Get prepared for more competition in the online advertising space in the next several years. Of course, this is not surprise to all those currently participation. However, this will mean a higher barrier to entry for competitive markets who have not shifted ad budgets to have increased as spending as of late. View the complete article on Techcrunch here.
Online video adverising is booming. See the graph below and the whole story here.
{ 0 comments }
Affcon 2010 was a good beginner conference to the world of affiliate marketing in Denver the past few days. It was a good networking event and I finally met the crew responsible for running WebmasterRadio.fm … Brasco, SEGuru, Brandy. Thanks for a great event.
Great to meet gurus James Martell & Jim Hedger as well.
Shoemoney speaks, day 2 keynote discussion with Aaron Baker.
Shoemoney and I chat after his keynote. (I’m trying to convince he and his crew to come snowboarding in Vail. Thanks for the pic Tigh. And, Matt – the next time snowboarding will be less bruising. I promise.)
{ 0 comments }
Ben and Karl from conversion rate experts have published a new site that compares the leading multivariate testing solutions out there today. It’s really informative & quite cool.
Their new site offers the following:
Check it out at Whichmvt.com
{ 0 comments }
According to a June 2009 Forbes survey, 92% of senior marketing executives plan to maintain or increase their search engine optimization (SEO) budgets over the next 6 months. As companies continue to invest more in SEO, they are seeking better ways to quantify and improve their return on investment (ROI). This is where advanced SEO measurement, optimization & conversion testing comes into play.
Above highlights aken from the official survey. Download the complete Forbes Ad Effectiveness survey here.
{ 1 comment }
Talking and thinking about land page optimization. Look at this paragraph. It’s hilarious … can you read it? Turns out, when we read, all our brain needs is to know the first and last letters of the word to make sense of it. Thanks to Webshare’s Google Optimizer Seminar in Denver for this snippit.
{ 0 comments }
It happened at a Italian pasta joint – a speakeasy of sorts. You had to know the knock at the door to get in … and the place had a red glow to it. The company was as mysterious as the restaurant, but the food was great. Thanks Aaron & Giovanna for a wonderful meal.
Here are a few random pictures of the first (I believe) SEOBook Community dinner. How many faces do you recognize?
Be the winner of two lift tickets to any Vail Ski Resort
Two half priced lift tickets to any Vail Ski/Snowboard Resort (Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Heavenly Valley) for the person who can identify the most (or first to name all) of the people in these 5 photos. Twelve people total.
1) Some beautiful and familar faces. Can you name all 5?
2) I see some heavy hitters in this one, can you id them?
4) Hello mystery people. Did you have the calamari?
5) Hey smiley at the end of the table.
{ 0 comments }
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Click play on the above recording. Time about 25 minutes.
Jonah Stein is the founder of ItsTheROI.com, a San Francisco Search Engine Marketing Company that specializes in ROI driven SEO and SEM initiatives. It’s the ROI (stupid) recognized that all marketing efforts need to produce return on investment. This simple philosophy focuses clients on conversion, an event that takes place at the intersection of search intent, content and user experience.
In 2007 he coined the term Virtual Blight and started VirtualBlight.com. He is active in fostering collaboration and strategies for web publishers to protect themselves and their users against users whose personal agenda is in conflict with the aim of the community, such as spammer, scammers, griefers, trolls and hackers as well as advertisers and affiliates programs which are misleading or unethical.
During the first wave of internet business expansion, Jonah was a partner in adventmedia.com, with responsibilities for account management, search engine optimization and conceptual lead for clients ranging from venture funded startups to a division of Fortune 100 companies. In an era when venture capitalists were pouring money like chum into the feeding frenzy of the dotcom boom, adventmedia focused on functional websites with clear revenue models and measurable ROI from concept to completion.
As the bubble burst in 2001, Jonah joined one of his most profitable clients, PsPrint, where he and spent the next five years as the Director of Online Marketing and Business Development. During his tenure, the company grew from $3 million in revenue in 2001 to $25 million in 2006 and was named by San Francisco Magazine as one of the 50 fastest growing companies three consecutive years. After leaving PsPrint, he became the managing director of Alchemist Media, a San Francisco based SEO consulting firm. In March, 2008 he parted company with Alchemist to focus on ItsTheROI Inc.
