The event will be held between 11:30 AM and 4:30 PM. Lucky for me lunch is provided!

But that’s not all.

On Thursday I’ll be judging the Small Business Management Team, also between 11:30 AM and 4:30 PM. I tend to think I know a thing or two about managing a small business, and if nothing else I can use my experience in what not to do!

They provided about 30 pages that I have to print and bring with me. So much for saving trees. Anyway, this should be fun. I’m looking forward to the event.

So seeing that I’ll be doing 90% of my blogging over there, we are going to change our focus over here at EMP. A new design has been in the works for the past couple of weeks and we hope to have that rolled out shortly. With the new design we’ll be moving the blog back to the Pole Position Marketing domain and turn it into a local company blog.

You’ll see a lot of the same posts, such as team reading lists, search engine market share, monthly roundups, etc. I’ll also be posting more on company business and other things that have to do with Reno marketing. And I’ll continue to link to my articles at Search Engine Guide.

I know I’ll probably lose some subscribers over here, but I’m cool with that if you all make your way to subscribing to the Search Engine Guide RSS feed. There you’ll find a lot more than just my content, as there are almost a dozen great bloggers posting their insights each week.

I hope to make EMP much more personalized as I speak more directly to the Reno market. I’m looking forward to the things to come and I hope you are to.

Oh, and I am Pimp Mcfly, regardless of what Jennifer or Robert say.

Click here to read the full story on Small Business Answers…

1. The World’s Absolute Best Link Building Technique
2. 20 Ways to NAVIGATE to Higher Conversions
3. How Poor Product Categorization Can Frustrate Shoppers and Search Engines Alike
4. Qualities of a Good Leader
5. 9 (+1) Tips For Writing User-Friendly Content
6. 7 Ways to Make Your Home Page a Home Run for Usability
7. Web Developers: Please Stop Using the Hx Tag as a Design Element
8. 25 Ways to DESIGN Your Way to Higher Conversions
9. Clever New Baskin Robbins Logo
10. A Little Favicon Goes a Long, Long Way

Reading

• Income for Life: How You Can Achieve Financial Freedom with this Proven Real Estate Investment System
• Online Customer Engagement Report 2008
• Online Retail 2007: Checkout Special
• The Last Days (Political Thrillers Series #2), Joel C. Rosenberg
• The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith, Stephen Baldwin

I’ll be covering:

• Domain & URL Structure
• Page & Code Structure
• Link Structure

The webinar will be held Thursday, May 22 from 10 AM PST. Click here to register and let me know that you’ll be attending via comments below.

Google
April: 51.25%
March: 51.70%
Change: -.45

January 2008: 52.14%
Change: -0.89

Yahoo
April: 10.85%
March: 10.73%
Change: +0.12

January 2008: 10.94%
Change: -0.09

MSN
April: 5.57%
March: 4.31%
Change: +1.26

January 2008: 5.78%
Change: -0.21

AOL
April: 2.07%
March: 1.91%
Change: +0.16

January 2008: 1.86%
Change: +0.21

ASK
April: 1.04%
March: 1.03%
Change: +0.01

January 2008: 1.09%
Change: -0.05

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: Net Applications

The value of the Hx tag is much the same as the value of your main points in an outline for a book or paper. Your outline shows your main topics and sub-topics. These are often then used as section headings in your final draft. Your h1, for example, would be the page topic. Your H2s would then be your main points (I. II. and III.) Your H3s would be your first sub-points (A. B. C.) and your H4s would be your second sub-points (1. 2. 3.) etc.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Most duplicate content issues have to do with on-page content. Mass page/content duplication can often have a negative effect on how the search engines spider and index your site. While I believe the title tag is the single most important piece of real estate on your site, duplication here is likely to have the least effect on the search engine crawlers. It will, however, have an effect on rankings, but that’s another discussion. Even still, it’s a duplicate issue that absolutely must be addressed for tactical SEO performance.

Duplicate titles is something we often see on newly developed websites or content management systems that don’t allow proper control of individual pages. While I get how when developing new websites the title tag can get overlooked, I’m amazed that people develop web software that still doesn’t take title tag customization into account.

In some cases it’s just a matter of some creative programming to fix. In others it might require some significant reworking of the system, or a scraping of the system altogether. And, of course, other times it’s just a matter of taking the time to get into your HTML or your CMS and writing unique title tags for all your products and content pages. If you have a lot of products or pages, this can be time consuming, but it’s well worth the effort.

If you can pull it off with your CMS allow Titles to be automatically generated based on on-page criteria, but also give yourself the opportunity to overwrite the defaults with your own customization. This is especially handy for product pages. The default can display essentially the breadcrumb trail of categories down to the products as the default. This will ensure all your title tags are unique, to a degree. But at some point you may want to get in and create a unique title tag for more punch and better search engine rankings. Having both options will give you the greatest degree of control without having duplicate titles until you get around to customizing them.

