Posts Tagged ‘ a-new-direction ’

Friday Recap - The Gloves Come Off Edition 29 May 2009 at 4:41 pm by admin

boxing gloves
Photo by SMN via Creative Commons

Even after this abbreviated week, Friday couldn’t have come too soon. I mean, is it just me or are the search engines getting ruthless, pulling out all the stops to get to the top? Cutthroat innovation and increasingly frequent rebranding efforts signaled Yahoo and Microsoft’s escalating desperation to gain market share and Google’s refusal to back down.

Yahoo’s announcement came first this week, as we watched CEO Carol Bartz map a new direction for the company. In an interview, Bartz outlined a strategy for enhancing video, social and mobile Web experiences and said that Yahoo is not a search company.

Then Microsoft came out swinging, announcing that its new search engine, Bing, would be launched next week. CEO Steve Ballmer called Bing a “decision engine” specializing in information on commerce-related topics like shopping, travel and local business. One humorous offset of Microsoft’s announcement is a developing feud between author/columnist Stanley Bing and Bing the search engine.

By the end of the week, Google had elbowed its way into the fight, capturing any wandering attention with a preview of Google Wave. Announced during Google’s I/O Developer Conference this week, Wave promises to revolutionize Internet communication by combining email, chat and instant messaging in one instant utility. Developers are being encouraged to create extensions for the platform so that applications are available when Wave is released later this year.

It was around that time when an unexpected player entered the ring. Topsy, a tweet-powered search engine, is poised to become a real-time search leader for online news. Results are ranked based on the number of times a tweet containing the story has been retweeted as well as the number of people following the person who tweeted it.

Okay, enough of the search engine soap opera already. Get to the fun stuff! Like cookie cake pie! You may ask, “Can such high levels of deliciousness coexist in one form?” Just witness the arrival of the baked goods triple threat. If anyone’s thinking of making one, please know that I wouldn’t waste a crumb and I’m not above licking the plate clean. While I’m on a food kick, check out this beautiful and practical table of condiments that periodically go bad. Who knew garlic sauce was so finicky?

Also in danger of spoiling is Twitter after announcing that a Twitter television show is in the works. The concept is still in the development stage, but users from celebrities to technophiles alike are protesting the project. As Michael Arrington points out, there are hundreds of other ways Twitter could be using its time and resources more wisely — like providing a stable platform, for starters.

At the Cartoon Barry Blog, proud new papa Barry Schwartz alerted us to a silly spoof of what life would be like if all the world was a client-vendor relationship. Life is negotiable, right?

SMX Advanced kicks off in Seattle next week. Bruce is speaking on the SEO track during Mega Session: SEO Vets Take All Comers. While there won’t be a Bruce Clay blogger recording the action, Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media has posted her SMX Advanced liveblogging schedule. I also expect to see session coverage on the aimClear Search Marketing Blog. If you know of anywhere else offering SMX Advanced coverage, be sure to share in the comments.

Before I leave you with your weekly dose of Boing Boing-inspired brain bites, I’ve got to shout out to my counterparts Down Under who are starting a new tradition on the Bruce Clay Australasia blog. Every other week, the SEO roundup will compile some of the most interesting stories, stats and developments related to Internet marketing. Keep those ace finds coming, mates!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

  • I played piano as a kid. Maybe if I had a room-sized keyboard I would have stuck with the thing, purely for the cool factor of doing this.
  • No longer content with merely creating food from thin air, honey bees are exploring their artistic sides.
  • Lightning may never strike twice, but it can cause vivid and disturbing visual hallucinations.
  • These gummi bears have been saved from a life-threatening heart condition. And I’ll probably still eat them.

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Friday Recap - The Gloves Come Off Edition

+ SEMJ.org Promotes Semantic Search Education By admin 28 May 2009 at 2:54 pm and have No Comments

As a full-time media junkie, I like to keep up with the news in the search industry. One resource I rely on is the Search Engine Marketing Journal. SEMJ.org is a quarterly academic journal with papers on just about every aspect of doing business online. Topics like conversion and landing page optimization, SEO, analytics, international search, paid search, Web development, social media and mobile marketing are all there.

SEMJ.org logo

SEMJ.org was founded by Sean Golliher in 2007 and quickly became an industry authority, attracting renowned experts like Tim Ash, Avinash Kaushik and Eric Enge as editors. [Ahem? --Susan] Oh yes, Bruce and Susan too! Recently Google’s Maile Ohye joined SEMJ.org’s advisory board. Considering the blue blood and sweat running through the pages of the journal, you can understand why I pay attention to what Sean and the SEMJ.org crew are doing.

Well, today my antennae perked up when I saw that SEMJ.org was promoting and planning to attend the Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose mid-June.

I talked to Sean and he helped me see why semantic search education is such an important investment today:

“As a company that does search marketing research we try to look forward as much as possible, and we follow papers by researchers and conferences very closely. There has been a large movement developing with internet researchers over the last couple years regarding the semantic web. Microformats, linked data, resource description framework (RDFa), etc. Like Tim Berners-Lee has been preaching, web documents that link to each other through hyperlinks are ‘just the tip of the iceberg.’ There are an estimated 25 billion triplets (RDF descriptions) of data on the web now and this is supposedly a 50 x increase from the previous year. Multiply this again by 50 and you can see where this may be going.”

