Reverse Engineering Googles Business Strategies

•Using subdomains to bypass Googles sandbox
There was apparently some talk at SES Chicago on getting a site indexed in regular results a lot quicker. This involved the use of an existing established similar domain (either one you own or one you bought) and use it to help you get a site out of the “sandbox.” The full forum post can be found here. The technique is in the gray-to-black range. I wanted to mention that first, however if your site has been boxed for a while, this may be an alternative for you. It also requires some coding,...

•Why Content is Still King Effective SEO Tactics
It was a year ago that I attended my first search engine strategies conference. It was also at this conference that I became a speaker. Search Engine Strategies and PubCon are undoubtedly the two largest SEO/SEM conferences out there today so of course there’s huge attendance and lots of big industry names attending. There’s also a guy there who you may have heard of. His name is Barry Schwartz and he’s from Search Engine Round Table. I bring his name up because he’s found one of the...

•Reputation Management A prerequisite of Effective Link Building
Over the past few articles I’ve brought you different tactics you can use to help build quality links to your site. And while I am going to continue to bring you even more of these tactics I thought it would be good to step back and take a big picture look at why link building is important. Further, I wanted to look at other things you should be considering when you are doing your link building: Namely managing your online reputation. As the web evolves, reputation management becomes...

•Vertical Creep in Search Results Should Organic Optimizers be Concerned
I thought for this week I’d give a summary of some of the more interesting Search Engine Strategies sessions which are currently going on in New York City. I was at SES as a speaker last year in New York and I have to say, there is a wealth of information there even if some of it is contradictory. Not only that ,but you get to meet some amazing people and can even have one on one access with some of the search engine reps. Overall, I found it to be a worthwhile experience. This year,...

•Customer Segmentation Big for 2006
As web users become more savvy e-tailers are going to have to learn how to adapt their sites to suite many different users. In this article I look at why segmentation is going to be so important in the new year. As our industry grows up we begin to apply more and more traditional marketing tactics to SEM. In 2006 I think this trend will continue and the biggest tactic that will need to be applied will be profiling and segmentation of the market. I am already steering some of my own...

•SEO and Search Engine Forums Conferences are they really helpful
Working in the SEO/SEM industry can be very rewarding. Many times a problem can be solved simply with a little online research, and posts on a few forums. All to often, however, some people put too much stock in the posts they see, ultimately negatively impacting their SEO efforts. In this article I look at some of the positives and negatives of online SEM forums and attending SEM and SEO conferences. As part of my daily routine I visit a few of the search engine forums out there to...

•The Importance of Web Analytics Using Your Analytics Properly
Analytics are very important to your web marketing campaign. If you do not use analytics properly you may not understand how effective your search engine marketing is. In this article I look at some practical examples of when to use analytics and some things you need to identify in order to get the most out of your analytics. I came across a situation today that I thought I’d share. It has to do with a client’s analytics. Many times, as a search engine marketer, it is up to us to tell...

•Craigslist Censoring begs the Question Is the Internet the last great Bastion of Free Speech
There is yet another debate raging over whether the Internet should truly allow unfettered free speech. This debate is over Craigslist and whether it should be more proactive in censoring those who post on it. The debate began when listings for apartments were posted that were obviously racially slanted. In this article I look at the issue and ask the question: Should the Internet be censored? Free speech is one of the building blocks of any democratic society. Without free speech...

•Online Marketing 201 Marketing to Early Adopters
recently attended a search engine marketing seminar and there was lots of discussion about how to mass market your site online. Because that is essentially what search engine marketing is: Marketing to the masses. But a question came up as I was listening and that is: How does a website market to early adopters? In this article, I hope to address some of the points you need to cover to market to this distinct group of people. I consider myself an early adopter. When there’s a new...

•Marketing online Time to think Christmas
For many retailers now is the time to think Christmas. This is because at least in terms of search engines now is the time to make changes so that they have registered in the organic index. But what does one have to do in order to prepare for their Christmas time online marketing campaign? In this article, I give some pointers on how to prepare your organic optimization strategy. It seems that every year I have to remind my e-tail clients to prepare for the upcoming season because while...