Hey everyone who took time to stop by, say hello, share a story, etc!  I just wanted to say thanks, I sincerely apologize for the AV issues…it was 100% my fault, I used my own laptop.

I had fun, and hope that you all took something away from the time you spent today.

A few things I am noticing on the blogosphere, most notably the comments from Jason Calacanis on twitter, I had a friend let me know he was posting thoughts about it there, and a few things are worth clearing up the record on because they can be taken out of context.

You all will hopefully see the video, so you can see for yourselves, here were some tweets from Jason, who I think gets a bad wrap because people can’t separate what her is saying from how he delivers it.  I liked the challenge though.

3 things I wanted Jason to clear up that found its way onto his twitter page.  I hate twitter.

 1 - Wil Reynolds says SEO could go away if Google Knol, and other publishing tools, come out. Google Knol is controversial for publishers.

I never once referenced Google Knol I didn’t even know what it was really.  Right now it doesn’t seem to have an impact on anything I am seeing, but that doesn’t mean we should not be preparing for the day when it starts showing up.  Then again in my presentation I showed how Google tests including things all the time that never stick.  I spoke more about Google Co-op.

I doubt SEO will go away, it will morph, but right now and for the forseeable future, it is here to stay.  Everything morphs…it will be a fun ride.  What I did mention is that Google hasn’t figured out (from what I can see) how to even show the most relevant results for a singular or plural query.  I think SEO as we know it is going to stick around for some time.
2 - Wil Reynolds the SEO is telling folks to pay for links even though Google says don’t…. interesting debate. 

The other part of that is I was saying that people come see speakers to hopefully get some real actionable stuff that works, while I know that buying links is NOT a good long term strategy, I advocated  looking at the people who out rank you and seeing if you need to do it to compete with them, while at the same time building as many legit on topic links as possible, when I mention paid links I mean low/average quality directories.

 3 - SEO Wil Reynolds says Google users Google analytics to impact search results. True you think? I think that sounds church and state to me

I didn’t say they DID I said it makes sense for them to use it eventually and why wouldn’t they to create a better user experience?

Just wanted to clear up those points. It was great having someone there to really challenge me a bit.

Thanks to Joel Ownby who asked some great questions and kept priming me! (please 301 redirect the non www version of your site to the www version, it helps make sure you get maximum value for your inbound links).

joelcomm - thanks for the boxed set!

Jason thanks for the challenge.

James, thanks for the positive feedback!

Thanks to Shawn & Missy for letting me GO WAY over time, and thanks to whoever cared enough to stick around late to hear me blather about SEO

Ok, so blow it open…what did I do well, what could I have improved on?  If you leave feedback it will help me do a better job next time.

Gracias, and good luck in Vegas - hope to see many of you at the party.

At SEER, we believe in giving back to the community, in whatever way you can. Earlier in the year, I knew I might be a little busy with work and business school so I started on an endeavor to grow out my hair to donate it to charity (e.g., Locks of Love). I’m excited to say my ponytail is just about there – I’m getting ready to chop it off! Yesterday, an article happened to catch my eye – Hilary Swank let Oprah Winfrey cut off about nine inches of her hair to donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which provides wigs to women suffering hair loss from cancer treatments.

I thought the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program sounded really interesting, and I wanted to learn more about it. I was just about to type “Pantene Beautiful Lengths” into my Google toolbar search box when I noticed something. Off to the side of the article were the Google content network ads; one of the ads said “Donate Your Hair” and was for the Beautiful Lengths website. Easy enough! I did not have to go searching – the link was right there. Click! (Here’s a screenshot:)

Now, I’m not full-fledged member of our pay per click team — I just help out every now and then (which really just means I stick my nose in when I see something that sparks my interest or when I see something in the analytics that needs addressing). I’m really the analytics head and a member of the SEO team. However, this is an instance where I’ll stick my nose into PPC. I think this article and this example of a content network ad bring up an interesting point. Many companies struggle with the content network –- paying money for ads that are not as relevant as ads that appear on the search network. Yet, it seems that Pantene has found an extremely appropriate and cost-effective use of the content network.

