It’s been a busy week over at Digg and the changes just keep on coming. It began with the public release of the new Digg, which I happened to like, but many did not. The loudest noises are coming from Digg’s old guard and it’s not surprising since the new Digg is designed to allow a wider variety of users to rise to the top, not just the...

A must-read for every SEO out there - great insight by an excited SEO pro.

Tony gets this insight spot on. Online reputation management for the bigger brands is now an easy pass

Original Title:' "In Defense of Links, Part One: Nick Carr, hypertext and delinkification"By Scott Rosenberg - co-founder of Salon

One of the most prominent business schools in the US, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association has delivered their second CMO Survey of 2010 and there are plenty of interesting findings. On the social media front it looks like the CMO club either knows the right things to say or they are actually catching on to...

I am very excited. I stand on the precipice of truly entering the mobile age in a few short days because I will rid myself of the “smart phone” I currently wrestle with on a daily basis and move to the next level by becoming an Android user of some kind. It’s exciting because now I may actually be able to get something from my smart phone...

Army Golden Knights: SFC Dave Herwig (@gkdave), SGM Steve Young (@gksteve), LTC Joe Martin (gkjoe) My presentation on how to leverage Social Media SEO to improve the reach and effectiveness of blog content for marketing at OpenCa.mp DFW this weekend ended up being a lot of information in a very short period of time. The use of a video interview I...

Starting tomorrow, Gmail users will have a little help setting their priorities at the start of the day thanks to the new Priority Inbox. The concept is pretty cool. From day one, Gmail will take a look at your incoming email messages to determine which ones are important and which ones not so much. The important messages get a gold flag and they...

Debate whether Google should penalize over paid links all you want. The bottom line remains that Google DOES penalize, when it finds them, and when it wants. And in this case, an online flower shop's SEO firm bought links for them. Penality ensued, and it figures it lost $4 million in sales from 2008-2009. Good news is the lesson taught them...

ICANN is searching for applicants from the Internet user community to occupy a seat on their Board of Directors. They hope to fill this position with those who may be interested in helping to develop policy, and are able to serve on ICANN’s Board of Directors. If you are reading this, you may qualify. Here are the requirements: you must be...

The New York Times published a story on the practice of retargeting today, entitled "Retargeting Ads Follow Surfers to Other Sites." While not nearly as presumptively negative as the WSJ series on marketing and data, it's telling that the story is slugged with "adstalk" in the URL. Journalists and editors generally dislike and mistrust advertisers...

Picking up the gauntlet thrown down by Bill Slawski, here's my guide to optimising your images for ranking in Google Image Search. From filenames to picture dimensions, it's all relevant.

OpenCamp’s Sunday schedule included presentations on blogging that included Chris Pirillo, Brian Clark and myself. I caught up with Brian before he gave his presentation to give us a little preview. John P. ended up using the video as the segue between Brian and I as we changed microphones. Watch as Brian talks about the importance of...

This post is about sharing something Jennifer Mattern recently discovered occurring on Compete.com, as well as her opinions on the ethics and defenses of it.

(Cross posted from the Web 2 Summit Blog...) As themes for conferences go, Points of Control is one of our favorites. Our industry over the past year has been driven by increasingly direct conflicts between its major players: Apple has emerged as a major force in mobile and advertising platforms; Google is fighting off Microsoft in search, Apple...

At the OpenCa.mp conference in Dallas this weekend I was able to re-connect with Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome and the Gnomedex conference (We’ve interviewed each other in the past). We both jumped out of the same airplane with the Army Golden Knights last week and are also speaking today about blogs at OpenCa.mp. I caught up with Chris to...

There are ads that I like. Target is always kitschy and catchy. Those Mac vs PC ads are charming and I wish the Gap would go back to those great dance commercials. I really liked those. But when Facebook asks me to “like” a sidebar ad, I find that weird. Two parents in Los Angeles are finding it more than just weird....

The first content session I’m attending at OpenCamp is by Gio, aka Giovanni Gallucci, a longtime search and social media marketer based in Dallas. The topic is “Blackhat SEO” and the room is packed! The session was cut a bit short due to technical difficulties with getting the conference started and Gio took it in stride and was...

