It has been a long couple months for the search marketing community between the Penguin update, a Panda refresh, the link notifications and the parked domain bug - you guys need a laugh. Sam Applegate put together a hysterical parody video of Matt Cutts talking about how to achieve number one ranking in Google. The video takes dozens of the videos Matt put together from the YouTube channel and mashes them into a video I think you all will appreciate. Here is the video: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Parodies | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General

New York-based iCrossing, a division of Hearst Corporation, tops the latest Ad Age list of top 25 search marketing agencies by revenue released today. (Link is available to subscribers only.) The agency brought in $105 million in search-related revenues in 2011, up 13.6% from the previous year. Rounding out the top five were Dentsu's 360i, WPP Group's Group M Search, Aegis Group's iProspect, and Performics, a Publicis Groupe company. Several standalone agencies did make the rankings. The Search Agency, based in Los Angeles, came in 7th, with $32 million in search revenue in 2011. New Yor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: General | Stats

SEOmoz, the SEO toolset company, has announced they have successfully raised another $18 million in venture capital from Foundry Group and Ignition Partners. Foundry Group put in $15 million and Ignition Partners put in $3 million. Co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz, Rand Fishkin detailed the financials, growth, future plans and management changes of SEOmoz. One big change for the SEO industry is that Rand's mother and co-founder Gillian Muessig is stepping down from the board of directors and resigning her title of President. Here is the slide deck they shared: For more details see [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Acquisitions | SEM Industry: General

Looking for a job doing SEM / PPC work? As with SEO, New York is the leading city based on job volume. But Chicago takes the second spot, unlike LA which leads second with SEO jobs. San Jose, Austin and Seattle are other leading cities. Those doing paid search earn anywhere from $35,000 to $131,000. The stats are from an infographic produced by Onward Search, an online recruitment company. Last December, created one about SEO salaries and job locations. This time, paid search gets the focus: Want the infographic guide for yourself? You’ll find it here: PPC Jobs Salary Guide. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

National Car Rental has been running a TV campaign named "Go Like A Pro" where they feature certain professionals in different industries that use their car rental service as part of their business. In February they featured an SEO named Lindsay in one of the videos. National Car Rental informed me today on Twitter that the commercial is available in high quality. Here it is: The narrator is Patrick Stewart and here is the transcription: [Patrick Stewart] You are a Business Pro. Monarch of Marketing Analysis. With the ability to improve ROI through SEO all by COB. And you ren [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: General

Glassdoor has released their 2012 survey of best places to work in 2012 and Google has beat Facebook for the first time in four years in that survey. Google scored a 3.9 overall by their employees while Facebook scored a 3.7. In 2011 Facebook scored a 4.2 and Google scored a 4.1. Although Facebook employees earn about $3,000 more on average than Google employees and although the interview process is harder at Google than Facebook, Googlers in 2012 are more happy with their company than Facebook. Googlers seem to complain less about long hours and work/life balance issues than Facebook. I [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Employees | SEM Industry: General | Stats: General

SEOmoz has announced the SEOmoz Industry Survey is now open and ready for you to take. You can take the survey online over here. The last time SEOmoz ran this survey was two years ago, you can see the results of that survey over here. The survey has 54 questions and should take you about 20 minutes to complete. The question topics include: Your Work in the Industry Questions for Consultants, Freelancers, and Agencies Learning and Improving Internet Marketing Skills Internet and Inbound Marketing Scope and Process Inbound Marketing Tools and Tactics SEO Tools and Tactics [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

Marketing firm Slingshot SEO is picking up where Microsoft left off. Five years ago Microsoft/Atlas began trying to educate marketers and the marketplace about the fact that more online sources than the "last click" were responsible for conversions. This was partly an effort to undermine the centrality of Google, which gets lots of credit for driving the final click, and partly an effort to make conversion modeling more sophisticated and reflective of the multiple influences on consumer purchases. This morning Slingshot SEO is releasing a fascinating report (registration required) that also [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | SEO: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

The Dilbert cartoon above doesn't speak well of the search engine optimization position. The cartoon ties people who do SEO as weasels and those that hire SEOs as an accomplice, someone who actively participates in the commission of a crime. It goes on to say the SEO will go ahead and "game the system" and "corrupt the integrity" of the industry. This clearly does not speak well of our industry and the SEO job profession. But then again, it is just a cartoon? The cartoon reads: I hired a pantless weasel to do our search engine optimization. He'll help us game the system and c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General

How much does SEO cost? How much time do you have to discuss the various models and prices out there! However, a new survey sheds some light on the subject. Over 500 people and companies who offer search engine optimization services were asked about how their models. Turns out, it's most common to charge $100 to $150 per hour, in the US. But by-the-hour consulting is only one of four nearly co-equal ways of charging. Also popular is project-based pricing, where the average price is between $2,500 to $5,000, in the US. That's also the same average price for those who buy on a monthly reta [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Infographics | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

