april 2008

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Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including Jeff Quipp writes about the four pillars of social media algorithms, a post by Ann Smarty that looks at the discovery of bad networks of sites, and finally, SEOmoz has a SEO Cheat Sheet for web developers, available in PDF format for easy printing.

This post is from from my other blog here

I'm two days back from the first Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference and I have to say that this was probably one of the best conference I have ever been to. The conference attracted right around 50 paid attendees which made for a very intimate setting. Speakers and those of who were live blogging were able to spend some real quality time with attendees. The information that was presented in sessions and workshops was of the highest quality and the food served up set the bar high for any other conference to follow.

This post is from from my other blog here

Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including Brent Csutoras goes through each of the major social communities that he uses and outlines some of the best tools to help you manage and maintain your accounts, Eric Papczun reviews EveryZing - a turn-key, hosted solution to gain natural search engine visibility for your video and audio content, and finally, Dogpile.com has come out the other end with an updated search algorithm, design and new partner content.

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If you've ever tried to find the spare toilet paper in someone else's bathroom, you've experienced a usability issue. Just like the owner of that bathroom, we sometimes get so used to our own sites, we can't see what needs to be fixed. In this workshop, Matt Bailey, Founder of Site Logic Marketing will walk you through common problems that can make your site a hassle for visitors to use. Find out how even the smallest change can make a dramatic impact on your site's conversion rates.

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The days of flipping through a big fat yellow book to find a local business are quickly coming to a close. After all, why settle for a simple phone number when an online search can also net you menus, pricing, hours and consumer reviews? In this workshop, Matt McGee, SEO Manager at Marchex will walk attendees through the most popular local search engines and will show you the best ways to leverage them to promote your business online.

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Session Summary: Need links? Of course you do! In order to rank well and successfully promote your online business, you need an effective link building program as part of your over-all SEO strategy. Link guru Debra O'Neil Mastaler, Owner of Alliance Link walks attendees through the world of links. Find out why search engines rely so heavily on links, where to find links and why a good link can send sales through the roof.

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While pay per click advertising can be a quick and easy way to drive traffic to your web site, it can also be a quick and easy way to drain your bank account. Christine Churchill, President of KeyRelevance reveals how to get the most bang for your buck from each of the major paid search engines by choosing the right keywords, writing relevant ads and optimizing your landing pages. She will share the simple tweaks you can make to dramatically cut your average cost per click while increasing your sales so you have the best chance against companies with much ...

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There's no doubt the best endorsements come from happy and loyal customers. So what if there was a way to build a community around your web site? A community that helped keep your content fresh, your ideas flowing and the links 'a coming. Turns out, there is. Find out the best ways to build up a loyal readership and how to get your visitors more involved from the queen of community herself, Wendy Piersall, Founder of Sparkplugging.com.

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You may have heard it said that having a search engine friendly site is key to success on the web. That's fine and dandy, but what in the world is a search engine friendly site? Find out how to code your site to make a difference in how well you rank in the search engines. Learn what tags and attributes are essential to gaining those top rankings. Even if you know nothing about HTML, this session will arm you with the knowledge to help your programming team get your site in shape. Stoney deGeyter, President, Pole Position Marketing is the ...

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While it's easy to get overwhelmed about going up against big businesses in marketing realms like search engine optimization, blogging, viral marketing, community building and analytics, a good dose of common sense can really level the playing field. This panel aims to set the stage for the rest of the show by helping you change your perspective on competing with the big boys. Speaking on this panel is Matt McGee, Wendy Piersall and Matt Bailey.

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I'm sitting in my hotel room now at the Northwest Forest Conference Center which is located just outside Houston in Cypress, Texas. I will be live blogging the Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference tomorrow and Tuesday, posting my notes on Search Engine Guide. The conference is being put on by Search Engine Guide and Small Business Brief and is the first of what they hope to be many conferences of this kind.

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I should almost make this a weekly column as the fine folks at Mixx are always working to make their social news service better. Here are some of the latest updates, most of which are a result of feedback and suggestions from members.

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Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including a post about why you may sometimes be forced to buy links because you are not getting them naturally, Stoney deGeyter talks about duplicate content issues with domain name redirects, and finally, Microsoft Live Search has unveiled Live Search News (LSN), essentially a toned down version of Google News.

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Google has announced a new version of Google Earth in which they have completely rethought how you might interact with the 3D world. They've redesigned the navigation to make it much easier to fly from the heavens down to the streets of your town. And with all of the great user-created buildings in the 3D Warehouse, they have made it easy for you to get right up close to see the rich detail.

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Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including Yahoo and Google form a partnership where Yahoo will serve up Google ads in selective areas, Yahoo acquires the web analytics service of IndexTools for an undisclosed sum, and finally California is looking to pass law that would allow them to tax Internet downloads, specifically movies and music.

This post is from from my other blog here

Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including a post from John Carcutt explaining why most SEOs cannot do online reputation management effectively, a post from Debra O. Mastaler as she looks at a handful of tried and true linking tactics that incorporate the holiday angle and finally a so-called SEO who is trying to pull a fast one by registering "SEO" as a trademark.

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Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including Bill Slawski digesting a Microsoft patent that may help determine web spam by exploring email spam further and Google found testing "One Box" results in the middle of the SERPs.

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When Google decided to acquire DoubleClick nearly a year ago, many in the search marketing industry were very concerned that Google now owned a SEO company - Performics. It would be a huge conflict of interest to have a organic search index and yet at the same time be making money providing a service that helps companies to improve their positioning in that index. When the acquisition was finally approved last month, Danny Sullivan wrote an open letter asking Google to do the right thing.

This post is from from my other blog here

Here are some great and newsworthy posts I came across today including a post by Jeff Quipp on building a foundation of friends (or fans) to help promote the work (writing) you do, and Stoney deGeyter shows us how to avoid "SEO bloat" in your search marketing campaigns.

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If you haven't heard of human powered search engine, Stumpedia, you might want to give it a whirl. It is essentially a human-powered search engine with a social aspect to it. In other words, Stumpedia allows content producers to submit and profit from their work and then allows the search community to determine relevancy of search results. While it is similar to human powered search engines Mahalo and Wikia Search, it differentiates itself because it is powered by the very people that use it.

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Every year on April 1st, we see some pretty clever April Fools jokes played by search engines. One of my all time favorites is when Google revealed a very secret part of their algorithm by disclosing what Pigeon Rank is and how it works. Here is a summary of some of the better jokes I came across today. Enjoy!