Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Nine Trainers Training
During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."
This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "nine ladies dancing."
You should attend these events for "nine trainers training."
As I mentioned back in September, training is one of the three key trends. If you type "SEO training" into Google Insights for Search, you'll see that web search interest has grown steadily since 2004 -- and is forecast to continue growing in 2010. So, it's not surprising that more time is being added to the schedules of search engine conferences for training workshops.
But I often wonder if "in-depth training" is the right term for the "radical reorientation" that takes place in these intensive workshops. The small class setting ensures participants that their instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions of "why" as well as "how."
As Columbus discovered, training the crews of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria how to sail west was a relatively straightforward task. The real challenge was convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that they wouldn't fall off the edge of the world.
Fortunately, the instructors of the SES training workshops are experts who know how to handle both ambidextrously.
So, what can you learn by participating in one of these training workshops?
SES Berlin offers a "Workshopsprogramm" on 23 November, the day before the "kongress." The program includes:
• Link Building 2009 Workshop, which will be taught by Christoph Cemper, General Manager, and Melanie Arko, Project Manager CEMPER.COM.
• Web Analytics Workshop: Data Into Action, which will be taught by Timo Aden, Gründer und Geschäftsführer, Trakken GmbH.
• Best Practices der Suchmaschinenwerbung, which will be taught by Oliver Zenglein, Head of Online Marketing, be2.
Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 offers SEM training on December 10, the day after the conference. The half-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop, which will be taught by Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing Interactive.
• Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan, which will be taught by Tim Ash, SiteTuners.
• Advanced Keyword Research, which will be taught by Ron Jones, Symetri Internet Marketing.
• Social Media and Your Business, which will be taught by Sage Lewis, SageRock.com.
On December 11, SES Chicago 2009 offers partnered training. The full-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization Training, which will be taught by Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Integrating Search Across All Online Marketing Efforts, which will be taught by Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit; Ray "Catfish" Comstock, Senior Search Strategist, BusinessOnLine; Paul Sherman, President Emeritas, Usability Professionals Organization (OMI Professor); Jennifer Wessenmeyer, VP Analytics, Stratigent; Debbie Qaqish, Partner, Pedowitz Group (OMI professor); and Kevin Espinosa, Director eMarketing, Caterpillar.
Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."
Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 9, 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Related: SEM Industry: Events, SEM Industry: Trade Shows
Caution: Social Media May Be Closer Than They Appear
I've just finished attending Day 1 of the PRSA International Conference in San Diego.
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, was the Sunday keynote speaker.
Katie D. Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, discussed Social Media Measurement: Establishing ROI.
And Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communications, Rick Clancy, former senior vice president of corporate communication at Sony Electronics, Jessica Smith, Vice President of Fleishman-Hillard, Rob Key, founder and CEO of Converseon, and Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, participated on a panel entitled, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations."
If PR people seem to be very interested in social media, they are. But they aren't alone. Search engine optimizers have been interested in social media for five years. And customer relations management is interested in social media, too.
Now, blogs started taking off in 2003. Facebook was launched in 2004. YouTube was launched in 2005. And Twitter was launched in 2006.
So, maybe we should cut many PR people some slack for waiting until 2009 to get their arms around social media. But life is unfair -- and PR people who waited until now will find themselves saying, "Hey, that's my job," to other people in other departments who didn't wait to get started.
Now, PR people bring a lot of relevant skills to the social media table, but so do SEOs and customer relations people. All this will generate some interesting discussions when it comes time to launch a company's first social media campaign.
I remember similar discussions in the mid-1990s, when I tried to make the case at my old employer that the corporate communications department should be responsible for creating the company's first website. I lost that argument -- and the IT department was put in charge of creating a new way to interact with "the public" online. The result was a website that wasn't user friendly -- and it used a content management system that wasn't search engine friendly, either.
So, we face another one of those pivotal moments when PR people will be asked why social media is important, how social media works, and which social media to use.
They need to be read with answers now, not next year. Anyone who looks at social media through the passenger side mirror needs to be cautioned: Social media may be closer than they appear.
Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 8, 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Related: Social Media
5 Google Updates for 11/6/09: News, Maps, Books, Music and Mobile
It's the end of another eventful week in search blogging, and once again there are several Google updates just piled up waiting to be written about. So, we're saving everyone some time and just compiling them into one post. Check them out:
Google News has a new sitemaps interface. You have six months to adopt the new sitemap.
Google Books now has a magazine search page.
Via Google Search's new music search, you can now access exclusive songs hosted by MySpace and Lala for artists such as Lady Gaga and Arctic Monkeys.
Google Maps has released imagery of Berlin from 1945 to 1953.
The Google Mobile App is now available at Best Buy (still free, which is the ultimate "best buy").
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Related: Google, Google: Book Search & Library, Google: Maps, Google: Mobile, Google: News
PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes
I'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event.
Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals."
Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this environment, public relations professionals must understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO).