I’m putting forth the notion that the content network might be tremendously successful for a company when you’re doing a large PR push. Articles about Hilary Swank’s appearance on Oprah are popping up everywhere. The content network ads are appropriate because in every article, Pantene knows that the odds are that they will get a mention and that it will be positive. Additionally, it is also likely that readers might also want more information, so advertising along side that article is a good brand move and is one way for Pantene to measure return on their efforts/involvement with the entire cause.

It’s something to think about. Even if your company isn’t appearing on Oprah, but you’re involved in a large public relations effort, particularly one that has articles that are being syndicated across the web, it might make sense to be on the content network (or at least run a test that you monitor closely). The articles are scanned by Google, and when they pick up your company name (or whatever is mentioned in the article), your content network ad might show.

As search algorithms get better (or worse per your perspective), not just anyone can get top rankings for competitive terms. Google Universal is putting more rich content on page one and Wikipedia is dominating generic terms.

What does this mean for you?
There’s an old saying I repeat to others often:

“Locks are not to keep criminals out, but to keep honest people honest.”

Let’s relate this to search.
If a site has no business ranking well for “b2b lead generation” - i.e., no one is talking about this site, no one is linking to them, other sites are better candidates, and they’re obviously not a “leader in the industry” - then Google’s going to keep you honest by keeping the site out of the results.

So you’re not appearing in Google everywhere you’d like to be…
If you deserve to be in front of those visitors then ensure you’re focused. Your business will grow if you’re a good businessperson and hard worker. To stand out online one needs to innovate now more than ever. So this means some businesses will do better online, and some will do poorly. The laws of competition say those who fail in a business area will try something else. And that’s okay too, everyone’s good at something. Let’s not fool ourselves into imagining we can rank well for everything that is high volume and remotely related to the business. If we want traffic as site owners, we need to argue with ourselves as to why we deserve it!

The algorithms are getting pretty good in my opinion. I hope they can help to keep us honest (at least online) about what we claim to do as business people.

It’s that time of year again — the kiddies are all headed back to school. Now that I’m headed back to school too (MBA = T minus 2 years), it makes me reminisce about all those things I loved about college – the excitement of a new year, catching up with old friends you hadn’t seen all summer, the first night in a new dorm room, the first weekend of parties (when it really still felt like summer camp & not like school), flipping through textbooks ($500 for 2 books – WHAAAAT?!?!) and thinking “This class might actually be interesting” (then leaving the book under the bed until 3 days before finals)… Sometimes I have weird trains of thought, but I was also recently thinking about all the things that I enjoyed discovering in college and how they sort of parallel the recent online developments that I enjoy discovering every day. And one thing I learned in school (and at home): it’s always nice to share. =)

On the horizon, Compete is going to be launching Search Analytics on September 12th with a Pay-as-You-Go pricing model. This service will provide a new level of competitive research accessible for all sizes and types of companies. Compete Search Analytics will provide companies with access to keyword and site referral data so one can compare a site to its competitors and uncover ways to improve a search marketing strategy.

The second development I want to share is a widget. Yes, it seems everyone is widget-crazy these days, but this widget doesn’t apply to the masses — Due Maternity has found a great way to use a widget to connect to their niche. The first of our friends just had their first baby three weeks ago. I’m married to a second-year associate at a law firm and, as I mentioned, I’m about to start back at school for my MBA, so starting our family is a ways off (much to my in-laws disappointment). But my friend’s pregnancy was — and new baby Matthew is — really exciting for us (now, if they didn’t live in Ohio…). If only I had discovered Due Maternity’s desktop widget earlier, I could have shared it with the mommy-to-be. I love it, not only because it’s cute, but because it’s a brilliant marketing idea; Due Maternity has found an alternative marketing avenue to stay in touch with their target audience, and it has a measurable ROI!

“During the first 45 days after launch, the application was downloaded around 10,000 times—customers were enticed with a 10% discount on select purchases—and sales directly attributable to click-throughs from the application to the e-commerce site hit $7,500. The cost? $600.” -Internet Retailer, August 20, 2007

Often companies want to develop a widget just for the sake of having a widget (or because “everyone else is doing it”). The Due Maternity widget really emphasizes thinking about your target audience, the format of your widget, and widget tie-ins that will entice the downloader to return to your site.

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