aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Here I am at Search Engine Strategies San Jose! It’s a sort of homecoming, as I lived and worked in San Francisco for the first half of this decade. Yay! I was part of the Internet boom and bust and, after several years disconnected, it’s great to be on the forefront of tech again this morning. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to join fellow aimClear bloggers here at San Jose 2008. Our collective goal is to provide insight by way of coverage and personal experiences.

Also, welcome to our good friends from Portland and good morning aimClear Blog readers. We’ll be your eyes and ears over the next 4 days.

Since (even cool) blog posts about any event pale in comparison to actually experiencing the in-person power and passion, we’ll do our best to bring home the tone of this live search marketing conference. Truly, the promise of “somthing great” fills the air as attendees stream into the venue for dark roasted coffee and handshakes.

Search Marketing Conferences Rock
It’s great to attend these things. A chance meeting in the conference hall might score that hot business deal/new position that you were looking for. Certainly your attendance will help your brand become more prominent in the Search Marketing Community, as you meet and network with peers.

Be careful though, the parties are legendary. A photo of your drunken “revelry” might end up on prominent Facebook pages tagged with your name. (Isn’t it nice that I chose not to link out on the anchor text “drunken revelry.” It is, after all, aimClear Blog.

I’m done with a delightful hotel breakfast and off to register. Stay tuned…

Todd Mintz is the Director of Internet Marketing & Information Systems for S.R. Clarke Inc., a Real Estate Development and Residential / Commercial Construction Executive Search / Recruiting Firm headquartered in Fairfax, VA with offices nationwide.

Friends, we’re pleased to announce that aimClear will co-host an early second night stealth cocktail gathering in Seattle with our pals from Clix Marketing. Proprietor, PPC expert and all around good guy David Szetela and I will entertain those invited.

There’s no charge to attend and the early start leaves plenty of time for other parties you may have planned for later. We invite you to kick off the evening with us.

To receive an official aimClear/Clix invitation, in the form of coveted “Clix Orange” wristbands, just ask me personally or stop by the Clix Marketing booth on the SMX exposition floor. Here are the specifics: Read the rest of this entry »

Attorneys, plumbers, financial advisor’s, electricians, pizza parlors, cleaning services, snowplow drivers, caterers, insurance companies, and hardware stores alike ask us similar questions: “How does the Internet change things? Should we keep our Yellow Pages ad? How do we keep from being left behind”

At SES San Jose Stuart McKelvey, President and CEO TMP Directional Marketing presented research regarding the usage and value of online and offline local search usage (“A Study of the Usage and Value of Online and Offline Local Search Sources”). TPG is a fascinating company with over 38 years of Yellow Pages, online search and marketing experience. The study “combines 3,000 survey responses with actual observed online behavior.” In a nutshell online search dominates while traditional printed Yellow Pages perform surprisingly well. 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 »