SEO:Search

Condensing the essentials of search engine marketing into a one-hour session is a formidable challenge. This morning at SES London Dr. Ralph Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Web Marketing Today, took on this challenge (In the interest of full disclosure I periodically write for this publication). Ralph provided a clear concise introduction to the lingo and processes for organic and paid search. As with any introduction, there is the challenge of offering enough meat on the bone to satisfy those who are at an intermediate or beyond level without losing the beginners. From the large number of delegates actively taking notes, Ralph’s presentation was very well-received and offered plenty for everyone.

All of us who either market or provide search engine marketing services would have benefited from this session, for Ralph offered a clear roadmap just what we must provide clients not yet familiar with our services and processes. There were some nuggets – “be sure to scatter clues throughout the site.” These are essential messages that we deliver to clients, but it is not until it is put in context that is truism comes alive, as it did for the audience this morning.

Clients and readers often ask why a site that’s younger, smaller, or just plain “uglier” outranks them. There really isn’t a simple answer. In today’s Little Biz column, “How To Outrank Your SEO Competitors,” Carrie Hill offers some things to take into consideration when a competitor is outranking you.

SEO success lives or dies in the proper execution of necessary SEO components. Recommendations alone don’t make your site rank. In today’s au Natural column, “American Express Axes Ellen DeGeneres: Au Natural On Amex Site,” Mark Jackson looks at the American Express site for his latest quarterly site review. Whether or not they follow his advice is up to them.

SEOBOOK’s Aaron Wall, in what will likely be a hot post around the social news and bookmarking universe, serves up candid and insightful thinking on the long term competitive advantage of classic search engine optimization vs. pay per click. His writing style is hungry and tone passionate. Aaron’s got his Mojo on in this delightfully self-effacing comparison of SEO & PPC’s long-term value.

Wall writes, "This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul."

Many A-list SEOs have weighed in to the dialog regarding the Tao of SEO and PPC in tandem and separately. For additional perspective read "PPC vs. Organic," David Naylor, Lee Odden’s classic 2006 "The Lame PPC and SEO Debate," and sugerrae’s recent rant, "The Lazy SEO vs. The Lazy Monetizer." In a street level video interview, Rand Fishkin discusses using PPC to test organic concepts, PPC vs. SEO in China, and other useful concepts.

Search engines change their algorithms from time to time. We hear that this meta tag or that is ‘in vogue’ now. Recently we’ve been told that description tags are pretty much useless, as far as SEO goes. Search engines don’t pay too much attention to them. However in SEO PR, descriptions are worth their weight in gold..

Getting qualified traffic to your site is a two-step dance. Showing up on page one in the search engines is only the first part of the equation. After all, it’s people who are doing the searching. and it’s the people you want to come to your website.

Eye tracking studies show us how important it is to be listed at the top of a search results page. Indeed, the first goal is to be seen. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just being listed at number one or two for a search term will automatically make people click your listing and visit your site. Oh, that it were that simple!

People read the ‘headlines’ and the ‘blurb’ on the search results page before they decide which link to click. That ‘headline’ is your title tag. The ‘blurb’ is most often the description tag. So while meta tags might not be of great value in your SEO efforts anymore, they are vital pieces of persuasive content. In fact, they could well be the very first touch point with a prospective customer. They could be the deciding factor as to whether this person ever visits your site and gets to know your company.

Here is an example:

My daughter-in-law is pregnant with her first child - and my first grandchild. I am a Baby Boomer, an aging hippie with strong green and organic leanings. I have read about the connection between toxic household cleaners and childhood developmental problems. I go to the Net hoping to find information about natural, non-toxic cleansers..

This is what I get on Google when I search non toxic household cleaners

1. Make your own non toxic household cleaners
Household cleaners on the market today are harmful to your health, potentially deadly to children if ingested, expensive, and pollute ground water.

Well, that one hits all my go buttons. When I was a mom, this would have been perfect for me. However, I now own two businesses and work 15 hours a day. I am definitely not going to make my own. And neither is my daughter in law. So I move on to the next link

# 2 and 3 are also make your own. Finally at #5 I see Seventh Generation, the nation’s leading brand of non toxic household cleaners. Kitchen and bathroom cleaners made without harsh chemicals. AHA!

I was training the marketing and PR staff of a large public company last week and we looked up their search listings. When we compared their ‘headlines’ and ‘blurbs’ to the other listings on the page, it was quite clear why a searcher might choose another link rather than theirs.

They were not aware that they could control what appears on the search engine results page.

And when I said you are leaving one of the most important pieces of persuasive copy to your IT department they were horrified.