So, Odden will help PR people find out how to choose the best key words, optimize their newsroom and press releases, build better links, and sell SEO to decision makers. Plus, he'll share "the No. 1 SEO tactic to implement today."
I'll be speaking on Tuesday, November 10, at 11:15 a.m. with Laura Sturaitis, the senior vice president, media and product services, at Business Wire.
How do you know your press release delivers value? Are there ways to increase a press releases' ROI?
Sturaitis and I will discuss real live examples and techniques to get the most mileage for press releases, especially in the Web 2.0 world. We'll explain why PR people need to work hand-in-hand with their Web team to see how visitors are getting to their site and moving through it. We'll also examine Web analytics for compiling, tracking and measuring activity deriving from the press release via the wires and elsewhere.
If you want a preview, check out my post on the ComPRrehension blog, which is entitled, "Does Your Press Release Deliver Value?"
Odden and I also spoke last year at the PRSA 2008 International Conference in Detroit. Why is this useful information for search engine optimizers to share with their colleagues down the hall in the public relations department? SEO specialists and PR specialists need to work together to handle the opportunities and threats created by Google universal search.
When Google announced universal search in May 2007, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said, "The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query."
This radically changed everything we knew about search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations (PR). If your webmaster isn't optimizing content for YouTube, Google News, or Google Images, then who is?
With more than 12.8 billion expanded search queries a month on Google Sites in the U.S., this isn't a rhetorical question. In other words, the SEO specialists and PR specialists need to get out of their silos to ensure that their organization is getting found in all the right places.
As I told Michael Miller, the author of "Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus," back in 2008, "For a good part of the 20th century, every part of the marketing mix was in a different silo. Advertising had its lingo and its metrics, and PR had its lingo and its metrics, and if you had a group that was focused on trade shows and events, they had their lingo and their metrics, etcetera. One of the things that is sort of a byproduct of keeping people in their silos is that things that the email marketing people learned ten years ago, or the search engine marketing people earned five years ago, the PR people in the same organization haven't learned yet. As a result, they keep doing what used to work but stopped working a long time ago, only nobody noticed."
I added, "To the extent that you can get the PR people interacting with the search people, they will discover that there are lots of things they can do together."
And Odden was also interviewed for Miller's book. So, your PR people will be getting the same advice no matter which online marketing guru they listen to at the PRSA 2009 International Conference -- or which chapter of Miller's book they read.
Odden and I both spoke at SES London 2008. Check out my video interview with him below.
Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing, at SES London 2008
And Odden and I are both speaking at SES Chicago 2009. So, there's no escaping our combined message: Get out of your silo; start interacting with other members of your marketing team.
Get it? Got it? Good.
Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 6, 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Related: Best Practices, Marketing, SEM Industry: Events, SEM Industry: Trade Shows, SEM Tips: Public Relations, Search, Search Types: News
Google AdWords Updates Conversion Tracking Options
Google AdWords has updated the interface for Conversion Tracking. There are three tabs to manage data: Conversions, Webpages, and Code.
Conversions
Under this tab, you'll view details about the conversion actions you're tracking. The "Tracking Status" column shows whether those actions are being tracked properly. The "Value" column displays the accumulated value of the conversion actions. This is based on the value you assign to each action. Use the "New Conversion" button to set up the conversion actions to be tracked. These can also be imported from Google Analytics.
Webpages
Under this tab, you can view which web pages on your site are converting. You'll see the same columns you see under the Conversions tab (Tracking Status, Value, Conversions per click). This can help you identify poorly performing pages.
Code
Under this tab, grab the tracking code for each conversion. You can change the value of an action here too, which aids in ROI calculations.
What do you think of this Google AdWords update? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Related: Google: AdWords
AOL Completes Financial Team, Names Additional Board Member in Advance
In preparation for being spun off from Time Warner, AOL has hired executives to their financial team and announced one additional board member.
Here's a list of the financial execs:
- Mike Suffredini - Vice President and Treasurer
- Eoin Ryan - Vice President of Investor Relations
- Don Neff, currently a Senior Vice President of Finance, will become Senior Vice President of Internal Audit.
- Ned Brody - rejoining the company as Executive Vice President of Paid Services
Meanwhile, Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer of the online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe, Inc. has been named to the Board of Directors. Last week, AOL named nine board members for the post-separation operations.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Related: AOL
Click Forensics Unveils Online Audience Verification Platform for Shopping Engines
At ad:tech New York this week, Click Forensics unveiled a new online audience verification platform for comparison shopping search engines. The technology evaluates traffic to determine its value to merchant partners.
"Comparison shopping engines and other content aggregators need a simple way to optimize the money they spend on search engine marketing, while improving the quality of leads they send on to merchant partners," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The solution we're delivering does just that. To our knowledge, it's the only system available that provides the ability for content aggregators to manage traffic acquisition and traffic monetization in a single interface."
Features include:
- High-Volume Campaign Support - measures the quality of tens of millions of clicks, which supports the increase in demand during high traffic seasons.