Sean’s aim has always been to advocate research and education in the search marketing industry and to give SEMJ.org readers an edge in the marketing environment of the future. Partnering with the SemTech Conference serves both those goals.

The five-day conference will take place June 14-18 at the Fairmont in San Jose. In its fifth year, the annual conference boasts that it’s the most extensive event on semantic technologies, spanning from business to government to consumer activity. With semantic technologies and linked data promising to hold a prominent place in the future of search and the Web, software developers and marketers would be well served to learn about semantic Web technologies.

Sure, I don’t yet understand what makes the semantic Web tick. Like most, I’ve heard the term bandied about a lot in the past few years, but listening and understanding are two different beasts. Luckily, it’s still early in the life of semantic Web technology, and getting in on the SemTech Conference couldn’t be easier or less expensive than it is now. SEMJ.org is offering registration for Semantic Search Day, June 17, at a cost of $95 when you register with the code SEMJ. While semantic search technology is still emerging, we can do ourselves a favor and give our understanding a jump-start.

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SEMJ.org Promotes Semantic Search Education

+ Link Development Tips and Tricks - SEM Synergy Extras By admin 27 May 2009 at 4:37 pm and have No Comments

Stuntdubl.com logo
Todd Malicoat from Stuntdubl.com was today’s guest.

On today’s episode of SEM Synergy — the can’t-miss WebmasterRadio show featuring Bruce Clay, Susan Esparza and a new expert guest each week — we devoted the program to link development. Link development specialist Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl.com was our guest, sharing juicy tactics and recommendations for link building. Todd explains his process for training link developers, tracking link solicitation efforts, setting guidelines for staff, creating profiles for link building, and why he believes link building is considered mysterious.

That last topic was kind of what inspired me to put together a show about link building secrets. After reading a post on Link Spiel by link development authority Debra Mastaler, I started to get the feeling that members of the Internet marketing industry are on a quest for link development’s hidden treasures. But as Debra points out, the only link building secrets out there are the ones you don’t listen to. Years of speaking at conferences and frequent discussions with SEO professionals has highlighted the fact that no matter how comprehensive the presentation or how inventive the suggestions, Internet marketers still think of link building as a black box of mystery.

So to help dispel one of SEO’s greatest myths, I thought I’d do a little snooping to see what link building recommendations are really at our disposal. As predicted, there are more than a few resources available to link builders looking to better their craft.

Link Development Tools

BuzzStream: I wrote about BuzzStream a few months ago here on the blog, and I’m still willing to put money on this tool’s ability to streamline and manage link building campaigns. With this CRM for link building, you can research potential link partners, keep track of past discussions, and easily maintain backlinks. My 50 private beta invites disappeared faster than you can say “link building made easy.” Now that the product is open to the public, there’s no reason not to use it.

Wiep.net’s List of Link Building Tools: You can find lists of tools all over the Web and, of course, some are better than others. But when tools are shared by a trusted source, there’s a good chance that there’s something worth checking out. Wiep’s list of indispensable link building tools are divided into categories of one-click analysis, in-depth analysis and link targeting. LinkDiagnosis, Link Sleuth and Link Harvester are among the link building tools listed.

Link Development Techniques

Link Baiting with Fake Web Sites: At SEOSmarty.com, Ann Smarty presents a creative and unexpected link bait concept — the fake Web site. With a sticky concept, a sensational domain and an influencer willing to promote your site, you’re on your way to attracting natural links. Whatever link equity is gathered there can be pointed toward the site of your choosing.

Link Baiting with Must-Click Headlines: Notorious link developer Lyndon Antcliff writes about link building, among other topics, at Cornwallseo.com. In a post last week he wrote that, on average, content must grab the reader’s attention in less than three seconds. Crafting a headline that reads like a brick to the face is his suggestion for getting and keeping reader attention in an info-overload environment.

Tips for Evaluating Link Opportunities

Know What Google Looks For: Buying links is a legitimate advertising opportunity on the Web, however as we all know, Google has said that buying links for the purpose of increasing PageRank is a manipulation of the system that will be penalized. At the SEOUnique Blog, Matthew Ridout looks at the ways which Google identifies paid links, such as unrelated content, unnaturally ideal anchor text and a too-rapid increase of links. With knowledge comes the opportunity to act.

Identify Nofollow Links: Also detrimental to link development efforts are links that don’t pass link equity. Paul Teitelman outlines 10 ways to identify whether or not a link is passing juice. Links with nofollow tags, links on robots.txt disallowed pages, links with redirects or refreshes, and Flash or JavaScript links are all low-value when it comes to link equity. Again, knowing what to look for or avoid is half the battle.

So there are a handful of resources I found after a quick stroll through my feed reader and the SEO Geeks Newsletter. Imagine what a little digging could do.

It might be nice to hold out hope for a link building easy button, but there just aren’t any link building secrets. You might ask, “If link development is so competitive and so important to search marketing, why did people give it all away in the first place?” No mystery there. They want links, of course!

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Link Development Tips and Tricks - SEM Synergy Extras