You don’t have to learn to code, but you do have to make friends with IT or your webmaster. And you need to learn enough about the SEO process to get the best possible content on the search results pages.

My last post, about how YouTube’s new features will affect internet marketers, garnered a lot of attention—but not from SEO and PPC professionals. It was my first paragraph, about YouTube’s response to the Anonymous-vs-Scientology online battle, that got attention.

Shortly after I posted that YouTube had not removed Anonymous’ initial YouTube threat/message to Scientology, SEW was flooded with replies that YouTube had just removed it, citing a Terms of Use violation (which in theory was valid, although rarely, if ever, enforced on YouTube). Today, perhaps owing to the protests of members and the mainstream coverage this conflict is beginning to get, the video was back up (although honors for it are not being tracked correctly).

My interest piqued, I began to look even more into Anonymous’ plan of attack against Scientology. DDoS attacks aside, this secretive collection of hackers is behaving, well, much like we would when we market a client in the search engines and social platforms. They are using SEO techniques to get their sites to outrank official Scientology sites; they are banding together to influence Digg and social bookmarking results. And as with any internet marketing campaign, there is a lot we can learn from their actions.

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You hear it all the time, “the world moves fast” with high speed connections and wireless access, we have come a long way in a very short time.

While the web is enjoying its Sweet Sixteen - even back at the beginning the connection speeds were limited - 14.4 modems were fast and maxing out phone speed connections had not even occurred.

I saw a piece on television today about the Daytona 500 finish in 1959 that was so close the second place person protested and it took 2 days to develop the film to determine he had won the race. That had me thinking about how fast our technology has changed.

We tend to take things for granted…. in the beginning there was Alta Vista, Northern Lights and a number of other search engines. I used Lycos alot back then and was an early user of Google when a few college friends told me about this engine from Stanford called BackRub.

They were fun times and a great article about the history of search engines has been written by Aaron Wall.

For people new to the industry having a sense of the history of our industry is handy. Just realizing how fast things have developed and how quickly front runners have dropped away is important. Things move quickly and even Google with its monster share of the search landscape is not immune to this rapidly changing loyalty.

One of the things I like best about attending conferences is talking with the people I have known in this space for years. I know I may be one of the “old guys” but that just gives me a deeper perspective on how things change.

If you are attending SES London this week take the time to speak with some of us older members of the industry. When a few of us get together and talk it is like listening to parents comparing stories about their children - we love them but have had 16 years of ups and downs dealing with their erratic behavior.

In 2024, SES San Jose will be 25 years old… I have already said I am sponsoring the walkers for the older members of our industry. Many of the people who were involved with the industry back then will be moving as slow as the modems that first connected us to the web.

Hope to see you this week in London.

Porn transmitted onHello.com, a Web site owned and operated by Google, helped catch an alleged predator in South Carolina. This isn’t another mix-up about googleporn.com, one of more than 9,000 domains owned by Google, Inc.

Police nabbed the alleged child pornographer who sent more than 500 pornographic images and porn videos to a cop posing as a 13 year old boy.

Hello.com, a Google-Picasa social site that allows instant upload and transmission of pictures and video was the platform used by the suspect, high school teacher Timothy Lynn Brumit, 47, of Aiken, S.C. Amanda Stewart of Potomac News first reported the Google porn story on Saturday.

As Google scales social search as the “future of search” platform, its problems with porn and illegal activities - online and offline - have multiplied.

In 2005, police in Brazil arrested a gang of drug dealers who were using Google’s Orkut social networking site to sell ecstasy and marijuana. Later the following year, Brazilian prosecutors threatened to shut down Orkut unless Google cooperated with police investigating child porn on the social search site.

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When Search Engine Strategies London gets underway on Tuesday, Feb. 19, there will be more than a dozen chieftans of the SEM and SEO blogging community gathered at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

(I’d compare what will take place next week to a “gathering of the clans,” except it involves a big bunch of SEM bloggers, not a large group of related people wearing kilts. Plus, it’s taking place in England, not in Scotland. But, there may be some drinking of Scotch, so I think my analogy is not entirely off base.)

I’ve already mentioned a number of blog posts about SES London, including:
– “Fredrick Marckini iProspect Exclusive SEO Interview with Dan Horton;”
– Christine Churchill’s “A Chat with Analytics Guru Jim Sterne;”
– Simon Heseltine’s “SES London 2008 Interview - Piers Stobbs;”
– Massimo Burgio’s “Pre-SES London interviews: Piers Stobbs, comScore;”
– Lee Odden’s “SES London: News & Blog SEO, Reputation Management;” and
– Lisa Barone’s “Gearing up for SES London!.”

(Lisa will be missing the show, but the other prominent search engine marketing industry bloggers will be there.)

