aimClear Search Marketing Blog

<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 »

Usually in this blog we discuss search marketing topics ranging from blog powered online media rooms to social media marketing, analytics, and pay per click. However, as my family often reminds me, search engine optimization is not everything (no, no it can’t be true it IS everything!) Ok not really…

With aimClear’s rapid growth and that of our strategic partners, we’ve been working a lot of hours. There have been many times while brainstorming and executing SEM tactics where I’ve thought about the analogy of SEO and fishing. Other industry pros even use terms like “cast a wide net” or “trolling for leads.” As with fishing, the quality of equipment, choice of bait, casting techniques, knowledge of the terrain, experience of your guide, and portfolio of adaptive tactics can mean the difference between eating fish or freeze dried beef stroganoff.

Duluth Minnesota, Gateway to the BWCA
By way of background, one of the reasons our company lives in Minnesota is our proximity from Duluth to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) along the Minnesota border with Canada. Situated near the North Shore of Lake Superior the BWCA is a vast, world class, and pristine wilderness gateway. Interconnected waterways and portages (yup that’s where you carry your canoe and packs from lake to lake) provide opportunities for thousands of miles of routing without ever seeing another human. The Boundary Waters north of Duluth are considered among the finest wilderness canoe trekking areas in the world. Oh yes, did I mention that the fishing is legendary. Read the rest of this entry »

In early June, Google updated their webmaster guidelines and included specific intent to kill WebPosition as the poster child for Google’s disdain for automated queries. Since WebPosition has been best friend to many (including me) for years, it was a disappointing development.

However before we really get going here, it should be noted that organic prominence reporting, WebPosition’s forte, is dead anyway. The inevitable progression of personalized search, which returns customized SERPs based on individuals’ web history, codifies the deal. Bulletproof conversion and ROI metrics calculated by modern analytics are the only uncontested measures of SEM success.

Clients Understand the Web 1.0 Way.
Many of our search marketing clients still perceive organic keyword rankings as the singular measure. To an extent they are correct in their assessment of value: top rank for a keyword is still a great asset. However, true search marketing experts teach prospective clients the new reality during the sales process and lead existing clients through the adaptive process. Also, WebPosition has other features which remain useful like Link Defender and Page Critic AKA “Beat the Algorithm.”

WebPosition’s Organic Prominence Reporter: The Pathology of Demise
The announcement from Google was cryptic: “As of December 5, 2006, we are no longer issuing new API keys for the SOAP Search API. Developers with existing SOAP Search API keys will not be affected.” SOAP was the Google API feature which allowed access to keyword rankings directly from the Google database infrastructure. On December 6th the SOAP API ceased to function in WebPostion, even for those of us in possession of API keys.

WebPosition blamed it on Google and advised users to turn off SOAP access in WP and switch back to the illegal screen-scraping mode. You see, in the past Google has officially discouraged screen-scraping the SERPs. Read the rest of this entry »

Are Yahoo organic search results honest when it comes to social media criticizing Yahoo? We’ll ask the question in SERP screen captures.

On April 5th we posted an article critical of Yahoo Small Business Hosting to the Search Engine Watch Forum (Alexa 1342 with significant page rank). The post was in regard to a difficult domain registrar situation aimClear was experiencing.  Within a week the post attained the organic #3 result in Google for the keyphrase “Yahoo Small Business Hosting.” The post is not indexed in Yahoo’s top 100 results. Here is a screen capture of today’s Google SERP. Yes, we’ve turned Google personalized search OFF.

Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who attend Search Engine Strategies conferences (or know anything about the masters of link baiting) are well-familiar with Rand Fishkin from SEOMOZ. The burning question many of us have is “what is the story behind those yellow shoes Rand?”

Today’s seminar tracks included topics about SEO fundamentals, conversion, advanced advertising, contextual ads, and advanced organic optimization. I’m confident that I will remember one session today as the highlight of my SES New York 2007 show. The standing room only crowd for SEO Through Blogs & Feeds was sprinkled with some of the world’s most respected SEO bloggers.

The panel was comprised of some of the finest social media minds in the world: Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media, Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts, LLC, Rick Klau , Vice President of Publisher Services FeedBurner, and Sally Falkow, President, Expansion Plus Inc. [Read Full SES Coverage at SEO RoundTable]

Read the rest of this entry »

SES New York 2007 Day 1
It’s been quite a morning. I was here yesterday for Jennifer Laycock’s  presentation on viral link baiting and viral marketing. It was an intensive half day class from an accomplished presenter.

The morning started early when I nearly stumbled upon Danny Sullivan whom I had never met. I read his posts in Search Engine Land every day as the most immediate source for search related topics. He’s a gracious guy who chatted for a moment before moving along.

On the Multimedia & Mobile Track the first session I attended regarded Video Search Optimization. I found reinforcement for the methodology aimClear brings our clients marketing video content.  We preach that it’s important to keep in mind, when targeting search engines that specialize in gathering up your video, to remember the inclusion of well optimized meta text. This makes content more available to searchers seeking content. The session looked at how to make videos more discoverable in these specialized search spaces. There was also a good amount of focus on making viral campaigns contribute to the authority of your website. Read the rest of this entry »

Gregory Markel, Founder/President, Infuse Creative, LLC announced today during an SES NYC 2007 session  that in “3rd or “4th” quarter Infuse Creative will release a commercial build of their proprietary Video SEO software.  Infuse Creative’s optimization team presently uses this software in-house to batch the video submission and tracking process to numerous video engines.

The Infuse website defines the company as such: “Infuse Creative, LLC employs the latest state of the art search engine marketing technologies and methodologies to lead generation, ecommerce, and branding/awareness clients via full service search engine marketing & Internet marketing services…” Read the rest of this entry »