Update: See comments section for comment from Facebook. Original Article: WebProNews reached out to both Teachbook and Facebook for comment on the suit the latter has filed against the former. So far, we've only heard back from Teachbook. In case you're not familiar with the story, Facebook is suing a company called Teachbook, which...

It's become clear that check-ins are becoming about more than just locations. While location is obviously a big part of it, we've seen several examples of non-place "check-ins". For example, Booyah recently released product check-ins. Third parties have already begun using Facebook Places for physical items. It looks like Facebook is...

On Monday, we posted a piece about Philadelphia’s new Business Privilege Tax. In short the city now wants to tax bloggers whether they are making an income with their blog or not. It appears to be another case of a misguided municipality looking to bring in new revenue streams. As expected, most bloggers are angered by this...

Ben Huh, who runs the Cheezburger Network, has offered to buy Reddit. This comes after Condé Nast, which owns Reddit, rejected Prop 19 ads on the site (Facebook also rejected them). Yesterday, Reddit posted the following message: The reddit admins were just blindsided with the news that, apparently, we're not allowed to take advertising...

Everyone knows that social media provides some great opportunities for marketing, but measurement issues continue to plague businesses. You know content is being shared, but you don't know how people who its being shared with are responding to it. Are you content with your ability to measure social media effectiveness? Let us know....

63% of marketers are already using social media marketing while more than half of those who aren’t currently involved said they were planning on jumping in probably within the next year. But why? Extra Mile Audience Research conducted a study for PivotCon and here’s what they found out: People said they used social media...

comScore released its monthly Media Metrix top 50 revealing the top 50 U.S. web properties. Here are the top ten: 1. Google sites 2. Yahoo Sites 3. Microsoft sites 4. Facebook.com 5. AOL 6. Glam Media 7. Ask Network (IAC perhaps?) 8. Turner Network 9. Fox Interactive Media 10. Amazon Sites Google has acquired Angstro, a social startup that is said...

Organizers of the JavaOne and Oracle Develop conference may be fielding more than a few emails and phone calls about refunds this afternoon.  Google, which was supposed to have a significant presence at the event, backed out today due to the lawsuit Oracle brought against it. Joshua Bloch, Google's chief Java architect, wrote on the Google...

Baskin-Robbins has launched a new campaign for its Facebook fans to get free scoops of ice cream. Baskin-Robbins Facebook fans can sign up for “Group Scoop” on Facebook and start their own group or joins someone else’s. Once the number of people in a “Group Scoop” reaches 31, the organizer and all 30 other members...

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has a company called Interval Licensing, and it is suing the following  eleven companies: AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube. The claim, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington, alleges that these companies have...

A couple months ago, Google introduced the "Analyze Competition" feature for AdWords advertisers. This can be found in the "opportunities" tab. The feature was initially only available to a small number of advertisers using the English language AdWords interface. Today, Google announced that it is expanding. Now the feature...

A company that was founded for the specific purpose of addressing one of Google's weaknesses has now been acquired by the larger corporation.  Angstro should help Google (and whatever sort of social network it's building) distinguish between lots of results for a given name. Angstro is shutting down due to the acquisition, and Google's given...

Even before an acquisition was announced, talks between Google and ITA software were causing a stir in the travel industry. Once Google announced its intent to acquire the company at the beginning of July for $700 million, plenty of talk about regulatory obstacles ensued. Google announced an update on the situation today. On the company' public...

You may recall that earlier this year, Facebook took a lot of heat over user privacy. While some may still not be satisfied, the company did release simplified privacy settings in response. Around that time, however, a project called Diaspora started generating a lot of hype as a potential, open alternative to Facebook as a social network....

What happens when you don’t add Google TV to your television? Apparently, it turns into a freaky, one-eyed, monster that terrorizes your house, that’s what! Check out these ads that are running to promote Logitech’s partnership with Google TV. (Hat-tip)

Nielsen released its version of the U.S. search market rankings for July this week. Google is of course on top with 3 out of 5 searches (64.2%). Yahoo came in second with 14.3%, leaving Microsoft in third at 13.6%. Yahoo and Microsoft both gained in month-over-month share (2% and 4%, respectively). This is all good for Microsoft, as Bing has now...

