aimClear Search Marketing Blog

With just shy of 4 million users, StumbleUpon easily remains my personal social community software favorite for sheer elegance, maturity of the community, lack of grubby noise,  useful tools, and delightfully idiosyncratic character. Still SU lacks mainstream appeal as many folks, just delving into social media, have never even heard of it. Incredibly, it seems many are leaving StumbleUpon for Facebook. Bummer… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a remarkable year in the search marketing community, none the least of which has been the amazing organic aggregation of SEM types into the Sphinn community. Sphinn’s focused blend of essential search news, commentary, editorial prowess, humor, style, ranting, and skillful moderation provides perspective and camaraderie that transcends “job” and “career.” Read the rest of this entry »

There are two common reasons for a practicing SEM to get OUT of search immediately:  1) You’re a semi-effective Web 1.0 “provider” who is not studying, and have no stomach left for screaming corners where one of the the only givens is unpredictability. Stay in search and you’ll hurt your company or clients. 2) It’s time to cash out of your agency or business while search is relatively easy to understand. Read the rest of this entry »

This year PubCon by Webmaster World takes place at the same time as SES Chicago, traditionally an annual mainstay of corporate search marketing conferences. It’s well known to industry insiders that Danny Sullivan’s historic relationship with SES has run its course and he’s no longer at the helm. For his part Danny has been extremely gracious and supportive of the iconic SES franchise he built globally with team members like Chris Sherman.

The value perception proffered by the internationally respected SES institution is, in all likelihood, an unstoppable brand even without Danny’s ubiquitous presence. The conference is already evolving to serve a somewhat different audience. The transition will take place cold-turkey this year with the overlapping of PubCon. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Thanksgiving from the entire aimClear crew here in Minnesota. This month has been incredibly busy as, over the course of the last 11 months, our search marketing agency has scaled from solo SEM practice to 5 person search marketing agency. There’s SO much to be grateful for.

We’re thankful for our dear friends, good health, treasured clients, valued readers, the entire SearchEngineLand/Sphinn community, and having a job that totally ROCKS. Thank you all so much for your friendship, support, talent, insight, camaraderie, and willingness to engage/discuss/debate. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last 10 months the number of PPC accounts aimClear handles has multiplied by more than 20X, which has been seismic to say the least. At the same time the ever-evolving PPC landscape continually undergoes its own “global warming crises,” as heated paradigm shifts pile upon chilling conceptual overhauls at the advertising platform level.

Any search marketing agency handling small, let alone voluminous, PPC accounts knows the serious challenges. Reporting, billing, conducting multivariate ad message/landing page testing, conversion tracking, making analytics actionable, communicating with the client, and dealing with monthly cash flow makes any PPC intense- if not daunting.

Obstacles the small SEM shop encounters, when scaling to big PPC management operations at the portfolio level, can make for stormy afternoons. Read the rest of this entry »

Farewell from Orlando Florida, where SMX Travel@PhoCusWright is winding down. Travel is a massive Internet segment and this conference was informative.

Conference coverage posts don’t typically generate tons of comments or stimulate ongoing dialog in any blog’s threads, but it’s among the most satisfying work we do. My head is delightfully full.

Conference Chair Chris Sherman, and Chris Elwell, Partner & President, Third Door Media (Parent company of Search Engine Land and SMX) have jetted off to London for SMX London which begins in a matter of hours. Thanks to both gentlemen for making aimClear feel so welcome here. Blizzard Internet Marketing  and John Wellis also posted from the event. Read the rest of this entry »

Competitive intelligence is about reconnaissance, research, testing, and implementation. The goal is to acquire information that leads to making better business decisions-at the expense of your competition. Mining data from public sources is legal industrial espionage and is an absolute SEO essential.

Use harvested data to learn who the real competition is, discover your site’s strengths and weaknesses, gain a bigger picture of your business’s landscape, confirm (or not) your unique value proposition, help determine success factors in your market, and identify opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »

Kayak, Farecast, Mobissimo, and Sidestep represent a highly disruptive new breed. Travel specific meta-search engines facilitate real-time fare comparison from hundreds of travel “suppliers” (like airlines and hotel chains) rather than going through a single OTA (online travel agency) like Travelocity or Orbitz. This technology threatens OTAs in serious ways, among other reasons, because the final transaction is consummated on the supplier’s website, not the OTA. Suppliers are (of course) thrilled with this technology. Read the rest of this entry »

The king is dead, long live the king. The old SEO is new again. This session, “Those Who Do…Tell: Effective Travel SEM Case Studies, “reinforced what we all know to be true: There are NO shortcuts.

Effective travel search marketing means researching and testing available channels with optimized content. Test some more, measure conversion with modern analytics, and don’t be afraid to try something else. Read the rest of this entry »