Since at least 2005, Google has been using a large, worldwide focus group to help review its search results and the quality of the web pages that rank well in its algorithm. The people in this program are called Quality Raters and, as you can imagine, the work they do is important to search marketers everywhere. Google was actually advertising Quality Rater jobs in late 2004, but today the Quality Raters don't actually work for Google; they work for contractors such as Lionbridge, Leapforce, Butler Hill and possibly others. According to Lionbridge's Internet Assessors Program job page, it h [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: Search Quality Raters | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General | Top News

Increasingly over the years, search engines -- Google in particular -- have given more and more support to SEOs and publishers. But 2011 marked the first significant reversal that I can recall, with both linking and keyword data being withheld. Here's what happened, why it matters and how publishers can push back if Google and Bing don't change things. Where We Came From Some might believe that search engines hate SEOs, hate publishers and have done little over the years to help them. They are mistaken, either choosing to deliberately ignore the gains or, more likely, are simply unaware of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Critics | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central | Link Building: General | Microsoft: Bing Webmaster Tools | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General | Top News | Yahoo: Site Explorer

Trada, the crowdsourced PPC marketplace, has secured an additional $9 million in funding from their existing investors, Google Ventures and Foundry Group. This additional seed of Series D financing brings the total money raised for Trada to $17 million. Trada basically lets you offload your PPC management onto a community of SEM experts, who spend the budgets you set up as they see best. The money is spent on Google, Bing, Facebook and other PPC platforms and Trada handles the payment exchange between the SEMs and the company advertising, while taking a small percentage of that spend. [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: General

SEO is the number one source of leads for both B2C and B2B marketers, beating out both PPC and social media marketing in a recent survey of online marketers. But more of those surveyed say they plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2012, ahead of SEO and PPC. The numbers come from the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which was compiled by Webmarketing123, a California-based online marketing agency. The company surveyed more than 500 U.S. online marketers in August and September; about two-thirds of all respondents identified themselves as B2B marketers. Whether [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Stats: Spend Projections | Top News

Several search marketing-related companies are included on the Tech 200, a list of the fastest-growing tech companies in the U.S. It's the second year that Lead411 has compiled the list (although last year's list included 500 companies), which includes companies in several industries: software, hardware, internet, media, advertising, wireless, telecom, IT services, e-commerce and consulting. The Tech 200 ranks companies not based on overall revenue, but on sales growth between 2008 and 2010. Congrats to the following search marketing-related companies that we've spotted on the Tech 200: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | SEM Industry: Awards | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

Matt Cutts, head of the Google's web spam fighting team, has gone on record by saying Google does not consider SEO to be spam. Matt said outright, "We don't consider SEO to be spam," and added that SEO is "a valid way to help people find what they're looking for via search engines." He did add that there are bad SEOs out there, typically known as black hat SEOs that can produce web spam. But in general, SEO is not spam and there are plenty of good SEOs out there. Matt has said several times at conferences that SEO is not spam, but this is the first time he devoted a video to it. He [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

A new site just launched under the name Search Quality Alliance, which is currently made up of five companies that offer SEO and web services. The big punch line here is that these five companies are all founded by former Google Search Quality representatives. As it states on the website: Search Quality Alliance is a group of former Google Search Quality team members who offer Search Engine Consulting Solutions on an international scale with local expertise. From collaboration in international SEO projects, to Google & SEO workshops, to developing new tools including testing and sha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Employees | SEM Industry: General

Submitting press releases in hopes of gaining search traffic has long been an SEO tactic. But now Business Wire -- one of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway companies -- has been granted a patent over it. That's pretty nuts. SEOing Press Releases, Patented! Yousaf Sekander over at ElevateLocal spotted the news and has his own write-up here. The Business Wire release is here, saying: Business Wire announced on Wednesday that it has been awarded a U.S. Patent for the technological process of optimizing and distributing press releases to maximize their ability to be found and tracked in leadi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features: General | SEM Industry: General | Top News

Each year, Inc. Magazine releases its Inc. 500/5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America. We're proud to announce that Search Engine Land's parent company, Third Door Media, made the Inc. 5000 list this year. Who gets chosen? Inc. says, "The 2011 Inc. 500|5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2007 through 2010. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2007. Additionally, they had to be based in the United States, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of Dece [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

Yesterday we had a Dilbert cartoon telling us to say no to black hat SEO and today we have a Dilbert cartoon telling us to say no to paid links: The comic reads: Employee: "Google found out that we use fake links to boost our search rank." Employee: "Now our website only shows up when someone enters the search string "dung for brains."" Boss: "They won't get away with this!" Computer [aka Google]: "Shut your pie hole." That is two in a row from the Dilbert cartoons on the topic of SEO. Related Articles Dilbert Cartoon Says "No" To Black Hat SEO Those Special Go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General