- Real-Time Quality-based Filtering - prevents fraudulent and low-quality traffic from reaching merchants, which aids in optimizing ad spend.
- API Integration - allows integration of the platform directly with existing internal reporting and billing systems.
- Browser-based Reporting - enables viewing of traffic and audience quality statistics in a browser-based dashboard.
Ultimately, Click Forensics hopes their new platform will help shopping search engines maintain and grow their merchant partner base.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Related: Search Ads: Clickfraud
It May Be The Queen's English, But Google Likes US Results in the UK
As a post at Paul Carpenter's blog notes Google seems to have a preference for US site listings for people searching from the UK. This situation has been discussed before (examples can be found here and here) - and there is even a video from Matt Cutts in the blog post.
There are even US sites in the Google Maps listed for UK based searches.
This is not too much of a stretch given Google's history of problems with languages. BlogScoped pointed out one of many examples where all 10 results for a French search list pages from one site. Seems in Google's world it is the President's language.
Posted by Frank Watson on November 6, 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Google Launches Closure Tools: A Javascript Candy Store
The Google Code blog announced the launch of a compiler, library, inspector and templates for sites to use to improve their javascript usage. The tools were "all started as 20% projects and hundreds of Googlers have contributed thousands of patches."
This central open source of all things javascript should prove very handy to web site owners and developers, as many of them are already being used by Google apps and widgets.
"Today, each Closure Tool has grown to be a key part of the JavaScript infrastructure behind web apps at Google. That's why we're particularly excited (and humbled) to open source them to encourage and support web development outside Google."
If the tools become widely adopted it could also help create a uniformity in code use that would help the search engine - but also the wbe community in general.
Posted by Frank Watson on November 5, 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Twitter Rolls Out Retweet Test [Screenshots]
Back in August, Twitter said it was developing a system of officially bringing the Retweet to the social network. Now, they're unrolling the test to a limited group of users.
Retweeting is quite simple. When you see a Tweet you want to retweet, simply mouseover the lower right corner of the Tweet. Then, click the "retweet" link.
When the Retweeting is done, a simple notification appears underneath the Tweet. You stay right where you are on the page and can continue checking your feed.
Here's what your Retweet looks like. And this is key for the feature we'll discuss just after the image.
But there's a feature of this new Retweeting integration that I don't like. When one of your followers Retweets something, the original Tweet appears in your stream.
In the screenshot below, I don't follow @wyattla. Nothing against him, I just have no idea who he is. One of the people I do followed Retweeted @wyattla's Retweet. But @wyattla's avatar and original Tweet appear in my stream.
Should the test prove successful, I suppose we'll all get used to those little grey Retweet indicators. But call me old-school, I still prefer the "traditional" method of Retweeting, where the Retweeter's Retweet appears in the stream.
What do you think of Twitter's Retweet experiment? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Related: Social Media
Funny or Die Becomes YouTube Partner
Comedy video site Funny or Die is now a YouTube partner. This means you'll be able to access select Funny or Die videos on the largest online video site in the world.
Funny or Die was created by actor and comedian Will Ferrell and screenwriter/director Adam McKay.
Ferrell and McKay have managed to employ the talent of several Hollywood stars in promoting Funny or Die through simply having them appear in a funny video on the site. Natalie Portman, Lindsay Lohan, Zach Galifianakis, Paris Hilton, and Denis Leary have all appeared in Funny or Die videos.
Embedding is disabled on most of the YouTube version of the videos, so you'll still need to grab embed codes from FunnyorDie.com. Only a handful of videos are on the YouTube channel, which seems, thus far, primarily set up to advertise Will Ferrell's HBO special on DVD.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Related: Google: YouTube
Google AdSense Launches New Interface Into Beta
Google AdSense has launched a new interface that is currently in beta testing. But they're giving a glimpse of it over on the Inside AdSense blog.
Here's what to expect:
- More detailed performance reports
- View daily stats as graphs
- New metrics including amount you've earned from various ad, targeting and bid types
- Enhanced Ad Review Center
- Streamlining common tasks. For example, changing several ad units simultaneously
Here's a screenshot, per the AdSense blog:
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Related: Google: AdSense
Music Search Wars: Yahoo! Goes for Music Video Search Supremacy
It's no secret that music searches comprise a large number of searches on the web today. That's why the music search wars have heated up in recent weeks with rumors and announcements surrounding efforts by Google, Facebook, and MySpace.
Yahoo! has been a player in music search for a long time, but now they're amping up their game with music video search. They're including a special section on the left sidebar to help you filter results.
This seems to only happen with artists and bands of a certain popularity. You can see the left sidebar filter for U2, Foo Fighters and Coldplay, but not for Paramore, Jet or The Swell Season. You get the left rail for Frank Sinatra but not Dean Martin.
The left rail contains albums and songs. Click on one to see videos related to your selection.
What do you think of Yahoo! Music Video search? Let us know in the comment section below.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Related: Yahoo: Video