But wait! There’s more!

After watching a similar but different gathering of the clans on NESN, the New England Sports Network, this morning — which broadcast the first workout of Red Sox pitchers and catchers during spring training live from Fort Myers — I used Google Blog Search to discover more than a dozen other posts about Search Engine Strategies London.

This includes:

– SES London 2008 - 10 Reasons To Attend. Mel Carson was doing quite a bit of work this weekend to clear the decks so he can immerse himself in all the sessions, all the talking, and he says that he might be found with a beer in his hand (instead of a Scotch) on some, if not all, of the evenings.

– Andy Beal Speaking at SES London Feb 19-21. You’d think that being a British ex-pat, Andy Beal would have had many opportunities to speak at SES London in the past. Well, next week will actually be his first time speaking at the London event — joining his good friend Mike Grehan.

– SES London 2008. Pam Hoffman writes, “If you live and breathe search, or just want to know more about it, then Search Engine Strategies is for you. SES is a great show for anyone who wants to hear experts share their knowledge, find out about the latest developments and future technologies, and hone their search expertise.”

– Connectpoint to attend SES London 2008. Both Peter Young, Head of Online Marketing for Connectpoint, and Will Graham, the firm’s Online Marketing Manager, will be attending Search Engine Strategies London. Pater says, “It is the first time we at Connectpoint will be attending one of the UK SEO showcase events, and definitely not the last.”

– SES London 2008 Interview - Jon Myers. Simon Heseltine also interviewed Jon Myers of Mediavest, a Manchester, England based firm. Jon is actually involved with 5 different sessions at this conference, but this interview deals directly with the Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues session on Tuesday Feb 19th at 11am.

– Reminder: Microsoft adCenter Team at SES London. Mel Carson also has another post that points out that quite a few of the members of the Microsoft adCenter Team are speaking at sessions throughout the conference.

– Meals for the Day - 2/15/08. Okay, so this one is a bit of a mish-mash. But Jennifer Laycock meant to make chicken, asparagus and maybe some pasta for dinner, but she’s been working for hours and hours on her PowerPoint for the training event after SES London and completely lost track of time.

– SES Paris 2008 – Interesting Observation… Technically, this isn’t about SES London. But, Mona Elesseily does say, “I can always get me some bangers and mash at SES London 2008 (starts on February 19 2008). (If you see Mona at the show, tell her she has “nice shoes.” Trust me on this.)

– SES London Preview. And, while this isn’t a blog post, check out this preview of the upcoming SES London show with Kevin Ryan, Vice President and Global Content Director of Search Engine Strategies and SES London Chair Mike Grehan.

– London to host search engine marketing event. Chris Bolwig of IceNews writes, “The event is seen as one of the most comprehensive SEM/SEO education opportunities in the UK or Europe and a number of highly-specialised sessions on search engine optimisation will be on offer. Search marketing guru Kristjan M. Hauksson, director of a growing Internet marketing company in Scandinavia, will deliver a session on ‘Dynamic Websites: Beyond the Basics’.”

– Search Engine Strategies sets agenda for London 2008. According to this news article, “This year’s conference will be hosted by search marketing specialist Mike Grehan. Mike is recognized as one of the foremost SEM experts. He was voted one of the UK’s top 100 influential people in Internet marketing in a poll of e-Consultancy’s 22,000 UK members.”

– Search Engine Strategies. In this forum post, Fintan aka Wannabe Geek asks, “Any one going to Search Engine Strategies London - 19-21 February 2008 - the intersection of search, marketing & commerce in London this month?” There are lots of replies.

– Anyone going to Search Engine Strategies 2008?. In another forum, Simon aka Figleaf asks, “Is anyone going to Search Engine Strategies in London 19-21 Feb? I think I will be going so if anyone fancies a meet up, drop me a line.”

Now, I should disclose that SES London is a client. But, that’s not so bad. While reading The Boston Globe this morning, I saw the most tortured disclosure statement that I’ve ever stumbled across. In his column, “It’s live - but not lively,” which is about NESN’s live broadcast from Fort Myers, Dan Shaughnessy wrote, “Disclaimer: the New York Times Co., which owns the Globe, owns 17 percent of the Red Sox, who own 80 percent of NESN.”

Now, that’s something that I can discuss with the SEM bloggers gathering at Search Engine Strategies London — over a Scotch, a beer, or some bangers and mash.

So far, we’ve shared some New Years resolutions, and predictions from several search marketers and social media marketers. I asked many of those same marketers what they would most like to see from search engines in 2008. Yesterday, we ran part one, and today we share even more wish lists from search marketers in “Search Marketers’ Wish Lists, Part 2.”