All said and done, your titles should:

• Short, 65 characters max
• Unique for each page
• Accurately reflects page content
• Contains main keywords

Related posts on duplicate content:

• Theories in Duplicate Content Penalties
• How Poor Product Categorization Can Frustrate Shoppers and Search Engines Alike
• Duplicate Content Issues: www. vs. no www.
• Duplicate Content Issues: Domain Name Redirects
• Preventing Secure & Non-Secure Site Duplication
• Create Infinite Page Duplication: Use URL Session IDs

Ok, first of all, that’s a bad URL shown above, but aside from that, tacked on at the end there is the session ID. Both URLs pull the same page pulled open via a different browsing session. The bad stuff happens if the session IDs also get attached when the search engines come for a visit.

Since a new session ID is attached with each new visit, each time the search engine comes around they are essentially fed all new URLs. If you have only a ten page site, the second time the search engines visit they add the “new” 10 pages to the index, for a total of 20 pages. When they come around a third time they now have 30 pages in their index. Once they start analyzing these pages they find page after page after page of duplication.

An additional problem arises as site visitors start bookmarking and linking to your site. Every link they add contains their very own session ID. The search engines follow that link to your site and now you’ve got another 10 pages of duplication. If they follow another link to your site, that’s 10 more. You starting to see where this is going? Essentially you can turn a 10 page site into endless duplications.

Even with a small site you can see why the search engines would stop coming around. But if you have a site with hundreds, or even thousands of products, you find two things happen. 1) The search engines will stop spidering new pages because there is just too much duplication. 2) The engines will start dropping pages out of the index altogether.

Now this is where my lack of programming skills show. I know there are some systems that will withhold the session IDs from search engines. This still has the potential of creating problems with inbound links. I can’t say for sure how search engines handle incoming links with Session IDs in the URLs, even if those IDs get stripped once the engine hits the site. I would think the link value will pass as if the ID isn’t there, but I don’t know.

Like sex, the only guaranteed protection here is not to do it at all. There are alternate means of tracking users for whatever reason. Avoiding session IDs completely ensures that you don’t open yourself up to inadvertent site duplication.

Related posts on duplicate content:

• Theories in Duplicate Content Penalties
• How Poor Product Categorization Can Frustrate Shoppers and Search Engines Alike
• Duplicate Content Issues: www. vs. no www.
• Duplicate Content Issues: Domain Name Redirects
• Preventing Secure & Non-Secure Site Duplication

When I first learned the title of the conference being developed by the crew over at Search Engine Guide I thought, “Awe, how cute. It fits the puppy theme.” Even as I was tapped to be a presenter I knew that Unleashed was going to be different. After all, I had an hour and 15 minute session all to myself. Apparently someone thought more highly of me than they ought! But I didn’t fully understand how different Unleashed would really be from the norm of search engine marketing conferences.

First of all kudos goes out to Jennifer Laycock, Rachel Phillips, Vickie Evans and Robert Clough (who’s sole job was to stand around and look pretty. He failed.) who were all key to making Unleashed happen. Their dedication to every last detail created one of the best industry conferences I’ve ever attended. Everything from the pre-event networking, through to the very last session went off seemingly without a hitch.

The only complaint I recall hearing was “I can’t decide which session to attend, I want to see them both.” That’s not a bad problem to have.

My Experience

I’m not a natural at networking and socializing, but Jennifer and crew made it easy starting with a pre-Unleashed speed networking event. This gave attendees and speakers an opportunity to mix, mingle and get to know each other.

This really set the tone for the rest of the event. It was important to the Unleashed crew that the speakers not be set aside in a speakers room, out of reach of the attendees. They wanted to make sure all speakers were accessible whenever sessions were out on break. This opened the door to ensuring that we didn’t all just clique together, creating a wall of separation between us and the attendees.

In fact, one of the things that really made unleashed great is that the speakers really acted no different from the paid attendees. All were just as eager to sit in on sessions and learn from the other speakers, not just to give a presentation and then run off. Speaker or attendee, we were all there really to learn from each other, build relationships and make friends.

The first morning of the event I gave my presentation on website architecture. I covered three main points: Domain & URL Structure, Page Structure and Link Structure. I started to run out of time at the end and had to blaze through about the last 10 slides but overall I think the presentation went great. I honestly feel that website architecture is all pretty basic stuff but some said they felt some parts were too advanced for them. I’ll remember to add a little more explanation to some parts in the future.

After my presentation I stepped outside with the lovely Abby Prince of Web Pro News for an interview.

On the second day I was on two site review panels. The first panel I reviewed with Wendy Piersall. She’s amazing at being able to look at a site and hit on the key points that need to be addressed. The second panel I shared the stage with Sage Lewis. If you ever need a dose of energy, spend five minutes with Sage. That’ll give you what you need to get through the day!

The Venue

One of the best things about this event was the setting. Yeah, it could have been held in some corporate-y networking center, but instead they chose a very cozy, down to earth location that really helped foster the relationship building atmosphere. The conference center was a full-size replica of the Alamo. The grounds continued the theme with old-west saloons and log cabins along with a tennis courts, a rec center (where Team PPM ruled the pool table!) and a mini chapel.

