Search Engine Marketing
« Previous EntriesThe 12 Most Useful Social Bookmarking & Autoposting Tools for Your Blog
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
As bloggers, we’re always trying to encourage our readers to post our blogs to one of the many social bookmarking services… be it digg, delicious, mixx, reddit, stumbleupon or one of the myriad others. There are many different wordpress plugins for different social sites. The problem is that your blog ends up cluttered with all of those buttons, and it really gets annoying.
The solution has been the plugins that allow you to post to any or many of the social networks. Here’s an overview of all of the ones that I’ve found (with some of my lovely comments to boot). One of the most popular players - sharethis, has received $15 million dollars in funding!
Do You Follow the Nofollow? Get the Story - and The Linkjuice!
Monday, February 25th, 2008The dofollow - nofollow debate has been a topic that was beaten into the dirt… Here’s a little rerun of some of the story.
Issue:
The concept of Google’s page-rank algorithm is based on the structure used to rank the authority of academic articles. The assumption is that any academic article that is quoted by other sites is more authoritative. Google applies that to websites, and assumes that the more links coming in to a site, the more relevant it is to the keywords that it’s linked into with.
Say What?
Mark Cook over at Digerati Marketing compares the internet to a flower show.
17 Useful Wordpress SEO and other plugins
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008- All in One SEO Pack - This is an absolutely vital plugin for every blog that you have. This allows you to change your Title, description and keyword metatags on each blog post to make them unique, as well as to make a default home page title and description. I credit this plugin with about 30% of the credit for my rankings on some of my keywords.
- AutoMeta - This tag kind of conflicts with the All-in-one SEO packplugin, as it automatically creates the titles and descriptions. I still have to see how this works with All-in-One SEO pack
Top 3 Questions from SmallBusiness Owners About Online Marketing
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008Local Business Owner Three Biggest Questions about search – and the answers:
1) Do people really search for local services online?
2) Can I afford to get traffic from the internet?
3) Is there anyway to do it if I am not a “computer guy” or on a budget?
The main way to see whether people are searching for your service is to go see how many people search for your business locally, by going to wordtracker and seeing how many people are searching for your service in your area.Here is a screenshot of the amount of people that search for los angeles accountants (a client of mine is a los angeles accountant).Blogging for Yourself, the User and the Search Engine - a 2008 resolution
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008As you may or may not know, I am a big believer in blogging. It is a valuable way of
1)expressing your personality,
2)creating a connection with your users, and
3)getting valuable SE ranking.
The question is which one comes first? You might think this is a trivial question. It’s not.When I started blogging on About Results Marketing, I had merely bought a cool expiring domain for something I had wanted to do in the future - consulting in SEO, SEM and online marketing.
Facebook (Stupidly) Takes the Heat from Moveon, while Yahoo and Ebay laugh to the bank!
Thursday, December 13th, 2007So we all know about the Facebook Debacle with Beacon - and the horrible mistakes stupid 24 year olds make (We really do love you Mark Zuckerburg) it’s just that young kids shouldn’t be running $15 billion dollar businesses.
Moveon.org and the EFF have been decrying the privacy issues. As I’ve stated in a previous post, I think that behavioral targeting is inevitable and coming soon. In fact, I wasn’t happy that Mike Morgan from Tacoda was being apologetic about it.
Should an Ecommerce Website Have a Blog?
Thursday, December 6th, 2007(Disclaimer: I am extremely biased towards blogs. I have already come to the conclusion that blogs are always beneficial. Consider yourself warned!)
Here are the issues:
- What are the pro’s and con’s of having a blog on your ecommerce site (The Theory)
- What are the other experts in the field saying about having blogs on your ecommerce site
- What are the big guys doing?
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What are the Pro’s and Con’s of having a Blog on your Ecommerce site?
Los Angeles Internet Marketing - A Local Business Directory
Sunday, November 25th, 2007As you probably know, getting links to your website is the all important thing in getting better rankings (if you have an optimized website first, that is).
Many people use article directories, press releases, putting blog links on other blogs etc.
As a small business owner, there is a very valuable and often overlooked factor - getting your business listed in the local business directoriesI am in the midst of creating a list of sites to submit your business to, for local marketing. I’ve already mentioned a great resource in the Local Search Optimization post.
Is the LA Times Getting Closer to “Getting It”?
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007This is a follow up to my first post on the LA Times’s efforts to go “Web 2.0″, after meeting with Eric Ulken at a blogger’s event.
First off, a little disclaimer… My site is ugly, doesn’t convert, and definitely is not “cool”. So I really should have no right to criticize other companies’ efforts to “get it”. Especially since the LA Time site isn’t to badly designed. It has a pretty minimalist design, and very easy to find links.
The Importance of Local Optimization for Small Businesses
Sunday, November 18th, 2007I’m currently doing some consulting work for some clients - as well as for my day job… creating and implementing a plan of action for local search. I’m realizing how much I’ve underutilized it. In the next couple of days I will be creating a guide outlining the steps you need to take to market your business locally.
In the meantime, here is an important resource from Frank Fuchs, a “Yahoo” who seems to have no qualms about stating his impressions of the company publicly. He lists all of the Local Places to submit your business to.
