aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Site owners all do it. It’s impossible to resist typing keywords into Google, searching to see where pages show up. Many seem to have no clue whatsoever that this classic self-test provides minimal insight as to actual rankings for keywords queried. The exercise barely matters.

Organic traffic from keywords is what does matter. Conversion from the traffic matters more. It’s the “average” Google ranking that is most important, a metric which unfortunately is impossible to measure directly. Organic traffic and conversion from keywords are the only true indicators, both of which are metrics-dependent on on expert use of analytics.

In light of personalized search it’s essential that everyone learn to measure natural search success properly, lest we get caught up in irrelevant vanity metrics. Reciprocally SEO professionals need to teach clients to judge organic progress properly by modern standards. Here’s some history and how-to behind the personalized search success-measurement conundrum and a blueprint for educating site owners. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you afraid of bloggers? Sleep with the light on? You’ll find reasons to sleep above the covers after you read the next installment of Social Media: What Is It and What Is It Good For? from Search Engine Strategies New York. (Read part One).

Jory Des Jardins, Co-Founder & President of Strategic Alliances at BlogHer, teaches companies how to get bloggers to talk about their brands. Her refreshing angle was to talk about some of the boogeyman fears companies have about social media.Read the rest of this entry »

Whether you embrace it or not, social media is here to stay and affects your brand. Social media marketing must be part of your overall marketing effort. Ignore the blogosphere at your peril.

Moderator Pauline Ores, SES Advisory Board and Senior Marketing Manager, Social Media Engagement, General Business, IBM, began the seminar by stating that the Social Media Track was new to Search Engine Strategies conferences. She introduced the powerhouse panel:Read the rest of this entry »

Many site owners barely understand the basic pathology of links, let alone advanced Dofollow, Nofollow, Pagerank flow-sculpting, and the inherent dangers of link farming. As search marketers, it is incumbent upon us to capitalize on the market’s naivety on behalf of our clients. That’s why they hire us.

The “Fool’s Gold Link Exchange” play is a perfectly ethical tactic we employ surrounding client link-trading activities which results in holistic reciprocal promotion & traffic, happy trading partners, and massive one-way link juice building…for our clients.Read the rest of this entry »

I know SEOs who are scared-yellow. One night, during the early days of Google’s paid link jihad, I personally woke up in Manhattan to a 3AM cold sweat.

It had finally registered that over half of the links we’d procured for clients would, not only cease to have value, but potentially cause penalties. Google was going door to door in a vicious pagerank-killing pogrom.

Gnashing teeth that night, it was clear that our many months of intensity, whilst delving deeper into the social media universe, would pay. I quietly thanked the stars for our team’s social media acumen, planning, and luck. With certainty the golden path was clear. The line between organic search engine optimization and social media is evaporating.Read the rest of this entry »

In SEO, serving up “authentic” and usable content designed to demystify product offerings, remove conversion barriers, and support customer needs is most important.

We encourage our clients to represent their products’ true value with honesty, well branded style and important keywords. We try to keep our hands-off the integrity of the messaging as much as possible. However, here’s a sordid tale of happy, holistic and hands-off SEO gone to hell on a broomstick.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 »

<Rant> I’ve wanted to write this post for years. A couple of times a month one of our clients or partners forwards us a laughable cold call sales pitch they’ve received from some bulk email scamming SEO-weasel who’s grubbing for business from the unaware. Though most serious search marketing agency-types provide an honest day’s work, as in any industry, a percentage of unscrupulous snake oil throwback-types give SEO a bad name.Read the rest of this entry »

Todd Malicoat, AKA StuntDubl, has created a legendary brand among search marketing insiders and needs little introduction. I first had the pleasure of watching him present “Digg pointers” along with Neil Patel at SES Chicago 2006 and was immediately engaged by his no-shit high-integrity approach to content, link building, making friends, sharing, and building his own brand. This guy is a true search marketing artist.

StuntDubl was an early SEM blogger, linkbaiter and foundational search marketing practitioner. With recent posts like “The SEO Playbook - Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice,” Todd is still quietly active in the blogging community as he builds companies, speaks at search marketing shows, and selectively services clients.

Recently I interviewed him by phone. We talked about linking, search marketing, StumbleUpon, his early Digg days, vetting SEM firms, starting an SEO career, and other practical topics. You’re invited to listen to the MP3 and read the full transcript. This is a must-listen for anyone considering a career in search marketing and seasoned veterans alike.

Marty: Todd, you’re one of the most respected link baiters in the world. I’m curious as to how you got your start in social network link building and if you have any anecdotes regarding your background and early viral successes.

Todd: The first time I did that vanity search for my own name and went out and found my own resume out there online, you know my resume had my name, phone number, home address, everything else, and I went, “Oh well, I guess that’s so much for privacy,” and so I kind of took the proactive approach to it. 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 »