SphinnCon Israel is coming back for another year! The event takes place on Sunday, January 9, 2011 in Jerusalem, Israel at the Inbal Hotel. It is a full day SEO/SEM event that is a little more laid back than the Search Marketing Expo events and currently costs only $75. They sell out very quick, so register now before all the tickets are sold out. SphinnCon is designed to be more of a social gathering of SEOs and SEMs at places SMX events might not be held. They are designed to be low cost, fun and very educational. I personally program the event with the help of some of the brightest [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Conferences

Just when I thought I was in-house, I pulled myself out. After five years working continuously and exclusively as an in-house SEO, I have decided to cast my lot with the hoards of independent consultants and contractors out there. This decision has caused me to reflect on the relative benefits and drawbacks of life as an in-house search marketing professional. Many pieces have been written on the relative merits of in-house versus contracted SEO support – indeed, entire conference sessions have been dedicated to the subject. These discussions, however, have tended to focus on what is best [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing

In a previous article, I discussed why every business should embrace blogging. I mentioned the concept of a "Social Media Boomerang" and now would like to expand on this topic and explain why it's the secret sauce to every successful B2B blog. Consider your business's website for a moment. In your effort to optimize your website, you are competing with literally thousands of other sites. Your blog is no different. Simply posting new content will not generate a surge of new traffic. Rather, the B2B blogging success formula requires multiple steps and goes something like this: 1. Publi [...]

Related Topics: B2B Search Marketing | Channel: Search

A new eye tracking study done in Spanish by Mari-Carmen Marcos and Cristina González-Caro at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and published July 2010 (Spanish PDF over here) was translated by Ani López reveals some new insights into searcher behavior. The study shows that the search snippet, often the meta description from the site, is an extremely important factor for searchers. The study included 58 people of both genders and wide age range and tested informational, navigational, transactional and multimedia types of searches. The searches were done on Google, Google Images, Yahoo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Search Behavior

StreetSpace is a company you probably haven't heard of, but it's not a so-called "patent troll" seeking to cash in on unimplemented intellectual property. Rather StreetSpace is a company that has been around since 1999 and installs internet kioks in public spaces, such as airports, retail locations and restaurants. Here's a description of its main product, the "Web Station": The Web Station™ was envisioned with the idea that users would be able to simply "Walk up to the Web" in thousands of retail locations, shopping malls, banks, transit hubs, restaurants, café's and places of interest [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Legal | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Legal: General | Legal: Patents | Top News

It’s possible to automate and centralize the measurement of social media marketing efforts, in part thanks to a wireless tracking device that we attach to each status update, tweet and email that ties conversions to specific social conversations. Here’s how.

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Conversion

Having a well known brand can be a wonderful thing—you have a base of customers who know and trust your offerings. However, marketers often ignore this brand loyal segment, and chase after new customers instead. While developing new business is a necessity, marketers shouldn’t let existing customers get left behind. Why you should care The average consumer is fed thousands of messages each day. These advertisements flood their senses when they watch TV, listen to music, read magazines—and yes—search online. Because of this media deluge, even the most well known brand [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: Strategy

While the wait continues for a decision in the long-running Google Book Search lawsuit and settlement proposal, a new study throws cold water on the idea that Google Book Search is bad for the publishing industry. And the study suggests that Google's scanning and digital previews of books may be helping publishers sell more books. The study, published last month by Hannibal Travis, an Associate Law Professor at the Florida International University College of Law, examines the revenues and operating incomes of U.S. publishers that claim they'll be most affected by the settlement and "finds n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Book Search | Google: Legal

On Thursday at Search Marketing Now, Matt Van Wagner will present "Adding Laser Focus Your Ad Groups to Target Searcher Intent" on a free webcast. He'll look at what makes up the 'perfect' ad group, what keeps us from achieving that perfection, and what we can do about it to improve. He'll talk about how to focus traffic -- into ad groups and within a campaign. And, he'll look at how to write PPC ads that target user intent. Join Matt at Search Marketing Now, this Thursday at 1 PM EDT. Thanks to Adchemy for sponsoring this webcast. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SMX & DMD Alerts

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Official: Yahoo’s Results Now Come From BingYahoo just announced the transition from Yahoo Search powered results to Bing powered organic Yahoo search results is now complete. The search ads are still from Yahoo but the free, organic results are now powered by Bing in the U.S. and Canada. Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products, said ” I [...] Clicker Launches iPhone App, Against Backdrop Of TV Changes, DisruptionS [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Social TV guide Clicker, also sometimes called "TV Guide for the internet," launched its iPhone app this morning. An iPad app is on the way. It's cool and useful and it contains some, but not all content, available on the Clicker.com site. Here's the list of the app's content and features per the Clicker Blog: Search Clicker’s massive database of online programming Check-in to your favorite TV shows, movies, and Web series Follow your friends on Clicker and see what they’re watching Rate and discuss shows and movies Earn show awards and badges Manage your Clicker Playlist [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: TV | Search Engines: Video Search Engines

