter-era-bosses, programmers and anyone I mentioned in this post, to help communicate with internet marketing professionals or just to freshen up on some verbiage.

Check out the Glossary.

Need more info? Here are more resources:

Rocking comic from http://www.my25percent.com/.

SEO – The Creative Approach

Serena Hillman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:10:35 +0000

By: Serena Hillman
DrinkTheCoolaid.com*

Beyond the forums and keyword-stuffed SEO websites, lies unprecedented amounts of good information about SEO. Quality resources such as BruceClay.com or Intrapromote’s blog SEO Speedwagon can provide any company with enough information on SEO to achieve relatively decent success. But why do they just give this information away? As my boss would say: “It’s a Trojan horse–and not of the virus kind.” These companies are giving you a gift–like a Trojan horse–to educate you on how much you need them–or infiltrate your defenses.

After learning SEO basics, companies tend to realize two things:
1) How much control they could really have over SERPS and the potential behind them;
2) Speaking to a real person to help with the implementation along with the ability to answer specific questions, is priceless.

Going from SEO concepts to reality is an art and the more experience you have the easier it is to get your creative juices flowing. The question is not only what should we do, but how should we do it. The main key to a strong SEO strategy is how you utilize your assets, your industry’s assets and your market’s assets, to create a mass cornucopia of links.

Trojan Horse 2.0

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