aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Organic landing page conversion measuring is a time tested after-deployment technique which, though highly effective, can take days, weeks, or months to fully tune.

As optimized pages gradually rise in the SERPs, conversion is measured and pages modified to achieve better conversion ratios. However we’d rather definitively test and tweak landing page concepts to focus conversion, prior to deploying them for organic indexing, using “fixed length short burst paid search.”Read the rest of this entry »

There is no shortage of SEM bloggers who recurrently shout from treetops “SEO is dead!” Indeed a Google search returns 2,200,000 documents. Searching allintitle: seo is dead returns 1,080 web pages which include those 3 inflammatory words in the html title tag. Clearly the topic of SEO’s supposed mortality is top-of-mind for search marketing practitioners and hyperbolic critics alike. Here’s a post where Jordan McCollum made fun of the trendy topic in Marketing Pilgrim.

Indeed, generational-game-changing shifts in search occur every morning over breakfast. Universal and personalized search killed traditional organic prominence tools like WebPosition and SEO ToolKit, programs which now gather dust and are relegated to web 1.0 new-client presentations for IT department fiefdom chieftains who just don’t get it. If new clients need us to focus on organic prominence and “hits” to get the gig, so be it. They learn fast once we start working on the project.Read the rest of this entry »

Search Engine Land Executive Editor Chris Sherman is fond of pointing out that [Social Media means] “Internet way-finding tools informed by human judgment.’ Informed’ can mean many things including egregiously uninformed.”

From manufacturing to intellectual property, industry brand stewards have been forced to accept the reality of Collaborative directories like Prefound, Zimbio, and Wikipedia. There has been a lot of debate regarding the powerful weight Wikipedia pulls in Google organic SERPS for direct brand searches.

For example here is a sampling of SERPs that might keep brand managers up at night: Google #4 Dell, #3 McDonald’s, #3 Burger King , #6 J.C. Penney, #2 Old Navy, #5 Apple, #3 Cheerios, #3 Gucci, #5 Salvation Army, #5 Coca-Cola, #4 Doritos, #3 Famous Dave’s, #4 Chevrolet, #3 Target Corporation, #6 Wal-Mart. There are many others.

Reaction from the Search Marketing Industry
A few days ago in his blog post, Search Engine Optimization Article at Wikipedia Doesn’t Deserve Attention, search marketing thought-leader Rand Fishkin took aim at Wikipedia. Using the example of the Wiki-community’s ongoing misrepresentation of OUR industry (SEO), Rand called out Wiki over the quality and importance of Wikipedia listings. Rand’s post echoed around the SEM trade publications.Read the rest of this entry »

The following search engine optimization resource has been widely reported on. That said, I bring this SEOMOZ report forward to our readership because NOT everybody reads the same daily trade publications.

37 organic search leaders (ok pioneers) voted on their estimation of what website attributes are attractive to Google’s ranking algorithm. This is a blow-away resource for anyone with imagination and an honest need to understand, debate, and react to the best-in-class thought of the day.

The panel included people who know: Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, Aaron Wall, Todd Malicoat, Christine Churchill, Barry Schwartz, Chris Boggs, Christine Churchill, and Danny Sullivan. These folks are the whose-who of authority SEM bloggers.Read the rest of this entry »

“Content sourcing” means creating channeled mechanisms to facilitate the output of predictable and valuable recurrent content.  Out of all the challenges companies face as they embark on advertising, PR, and marketing online jihads, the need to source content creation is ubiquitous. This post examines the content sourcing riddle and offers tips to begin the flow.

It’s Not Really New.
Realistically speaking, every channel ever used to disseminate marketing and branding rhetoric has always been dependent on content creation. However, consistent output of worthy content has become more crucial now that search engines rank pages based on relevance of written words, quality and count of inbound links, bookmarked pages, buzz in social communities, and bookmarked RSS feeds.

Set-it-and-forget-it static brochure sites will always have their place in the website constellation, but ultimately the ability to generate site traffic and quality inbound links is dictated by the supply and demand of useful information. Actually it makes sense that search engines assign “value” and “relevance” to websites that publish a steady stream of useful content.  If there is nothing new on your website than there are fewer benefits for visitors who return or for others to discover and link to your site after repeated visits.

Whether one refers to the evolution of organic optimization stratagies and link building tactics as “New SEO,” “Web 2.0, ” social media, or any other catch phrase-at the end of the day successful website marketing comes down to creating valuable, predictable, and intentionally optimized content that people like and utilize.Read the rest of this entry »

Last week Google announced a number of changes, initiatives, and features that impact webmaster and marketers’ thinking for both paid and organic search. The world of search moves at dizzying speed. Here’s a summary of Google’s announcements, some of which already are having a significant impact on SERPs (search engine results pages) this morning.

Paid: Google’s New Preferred Bidding Option
Google AdWords announced a new bidding option enabling advertisers to an to stipulate an average  CPC or CPM bid. Previously the only option was to specify a maximum CPC or CPM campaign bid, requiring third party software to manage bid-to-placement through the API.

Google does not guarantee the exact placement or cost of ads. However selecting the new CPC/CPM option means your bids will likely fall around the price-point you chose. Now advertisers have more control of campaigns within the Google AdWords platform and manual adjustment of maximum bid may be less necessary.  The announcement of Google’s new AdWords Preferred Cost Bidding may signal impending obsolescence for paid search bid management software packages like Atlas, Dynamic Software, Omniture, KeyWordMax.

Organic: Google Search History is Now Web History
Google switched on search “history” for many account holders in February triggering an intense debate over the pros and cons of personalized search and privacy. Now in a provocative move Google has expanded search history to “web history.” Tracking user behavior has expanded to archive where Google users go and what they do as while surfing the web. In making this gigantic move Google has again sparked important concerns over privacy. While previously personalized search was impacted only by a user’s search history, now the SERPs are impacted by web surfing history.Read the rest of this entry »

From a marketing perspective “search” can be confusing, challenging, and exciting. However many industries exist in and must remain compliant to regulatory environments. For instance the pharmaceutical, health, alcohol, legal, and insurance industries all must deal with various rules, regulations, and laws when it come to advertising and privacy.

Adding this regulatory layer to organic and paid search thickens the soup. Interestingly enough, many companies do not pay full attention to the regulatory liabilities associated with certain aspects of paid and organic search marketing efforts. It can come back to bite them in the search engines.

Read the rest of this entry »