I had the pleasure to hang out with Jonah a bit at Webmaster Worlds Pubcon conference this year and at a SEObook’s dinner miles away from the convension in a cool little speakeasy type joint. He’s hands down one of the most cordial SEOs in the space today. I suggest you pay attention to Jonah if you have not alreay, this boy has mad skills.
{ 0 comments }
Congratulations Hamlet.
Check out Hamlet’s RankSense SEO Software. It will save you hours of research time, and allowing you to do more off-page optimization.
My friend Hamlet Batista receives his confirmation that his ‘White Hat Cloaking’ presentation speech topic has been accepted by the premiere internet (search) marketing conference, Search Marketing Expo, June 3-4 2008.
He’s going to blow people’s minds. I guarantee it, he’s one of the best, and a truly good person to boot. A quick glimpse at Hamlet’s background. Dominican Republic Computer Science student turned successful affiliate marketer & business owner, turned software developer, entrepreneur to SEO visionary … all with no outside investment capitol.
Hamlet receives the email confirmation that he’s been accepted to speak at SMX.
Me with Hamlet and the RankSense Team while touring their offices in the Dominican Republic. Thanks for your time & product demonstration guys. Keep up the good work.
RankSense is Hamelt’s SEO software division. It could be called a revolutionary product in its class. The Ranksense team has taken a new approach to SEO software automation. More to come on this in a future post.
What do you think about a conference session on White Hat Cloaking? How will SEO automation affect the industry?
{ 6 comments }
For any small business it’s always a lot of work to get recognized by industry experts. You put in long hours in front of the computer testing experimenting and learning, you attend industry conferences and market yourself and develop relationships.
Stephan Spencer, President of Net Concepts, industry speaker & web marketing virtuoso recently wrote a post on his blog titled, “ Who do I Refer Folks to For SEO ” and mentioned us, Momentum LLC, as people he refers SEO work to.
Thanks Stephan, much appreciated. Its these relationship with industry leaders that not only give you a leg up, but add credibility to your services. It is theses folks who you can reach to with questions in a pinch, or when the sh** hits the fan & your Google rankings drop off the face of the planet.
I’ve recently done a brief interview with Aaron Wall, the man behind SEObook, one of the most read SEO blogs on the internet. I have had the pleasure to get to know Todd Malicoat or Stunt Dubl, Detlev Johnson of Search Return, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land & Matt Cutts from Google who are all heavy hitters in the search industry.
However; having worked with Stephan Spencer & his professional search optimization crew at Net Concepts recently, I have to say that they are really good at what they do. And they are based in Wisconsin to boot. Granted, they only take on clients who have budgets of $10,000+ per month, but they are leading the industry.
So, if you are at bigger company, and I have not mentioned you on this list, please ping me and I can add you. However, if you are seeking accounts in the $1k to $5k a month range, I’m keeping them for Momentum.
{ 1 comment }
I recently had an opportunity to sit down and ask Aaron Wall some questions. Aaron is a search engine marketer, best know for his ebook on search engine optimization, appropriately titled SEObook. His book was first publish in 2003, and has been revised about 50 times. He can be seen and heard at search industry conferences around globe, and is considered one of the leading experts on understanding how to rank websites to the top of Google, Yahoo & MSN.
I spend a lot of time educating people about SEO, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask Aaron simple, more broad questions about how SEO can benefit Mom & Pop shops, small to medium size businesses.
Thanks for your time Aaron.
How has SEO changed in the last 3 years? And how does this affect the impact on businesses who choose to implement it as a part of their overall marketing efforts?
I think the web has got a lot more people engaging in conversation. And I think many of the easy and cheap link sources have died off and/or been filtered out by Google. If you want to compete in the most competitive markets you need to be engaged in the conversation of the marketplace.
How do you recommend a small business, which has had a website up for 3 years, but has never updated it, or monitored it, approach search engine optimization?