Army Strong Stories is a program to draw attention to the real life and experience of being in the Army through soldier stories communicated via media socially. Recently Greg Swan of the Minneapolis Public Relations firm, Weber Shandwick, that is behind the Army Strong Stories campaign contacted me with a compelling opportunity to create my own...

...that was the subject of an email sent to my by my Apple-loving son when the image above showed up on the family iPad (yes, we have an iPad, my wife insisted. It's really hers, but that's another story). The story goes like this. My son had a question about the new Droid X I got, one I couldn't answer because I didn't have the device with me...

Update: WebProNews reached out to Teachbook for comment. Read Teachbook's full response here. See comments from Facebook in the comments section of either article. Excerpt: "We were unaware the Facebook owned the Internet or the term 'book,'" Teachbook Managing Partner Greg Shrader tells WebProNews. -- Original...

Social networking use among Internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled from 22 percent in April 2009 to 42 percent in May 2010, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Social networking use among Internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88 percent over the past year, from 25 percent in April 2009 to 47 percent...

Google has given its realtime search feature its own homepage at google.com/realtime. Searches from this destination still take you to the updates section of a regular Google search. While realtime search on Google itself isn't new, there are still some new features Google has revealed along with the homepage. Product Manager Dylan Casey...

Last week, Vevo launched its mobile app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Today, the company announced that the app has already been downloaded over a million times. "Our new app for iPhone and iPod touch is a huge success! Since we debuted VEVO Mobile last week, it has ranked #1 among Free Apps and Music Apps in the iTunes store and was named...

Google is rolling out some changes to the event page in Google Calendar. The goal is to make scheduling events easier, while making the style more consistent with other Google apps. The information that is most commonly used is displayed at the top of the screen, the layout is simplified, and they've added some other features. "The old...

There are currently some interesting happenings with Google search that webmasters may want to pay attention to. The company, which is always busy, has been making moves, which may greatly affect its flagship product - search. This is all in addition to everything the company is doing in social media, mobile, gaming, advertising and everything...

As usual, Facebook is making its way into a lot of headlines for a lot of reasons. While many of them have to do with legal issues, some are also based on the social network itself and other areas of innovation. As reported, the company has partnered with Y Combinator to lend some support to social-minded startups. Facebook will provide product,...

Depending on their tolerance for awful writing and acting, YouTube users in the UK should now be able to watch around 400 movies for free on the site.  YouTube's expanded its movies section due to deals with companies like Blinkbox, Lionsgate, MGM, and Sony. Fair warning: the word "awful" was not some sort of typo.  Home and...

Gooogle announced today that it has made a change to its algorithm that is supposed to make it easier to find multiple pages from a single site. "For queries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain, like [exhibitions at amnh], we'll now show more results from the relevant site," says Google software engineer Samarth...

In a nutshell, NewsBasis is a site where journalists and bloggers can find sources, while experts and companies can find journalists and bloggers to write about them in their articles. WebProNews had a conversation with NewsBasis Founder and CEO Darryl Siry (who also happens to be a contributor to Wired, and was formerly CMO of Tesla Motors)...

Updatre: Following the below news, HP and Dell got into a bidding war for 3PAR, but according to TechCrunch, 3PAR has accepted the latest offfer from Dell  for $27 per share in cash, or approximately $1.8 billion. Original Article: Dell announced that it is acquiring virtualized storage solutions provider 3PAR for $1.15 billion....

Google has introduced a new video series about search called Google Beat. The series highlights search trends on Google in the U.S. Google Beat taps into both Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, as well as some additional tools to come up with a snapshot of what people are searching for. Google's Emily Wood writes: You’ve...

More than half of Malaysians online visited a news/information site in July, reaching more than 5.5 million visitors, according to a new report from comScore. Yahoo News led as the most visited site in the category reaching 1.2 million visitors, followed by the New York Times Digital with 873,000 visitors. “News sites combine both...

Even with its 500 million users and omnipresence in society, Facebook is not discounting the threat posed by Google's supposed plans to launch a social network, according to a new report.  Instead, the company's gone into a sort of "lockdown" in response. Do you think the lockdown's a sign that Facebook thinks it's in trouble? ...