The setting really allowed all of us to hang out together in a comfortable, unassuming environment. I walked away with more friends than any other conference.

Never gonna stop me. Never gonna stop

“Scream if you want it, because I want more!”

Ok, I’m not a big Rob Zombi fan, but I do love that song. And I just happened to be listening to it as I type this up. But it accurately reflects how I feel about Unleashed. Yeah, it’s really not just a clever name that fit the puppy theme. It’s really how I feel after two days of education, socialization and developing lasting relationships. Sure, you can go to the big conferences and walk away with a head full of information. But if you want something that you’ll get that plus a whole lot more then you need to be Unleashed from the other corporate conferences.

Unleashed was such a success that they are already planning the 2009 event. If you missed it this time, don’t let it pass by again. Dollar for dollar, Small Business Marketing Unleashed provided the greatest return of any conference I’ve attended. Now that’s enough to make you feel, well, unleashed. Don’t believe me? Check out these photos.

Day 2: Workshops

The day was kicked off with a presentation by one of the sponsors ideablob.com, and then we were released to go to workshops. (Sage Lewis, of SageRock.com tends to refer to each session / workshop as a class, which truly describes what the conference was like.) There were three time blocks with four workshops running in each block - Each block running an hour and a half. With that amount of time, we really were given in depth lessons on each topic. The hot topics were repeated, so you didn’t miss out on anything.

My schedule:
Keywords and Content presented by Heather Lloyd-Martin of SuccessWorks Search Marketing
Building a Community presented by Sage Lewis of Sage Rock
Link Building presented by Debra O’Neil-Mastaler of Alliance Link

The workshops were followed up with an afternoon Networking session where everyone mingled and wrapped up the conference. All and all, this conference was the best learning and networking experience anyone could have ever hoped for.

Google
March: 58.7%
February: 58.7%
Change: +0

January 2008: 56.9%
Change: +1.8

Yahoo
March: 18.1%
February:17.6%
Change: +0.5

January 2008: 19.0%
Change: -0.9

MSN
March: 12.0%
February: 11.2%
Change: +0.8

January 2008: 12.1%
Change: -0.1

ASK
March: 2.4%
February: 2.5%
Change: -0.1

January 2008: 2.4%
Change: +0.0

AOL
March: 4.1%
February: 5.2%
Change: -1.1

January 2008: 4.7%
Change: -0.6

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: Nielsen//Netratings

WOW. What a great day. The day gave us four sessions / two tracks of indepth introductions to all aspects of Search Marketing for small businesses. Each speaker had a full hour to go into more depth on their subject than any conference you’ve ever attended.

Rather than have a keynote speaker, Unleashed opened with a general overview of what Online Search Marketing is all about. Jennifer Laycock introduced three incredible presenters,
Matt McGee of Marchex and Small Business SEM (who happens to hate Twitter I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am.), Wendy Piersall of sparkplugging.com and Matt Bailey of SiteLogic.com.

After the Common Sense introduction, we split out into the sessions. These are the ones I got to attend:

• Site Architecture, presented by none other than our own Stoney deGeyter
• Keywords and Content by Heather Lloyd-Martin of SuccessWorks Search Marketing
• Paid Search Advertising by Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance
• Link Building by Debra O’Neil-Mastaler of Alliance Link

After the sessions we had enough time for Stoney and I to sneak off to the clubhouse for a game of pool (and man, I am finally getting the hang of this game) before the Fiesta dinner. After dinner we got about 8 more people to join us at the clubhouse and we played pool until after eleven. All in all, Team Pole Position kicked some pretty heafty butt. Did I mention that our party was crashed by the two policemen who are here attending a different conference on hostage negotiations. We were in safe company.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to three in depth workshops covering the same topics discussed in today’s sessions. Look for the report Wednesday!

Have you ever speed dated? I’ve been married long enough that I’ve not ever had the opportunityneed to attend a speed dating meeting, yet I’ve seen it on TV. (wow I feel like I just almost made a bad quote, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”)

Last Night I attended Charity Speed Networking as part of Small Business Marketing: Unleashed and it was FUN. Honestly, if I were single, I may seriously consider speed dating if I was looking for someone with common interests.

Do you know how this works? Well let me tell you. We had one long row of tables, and along one side we had the “movers” and on the other side, the non moves. We were given three minutes to talk to the person across the table from us, and then the movers got up and moved down one seat to talk with the next person.

What a great way to force everyone into talking with other people who they otherwise might not ever speak with. My most memorable date discussion was with someone who had no idea what Search Optimization or PPC were. I got to TEACH! Problem was, three minutes wasn’t enough time. I ran out of time in talking to other people too, where I was learning information from them.

After the Speed Dating Networking, we had time to catch up with whoever we may have missed (due to time limitations, the movers didn’t get matched up with all the non movers) or may have wanted to follow up with.

Things to bring if ever speed date network

• Big stack of business cards
• Hand sanitizer