A Sad Day - A Legal Decision Puts BroadFirst Out Of Business
Friday, November 16th, 2007Sheri Archidiacono in Sedo’s Newsletter (they don’t have it available online) sais this about “Website Terms and Conditions are Considered a Contract”:
“In the case of Southwest Airlines Co. v. BoardFirst, LLC, a Texas court held that a user of a website was bound by the terms and conditions of that website where the user has actual knowledge of such terms and conditions.
The Plaintiffs, Southwest airlines maintained a first come, first served, open seating policy, where passengers are arranged in groups. The Defendant, Boardfirst.com was an internet company that provided a service to Southwest customers whereby for a fee, a passenger could check in early and BoardFirst would attempt to get the passenger into the first boarding group.
Could Consumers Really Accept Behavioral Targeting?
Friday, November 2nd, 2007I am a regular reader of Mediapost’s many daily newsletters. It really allows me to cover the industry on a day-to-day basis, as well as get the thoughts of some of the foremost decision makers in our industry. (I highly suggest that you sign up.)
Anyway, so today, we have a post from Dave Morgan, the founder of Tacoda. His claim was that despite their “highly publicized” opt out campaign, not many people took advantage.
Beware!!! Biased Companies “Research” Supports Product…Part 2 - Pay-Per-Call?? The Click Fraud Solution???
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007I was going to do a post on Yahoo’ s smartads press releases, as well as the Atlas’s Research that conveniently came up right beforehand. Hmm… both services not in as much in the SEM field as much as in the…. you got it - banner and rich media advertising… Hmmm correlation?
(Unfortunately, that idea seems to have fallen flat. The sad part is, that although the concept was a good one - someone in PR at Yahoo just doesn’t know how to promote it. It will remain a little gold mine for the marketer that cares.)
Real Good Keyword Research Tools…
Friday, October 12th, 2007I’m frustrated - and I need your suggestion. I am doing keyword research on a huge industry for a site that we are putting up shortly. I’m a systematic person. When I was working for one of the best affiliate marketers creating keyword lists, I would systematically create an excel sheet that contained all of the variations of that keyword that people would search.
Beware!!! Biased Companies “Research” Supports Product…Part 1 - Click Fraud
Sunday, September 30th, 2007In recent times, I’ve noticed two major companies that have put out press releases about “itches” (things that bother advertisers), just to get focus on their products… I don’t have any issues with them doing that - I think it’s a brilliant marketing plan.
1) Find an “itch” - an issue, challenge or market opening
2) Create a solution (under wraps)
3) Scratch the itch (blow the issue, challenge or market opening up as much as possible- but appear unbiase, because you don’t yet have a solution)
4) Rake in the money - become the “authority” on the “issue, challenge or market opening”
In House Agency vs. Outside Agency…
Friday, August 31st, 2007We are currently doing PPC inhouse. Our SEO however, is out of house. Here is something that I’ve been mulling over. What is more valuable - doing as much of the advertising and marketing in-house, or to hire an agency?
Advantages of doing in-house:
1) Accountability - Anything get’s screwed up you bring in your employees in and just give it to them over the head!
2) Increased ROI- Agencies fees are generally pretty expensive. They charge you through the nose. You know you are spending alot more. Contrast that with hiring an employee, many times it’s much cheaper to hire an employee.
More about Yahoo…
Friday, August 3rd, 2007I saw an interesting article at knowledge at wharton which confirmed some of my beliefs about Yahoo -and their current perception in the eyes of “tech geeks”, Wall Street and the public. One of their main arguments was that Yahoo has to ignore Wall Street and their opinions.
Couldn’t agree more
However, I think that it is just the opposite. I think that Yahoo has to create a PR campaign about their innovations. They had personalized pages before Google - yet Google’s personal home page was trumpeted alot more. More so, they don’t even pay for the publicity.
The Lessons From the Yahoo vs. Google Rivalry…
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007One thing that strikes me so weird is Wall Street’s attitude towards Yahoo. It almost feels like most Yahoo investors that aren’t enamored of it are because “Google is cool” - be like Google. As a savvy person - and one that is savvy in online marketing - I laugh at that.
But this is not something to laugh at. The market’s perception of Yahoo is what will drive it’s future, as the unknowing owners / stockholders will demand from Yahoo to emulate and beat Google at Google’s game. Sad… really.
But hey, I don’t have Yahoo stock - or Google, so I’ll just stay carefree.
6 Steps to Taking Your Marketing Team to Ultimate Creativity…
Monday, July 2nd, 2007This week I was asked to present a marketing plan… Hehehe… I don’t think my boss was ready for this!
Some of the challenges we have been facing (my boss hasn’t realized) is that there is a large disconnect between our sales department and our marketing department… as well as our IT department… (creates alot of politics - god). My boss asked me to create a marketing plan for the team - and this is what I came up with.
CEO’s Who Don’t Understand Search Rant…
Saturday, June 30th, 2007Wow… today was a crazy day. I am the “online marketing specialist”. Typically, I get orders of stuff to do, and I just do them. I don’t get into meetings with the CEO and make decisions. Hey, I’m happy that way, it frees me from responsibility.
Well, today I got invited into a meeting, where our department got chewed. Now, it wasn’t really our department. It was my boss- the VP of marketing, that the CEO was frustrated with.