Social-minded startups with ties to Y Combinator, a well-known provider of seed funding, will soon get another benefit from the relationship.  Last night, Facebook announced that it will provide support to the startups in a number of ways. Don't look for more money to change hands; Facebook hasn't quite decided to become a venture capital...

A great deal of attention has been put on what Facebook Places means for the future of other check-in apps. This discussion has been around as long as the rumors of Facebook launching a location feature, which have been swirling for quite some time. Will you check in with Facebook Places? Let us know. A lot has also been made of the...

Yesterday Google began its rollout of its Realtime search offering. While You could send some precious time reading my description of the service let’s let the folks from Google tell you instead. The LA Times reports The idea is to give people one place to find timely information about an earthquake or other major event that...

Like most studies, surveys, and stat counts related to Internet user behavior, search market stats should generally be taken with a grain of salt. While they can give us a general idea of which search engines users flock to, there are too many variables to paint a completely accurate picture. What's your search engine of choice? Why? Let us...

You read it right. As I noted yesterday, Facebook had become so big and so powerful that they are starting to make Microsoft like moves that make it impossible to not poke fun at them. The efforts to force sites like Teachbook, and possibly others, to stop using book in their names apparently weren’t enough for Facebook. Now it...

As you may have read, Facebook is suing Teachbook for using the word "book" and being a competitor. To put it in Facebook's exact words, the company's Director of Policy Communications, Barry Schnitt, tells WebProNews: "The problem is not merely that they use the word "book." You'll notice that we have no complaint...

CareerBuilder released some survey findings this week, indicating that over a third of employers in the U.S. are using social media to promote their company, but it's employee use that still has some businesses worried. A lot of companies are afraid to let their employees use social media freely, but they're also afraid not to. On the one hand,...

Here you go, all you 188K or so RSS readers. I know you really count on this round up, so you know what I'm doing each night around ten PM.... Friday Signal: A Pre-Weekend Potpurri Thursday Signal: Google’s About FaceBook Weds. Signal: Valuable Point of View, Well Stated, Is the Foundation… Tuesday Signal: A Latesummer’s Night Stream Monday...

I was struck by this headline from TechCrunch: Has Google Purged Places Of Yelp? All Signs Point To Yes. The story is rather pedestrian - yet another dispute between a content and community service with the all powerful Google. Sure, it's Yelp, but at the end of the day, it's another company who has run afoul of the distribution giant, and is a...

The biggest problem with social media marketing is that it’s hard to measure your results. You throw everything you have at Twitter and Facebook and mostly you just hope to see an upswing in traffic. To alleviate this problem, ShareThis, the social media sharing widget, is adding an analytic component that will not only...

A brand that seems to make a splash at least every few months, getting its videos featured on all sorts of blogs, talk shows, and news programs, has picked Google as a search provider.  As a result, Google Site Search now powers JibJab.com. Chris Poe, JibJab's engineering director, wrote a short guest post on the Official Google Enterprise...

This one has been on my mind for 6 months, finally got around to finishing it up. Exceptional content? Dunno, but damned important and over-looked. Is it from SEJ? Yea, sorry Michael... Am I also be a cheecky fella today? U bet, sleep deprivation does wonders! hee hee... But heed these words I tell ya!

The Mall of America has 4.2 million square feet of gross building space, 4.3 miles of storefront footage, 520 stores and 40 million visitors annually. Now try to remember where you parked, let alone find a bathroom when you need one. Sam Feuer, CEO of Mindsmack has the solution. It’s a smartphone app called FastMall which...

According to Google's own people, Google Music - which might be a music download service designed to let users store songs in the cloud at some point - will launch this year.  Trouble is, the Google Music project doesn't have any sort of public leader, and Google's now supposedly trying to remedy that problem. Peter Kafka reported this...

Google announced (via Twitter) that over 1,000,000 people placed calls from Gmail within just 24 hours. This feature began rolling out yesterday (and as far as I can tell isn't even finished yet). "Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer's microphone and speakers," says...

Retailer Target has introduced a new online weekly ad called “My TargetWeekly” that offers users deals. My TargetWeekly allows users to create customized views and deal alerts so they know when items they are looking for are on sale. Users can also view coupons, see top 10 deals, share via Facebook and Twitter and create their own...

