If you've been in business for any length of time, you know all about the "hit by a bus" scenario. What happens when key members of your team leave? Is there knowledge sharing among the team? Can your business function effectively while you scramble to find a replacement, and if it truly is a "hit by a bus scenario," are there resources and artifacts available to get the new person up to speed on the immediate tasks that must be completed to keep your business moving forward? I'll admit that this topic was triggered by an article I read this evening about the 50th anniversary of the Muni [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing

Registration is now open for SMX Social Media – but hurry, the current "pre-agenda price" will expire on February 2. SMX Social Media is coming to Long Beach, California, April 22 & 23. This SMX Social Media is an encore presentation of the standing-room only New York City edition presented last autumn. Attendees Dugg (sic) it. You will too! And you’ll love the price – the lowest you’ll get for this two-day, one track show. Register before February 2 for just $995. SMX Social Media is for marketers looking to engage the unique and difficult-to-reach audiences at social media [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Microsoft adCenter To Power Ads On Wall Street Journal Digital NetworkThe adCenter blog announced Microsoft will be powering the contextual and paid ads on the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. The WSJ Digital Network includes sites such as WSJ.com, Barrons.com, Marketwatch.com, allthingsd.com and others. This is a huge deal for Microsoft, giving their ad program exposure to 20 million unique... No Recession For Link BuildingIn 2007, half your links [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

The adCenter blog announced Microsoft will be powering the contextual and paid ads on the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. The WSJ Digital Network includes sites such as WSJ.com, Barrons.com, Marketwatch.com, allthingsd.com, and others. This is a huge deal for Microsoft, giving their ad program exposure to 20 million unique users and over 330 million page views per month. The contextual ads will begin to be displayed on the WSJ network as early as next month. The paid search ads timing has yet to be announced. What does this mean to advertisers? Well, if you are bidding within Micro [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Content Ads | Microsoft: Partnerships

In 2007, half your links stopped helping you and in 2008, half your budget has likely been whacked. Now what do you do?

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Week

In September 2007, I was offered the role of 'Social Media Manager' at a company in Cape Town, South Africa, which I took without much hesitation. I knew my job would focus on the 'general' projects such as proposals, running campaigns, and devising social strategies for clients who had something they wanted to generate a buzz about online. Little did I know I would be training up the other team members completely from scratch on the subject, but I can confidently say it was the most enjoyable part of the job. Here are 15 of the most important things about social media marketing I taught t [...]

Related Topics: Back To Basics | Channel: Social | Social Media Marketing

The Wall Street Journal covers the "open warfare" between IAC CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media, one of its largest backers and investors. Liberty Chairman John Malone has grown increasingly frustrated with IAC's financial and stock performance and Diller himself. Diller has control of the company through a Byzantine procedural agreement that allows him to vote Liberty Media's shares by proxy. This week Liberty tried an equally arcane legal maneuver to circumvent the agreement and oust Diller. The volume of the legal squabble is likely to increase as IAC reorganizes. It could also represent [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Business Issues | Channel: Industry

In the UK, a woman has been convicted of trying to murder her husband after researching methods on Google. It's one of several cases like this that have come up in past years. Google poisoner tried to murder husband describes the method this woman used to try to kill her husband of seven years. She snuck anti-freeze into her husband's drink, which caused him to go blind and deaf and left him brain damaged and with kidney failure but did not kill him. The wife wanted £250,000 from his life insurance policy to pay off debts. This isn't the first time Google searches have been used as evide [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy | Search & Society: General

Social media is not really new anymore, but many people still struggle with the subtle things that might help or hurt success within the top social communities. Recently Muhammad Saleem published a great article on the various tips you can follow to help you succeed in most social media communities. In this article, I'm going to discuss in detail how to best create a profile and persona within the social communities, to help you achieve better success. Since Digg is currently the largest social community in regards to marketing, I'll use it as a model for this discussion. However, all th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Social | Social Media Marketing

Bill Hartzer has the scoop on the 33 individuals who are on the nominee list for SEMPO's board of directors of 2008. Thirteen of the nominees will be elected to be on the board of directors for a two-year period. The voting process is internal and will begin on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 5 PM GMT (12 PM ET) and will close on Friday, February 15, 2008 at 10 PM GMT (5 PM ET). Here is a list of those nominees: Anderson, Damien, of Blowfish Digital Limited Berkowitz, Jay, of Ten Golden Rules Blankenship, Lindsay, of Avenue A | Razorfish Boggs, Chris, of eMergent Marketing Bowman, Jessica, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Organizations

