Measuring Search Marketers' Job Performance
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A new study finds that more search marketers are able to measure ROI than could two years ago, and more search marketers' jobs are being measured against both search metrics and overall business results.
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Andy Beal looks at a recent Forrester Research study which lists 53 search marketing agencies and selects the top six based upon revenues, balance of services and enterprise focus. There&#8217;s lots of interesting information relating to the strengths and weaknesses of each of the six top providers and tips for selecting your own vendor. You can [...]
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Found in the search marketing forums: ROI Tracking Between Lead and Sale; Determining Commercial Intent; Yahoo Click Charges to be Based on Quality of Traffic; and more.
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Detlev Johnson of Search Return hosted this session, and its speaker Shari Thurow, on the basics of search engine design and optimization.  This is a must-attend session for businesses entering the search engine marketing world or those intending to redesign a site or enter the SEO market.    Search engine friendly design takes elements of search [...]
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Will the search engine leviathan end the hunt for a commercial hybrid? In Autopia.
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While many industry and internet specialists agree that a genuine convergence between technology and content for mobile has been achieved, many questions still remain on what exactly are the opportunities for local merchants and search marketers. Is now the time for search marketers to enter mobile and bring their clients with them?
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The arguments between search marketers and search engines about what constitutes a paid link, and whether it should matter, is a complex and emotional subject. Let's try to put it in perspective.
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Teaching search engines to see Web pages the way people do could improve their performance.
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NEWARK, Delaware, June 6  /PRNewswire/ -- Search engine results are highly dependent on the quality of the keyword or phrase entered into the query box.
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Jupiter Research and SEMPO (the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) have released results of separate surveys providing one of the most detailed looks yet at current practices and advertiser spending in the search marketing industry.
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How the right tools can create a solid search strategy.
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Search engine optimization vendors and other companies can help corporations and individuals monitor and manage their online reputations. But are they crossing ethical boundaries by tinkering with Web search results?
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A new study by SEMPO of in-house search marketers finds no quick path to riches, but a solid career path.
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(InfoWorld) - Web 2.0 has come to search engine optimization. Or rather, search engine optimizers have discovered Web 2.0. That's according to experts who spoke on Monday at the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle. "We all go to Google and Yahoo and MSN and Ask.com and make them work for us, that's our job," said Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz, an SEO (search engine optimization) consulting company. "Our job is now extended into this new realm." Fishkin and others said that they're carefully using social networking sites to improve traffic to their customers' sites and build their brands. By attracting more traffic and links, sites can improve their search rankings. Some of the social networking sites Fishkin likes to use are YouTube, Wikipedia, Yelp, MySpace, Flickr, and Technorati. Other sites, such as Digg, Del.icio.us, TechCrunch, and Reddit, can also be used to boost brands and awareness through viral marketing, he said. "Social media marketing is about going out to Web 2.0-style sites and approaching them with the mentality of 'I'm going to contribute to this community,'" Fishkin said. That's an important distinction because marketers that use Web 2.0 sites in ways that counter the community's accepted use can run into trouble. "If you break these rules, users get nasty," said Neil Patel, author of the Pronet Advertising blog andÂ CTO at ACS, a search engine optimization company. "They'll keep pestering you and really ruin your life." For instance, a company that submits lots of its own content, creates multiple accounts in order to vote repeatedly, adds biased content, and asks friends for votes will run afoul of most communities, he said. But Patel also had advice for how marketers make the sites work for them. For instance, he recommends working hard to grow your "friends" list. If a marketer submits content and a lot of people vote on it, that marketer should add those people to their friends list. "Or, if you vote on stories and others vote on the same, they probably have similar interests" and could also be added as friends, he said. Also, becoming a top user on one site can translate onto others. Patel is well known on Digg, and when he goes onto Netscape, people there recognize him and then "show me love," he said. MySpace can also be a good outlet to build a brand and improve a company's online presence, said Cindy Krum, senior SEO analyst at Blue Moon Works. Companies can have MySpace profiles for different brands or products or even for specific people at the company who may be well known. Videos, coupons for free stuff, games, and podcasts are all good content for attracting people to MySpace pages, she said. "It's especially powerful because [social networking sites] allow users to publicly affiliate themselves with a brand in a way that is highly visible to their peer set," she said. While some companies may think that their target customer doesn't fit with the demographic of people using many of these social networking sites, the experts say participating in the sites is still worth it. "It's a jump-off point," said Todd Malicoat, an Internet marketing consultant at Stuntdubl, an SEO consulting company. "It may not be my audience at Digg, but if they like what I have to say, it will get to Techmeme, and then I'll get in front of the demographic I really want to go after." They all agreed that social networking sites can really improve a company's online reputation, but only if used carefully. Patel's ultimate words of wisdom: "Do what is ethical, don't jeopardize your brand, think long term."
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Uncovering tomorrow's industry leaders today.
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Barry Schwartz points to a WebmasterWorld thread where a Yahoo Search Marketing representative, YahooSarah, posts an explanation of Yahoo&#8217;s new Quality Index Score system. Basically, Yahoo Search Marketing now uses a mix of click price and quality score to determine placement of ads in Yahoo Search results.  Here&#8217;s Sarah&#8217;s explanation of how to boost your Yahoo Quality [...]
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Search Engine Marketing Research  Search engine marketing success comes from good research. By applying research to understand your competition and target audience, your optimization efforts will succeed. Remember when homework from school often required some research on your part to complete? It is much the same scenario for search engine marketing: ...