Microsoft has launched some new Bing Maps integration with Hotmail. When Hotmail users create a new email message, they can insert Bing Maps data. When a user selects "Maps and Places", a task pane opens, which lets you add new locations or interact with previously defined locations. It will default to the address you have in your...

Yahoo's search results may now be accompanied by a "Powered by Bing" tagline, but the company remains adamant that it hasn't exited the search race.  Shashi Seth, SVP of Yahoo Search Products, protested the idea in a recent blog post. The title of the post was "Yahoo! Search will always be a Search Engine," and Seth...

A public relations firm hired by video game developers will settle Federal Trade Commission charges it engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees post favorable reviews on iTunes on behalf of the developers and not revealing the reviews came form paid employees. “Companies, including public relations firms involved in online...

A summary of one of the most detailed discussions on the topic of pagination with a Googler and some of the brightest SEOs covering the various options.

Cisco announced today that it intends to acquire ExtendMedia, a content management systems provider out of Newton, Massachusetts. ExtendMedia's systems manage video content through monetization for pay media and ad-supported business models. Cisco says that with ExtendMedia, it will be able to help service providers deliver multi-screen...

Dave Roth works as Director of Search Marketing at Yahoo. That means Dave is a Search Engine Marketer that works for a search engine. I’ve known Dave for several years and we finally decided to do a video interview. Watch the interview below to learn what a search marketer that works for a search engine does, especially the challenges and...

In the category of “Why should this even surprise anyone?”, Facebook is working hard to shut down any social networking service that is incorporating the word “book” into their name. Over at Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog it reports on a small start-up called Teachbook that is either delusional or just milking as...

If you were characterize the relationship between Google and Yelp these days it would have to occur on a sliding scale that runs between contentious and bearable. Let’s face it, they don’t get along well and each new event in the relationship adds some more drama. Yelp has rebuffed a Google attempt to buy the service at the...

Sunshine.co.uk are a UK-based travel agency offering cheap holidays. Within six months of working with Conversion Rate Experts, their conversion rate almost doubled. Read how they did it here...

A few minutes ago, I pointed by my browser to the Daily Radar Blips sites with the intention of dropping a link to my last post here on Marketing Pilgrim. This is what I found: Apparently Future US, the parent company of Daily Radar, has pulled the plug on the entire network including BallHype, ShowHype and my beloved TVBlips....

In an arbitration battle this week, Take-Two Interactive lost its fight for Bioshock.com to professional domain name purchaser, Name Administration Inc. Name Administration is a Cayman Islands based company, that makes money from trading in and displaying advertisements on its massive network of domain names. Normally, this type of business is not...

Customer interaction is the key behind two new marketing campaigns that hit the web this past week, Hyundai “Uncensored” and Halo’s Robotic Arm. Let’s take a closer look and see if we can get inspired for a campaign of our own. Hyundai’s “Uncensored” campaign has gained the interest of both consumers...

Here @Alysson talks about necessary steps you need to take to protect your  WordPress blog being hacked.  She shares very insightful 'how tos' on ways to implement your sites security.

An in-depth case study on how WordStream leveraged infographics to build links from highly authoritative sites while generating enormous traffic (and even some leads and sales!) via social media.

I was all set to post a simple announcement that Yahoo had officially flicked the switch and changed its search results to Bing’s. I had no plans to give Yahoo a hard time. Give it a break, I told myself. Let it prove to the world that it’s not bailing on search. Then I read Shashi Seth’s rebuttal to…well,...

Our newest author, Barry Adams, had an interesting first post where he see's the future of the internet in 'appification' and believes that our future, SEOs that is, will be changed far and wide from what we know today. Me? Believe it or not I am not much of a gadget geeek, so I have my doubts. An interesting suposition none-the-less. Give it a...

Facebook has taken a stand on just what you can or cannot show in an ad on the social media service. Of course, their decision came a week after said ad was running. As a result, st least a short while it was OK for Facebook to take the money of the Just Say Now organization before it extinguished the campaign. The LA Times...

How much benefit do you get from being part of Twitter’s limited test of Promoted Tweets? Well, according to one of the participants, Zecco, life is pretty good at the top of the Twitter Search results! Over the past two months, Zecco sampled 50 Promoted Tweets and measured their effectiveness. In comparison to regular...