A week ago we wrote about Google's Mysterious Position Six Penalty. The phenomenon described has now been confirmed by Google's Matt Cutts in one of our Sphinn threads on the topic. It appears from Matt's comments that the drop for pages impacted was an "unintended consequence," as Glengara puts it in a WebmasterWorld thread, to the December 2007 Google update. Matt confirmed the behavior and said Google has already begun reversing it. If you are stuck in the position six penalty, you will most likely see it reverse itself within the next few days. Sebastian first spotted Matt's comment, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search

It's hard to dispute that the Long Tail is an important concept in Search. A lot of times, though, we tend to think of the long tail as being a B2C concept by relating it to specific product names in ecommerce situations. But, it's just as relevant in the B2B world. One-word phrases bring businesses up against a lot of competition, but the benefit of increased traffic may outweigh the expense of ranking. On the flip side, credibility-building site assets like case studies can be optimized with longer-tail phrases in order to boost the probability of conversion. Where does your SEM campa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Infographics | Search Illustrated

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Spying On Your Paid Search Competitors Last time around, I wrote about paid search planning and some cool tools to help you understand your customers and your target market (here). This time around, I'll take a look at the competitive landscape and understanding competitors in general—and show you some excellent tools that can help you... Search Engine Land Column Switcheroo Heads-up to all of you faithful Link Week and Paid Search column readers [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Last time around, I wrote about paid search planning and some cool tools to help you understand your customers and your target market (here). This time, I'll take a look at the competitive landscape and understanding competitors in general—and show you some excellent tools that can help you gain better insight into their specific strategies and tactics. Obviously, being competitive is more than just changing bids in an attempt to jockey for ad positions. I find competitive information useful for: Marketing strategy. Understanding differences between you and your competitors can nail [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search | Search Ads: General | SEM Tools

Heads-up to all of you faithful Link Week and Paid Search column readers: Today we're swapping days for the columns. Paid Search will now appear on Mondays and Link Week on Tuesdays. No worries if you've subscribed to the feed for either column—you'll still get the content you've asked for. [...]

Related Topics: About Search Engine Land | Channel: SEO | Link Week | Paid Search

The Google Blog announced they have added some new features to Google Experimental search. Google has added map view and a new info view that allows you to show different results on the page. Let me take you through each new view. Google Experimental Map View: For example, conduct a search on search conferences in New York and up comes this page: Google will look for addresses and plot each result based on the address found for that result. Let's look a bit deeper at one that is close to home for me. I once wrote a personal blog post named Eating Kosher at Search Conferences where I me [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs | Google: Web Search

Denver area residents were treated to some fun over the weekend with reports of the purchase of a 432-acre former campus of Storage Technology by a "mystery buyer," for as much as $60 million. The buyer insisted on absolute secrecy from everyone involved in the deal, including Sun Microsystems, which owned the campus. "It's like dealing with the CIA," said one broker associated with the transaction. The negotiations were so secretive that the Associated Press reported Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., as saying, "We don't even know it is a te [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Offices

Just 30 days until Search Marketing Expo - SMX West in Santa Clara, CA. Register today and join the search marketers from more than 450 companies who will attend SMX West. SMX West will deliver cutting-edge SEO and PPC content, insightful keynotes, and community-building networking events for an experience like none other. Content (See the full agenda) Video, Images & Blended Results Decrypting Quality Scores Copywriting For Search Success Search Insights SEO and Linking Search Ads & Behavioral Targeting Unraveling URLs & Demystifying Domains Analytics and Usability Surveys SEO & S [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SMX & DMD Alerts

Just when you thought there were enough competitors in the real estate vertical, here comes some more. Last week a new real estate search engine, Roost, launched in selected US markets. Today UK-based DotHomes, which has been operating in the UK and South Africa, makes its US debut. DotHomes seeks to become "the Google of property search" and is crawling for listings. By contrast, Yahoo Real Estate, Roost, Trulia, and Zillow, as well as others, get feeds from brokers and MLS services. I spoke last week with DotHomes founder Douglas de Jager and had a chance to use the site over the weekend, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Real Estate

For most people, today is Monday, January 28. However, today has been designated "Data Privacy Day" in North America and in 27 European countries in conjunction with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Google's privacy counsel, Jane Horvath, says the company is joining in an international privacy conference being held at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In accordance with that appearance and Data Privacy Day, Google has added a new video to its existing series of privacy videos, plus it has developed a privacy booklet (PDF) to educate consumers and parents about [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy