aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Wikipedia is on everyone’s mind because of it’s massive presence in the Google SERPs. Common questions from our clients include “How do we get a Wikipedia listing;” “How do we handle factual errors in Wiki listings,” and “What’s the appropriate method to interact with the Wiki community.

Earlier today I had the opportunity to interview Lise Broer “Durova”, Administrator, Wikipedia to got these and other questions answered. We’ll be reporting on the session she’s speaking at later today. In the meantime, here’s the video interview:

In order to be truly successful in social media marketing it’s essential to be an evangelist and whole-heartedly participate in communities, forums, and blogging to the benefit of the greater good. This session was about commonalities between Web 2.0 and 3.0 sites regarding respectful and appropriate engagement as a marketer. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and others help people to develop and stay connected with networks of associates and friends. Know the rules and your company will find “friends” who are susceptible to your message and products. Screw up and the communities can turn on you and potentially harm your brand. This session explored Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. The moderator was Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land. Read the rest of this entry »

There is nothing quite like the power of a woman’s intuition. And this week, seven women have brought both their intuition and expertise to SMX Social Media in New York City. Many of these ladies are familiar within the SEO industry, but now we have the privilege of lending our ear to their Social Media Marketing knowledge.

Let’s face it. The ladies are way prettier than the men in Search and Social Media. But to keep you from walking up to them with sweaty palms and feet in your mouth, I’ve collected a few tidbits that you can use as conversation starters. Let’s get acquainted, shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

Your customers share their favorite content with bookmarking and tagging sites like Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Flickr, YouTube, and Technorati. By understanding “tagging” you can greatly increase your target audience. The tags you choose indicate additional categories where your information can be seen and are the equivalent of the keywords used in search. This SMX session provided a spirited overview of tagging and the mechanics of popular social bookmarking sites. Read the rest of this entry »

This SMX session was called “Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites” but it would be more aptly titled Digg, Digg, Digg, and More Digg - which is exactly what the New York audience cared about anyway. Digg.com has nearly mythical powers to drive traffic and generate great links. Keeping in mind that the top 100 Digg users control 56% of the homepage content, we’re guessing that 12-15% of the Digg power-user universe is in the SMX conference room at this moment. The speakers offered very serious Digg tips in the raucous session.

Neil Patel, CTO, Advantage Consulting Services says that he loves Digg “as much as porn.” The homepage of Digg is pretty simple. Stories are voted to the homepage and “shitty” content doesn’t make it. Neil has calculated that the average homepage story gets 129 links, up to 10,000-100,000 visitors in 1 hour, and helps “tons” with “great branding”. Compared to the rapidly declining practice of buying links, links are easy to get and “last forever”. Read the rest of this entry »

Link building is a core value of SEO. The art of linkbaiting is a key tactic for harvesting lasting value from social media activity by generating relevant high quality links with remarkable content. This series of presenters offered practical and priceless real-world tips and anecdotes for linkbaiting success.

Rebecca Kelley, Search Marketing Consultant at SEOmoz, spoke about the benefits of “healthy and vigorous master-baiting links and visibility.” Successful link bait creates a domino effect which results in a “ton” of links - links are votes - and the more relevant Google sees your site the higher your keywords rank. Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings from SMX Social Media New York 2007. Excitement at being in the company of so many famous bloggers, social media gurus, journalists, and SEO Rock stars is rippling through this room on the scent of morning coffee.

Lise Broer, Wikipedia Administrator is sitting to my right next to Neil Patel. Kim Krause Berg and Matt McGee to my left, Barry Schwartz, Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan Rebecca Kelley, and Tamar Weinberg are about 2 feet away exchanging hugs and stopping by to shake hands with our media group in the front row. aimClear was extended press credentials for this show which is a wonderful honor. Read the rest of this entry »

MP3 Download link

SMX Social Media Expo co-developer Neil Patel is a delightful enigma. Buoyant, effusive, razor-sharp, corporate, child-like, and colloquial, this Orange County entrepreneur-college student drives hundreds of millions of monthly page impressions and harvests thousands of links for his clients from sites like facebook and digg. In candid conversation he tells us how, revealing traffic and linking success statistics.

Neil was kind enough to spend quite a bit of time on the phone with me.  aimClear staff edited the parts we can share in public. Neil’s a founding digg-baiter-made-good in corporate America. He weighs in on facebook techniques, cross pollinating social media bookmarks, quality content, “shitty links”, “hot chicks” on youTube, Sphinn, the value of revealing you’re a search marketer, making “tons” of money, this week’s SMX Social Media conference, innovating, and “blogging crap.” Even though the phone-call audio is a bit fuzzy in places, we recommend you listen to the MP3 while reading for a true sense of Neil Patel’s masterful social media Zen.
MP3 Download link Read the rest of this entry »

As their primary mission, The University of Minnesota Duluth Center for Economic Development nurtures northern Minnesota’s businesses and entrepreneurs. Their vision is to strengthen the “viability of the region as a recognized leader in small business and entrepreneurial development”

There’s a tremendous amount of buzz about search marketing in the hallowed halls of academia. Today aimClear will speak to students who are engaged, as part of their business education, in consulting with seven different regional businesses (CED clients) in the area of marketing-communications campaign development. Read the rest of this entry »