Terrible story about people who are taking advantage of an expired domain and Google to profit from the name and death of a young female golfer.

A great collection of resources and links for all types of Google Universal Search ranking factors, from video to news, from blogsearch to maps. Assembled by Jeroen van Eck from State of Search.

This content series builds high-trust links because of its thoroughness, emphasis on utility and the inclusion of "info-swag" such as free tools, checklists and widgets.

QR code on the side of a building? Geek cool. Last week the West Coast SES Conference and Expo moved from San Jose back to its roots in San Francisco. It was a well attended show (5,000+ in 2009 vs. 6,000 in 2010 registrations), despite the illusion created by the voluminous Moscone. As part of Connected Marketing Week, SES included a great mix...

Each time I find out about how Google is making strides in turning many of their popular services into a usable mobile form I am reminded of just how far mobile has to go. Honestly, I am naïve enough to think that a company like Google would already have done something long ago with an important feature like Google Finance to...

Enhanced CPC - all sounds good, but will this tool really make that much of a difference? What’s the difference between this and Conversion Optimiser, which also promises to boost your ROI with an easy-to-use bidding tool?

Last week, Groupon members got a great deal, $50 worth of clothing at The Gap for only $25. More than 440,000 subscribers took advantage of the deal and they did it so quickly, they temporarily stalled the servers at the popular new deal site. Part of the reason for the huge influx was that it wasn’t just Groupon members who...

Local online ad spending is climbing faster than expected with sales reaching a number in 2011 that was originally predicted for 2012. According to a study by Borrell Associates, which was reported on by PaidContent, online ad spending is likely to rise 18% next year rising to $16.1 billion dollars. Ad spending overall is expected...

It's official! Yahoo is now officially being powered by Bing.

Fresh off its success in helping to take the Apple Antennagate fiasco to a new level, Consumer Reports may be trying to make a name for itself in the world of the mobile Internet. According to the LA Times the group is now making some waves in the area of mobile payment security. {Consumers Union} the nonprofit testing and...

In case you haven’t noticed, I am not a big fan of politics or politicians. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle they come from or claim to have allegiance to, to me a politician is a politician is a politician. So what is happening in Florida Democratic primaries today doesn’t help me feel any better about these folks....

New Eye Tracking Study Released July 2010: New study tried to determine whether the intention behind queries affects the way people browse the results page, the relationship between gaze patterns and intentionality while performing queries.

This post discusses at what point an Internet Marketing company should say goodbye to a client.

More and more website owners are concerned that they might get penalized accidentally or overtly because of duplicate content.  For example, if you run mirror sites, will search engines ban you? If you have listings that are similar in nature, is that an issue? What happens if you syndicate content through RSS? Will other sites be considered the...

If you automatically follow everyone who follows you, then you may find your home feed a bit overwhelming. In order to keep up with all of the people you want to follow based on their interests and your connection to them. Here are nine great Twitter lists to create and ways to use them.

OK, I am about to share a very well-kept secret. There will be many people that will be angry with me that I have decided to share this with the world at large. (Well, at least our readers but who’s counting?) I risk being ostracized by just about everyone when I reveal the following: Business can be very boring. Wow! What a relief! I said...

The writer remembered how many issues he encountered when creating feeds for clients (especially if you are using a CMS and not a custom xml feed for 50 or so products) and also how many questions posted by other people were left unanswered. He decided to compile a list of the 5 common problems when dealing with Google Base, with solutions. Very...

Thanks to Ray ‘Catfish’ Comstock for providing the title of this post with his opening remarks during the session.  Joining Comstock on this panel, moderated by Seth Besmertnik, CEO, Conductor, Inc.: Crispin Sheridan, SES Advisory Board & Sr Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP Bill Hunt,  SES Advisory Board &...

Algorithms are in the news this week and as far as that goes, this year. In a surprising change, Yahoo and Bing are partnering up to take on Google. Bing, to those who remember, used to be called “Live Search” and as part of the new deal is now going to power Yahoo searches. Yahoo and Microsoft have been conspiring to take more of the...

Websites and landing pages face very real trust issues – for consumers they can be a scary and uncertain place. Before people will take a desired action, their concerns and anxieties must be addressed. But how can you do this on landing pages when you only have seconds to establish trust? Tim Ash, SiteTuners CEO and bestselling author of...

What’s the quickest way to catch a fish? Offer the right bait. What’s the quickest way to get a B2B marketer to an SES session? Title it ‘B2B Marketing Tips.’ What’s the quickest way to get you to read this post? By diving right in to the top 5 tips shared: Your conversion goals must become more sophisticated** Yes,...

For mainstream media to survive, if not thrive, it must integrate with the social web and create engagement surrounding content.  For social media to remain relevant and compelling, it must work in tandem with news organizations to create a symbiotic storytelling relationship. The future may be a stream with the authenticity of the social web and...

Ultimately, to measure Search Engine Optimization (SEO) success, you aren’t necessarily looking at individual metrics – you are looking for a connection between the metrics – and the resulting affect on revenue. If my lead seems to negate the name validity of the SES San Francisco session, ‘Meaningful SEO Metrics,’ ...

I don't know about you guys, but I see way too much of this when I search Google lately. Tonight I was looking for a particular frozen yogurt shop in Edgartown, which is a town on the island where my family has spent portions of the summer for the past 100 or so years. This was a relatively new shop, but not that new. Anyway, we forgot the name,...

Let’s get this out of the way.  100% accuracy does not exist in website analytics.  Repeat. 100% accuracy does not exist in analytics. What does exist in analytics is data – lots of it – and with this comes fear. Fear of looking at the wrong data.  Fear of where to start.  Fear of analytics failure. This fear will only...

Take a deep breath if you feel one step behind in terms of mobile Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  If the crowd size for the session Getting Mobilized! Mobile Marketing Strategies at SES San Francisco is any indication, you are in quite good company. The session, moderated by Paul Cushman, Senior Director, Mobile Sales Strategy, Yahoo!,...

It’s been several years since I have seen TopRank CEO Lee Odden contribute to the panel ‘SEO Through Blogs & Feeds,’ so I was eager to sit in on this session to close out my first day at this year’s SES San Francisco. Joining Odden on his panel, moderated by Craig Macdonald, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing...

BJ Fogg, Director, Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University gave the opening keynote on day 2 of Search Engine Strategies San Francisco.  BJ is perhaps best known for promoting the concept of “captology,” a word he coined to describe the overlap between persuasion and computers. In his book, “Mobile Persuasion,” BJ...

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden gave a solo presentation at Search Engine Strategies 2010 on content marketing optimization.  Following is a summary of Lee’s comprehensive presentation including 10 essential steps for your organization to achieve success. The core of any search or social media marketing program focuses on content.  But...

Where do forward looking industries look when asked to look further? This was the core question behind the SES San Francisco panel session, ‘Search – Where To Next,’ moderated by Graham Mudd, Vice President, Search & Media, comScore, Inc. Joining Mudd were the following search marketing professionals / soothsayers: Brian...

The average conversion rate for a website is around 3 percent, but many websites convert at 10 percent or higher.  What are they doing right that you’re missing? Bryan Eisenberg, NY Times Bestselling Author gave a solo presentation on the secrets of top converting websites and how you too can achieve high conversion results.   Following is a...

How exactly does one become a celebrity CMO?  Jeffrey W. Hayzlett, former CMO of Eastman Kodak Company showed us as he robustly (and at times, profanely) opened the 2010 Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco, CA. A crowd of thousands, waiting in anticipation after being detained in a lobby holding area for twenty merciless minutes...

I started interviewing people in the search marketing industry long ago (inspired by Aaron Wall) as a way to provide access to search marketing practitioners, pundits and employees at search engines. Beginning in 2005 with this interview with Brett Tabke from WebmasterWorld & Pubcon, interviews with search marketing types have been posted...

So I've read this post - Wireless is Different (AT&T blog) - several times now, and while AT&T is a respected brand, I have to differ on this policy issue. In this post, AT&T's policy folks weigh in on the Verizon/Google dust up, saying "it's really hard to do what we do and therefore we need to be seen as different." I've heard this...

Gap Offers 25% Discount for Foursquare Checkins (Mashable, Sunday 8.15) The Gap Scenario (Searchblog, 4.30) Cool!