About 3 years ago while I was an SEO infant, an especially slick, Canadian-born, industry veteran introduced me to the people at LinkExperts. "You’ve got to use these guys.  They are the only way to get some killer links, it’s expensive but it’s totally worth it." I eagerly called LinkExperts, went through a Powerpoint dog and pony show, received a proposal and ultimately decided that it just didn’t feel right. Three months ago, I got an email from the same guys, now carefully rebranded as Conductor and had the opportunity (now with much more SEO experience) to hear their pitch again. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Week

Yahoo just announced the transition from Yahoo Search powered results to Bing powered organic Yahoo search results is now complete. The search ads are still from Yahoo but the free, organic results are now powered by Bing in the U.S. and Canada. Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products, said " I am proud to announce that the transition of organic search between Yahoo! and Microsoft is complete." He then told everyone to check out the Bing blog to see what they had to say. Bing said: Today I am happy to share that Bing is powering Yahoo!’s search results in the US a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Partnerships | Top News | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: SEO

While ‘social media’ may not be a completely new term (see the recent Forbes Magazine article for examples of great social media campaigns that began in the 1990s), the fast development of what social media has now become in the past years is staggering. The Influence of Twitter and Facebook There are more people on Facebook worldwide than there are people in the entire United States, and TweeSpeed reports that there are about 60,000 tweets being made per minute. This goes to show that the two most popular social networking websites today are Facebook and Twitter - the majority of A [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Social

Looking for old tweets? Look to Topsy. The service has just expanded to have what it claims to be the largest searchable collection of past tweets, over 5 billion of them, stretching back to at least May 2008. That makes it more comprehensive than Google's Twitter search or even Twitter's own Twitter Search. Topsy will be sharing the news itself later today, on its blog. Beyond being comprehensive, another nice thing about Topsy is the ability to restrict a search using special "operators" or commands -- such as "from" -- to find tweets from a particular user or the ability to see tweets wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Engines: Real Time Search | Top News | Topsy | Twitter

The iPhone may have been outsold last quarter by Android, but Apple's phone remains at least for the time being the "it device" in the smartphone market. Google and Microsoft are both, let's say, "ambivalent" about the iPhone. And, in some ways, Google and Microsoft/Bing have changed places vis-a-vis the handset. Of the three major search rivals Google was the first and arguably most direct beneficiary of the iPhone. As the default search provider for the iPhone, Google saw its US mobile query volumes grow significantly. And now with the added benefit of Android penetration, the company has [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Retail | Features: Analysis | Google: Mobile | Google: Product Search | Google: User Interface | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Top News

The adCenter blog announced they will be temporarily increasing the standard crawl rate they use for detecting ad relevance on adCenter ads. The increase will show a crawl rate of up to 20 to 30qps, which they say is "accepted standards for crawl rates." Here is the full message from adCenter: Along with our consistent efforts to increase relevance for your adCenter campaigns, we will be temporarily increasing the rate at which your sites will be crawled to 20 to 30qps. This is within the accepted standards for crawl rates, and is vital to continuing to provide the most relevant advert [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads

Malcolm Coles spotted that the Daily Mail, one of the UK's largest papers, changed their robots.txt file to include a line which reads: # August 12th, MailOnline are looking for a talented SEO Manager so if you found this then you're the kind of techie we need!# Send your CV to holly dot ward at mailonline dot co dot uk How clever! They suspect some of the best SEOs out there would be sniffing around their robots.txt file and used it to recruit a new SEO manger. If anything, it is getting the word out there via the press that they are looking for a new SEO. This reminds me of when Go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEM Industry: General | SEO: Blocking Spiders

International SEO and local SEO are very different right? Wrong — well sort of wrong. Actually they have a lot in common — but they also have some key differences. But they could certainly do with working together in the interest of their clients.

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Multinational Search

Hunch has launched what its co-founder, Chris Dixon, calls an alpha version of a new local recommendation engine. You can access it at hunch.com/local. It's not to be confused with Hunch's existing Local category on the main Hunch.com site, and no one would confuse the two, anyway. The new Hunch Local is map-based (using Google Maps) and offers recommended businesses in your local area in a small window to the right of the map. (click for larger version) Hunch Local, like Hunch itself, works best when the service knows more about you. It relies on the your social connections -- th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Hunch | Top News