Do keyword research and consider setting up some test PPC campaigns to find out what keywords are valuable to your business. Install analytics and do a link audit using Yahoo! Site Explorer. From there read up on link building and start building links if they are behind the curve in that department (there is a good chance they are if they never update their site). And also look at what people in your marketplace are talking about…then review your site to ask what you could add to it to make people want to talk about your site or brand. For on site optimization evaluate your internal use of anchor text and page titles to make sure they are descriptive. Verify your pages have some unique content on them as well (especially true if you are a retailer that does not have editorial reviews on your site).
How do you motivate new business to want to get involved with an SEO professional?
I think you can’t just pick one and make them motivated…or I think it is painful and typically presents a low ROI opportunity. A better solution is to try to appeal to a vertical (be it location or industry). Give value away to some of them and hope that some of the better ones actually worth working with decide to work with you.
What do you feel is the best services SEOs can offer businesses? Link building, social media, site audit, competitive analysis etc.
I honestly think it depends on the business and what they are lacking. Everything should start with a site audit and competitive analysis though. From there you can add whatever is needed to the mix. I think link building is also something that should be trained. External consultants can influence it to some degree, but it is beneficial if company insiders work on it as well.
What are 5 key benefits businesses experience right away after hiring a knowledgeable and experienced SEO to overhaul their site? & How can businesses take advantage of these benefits to give them a competitive advantage in their marketplace?
They learn how to
- track success (analytics, rankings, etc.)
- trim the fat (duplicate content, poorly targeted PPC ads, etc.)
- get the most out of their page titles
- improve their site structures
- lower their risk profile while maximizing potential gains for the risk level they find comfortable
- build links more aggressively (and typically with lower risk)
What are some pros and cons to SEO for small business?
Pros: great targeting and ROI, sustainable competitive advantage if well thought through, limited waste
Cons: some business owners are lazy and/or cheap and do virtually no research and thus they get ripped off, some products and services require more than rankings to sell well sustainably…SEO is only one piece of an effective marketing strategy
How can businesses make an educated decision about what to spend on SEO? What is an average hourly price to pay?
I did SEO for a one time $100 fee a few years back, and the guy made thousands back the next month. Honestly it would be much harder to do that in the current marketplace though. I also charge $500/hr or more for current projects. The wages can be anywhere from like $20 an hour (content writing) to $1,000 an hour (web strategy consulting).
The best way to make an educated decision is to spend a bit of money on learning before hiring a consultant. There are a number of reputable search engine marketing conferences they may want to attend. And a good number of companies, like mine, sell online training ( http://training.seobook.com/ ) as well.
What is your favorite SEO salad? Most understand that fresh content is great (get a blog) and inbound linking from pertinent sites with specific anchor text, PPC, social media, press releases on-page elements etc. Where do you recommend people start? Spinach, Arugala, Iceberg? Do you like croutons?
Of the options I only eat croutons. No salads. 
This question is a bit similar to one of the above ones…I would start with keyword research, analytics, and PPC. From there you work on site structure, content creation, and link building.
My favorite link building tools tend to be ones that are widget based / viral based OR conversational in nature. A read of The Cluetrain Manifesto and The Purple Cow are good starting points. From there subscribe to RSS feeds from top blogs in your industry, participate in communities, and really learn the discussion.
What are some of the best link building techniques today? Does reviewing cached, indexed, modified dates rise among the top?
I think the best link building techniques today are to study the market long and hard and create content that fulfills demand. A lot of the best marketing ideas I think come from combining push marketing, viral marketing, and understanding the psychology of the marketplace.
What are the most overlooked aspects of SEO that businesses should be taking advantage of?
Honestly many people still mess up concepts as simple as page titles and doing a good job with their site structure. Meanwhile another group of people work on their on site SEO hard and never build any links. I would say the most overlooked thing is really thinking of balance…what does your site offer for users and search engines. Why should both of them trust you? What does your site offer that is remarkable?
For more information about about Aaron Wall read his blog at www.SeoBook.com
{ 0 comments }