China has announced it will build a state run search engine to compete with, no wait, dominate and overrun, its own semi-autonomous upstarts Baidu (CEO Robin Li is coming to Web 2 this year) and Yahoo-backed Alibaba (CEO Jack Ma came in years past). All I can say is "Good luck with that, China." If search engine share is seen as equivalent to...

Once again, for you RSS consumers out there, the week that was in Signal, which, should you care to, you can sign up for in convenient email form right here. Friday Signal: The Week That Is. Thursday Signal: We Got Yer Tablet(s) Right Here   Weds. Signal: Pull the Ripcord! Tuesday Signal: Google’s Agony Monday Signal: It’s Slow Out...

Search Engine Strategies San Francisco is upon us and marks a watershed year for this event.  For the first time the annual August conference hosts in San Francisco and integrates with Connected Marketing Week, boosting an already large happening to an all-inclusive digital marketing experience. In addition to TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee...

The Internet has become a battleground lately; instead of fighting over adult content, trademark rights, search results and market share, the fighting is over the very speed at which you can receive any data. Recently, Google and Verizon have made a compromise over net neutrality and the eventual rules to follow. This “regulation” over...

Yesterday I posted some thoughts on the Google-Verizon framework, offering what turns out to be a pretty widespread sensibility, at least in the punditocracy, that this whole thing feels off, not like Google, counter to the brand. There had to be another reason Google would do this, something super important that forced its hand, something so...

Today's Washington Post has a second day editorial from the CEOs of Verizon and Google on their proposed legislative framework first announced Monday. Here it is: Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg - From Google and Verizon, a path to an open Internet I read this article three times and I am still not sure what exactly the two are trying to express,...

Everyone knows there are applications known as Facebook, Twitter and handfuls of others but what many people are still slow to understand is the power that these applications hold. To most people, these social media sites are nothing more than a way to stay in touch with your “BFF” or a great place to use the “LOL”...

Attorneys are notorious for the high billable hourly rate charged to clients. A number of factors come into play to determine the exact rate, from the size of the firm, to experience, reputation and demand for the lawyer in question. At the elite range, you could easily be paying 4 figures but even at the mid-range, you’ll be forking out...

The Wall St. Journal has a compelling story about Google executives, including Page and Brin, struggling with the vast amount of actionable data available to the company, and what to do about it, even before Facebook pretty much forced the Internet giant to play their hand. A must read. If any of you recall Google's agony over China, its entry and...

As I was reading through the Demand Media S1 (more on that as soon as I get a bit smarter on a few financial issues), I noticed that Skype just filed to go public. Wow. Here's the S1. It's another Goldman/Morgan joint, with JP Morgan in there as well. From what I can tell, Skype has a complicated financial profile, due no doubt to its life inside...

It's the dog days of August, and a Friday to boot, and I certainly didn't expect this to land in my mail box this morning: The Demand Media Inc. S1. But I had set an alert for the company - and several others like LinkedIn and Facebook - because I consider Demand to be one of the most important digital media companies to "take the next step" in...

A while back I wrote a post titled "The Gap Scenario." In it I outlined one (of many) scenarios that I imagined would become pretty commonplace as location based services, search, and social merged into a retail setting. Today's news (Business Insider) that publisher Daily Candy has created an Android app that sends users articles when they are...

For the casual observer, anything with the words “New York” inspires images of the “big apple” and possibly a Frank Sinatra song, but Las Vegas usually is nowhere in the vicinity. Recently, however, a “New York” sized lawsuit was brought against NewYorkNewYork.com Inc. by MGM, the owner of the New York, New...

Apparently, my Tuesday lunch routine full of beer and tacos, to unwind from a day filled with intellectual property is now linked to my work day; tacos and beer are in the news. Recently, Budweiser the beer manufacturer and The Iguana Mexican Grill out of Oklahoma City, found out that they had one thing in common; they both lost battles over...

Google has taken a big enough bite out of the market for too long, if you ask the other search engines. Speaking of asking, Ask.com relaunches its search engine to take a portion of Google’s traffic. As expected, most people limit their search options to the top three engines: Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.  Ask.com however recently announced...